Atmospherics Upgrade: Gases, Pressure, Health, and EVA.

[LanceLynxx]

A REWORK OF GASES, HEALTH, ATMOS-RELATED THINGS & EVA

1-EVA SUIT PRESSURIZATION

Make EVA suits have a suit pressure selection dial. Said internal pressure would come from an attached gas tank.

Example: In real life, space stations are set to 101 kPa. EVA suits, are not. They are set to much lower pressures, as to make the pressure difference with space the smallest possible, decreasing the physical stress on the suit and also decreasing possibility of decompression sickness in case of a punctured suit (more on that later).

Thus, you would have to pressurize (or depressurize) your suit using your air tank and an airlock, that would cycle slowly to allow for decompression without decompression illness.

Also, if you pressure the suit incorrectly (too big a pressure difference from the environment), it would puncture or burst!

So weigh the pros and cons: Do you want more safety in case of puncture but have to deal with decompression protocols, or do you want a high pressure suit that can burst due to differential, or something in between? Many options.

ACTUALLY LEARN EVA TRAINING, amirite??

FOR MORE INFO ON THIS SECTION: http://www.asc-csa.gc.ca/eng/sciences/osm/decomp.asp

2-GAS TOXICITY

Make Oxygen and NItrogen toxic.

Air toxicity is due to oxygen. That happens when partial pressure of oxygen in a 21% oxygen mix reaches 1.6 bar / 160 kPa. But that's the pressure of OXYGEN alone. Since 160 kPa would be 21% of the mix, we can make that the Nitrogen, 79% of the mix, would be at 602 kPa.

This mean that the ENTIRE air pressure would be around 762 kPa to even BEGIN being a problem. And even then, you have to calculate the exposure time to see what the effect is. This requires some research for data.

BUT!!!!

Before oxygen becomes an issue, we have Nitrogen Narcosis.

This happens when normal air (79% nitrogen) is at around 500kPa. At those pressures, the partial pressure of nitrogen makes you hallucinate, have mental confusion, and become spatially unaware, and passing out.

basically turns normal nitrogen into a nervous central system anaesthetic.

Which is why it is compared to being drunk!

Worth noting, using internals in case of overpressure would not help. You would still be breathing air at the same pressure as the environment (or else you wouldn't be able to inhale at all), just from a tank instead of ambient. Unless that tank contains a special air mix (more on that later)

So, implementing toxins damage for Oxygen toxicity

Giving the Drunk, Drowzy, Sleepy and Painkiller effects to Nitrogen Narcosis.

FOR MORE INFO ON THIS SECTION:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partial_pressure

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maximum_operating_depth

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxygen_toxicity

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitrogen_narcosis

3-NITROGEN, DECOMPRESSION SICKNESS, AND BAROTRAUMA

A much bigger and common problem arising from overpressure for extended periods is that nitrogen becomes dissolved in the blood. Under pressure, nitrogen would be absorbed into the bloodstream until the solution became saturated. Depending on the pressure gradient from the high pressure area to the lower pressure area, it could cause the bubbles to suddenly precipitate in the blood, due to supersaturation of gas in a liquid, creating quite literally an embolism that can cause cardiac arrest and also a stroke in the brain.

Ever shaken a can of soda and opened it? That's what happens if you go from high pressure to low pressure with dissolved nitrogen in the blood. Pop.

Furthermore, if the change in pressure is made too fast, lungs might burst and collapse due to air not escaping fast enough before expanding, causing barotrauma, quite literally bursting your lungs and capillaries and drowning you in your own body fluids.

Both these problems are part of Decompression Sickness.

And it hurts like a motherfucker (or so I've been told in class)

So right off the bat we would have both brute and oxy damage for lungs in case of barotrauma

Brute damage to heart in case of embolism / stroke

Brain damage in case of embolism / cardiac arrest

and as a bonus, since these nitrogen bubbles cause intense pain, you could have some paincriting involved.

Worth noting that HOW this happens depending on two factors:

1) Pressure

1)How long you stay in a high pressure environment. The more time you spend at higher pressure, the more nitrogen your tissues absorb, up until tissue saturation level at that specific pressure. (This is called Saturation Diving)

3)Minimum pressure for nitrogen to begin being a problem is around 150 kPa air pressure. This is what we call a Safety Stop in diving. 3 minutes at 5 meters (under "no decompression" rules)

Furthermore, effects of nitrogen bubbles are not immediate. So you could feel fine and go about your shift thinking you are fine, when you start going ill out of a sudden. Which is interesting, in my opinion.

