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Difficulty: Medium Supervisors: Chief Engineer Rank: Not defined Duties: Keep the S-52 Fusion Reactors powered. Maintain and modify the Almayer and its dropships. Guides: S-52 Fusion Reactor, Construction Unlock Requirements: Not available. Detailed Description: Not defined |__________| |
"The intakes are clogged. We overheated and burned out a whole cell... Christ, it's really breaking loose down here..."
― WY Engineer Brett, Alien
The Maintenance Technician (MT) is an enlisted USCM crewmember of the USS Almayer's engineering department. Trained in all types of engineering work and directly supervised by the commissioned Chief Engineer, they are responsible for maintaining the vessel: repairing broken S-52 reactors with their toolbelt, reloading the dropships with powerloaders, cleaning the halls with a mop and bucket, and much more. With proper authorization, they can also help out with various construction projects, whether on the ship or at the FOB.
Overview
You begin the mission in the engineering department at the back of the ship. Reach out over the engineering radio (:e) to report to your department, composed of fellow Maintenance Technicians and the Chief Engineer, whose orders you must carry out. The lockers, crates, vendors, and tables strewn around your workplace should have everything you need for the mission. There are also many rooms maintenance rooms and engineering outposts strewn around the Almayer with supplies for emergency repair.
When you're geared up and ready to get going, you'll likely start by turning on the power.
Setting up Power
The Almayer's S-52 Fusion Reactors, SMESs, and APCs are all connected to each other by the grid of underfloor cables.
| Picture | Name | Simple explanation |
|---|---|---|
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S-52 Fusion Reactor ("Generators", "Gens") | The generators that create power. When fueled and repaired, they output power into grid. The grid then carries that power to the SMES and APCs. |
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Superconducting Magnetic Energy Storage (SMES) | Huge batteries that store power. When the generators make too much power, the SMES charges itself by taking the excess from the grid. When the generators make too little power, the SMES uses up its charge by feeding power back into the grid. |
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Area Power Controller (APC) | Small batteries that use power. Every "room" has an APC with a power cell inside it. The APC's power cell charges itself by taking power from the grid, and then uses up its charge to wirelessly power the room's equipment, such as its vendors, lights, and airlocks. |
At the beginning of the mission, you'll want to repair the S-52 reactors, set up the SMES, and check that the APCs are all charging. Remember that the upper and lower deck are separate power grids, and must both be set up independent of each other.
S-52 Fusion Reactor
You'll want to start by repairing, refuelling, and re-enabling the S-52 Fusion Reactors. Instructions on their maintenance and repair are on their own page here.
SMES
Use your empty hand on the SMES to open up its console. The interface looks convoluted, but is fairly simple: you can set how much power it takes and toggle input, and set how much power it gives away and toggle output. A common recommendation is to set it to 250,000W input and 200,000W output: then each SMES only eats up 50,000W while charging, but gives away up to 200,000W to the APCs when the generators aren't working.
APC
Like SMES, APCs are pretty content to chug along so long as they're getting power to distribute around the room. But they can often be the first sign of trouble in the grid, so it's important to be able to see that they are working correctly and diagnose any defects.
Looking at the APC
First, try gleaning information from just looking at the APC without interacting with it.
| Visual cue | What it means |
|---|---|
| Large, square glow on the left side of the APC. |
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| Three small glows in the bottom right of the APC. |
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| Long, thin vertical glow on the right side of the APC. |
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Using the APC
Walk up to the APC and use it with an empty hand to open the interface. Most of it is fairly self-explanatory: you can see if it's charging, how much charge it has, and whether equipment, lighting, or environment power are on, etc.
If you swipe on the APC with your ID, you will unlock it and be able to change some of the options in its interface.
- You can disable or enable charging.
- You can force disable, force enable, or set automatic the three power draws (equipment, lighting, environment) as needed. For example, you might want to force the equipment in the CIC enabled so that it stays powered even when the APC is very low on charge (normally, automatic mode would disable it at 15% charge), or you might choose to force the lighting in the conference room disabled to save on power.
- You can enable or disable the cover lock, which prevents the APC from being forced open with a crowbar.
If you disable the cover lock, you can pry open the cover of the APC by using a crowbar on it, and then take out and replace the power cell inside it with another, freshly charged one. This is an easy way to quickly return power to an area without having to set up the generators and SMES.
Repairing the APC
On occasion, you might find that the APC's wires have been chewed off by rats or slashed by something sharp. You may notice this by either looking at the APC and noticing that the panel is open, exposing the wires on a black background, or that it refuses to charge even with adequate power input. To solve this, open the panel with your screwdriver if it isn't yet open, use your wirecutters on the APC and click on mend with the wirecutters in hand, then close the panel with your screwdriver again.
