Table of Contents
Construction Workers
After several experiments with having crew members build their own station produced disappointing turnout, NovusCorp reassigned all the participants to the company's main installations, tasking them with the repairing and renovating their ships and stations. These Construction Workers got to keep all their tools, gear, and, most importantly, their specialized construction equipment, including their highly advanced version of the rapid-construction device and their unique building guns that can instantly convert flooring. Since then, they've been in good straits; if you're looking for a pretty laid-back job focused entirely around the Construction system, look no further.
Your Tools
Thanks to NovusCorp's (and the coders') generosity, you spawn with all the tools you need for construction work right from the get-go. You start with a utility belt stocked with essential engineering tools (specifically a screwdriver, wrench, crowbar, wirecutters, welder, multitool, and deconstruction device), a miniaturized lamp manufacturer for replacing/fixing lights, and two 100-unit matter cartridges for RCDs.
It's not quite a tool, but thanks to your Engineering Training trait, you take half as much time to build certain things, namely walls and windows. Unfortunately this does not stack with the Carpenter trait, so you can't take both and be Fastest Builder in This Star System.
If you ever need to enter Space to build something, you have nothing to fear; you spawn wearing an engineering space suit that protects you from the vacuum of space, magboots to keep you from floating away when the boots are activated, and a jetpack that supplies oxygen when configured correctly and allows free movement through space.
That's not all though! Your backpack (or equivalent) also contains a special set of tools needed to build the station of your dreams! Instead of just trying to talk about how awesome all of your construction equipment is, here is a full list with all your fancy tools and what they do!
| Device | Description |
|---|---|
| Construction Visualizer | A device worn on your eyes. It lets you see green pre-planned tiles laid out using the Floor and Wall Planner. Also lets you see monsters that are invisible and people using cloaking devices, chameleon cloaks, and darkness cloaks, a relic of the Construction Game Mode, where Construction Workers occasionally had to fight invisible creatures. |
| RCD (Rapid Construction Device) Deluxe | Looks like and acts like your standard RCD, but with reduced deconstruction costs and holds up to 1,500 charges! It also comes with a few extra functions, listed in the order it's cycled in the RCD itself: Floor & Walls Mode: What the standard RCD is known for. Building a floor costs 1 charge, walls cost 2. Airlock mode: On the Deluxe RCD, the airlock mode is SIGNIFICANTLY expanded. Upon clicking the target location, you will asked to name the Airlock. After that, you can set what access requirements a person needs on their ID to enter the door. (For example, if you make a AI chamber, you can set the access level to AI Upload) Then, you have multiple options for what style of door you want! After all these options are set, it builds your airlock for 5 charges. Left clicking again gives you a popup asking if you want to use the same settings for the last airlock you made. This makes it easier to build double doors or set up a whole department with the same type of access. Deconstruction Mode: Deconstructs anything made by a RCD. Costs are as follows: Floors 2, Walls 2, Doors/Airlocks 3, Windows 8. Pod Bay Doors: One of the best additions in the Deluxe RCD, able to make doors that are operable by pods for pod docking bays. The operation is easy: Select this mode, click on a wall you want the control panel on, (Costs 5 charges. It should be visible both inside/outside of the bay by the pods pilot) and once the control panel is made, another left click will build a section of pod bay blast doors (5 charges per door section). If you want to build a new door with a separate control panel, simply cycle back though the gun modes back to this mode and you can place a new panel. |
| Floor and Wall Planner | This device is one of your most essential tools next to your RCD. To use it, put it in your hand and left click on it. It will pop up a dialog box for floors or walls (and “restore original”, more on that later). Selecting either one of these two options will open up a WIDE list of selectable textures to choose from. The can be anything from the standard station floor/walls textures to grass, catwalks, and cave walls! This gun has most, if not all the wall/floor sprites in the game. After making the selection of what sprite you want, left clicking with the gun on a space tile will highlight it with a green, transparent version of the tile you want. (Note: if you aren't wearing your Construction Visualizer you cannot see this!) Then, when you are finished pre-planning the room, use your RCD on the green tiles to make them into solid physical tiles, just like how the RCD works on the normal station. If you want a special wall, you build the floor under it first, then build the wall by clicking again. BUT WAIT! THERE'S MORE! Don't like how the current room looks? Or messed up and want to change something? You can change the tile sprite of any tile already built by a RCD just by selecting and left clicking on the tile. Walls will change automatically, but if a wall is clicked on a floor, it will place the green outline like a space tile so the RCD can build custom walls. If you want to completely remove the new sprite you put in and go back the original one before you did any modifications, there is a “restore original” mode just for that. It works exactly like putting down new floor/walls textures, making reversing changes nice and easy. |
