Improving Jobs: Atmospheric Technician

[Keroman]

 

This time around we're going to take a look at the Atmospheric Technician job. One thing I want anyone posting in this thread to understand is that I will not allow this thread to turn into a ZAS vs. LINDA argument. The atmospheric system we use is not up for debate and changing it is not an option at this time. Any suggestion you make in this thread should be done so with the understanding that we are and will continue to be using the LINDA atmospheric system.

 

Before we begin I want to stress that posting an idea in this thread in no way guarantees that it will be added to the game. I don't want that to discourage you, however! If you've got an idea that you think would be fun, please, please post and we'll discuss it!

 

Atmospheric Technician

 

Consider the following questions when posting your ideas:

- What are the responsibilities of the job?

- What capabilities do they already have? (i.e. access, equipment available, etc.)

- Potential for Antagonists

- How much does this job affect the round? (i.e. is the station crippled without it or do people barely notice when it's unmanned?)

 

Note: In 1 week (or when the thread has died out) we'll move on to the next job. Don't be afraid to suggest what job the next thread should focus on!

 

[NethIafin]

 

Right now my biggest problems with atmospherics is that:

1) I can't set up TEG in enough time with all atmos malfunctions and waiting time on piping

2) the atmos is PERFECTLY in the middle of "it is nice and compact" and "it is spaceous and allowing" that the room itself is a mix of "stuff already done" and "not enough space to do fun stuff"

 

So ideas:

1) Add an additional space loop near turbine. Maybe create another room near it (or use biowaste disposal - room near turbine) that only engineering+atmos has access to. That is for TEG and other heat/cold stuff

2) make single pipe for disposal loop to filter loop. Less stuff there. Let AtmoTech do all the stuff - give few boxes with all the heater/cooler items and a second pipe dispensers IN the atmo room

 

Kero, syndicate next, please

 

[BiberDark]

 

 

• Maybe more tools to restore and rebuild areas that are blown up by meteroids, bombs.

• Equipment for Airlockseals ( like a Autoclave ? don´t know what this is called in english ), where you can block of people, who intend to open the fucking doors, where behind lies a plasmafire and so on.

   

  

   

only opens for people with the right id (engineer, atmospheric, borgs, med-mechs [spaceproof beings] ((heads are not mentioned, because of reason)) ( Special ID Access requirement )

a easier way to build pipelines ( maybe a special rcd ) the machine is kind of silly and you have only one

an emergency vent, which you can build on top of a already build pipe ( even if it as high pressure), so that you can make a certain part of a pipe isolated to repair, improve, or sabotage things

a traitor item could be a small attachment to a pipe ( where you can pump an neurotoxin in a specific room, like a stunning gas or even deadlier (Immediate effect, even at the lowest concentration) [not available with a chem master ( unique gas for telecrystals ) (maybe in a syndicate shop at the station, see other suggestions)

improved air filters (it took ages to filter the gas out of maint )

 

 

A more difficult idea is to build several atmospherican hubs around the station.

 

 

• a Master hub ( today's atmos ) delivers high quantities of O2 / N2 / Plasma and so on ( big high pressure pipes) to the small Control-hubs

• the small control hubs provide a access control tool to define the Mixing ratio and components, temperature

each department (or even room, but i think this is to complex) could be regulated individual

this mix is not stable and would require constant maintaining, if you dont want something terrible go wrong. For example a malfunction, where the mix is changed from 20 % O2 to 100 % and a whelder behaves like a flamethrower.

would be possible to define alien quarters for voxlike creatures, or plasmaman

areas with high temperatures for reptilian lifeforms and so on ( do you remember babylon 5, this had special departments for non o2 breathing species

 

 

 

 

Integrate a third cycle (water and sewage)

 

• all interactions with machinery (high impact) and consoles (low impact) produce a different amount of dirt on your clothes and body

• you require to wash yourself and your clothes on a regular basis, more often for dirty works, janitor , surgeon, medic , engineer

if you are not clean enough you get sick, and you smell other people can see this due a little smell animation above you

you can infect other people

dirty clothes have own sprites ( same as blood but grey )

