Calling the Escape Shuttle

Think everything is good? Try this first!

Find a Communications Console. Two Communications Consoles can be found on the Bridge (one in the Captain's Quarters and one in the general Bridge area), and one can be found in the armoury. On Cogmap2, there's another one in the Chief Engineer's quarters in Engineering. To call the shuttle you should:

1. Insert your ID and type "login" to verify you have the correct access.
   • Generally, if you have Bridge access, you have Comms Console access, so if you're a Head of Staff or a VIP, you can use the console. Cyborgs and AIs can use it too, without needing to insert an ID.
2. Type "commaster" to run the communications program
3. Type "link" to verify the connection to the communications dish
4. Type "call" to send the shuttle from CentComm to the station
5. (Optional) Provide a reason for calling the shuttle. It has absolutely no effect on whether the shuttle is launched or not, so just put in anything you'd like.

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

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

But I don't want the shuttle now! How do tell it to go back?

For the most part, it's exactly like the above, except instead of typing "call" after typing "link", you type "recall" to send it back to CentComm. Just like with calling, you need a Heads of Staff or VIP ID card to recall. Cyborgs and AIs can't recall.

Better act soon. Once the shuttle is less than two minutes to arrival, you can't order it to come back.

That didn't work! What's wrong?

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(or trying to murder you), then you have Problems!

I can't figure this out, I'll just build my own!

If the old computer is destroyed or otherwise inaccessible, you'll need to build a new one before you can call the shuttle. You'll need a bunch of materials, including:

• Metal sheets
• Glass sheets
• Wires
• Wrench
• Screwdriver
• Hard Drive
• Mainboard
• ThinkDOS disk
• COMMaster Disk
• ID Scanner Module
• Floppy Disk Module
• Wired Network Card
• An ID that can access COMMaster!

While anyone can build the computer and get it to run, you'll need an ID with the proper access to actually call the shuttle! There's not a specific "COMMaster" access level on the ID Computer, but if you have access to the Bridge you have COMMaster access.

Remember that you need a physical link to the dish, so try and build your computer as close to the dish as possible. It will also need to be on top of a Data Terminal with a wired connection to a comm dish, simply putting it on top of wires will not work. Data Terminals can be found underneath all computers already running ThinkDOS and in Tech Storage.

If the station is too dangerous to build on without being attacked, or a hostile AI keeps breaking your computer and deleting everything, go to the backup communications room on the Mining Outpost and build there. That might be a good idea, anyway, since it already contains a frame and COMmaster disk, among other things.

Got all that? Now, carefully follow these instructions.

1. Build a heavy computer frame and insert the modules
2. Access the computer. Insert your ThinkDOS disk and your ID.
3. You'll see a message about not being able to boot from fixed disk, restart the computer.
4. It will restart and boot using the ThinkDOS floppy. Type "login".
5. Type "dir". You'll see a list of all the files you have on your ThinkDOS disk - ThinkDOS itself, logs, and bin.
6. Type "copy thinkdos".
7. Type "drive", and a list of installed drives will pop up. Typically hd0 (hard drive) and sd0 (floppy drive) but it can vary.
8. 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.
9. Type "paste thinkdos".
10. Eject the ThinkDOS disk and restart the computer.
11. If you did everything right, it'll start up and you can login!
12. Insert the Commaster disk. You can then either run commaster straight from the disk or do the same copy-paste sequence you did with ThinkDOS.
13. Follow the steps listed above to run commaster and call the shuttle.

You're done! Good job adapting to the situation and building your own console!

Someone cut the wires! All hope is lost!

Not so! If you see that someone cut the wires between the station and the Communications Dish, you'll have to fix it yourself 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 Communications 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.

---