Engineering

This article describes the Engineering room and its respective systems and controls.

The Reactor Screen
This screen is composed of a temperature gauge and 5 horizontal bars that fill from left-to-right. The size of the bars depends on how powerful the currently installed ship components are. The most powerful of the 4 conduits will have the largest bar, and the rest will scale proportionally to that specific conduit. This gives the engineer a quick understanding of how much power every conduit may require. The four conduits are the top bars in the following order: Engineering, Science, Shields, and Weapons. The bottom bar reflects the total usage of the installed reactor. Simply put, the length of the bottom bar is the total amount of energy the entire ship can use. Each of the four conduits will attempt to take a piece of that bar for their own systems. The bars fill with blue based on how much power is being allocated. The Engineer can select the limit of how much power each conduit can use by clicking and dragging in the bar to move the white triangle above it. The white triangle indicates the power limit of each component. Setting limits scales the efficiency of any system connected to that specific conduit.


 * Engineering - Controls the amount of power that can be sent to the thrusters and warp drive . Limiting reduces maximum speed, maneuverability and slows the charging of the warp drive.


 * Science Lab - Controls the amount of usable power for the sensors. Limiting reduces sensor range, decrease the effectiveness of any active scans, as well as increase the amount of time it takes to perform one, and slow jump calculation.
 * Shields - Controls the amount of power the shield generator can utilize to regenerate any damage to the shields. Limiting this will slow the shield regeneration process.
 * Weapons - Controls the amount of power the weapons systems can use. Limiting this will slow the recharge and reload rate of any ship turrets.

The Auxiliary Reactor Screen
Found in the engineering room and the bridge, this screen's purpose is to expose the functions and settings of all the auxiliary systems aboard the vessel. These systems are not connected to the main reactor and its temperature. By default, these settings will be ON. Leaving them on will ensure all of the auxiliary systems remain functional. Turning systems OFF will give the auxiliary reactor a surplus of power. This will automatically be routed to the main reactor and act as a boost in power.
 * Atrium Healing - Slowly heals crewmembers near the Atrium
 * Oxygen Gen - Powers the ship's life support system
 * Air Filter - Filters out smoke and toxins from the shipAuxiliary reactor config.jpg
 * Lights - Manages both the lights inside of the ship, and those of the turrets
 * Proj. Aim Assist - Shows an aiming reticle to aid in aiming projectile turrets
 * Cyberdefense - Provides additional protection against viruses
 * Intruder Alarm - Alerts the crew when enemies have boarded the ship
 * Missile Lock On - Drastically increases lock-on speed when turned on

The Coolant Screen
While called the coolant screen, it does quite a lot more than cool the reactor. Coolant is specifically designed to lower or slow the rise of reactor temperature without having to reduce any output. The controls are fairly straightforward:
 * Off - The pumps are off, and no coolant is being used.
 * Low - A small but steady stream of coolant is entering the reactor. Temperature should be slightly slowed or even decreasing. The Coolant reserves will be depleting slowly. The base time is 11 minutes (660 seconds) of cooling. All turrets are cooled 5% faster.
 * High - A large stream of coolant is entering the reactor. Temperature should be drastically slowed or decreasing. The coolant reserves will be depleting quickly. The base time is 2 minutes 45 seconds of cooling. All turrets are cooled 10% faster. *Note that High coolant is only twice as effective, but four times more draining than Low coolant, making Low the smart choice for anything other than dire heat emergencies.

The Jump Fuel window refers to the amount of fuel capsules onboard the ship. A fuel capsule is required for a ship to jump to a new sector. After jumping to a new sector, a fuel capsule will automatically be expended. Any programs that are in the charge slots will also be charged.

The Distress Signal window is used when a crew is unable to warp jump. There are a number of different signals that can be used. Many of these signals have security features which help send specific messages or alert specific people. Flip between the various signals installed on the ship by clicking the up and down arrows. Activate a signal by pressing the ON button.
 * General Distress Signal: By far the most basic signal. Every ship is equipped with a general distress signal. When used, almost anything may show up. It has no security features and anything with long-range scanners can detect it. It is mostly used by civilians, and pirates have been known to head towards general distress signals due to the easy plunder.
 * Union Distress Signal: Specially designed for officers in the Colonial Union . Union officers may use this signal to alert fellow officers of an emergency.
 * WD Distress Signal: A secure signal created by the Wolden-Dorf Corporation . Alerts any WD vessels nearby to the emergency.

Core Safety and Meltdown
When the ship's reactor reaches a critical temperature, an automatic safety system turns the entire ship off momentarily and rapidly cools the core. While the ship is off, you are vulnerable to enemy attacks. The Engineer may choose to disable this system at the Core Safety Toggle station. After the lever is pulled, the green light will turn red and the ship will no longer deactivate itself when reaching critical heat. By doing this, the Engineer can effectively push the ship farther than the designed limits and keep it running for a bit longer. It is not often recommended but may prove to be useful in certain situations. The reactor can only stay in critical heat for a short amount of time. Eventually, the heat will begin to deteriorate the integrity of the core, causing it to become unstable and meltdown. A core meltdown is a very dangerous event. The crew must act fast in order to save the ship. When a meltdown sequence initiates, the reactor screen will no longer function normally. It will display a meltdown timer approximating the moment of the core implosion. Attached to every reactor is a core eject lever. Flipping this lever will eject the core through the bottom of the ship.

Once the core is ejected, the reactor is dead. It no longer exists in the ship components and there is no power going to any conduit. In order to fix this problem and fly as far away from the ejected core as soon as possible, the Engineer will need to use the auxiliary reactor screen to route new power to engineering.

Ship Startup Sequence
Every ship is equipped with a Switchboard. This wall mounted device acts as fuse box for the entire ship. The Switchboard has three levers. These levers are Main Power (left), System Interface (middle), and Shields (right). Turning the ship on requires a six step process, and five of those steps occur here at the Switchboard. When the ship is offline, all screens and systems are disabled. The only screen still on is the Startup Screen seen above to the right.

The Startup Screen will prompt the crew on how to start the ship again with the following steps:


 * 1) Pull the first lever (left)
 * 2) Boot the Ship OS on the Startup Screen
 * 3) Pull the second lever (middle)
 * 4) Prime the warp core on the Startup Screen
 * 5) Pull the third lever (right)
 * 6) System is active. Perform a manual override at the main science screen to allow access to other systems.

Turning off the ship is a much easier task. Pull the first lever and all power will be immediately cut.

Rebooting the ship is very useful when infected with a virus. Viruses can insert themselves into a ship and cause many harmful effects. Rebooting the ship effectively purges any virus, but takes time to get the ship online again.