This is the deck responsible for providing the ship's power and atmospherics - in short, keeping the ship running and keeping the lights on. There is also an auxiliary bridge in case the primary bridge is destroyed, and the ship's gravity controller and auxiliary computer and communication systems.
Home to the bank of SMES cells that provide core power to the ship. A portable generator is also located here for emergency power. This room is a prime target of antagonists looking to black out the ship, so check every once in a while to make sure it is not a hole in space. Each power source has an input line to Deck D's Substation, and the Core has output lines that lead directly (not through the main power grid of the deck) to Deck D's Substations' deck output connectors to route power to other decks on demand.
This small room contains most of the computers required to control the ship, but is located deep within Engineering. It is usually used by the Chief Engineer in the very likely event that the Main Bridge is disabled in order to restore command presence to the ship, when it isn't being used by hostile elements to forcibly take command from the Main Bridge for diabolical purposes. There is also a SMES stationed here to provide auxiliary power to run all those lovely computers, assuming it's been properly charged.
The server room holds the mainframes that store all acquired data from the R&D lab and other scientific discoveries. Indirectly, this also influences what devices R&D can manufacture, which makes it a good thing to keep running. There is also a Message Console here, as well as important Telecommunications and other servers.
Anyone needing to maintain the servers should be forewarned that the atmosphere within is uninhabitable as it is kept at an extremely cold temperature using a self-contained freezer-freon system to keep the computers from overheating. An SMES powers the freezer and the computers and receives power from the Deck D grid.
An annex of the main server room, this contains the PDA server monitoring console, the PDA server itself, and a black-box recorder. It is locked behind a reinforced vault door.
The place where Atmospheric Technicians work, and where all of the ship's air is stored, processed, and redistributed throughout the ship. Because NovusCorp has a wide variety of crewmembers of varying species, it is important to know what the specific needs are for a comfortable environment and to meet those needs when possible.
Atmospherics is a very important department because of how often rooms get depressurized from hull breaches and damage to the point that it's pretty much guaranteed to happen; an atmospheric technician who knows what they're doing can be the difference between hanging out at the bar and releasing your last gasps into the uncaring vacuum. Despite being mostly automatic, it still requires some setup and maintenance.
By default, all air alarms have vents setup to pressurize rooms to a certain threshold, and then maintain air at that threshold. These vents cannot supply air if there's no air in the pipes, though! For that, you will need to do a little work with the pumps and pipes to setup the loop properly. The dark blue pipe is the pipe that runs throughout the whole station connected to all vents. To get air into this pipe, just turn on the pump on the cyan colored pipe to the south-east, where the white canister is. The pump should be set to something like 1000 or 2000 kPA. Navigate one step north-east to the pump on the blue pipe and turn it on if it isn't already, otherwise set the pressure to what was mentioned previously. As long as the pipes aren't cut off/blown up, they will repressurize vented areas.
The red waste loop can also be considered the toxins loop, since it's the pipe that will have all the nasty and harmful gases that are collected from air scrubbers (CO2, Plasma, N2O in some cases, etc.). By default, scrubbers are set to only scrub CO2 from the air, but you can add the Plasma filter via air alarm as well. The waste pipes come in from the north and south, doubling collection. To maximize collection, however, it may be worth installing two volume pumps on both ends and maximizing their output. Next you'll want to set the appropriate filters on the green pure gas loop to their respective gas chambers, if they aren't set already. It should be all automatic from there.
A lot of the chambers are filled to the brim with gases, but the air chamber isn't, due to being in use at the start of the round. Thankfully it can be refilled with a bit of work. Normal breathing air is a 1 to 5 mix of N2 and O2 respectively. Go ahead and setup the pumps on the N2 and O2 chambers so that they flow into the air mix loop. Don't turn on the pumps that lead from the air mix to the custom mix loop, but do turn on the filter and set it to filter Air, which will only let air through once it is mixed in the correct ratio. This will lead from the air mix loop to the air chamber smoothly, creating a steady supply of air if and when it is needed.
