Engineering Objects

Toolbox

Toolboxes come in three flavours; Mechanical, Electrical, and Emergency. All of them can be used to store various items, and are fairly heavy so they make decent bludgeoning weapons. Toolboxes have a smaller capacity than Backpacks - both have seven storage slots, but Toolboxes cannot accept larger items like Backpacks can.

Mechanical Toolboxes are blue and contain a Screwdriver, Wrench, Welder, Wirecutters, Crowbar, and Atmospheric Analyser. Station Engineers, Atmospheric Technicians and Roboticists start with one, but more may be obtained from Assistant Storage, Siphon Storage just opposite the AI Upload, and Engineering Storage.

Electrical Toolboxes are yellow and contain a Screwdriver, Wirecutters, Crowbar, T-Ray Scanner, and three Cable Coils.

Emergency Toolboxes are red and contain a Fire Extinguisher, Flashlight, Station Bounced Radio and Crowbar.

Screwdriver

A screwdriver

Screwdrivers are items found in Mechanical and Electrical Toolboxes and are one of the most important tools on the ship. Screwdrivers are used for many things, such as:

• Securing/Loosening windows
• Loosening/Securing Grilles
• Connects siphons to connectors
• Part of assembling a False Wall
• Part of deconstructing Reinforced Walls
• Part of assembling/disassembling Computers
• Part of fixing broken Microwaves
• Combining bomb parts, such as the Igniter and Remote Signaling Device (see Bombs)
• Opens control panels on Airlocks and the Autolathe, and exposes wires on APCs (for Hacking)
• Stabbing people in the eyes

Like most tools, with the screwdriver in hand, click on what you're working on.
For some reason eye-stabbing also works on Robots but doesn't blind them, but does give the rather disturbing message that the robot's eyes start bleeding profusely.

Wrench

The wrench is used for:

• Connecting Canisters to Connectors
• Part of dismantling both regular and Reinforced Walls
• Part of assembling/disassembling Computers
• Dismantles Tables, Racks into Parts, which can be dismantled again into one sheet of Metal
• Dismantles Chairs, Stools and Beds into one sheet of Metal
• Part of fixing broken Microwaves

And that's about it. Note that you only get half the metal back from deconstructing Rack and Table parts.

Welder

The Welder must be activated (clicked on with active hand) before use, and has limited fuel. The game will yell at you if you don't have enough to complete the task at hand. Use it on a Weld fuel tank in order to refuel it. Useful for:

• Killing the Blob
• Can weld shut Airlocks and Firedoors, or unweld them
• Part of dismantling both regular and Reinforced Walls
• Locks/unlocks closed Lockers, dismantles open Lockers
• Melting glass shards to get a usable pane of glass
• Melting broken Grilles to get a sheet of metal (currently broken)
• Repairing Brute damage (denting) on Robots
• Dismantles Computer Frames
• Finalizing a bomb (see Bombs)
• Component in making a Flamethrower
• Setting fires (simply have it activated in a cloud of plasma)
• Somewhat potent melee weapon

Crowbar

Crowbars are plentiful and can be found all over the station. They have a few uses:

• Prying open depowered, unbolted, unwelded doors. This is an easy way to bypass doors in the event of a power failure or Lockdown.
• Prying up floor tiles. You may want to do this to relocate floor tiles or reinforce the floor.
• Part of dismantling Reinforced Walls
• Part of disassembling Computers
• Securing/Loosening reinforced windows

Wirecutters

File:Wirecutter.png

A Wirecutter

Not used as often as the other tools, but capable of:

• Cutting Grilles apart
• Cutting Power Cables
• Hacking Airlocks, APCs and the Autolathe
• Part of dismantling Reinforced Walls
• Part of dismantling Computers
• Disabling Fire Alarms and Security Cameras
• Needed in your off hand to wrap or unwrap items with Wrapping Paper

Beware that if you cut active Power Cables, electrified airlocks, electrified grilles or the wrong APC wire, you'll get the fuck shocked out of you unless you are wearing Insulated Gloves.

Multitool

Mostly only used for Hacking. Allows you to pulse wires in airlocks, APCs and the Autolathe, use it along with Wirecutters to hack like a champ.

T-Ray Scanner

This guy, when activated, will light up power cables so you can find them to either break or repair, as needed. Clips handily to your belt for easy usage! In addition, it also causes cloaked people to flicker when nearby. It can also be clipped to your belt.

Coils of Wire

File:SS13Wiring.PNG

Wiring Explanation diagram.

Useful for repairing cut power cables in the station, or installing bypasses so when cuts are made they don't have any effect. Also vital if you want to use the Prototype Engine to power the station.

