Guide to Atmospherics
Atmospherics (or Atmosia) is the land of pipes and air, a peaceful place often left to its automatic work. To the untrained eye, it might appear to be entirely impenetrable and useless, just a mess of pipes that should be left alone to do their own work while the Atmospheric Technicians goof off in the break room. But this is far from the truth. In the hands of a competent technician, Atmosia can just as easily save the station as it can horribly destroy it.
The Basics
The first thing you need to understand is how atmospheric works. Paradise uses the method of the Ideal Gas Law in which pressure and volume remains proportional to each other as long as temperature does not change.
Here are a few things to get you started to become a great Atmospheric Technician:
Air Alarm
An Air Alarm is the main method of control over the Atmospheric System. They enable you to control the vents and scrubbers in rooms, as well as any other Atmospherics Equipment, in addition to accessing a multitude of options regarding Atmospherics duty. There are an Air Alarms located in each individual room on the station, in addition to larger, open areas. Where exactly the Air Alarm is in the room does not matter; so long as it is within the confines of the room, and the room itself is powered, it will allow you to control the room's atmospherics.
To learn more about Air Alarms and how to use them, click here: Air Alarm
The Computers
- Atmospheric Alert Computer: This computer console will tell you where your attention is needed. A green indicator signals everything is alright, a yellow indicator signals something went wrong, and a red indicator means an alarm has been triggered by someone or something (Panic Syphon normally causes a red indicator to appear).
- Central Atmospherics Computer: From this computer, you to remotely access air alarms allowing the same access as you would with a normal one. By default, every air alarm has their remote access enabled.
- The Distribution Computers: These computers allow you to see how much of a certain gas you have in storage, in addition to letting you change the rate at which they output.
The Pipe System
The pipes is where the gases travel safely without sudden exposure. Inside Atmospherics, the gases go through a series of checks, before entering and exiting the system. These series follow, what is known as, a loop. The toxic gases come in while the breathable gas goes out to supply the crew with air.
Familiarize yourself with these pipes as they are the default standard pipes (color) for every station:
| Name | Description |
|---|---|
Air Supply 
|
The dark blue pipe is the Main Air Supply. It sends breathable air (roughly 80% nitrogen and 20% oxygen) to all the vents on the station, and is fed by the cyan pipe in Atmospherics. |
Scrubber 
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The red pipe is the Scrubber Pipe. This is where all the toxic waste normally ends up by the scrubber system found all around the station. It may contain breathable air, however it is unfiltered and possibly contaminated. |
Air Mix 
|
The cyan pipe is the breathable air or the Air Mix. This pipe feeds into the main air supply. |
Waste 
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The purple pipe is the Waste Pipe, which retrieves waste air from the scrubber pipe which then leads to the filter. |
Filter 
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The green pipe is the Filter Pipe, which filters out the various gases in the waste air provided by the water at various filters placed along it. Each filter puts the respect gases back into the gas containers. |
Pure 
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The yellow pipe is the Mix Pipe, which is internal to Atmospherics and is used for custom air mixes. |
The Gas Containers
Gas Containers (can also be called reservoirs) are typically found in an isolated room/area in which pipes feeds in and out of them. They contain a lot of pressure and only contain one type of gas at a time except for the Air Mix Container and the Mixing Container (Which is normally empty for custom gas mixes). These are generally found either attached or detached from Atmospherics in or at the edge space.
| Gases | Description |
|---|---|
| Nitrogen (N2) | One of the components of the air mix. N2 soaks up heat in the air, and lowers the temperature of a fire. By association, it can very quickly lower the temperature of a fiery rupture to the point where the flames self-extinguish. |
| Oxygen (O2) | You breathe this. Running out of O2 will cause your slow death by suffocation damage. It is also required for a fire to even start, and hold, ending the fire when the O2 or plasma is depleted. Having less than 16 kPa of O2 flowing into your lungs chokes you. |
| Air | The gas mix that is distributed in the station. It is composed of 70% N2 and 30% O2. |
| CO2 | An invisible, heavy gas, CO2 is one of the first and fastest gases the scrubbers suck out of the air. It chokes people effectively and quickly, and if you can be bothered to set the alarms up, will result in a invisible room that kills those in it. Takes some setup and can be very, very annoying. The emote for this at below incapacitating levels is gasping and choking. |
| Nitrous Oxide (N2O) | A white-flecked gas. Makes you laugh at low doses and at higher ones puts you to sleep. Scrubbers don't deal with it too well and portable scrubbers just choke on it. If using this as a sleep gas mix do *not* forget the O2 at at least 16 kPa, or you will kill someone. |
| Plasma | The one truly flammable gas on the station, plasma is purple, and highly toxic. Of note is the fact that in the presence of any oxygen at high pressures, plasma pumped into air can and will spontaneously ignite on turf at high pressures. |
Portable/Rapid Pipe Dispenser
There are a few different pipes and devices that you can get from the portable or rapid part dispenser.