A series of three-by-three tile reinforced rooms that store gas at extremely high pressures, ready to dispense as needed. Typically, once researched a gas synthesizer is connected to this to maintain air pressure; otherwise the particle scoop's gas intake draws gases from atmosphere to refill the tanks. As turfs have 2500L storage capacity, one storage chamber can contain up to 22500L of gas. Heat capacity is an abstraction for game purposes and should not be used as a source of real-life data.
Phoron (PH): The mystery magic space gas. What does it do? Who knows, find out yourself! A few things that it does do, though, is poison biologicals, contaminate clothing, and make you go blind. It's also a fuel, and an expensive one at that given the scarcity crisis. Has a heat capacity value of 200, and a rather chunky molar mass of 0.405 kg/mol.
Hydrogen (H2): Hydrogen is an extremely light gas that is inert and pretty much safe to breathe. It also happens to be a fuel, and its combustion leads to the formation of water. Isn't that interesting? Water can be described as the ashes of hydrogen combusting! Hydrogen can be easily acquired by 'mining' gas giants with the particle scoop, making it ideal for those who've run out of phoron. Has a heat capacity value of 100, and a molar mass of 0.002 kg/mol.
Oxygen (O2): Oxygen is some crazy gas that most living things decided would be necessary to actually live, so now we're forced to breathe it, but not too much of it or you'll suffer oxygen poisoning and seizures if you aren't a bioroid. It's also evil, and it's required to start fires. Has a heat capacity value of 20, and a molar mass of 0.032 kg/mol.
Air (Air): Actually just a mix of two gases at a concentration of 79% N2 and 21% O2, but it's this exact mixture that allows us to breathe normally. Theoretically you could replace the nitrogen with another inert gas and we'd still breathe just fine. If you want to sound like a nerd then call it nitrox.
Nitrogen (N2): Nitrogen is a gas that pretty much no one cares about and our bodies don't metabolize it, yet it makes up about 79% of our atmosphere and is inert. Interesting! Has a heat capacity value of 20, and a molar mass of 0.028 kg/mol.
Nitrous Oxide (N2O): No, it's not N20, it's N2O. Jamming twenty nitrogen atoms together would be stupid. Regardless, nitrous is often seen as a “sleep agent” in that its effect on most biological bodies is anesthetic. It is also an oxidizer, so it is capable of starting fires. Has a heat capacity value of 40, and a molar mass of 0.044 kg/mol.
Carbon Dioxide (CO2): Carbon Dioxide is well known for being what we exhale out of our lungs, and it also usually comes about from a lot of combustion reactions. CO2 is toxic to crew in partial pressure concentrations of 7 kPa or greater. Has a heat capacity value of 30, and a molar mass of 0.044 kg/mol.
Water Vapor (H2O): Technically this is the ship's water tank, maintained at a temperature between 274 and 374 K in order to maintain liquid form. Water vapor is generated by mixing water and air mix in order to generate a high-humidity gas useful for extinguishing fires and cooling some engines. Water extracted from the waste management loop is routed here to refill the chamber when it is below 90% of capacity.
Freon: A gas maintained at extra-low temperatures that is used as a coolant and refrigerant, Freon has the unique distinction of having a freezer installed on an internal circulating loop to maintain its cold temperatures. Freon is incredibly useful for extinguishing fires and cooling engines, as well as moderating some reactions, but breathing freon can lead to breathing difficulties, organ damage, and death, especially in large amounts. As water vapor fully saturates the air stored within, it cannot pick up non-water-soluble chemicals in large amounts.
This storage chamber generally contains gases from the particle scoop or waste loop that do not otherwise belong to a proper gas's chamber. As such, it is considered contaminated and should not be breathed by anyone, given that the contents are often toxic to life in general. (Nobody wants to inhale chlorine gas, for example.) This chamber can be hooked to a matter-to-energy system in order to destroy the contents while providing power; otherwise, it can be vented into space (when not docked/landed), run through filters to extract usable gases, or filtered using Chemical Extractors to extract raw chemicals for those economical souls that prefer their chlorine (or other reagents) straight from the tap.
