Atmospherics

Yonder Atmosia
The land of pipes and air, a peaceful place often left to its automatic work. Yet, some people do come here for other reasons:


 * Dump bodies.
 * Charge a bomb's O2 tank.
 * Plant a power sink.
 * Get O2 for jet packs.
 * Steal CO2 canisters to manually flood the station.
 * Bunker down in a revolution.
 * Start a cult.
 * Build a computer forest.
 * Flood the station with harmful gasses.
 * Set up the secondary Singularity Engine.

HOW TO BE A GOOD ATMOS TECH


Atmospherics is pretty simple, but the pipe layout makes it slightly confusing for the untrained eye. There are 4 major pipe "loops":
 * The dark blue loop is the distribution loop. It sends air to all the vents on the station and is fed by the cyan and orange loops.
 * The cyan air mix loop, which is specialized to mix and provide the air mix to the distribution loop, and is used to fill air pumps outside the front door of atmospherics.
 * The red/green loop, which retrieves the gas in the station via the air scrubbers (red) and passes them through a set of filters (green).
 * The yellow loop, internal to Atmospherics, which is used for custom gas mixes that can be fed into the canister charging station in the middle of atmospherics, or fed into the mixing tank. It takes outputs from the N2-, 02-, CO2-, Plasma- and N20 tank.

The air breathed by humans on SS13 is made out of oxygen and nitrogen. It is mixed on the south end of atmos. The gasses are pumped through the cyan tubes from their respective tanks (N2, O2) and are mixed in the air tank (Air). The breathable gas is then pumped through the cyan loop to the north of atmos, where it is then pumped into the blue loop and out to the station.

The filtering loop basically runs the gasses through the filters along the green piping and injects all gasses not filtered into the mixing tank.

The tanks of the station's atmospherics network (unlike in the rest of the station) are in reality rooms filled with very high pressure of the appropriate gas. The output of these rooms are controlled by their respective Supply Control computer, an on/off valve, and an output pump for each loop. Note that these rooms can be depleted, especially if someone makes a hole in a tank's external wall.

To create a custom mix of gas, turn on the output of the supply control computers, open the manual valves, and turn the output of the pump to what you wish it to be. The gas will travel through the orange pipes into the mixing chamber. The gas mix is pumped into the mixing chamber via a pump north of the orange loop. The mix obtained can then be pumped into the distribution and filtering loop or used to fill canisters. Remember to turn off the pump between the yellow and red pipe network or your custom mix will just go into the red waste loop.

ATMOS QUICK SETUP
Properly initialized, Atmosia can keep the station aired-up through nearly any emergency. Improperly initialized, it's a waste of space at best and an outright fire hazard at worst.

Here's how to do it the right way.


 * 1) Go to every red circled pump and filter.  Make sure they're all on and set to max pressure (4500 kPa), so gas will actually be moved.
 * 2) Go to the blue circled pump.  There are four schools of thought, a clever school that sets it to 300kPA (which allows unwrenching of pipes), a cautious school that sets it to 400-700 kPA (within human tolerance), a robust school that sets it to 4,500kPA (beyond human tolerance) and a genius school who sets it to 315 kPA (high enough that people can't mess with the distribution system, but low enough that it can be drained in decent time to make changes.)  Due to the volume of the distribution pipes themselves, it takes quite some time to fill the network past human tolerances and make pipes dangerous if broken. A good middle road is to use full pressure, wait for the pipes to fill to 300 or 400-700 kPA and then dial the pump down to match.
 * 3) (optional) Go to the red lockers pointed to by the red arrow, get a hard hat, gas mask and everything else that might be of use. Remember that you need both a fire suit AND a hard hat to be resistant to weak fires. One will be useless without the other.
 * 4) (optional) Go grab the Fire Axe from the wall mount and hide it somewhere the chucklefucks won't get it and go killing.

Done correctly, Atmosia should be pumping good air just faster than it's lost, and draining bad air away away as fast as the traitors can set it on fire or alternatively draining good air away as fast as a malf AI can syphon it. You can go kick back in the bar like a boss, and wait for the inevitable minor station damage and cries of "Call the shuttle!" on the radio from folks who don't even know it ain't a big deal.

Just be sure to configure the air alarms around the station to filter N2O, CO2, and Plasma. They default to CO2 only, the AI can easily help you with it. Congratulations, you are now more competent than 90% of all Atmos techs.

WHAT PIPE DO
There are a few different pipes you can get from the dispenser. They all have their own thing going for 'em.


 * Regular pipes - The station is infested with these thing and you want to add MORE!? Place down manual valves to crush the hopes and dreams of any would-be plasma flooding AI.
 * Insulated pipes - Keeps the cold out if you're placing pipes out in space. (Regular pipes don't transfer outside heat at all from the environment, so these are pretty much regular pipes without the luxury of manifolds.)

