Guide to engineering

So, you're an engineer, fresh from the academy, eh? Well here is a guide for you, then. Engineering, the Space station 13 way!

How much game experience do I need to be a good engineer?
Engineering is rather complex, but in itself teaches you many of the game's core mechanics. Even a new player, who can pick up and empty a toolbox is able to become a good engineer. If you're a completely new player however, you should first glance at the starter guide.

Engineering etiquette
Take a look around engineering as the first thing you do and see how many fellow engineers you have. If there's a ton, you probably don't want to snatch up everything that isn't nailed down. Don't fight over hardsuits. Don't try to break into the middle of a task someone has already begun: Trying to fill plasma tanks at the same time as another person usually ends up filling engineering with plasma, and trying to turn on containment at the same time as someone is often lethal. Be nice and courteous and you'll often be treated well, curse people out for their incompetence or how slow they are and people aren't going to rush to your retrieve your corpse when syndicates blow your head off on the solars.

Engineering equipment
Engineers have to carry a lot of equipment to perform their various tasks. The job is a lot easier if you carry around what you need so you don't constantly have to be running back to engineering for each step of a repair process. This is an image of the tools every engineer should be trusted to have on him at all times:



And if you have one of the engineering hardsuits:



And the inventory contents:

Some of this you start with, some you need to collect. The items you pick up are:


 * Insulated Gloves: Your most prized possession, these puppies protect you from shock. Engineers work with insane amounts of electricity, and it's easy to put yourself into crit if you tap into the main engine line without remembering to put them on. Always grab a pair of gloves. There's a few pairs laying around engineering, and more in the electrical closet. Lock the closet when you're done unless you want the clown and mime to steal all the remaining pairs.


 * Optical Meson Scanners: These illuminate everything structural in range, showing you the layout of dark maintenance tunnels and such. Note that in the darkness, you will only see one tile around you in every direction, so don't think you're getting free x-rays out of these and don't be surprised when John Q. Changeling appears out of nowhere while you walk through maintenance without your lights on. You can find one pair of these laying around engineering, and two more in the engineering locked lockers.


 * Gas mask: Basically the same function as a breath mask, but with the added bonus of protecting you from pepper spray, acid sprays to the face (once), and some of the diseases the virologist inevitably releases. Also keeps you on your feet a little longer in high concentrations of N2O, so make sure you have one in your inventory if not on your face for roleplay reasons. Note, syndicate voice changer looks exactly like it, so don't be surprised if Security asks you to take off your mask to verify you are who you say you are. You can find them in engineering lockers, laying around in engineering and in maintenance tunnels


 * Hazard Vest: An archetypal item, it serves no purpose except roleplay and that you can buckle an extended capacity emergency oxygen tank to it. Definitely do so if you aren't in a rig or firesuit.


 * Power control module: You need this to repair a fully broken APC. Some sit by the SMES modules.


 * Airlock electronics: Some guy running around with an emag, opening every door on the station? You'll need a lot of these. Having one on hand can save you a long trip back if you run across a broken door. Some by the metal and supplies, and one by the SMES modules.


 * Industrial Welding Tool: Grab this from the welding locker next to the electronics locker: It's just a double capacity welding tool. Throw the tool you spawn with on the floor to be like every engineer ever. (Or put it away neatly for bonus points with the CE.)


 * Metal & Glass: Basic building blocks. Carrying just stack each is generally fine, and convert it into floor tiles, bars, or reinforced glass as necessary.


 * Power cell: Needed to repair a fully broken APC, or just get an APC working in a drained area. Good to have one on hand.


 * Welding Mask: You need this to avoid going blind. Note if you have the hardsuit on, it works as a welding mask you don't have to flip up/flip down.


 * Flashlights: These light up the area, even in your pockets. Two flashlights in your pockets and your helmet light on and you'll light up a huge area, very helpful to general crew when you're doing repairs in a freshly-darkened crater so they don't walk into the vacuum and freeze.


 * Extended-capacity emergency oxygen tank: These canisters hold a LOT of air. The rig suits can hold full-sized canisters which hold more, but two of these filled up in your bag and there's very little chance of you ever running out of air. To fill up, place it in the oxygen tank, click the oxygen tank and turn the pressure all the way up, open the valve, then close the valve. Once you're sure it's closed, remove the tank. Click the tank in your hand and lower the mask pressure to 16 KPA, which will give you the most possible use.

Firesuits can no longer be carried in bags, and it's unsafe to firefight without them, so just run to the nearest firefighter closet in the advent of a fire to gear up -- There is one close to nearly everything everywhere in the station, learn their locations.

Note that some of these are for roleplay reasons only. Although you can wear a welding mask all the time it makes little to no sense to do that from a roleplay standpoint. Roleplay too determines if you're a good engineer or not -- When talking with people face to face, pop the helmet off and carry it a bit -- hardsuits look pretty cool without the helmet on. Write down things you figure out like the door wires and photocopy them, distribute to the other engineering staff as a memo. Engineers have some great roleplay as the people that fix everything when everything else is going to hell. Take advantage of that camraderie and the ludicrous nature the situations you will find yourself in.