### now to the watercycle ####

the Hub supplies the department with fresh and clean water. That you need to do your work, science and cleaning (bartender, soap, drinking water etc)

without a functional water supply , the sinks, toilets, wash machines and showers don´t work.

problems see above

Hydroponic could clean water due to special plants in a tank, that filters the waste our of it. ( maybe special resources get this way )

 

 

//\\ Hydroponics next //\\ §§ make it the source of all air in the station (the lung) (o2 production with algae)

- Hydroponics is part of atmosia

 

[Dasneko]

As someone who will never touch this with a 20 meter toilet brush it would be nice to have a introductory and tutorial video series aimed to bring people into Atmos granted this has nothing to do with the actual game itself.

[alexpkeaton]

 

This time around we're going to take a look at the Atmospheric Technician job.

 

Oh God, Kero, you've done it now...

 

I don't play atmos tech much. Funny enough, though, it was one of the first jobs besides civilian I did try.

 

I'll stay away from any technical stuff here because quite frankly I don't know it. But I do have a couple of suggestions.

 

1) Give atmos tech access to the engineering outpost (pretty sure they don't have access right now). If I'm not mistaken there is one, possibly two more pipe dispensers there. Engineering proper could care less about these, unless they want to build themselves some infinite disposal loops.

 

2) Provide enough atmos hardsuits for the job slots. In the once-in-a-blue-moon situation where atmos techs are actually needed for their job anytime during the round, they will require one, so this isn't the same deal as why engineering doesn't need to have enough engi hardsuits for their staff. (I'm not saying it wouldn't be nice, but at least I can appreciate the reasoning)

 

3. Space to let the imagination run wild. Atmos tech doesn't currently have a lot to do. Maybe this thread can change that. But, either way, something I think atmos (and really, engineering in general) needs, is a lot of blank canvas space. As in empty. An APC and some wiring, but nothing else. Not the derelict or the incomplete station, but real space attached to the Cyberiad proper where atmos players can tinker and build and possibly develop something useful (or doom everyone with an attempt at a SM engine). Engineering needs space to do engineering stuff. Otherwise, you have a job with 5 minutes of work for one crewmember (engineer), or a job with zero minutes of work (atmos tech). You know what they say, "Idle hands are the Syndicate's workshop!" Let's Make Engineering Great Again, Build Some More Walls , and get those hands working for Nanotrasen again!

 

Kero, after the Syndicate and any other requests, perhaps the IAA deserves a little love.

 

[Dinarzad]

 

Eyyyyyyyyyy

Personal Opinion time:

The main goal should be giving Atmospheric Technicians something to even do to begin with. And I don't mean this in the age old "sped linda plz"

Because even with that, Atmos Tech would still have no real job to speak of.

The short an sour of it is: There is no real NEED for an Atmospheric Technician right now. Vents do a perfectly acceptable job on their own of refilling a room's atmosphere, Scrubbers usually do their job a-okay as well. The only times an Atmos Tech truly NEEDS to leave the Motherland of Atmosia, is in the event of very large scale disasters.

A large scale plasma fire needs techs to be out an about, actively moving portable scrubbers and air pumps in order to get an area habitable again before 2018 hits, but a regular ol' hull breach or even small scale bomb? Typically, as long as the pipes are still there, all you need is a regular engineer to patch the wall an then just... let atmospherics take care of itself. At worst you fiddle with air alarms in person, but usually you can do that from the Central Computer.

 

I think we need to figure out if there's even a -need- for Atmospheric Techs to exist as their own job, is there enough reason to justify it's own slot, compared to just making it an Engineering Alternate title, similar to what was done with Xenobiologist.

 

As for ideas to flesh out the job and give it things to do/reason to be, that's gonna be hard without fiddling with Atmos code itself, since unless atmospheric things happen that require a technician dedicated to them, their job is just as easily done by a standard engie.