| Window Planner | This gun pretty much has one job. One VERY helpful job. It takes processed metal bars and glass cubes from the reclaim, stores them internally, and uses them to produce preset glass/grill wall sections for your station, providing a efferent and quick way to make Window/Grill sections then needing to do set down panels and grilles yourself. The gun has two different modes that are pretty straight forward. 'marking/unmarking plans for grille and glass structures.' - This mode works almost exactly like the Floor and Wall Planner: When you left click on an area, it puts down a transparent red outline of where you want your glass/grille section to go. Left clicking it again in this mode erases it. 'constructing planned grille and glass structures.' - After setting the shaper in this mode, left-clicking on planned sections will use the stored glass/metal to make the structure for you at the cost of 2 metal and 4 glass. |
| Room Designator | This lets you zone rooms, so you can order more constructions kits for creating various rooms. |
Buildin' Things Is What I Do: Your Duties
Essentially, you're repair crew. When parts of ship's/station's walls, windows, floors, and other structures are broken or destroyed, you're expected to come in and fix the damage, especially if it resulted in a loss of atmosphere. If things are going smoothly, and nothing really needs to be repaired, you can try to renovate sections of the ship/station or build new areas, which is by far the most fun part of the job.
While you're part of the Engineering department, you're not really expected to set up the engine, configure the solars, or anything, though you certainly can do it if you want. In fact, you actually come in handy when Engineering's running a hellburn. One of the most common techniques during a hellburn is to create holes in the floor using an RCD to control pressure, gas flow, and other things. Normally, the number of holes is limited by available RCD ammo, but thanks to your deluxe RCD's reduced deconstruction costs and all the extra matter cartridges you start with, you allow the engineers to more freely experiment with hole placement and try setups with more holes than usual. Be careful that there isn't a deck underneath this floor before doing so on a starship.
Possible Projects
When everything's going fine, and nothing needs to be repaired, it might be fun to start some renovation projects. Here are some ideas:
Build a second bar/restaurant! Try to persuade the Mechanics to scan and deploy some chemistry equipment and drink dispensers for you and/or request some alcohol crates from Cargo. To attract customers, give it a unique touch, like a “dance floor” with random checkerboard tiles, spectacular views of the gym, or just generally lovely wooden flooring.
Create an nature reserve! Use the Floor and Wall Planner to plop down some grass, sand, snow or similar tiles somewhere. Try to convince the Botanists to lend you some trays for the flora and ask the Quartermaster for Animal and/or Avian Import Crates for the fauna.
Refurnish the Chapel to suit the Chaplain's religion. Are they preaching the gospel of the 'ganja? Bring in some comfy chairs to smoke in and construct a small room for hotboxing. Expounding on the smoothness of jazz? Use the Floor and Wall Planner to plop down some quality carpeting and set aside a small “stage” for a jazz band. Performing over-the-top Hollywood Satanism shenanigans? Turn out the lights, order some candles from QM, and use the Floor and Wall Planner to convert the Chapel into a dark, sinister cave or temple.
Use the Floor and Wall Planner to switch the flooring of two rooms around, e.g. outfit the Medbay with carpeting/wood like the Chapel's, and replace the Chapel's floor with white and blue tiles. See if anybody notices.
Open up a shop in the Market and make your stand look like a real store instead of a generic grey booth. Offering weapons? Try a more industrial look. Questionable legal advice? Go for an office. Magical items that may or may not have came from a Wizard? Perhaps brass and red like wizard artifacts or stonework straight out of a fantasy game.
Make the Franchises in the Market look more like actual businesses instead of generic booths while you're at it! They'll love you for it. You may want to charge them for the service, though - compressed matter isn't cheap, after all, and they don't work for NovusCorp.