You can lay down cables on untiled, unreinforced floors, and may be done so in any combination of eight directions, including diagonals. To lay down a cable, stand next to the tile you want to put the cable into with a cable coil/piece in your active hand, and click on the tile. The cable will be laid in the direction you are standing. Simply adjust your position as necessary to lay a cable in another direction.
There are two ways of doing this - clicking on the tile or on the cable itself. Both will function fine for supplying an electrical current, but clicking on a laid cable piece with one in your hand will create a two-way wire which will accept no other wires on the tile. Consult the image - the first tile provides power in all three directions, the second tile provides power from left to up and vice versa, and the third tile provides power in the same direction as the second tile, ignoring the diagonal cable. Wire is also a critical component on the creation of Computers and Robots.

Power Cell

Used in Robots and APCs. They are batteries which carry an electrical charge which powers whatever they are placed in. If depleted they may be recharged at either the Recharger in Engineering Storage or in an APC which is recieving power from the engine. Every APC in the station starts with a Power Cell installed and at 100% charge, and should remain that way unless the power output drops. Power Cells in robots consume charge slowly, and must be replaced once they run out of charge.
Power Cells are also used in making Stun Gloves and Electrical Shields.

Rapid Construction Device (RCD)

Available in EVA Storage and from a hacked Autolathe, the RCD is essentially a toolbox in a can which requires ammunition. The RCD required Compressed Matter Cartridges to be loaded into it to do anything - each cartridge gives the RCD 10 ammo, to a maximum of 30. Clicking on the RCD switches it between Floor/Walls, Airlock, and Deconstruct modes.

The RCD can do the following things:

• Floor/Walls Mode - Build a tiled Floor on a Space tile (1 Ammo)
• Floor/Walls Mode - Build a regular Wall on a non-reinforced floor tile (3 Ammo)
• Floor/Walls Mode - Turn a regular Wall into a Reinforced Wall (5 Ammo)
• Airlock Mode - Build a universal-access Airlock on a floor (10 Ammo)
• Deconstruct Mode - Remove a non-reinforced Floor (5 Ammo)
• Deconstruct Mode - Remove a Wall (5 Ammo)
• Deconstruct Mode - Turn a Reinforced Wall into a Wall (5 Ammo)
• Deconstruct Mode - Remove an Airlock (10 Ammo)

Be aware that when the RCD finishes building or removing something, it creates a bunch of sparks which can ignite nearby gas and start a fire.

Compressed Matter Cartridge

Little blue things, three of them are available in EVA alongside the RCD which uses them. Just hold one and click on the RCD to load it. If you run out, get more from the Autolathe.

Lightbulbs and Light Tubes

Used to replace the lights if they ever get broken or removed for any other reason. Came in with the Dynamic Lighting update. Obviously, they'll only work if the area is recieving Lighting power from the local APC.

Metal Sheets

Very, very useful. They only stack to five normally, but can be found in stacks of 50 in Assistant Storage, Engineering Storage and EVA. They can be obtained a number of other ways, such as:

• Disassemble a Wall (4 Sheets)
• Disassemble a Reinforced Wall (3 sheets, 2 rods)
• Disassemble a Computer (5 sheets)
• Weld Metal Rods (converts the whole rod stack into 1 sheet)
• Weld a broken Grille (1 Sheet, currently broken)
• Weld an open Closet (1 Sheet)
• Wrench Table Parts, Rack Parts, Stools, Chairs and Beds (1 sheet each)

Metal can be used to do the following things:

• Create 2 Metal Rods (1 sheet)
• Create 4 Floor Tiles (1 sheet)
• Create a Reinforced Metal Sheet (2 sheets)
• Create a Computer Frame (it says 5 sheets, but it actually consumes an entire stack of 5 or more)
• Build wall girders on the tile you're standing on (2 sheets)
• Add plating to wall girders to make a regular wall (2 sheets)
• Add plating to displaced wall girders to make a false wall (1 sheet)
• Build a Stool or Chair (1 sheet) or a Bed (2 sheets)
• Make Rack Parts (1 sheet) or Table Parts (2 sheets)
• Loads into the Autolathe or a Robotics Fabricator

Most of these can be created by clicking metal in your active hand. You can collect metal into a stack of up to five by clicking on more metal with metal already in your active hand. If there has been an explosion strong enough to damage walls, there will likely be a lot of loose metal lying around. Walls which are outright destroyed in the blast will produce no metal.

Reinforced Metal Sheet

Created from the metal building menu and costing two sheets, Reinforced Metal does not stack and is only used to create Reinforced Walls or False Reinforced Walls. Just click on wall girders or displaced wall girders, respectively.
Remember to click reinforced walls twice - the first click creates Reinforced Girders, the second click actually makes it a reinforced wall.