Honestly, the best I got is a random event chance for a fire to break out somewhere (Can say faulty electronics or wiring in a department/maintenance tunnel have started an electrical fire.) That at least lets Atmos techs do their side-job of being the Spess Firefighter, and fires make hot gasses, which would also give Atmosia some work and reasons to make more efficient cooling loops/waste loops.

 

[Dasneko]

 

You are out and floating about in space. Atmospherics SHOULD be an important duty and it makes sense to separate it into its own slot. The main problem I see is that the station rarely deals with the problems of keeping an atmosphere in space. Perhaps it is too automated at this point or perhaps the system is too perfect. I dont personally know what the issues of having an atmosphere in space means but lets say we program in atmospheric issues to trigger throughout the shift. Something like the space fungus thing except it infests pipes and ruins air quality. Perhaps some vents or scrubbers break or lose some functionality at intervals.

 

Things that inconvenience people enough that it is an issue but does not cause the shuttle to be called.

 

[Habalabam]

 

Flow meter.

Measures how much gas passes a given point in the pipe.

 

Alternatively/additionally, it could be a carried instrument that you pointed at a pipe to get a reading. It can be a "hold still for five seconds"-type of action to get a reading.

 

When you only have pressure spot reading, you still don't know if you're actually moving stuff. Flow pumps don't do anything if they suck at vacuum. Pressure pumps don't move stuff if target pressure is reached and there is nothing pulling stuff our of the target reservoir.

It could also be good in finding bottlenecks by locating the pump that works to capacity.

---

 

Also, it would be good to be able to fix a pipe that is underneath/inside a wall without dismantling the wall. A special RCD thingy perhaps.

 

[NethIafin]

 

ACTUALLY, additional stuff to consider

1) Allow constructing of airlock cycle rooms (with airlock controls and sensors that you connect via multitool)

2) in other words - everything built by the start of the game should be rebuildable

 

But this is more for engineering, even thou airlock is related to atmo more

 

[BiberDark]

 

A pipe infection of an alien lifeform ( Goe ) - this is not a round type, but a common random event ( 2-4 times a round ]

 

A highly annoying organic lifeform: The Goe

 

A organic lifeform, consisting of colonies of single cells breeding in the vents and pipes.

If the scrubber and vents are "infected" they are catapulting new goes around, contaminating the room further. (Same affect like a hacked cleaning bot with gibs)

During the time of growth the infection spreads along the pipes into other rooms, where it is blossom again at a vent or scrubber.

 

 

The Goe infects pipes and spreads along them.The pipes and vents must be be replaced in a special way.

 

 

To be replaced the room has to be cooled / or heated to a certain temperature so the green goe stops his spreading i. Only then i can be removed from tools, floors machines and so on. ( Something like -200 C or +200 C )

A single whelder is not enough to kill it, only special application of chems can replace it.

 

Different types of goe:

 

Conditions needed for replacement:

 

Green Goe

To be replaced the room condition has to be

 

• about or higher then 200 degrees

• a low oxygen level max. 5 %

administer special reagent x-100

scrape off

 

 

Blue Goe

 

• room has to be equal or cooler then -150 degress Celsius

• requires has high oxygen level about 50 % or more

administer special reagent x-300

scrape off

 

 

Red Goe

 

• room has to be at +- 20° C

• no oxygen, no nitrogen ( nearly vacuum )

administer special reagent x-200

goe has to be burned with a whelder

scrape off

 

 

Failing to hit the right conditions will result in: (all conditions must be fulfilled)

 

• (random event) --> randomly choosen one of the events ( each time application failed )

• massive spreading

mutation to highly corrosive ( hull breach room is destroyed, people dead )

maybe a slime enemy npc ( something funny ) [for others to watch]

outbreak of a plasmafire

 

 

[alexpkeaton]

 

A pipe infection of an alien lifeform ( Goe ) - this is not a round type, but a common random event ( 2-4 times a round ]

 

A highly annoying organic lifeform: The Goe

 

A organic lifeform, consisting of colonies of single cells breeding in the vents and pipes.