Generating power
The primary purpose of engineering is to maintain the station's power. To do this, you will need to start the engine. The linked guide along with this YouTube video will show you how.

The solars are the next thing you need to worry about. As starting the singularity can be a bit risky, you should watch others do it before you attempt it alone. In the mean time, you can do the wiring of the solars. To do this you will need the hardsuit as well as internals (oxygen tank and gas mask), all of which can be found in engineering. Note that it is a good idea to return the hardsuit once you're done. More on wiring solars can be found here.

So you noticed the SMES cell has some blinky lights. But what do they mean? On the top right of, there is a light that is either red or flashing yellow. If it's red, the cell is not charging. If it is flashing yellow, the cell is charging. On the lower right are two lights. These are the output lights. If the lower red light is on, the cell will not output power. If the upper green light is on, the cell will output the selected amount of power. On the left is the percentage of charge. The more lit up it is, the more charged it is. (Click the icon for a larger image)

Wiring
If a part of the station loses power it is likely wires have been cut somewhere. To search for cut wires under floors you will need a T-Ray Scanner. To cut wires, use the wirecutters and to place new ones click on the floor where you'd like them to be placed. The wire will be placed on the targeted tile from the tile you're standing on. You can also place wires on the tile you're currently on by clicking the tile. the wire will be placed in the direction you're currently facing. To place smooth wires, click on the cabling of an existing wire with more wire in your hand. You can even run wires diagonally or curve them in any direction this way.

Wiring intersections demand special mention. Making an intersection requires all the wire pieces to be end-points. If you make a smooth wire going south to north and place a half-wire going east, they will not be connected. To connect them you have to remove the smooth wire and replace it with two half-wires. Once all of them are placed, if you right click the tile you should see three wire pieces, all of which meet in the center.

Power monitoring and distribution


an APC or Area Power Controller is located in every room. It is usually locked, but you can unlock it by swiping your ID on it. It contains a power cell. You can shut off a room's power or disable or enable lighting, equipment or atmospheric systems with it. Every room can have only one APC. The guide to their construction and deconstruction can be found in the guide to construction. APC's can also be hacked. It's also a good idea to know how to do that. DO NOT PRACTICE ON THE ENGINE APCs! If you mess up, you can destroy it through hacking which can set the singularity free if you do it in engineering! You know this warning is here because it happened before.

Like other equipment on the station, the APC has lights to show what it's doing without having to open the interface. On the top right is the lock light. If the light is red, the controls are locked. If it's green, the controls are unlocked. Only people with engineering access can unlock these, but when unlocked anyone can modify them. The screen on the center of the APC indicates whether or not it is charging. If the screen is red, the internal cell is not charging. If it is blue the cell is charging. If it is green the cell is fully charged. On the bottom are the lights for the various things powered by the APC. The leftmost light is the equipment (for computers and such), the middle is the lighting, and the rightmost is the environmental (Air and probably doors). These three can have four possible states; Blue indicates on (auto), orange indicates off (auto), green indicates on, and red indicates off. If any of the functions are set to auto, they will turn off when the cell reaches a certain (low) point of charge. First the equipment will switch to off (auto), then the lights, then the environmental. If any of these are set to manual on, they will not turn off until the power cell is fully drained.

Station structural integrity
An educated word which basically means wall repairs.

Engineering Reference Map
As an engineer, you're sometimes called to put the station back together again after a bad fall. Sometimes, that's a problem because what use to have an identifiable shape now is just a mess of shattered tiles, exposed space, and broken dreams. This map highlights the important bits of machinery running under everything so you can fix any section that gets broken. Also useful when power goes out in a section for figuring out where the damn clown cut a cable.

CLICK HERE FOR THE FULL SIZE ENGINEERING REFERENCE



CLICK HERE FOR THE FULL SIZE ENGINEERING REFERENCE

The secrets surrounding walls
Walls come in two forms: Regular and reinforced. Building a regular wall is a two step process: constructing girders and adding plating. To construct a girder have a stack of two or more sheets of metal on you (right click the metal and examine it to see how many sheets are in the stack). Left click the metal for a construction window to appear. choose "Construct wall girders" from the list and wait a few seconds while they're built. Once they're built, click on the girders with another stack of two or more metal to add the plating. Note that only fully built walls will prevent air from escaping freely through them. Reinforced walls share the first step: the building of the girders. after this, you'll need two sheets of plasteel. A small amount of plasteel starts in Engineering and EVA, but you will have to bother the Shaft Miners for more. Use one of them on the girders to create reinforced girders and the other on the reinforced girders to finalize them. Reinforced walls are much stronger than regular walls and take much longer to get through using regular tools.

