Water Dehydrator: This uses building power and splits water into component gases (hydrogen and oxygen), which can then be stored or turned to other uses.
Water Rehydrator: This uses building power and combines component gases (hydrogen and oxygen) into water.
Canning Machine: When given metal and supplies, the canning machine packages foods or drinks to keep them fresh longer. Each can includes a pull ring so it can be opened without tools. (Pull rings occasionally break, so a can opener is still useful.)
Bottling Machine: Given plastic and supplies, the bottling machine manufactures bottled beverages, pastes, or condiments. Created bottles are designed with screwcaps for effective use, re-use, and re-sealing as needed.
Pharmaceutical Processing Machine: Given plastic and supplies, this manufactures and fills pill bottles, medicine vials, and medicine jars. Remember to clean out the pharmaceutical holding tanks before switching between medicines.
Injectomatic: Given plastic and supplies, this manufactures auto-injectors with a set amount of pharmaceutical contents, with a maximum dosage limit of ten units.
Recyclotron: Takes used or undesired items and recycles them into plastics, metals, and so forth. Alloyed materials are reduced to their component substances; fractions beyond 1 unit are lost. Objects that were consumed during manufacturing (such as acids) are not returned when the item is recycled, for obvious reasons, and any impregnating chemicals are also lost in the process. Recyclotron efficiency can be increased with component upgrades. Can work with biological materials (not very efficiently) to convert them to leather, plastics, and oils.
Compostron: This takes in organic matter and condenses the nutrients therein into optimized plant foods. Note that chemicals inherent in the material will also be inherent in the compost, and possibly harmful to plants.
Gravitronic Acceleration System: This linear accelerator launches items on a horizontal trajectory, continuing to increase the speed of launched objects with every GAS-pedal passed. Often used as part of mass-driver systems to propel the object at high velocity outwards.
Gravitic Modulator: This is the device that keeps gravity operating within the station by increasing its effective mass. Notably, messing with the gravitic modulator can throw off astrogation by disrupting orbital trajectories, and potentially fling the station into trouble. Not having gravity also makes it much harder to move around safely.
Named after Vendomatic, the primary manufacturer of vending machines for use in outposts, these machines utilize on-site manufacturing technology and can be programmed for a variety of manufacturing purposes by using a Vendomatic Program Disk. Must be loaded with Supply Cartridges based on the intended use (Flavor, Dye, Chemical, Protein, Metallic, Plastic, Glass, etc.) Vendomatic machines are set up to send alerts to the quartermaster when they are running low and need a refill cartridge; typically Cargo Technicians or Mechanics fill vending machines when a specialized job role isn't required to do so. While empty supply cartridges can be recycled in a recyclotron, sending them back to Supply HQ provides Cargo Credits that may be useful in other endeavours, as does sending freshly manufactured cartridges if you happen to have a manufactory or ended up with an extra supply of unneeded cartridges somehow.
| Disk | Machine Type | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| SodaJerk | Soda Machine | Provides a variety of soft drinks for public enjoyment. |
| Rumrunner | Alcohol Machine | Sells alcoholic beverages by the can. |
| Snackmaster | Snack Machine | Sells snacks, of course. |
| ChefMike | Food Machine | Sells prepackaged foodstuffs on demand. |
| SecureSupply | Security Supplies | Sells basic security supplies, requires Security access. |
| BotaniGro | Botanical Supplies | Sells seeds and fertilizer. |
| ChemMaster | Chemicals | Sells chemicals. Requires Science access. |
| GamerDelight | Game Sales | Sells game cartridges. |
| ChAoS CoNtRoL | Anarchist Supplies | Makes weapons and supplies for revolution. Illegal and not an approved Vendomatic product! |
| Printer | Print-on-Demand Items | Prints books, magazines, newscasts and other informational supplies. |
Supply Cartridges are applications of quantum-space storage and matter hyper-compression technology, used to supply a machine with a specific material, typically for use in manufacturing products on demand. Machines generally require a number of separate cartridges based on their needs. For example, vending machines usually require a Metal cartridge to make canned goods, Plastic cartridges to make plastic wrappers or bottles, Dye cartridges to make labels and color foods, and so on. Machines connected to the network can place Supply Requests with the quartermaster when one of their supply cartridges falls below a given level. The matter bins of existing supply cartridges cannot be improved, and supply cartridges generally cannot be reloaded by the end user. Industrial users may have access to a Supply Cartridge Manufactory that can make new supply cartridges when supplied with relevant materials, however; when combined with a Recyclotron, you can effectively reload Supply Cartridges by recycling old ones to get the materials for new ones.