If the scrubber and vents are "infected" they are catapulting new goes around, contaminating the room further. (Same affect like a hacked cleaning bot with gibs)

During the time of growth the infection spreads along the pipes into other rooms, where it is blossom again at a vent or scrubber.

 

 

The Goe infects pipes and spreads along them.The pipes and vents must be be replaced in a special way.

 

 

To be replaced the room has to be cooled / or heated to a certain temperature so the green goe stops his spreading i. Only then i can be removed from tools, floors machines and so on. ( Something like -200 C or +200 C )

A single whelder is not enough to kill it, only special application of chems can replace it.

 

Different types of goe:

 

Conditions needed for replacement:

 

Green Goe

To be replaced the room condition has to be

 

• about or higher then 200 degrees

• a low oxygen level max. 5 %

administer special reagent x-100

scrape off

 

 

Blue Goe

 

• room has to be equal or cooler then -150 degress Celsius

• requires has high oxygen level about 50 % or more

administer special reagent x-300

scrape off

 

 

Red Goe

 

• room has to be at +- 20° C

• no oxygen, no nitrogen ( nearly vacuum )

administer special reagent x-200

goe has to be burned with a whelder

scrape off

 

 

Failing to hit the right conditions will result in: (all conditions must be fulfilled)

 

• (random event) --> randomly choosen one of the events ( each time application failed )

• massive spreading

mutation to highly corrosive ( hull breach room is destroyed, people dead )

maybe a slime enemy npc ( something funny ) [for others to watch]

outbreak of a plasmafire

 

 

I think this is a decent starting point for something, though I think these are a little too involved to fix. I don't think they should be something that any powergamer could be able to fix with a few tools, but it should be fewer steps to resolve.

 

I really like the idea that a room needs to be at a certain condition (temperature and/or gases) to be able to resolve the infestation. I can see a situation where a work area needs to be evacuated so that a panic syphon can be run, or the temperature can be cranked up to high levels, or a significant amount of CO2 be pumped in.

 

I could even see a certain infestation whose only cure is a small amount of plasma gas pumped in for 2 minutes or so. Then the room would need to be scrubbed for workers to re-enter. An actual purpose for having plasma gas hooked into atmos! (Never really understood why that was).

 

The infestation should have serious consequences if left untreated. Not round-ending like a vending machine revolt can be, but the potential for an especially virulent strain of weed growth, or plasma gas release (as suggested above), or a significant corruption of the atmos in the contaminated area and downstream locations with toxins. A slime enemy as suggested sounds kind of cool. Perhaps some corrupted diona nympths too, perhaps.

 

[Citinited]

 

What if we just removed everything inside atmos?

 

 

My reasoning is that this way, someone actually has to put in the legwork to make distribution begin to fill with air, similar to how engineers have to set up the engine at roundstart. Most atmos techs also just rework the entire area anyway, so removing everything inside atmospherics would remove the need to have to remove pipes before you can install your own setup. There should still probably be freezers inside atmos, but they could be put anywhere (or the required parts could be stuck inside a crate or something).

 

A bigger atmospherics area would be great, too.

 

Other ideas:

 

• Make atmospherics pipes burst under pressures greater than about 4500kPa or so (except for special high-pressure pipes you can dispense). I think other servers might have this?

• Port the rapid pipe dispenser from /tg/. I know I've already suggested this in the past but it needs someone to actually put in the legwork...

Readd the windows between atmospherics and engineering so the place feels sort of connected to engineering.

Remove most of the air in the oxygen and nitrogen tanks; instead of having them start at 90,000kPa, have them start at 2500kPa or so.

 

1) Give atmos tech access to the engineering outpost (pretty sure they don't have access right now). If I'm not mistaken there is one, possibly two more pipe dispensers there. Engineering proper could care less about these, unless they want to build themselves some infinite disposal loops.

 

Atmos techs already have this. Both pipe dispensers are there.

 

Edited January 7, 2017 by Guest

[Habalabam]

 

I agree that the atmo area could be bigger. As long as you need a whole tile for one stretch of piping, pipe setups are area expensive. Very little space for side projects unless you move shop to the abandoned facilities across the hallway from engineering.