The personal hidey-hole of the Chief Engineer. Requires CE Office access. Contains the CE's advanced RIG, magboots, the CE's stamp, batteries, some medicine, some tools, and the CE's locker, with the ship blueprints inside. Lawless people will try to break in to obtain these as well as the advanced hardsuit and magboots if the CE is not wearing them.
The three buttons in this office controls the blast doors used to lock down the entrance to Engineering, Secure Storage and Atmospherics front and side entrances. The office also has a handy Station Alert computer, which the CE can use to help direct Engineers and Atmospheric Technicians to where they need to be.
This quiet, unassuming area in engineering is ostensibly intended for working on private projects without getting in the way of the workplace, but also occasionally gets used for other business. There is a Cyborg Recharging Station here, as well as some construction supplies.
This section allows someone to construct a new structure, or forward base, which can be sent down to a planetary surface. This provides two benefits: it acts as a more robust forward operating base, and it can also allow for the shuttlecraft to dock and land at the new auxiliary base, allowing for faster transportation of miners and equipment.
The Construction area for the Drop Base utilizes a highly advanced, remote controlled, RCD Drone that can allow a user to rapidly construct a base from scratch. This RCD Drone is fully equipped with a expanded supply of RCD matter charges, and is capable of quickly building a large suite of structures.
The RCD Drone can construct the following:
Standard complement of walls, airlocks, interior doors, and windows.
Up to four 'fans', these fans help prevent air from being sucked out from a open airlock. The fan should be placed after a airlock has been placed.
Up to four basic defense turrets. These turrets will fend off local wildlife and hostiles. They should be placed outside the base.
The base also comes with the following unique equipment:
Shuttle Dock - This, when activated, will allow a shuttle to land at the docking point, so long as this does not put part of its structure through any other structures. It is wise to build your shuttle bay large enough to accommodate the structures you intend to fly into or onto it.
In order to deploy a Drop Base, someone on the planet first has to activate a Landing Beacon where they want it to land. When activated, the Landing Beacon will indicate the area that the new drop base will occupy (and will error out if that space is occupied). Once placed correctly, a warning will be sent to the ship that a drop point has been deployed, and the base can be sent at any time.
In order to send the actual base, someone has to physically interact with the teleportation console; after a few moments this will launch the base down to the beacon, assuming the landing zone is cleared. This takes a large burst of power and has a significant cooldown.
Note that a intrepid crew can launch multiple Drop Bases; this can allow a crew to link up multiple buildings and create a large, and sprawling, forward base.
This room can only be opened by the Chief Engineer, and contains spare materials, backup parts for the singularity engine, and a large fuel canister.
This room houses two Engineering hardsuits, a few batteries, door and power control modules, Engineering's oxygen and plasma tank dispenser, an anti-toxin pill, a crate that contains extra solar panels and a solar tracking beacon, and a terminal for checking the station's APCs and a O2 canister. There is also a cluster of SMESes in this room designed to slowly charge whenever the ship's power supplies aren't critical.
This is a perfect way to offset your ship's operational costs, and get to fire a big deadly laser at a target! Set to fire on an energy collector within a friendly system, it generates money in the budget based on the strength of the laser and the distance to the target. Used as a weapon against another ship, it can be devastating if properly powered and aimed.
This set of machines creates an active dimensional singularity in order to harvest its radiation for power. In order for this to function properly, you need the following components:
The following steps are required to safely set up the Singularity Engine as a power source:
If attempting to jumpstart a ship's power starting from the Singularity Engine with absolutely no power in the network or available APCs/SMESes, you will need a portable generator, some cable coils, and preferably a cell charger.