Devices
 * Connector - 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.
 * Unary vent - See: Vent. Once placed down it will have to be turned on by activating it at an Air alarm terminal.
 * Gas pump - The basic pumps you'll find all over atmospherics. Good for precise pressure levels. Goes up to 4500 kPa.
 * Passive gate - Think of it as a one-way manual valve, but electronic. Doesn't pump gas, but lets certain pressure through. Can let up to 4500 kPa pressure through. It should be noted that its on status can be easy to miss, being just a small red/green light.
 * Volume pump - A bit like the gas pump, but pumps via volume rather than going for pressure. 200 is its max output, but this is fairly significant. Faster than a gas pump (You can even fill canisters up past the standard 4500 kpa pressure!), so best used in systems where precise pressure isn't needed. (Such as anything to do with the waste loop.)
 * Scrubber - Self explanatory, scrubs the nasty out of things, or acts like a vacuum. Like unary vents, needs to be turned on by an Air alarm terminal after wrenched into place.
 * Meter - Wanna know how much gas is in a pipe? Use these. (Helpful hint: In a room with the default 101.3kPa atmosphere pipes < 303.9 kPa pressure can be unwrenched.)
 * Gas Filter - Them big ol' blocks of things that ring Atmosia, takes certain gasses out. Filters them if you will.
 * Gas Mixer - Like a filter, but mixes gasses instead of filters. There is one in Atmosia that mixes nitrogen and oxygen.

Heat Exchange
 * Pipes - H/E pipes transfer temperatures between the environment and gas within'. Besides looking spiffy, you can place some in space to super-duper cool gasses, or create a burning length of death pipe.
 * Junction - Turn that regular pipe network into a H/E network, and back again! After all, you have to get that gas safely into space somehow!
 * Heat Exchanger - These strange and esoteric devices equalize the temperature between two pipe networks without actually mixing the gasses. To use, place them facing each other. (So you're going to need at LEAST a 1 X 4 area to set this up.)

PIPE PROSPECTIN'
Don't think that Atmospherics is your only place to mess about, nay good sirs and madams. The ENTIRE pipe system is your oyster!


 * Officially, Atmospherics has one other official room on the station, a small room in maintenance just north of the Fitness Room by the Courtroom and just south of the Security Office. This room can isolate the Security wings distribution system with its own feed of gas, canister of air mix included within! This room gets used exactly 0% of the time by anyone, but can be used for safe (Extremely deadly) applications for anyone with a canister of safe things (See: Face melting) to be put exclusively in the Security wing of the station.


 * The Incinerator provides a good off-site burn room if you don't want to set atmospherics on fire yourself. Just be careful, all sorts of reprehensible people like to hang out there.


 * The Construction Area is a oft disused little haven that's just asking for some pipes, it even comes with an Air alarm that controls nothing that you don't build yourself! This place provides a great blank canvas for any sort of atmospheric experimentation outside of Atmosia. However, it's a little far from any distro pipes... Except the vent in Tech Storage...


 * The Vacant Office is also a prime location for Atmospherics, though there already is a vent system in place as well as plenty of annoying desks to dismantle, it can be a place to practice your pipe wizardry.


 * By Arrivals and also the airlocks leading to the Toxins Test Chamber in the maintenance tunnels are two large cans of emergency air mix that can be put into the system with the turn of a valve. These have never been used in the history of ever, unless by accident.


 * The now abandoned Assembly Line is a wide expanse for piping it up, but requires you to not only build an APC, but also cycle the breaker in it once it's built to have any sort of equipment power. Unlike the Construction area, the assembly line is already equipped with a vent and scrubber connected to their appropriate loops.

Finally, the entirety of the maintenance system itself is a giant playground of pipes. Spend a shift or three with your T-ray on exploring the vast pipe systems. You may even find junction points that you can close off to exclusively flood a department of your choice with a lethal gas! Science always drawing your ire for its constant alarms? Robotics refusing to build you a mech? Botany... Uhh... Throwing tomatoes at you?

Remember, you are the sole reason for the station living. It doesn't take many pipe wrenchings for you to doom the entire station to plasma-y death. So be responsible with your experiments. When in doubt, adminhelp what you're going to do. After all, it's a lot less convenient to Atmospherics it up when you're job banned, so don't make that mistake!! However...

HOW TO BE A TRAITOROUS BASTARD
Or: How to get the AI killed; How to call the shuttle as atmos tech.


 * 1) Open valves connected to harmful gas you want to add to the station.
 * 2) Set pumps to the distribution loop to maximum pressure output (4500kPa)
 * 3) Set filters to not filter harmful gasses you want to add to the station OR set the waste in pump to 0kPa (but leave it on to confuse the crew)
 * 4) Open valve from custom mix chamber
 * 5) Turn on pump leading to distribution loop
 * 6) Wait for vents to slowly kick out your deathgas mix as regular atmos drains out through the inevitable hull breaches. (Alternatively turn off pressure checks on atmos alarms vents)
 * 7) If you need to kill someone for your objective, and you want to be more proactive, the Fire Axe mounted in the wall is surprisingly effective. Just don't leave it lying around, because it's one of only two on the station.

To hurry this process up, you can set the air vents at local control panels to maximum output pressure. Not doing so gives the AI and atmos techs more time to notice what you've done and shut it off before it takes effect.

A faster process for achieving the same result is to do the following:


 * 1) Disconnect, change the direction of, and reconnect the pump that feeds from the air mix to the mix tank in the north-eastern room of atmosia.
 * 2) Open the valves for your deathgas mixture of choice.
 * 3) Power on and max the pressure on every pump in the mix pipes (yellow pipes) from the storage tanks out to the station output (blue pipes).

This simply means that instead of the air mix being put into the mix tank as it normally does, the air mix (which may or may not contain death gasses) is fed into the station output.

Crafty atmos traitors will want to cut cameras, replace pumps with pipes, and use tricky pipe configurations to avoid the AI interfering or the detective trying to fix it.

Especially crafty atmos traitors will want to make a hole in the station's oxygen and air tanks, venting the entire round's supply of oxygen into space.