Chief Engineer
| ENGINEERING STAFF | |
  Chief Engineer |
Access: Engineering, Command Difficulty: Hard Supervisors: Captain Duties: Manage the onboard Engineering team: engineers, atmos techs Guides: Chain of Command, Rules, Guide to the Supermatter Quote: "Five breaches and ten alarms is just another day in hell." |
Nanotrasen stations have a team of qualified engineering staff to get the power flowing, fix any damage that crops up against the station and keep everyone breathing well. This team needs a boss to operate at optimum efficiency, and that boss is the Chief Engineer.
Bare minimum expectations: Make sure that enough electricity comes through in the first twenty minutes of the round so the station doesn't just go dark and die. Know the entirety of Engineering, Telecomms and Atmospherics. Communicate with your staff and teach inexperienced team members.
Bonus Skills: Advanced optimization of station power sources and Atmospherics. Synthesis of Gases, Fusion and upgrading the Turbine.
YOUR LOADOUT
Welcome to the shift floor, Foreman. You've ground your way up from the ranks of the working class (one part of the working class anyway) and found yourself with a private space and a bunch of white, rather than yellow, safety gear. Your tour of duty in the mechanical fields is far from done, however, and now comes with a bunch of authority issues to boot. Not to fear, however. The Company has invested heavily in ensuring your primary talents are not wasted. The relevant kit on your person, and in your locker, is as follows:
- White toolbelt, loaded with experimental power tools for your priority use. Most of these tools perform the job of two tools, have extra capabilities, and use less fuel when utilized. These tools are the Hand Drill (wrench and screwdriver combo), jaws of life (wirecutter and crowbar combo, can pry open doors) experimental welder (with regenerating fuel), a standard multitool, spare cable, compact fire extinguisher and experimental gas analyzer (can scan from range).
- Extended capacity survival box. Identical to the survival box issued to non-engineers, but since you're an engineer you get an extended capacity oxygen tank that lasts more than five minutes.
- Telescopic baton. Use this to knock down and beat dissenters.
- Flashbulb device, use this to stun unprotected dissenters and deal with problem borgs.
- Professional RCD, a white colored rapid construction device which is faster and harder to disrupt than other RCDs. It still lacks the full build suite engineers expect from the black colored IRCD, so you may want to just stash this.
- Bluespace RPD. A rapid pipe dispenser that can build through walls if you remember to turn remote piping on with alt-click. The possibilities of such a tool are limited only by your knowledge of Atmospherics.
- The Station Blueprints. These greasy papers let you create or modify station areas (necessary for powernets), view all wire combinations for doors and devices (which change from round to round) and view the structural layout (making repairs faster). They're a high risk item sometimes coveted by traitors, so make sure to pocket these.
- Advanced Fire Extinguisher. One of these spawns in your locker, so if the ones in atmos run out you have a spare. Very good at killing fires and slimes alike. Has to be refilled with firefighting foam, not water.
- Gas Miner Delivery Beacons. Use these to call in the Gas Miners to provide additional gas supply for your station's needs. Atmos techs will beg for these.
- Engineer job skillchips. Slam these into new recruits using the skillsoft station in the library so they can see the wiring layout of things.
- Engineering plumbing constructor. You probably won't do much liquid plumbing, but you have the option in case you are doing chem shit for some reason.
- ATMOS holofan projector. Use it to deploy up to 6 gas stopping barriers in the location of your choice. Useful for breach work as well as clever atmos jobs.
Don't forget the items within your personal Suit Storage Locker. The breath mask is not mandatory as you have a lot of gas masks lying around, but if you want something easier to push out of your face, you got it.
- The advanced MODSuit itself. Comes with a 20MJ battery, space capability including jetpack, flashlight, storage and magboot function. Usually a good idea to replace your backpack with this immediately.
- The advanced magboots. They are less of a burden to wear than regular magboots and should replace your basic footwear immediately. Traitors covet these, so it is important to secure them.
YOUR SUBORDINATES
Being the boss of engineering (un)fortunately means that the staff of the engineering department fall under your purview as your subordinates.
Station Engineers: Station Engineers are typically considered the rank-and-file members of the engineering department, but the exact job specialization is a bit more complicated than that. These are the people whose main responsibility is Power and Construction. You need to make sure they set up the Supermatter and other power systems properly, patrol maintenance for those exposed wires that rats love to chew on, and when meteors poke twenty holes in the station, that the damage gets fixed before the crew gives up and runs for the shuttle.
