Atmospheric Technician
WIP
Engineering Department
Atmospheric Technician
- Access: Engineering, Atmospherics, External, Maintenance
- Difficulty: Medium to Hard
- Duties: Restore breathable atmosphere to depressurized areas. Ensure the station's air remains at livable conditions. Get bored and create tritium.
- Supervisors: Chief Engineer, Captain
- Subordinates: None
- Guides: Pipes and vents, Gases, Setting up the mix chamber
Much like your engineering counterpart, the Station Engineer, your job is to fix, maintain, and improve the station's air quality. By working on various pipes, pumps, and vents insure that the hallways remain breathable. Most of the time your job will be to sit back relax in your department until the inevitable hull breach occurs depressurizing the hallways. When this happens, don your hardsuit and magboots, turn on your internals, and work with the engineers to patch up the hole. Ensure that the atmosphere in the recently breached area is livable once again with by checking with your gas analyzer. Once the air quality is back to standards, return to your department to relax or experiment with the pipes until the next inevitable hull breach occurs.
Your supervisor is Chief Engineer.
Atmosia
Atmospherics, or sometimes referred to as Atmosia, is where you will be spending most of your time. In this jungle of pipes and vents is where the magic of atmospherics happens. Crewmembers that somehow make their way into Atmosia will be baffled at all the filters and mixers. A seasoned Atmospherics Technician will look upon Atmosia see boundless potential.
Veteran technicians have every pipe, filter, and pump memorized. However, you don't need to know everything to keep the crew breathing and happy. Atmospherics is completely self sufficient at round start and requires no setup to keep the stations air flowing properly. Feel free to take your time learning.
Starting off you might feel lost but don't worry! take one step at a time, follow each pipe from start to finish. Watch as each filter separates gases to different pipes. See where each valve and pump are placed and learn the importance of why they are there. Observe where the distro and waste loops are and how to keep them separated. Stare at the pipes and flashing lights until they begin to make sense and you feel a sense of homeliness.
Once you feel comfortable with the layout, feel free to tweak the pipes and pumps to your liking. Boost the flow of oxygen to distro when there is a hull breach. Increase the flow rate of the waste loop to help filter out harmful gases quicker. Reroute the layout to a more efficient setup or experiment with gases in the mix chamber. The possibilities are endless. you are the master, and Atmosia is your personal playground!
Pressure and moles
All gas can be quantified by its pressure, mole amount, and temperature. These three variables are closely related and directly affect one another. If you add more gas(# of moles) to a given area, the pressure will increase. Take the same amount of moles and lower the volume by using a smaller room and the pressure will be even larger. If you then heat up the gas, the pressure will be even larger still. The opposite is also true, less gas means lower pressure. cooling down gas will also lower the pressure. Volume, or size of the room, also plays a role in pressure. A larger area will require more gas while a smaller area will require less gas to reach the same pressure. using this knowledge we can see why space has a low pressure because the area and temperature are so low.
Moles are a way of measuring how much gas is present in a given area. A higher pressure does not always mean more of a gas in the given area. If you want to physically fit a larger amount of a gas in a specific area, you will need to cool the gas down to lower the temperature, thus lowering the pressure allowing more moles to fit inside the given area.
If you open a canister will 100 moles of air into a large hallway, you will hardly notice a difference in pressure. However, if you open the same tank in a small room the pressure difference will be greater.
The standard livable air requirements are about 20 moles of oxygen and 80 moles of nitrogen at a pressure of 101kpa and temperature of 20° Celsius. If you have less than 20 moles of oxygen present, your character will begin to gasp and take oxygen deprivation damage. If the pressure is any lower or higher than 101kpa, your character will begin to take brute damage in relation to the depressurization or overpressurization levels. If the temperature is much lower or higher than 20°C, you risk your character taking burn damage from the extreme cold or heat.
Generally speaking:
- More gas(# of moles) = more pressure.
- Less gas(# of moles) = less pressure.
- Hot gas = more pressure.
- Cold gas = less pressure.
- Large hallway = more moles/higher temperatures needed to notice pressure change.
- Small hallway = less moles/higher temperatures needed to notice pressure change.
Space wind
Explosive decompression, or space wind, is caused when a sudden low pressure or depressurization zone occurs and all the atmosphere flows from high pressure to low pressure. Space wind often happens due to a sudden hull breach or when the clown opens the external airlock. All personnel and lose objects in the area will be flung toward the low pressure area as if a gust of wind blows you towards the breach site, thus the name 'Space Wind' is dubbed.
Space wind is very deadly to any crew member not wearing hardsuits with internals. Space wind will often suck you far away from safety and toward the breach site. The damage you take from slamming into objects(and objects slamming into you) along with depressurization, lack of oxygen, and freezing temperatures will often quickly kill any unsuspecting crewmember who gets caught.
Space wind was disabled on 5/9/2022 until it is fixed or there is a better alternative. You will no longer be pushed around by explosive decompression or airflows.
Distro
Distro, or the distribution loop, is usually marked with light blue pipes and is responsible for distributing gas to the station via vents. These pipes start and end in atmospherics and are looped around the entire station. The main purpose of Distro is to ensure that the station maintains a constant pressure of breathable air. The distribution loop works in conjunction with air vents spread across the station to slowly replenish the atmosphere. At round start, Distro will be fully automated and connected to only the nitrogen and oxygen gas chambers.
Waste
Waste, or the waste loop, is usually marked with red pipes and is responsible for removing waste gas around the station via scrubbers. These pipes start and end in atmospherics and are looped around the entire station. The main purpose of the waste loop is the ensure that harmful gases get removed from the station's atmosphere. Scrubbers will remove gas from the hallways and return it to Atmospherics where it will then be separated by gas filters into various holding chambers. Harmful gases will be deposited into their assigned chambers and the breathable air will once again make its way back to Distro and into the station to continue the cycle.
Mix Chamber
The mix chamber is an empty holding area with its own separate loop of pipes and pumps in atmospherics. The mix loop is generally marked with brown pipes and the holding chamber can usually be found close to the external hull, separated from the station by reinforced walls and windows. There will be an emergency button nearby to vent the chamber to space if you need to dump your mix in case an accident arises, or you just wish to reset the chamber for a new mix. The mix chamber is here for you to experiment with different mixes, ratios, temperatures, and pressures while combining gases.
On most stations the Mix chamber will loop around to either the Supermater chamber, to the distro loop, or back to the waste loop. It is generally a good practice to have your mix loop flow back into the waste loop to recycle any unspent gases. You should NEVER have the mix loop flow into distro unless you have a very good reason. Most savvy Atmospherics Technicians physically disconnect the mix loop from distro at round start to prevent an easy sabotage target or accident from occurring later in the round.
See the guide to Gases if you are interested to learn how different gases interact with each other at different temperatures and pressures.
See the guide to Setting up the mix chamber if you want to learn how to properly and safely use the mix chamber.
Gas Miner
Gas miners create new gas from nothing and are currently used to make sure the station has an infinite amount of a specific gas. Gas Miners come in different types and create different types of gas. A oxygen miner will create oxygen gas while a plasma miner will create plasma gas. Gas Miners can be found in Atmospherics inside each gas holding chamber.
Gas holding chambers
Located in atmospherics is a series of separated gas holding chambers. These chambers will generally contain a specific gas and its respective gas miner. Depending on the station layout, the holding chambers may be separated from the hull by reinforced walls and windows. If a holding chamber is breached all the gas held inside will be vented out to space. Patch up the breach to allow the miner to replenish the storage of gas.
Each chamber will be connected to the waste and mix loops. The nitrogen and oxygen chambers will also be connected to the distro loop. The gas can be extracted using pumps and mixers and sent off to various locations around atmospherics. Unused gas in the system will be recycled as it flows back along the waste loop. filters will separate each gas and pump it into its assigned chamber. These chambers can generally be considered an infinite source of gas.
Each chamber will have a sign on the wall displaying information on what gas is in its own specific chamber. Each chamber should contain pure gas of its element and can safely be treated as such.
Useful trivia and tricks
- Always be prepared to fix a breach. Carry your Atmospherics hardsuit or firesuit with you so you can survive long enough to fix any breach at a moments notice.
- The Atmospherics firesuit is space proof and functions like a hardsuit. Just make sure you wear the helmet with it or else it wont give you any protection.
- The standard air mix is about 21% oxygen and 79% nitrogen @ 101.7 kPa at 293.2K (20°C).
- A quick and dirty way to vent high pressure or unwanted gases is to expose the area to open space. Breach a wall or open an airlock to quickly suck out all the atmosphere. Just be sure you have the area sealed off and no crewmembers get caught in the depressurization zone!
- Overpressurization can be just as harmful as depressurization!
- A pressurized pipe will violently decompress if unwrenched!
- If you want to check the pressure and temperature of a pipe, hold your gas analyzer in hand, shift left-click on the pipe, and click on the magnifying glass in pop-up window.
- Make sure that the distro loop never connects to anything else like the mix or waste loop. unless you want to flood the station with superheated plasma and risk getting an angry admin message.
