[2 dismissal]Change the Engine Room Cannisters

[Eve]

Most of you would know that the go-to engine setup of engineers is 1 canister of Phoron in the Warm (cyan coloured) loop, and 2 canisters in the Cool (green coloured) loop.

 

 

This isn't the only setup, really, but most, if not all, setups contain at least two cannisters of Phoron.

In the current situation, we've four cannisters of Nitrogen in the far corner of the engine room, located here:

 

 

These canisters are rarely, if not never, used. And when someone does use them, they use one or two canisters, at most.

And currently, to do the most common setup, engineers need to go all the way into Atmospherics, hack through two doors, and then pull two canisters of Phoron in their storage all the way to the engine. The remaining required canister is located in hard storage, which is much easier to access.

So, my suggestion is to change the four canisters to be something either like this:

 

 

-or something like this:

 

 

Now keep in mind that rarely do we get Atmospheric Technicians in engineering. And it's even rarer that they'd know what they help the engine out, instead of trying to fill distro with Phoron.

With this, I think people who are newer to engineering will not have the burden of dragging two canisters all the way to the engine room after hacking through two doors, and the existing engineers will find their jobs easier at the start of rounds, and will be able to set the shields earlier on.

[LanceLynxx]

eh, if they are new engineers, why are they going for a phoron setuup that is more advanced in the first place? There's a reason why nitrogen cannisters are there.

[Bauser]

This discussion might benefit from some supplementary explanation for non-engineer players like myself.

Lance's post makes it sound like phoron is not actually necessary for making the engine work (but rather can make it work better somehow?) If this is the case, why should engineers automatically have access to the phoron needed to perform this upgrade? Is it unreasonable to say that an improvement over the baseline should require the support of an atmospheric technician? Plus, couldn't you just ask the AI for access in most cases?

In total, it sounds like the current state of things is that you need to do a little extra work in order to get a little extra reward. Is that not the case? Because that would be perfectly reasonable.

[Eve]

The Phoron setup isn't too advanced, really. And the current engine is beyond terrible with a full Nitrogen build, to the point where it starts to melt after five emitter shots.

I thus, found Phoron setups to not be upgrades, but actually essential, really.

[Pratepresidenten]

To put it simply for you non-engineers.

In engineering, there is a manual, the Supermatter Engine Operating Manual.

It details how you set up the supermatter engine, using nitrogen only. Brand new engineers tend to follow this book to the letter, and scratch their head when the supermatter inevitably delaminates from overheating, as a full N2 engine is completely unsustainable with the instructions indicated.

But seeing there is a readily available phoron canister in the engineering hard storage, I dont think swapping them out would matter all that much, but perhaps a tweak to the instruction manual would serve new engineers better.

Not having phoron in there also gives the Atmostech a reason to exist.

Besides, the N2 has its uses for saving a delaminating engine if you dont have phoron readily available, and you dont have time to hack into everywhere to get some.

[Elohi Adanvdo]

I agree with the others. Believe it or not, yes, phoron is a more advanced setup simply because of the sheer danger that comes with working with the gas. Remember Sid? Imagine me playing him two to three years ago when I was new to the job, game, and server. Now imagine him as an apprentice pressured by the rest of the crew to set up the engine. Now imagine him accidentally opening the valve on a Phoron canister. A cannonical accident happened, and it was a pain to clean, but he thankfully pulled through without much in the way of harm or damage. It also caused him to never use Phoron again in the hot loop, thus his 3 CO2 Hot/ 3 Phoron Cold Mixed Setup was born. With anyone else, it could have been a full-on catastrophic disaster that involved a massive fire and a Supermatter delamination. Not fun.

Additionally, Atmos techs are rare quite possibly because some people might find their role useless. What's the point in making a tech when an engineer can and will do your job anyways? It's incredibly frustrating. With a tech on board, they can be asked for the cans, and have them refilled and supercooled. They have a job then. Otherwise, it's just staring at a screen all shift, waiting for an alarm to pop up. Woo. Fun. The last thing we need to do is make them obsolete. It's unfair.

And last but not least, yes, Nitrogen can be useful but is not suggested as a fuel often because of instability. However, we can meet halfway and instead put in CO2, Sid's choice of fuel for the hot loop. From the Wiki: "CO2 is slightly better than Nitrogen, due to it's 50% larger heat capacity. This means engine cooled by CO2 transfers heat to TEG's more efficiently - resulting in slightly lower operating temperature and higher power output. It has no disadvantages over N2." It's also a good fire retardant, which Phoron is blatantly not. A good, basic mix setup with CO2/N2 would be two CO2 in the hot loop and two N2 in the cold, maybe three, leaving one or two left over depending for cooling. All that's left to be done is to change the filters, and give it about fifteen or twenty shots or so, give or take, and you've got a decent engine that ocassionally needs to be checked up on instead of constantly babysat. Plus, it's safer. That sounds like a good compromise, right?

