An Ode To Fire(Fighting)

[Norwest]

Earlier today, as the Mechanic I flew back into comms range to find a good chunk of the station on fire. Not just 'breached and blown up,' not the usual busted-up areas vented into space, but a proper full-blown fire - an immovable rod had gone straight through Atmos, breaching the mixing tank and venting the oxygen-plasma Turbine mix into Medbay. Even with some areas open to space, there was a massive cloud of plasma still spreading, and a giant fire brewing in the charred space where OR2 used to be. I dropped everything I was doing, grabbed an Atmos hardsuit (since as usual, there were no Atmos Techs to be had), and charged right in with backpack watertank in hand.

The following fifteen minutes were possibly the most fun I've ever had playing Space Station 13.

Even with the high-end Atmospherics tools, like a backpack unit that can turn swathes of fiery plasma into inert nitrogen, a major fire is a tremendous engineering challenge to be overcome. You've got to try and either focus on removing the oxygen or the fuel source for the fire, and often have to choose between building firebreaks (with metal foam grenades/the Atmos backpack, or just building walls up) or trying to just beat out the fire by repeatedly dousing it. Do you try and vent the atmospherics out to space, bearing in mind the danger that all the flying debris poses to you? Do you instead try and contain the fire away from anything valuable and let it burn itself out, or try and lower the temperature enough to stop the blaze? During this marathon, you will also be on fire - quite literally, mind you. It is complicated, extremely engaging, and involves wading into the middle of a raging inferno to put it out with a combination of skill, tools, and cast-iron balls. Needless to say, it's kind of awesomesauce.

Sadly for Atmospherics, it's also unbelievably rare. I've seen maybe one traitor AI in my whole time on Paradise, and without a hijack objective, regular Atmos Techs are forbidden from venting plasma. Past that there's just the piddly scorcher of the pyroclastic anomaly, Toxins screwups, and the once-in-a-blue-moon abductor plasma organs. Firefighting is easily the highlight of any job dealing with Atmos, yet it almost never actually happens. That round today was the first time I've ever actually had the chance to fight a multi-room fire, and God knows I'd love to dive back into that again. The Atmos Tech job is chronically understaffed, and I would argue that the lack of proper fires to fight is a major part of that limiter. After all, when the most fun part of your job happens once in a blue moon, who would want to go through the trouble of setting up a proper heat exchanger array capable of moving 1,400 liters of gas per minute? When there are no big fires to fight, you're spending 10-30 minutes moving pipes around for no real payoff; being able to empty a room's atmosphere in five seconds or less is pretty awesome, but you need a chance to actually put those capabilities into action.

Therefore, I'd like to suggest the following random events to try and add more firefighting into the game without ruining other people's fun in the process:

1. Changing the pyroclastic anomaly: Currently, when the anomaly 'explodes,' it leaves behind a couple slimes. Since people will be responding to reports of a fire with extinguishers anyway, this is kind of a piddly end to a failed anomaly capture. Compare it with failure-states like the massive translocation of the bluespace anomaly, or the explosion and general mess of flux, gravitational, or vortex anomalies, and the pyroclastic one is a bit underwhelming. Therefore, I'd suggest that its failure-state should instead be spawning a large cloud of plasma and oxygen to set off a reasonably large one-room burn. A single-room inferno with a lot of fuel, heat, and oxygen keeping it active would require actual Atmospherics help to contain and extinguish, rather than the current state where the AI can trivially contain the situation with a simple doorbolt+syphon combo.

2. New Moderate Event: 'Plasma Translocation.' The announcement would presumably be something like 'Bluespace abnormalities detected. Plasma-rich atmosphere has been translocated aboard the station. Expected location: [ROOM].' This would involve around a 50-50 plasma/O2 mix being dumped into one or more rooms on the station, which would then result in a high-pressure 30-40-30 plasma-O2-nitrogen mix in the room itself. However, unlike with the anomaly there's no obvious heat source, and the mix wouldn't immediately ignite; it would require crew incompetence to fail at containing it and to set the whole thing ablaze. Since the average Cyberiad crewmember can barely manage to feed themselves without dying, this would happen in a heartbeat the moment some idiot runs in with a lit welder, but the fact that it could be contained safely with prompt and decisive action would make the inevitable failures much more poignant.

 

Regardless of whether or not these proposals are accepted, I would like to make a case for fire and the job focused around fighting it. I often end up playing as an Atmos Tech when I join mid-round, because the position is so deserted normally. Aside from the technical challenge, I'd argue a bit part of that issue is how the coolest part of the job is so chronically neglected. I can't even remember the last time I hauled out a backpack watertank before today, and I'd love another chance to get set on fire. Please, make Atmos great fun again!

Edited October 11, 2017 by Norwest