Jupiter Storm Posted September 22, 2019 Posted September 22, 2019 I scoured the forums for this, and couldn't find any other mention besides one that dated back to 2015, so here goes... I don't want to make a big song and a dance about this either, it's a really elementary issue and it should not be a problem to fix! Large Air Vents: There are three problems with these. Firstly, they are listed as Equipment, not Environment, which is a bit of an issue in itself due to the fact that when the power goes, miners can't cycle back inside until somebody sorts out the power, but I can understand why, when I outline the second issue. Secondly, they draw 90,000 watts when in operation. Yes, I'm not joking, this is a very real figure, I've observed it on countless rounds. That is the combined draw, not the individual draw. Frequent use of the airlock will cause problems if the RCON setup is not optimal - which, given some of the RCON loadouts I see people preferring to use, is a problem only another observant Engineer or an A.I. with the know-how can fix. Finally, they don't seem to work any better than normal vents do. This is something I observed from my time on the NSS Exodus, whereby the Mining Airlock is 3 tiles smaller, and has only two normal air vents. Proposal: One of the following things needs to happen. 1) Large Air Vents are simply replaced with normal Air Vents - this, I think, is the most reasonable and sensible, because Miners inevitably WILL force the airlock regardless of whether they're large or not. 2) The power draw of Large Air Vents is significantly reduced, allowing for more leeway. 3) To understand this third proposal, we need to examine where the problem with airlocks stems from. Cycling in: Airlock is super fast, unless the canisters are basically empty - which, is rarely an issue, because they are filled directly from Distro. FILLING airlocks has never been a problem, as you're applying a positive pressure gradient from 200kPa to 0kPa. Cycling out: Airlock is REALLY slow. This is because the air vents are working against a negative pressure gradient, pulling 101kPa into canisters that have 200kPa already inside them. SO! 3) IF we're keeping the Large Air Vents, they need to suck air really quickly, like super quickly, otherwise they're not doing the job they were actually installed to do, in the first place, reducing the time that the APC is under that massive power load, and giving people less incentive to force the airlock. Thoughts?
ferner Posted September 22, 2019 Posted September 22, 2019 I'll be taking a deeper look at this issue, it's something I too have noticed.
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