Station Engineer

Welcome to Engineering!


As the title says, Welcome! You are now part of one of the most essential jobs on the station. Your main duties are the upkeep of power aboard the station, and station integrity. If you slack off on these duties, chances are no one will like you, and there's a high risk of being robusted for it. So, here's how to do your job and not get your head knocked off your shoulders!

Tools
As an engineer, you have a HUGE supply of tools at your disposal. First and foremost is your toolbelt. In this toolbelt should be your basic toolset for an engineer, as follows: With these few tools, you can potentially solve any power crisis, or hull breach. From fixing APC's, to building and deconstructing walls, these tools are essentials and should ALWAYS be on you. Next we'll look at your gear.
 * Crowbar
 * Wirecutters
 * Screwdriver
 * Welder
 * Multitool
 * Cable Coil

In your bag, or on your person, should be these items:

These items allow you to perform your duties in certain environments that your normally wouldn't be able to. The insulated gloves are a MUST HAVE, as most of your duties involving electricity would shock you otherwise. The meson scanners allow you to detect structural damage through walls, as well as protect your eyes from radiation damage. The Fire Suit and Extinguisher are both necessary when traveling through a room recently damaged by fire, or for helping put out fires. And the RIG suit is essential for when working on the Singularity Engine, and managing hull breaches.
 * Insulated Gloves
 * Optical Meson Scanners
 * Fire Suit
 * Fire extinguisher
 * RIG Suit

With all these tools, you should be able to successfully perform your duties as a Station Engineer.

So Now What?
So, you've spawned. What do you do? Well, you make sure you're properly geared. Your first job is going to be setting up the Singularity Engine, so suit up for that. Place your belt on your...Belt slot... Make sure you have all the tools listed above. Then get dressed up in that rig suit, because you're about to set up the singularity.

Setting Up the Engine
Here we are. This is the big daddy of your duties. To a new player, the Singularity is a monster. Big, scary, "Complex". But in reality, it's simple. Once you've done it a couple of times, you'll have the steps memorized.

FIRST. Make sure you're in a RIG Suit. You'll need this to protect you from the radiation the singularity gives off.

SECOND. Click on this link. Setting Up the Singularity Engine

That's about it.

"Do I get to slack off now?"
NO. Or at least, you shouldn't. Now your objective should be to patrol the hallways and maintenance shafts searching for any damage done to the station, AS WELL AS monitoring the power alerts. Where there is any power issues, it's YOUR job to go out and fix it. There is a power monitoring component in your PDA. Keep it on you at all times. Next, we'll talk about monitoring, and fixing power outages.

The Power
So, open your PDA by putting it in your hand, and clicking on it. This will bring up the PDA window. Scroll down until your see the button labeled "Power Monitor". Click this. This little tool is absolutely essential to your job of managing the station's power.

The first thing you will notice in this application, is "Total Power", and "Total Load", each having a number after it. Total Power is the total amount of power the station is currently generating. Total Load is the total amount of power the station is USING. The Total Power always needs to be higher than the Total Load for the station's power to run smoothly. Otherwise, certain rooms in the station will being to shut down their power in an attempt to conserve it for other areas of the station.

The next thing you will see is a table. This table should look something like this: Area                          Eqp./Lgt./Env. Load  Cell Toxin Test Area               AOn  AOn  AOn   1000   100% F Virology                       AOn  AOn  AOn   1543   100% F Aft Maintenance                AOn  AOn  AOn    290   100% F The key above labels what the words and numbers below mean. Beneath those three is a list of all of the rooms on the station with an APC in them. The first key is "Area". This tells you what room the APC is in. The second is "Eqp.". This stands for Equipment, and below it shows whether the power for that equipment is "On", "Off", "AOff", or "AOn".(The A before those two means auto, and that the APC is set to auto. This will shut down certain equipment if it needs the power for other areas.). Equipment dictates power used by things like computers, vending machines, and doors. The next two are Lgth. and Env. These stand for Lighting and Environment. Lighting is just as it's called. Turning this off will turn the lights off. Environment is for things like vents, and the stabilization of the air in the room. Turning it off would remove the ability to syphon air from the room and replace it through the use of Atmospherics.

The above table shows three rooms that are powered properly. These are set to Auto, and they are on, meaning the station can spare the power to run them. The Load defines how much power that APC is using, and Cell defines how much power the Cell in the APC has.