Types of Pipes
| Items | Name | Description |
|
Atmospheric Pipes | These are simple pipes that is normally found all around atmospheric. |
|
|
Air Supply Pipe | Used to distribute air all across the station. |
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Scrubber Pipe | used to move waste or harmful gases. |
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Heat Exchange Pipe | Allow you to cool / heat gases based on the ambient temperature of the tile they're on. Think space loop (for cooling) or the Toxins burn chamber (for heating). |
|
Universal Pipe Adapter | Used to convert Atmospheric Pipe with Scrubber/Air Supply Pipe or vise versa. |
Types of Devices
| Items | Name | Description |
|
Unary Vent | Once placed down it will have to be turned on by activating it at the room's air alarm |
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Passive Vent | An air vent that releases pressure if connected to a atmospheric pipe. |
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Dual-Port Air Vent | Has a valve and pump attached to it. There are two ports |
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Air Scrubber | Self explanatory, scrubs the nasty out of things, or acts like a vacuum. Like vents, needs to be turned on by an air alarm after being put in place |
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Connector Port | Used to attach canisters, pumps or scrubbers to a pipe network. If you can't get a pipe network easily to the filter loop, an empty canister can be a good substitute |
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Gas Pump | The basic pumps you'll find all over Atmospherics. Good for precise pressure levels. Goes up to 4500 kPa |
|
Volume Pump | A bit like the pressure pump, but pumps via volume rather than going for pressure. 200 is its max output, but this is fairly significant. Faster than a pressure pump (You can even fill canisters up past the standard 4500 kPa pressure!), so best used in systems where a specific maximum pressure isn't needed, such as the waste loop |
|
Passive Gate | Think of it as a one-way manual valve, but electronic. Doesn't pump gas, but lets a certain amount of pressure through. Can be set up to 4500 kPa. It should be noted that its power status light can be easy to miss, being just a small red / green light |
|
Gas Filter | Checks for whatever gas you set it to, then filters it out into another pipe |
|
Gas Mixer | Like a filter, but mixes gasses instead of filters. There is one in Atmospherics that mixes nitrogen and oxygen |
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Air Injector | Used to inject air at a typical value of 50 liters a second. Mostly seen in combustion chambers. |
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Manual Valve | A manually-controlled valve, it requires no power and also no ID authorisation to use. Is arguably better over the digital valve in pipe-networks with possibilities of massive destruction due to the need of ID access on the digital valve. Displays a small green light when open. |
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Digital Valve | An electronically-controlled gas valve. It uses the station-grid's power to be operated but requires sufficient ID access to be allowed use. Displays a small green light when open. |
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Meter | Want to know how much gas is in a pipe? Use these |
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Gas Sensor | Used to sense the pressure and temperature of the gas surrounding the sensor itself, rather than a pipe. |
Disposals
In addition to handling the station's Atmosphere, a secondary job you share with the Engineers is making sure the Disposals network is functioning properly.
Types of Disposal Pipe
| Items | Name | Description |
|
Disposal Pipe | Those pipes are made through the disposal pipe dispenser, use them to fix or expand to the disposal system of the Exodus. |
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Disposal Bin | Where people put their trash which are then sent to the disposal area via the disposal pipe system. |
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Disposal Outlet | Whenever someone or something has reached this from a disposal pipe, they are thrown out at quite a fair speed and typically end up hitting a wall before stopping. |
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Disposal Intake | If something's been thrown into the intake, it will take it and put it into the attached disposal pipe, sending it off on it's merry way. |
Formulas
Celsius to Kelvin
One of the important things you need to know as an Atmospheric Technician is to quickly make conversion from Kelvin to Celsius and vise versa. This would make things a bit easier when you have to make conversions using the Ideal Gas Law formula as well. Some of the numbers you should remember is that 0 Kelvin is absolute zero and 293.15 Kelvin is 20 degrees Celsius, which is the standard temperature found throughout the station.
Formula: K = C + 273.15
C - Celsius
K - Kelvin
Ideal Gas Law
This is something you should get familiar with because it does apply in the game. You won't be applying this very often, but if you wish to learn more about how gas works, this will help you to extend your knowledge more deeply.
Formula: PV=nRT
P - Pressure in kilopascals or kPa
V - Volume in liters
n - is the amount of substance of gas (also known as number of moles)
R - is a constant or 8.31
T - Temperature in Kelvin
Advance Guide to Atmospherics
The more you spend your time experimenting with gases and pipe, the more you understand how to become more efficient as an Atmospheric Technician. Do not ever be afraid to deconstruct all of atmospherics just so you can learn (The rounds are only 2 hours long. You'll only get yelled at a few times). One very important thing. Always be willing to learn. Even if you think you know just about everything!
Some things you should experiment on:
- Pressure Pumps and Volume Pumps - See what is different about them. Race them side by side. See how they react with different temperature. You'll be surprised with the results.
- High pressure and Low pressure - What makes high pressure high? What makes low pressure low? Mess with the temperature or examine the temperatures to find out.
- Hot Gas and Cold Gas - Find out ways to get the temperature you want. Try upgrading the freezers or mess with the heat exchanger that are out in space. Just remember that space is not always the coldest method.
- Air Compression - Find out why it takes forever to fill up a canister all the way with cold pressure. Hint: Ideal Gas Law (mol).
- Plasma Fire - What is the best way to put out a plasma fire? Does CO2 really work?