Metal Rods

Again, create these from the metal building menu. You get 2 rods for every sheet of metal consumed, though stacks of 50 rods are available from Assistant Storage and you get two rods by dismantling grilles. Metal Rods are used for the following:

• Creating a Grille (2 rods)
• Reinforcing the floor (2 rods)
• Reinforcing a sheet of glass (1 rod)
• Part of creating an Electric Shield (1 rod)
• Part of creating a Flamethrower (1 rod)

Floor Tiles

Another thing created from that marvellous metal building menu. You get four per sheet of metal, and they can be used on space tiles to create a new floor space, or on an untiled floor space to tile it. You can save yourself from space wind or jumping into space by having a stack of these in your hand - if you begin falling into space, create some floor to land on using the tiles. They stack up to ten, in the same manner as sheets of metal.

Shards, Glass and Reinforced Glass

Brittle blue stuff. Glass and Reinforced Glass can be used to make windows by clicking the glass in your active hand - consuming one sheet for a directional window or two sheets for a full-tile window. Regular Glass is used in making Computers, Reinforced Glass is purely for making windows or chucking into the autolathe. Reinforced Windows take significantly more effort to break than regular Windows, obviously.
Shards are produced from broken windows (breaking a Reinforced window will also produce Metal Rods), and have no use other than attacking electrified grilles safely and being welded into usable glass.

Generator and Circulators

The white things found in the main room of Engineering. The circulators create power using their gas loops, the Generator in the center is where you can switch the circulators on and off, and control the rate at which gas in the loop is consumed. Higher rates generate more power, but consume the gas faster. Since there is a hard limit on the amount of power that can be distributed to the station, going batshit insane with power levels isn't a good idea.

SMES Cells

Big white chunky things found in the SMES Room of Engineering, in the Prototype Engine, next to both solar controls, and in the AI's core room. The power created by the generator doesn't go directly out to the station's grid - it comes to these first. Their control panels allow you to set the intake and output rates, as well as switch the input and output on or off. SMES cells draw input from the generator to increase their charge - as long as they have charge left in them, they will output power to the station's power grid at the rate set on their control panels. Note that if output exceeds input, the SMES will eventually drain out.

APC

The white boxes found on the walls of just about every room of the station. They house a power cell - this is the last stop for electricity in the station's power grid. The generator makes the charge, the SMES cells then take that charge and distribute it among the station's APCs. Their control panels can be unlocked by engineering or command ID cards. From the control panel, you can toggle the main breaker to turn the room's power on and off, set the APC to recieve charge from the SMES cells or not, and fiddle with the room's lighting, equipment (computers, devices), and environmental (doors, alarms) systems.
APCs can be hacked to gain illicit access to them. Use a screwdriver on the APC to expose the wires, and then cut/mend with a Wirecutter and pulse with a Multitool. One wire is the temporary unlocker which responds only to pulsing, one wire allows the AI to control the APC, and the other two are genuine power wires which will short out the APC if meddled with by any means. Security on them can also be bypassed by emags.
To change or remove the power cell in the APC, disable the Cover Lock option and then use a crowbar on the APC to open and close the cell compartment. Obviously, APCs will recieve no power when they have no cell in them.

Atmospheric Things

It means regarding gas. Not regarding items directed by M Night Shylaman.

Atmospheric Analyzer

File:Analyzer.png

A Analyzer

If held in your active hand and clicked, the Analyser will show you the gas pressure and composition where you are standing. A good way to tell if you can breathe or not without taking off your internals and choking to death. It can also be used on tanks and canisters to tell what kind of gases are inside, how much, and at what temperature. Essentially redundant given that the functionality of the Atmospheric Analyzer has been built into every PDA, though there is the remote possibility someone might use one once a year if they desperately need to check the contents of an emergency gas tank and they've previously lost their PDA. Can be clipped to your belt or stored in pockets, if for whatever reason you want one.

Canisters

These are the big, colourful cylinders mostly found in Engineering, Atmospherics and Chemical Lab. They are used to store the various gas kept on the station and thus come in five exciting flavors detailed further in the Gases article. Plasma Tanks, Anisthetic Tanks and Oxygen Tanks can be connected to a canister's upper valve by using them on the canister. Canisters can be clicked on with a free hand to access their two valves - the Upper Valve is relevant to tanks connected to the canister, and is able to transfer the gas in the canister to the tank using Release, or the other way around with Siphon. If the top valve is set to release when no tank is connected, the gas inside will be spilled into the air. The Lower Valve is only accessible if the canister has been attached to a Connector pipe using a wrench. Gas is released into or siphoned from the pipeline the canister is attached to.