If you know you won't be able to properly maintain the engine, one solution is to work on getting the engine to maximum safe power levels so that the SMES cells charge, and then turning off the Particle Accelerator. The singularity will slowly shrink in size, and should continue to provide enough power to maintain containment until it disappears entirely.
Singularities are vulnerable to hyperspace distortions; encountering one will disrupt the stability of the singularity and generally cause it to shrink in size. Conversely, a singularity that encounters a large energy source will be fueled by its power, so it is a very bad idea to let a singularity consume supermatter, SMES cells, or Tesla balls.
The Tesla Engine is an alternative power source that ionizes the air to create a large ball of pure energy. It requires a fairly large amount of power to get going, and as such is generally not a good 'starter' engine.
This big floating ball of pure electricity can only be contained by the containment field. When you shoot the energy ball with the Particle Accelerator, it gains energy like a singularity, but when it hits 300 energy, it generates a mini-energy ball that orbits the big energy ball. This will send off an extra shock when the energy ball pulses, and this can happen as many times as you let it. The energy ball will also naturally generate small amounts of energy, so eventually a second ball will form.
Be warned - the more mini-balls the energy ball has, the more shocks it sends out at once, and the further it can travel each move. A good engineer can use this to generate lots of power, and a bad one can abuse this to murder the entire ship.
An energy ball will shoot bolts of electricity off at conductors, which it prioritizes in this order:
It will also strike the closest distance-wise of the list after it goes through these criteria.
Tesla Coils will attract the bolts. They will take half the power of the bolt, pump it into the powernet it is hooked to, and then will send the other half of the power to the next available conductor (choosing from the criteria above). Preferably, this will be another coil to harness more of the power and pump it into the grid.
Grounding Rods are safety precautions to prevent the tesla bolts from hitting machinery or personnel. If the tesla is loose, being near one will usually keep you safe from direct shocks. It does NOT, however, protect from dusting if you touch the core or from the explosions caused by machinery.
Step 1: Wrench down any loose Grounding Rods or Tesla Coils.
Step 2: Turn on the emitters, and don't stand in front of them.
Step 3: Use your ID on the emitters to lock them and prevent tampering.
Step 4: Turn on all of the containment shield generators. Wait for them to turn on before continuing to the next step!
Step 5: Set up the Particle Accelerator, in the same way you would with the singularity engine.
Step 6: Turn on the Particle Accelerator. You can either keep it on 2 or turn it to 0; leaving it on will not cause the tesla to go loose by itself, but it will make it more powerful and destructive if it does.
At this point the tesla is set up; keep an eye on the containment once in a while to make sure nobody sets it loose.
If the Energy Ball does get out of containment, it will pass through walls, windows, anything. It will shoot electricity at machines, people, etc., and direct bolts from the Energy Ball will instantly fry the average spaceman to death unless you have extreme electrical protection. Being hit by the ball itself will turn you and everything you have on you into a pile of dust regardless of protection. Any piece of electronics, such as consoles, machines, or airlocks, will violently explode when hit, causing damage.
The Energy Ball usually moves towards the last direction it shocked, which means that it will actively seek areas with more machines and conductive materials.
Physically near the twin particle-acceleration-powered engines known as the Singularity Engine and Tesla Engine, this room has the Engine Master Control Console to control the various engines aboardships, the RCon Console to direct power flow, Power Maintenance Console to view overall power statistics, etc.
This area houses the many complex servers and equipment needed to allow radio headset communication. Requires Telecommunications access to enter.
This room contains a monitor and control console that oversee and manage station-wide communication systems. In addition to Telecommunications access, Bridge access is required here.
This system announces the name and rank of a new crew member when they join. If a head of staff joins late, it will announce the new arrival on the departmental radio channel as well.
This console logs all communication over all radio channels. Useful if you really want to listen in on security or command radio and can't get a headset.