So, no power?
So what do how do I know when there's an issue with the power? Well, here is an example of a room that is NOT powered. Aft Port Maintenance          Off  Off  Off      0   100% N Here, you can see that Eqp. Lgt. and Env. are set to "Off". This means someone, whether it's an engineer, AI, cyborg, or anyone else manually turned the power for these three OFF. That means the lights are off, and the equipment isn't working. Next to the cell charge, you can also see "N", which means the power cell is not charging, and will eventually run out of power (If the power is being used). To solve this problem, simply locate the APC, swipe your ID on it, and click it. The APC interface looks like this:

Area Power Controller (Aft Port Maintenance)

(Swipe ID card to lock interface.) Main breaker: On |Off External power : Good Power cell: 100% (Not charging) (Off |Auto)

Power channels Equipment:        0 W : |Off On |Auto Lighting:         0 W : |Off On |Auto Environmental:    0 W : |Off On |Auto Total load: 0 W

Cover lock: |Engaged

|Close You can see here that the APC is set to Off for all three power channels, and the Power Cell is also set to Off(The words are bold, hard to tell. In-game they are colored black when selected.) All you need to do to turn them on is simply press either "On", or "Auto" next to the name to turn them on. Once finished, swipe your card again to lock the interface, and close it. There. You've returned power to this room!

AOff? How Do Fix?
You will most commonly encounter "AOff" when there is low power because the singularity hasn't been set up, or there is a power-sink. AOff means the station couldn't afford to spare power for that room, and turned off those parts of the room. A simple fix to this, is to grab a charged power cell, and make your way to the room. Here are the steps to bringing power to a dead room: Congrats! This should have successfully restored power to this specific room! Eventually, the power will run out as the power-cell will drain, but it should last for a good while.
 * 1) Swipe your Card on the APC
 * 2) Click it
 * 3) Click on "Engaged" by Cover Lock: to disengage it
 * 4) Use a crowbar on the APC.
 * 5) Click it with an Open Hand to remove the dead Power Cell
 * 6) Click on the APC with the charged cell to insert it.
 * 7) Crowbar the APC again to close it
 * 8) Re-engage the cover lock
 * 9) Lock the APC

There's Been a Breach
Oh boy. So, you're wandering around the maintenance, when you notice, HOLY SHIT! It's fucking cold in here, and I can't breath! Well, this means there's been a hull breach. What's this mean? It means the HULL of the STATION has been BREACHED. In laymen's terms, the outer walls of the station has a hole in it. This hole is sucking out the air in that specific area, and creating a cold, inhospitable area. It's your job to fix this.

So here's what to do. Suit up in your fancy lookin' RIG suit, grab an oxygen tank and some metal, and head out to the breach. Depending on where the damage is, and the size of it, there are a few thing you'll need, all of which can be made from a few sheets of metal. Here's what you may need:

All of these materials allow you to patch up virtually every section of the station.
 * Floor Tiles
 * Metal Rods
 * Reinforced Glass
 * Metal Sheets
 * Reinforced Metal Sheets

So, you've encountered a breach in the station's hull. First, STOP. Assess the situation. What structural damage has been done? Is a wall missing? Has the floor been obliterated? Or has the window simply been broken? Knowing exactly what kind of damage has been done ensure quicker fixes. First, we'll look at floors and walls, as they go hand in hand.

Where there was once a floor, there is now a hole that leads to space. Not really that big of a deal, right? WRONG. That one hole will drain the air from a large area. So, how do you fix this, you ask? Quite simply really. The first thing you need here is metal rods. Grab some of those, and click on the empty space. This will construct lattice. With the lattice down, you will now be able to apply Floor tile to the space to create PLATING. And viola. No longer a hole in the floor. You can place another tile over the plating to return it to a normal floor.

But, what if this was once a wall? What do you do? Make a wall! So we're gonna make a wall. If there isn't a floor where there was once a wall, repeat the above process until there is a floor where you need it to be. Once the floor is down, move over top of the tile, and with metal sheets in hand, click on the metal. This will bring open a window. Click on the blue words labeled "Create Wall Girders". This will take a few moments, but once it's completed, move off of it, and apply a metal sheet to the girders. Once this step is finished, VIOLA! A WALL! Repeat these steps until the area is sealed and congrats! You've sealed a hull breach. Quite the accomplished engineer I must say.

Now, what if this was an R wall that had been removed? The steps are still the same, only once you have a girder down, click on the metal sheets and create a few Reinforced Metal Sheets. With this stack in hand, click on the girder to reinforce it. Once that's done, click on it again and you will finish the R wall. That's it. Pretty easy, huh?



But what about windows? Still quite simple. For this you'll need reinforced glass. To make these, apply some metal rods to a stack of regular glass. Now, grab your reinforced glass, and click on it in hand. This will open a window. Click the button labeled "One Direction". This will place a pane of glass down. You can go to your Object tab in the panel and click "Rotate Window" until it's the correct direction. Then, with metal rods in hand, click on them. This will build a grill. Repeat the glass process until all the windows you need are up, being sure to leave an opening for you to move off the tile. Once the windows are down, screwdriver them down into place, and you're done! Windows repaired.

That's about it. Once you're finished with all your duties, the station becomes your little plaything. You have two construction sites to play with, you can ask heads for permission to modify their area, or you could wander out into space and build your own little station. With these tools, you can twist the station how ever you want. Just be responsible!

Crow.