Barotrauma is not. Barotrauma is immediate.

FOR MORE INFORMATION ON THIS SECTION:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decompression_illness

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decompression_sickness

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_embolism

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barotrauma

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturation_diving

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decompression_(diving)#Safety_stop

4-MEDICAL TREATMENT

So now you ask "wow this looks like you'd be making a medical nightmare for the baldies and casuals"

Fear not.

Treatment for Decompression Sickness can be done in two ways:

1) IMMEDIATE administration of 100% oxygen at 101 kPa. This will stop intake of nitrogen from the air, although may cause oxygen-toxicity related issues. This does not eliminate nitrogen though. If the person has a Decompression Sickness stage one, which is mostly pain and light damage, that is enough to cope with the natural release of nitrogen, otherwise you need to quickly move the patient to...

2) THE HYPERBARIC CHAMBER! Basically, a high pressure room (ideally the same pressure as where the patient was), that will have it's pressure reduced over time until it becomes 101 kPa. The important thing is the pressure lowering not being too fast, giving enough time for the nitrogen bubbles to be eliminated without making huge bubbles in the arteries.

3) the IDEAL choice is complex: A hyperbaric chamber, with an air mix called Heliox, which basically substitutes nitrogen for helium, negating the effects of bends, while maintaining oxygen at a safe level even under pressure. The ratio depends on how much pressure is in the chamber. The higher the pressure, the lower the oxygen % in the Heliox mix (because, as explained before, if oxygen partial pressure becomes 160 kPa, you're gonna begin having oxygen toxicity)

Other mixes exist, such as Nitrox (more oxygen and less nitrogen, so you can stay at medium-high pressures for more time but also not worrying about oxygen toxicity), Trimix (Helium Nitrogen and Oxygen), Hydrox (Hydrogen and oxygen), and many others.

FOR MORE INFORMATION ON THIS SECTION:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperbaric_medicine

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperbaric_treatment_schedules

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gas_blending_for_scuba_diving

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heliox

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitrox

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrox_(breathing_gas)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydreliox

CONCLUDING

All these things could give Atmos Techs new things to work on, too. Mixing internals tanks; Setting up a hyperbaric chamber with the correct air composition and pressure; Overviewing EVA activities; and so on.

Furthermore, you wouldn't be able to just casually breathe 100% pure oxygen internals all the time. You would need the right mix for the right type of job.

Being suddenly depressurized could have severe health effects that could go from immediate threat to barely noticeable in the short term. This would give something new to medical too.

Bad side is, miners would be even MORE fucked heheh.

You would also have to ACTUALLY HAVE TO TRAIN EVA to put on a EVA suit with proper pressuring and timing as to not develop Decompression Sickness or not burst your suit, you would have a variety of gas mixes to think about, pros and cons, the type of operation, so forth. MECHANICALLY ENFORCED EVA TRAINING RP MOTHERFUCKER.

Furthermore, you could also make different races have different thresholds for each. But that would not be important before everything else.

This is a mighty mighty long shot of a suggestion. But I thought, why not make it? Worst that can happen is a "lmao too complex too realistic it's a game I ded pls restart" am I right?

I've just been thinking of this over the days I'm having my Divemaster course.

Thoughts?

[keinto]

Yes, please.

[Kaed]

I don't know man, I see you put a lot of thought into this, but I feel like this is way too much complexity for people to have and still enjoy in a casual Spacemens game.

I don't think we need to make the lives of miners even harder than they already are, just for the sake of some added realism.

But then again, I always found atmos to be the least interesting department on the station, so my bias is probably showing here.

[Asheram]

Normally I'd be all for it, but this would be another thing for people to be annoyed about, and they already want to spend as little time in the medbay as possible.

Folk (what I have noticed of it) already hate spending time in Medbay, and we now have to put them in the "time out" room because they ripped their suit? No thanks.

If it was a spare room where you could have self-treatment adjacent to the medbay, built so you easily could toss people in there? Possible with some reskinned sleepers or even cryo tubes? Sure.

Something locked deep inside the medbay where you have to constantly monitor it? Nope.

Some thoughts from an MD.

[Butterrobber202]

This would be a massive pain in the ass to code.

[KattenHatten]

One more thing for newcomers to crack their head onto. Don't get me wrong, It's an ambitious idea, but it still needs to be polished and polished hard, before it would be worthwhile of all those lines of code.