This console logs the PDA messages that go through the server. This requires a decryption key that starts in the Chief Engineer's office. An AI can also acquire this key by brute-forcing it; it will take 10 seconds for every character the decryption key has, so don't let a human catch you doing this. Someone who has the current key can keep the key secret by changing the key to something no one will figure out, meaning you will have the message logs all to yourself.
A new feature of the message console is the added ability to send admin messages, you can of course change the name of the sender to anyone you like. For example, you could impersonate the Captain and order energy guns for the Science department to “research”. Be careful, though; if the Quartermaster replies his message will go to the Captain.
The equipment in this room runs in a super-cooled environment to avoid overheating. Entering this room without the proper protective equipment can be fatal. This contains the various machinery that makes telecommunications work, and is discussed more in the Guide to Telecommunications.
Located just down the hall from the gravitational generator, Tech Storage is where multitools, circuit boards, batteries, flashes and a spare pair of insulated gloves are stored. Also within this room are parts to create or fix machines for telecommunications, and spare control boards for the MAC and phase cannon systems.
Unlike the rest of tech storage, this sectioned area is a very high-security area as it contains the circuit boards needed to subvert the AI, blow the borgs or prevent the Escape Shuttle from ever arriving. Requires Bridge/Headquarters access in addition to Tech Storage to enter here. Due to the sensitive nature of its contents, it is often bolted down and under constant AI supervision.
Holds the Gravity Generator, which provides sweet sweet gravity when enabled… and sweet sweet anger when not. When powered, and toggled on, it will charge until 100%, which will then enable the gravity. If it isn't powered, via the APC on the environment channel, or it is toggled off, then it will discharge until it hits 0%; which will then disable the gravity. The Gravity Generator has three rooms - the generator room itself, the room with the generator's APC and SMES (and a small work table and chair), and the entry room with radiation suits. While charging/discharging, the generator will emit a lot of radiation, so it is wise to wear one of these suits while in here.
Home to the FTL Drive, which moves your ship from sector to sector. Each FTL jump utilizes 100 MWh of power; the drive slowly spools up the power needed to launch over time, and requires a minimum of one minute between jumps even if the available power is otherwise ample.
Home to the Shield Generator, which protects your ship from incoming asteroids and ship-to-ship fire. Shields are best known for ominously on-the-nose percentages of full charge and function, and burn through energy to maintain the shield in the midst of heavy fire. Shields are automatically shut down before an FTL jaunt, but can be brought back online immediately if sufficient power exists.
This consists of five main structures, the ArmorPump Well in the center that converts raw materials into a liquid form that is pumped throughout the ship, and the four quadrant pumps that restore armor and hull integrity to the ship when damaged. It uses 3 MW at full power, and has an efficiency based on the alloy compound currently being produced.
This open area connects Engineering and Atmospherics to the rest of the ship and serves as a break area between the departments. As such there is a snack machine, a sink and microwave, and an arcade machine. The Engineering Security Post is stationed here.
Located in the dark maintenance tunnels of Engineering, Electrical Maintenance is well-hidden from the tourists of the ship. It is full of different tools and useful machinery.
The two SMES cells are empty and not wired into the power-grid at shift start but can be wired and charged easily. Doing this enables the engineers to use them as a backup power source if the engines are offline and/or have taken damage. It is also an ideal place to set up a secondary Electrical Substation to control power flow to and from this reserve.
Equipment:
This office is well furnished with chairs, tables, and lamps, but not set to any specific purpose - as such, it is available to convert to whatever purpose the crew decides. It requires Construction Area access, which can be obtained from the Head of Personnel if you don't already have it.
Some possible transformations to make the room useful:
Set up to encourage work on private projects for the good of science. Located in maintenance roughly between the Medbay and the Library, these two storage rooms have been repurposed to form a rough duplicate of the Robotics Lab. Provided you can get your hands on enough materials, you are able to recreate any design on the Research Director's server that are compatible with your fabricators. Remember to update them often!