The Papermill 2130 takes organic materials (typically wood, though other options are available) and converts it into usable blank paper, ideal for storing in printers, paper bins, supply cartridges, or otherwise. It actually doesn't smell bad at all, despite belief to the contrary, and works fairly quickly once supplied.
Requires plastic, conductive metal, and acid to print circuits. Some specific circuits require other materials or more specific materials. Can print motherboards, daughterboards, and other hardware components.
Can install firmware on boards hooked up to an appropriate interface, allowing you to reprogram some machinery that doesn't normally respond to programming. Requires Firmware Driver Disks for best results.
This uses the wonder of femto-construction techniques to literally build raw materials out of subatomic components. Note that this is extremely inefficient energy-wise compared to the cost of excavating a material or paying for it to be shipped to you; however, if you have a lot of energy on your hands that you need to drain, investing it in synthesizing is one solution.
A deconstructive analyzer must successfully analyze a sample of a material in order for a synthesizer to create it. This obviously destroys the raw material, but may provide materials research data and will allow the synthesizer to replicate it later. Materials synthesis uses a large amount of energy per unit created, with the amounts decreasing with further analysis until it reaches 'optimum'. Devices such as ChemMasters that synthesize chemicals using stored power are effectively using pre-installed blueprints for maximum efficiency in creation. With enough research and development, your Synthesizer can work as well as (or better than) any other items-from-power system, although it will always be less effective than just having the materials to begin with.
Synthesis Supply Cartridges plug into a Vendomatic Supply Cartridge slot, and automatically create the required materials based on the blueprints they have installed, draining large amounts of power as they do so. Efficiency levels are usually very low, but if you have your own Supply Cartridge Manufactory, your scientific advances will apply to the Synthesizer Cartridges you create, allowing you to perfect your chemical cocktail shakers to your heart's content. Note that loading a Vendomatic with many Supply Cartridge slots with only Synthesis Supply Cartridges will generate a very high power drain that can temporarily knock the room's APC offline (or worse, if some unwise or mischievous person wired the vending machine directly into the power network, acting as a ghetto power sink.) It is advised you include an Auxiliary Power Cell in your Vendomatic to prevent brownouts.
Power Sink: This is effectively a massive capacitor that drains power from the network and stores it for later usage. While some variants are designed to drain as much power as possible, the endorsed version is used to prevent line voltage from being too high and to provide a failsafe against total power failure. A power sink can drain up to 1 MWh/sec from the system at a time, and has a maximum capacity of 1GWh; it also loses some energy to heat dissipation at higher charge rates. Power sink drain increases 1KWh/sec per second until it reaches optimum drain potential (which in limited versions means that once it finds how much extra power is in the network - how much it can't drain beyond - it will reduce itself to 90% of that setting and stay there, only spiking once per minute to re-test the environment.) Power Sink capacitors can either be set to explode when they reach maximum capacity (typically found in Syndicate products), or can simply stop charging (and draining). Power Sinks intended for use in power network buffering will also detect when no charge is available (in short, when they cannot drain power at all because the network is already overloaded) and will instead switch to releasing power into the system to meet the ongoing demand. This allows them to act as a buffer against severe usage periods, or to provide some safety net against electrocution should some idiot connect generators to mains power without any other safety measures.
Substations: Substations are meant to act as buffers between generators or sections of an outpost and the overall station grid; they regulate power to their region of the station and maintain charge to the best of the system's capabilities. In the event of a generator failure, they can self-regulate to maintain emergency systems while the Engineers hopefully fix whatever went wrong.
Portable Generators: These devices are typically used to recharge an APC in a room so that operations can continue even if the rest of the power network is dead. In a pinch, they can also be connected to the grid to provide auxiliary power in an emergency.
Gas Turbine: Generates power by heating gases, causing them to turn turbines as the gas pressure pushes through piping. Has an upper limit based on the mechanisms on how much power can be produced.
Radiation Collector: Generates power by collecting radiation generated by another source, such as ion storms, quantum singularities, radioactive substances, nuclear fusion, etc. Upper limit based on radiation collector gas supply and radiation level safety.
Thermoelectric Generator: Generates power based on the rate of flow of two sets of gases, as well as the specific heat of the gases involved and the difference in heat between the two. As such, one is designated a hot loop (typically heated through combustion or pressure), while the other is designated a cold loop (typically chilled through uninsulated piping in space, chemical reactions, or other effects.) Upper limit based on maximum safe temperature and pressure before the pipes melt or burst.
A working thermoelectric generator consists of: