[1 Dismissal] SM engine too easy, make it HARD!

[Nortondk]

Pretty much all engineers(even apprentices) hack into atmos(breaking the law an nobody cares). Gets some phoron and uses it as coolant. This is also the most effective way of setting up the engine. But where is the downside of using this highly volatile, mysterious gas as a coolant? NONE!

I would like to see some bad-sides of using this coolant, since its so good and easy to use right now

 

• Way way more radioactive, like if you shoot it the max times, not even the radioactive suits can keep the radiation out and it could hit outside engine room, like all the way to the hallway and janitors room.
  
• random heat spikes(maybe random even triggered?
• Only engine specialists should work with a phoron engine(RP wise)

 

Any other good suggestions are welcome

Edited July 31, 2018 by Guest

[Nortondk]

The radioactive part is already in effect on baystation, with geiger counters and all that

[LanceLynxx]

I agree that engine set up is too easy with phoron with no downsides, so here's an idea.

Have phoron "decompose" into oxygen and nitrogen when heated above a certain temperature.

That would mean phoron can be used for an efficient set up, but you can't just leave it unchecked and blast the SM into overdrive without consequences. It would be high risk and high reward. More powe and efficiency, but more oversight and control required.

a suggestion to add to this: make all atmos cannisters in atmospherics be empty at round start.

[Jpowell59]

Well as someone who used to main an engineer for a Supermatter Engine on a different station I could probably throw in an idea we had. Phoron makes the best coolant but is also very hard to cool down once it heats up making it very dangerous in the case of too much Oxygen build up. So an idea might just be random filter malfunctions that doesn’t cause them to pull out the glasses as they slowly build up. It’ll keep the engineers working on the engine and give them a bit more to do than just set it up then forget about it

[Scheveningen]

I agree that engine set up is too easy with phoron with no downsides, so here's an idea.

Have phoron "decompose" into oxygen and nitrogen when heated above a certain temperature.

That would mean phoron can be used for an efficient set up, but you can't just leave it unchecked and blast the SM into overdrive without consequences. It would be high risk and high reward. More powe and efficiency, but more oversight and control required.

a suggestion to add to this: make all atmos cannisters in atmospherics be empty at round start.

 

Why would that make any sense, and why would it matter either way?

The gas filters that are intended to be set for phoron help the engine not delaminate anyway. If it's set to phoron-phoron like it should be, everything that isn't phoron gets slowly filtered out of the supermatter chamber.

yet another artificial difficulty suggestion wtf

[Zaeperry99]

a suggestion to add to this: make all atmos canisters in atmospherics be empty at round start.

 

That generally just means that the entire station's going to be dark by the time somebody figures out how to use a mix loop and fills a couple of phoron canisters with it.

I will admit that the super matter engine is actually ridiculously easy to the point where I feel even mechanically one could set it up with no training and a bit of coaching; Enable four pumps to max, configure two filters to phoron, put 1 canister on top and 2 canisters on bottom, and then shoot it 25 times. It's a process I had memorized the first time I set the engine up.

As for making the process of setting it up more difficult without inherently changing the way gasses work (which it's likely nobody would want to do) or crippling atmospherics, it's a bit tough to do. The only things I can really think of to make the process a bit more 'advanced' would be:

Adding radiation collectors which need to be set up. It'll take a competent engineer about two minutes, and add a slightly more advanced step (seeing as how you're having to actually use a phoron canister to fill tanks rather than just wrenching it down and calling it done), as well as going the /tg/ route and perhaps have the scrubber / vent in the SM core off by default and needing to be set up.

Either way, those are just the first things that come to mind about making it a bit less able to be done by an assistant with a book.

[duskofdawn]

Pretty much all engineers(even apprentices) hack into atmos(breaking the law an nobody cares). Gets some phoron and uses it as coolant. This is also the most effective way of setting up the engine. But where is the downside of using this highly volatile, mysterious gas as a coolant? NONE!

I would like to see some bad-sides of using this coolant, since its so good and easy to use right now

 

• Way way more radioactive, like if you shoot it the max times, not even the radioactive suits can keep the radiation out and it could hit outside engine room, like all the way to the hallway and janitors room.
  
• random heat spikes(maybe random even triggered?
• Only engine specialists should work with a phoron engine(RP wise)

 

Any other good suggestions are welcome

 

I agree that the supermatter is too easy to setup. It takes all of about five minutes and it's easy enough that someone can do it with just some minor guidance, however, I do have a few points of contention.

I agree that you shouldn't have to hack into atmospherics for the canisters of phoron. I've made a map suggestion that the two nitrogen canisters in engineering hard storage should be replaced with phoron. I think, while this makes it easier, also makes it more immersive.

As for radioactivity, there is no "max" number of times. The radioactivity would effectively debilitate the engineering department, though, if it were to be able to spread past the walls.

I could see random heat spikes being a thing. The problem is that the ideal temperature, and the temperature that the super is usually kept at, is somewhere between 1600K-1800K. The supermatter is completely stable below 5000K. If you were to have a random temperature spike, with nothing else changed, it either wouldn't change anything at all, or would return to normal fairly quickly, as the supermatter is self-stabilizing when setup correctly. Implementing this wouldn't be difficult in terms of coding, but doesn't make sense in the scope of things.

As for engine specialists being the only ones allowed to work on the engine, I feel like this would require a rework of engineering, not that I am opposed to this. You would have engineers, in general, each with specialties. Atmospherics, engine, construction, and you could probably throw another one in there with enough effort. I think that would be a great idea, if executed correctly.

 

I agree that engine set up is too easy with phoron with no downsides, so here's an idea.

Have phoron "decompose" into oxygen and nitrogen when heated above a certain temperature.

That would mean phoron can be used for an efficient set up, but you can't just leave it unchecked and blast the SM into overdrive without consequences. It would be high risk and high reward. More powe and efficiency, but more oversight and control required.

a suggestion to add to this: make all atmos cannisters in atmospherics be empty at round start.

 

Phoron does have some downsides. One that's a double edged sword is that it has an extremely high heat capacity. If you get it hot, it's super difficult to cool it down. In addition, it's highly flammable, which does pose problems in an engine.

In terms of decomposing into oxygen and nitrogen, the engine itself produces oxygen and phoron as is. A stable engine should be able to deal with any amount of external gasses provided, through filters. In addition, nitrogen would actually hurt your cause, as nitrogen decreases the reaction. With a current phoron setup, you would likely not be able to get a comfortable medium for phoron itself to break down. Also, phoron is an element and I don't believe it's fissile.

I would agree with the atmospherics canisters being empty with one caveat, which is that the engine itself needs startup materials, just like every other thing on station.

 

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Here are my suggestions:

 

• Make setup more complex. I agree with Zae's idea of adding collectors. You could potentially lower the heat conductivity of phoron with this to balance it.

• Do it with a randomized multiplier with a control console, with control rods, much like a nuclear fission reactor. That way you have to spend some time finding the sweet spot each shift.

• Make some sort of fuel, maybe make phoron slowly disappear, meaning you have to add more fuel periodically.

• Make parts break down, with a console to list parts that are breaking down. That way you have to replace parts as they wear out.

• Make radiation suits more cumbersome and more immersive. Breath masks, oxygen, the whole lot.

• Make radiation itself stick on the suits, so that you have to go through a decontamination chamber.

• Make the reaction slowly decay so that you have to continually fire at it.

• Make radiation shields to line the walls with, that way the radiation would get out, but you have a way to prevent it.

[LanceLynxx]

The gas filters that are intended to be set for phoron help the engine not delaminate anyway. If it's set to phoron-phoron like it should be, everything that isn't phoron gets slowly filtered out of the supermatter chamber.

 

They could produce gasses faster than the filters could filter them, expanding, clogging the pipes and leading to overheating issues due to slower flow. The different gases would also decrease efficiency.

Also, if enough oxygen enters the chamber, that could cause a problem.

[duskofdawn]

Here's another idea, and this one's kinda interesting. Have the supermatter to where you have just the inlet and outlet pipes, and you have to set up the generator, filter setup, and atmospherics. The way to offset this in terms of time would be to have the main grid SMES charged higher.

[Zaeperry99]

Here are my suggestions:

 

• Make setup more complex. I agree with Zae's idea of adding collectors. You could potentially lower the heat conductivity of phoron with this to balance it.

• Do it with a randomized multiplier with a control console, with control rods, much like a nuclear fission reactor. That way you have to spend some time finding the sweet spot each shift.

• Make some sort of fuel, maybe make phoron slowly disappear, meaning you have to add more fuel periodically.

• Make parts break down, with a console to list parts that are breaking down. That way you have to replace parts as they wear out.

• Make radiation suits more cumbersome and more immersive. Breath masks, oxygen, the whole lot.

• Make radiation itself stick on the suits, so that you have to go through a decontamination chamber.

• Make the reaction slowly decay so that you have to continually fire at it.

• Make radiation shields to line the walls with, that way the radiation would get out, but you have a way to prevent it.

 

Out of all of these, parts breaking down (though I'd prefer losing efficiency) seems the best - however, the parts that could wear down are very limited, mostly to the TEGs, and rescripting anything else would just be impractical. Making radiation work like phoron could be burdensome to script, but I'm not totally certain about that, same goes for radiation shields - In general, I worry making radiation more advanced would involve quite a lot of effort for something people will be spending at most 15-20 minutes per shift doing.

 

Engine specialists being the only ones allowed to work on the engine, I feel like this would require a rework of engineering, not that I am opposed to this. You would have engineers, in general, each with specialties. Atmospherics, engine, construction, and you could probably throw another one in there with enough effort. I think that would be a great idea, if executed correctly.

 

Hey there, medbay main here. This is probably the worst thing you could possibly do at all in any execution. There's a direct correlation in which the more specialized any department becomes, the less fun it becomes to play on any low-pop shift. This is apparent through the number of things in medbay needing a surgeon/chemist, but in engineering would be two-fold; When somebody requires brain/eye surgery and we have no chemists or surgeons, one person's round is effectively ruined. If this were put in Engineering, you'd have entire low-pop shifts in the dark because there are only atmospheric technicians and no special engine surgeons. However, that would be a different thread.

[Guest Marlon Phoenix]

It's already hard if you're not used to it.... If it has to be harder then make it less dangerous

[Synnono]

Not super supportive of this idea. The round often depends on a working engine, and making it harder to operate is going to increase the number of bad rounds we have due to either failure at setup or delamination.

I don't feel like difficulty = interesting by default. Changes could probably be made, but complicating something that the entire crew depends on for the sake of complicating it doesn't seem like a great idea.

[CommanderXor]

I am fully against this idea. This idea appears to be nothing more than an attempt to put a cap on the station by making engine start-up become a harder thing for the sake of being hard. There is nothing to gain from this. There is no benefit, there is no RP. Is it ultimately just making someone's job harder for...no reason other than it's 'too easy'? We're not talking something like security being able to stop antags easily, or vice versa. We're talking about a vital part of the station that needs to be set up or the round is basically veto'd and 7 out of 10 times the shuttle gets called.

I see what you're going for here but I just utterly disagree with it, there is no point in making it harder purely for the sake of it being hard.

[LanceLynxx]

merely making the phoron setup harder doesn't make the process hard.

you have nitrogen as the standard gas anyways.

[furrycactus]

Nitrogen is barely viable as an engine gas, it's absolute trash.

Anyway, I'm generally pretty largely against this suggestion for a couple reasons, and I'll try to elaborate my reasoning better below.

- Firstly, the Supermatter is already unforgiving enough as it is to new players that are learning engineering. A simple mistake made by a new player or someone that doesn't entirely know how the engine works can be enough to cause a delamination and get someone boinked. I suppose this wouldn't be a huge problem most of the time, but I feel it'd be especially glaring in lowpop rounds, or just rounds where engineering ends up rather lightly staffed. I've already met a lot of people that are too intimidated to play engineering because they don't understand how the engine works well, and woe to the poor Apprentice one shift who has no idea how to set up a now highly complicated engine without any instruction or supervision. The entire crew is going to be expecting that single engineer to be a miracle worker, and all fingers are going to point to them if the engine fails twenty minutes in.

- There has already been an increase in frequency of shifts going dark because there's no engineers to set up the engine. If some arrive late, and the engine is going to take another 20-30 minutes to set up, everyone's just going to want to transfer or evacuate by then, because they've been sitting on their hands because all their workspaces have been out of power for over an hour.

- There's already a huge lack of alternative power sources for the station if the Supermatter goes out, or isn't set up at all. Making the entire engine more unnecessarily complex... "just because" is likely going to lead to more people being unwilling to even attempt to set it up, since fucking up the engine as it is will already quickly get you boinked. The solars are way too small to power the station, not to mention they're bugged to hell, PACMANs aren't viable, and everyone is too irrationally afraid of the Tesla to even consider trying that, even though it's safer and works fine. It's also not mapped the best, so it can't actually be started unless power is already running, unless you get creative or work incredibly fast, with multiple people (and good luck with that). That being said, if the Tesla were also made viable to set up instead of the Supermatter at roundstart, I'd be fully on board with this idea, because at least then there's an alternative and the choice is in the players' hands.

- If it gets even harder, it's going to force everyone that plays engineering to re-learn such a vital aspect of it, and it'll potentially scare off any would-be engineers that are already intimidated by the engine as it currently is. And on some shifts already, when you have to stop and teach an apprentice, it can take long enough for half the station to lose power. If this change makes teaching people take even longer, you'll have half the station smashing down your door to come yell at you to turn the power on already.

- If you really want more complexity or difficulty with the engine, try changing up the gas compositions you use on a shift instead of just conforming to the phoron standard. Changing gasses is pretty high-risk/high-reward. It can be much more dangerous, or require much more tending to constantly to keep the power output up, but you can get far more power out of it, but I feel that should be a choice that players get to make. If they're comfortable with a safe and effective setup then they shouldn't be punished for that, but if they want to branch out and risk safety, they should be rewarded, too.

- The proposals for radiation leakage and such are already a thing, honestly. With some setups I've seen [mention]Flamingo[/mention] (sorry for the mention pls no ban) do, or done myself, radiation leaking into the foyer or janitorial is already a huge problem unless you do some serious renovations, like spending time and resources removing loads of windows and erecting new reinforced walls in their place, and even then, half of engineering is cut off entirely and extremely unsafe unless you have a radiation suit.

- As for the suggestion for phoron degrading into O2 and N2. God. Please no. It doesn't really make sense that this super element that we have just turns into O2 and N2. Also, when hot phoron combines with oxygen, you get fire. The Supermatter already produces small amounts of phoron and oxygen when it's active, and this already causes flash fires in the core. Throwing more oxygen in there is basically an assured recipe for a core fire and delamination, especially if the filters don't actually do their job. Also, gimping the filters in the engine room is going to gimp all of atmos, and there's already hardly any incentive for people to play atmospheric technician. Please no.

Just to reiterate, I think it'd be fine if the alternative ways to power the station (solars, Tesla) were made actually viable or easily possible to actually set up at the start of the shift (having more of the Tesla parts set up at round start would be helpful for instance). But without that, I have a feeling that it's just going to lead to even more shifts going dark 30 minutes in.

[LanceLynxx]

Nitrogen is barely viable as an engine gas, it's absolute trash.

- As for the suggestion for phoron degrading into O2 and N2. God. Please no. It doesn't really make sense that this super element that we have just turns into O2 and N2. Also, when hot phoron combines with oxygen, you get fire. The Supermatter already produces small amounts of phoron and oxygen when it's active, and this already causes flash fires in the core. Throwing more oxygen in there is basically an assured recipe for a core fire and delamination, especially if the filters don't actually do their job. Also, gimping the filters in the engine room is going to gimp all of atmos, and there's already hardly any incentive for people to play atmospheric technician. Please no.

 

That's the entire point

Everyone goes for phoron with no drawbacks at all.

The phoron set up should provide more power, but with more risks associated with it to balance it out.

I said to make it so superheated phoron above a certain temperature could have a chemical reaction by means of pyrolisis. This reaction would turn it into oxygen and nitrogen.

I never said to gimp filters. I simply said that engine performance should degrade over time to a point in which the gasses are produced faster than the filters can filter them. This wouldn't be all of a sudden, but linear or exponential over time. Filters aren't changed. And you could bring the atmos tech to sort that out, for instance.

Creating oxygen would increase risk of a fire, and nitrogen would be there to increase the clogging to pipes. Unless you bring in an atmos tech to substitute the flow pumps for hi-capacity ones. Which actually increases things an atmos tech could contribute to.

Furthermore, this would require replacement of the decomposed phoron if the engine tech didn't cool the loop in time. Which would bring in the atmos tech again.

The phoron set up is like if medical had rezadone at round start. Why use anything else?

It's gotten to the point that security and CEs doesn't even care about engineers breaking into atmospherics.

It just needs balancing. More power, more risks.

[Nortondk]

The phoron set up is like if medical had rezadone at round start. Why use anything else?

It's gotten to the point that security and CEs doesn't even care about engineers breaking into atmospherics.

It just needs balancing. More power, more risks.

So much this!

[duskofdawn]

The phoron set up is like if medical had rezadone at round start. Why use anything else?

It's gotten to the point that security and CEs doesn't even care about engineers breaking into atmospherics.

It just needs balancing. More power, more risks.

 

I think the breaking into atmospherics thing is something that could be fixed by replacing the nitrogen in storage with phoron, or by sequestering canister storage to a shared space.

I think the impasse that we're coming to is this: For newcomers, setting up the SM is already hard and already dangerous. The lack of competent engineers on a low-pop means the engine generally doesn't get setup, as easy as it is. But for those who are thoroughly versed in the engine, it just seems easy, it's set-it-and-forget-it.

I think it's going to be difficult to find a solution that pleases both people. Maybe add in something that's high-risk but optional. Leave the engine as is, but find a way to crank more power out of it if you want to in a way that is higher risk. Maybe have some kind of more fine-tuned control to push the temperature higher, thus squeezing more power out of it. If there is a way to do that, maybe document it better.

[Arrow768]

I am only going to address the first post:

I do not like the idea of increasing the engine difficulty.

As mentioned by Synno, a continous round depends on a working engine.

Increasing the difficulty might seem nice for the more experienced engineers, but if there are no experienced engineers then it will be difficult or even impossible to set up the engine for new or unexperienced people.

If the engine is not set up, the station goes dark by the 30 to 45 minute mark.

At that point you have 3 options as command staff:

• Try to find someone who might be able to set it up, despite them not being a engineer -> With increasing the engine difficulty, that will become more difficult aswell.
  
• Call a ERT. A research station without power is useless. If the station cant fix it, then you need to call a ERT (but that can be difficult to impossible if you have no power in your office)
  
• Call a evacuation. Again, A research station without power is useless. If you cant get anyone to set up power, then it´s time to call it a day and return to central.
  

 

Often enough it ends up being the last option.

Which immediately halts everything that is going on, as the crew is making their way to the shuttle.

I am voting for dismissal due to a few reasons:

• As outlined above, further increasing the difficulty of setting up a reliable power source will cause more issues.
  
• The reasoning behind the suggestion has not been explained sufficiently (Why do we need it, and how does it benefit the game)
  

[Nortondk]

I am only going to address the first post:

I do not like the idea of increasing the engine difficulty.

As mentioned by Synno, a continous round depends on a working engine.

Increasing the difficulty might seem nice for the more experienced engineers, but if there are no experienced engineers then it will be difficult or even impossible to set up the engine for new or unexperienced people..................

That's why it should only be harder for PHORON, not any of the other gasses, you can run the station fine on nitrogen or carbon dioxide, it would never be harder for newbies with my idea, unless the newbie wanted to run a complex setup for some silly reason his first day in engineering.

I am only asking the engine to be harder to work on with phoron currently.

[Zaeperry99]

I am only asking the engine to be harder to work on with phoron currently.

 

Yeah, I'll ditto this. On most other servers with supermatter engines the phoron/plasma setup is 'high risk high reward' or 'can only be done by people who know what they're doing' rather than the default. The fact that the heart of a phoron giant (IIRC, that's what the SM is) is almost infinitely more stable when running on a mysterious gas we hardly understand rather than a tried-and-true coolant is just silly.

I'm also seeing a lot of people saying the engine is hard to set up for new engineers. I have no idea how this is. It's literally a matter of opening the wiki, looking at the Supermatter Engine page, watching the pretty gifs and doing the same thing displayed. It leaves almost no questions, and I set up the engine for the first time using it and it alone. The only 'difficult' part for a new engineer (speaking as somebody who very recently was one) is setting up the SMES with new coils, which isn't on the wiki and also won't 'harm' the engine, just decrease efficiency.

[furrycactus]

I am only going to address the first post:

I do not like the idea of increasing the engine difficulty.

As mentioned by Synno, a continous round depends on a working engine.

Increasing the difficulty might seem nice for the more experienced engineers, but if there are no experienced engineers then it will be difficult or even impossible to set up the engine for new or unexperienced people..................

That's why it should only be harder for PHORON, not any of the other gasses, you can run the station fine on nitrogen or carbon dioxide, it would never be harder for newbies with my idea, unless the newbie wanted to run a complex setup for some silly reason his first day in engineering.

I am only asking the engine to be harder to work on with phoron currently.

 

Nitrogen is a very trashy gas to work with when setting up the engine. Sure, you can get power out of it, but not all that much, the heat transfer rate is garbage, as is the heat capacity and retention, and you need to re-energise the crystal every 20 minutes or the core goes cold; which is a giant hassle in the rounds where there's at least 5 breaches and a blob all happening at once and there's no crew to spare. Also, CO2 is even harder to get than Phoron, because ALL of it is in Atmospherics, and it can clog the pipes.

If you WANT the engine to be hard and more challenging, but offer more rewards, come up with custom gas compositions, or try maintaining a stable crystal matrix while powering it with as many emitter shots as possible. I've done a few of these things under the tutelage of another CE a few months ago. The risk is much higher, but you can get much more power out of it. If you do fuck up, engineering is a crater, but then it's entirely your fault, because you chose to risk it. It's an option for those who want to be daring and try new things, while accepting a risk, and it doesn't screw over less experienced engineers who don't know how to, or aren't confident doing such things.

[LanceLynxx]

If you WANT the engine to be hard and more challenging, but offer more rewards, come up with custom gas compositions, or try maintaining a stable crystal matrix while powering it with as many emitter shots as possible. I've done a few of these things under the tutelage of another CE a few months ago. The risk is much higher, but you can get much more power out of it. If you do fuck up, engineering is a crater, but then it's entirely your fault, because you chose to risk it. It's an option for those who want to be daring and try new things, while accepting a risk, and it doesn't screw over less experienced engineers who don't know how to, or aren't confident doing such things.

 

We don't want the engine to be HARD. We want the phoron set up to be balanced, because as of know, it cranks max output with no real risk to it.

Nitrogen is base one, but also the safest.

CO2 is intermediate and requires some more attention

Phoron is minmax with NO drawbacks.

Sure someone will say "oh but if oxygen gets in the mix"

well, it never does. It's not a real hazard unless you're there to grief or, rarely, get admin permission to fucc the engine. I've never seen a phoron setup go wrong when set up correctly.

It needs to have drawbacks.

Custom mixes aren't part of this at all, thus irrelevant.