Located at the end of Starboard Primary Hallway, this storage holds pretty high tech components used in space communication machines, which are generally forgotten by the crew, except the occasional Scientist working on a research project or an Engineer desperate to restore communications.
While Deck D already has two engines, neither is perfectly safe; thus, the Thermoelectric Generator is available for cautious Engineers. The TEG gets its power from the thermal difference of the two pipes going through it. The right side is the cold side, and the left side the hot side. The cold pipe is filled with CO2 cooled through heat exchangers set up in space, while the hot pipe is super hot CO2 warmed up with a mixture of 2:3 air + plasma that has been ignited in the adjacent burn chamber.
Here's the guide for setting up the Burn Chamber:
Well done, you should have a functioning generator generating power. If the right side of the generator stops working, it means there is too much pressure and you need to turn on the pump that is connected to the red and yellow pipes to release the pressure.
Make sure you don't take out too much pressure though.
Because of how gas mixtures work, instead of using two canisters on each loop, you can try the following setup:
Due to how the TEG power output fluctuates over time, you can either baby-sit the SMES charging rates, or use a staggered charging profile; the SMESes are prioritized from left to right, so one optimal setup can be achieved by setting the charge rates (from left to right) to: 120 000 W, 60 000 W and 30 000 W. This will ensure that, for any TEG output over 30 kW, we will always have at least one SMES charging, with priority given to the leftmost SMES.
This charging setup means that we have charging at:
30 kW (0-0-1) 60 kW (0-1-0) 90 kW (0-1-1) 120 kW (1-0-0) 150 kW (1-0-1) 180 kW (1-1-0) 210 kW (1-1-1)
Which covers the entire output rampdown of the TEG, assuming maximum power achieved is above 210 kW. Modify to fit if you manage to generate higher power scales.
The hot loop of this engine runs through the burn chamber, while the cold loop runs through a series of coolant pipes in space. If either of these pipe networks are disrupted, the TEG will generate less and less power. The hot loop may stop working due to breaks in the piping or more likely due to overpressurizing the loop (too much pressure and the loop clogs up and won't linger in the TEG long enough to exchange heat); the cold loop usually only stops working when something has hit the exterior heat exchangers that cool the loop using the frigid temperatures of space. Deck D's TEG is connected to Atmospherics and has a small burn chamber devoted to delivering piping hot hot loops, while the cold loop runs through the Server Room instead of out to space (it's nearly as frigid in there unless someone has been tampering with the Server Room), providing some security against damage by attack or meteors.
This is a set of four fancy elevators that lift passengers from floor to floor (in game, they vanish in a blur and reappear at their chosen floor). Individuals are discouraged from using the elevators longer than necessary.
These maintenance tunnels service the Engineering Deck, so that the janitor can pick up trash or get to areas that need cleaning and engineers can use these tunnels to reach areas that need repairs. There are also some internal rooms, noted above, for storage and maintenance of the power grid. All of the tunnels outside of the main halls are probably maintenance tunnels. This is the most common access on the ship, though not completely ubiquitous, and the area is marked by its proximity to every other area, its poor lighting, and its exposed pipes. This connects to other decks' maintenance tunnels via ladders, so you can easily reach other decks without using the turbolifts.
Hidden in the depths of the Maintenance Tunnels, this decently sized room has four racks with supplies, including:
This substation is connected to the Power Distribution Center, and with two primary power sources available, the available power in this power network is generally very high. It is considered unadvisable to cut random wires on this deck in particular.
The Power Distribution Network is a contained room that connects to the backbone of power as well as the reserves based on Deck D, allowing each deck's substation to manage power coming from the PDN as well as from their on-deck power supplies. Deck D is also the largest power draw most of the time excepting when the PTL is online, as it has the Shield Generator and Gravity Generator, as well as the constant power demands of the Research computers and Telecommunications. The amount of power channeled through the PDN between substations is allowed to exceed 1MW (and has to, in order to meet the demands of FTL travel.)