Calling the Escape Shuttle

Ideally

Go to the bridge and find the communications computer (there's one in the Captain's Quarters and one in the south-west corner of the Bridge Lobby). To call the shuttle you should:

• Insert your ID and type "login" to verify you have the correct access
• Type "commaster" to run the communications program
• Type "link" to verify the connection to the communications dish
• Type "call" to send the shuttle from CentComm to the station

The whole station will be alerted, everyone will see a countdown, and in ten minutes the Escape Shuttle will show up! Good job!

Alternatively, if you're lazy, you can just tell the AI to call the shuttle.

Problems!

Several things have to be working in order for the above steps to work.

• A physical (wiring) link between the communication terminal and the communications dish.
• Functioning computer with commaster installed
• Power to the computer

Any of these will stop you from calling the shuttle from a console on the station; but never fear, you can always ask the AI to call the shuttle. If the AI is dead, then you have Problems!

Making a new computer

If the old computer is blown up or broken or inaccessible for some other reason, you'll need to build a new one. Things you'll need: Metal, glass, wiring, wrench, screwdriver, hard drive, mainboard, ThinkDOS disk, Commaster disk, ID scanner module, floppy disk module, wired network card, An ID that can access COMMmaster! while anyone can get the computer working, you'll need an ID with the requisite access to actually call the shuttle! There's not any specific "commaster" access listed on the ID computers, but as far as I know anyone who can get into the bridge can call it.

• Build a heavy computer frame and insert your modules
• Remember it must be wired to the dish, so try to build it as close as possible. There's a spare frame already set up near the backup comm dish so use it if you can. The computer must be built on top of a data terminal-- simply sticking it on wires isn't enough. Data terminals can be found beneath all the computers already running ThinkDOS, in Tech Storage, and in the small network room north of disposals.
• Access the computer. Insert your ThinkDOS disk and your ID.
• You'll see a message about not being able to boot from fixed disk, restart the computer.
• It will restart and boot using the ThinkDOS floppy. Login.
• Type "dir". You'll see a listing of the files on your ThinkDOS disk - thinkdos itself, logs, and bin.
• Type "copy thinkdos".
• Type "drive", and a listing of the installed drives will pop up. Typically hd0 (hard drive) and sd0 (floppy drive) but I think it can vary.
• Type "drive hd0". Your drive name could differ but when you switch to the hard disk drive it will tell you that you have switched to "Storage Drive", this is what you want.
• Type "paste thinkdos".
• Eject the ThinkDOS disk and restart the computer.
• If you did everything right, it'll start up and you can login!
• Insert the Commaster disk and you can either run commaster straight from the disk or you can do the same copy-paste sequence you did with thinkdos.
• Follow the steps listed above to run commaster and call the shuttle.
• Luxuriate

Fixing Wiring

If you see that someone cut the wires between the station and the Communications Dish, you'll have to fix it before the shuttle can be called. Head on over to EVA and grab some space gear: you're going outside. Don't forget a coil of wires!

Once you're at the dish and safe inside your suit, the fix is very simple: just lay new wire from where it's broken all the way to the dish. One thing that a lot of people don't realize is that the tile the dish is sitting on needs wire, too! It's easy to miss, but unless the dish's tile has wires nothing will be linked.