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Atmospherics
Written By: Keaton Hunt
Reference
Hello there. This is Keaton Hunt, a novice atmospheric technician fresh from NanoTransen. These are my notes on how to be a member of the atmos staff here aboard Space Station 13.
First, a word on the gases that we'll be messing about with. Oxygen is the most familiar gas and well, also the most important for sustaining human and animal life. We all need it to breathe. We need about 16 kPa (kilo-pascals) of the stuff or else we begin to suffocate, and we don't want that.
Since oxygen is an invisible gas, to detect it we're going to have to use our PDAs or the wall-mounted air alarms. Doing this is easy enough, so I won't waste your time talking too much about it.The second gas we'll be discussing is N2 gas, or nitrogen gas. Essentially nitrogen gas acts as a buffer against high temperature, soaking up heat in the air and lowering the temperature of a fire. If one were to stroll into the incinerator room with a can of burnmix and a can of 20 percent burnmix, 80 percent N2, the N2 contaminated fire will not burn nearly as hot or as well. Hence N2 is extremely important for dealing with fire hazards.Oxygen can be found in blue canisters, nitrogen in red canisters. Air canisters are white.The air around us, hopefully, is a mixture of 20 percent oxygen and 80 percent nitrogen. Optimal atmospheric pressure for humans is 101.3 kPa.Carbon dioxide is an invisible, heavy gas. It can choke people effectively and quickly. Very dangerous. CO2 can be found in black canisters.Dinitrogen-monoxide, or N2O, aka nitrous oxide, is a sleeping agent. At low doses, it causes a bad case of the giggles. Higher dosages can cause involuntary sleeping. Scrubbers don't do too well with this stuff and portable scrubbers will choke on it. If N2O is being deliberately used to put someone to sleep, make sure to mix in at least 16 kPa of O2, or else suffocation. Red canisters with white stripes carry N2O.Plasma is one of the two flammable gases on the station. It is purple and highly toxic, often referred to as 'toxins.'BZ gas is a potent hallucinogenic. The only constructive use for BZ gas is as a slime suppressor (whatever that means).Nitryl, or NO2, is a gas that will speed things up, until the acid eats your lungs. A by-product of heating O2 and N2, or the chemical reaction heat + O2 + N2 --> NO2, when N2O is present as a catalyst.Tritium is radioactive, flammable, and used mainly in chemical reactions. Created by heating loads of O2 with plasma present. Used as a catalyst for plasma fusion.Hypernoblium is an inert gas that stops other gases from reacting. Created by combining nitrogen with tritium at extremely high temperatures.Stimulum is an experimental gas that makes one faster and helps with stuns and knockdowns. Safer version of NO2.Pluoxium is a non-reactive oxygen substitute that delivers eight times as much O2 to the bloodstream.So alright, now that we've been introduced to all of the basic gases it's time for a little physics.Gases flow from high pressure areas to low pressure areas. Gas uses up more room when hot, less room when cold. This is derived from the ideal gas law which states that PV = nRT, or pressure times volume is equal to number of moles of teh gas times the ideal gas constant times the temperature of the gas. From this relation one can deduce a lot about gases.The higher the heat capacity, the quicker fire will spread when the gas is present. O2 has an HC of 20, N2 of 20, CO2 of 30, N2O of 40, plasma of 200, H2O of 40, hypernoblium of 2000, nitryl of 20, tritium of 10, BZ of 20, stimulum of 5, and pluoxium of 80.Now for the pipes! The dark blue pipe loop is called the distribution loop. It sends air to all the vents on the station for the crew to breathe.The cyan air mix pipe loop is specialized to mix and provide the air mix to the distribution loop, and is used to fill air pumps outside the front door of atmospherics.The red/green pipe loop retrieves gas in the station via the air scrubbers and passes them through a set of filters (red -> green).The yellow pipe loop is used for custom gas mixes that can be fed into the canister charging station in the middle of atmospherics or fed into the mixing tank.Now for business. The two machines at the top of the atmos room can dispense infinite pipes, and your wrench can disconnect and re-connect pipes to each other. You cannot disconnect pumps if they have too much pressure in them.Set all red circled filters ON and set them to maximum pressure so waste gases will actually be moved.Go through the N2 and O2 and set their output to 4500 kPa.Set the pumps next to the computers at 4500 kPa as well.Set the air-computer's output to maximum.Replace the blue circled normal pump with a volume pump as well.Congratulations, the basics of setting up atmospherics as well as the basic understanding of how the atmos system works are now somewhat in your (and my) grasp!After atmos work is finished, make sure pipes aren't broken. If they are, fix them.Go around swiping your ID on air alarms and setting them to filter plasma and N2O, then swipe again to lock them.Fill all air pumps with air using volume pump.Have fun, experiment, etc.