 

However, I think the system needs to be functional and autonomous, but suboptimal, at round start. You should benefit from atmo techs, but not do-or-die when they aren't there.

 

[Citinited]

 

However, I think the system needs to be functional and autonomous, but suboptimal, at round start. You should benefit from atmo techs, but not do-or-die when they aren't there.

 

Consider the engine. The station needs the engine to survive. Why shouldn't atmos be the same? (Also, there's more than enough air to breathe in every room until places start being breached, so it's not like you are immediately going to keel over and die if they're absent.) The AI / the CE can also let people in to set the place up.

 

Also, atmos is already quite optimal at roundstart... (by optimal I mean that it puts out lots of air and can scrub anything that happens to befall the station, as scrubbers don't really have a maximum pressure they can scrub to...)

 

[Habalabam]

I don't think an atmo setup from scratch can be compared to following a step-by-step procedure to set up engine or merely wiring up solars.

[Dasneko]

Yeah, having to make it from scratch is interesting for advanced players but it just increases the learning curve to an already daunting job. Having a very simple initial setup "for dummies" and an area like the current atmos where advanced players can set up their master pieces without having to tear down anything is a much better compromise. It would also fulfill the whole "make Atmos larger" desire.

[Citinited]

 

Yeah, having to make it from scratch is interesting for advanced players but it just increases the learning curve to an already daunting job. Having a very simple initial setup "for dummies" and an area like the current atmos where advanced players can set up their master pieces without having to tear down anything is a much better compromise. It would also fulfill the whole "make Atmos larger" desire.

 

Fair enough.

 

[Rommel459]

 

Started playing again this week after a couple years absence, so i doubt anyone recognizes me, I do play atmos almost exclusively though so figured i'd give my thoughts. Please take them with a grain of salt as i've only been playing again the last few days

 

The limiting factor on how much entertainment is in a single shift is upto how many hull breaches/fires there are. with (as i recall) this server generally being of the less violent nature, those seem to happen rarely or in small areas, so it becomes a factor of how much the atmos tech has to do when spawning into the station.

 

I agree wholeheartedly with increasing space available to atmos, there's really not a lot of room to tinker/experiment with in the current setup,

 

someone suggested removing everything in atmos, and I understand why it's a bad idea to remove everything from it, but I also think that's a step in the right direction, if maybe a step too far

 

The way atmos is setup at round start right now, you can do most things with it to a basic level, but there are a lot of upgrades available.

 

what about making the setup at start more basic if functional (like straight from waste to the filter systems, straight from air mix tank to distro, leaving all non essential systems absent, or built but not hooked up to anything in the case of the coolers) air would still flow, but there's a lot more freedom to recreate the systems, on the flipside it should also be a lot easier for new people to understand the system with less pipes running around.

 

additional thoughts

 

Add more external air mix tanks/rooms

remove all(most) gasses(leave enough o2/n2 to breathe for a fair bit) from the (pure)atmos tanks, put them into a single mix tank, make atmos figure out how to filter them out without clogging up the waste loop

 

idk how viable this idea would be, but you could create different map variants, like 1 map as it is now, 1 with empty pure tanks and a full mix tank, one with almost everything removed from atmos. randomly rotate the starting map, so each time the game starts you don't know what you're walking into

 

Also I remembered how excited i was reading about this AAC thing long ago, it sounds from the later part of it that it was a rejected idea based around how a skill threshold was needed, but it's been a few years, and maybe the thoughts on that have changed.

if not i apologize for bringing it up, heck for all i know it's been implemented and i just haven't found it yet lol

https://github.com/ParadiseSS13/Paradise/pull/12

 

[Jovaniph]

 

Me playing Atmos...Its pretty bad but its something

 

 

[Shadeykins]

Make fires in the atmosphere burn twice as long, and actually port fast LINDA.

[Habalabam]

 

And, pretty please, make it possible to read pipe flow. Not just pressure.

Either a dedicated meter, a combined pressure+flow meter or click it using atmo PDA scanner.