Canisters can be broken by brute force damage or excessive exposure to heat. When a canister breaks, it falls on its side, instantly releases all gas contained inside, and becomes unusable. This happens if a canister is broken by being physically attacked by a player (they're not paticularly resilient either), is in a fire for too long, or the temperature of the gas inside exceeds 2500 degrees. Empty O2 (blue) and Plasma (orange) canisters can be constructed using two sheets of metal. High and Low capacity canisters can also be found in some areas, containing more or less gas than usual, respectively.

Tanks

Come in three types - Oxygen, Anisthetic and Plasma. Oxygen (blue) and Anisthetic (red) can be worn on the back slot and used as Internals, but Plasma Tanks cannot. However, Plasma Tanks can be used in bomb construction, while the other two cannot. All tanks can be attached to the upper valve of a Canister by using it on the canister - from there, they can be drained or refilled as needed/wanted. Oxygen tanks start out filled with delicious breatheable air, Anisthetic tanks are full of N2O, and Plasma Tanks are filled with 20 degree plasma.

Emergency Oxygen Tank

like the Oxygen tank, the Emergency Oxygen tank is filled with pure Oxygen. Unlike the Oxygen tank, the Emergency Oxygen Tank (often abbreviated as 'etank') clips to one's belt instead of replacing one's backpack, so you can run around with an internals tank without risking loosing all of your things if you get disarmed or slip on some poo. Though they start with a small capacity, they can be filled at Oxygen Canisters to as much capacity as a back-mounted Oxygen tank, and as a bonus they're a surprisingly robust weapon with an alarmingly good chance of knocking a foe unconscious.

Scrubbers

They come in two types - white flat ones, and blue boxy ones. The only difference between the two is that blue ones start full of oxygen. They mostly act like canisters, except they can only be destroyed by explosions, plus they have the ability to siphon gas out of the air around them. Their valves also feature an Automatic setting which will try to return the air to an ideal composition by siphoning bad gas out of the air and releasing good gas until a decent air pressure and composition is reached. Generally you'll want to drag white ones into fires and gas leaks, and blue ones to newly-repaired hull breaches and other deoxygenated areas.
There are also immovable versions of these which look a bit different but fulfill the exact same function.

Pipe Dispenser

A stationary fixture found in the east of Atmos which looks like the Autolathe, this can create an unlimited amount of pipes as long as Atmos is recieving equipment power. This is a very useful device for repairing pipelines or building your own neat contraptions around the station. It dispenses "Pipe Fittings" which have to be placed, rotated, set in the case of filter inlets and controls, and then wrenched into place. Wrenching is permanent and cannot be undone, so be careful the pipes don't shift around due to air pressure or you could end up with your device plan ruined.

Pipe, Bent Pipe and Manifold Fittings

Normal pipes, gas can pass through these freely two ways, or three ways in the case of the manifold.

Junction Fitting

Acts like a normal pipe except it is necessary to use one of these to transition from normal pipes to heat exchange pipes.

Heat Exchange Pipe and Bent Heat Exchange Pipe Fittings

When gas flows through these pipes, they are affected by the temperature of the tile the pipe is laid on. A Heat Exchange Pipe that runs through a fire will heat the gas inside the pipeline, creating a Hot Loop. H/E Pipes running through space tiles will cool the gases inside, creating a Cold Loop - these are much trickier to lay and arguably have no point other than for the hell of it.

Pipe Pump Fitting

Gas can only pass through this in one direction. The red end of the pump is the "exit". When laying one of these fittings, point the red part of the pump in the direction you want gas to go. Bear in mind these will start operating immediatley as soon as they are wrenched, and thus will cause shifts in air pressure. You may want to wrench these into place last.

Connector Fitting

Looks like a grey box. When wrenched into place, you can attach gas canisters to connectors and use the lower valve to release gas into the pipeline or suck gas out of it.

Vent Fitting

Any gas in the pipeline which arrives at the vent will exit the pipeline and be dispersed into the air.

Filter Inlet and Filter Control Fittings

These two must be used together or they will be useless and inoperable. Before they can be wrenched into place, you must right click on them while holding them in your hand and use the "Set Control" option - basically naming the control and the inlet. Name them the same thing and they will become linked - this feature is present so you can have multiple filters with different controls. The Filter Inlet wrenches into place like a normal fitting - to attach the controls, you must use them on a wall. The control will then allow you to control which gases the filter inlet sucks out of the air and into the pipeline. "Passing" means the gas is ignored, "Siphoning" means the gas is being sucked up.

Meter Fitting

These can only be attached to straight normal pipes. They tell you the temperature of the gas inside and how much flow is passing through the pipe at that moment in time.

Tank Dispenser

Can be found in Atmos, Engineering, Chemical Lab and EVA, with varying contents in each. All of them dispense Oxygen tanks, but only the ones in Chemlab and Engineering dispense plasma.