Alternatively, if the APC has outright been destroyed: you'll see this when the APC itself looks like it's been smashed to bits. To "repair" the APC in this case, you'll need to follow the next few steps to get it in working order again.
- First you'll want to whack off the cover; to do this just hit the APC with any sort of weapon, generally a combat knife is good for this.
- Take out the battery (Power cell) in the APC once the cover is off with an empty hand.
- Use a screwdriver on the APC.
- Use wirecutters on the APC.
- Use a crowbar on the APC.
- Build an APC frame from 2 metal sheets then click on the APC with the APC frame in hand.
- Use wires (Cable Coil) on the APC.
- Click on the APC with a power control module in hand.
- Use a screwdriver on the APC.
- Place a new battery (Power cell) in the APC. (Just click on the APC with the battery in hand.)
- Use a crowbar on the APC.
- Open up the APC pop up window once you've completed all previous steps and turn on the breaker.
Hacking
In emergency situations, or when legally authorized by command, you might find it necessary to hack your way through obstacles. For most hacking jobs, you will want to be wearing insulated gloves to protect against shock, pry open a panel with the screwdriver, and then use a multitool and wirecutters as necessary.
Airlocks
Tampering with airlocks can have shocking results that might lead to a crushing defeat, make sure to warn others around you of the danger, whether verbally, over the radio, or with some engineering tape. Don't leave an airlock electrified or with its safety off without a good reason!
Some common hacks you can perform are:
- Dropping the bolts to force the door to stay closed. To do this, pulse each wire until you see "the bolts have dropped!" at the bottom of the hacking interface.
- Forcing the door open. To do this, pulse each wire until you see "the test light is off!" at the bottom of the hacking interface. Make sure that if you pulse the bolts wire, you pulse it back up right after, since you won't be able to open a bolted door. Then quickly use your crowbar on the door to pry it open before power comes back online. If you want to keep it open forever, just pulse the bolts down once it's open.
- Set the door to close immediately after it is opened, rather than wait the usual 15 seconds. To do this, pulse wires (and reset them when necessary, by either pulsing again or by cut-and-mending) until you reach the "check timing mechanism" wire.
Vendors
The two hacks you'll want to perform are pulsing the contraband wire to release extra gear, or cutting the access wire to allow anyone to use the vendor. Don't leave a vendor electrified without a good reason!
Screwdriver the vendor, then Pulse until the extra items show up (note that some vendors won't have any extra items even if you pulse the contraband wire.) in the vendor list. Keep the wire colours in mind, since they're all universal for that round. Sometimes when you pulse a wire a shock will come out. In this case, you'll want to cut the wire with wirecutters and then mend it, after which you can move onto the next wire. Problem solved.
Supply Console
The Requisitions Officer might request for you to modify their Supply Console at the chip level to allow for the procurement of contraband goods. To do this, deconstruct the Supply Console by using the screwdriver, crowbar, wirecutters, screwdriver, crowbar in that order to get the Supply Console chip out. Pulse the access to BROAD on the chip with a multitool. Finally, place the chip back into the console, and then apply a screwdriver, cable coil, glass, and screwdriver again to complete the console.
Maintaining the Dropships
As a Maintenance Technician, your faster use of the powerloader and inferior rank to the Pilot Officer means you are expected to load their dropships up for them. Head for the hangar, grab a powerloader, and ask them what needs loading and where. Communicate with them in person or over the engineering channel to print new equipment from the dropship fabricator in the future, and be ready to reload their ordinance when they return from close air support missions.
The dropship might sometimes come back with destroyed airlocks. Make it a high priority to replace them with new ones, especially the cockpit airlock.
FOB duty
Command may find it necessary to send a few MTs down to the FOB to keep it running, repaired, and ready for action. Keep in touch with your Chief Engineer as much as possible when deploying. The Squad Engineers will be subordinate to you, so should it be necessary, you can order them around on FOB related matters; try to have them do any dangerous frontline work.
Hey Wait, This Is Grunt Work
Replacing lights, cleaning up stains, picking up trash, looking through the disposals room for anything valuable tossed away, and all types of crap work all falls under the realm of maintenance, and hence is your job. Pick up that mop and get sweeping.
Almayer Projects
If you've had enough of picking up other people's trash, you can always ask for the proper legal authorization to construct or modify a part of the Almayer to occupy yourself with something bigger and more creative. If you can't think of what to create, ask for ideas from other folks or just explore the Almayer until an idea pops into your head.
Your Skillset
To find out about how the skill system works head over to the skills system page.
Reading and Sources
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