Of course, with four Nitrogen and two Carbon Dioxide in the room, players are free to choose the basic Nitrogen setup, learn to do a safe Mixed, work with an atmos tech to get Phoron, or get it themselves. Please note that Phoron is dangerous and I am implying that it should be worked for to obtain. With such options, it allows for learning as well as risk/reward. #MakeAtmosiaGreatAgain

[Asheram]

Additionally, Atmos techs are rare quite possibly because some people might find their role useless. What's the point in making a tech when an engineer can and will do your job anyways? It's incredibly frustrating. With a tech on board, they can be asked for the cans, and have them refilled and supercooled. They have a job then. Otherwise, it's just staring at a screen all shift, waiting for an alarm to pop up. Woo. Fun. The last thing we need to do is make them obsolete. It's unfair.

assionally needs to be checked up on instead of constantly babysat. Plus, it's safer. That sounds like a good compromise, right?

So instead of just ignoring the job, someone is forced to take the job for five minutes before reverting back to staring at the screen for all shift?

Heck, you might as well fold Engine Technician into Atmospherics so they've got two screens to be watching.

[Azande]

Phoron engines delaminate less often than nitrogen engines. yes plz.

[ToasterStrudel]

I made this post a while ago, and it got shut down by Devs like two days in.

I still one hundred percent agree to changing the cans that are there, or just outright removing them. They are hardly used, and when they are used, it usually is the result of a delam.

It isn't going to encourage Atmos players to play by keeping them, because even with them in there, most Engineers still just hack the doors even if there is an Atmos tech. Not to mention with how boring and tedious Atmos tech is right now, hardly anyone but a few of us masochists play them. Theres not really an easy guide on upgrades to Atmos, so if you're a new player, you either have nothing to do, or get taught by someone else who was Taught Atmos.

#deletn2

[Elohi Adanvdo]

So instead of just ignoring the job, someone is forced to take the job for five minutes before reverting back to staring at the screen for all shift?

Heck, you might as well fold Engine Technician into Atmospherics so they've got two screens to be watching.

 

Actually, that is exactly what I've been contemplating.

[Asheram]

So instead of just ignoring the job, someone is forced to take the job for five minutes before reverting back to staring at the screen for all shift?

Heck, you might as well fold Engine Technician into Atmospherics so they've got two screens to be watching.

 

Actually, that is exactly what I've been contemplating.

Would this mean that you'd move the Supermass engine down to the sublevel, and move the incomplete Tesla engine up to the main?

It'd be interesting, giving both "Engineering Departments" their own engine to deal with. (and actually encourage it)

[Elohi Adanvdo]

So instead of just ignoring the job, someone is forced to take the job for five minutes before reverting back to staring at the screen for all shift?

Heck, you might as well fold Engine Technician into Atmospherics so they've got two screens to be watching.

 

Actually, that is exactly what I've been contemplating.

Would this mean that you'd move the Supermass engine down to the sublevel, and move the incomplete Tesla engine up to the main?

It'd be interesting, giving both "Engineering Departments" their own engine to deal with. (and actually encourage it)

 

If the Tesla was "complete" and not completely buggy, I'd be all for it. But the next best thing is to simply give atmospherics access to the engine. But this change would definately give the techs more to do- engine techs and atmos techs both deal with gasses and sit and watch the screen all day, so why not?

[Scheveningen]

I'm a bit surprised to see supposed engineer players calling a phoron engine 'dangerous.'

A phoron-phoron loop is completely sabotage-proof given that phoron gas has the highest heat capacity in the game. Because of this, it can safely reach high temperatures without overloading the supermatter compared to other gases, and the rate at which it does so is much much slower than other engines using different gas set-ups. This makes a phoron-exclusive engine set-up downright safer and easier to set-up, and it's also statistically superior in terms of what it offers in terms of wattage due to how the mechanics of the TEGs work. They give power to the station based on the heat in the SM chamber. The hotter the better.

It's much easier to respond to an engine overloading due to deliberate sabotage rather than issues due to failures to filtering and etc. Especially when deliberate sabotage is marked by an obvious, "THE ENGINE IS FUCKING BLOWING UP" by the supermatter monitor over engineering radios.

Nitrogen has a very low heat capacity and only functions as an effective coolant. Meaning you'd only dump it straight into the core to equalize the room temperature and hopefully save the SM from delaminating. Phoron still acts as both an effective heat agent and a coolant on its own, however. It's generally unwise to run a nitrogen engine ever when the superior option exists to prolong a round and be very difficult to sabotage in general.

[Elohi Adanvdo]

It is not sabotage-proof in the least, and can be incredibly easy to use to really fuck up the station. Please note that this doesn't necessarily refer to gas already in the chamber. It also includes the canisters itself. And the easiest way to seriously damage the station? Besides delamiating the SM in several ways that can more often than not take even intermediate players difficulty in handling- and trust me, you can get real creative- the simplest thing is to open up the chamber doors, or just a valve on a canister. It happens sometimes to even engineering regulars; please refer to my first post for the full story on that one.

Basically, phoron, in a canister or used in the engine, can massive potential hazard. No one should have easy access to it, period, and should have to work to get to use it. If you want an intermediate replacement which I have had no trouble with using before (again, it's in one of my earlier posts to as of how/why), CO2 makes an excellent replacement with a decent capacity, only a little maintenance, and meets the power demand for the station well enough. Eve could probably back me up here on my claims, as I've discussed it with them a few times and they've also seen it in action in-game.

[Alberyk]

There was really similar discussion on this already, and I did not change my instance in this case.

Voting for dismissal.

[LordFowl]

Voting for dismissal. As this suggestion is nearly identical to the one Alberyk previously linked, one could even argue that it should have been closed under the rule against posting previously suggested suggestions.