Geothermal Generator

This page is under construction. The following information may be incomplete. Pending construction as part of a phasing out of Powering_the_station (yes, its capitalization was inconsistent) for a less wrong-and-dumb engineering guide.

The geothermal generator refers to the process of capturing geothermal energy from hotspots on Oshan. Unlike the TEG of some other stations, the generator is not found on-station and instead power is generated from building vent capture unit atop a located hotspot.

Finding Hotspots

You'll need to venture out into the ocean to find hotspots. Luckily, Engineering comes equipped with the necessary tools for doing exactly that. You should put on a diving suit and helmet, and flippers to withstand the harsh ocean conditions (don't forget to bring oxygen!) and move faster. Next, you'll need to bring a dowsing rod, a power shovel, a stomper unit, a vent capture unit and a good amount of reinforced wire (there's a crate with boxes of this near the airlock). You don't need to necessarily bring all of this at once, but it helps to at least bring the dowsing rod and stomper unit together so you can pin the hotspot in place after you find it. It's also a bit tough to navigate the ocean, so consider bringing a GPS to help find your way back if you get lost (200, 150 will get you back to Engineering).

But how do you find the hotspot? Go out into the ocean with your dowsing rod in hand. Click on any floor tile and the rod immediately will tell you if you are near a hotspot. Hotspots are 20x20 in size, and can move around, so don't get frustrated if the dowsing rod doesn't give any feedback the first few times. Just click it again to retrieve it back into your hand, and continue. Eventually, the dowsing rod will give you a number. Great! You're on a hotspot, and some distance away from the center. The number indicates how close to the center you are, where "0" is the center. Hotspots give more power the closer to the center you place your vent unit, so you can continue to use the dowsing rod to locate the true center (it will beep and give you a specific message in chat, it's not necessarily the first "0" you find). Keep the dowsing rod on the true center, and click on the stomper unit to pin the hotspot in place. The hotspot will stop wandering periodically at this point, so if you didn't bring the rest of the equipment the first time you won't have to worry about finding the true center again.

Generating Power

Now that you've located the true center, get your power shovel in hand and click on the ground where the dowsing rod is (which should be the true center). Use the unbuilt vent capture unit on the hole and you'll finally start generating power! But to make use of this power, you'll need to connect this generator back to the SMES unit in engineering. Take out the reinforced wire and click on the geothermal capture unit to connect it and lay some wire on the ground. Now, you can do this all the way back to the station, but you can save yourself a lot of headache by clicking on the wire or the UI button of the wire to automatically lay it at your feet as you move. Once you connect the wire back to one of the three pre-built wires that funnel into the SMES units, you're good! Remember to update the SMES values for proper input and output, as they are set pretty low by default.

What's next? Doing it all over again of course! There's three pre-built wire paths to the SMES's, so it's nice to try to locate at least three hotspots. The more hotspots you find, the more power you generate! And what proper engineer doesn't like generating ludicrous amounts of power?

Advanced Tricks

Since hotspots move on their own, it's possible for hotspots to overlap. This does lead to a massive increase in the power generated, especially if the true centers overlap. It's a bit tricky, but if you can do it you can reap a lot of energy. Secondly, you can excavate the area under the geothermal vent in order to make it release more power naturally. You'll need a sea ladder.