For more on construction see the guide to construction.

Pretty glass
Notice how most of the glass around the station is built as a double pane, which surrounds a grille. Making this by hand can be a bit tricky at first, but is simple once you get the hang of it. To build such a wall, you'll need 4 sheets of glass and 3 sheets of metal, alternatively you can have 6 sets of rods. You'll also need a screwdriver and crowbar, though having wirecutters and a welder with you is a good idea, as you'll likely get it wrong the first time and will need those to dismantle the grille. First you have to prepare your materials. Use the metal on itself and create 6 sets of rods (2 are made each time). Now pick the rods up (you can stack them, but don't click too quickly or the game might think you wanted to build a grille). After this, use 4 of the rods on 4 sheets of glass to create 4 sheets of reinforced glass. Now pick up all your tools (put them on your utility belt if you have one or in your backpack) and pick up the remaining two rods in one hand and the 4 sheets of reinforced glass in your other (remember, you can stack glass too).

Now stand where you'd like the window to be. Use the rods on themselves and this will create a grille. Using the glass on the grille will then create a one-sided pane of glass on that tile. Create the required number of panes, rotate them to the correct directions via the right-click menu, and secure them with screwdriver+crowbar+screwdriver.

Congratulations. You've just made a proper window. You're already better at construction than most.

For more on construction see the guide to construction.

Robots, Artificial Intelligence and Computers
As an engineer, it is required of you to understand how most computers are operated, how they work, how they're created, dismantled and repaired. You're also the best equipped station employee to prevent the AI from taking a life of it's own.

Computers
Computers are everywhere on SS13. Engineering has a power monitoring computer, several solar computers and a general alerts computer. Almost everything you can control is done through a computer. Making them is described in the guide to construction, as is their dissasembly (for those which can be deconstructed). To learn how to operate different computer you'll need to start using them and find out how they work while doing so. There are too many to explain them all here.

Artificial int... stupidity
More often than not, the AI will be rogue. This means it has laws which are harmful. It will try it's best to kill any crew members by flooding the halls with toxic plasma, sparking fires, overloading APC's, electrifying doors, etc. At such a time you have two choices: Destroy it or reset it. As said, the AI works on a principle of laws. People can upload new ones to it and if these are harmful, you'll first want to try to reset it. In technical storage (in the maintenance hallway between assistant's storage and EVA) you have an AI upload card and an AI reset module. To reset the AI, first create an AI upload computer and once it is created, click on it to choose the rogue AI and use the module on it to reset it. If the person has uploaded a core law, then it's a bit harder. A core law cannot be reset with the AI reset module. You'll need to override it with another AI core module. These can be found in the AI upload area under lock and key. But if the person who uploaded the traitorous law got in, you can get in too, right? The often preferred alternative is to simply kill the AI. Tear down the walls and shoot it, blow it up, use the chemist to prepare something. There are many ways of doing this. If it is an AI malfunction round, you'll have click on here for more info on that.

Blowing up cyborgs is normally done by the roboticist or Research Director, but you may need to help them create a robotics console at some point. One of these can be found in tech storage, but is usually stolen quickly.

The alternative methods to being helpful included hacking APCs and doors, usually to disable the AI control. This is especially important anywhere near a robotics control, engine, or any of the SMES rooms. The AI has no reason to have control over these anyway.

Getting the man out of danger... alive!
It's your job to save lives when they cry out for help.

Firefighting
Engineers get access to maintenance hallways, which contain several firesuits and extinguishers. If a fire breaks out somewhere, put it out. Firesuits allow you to walk in almost any fire. Extinguishers have a limited capacity. Refill them with water tanks, which can be found all around the station.

Physical rescue
If someone cries that he can't get out of somewhere and no one can get him out, then it's your job to do so. Hacking airlocks, deconstructing walls, basically whatever it takes to get to them. I don't need to point out that you should never put others or yourself at risk in doing so!

Space recovery
A body's been spaced? Well now it's your job to recover it. Ask the AI or captain to get a jetpack and space suit from EVA and go after the body. You'll most frequently find bodies either somewhere near the derelict or the AI satellite. Drag them to a teleporter and get them back to the station. The use of lockers will help greatly, as lockers do not drift like bodies do, but cannot travel across Z-levels. ALWAYS have tools, glass and metal with you when doing this! Some teleporters need to be rebuilt and some bodies float around randomly and need floor tiles to be build in their path to actually stop

Space exploration
Space exploration can be fun. Although there are not too many things to see in space at the moment, but things change sometimes. You may also get some things which could come in handy.

Repairing the Derelict
During boring rounds engineers often decide to venture out into space to try and fix the Derelict. As to why they do this, no-one knows, perhaps they seek new territory, perhaps someone has destroyed engineering or maybe the various items scattered on the abandoned Ruski space station whet their appetite.