Atmospherics Technicians: The teal(or was it cyan?)-striped vests of the Atmosians belie the extent of things that they are expected to take care of. The station is perhaps made up of pipes as much as it is made up of floor plating. Your main responsibility in wrangling the Atmos Techs is ensuring that they manage the distribution, waste, and air alarms, and repair any situation involving unsafe air, before delving into esoteric gas synthesis, running the HFR, Turbine and all the other fun things they like to do. If everything in Atmosia is going well, though, it is still a good idea to oversee projects due to the inherent risks.
Engineering Guards: The Engineering Guard, like some of the other department guard roles, is sometimes played as a bit of a hybrid role in practice. On paper they are your low-budget defense against troublemakers seeking to sabotage the main areas of the engine or atmospherics. In practice, they will often act as another pair of hands that not only exert your authority in engineering but speed along the process of construction and repairs.
POWER SOURCES
Your first priority, as stated, is to ensure the station has a sufficient flow of power at all times. Depending on the state of Research or what sort of fabricators you have on hand, you will have a few options for generating voltage. Remember, you're on the clock for this, so hop to it before the SMES and APCs run red.
The Supermatter Engine
The Supermatter crystal has become Nanotrasen's preferred way of powering stations through the easily renewable cycle of energy amplification and resonance. Such a potent power source is not without its risks, however, as the crystal emits tons of radiation, hot plasma and oxygen, and has a tendency to delaminate into an explosion (or worse) when mistreated. The crystal activates as soon as it is disturbed by energy or mass contact(resulting in object annihilation, so don't touch the damned thing) , and does NOT have an off switch.
No, the emergency freon system does not count as an off switch. Experiment with the gas interactions to achieve the best power output.
Taste the Sun
Plants have been consuming the radiant energy of distant fusion reactors (stars) for eons, and spacers have been doing it for centuries too, albeit indirectly in the form of solar panels. The solar arrays on most stations are capable of providing a trickle of power with a minimum of engineer intervention. Nanotrasen wreckers are lazy at secondary objectives, however, and depending on your luck, solars may require anywhere from a simple wiring job to a full installation. The main danger of operating the solars lies in their location in space, meaning microgravity, lack of oxygen and enemy agents looking for easy tool access.
Wind Turbines
Fuel Burning
Of course, if you are atmospherically inclined, there are ways of burning mass amounts of Plasma, or other fuel gasses within the confines of a small chamber, and using the heat to generate electricity.
The first of these methods, which is commonly installed into Nanotrasen stations, is the gas turbine. Burn mix goes in one end and out the other, and the spinning of the turbine generates power. The turbine requires both a good burn mix and upgraded components to be able to produce significant power, however.
The other common fuel-burning engine is the thermo-electric generator. This one requires some research and room to set up, and operates by converting the temperature and pressure difference of a cold and hot loop (via the Seebeck effect) into usable electricity. Proper gas flow, as well as maximizing the burn temperature, while minimizing the temperature of the cold loop, are essential to make the TEG functional.
Stirling Generator
Returning to Fission
RTG
RBMK-2
MAINTAINING ATMOSIA
Your second priority after power is maintaining the convoluted mess that is the station's atmospherics network. It is important to consider that even just working on the supermatter engine touches on atmospherics, so understanding how the rest of it works is a natural step up. Read the guide to atmospherics, get familiar with how all the bits and bobs work at a basic level at least, and be ready to do some firefighting when things go to shit.
At a minimum you should be able to optimize the existing distribution loops, deploy the Gas Miners (or give those to your minions), be able to configure air alarms in affected areas and maybe make BZ and tritium. Just a few modifications to the existing distro loop can make it significantly more efficient when refilling a room.
TELECOMS
The last major responsibility of engineering, and the one most engineers despair to think about, is the telecommunications system which governs most (but not all) radio traffic aboard the station and its adjoining z-levels. This is a topic which requires an entire guide in and of itself to understand fully, but to rebuild common radio in a pinch:
- build a subspace receiver, bus mainframe, processing unit and subspace broadcaster
- Clear ANY frequency filters on the machines.
- Set network to tcommsat on every machine. This will unlink machines so do it before the next step.
- Add the Bus Mainframe to your multitool buffer (down on the list, click "Multitool Buffer")
- Link it to the Broadcaster, Processor, and Receiver (click "Add Machine")
You'll have to go down to Lavaland to reconnect the telecomms relay there, but at least everyone on station should have common radio without the need for intercoms or those bulky handsets.