First, a word on the gases that we'll be messing about with. Oxygen is the most familiar gas and well, also the most important for sustaining human and animal life. We all need it to breathe. We need about 16 kPa (kilo-pascals) of the stuff or else we begin to suffocate, and we don't want that.
Since oxygen is an invisible gas, to detect it we're going to have to use our PDAs or the wall-mounted air alarms. Doing this is easy enough, so I won't waste your time talking too much about it.The second gas we'll be discussing is N2 gas, or nitrogen gas. Essentially nitrogen gas acts as a buffer against high temperature, soaking up heat in the air and lowering the temperature of a fire. If one were to stroll into the incinerator room with a can of burnmix and a can of 20 percent burnmix, 80 percent N2, the N2 contaminated fire will not burn nearly as hot or as well. Hence N2 is extremely important for dealing with fire hazards.Oxygen can be found in blue canisters, nitrogen in red canisters. Air canisters are white.The air around us, hopefully, is a mixture of 20 percent oxygen and 80 percent nitrogen. Optimal atmospheric pressure for humans is 101.3 kPa.Carbon dioxide is an invisible, heavy gas. It can choke people effectively and quickly. Very dangerous. CO2 can be found in black canisters.Dinitrogen-monoxide, or N2O, aka nitrous oxide, is a sleeping agent. At low doses, it causes a bad case of the giggles. Higher dosages can cause involuntary sleeping. Scrubbers don't do too well with this stuff and portable scrubbers will choke on it. If N2O is being deliberately used to put someone to sleep, make sure to mix in at least 16 kPa of O2, or else suffocation. Red canisters with white stripes carry N2O.Plasma is one of the two flammable gases on the station. It is purple and highly toxic, often referred to as 'toxins.'BZ gas is a potent hallucinogenic. The only constructive use for BZ gas is as a slime suppressor (whatever that means).Nitryl, or NO2, is a gas that will speed things up, until the acid eats your lungs. A by-product of heating O2 and N2, or the chemical reaction heat + O2 + N2 --> NO2, when N2O is present as a catalyst.Tritium is radioactive, flammable, and used mainly in chemical reactions. Created by heating loads of O2 with plasma present. Used as a catalyst for plasma fusion.Hypernoblium is an inert gas that stops other gases from reacting. Created by combining nitrogen with tritium at extremely high temperatures.Stimulum is an experimental gas that makes one faster and helps with stuns and knockdowns. Safer version of NO2.Pluoxium is a non-reactive oxygen substitute that delivers eight times as much O2 to the bloodstream.So alright, now that we've been introduced to all of the basic gases it's time for a little physics.Gases flow from high pressure areas to low pressure areas. Gas uses up more room when hot, less room when cold. This is derived from the ideal gas law which states that PV = nRT, or pressure times volume is equal to number of moles of teh gas times the ideal gas constant times the temperature of the gas. From this relation one can deduce a lot about gases.The higher the heat capacity, the quicker fire will spread when the gas is present. O2 has an HC of 20, N2 of 20, CO2 of 30, N2O of 40, plasma of 200, H2O of 40, hypernoblium of 2000, nitryl of 20, tritium of 10, BZ of 20, stimulum of 5, and pluoxium of 80.Now for the pipes! The dark blue pipe loop is called the distribution loop. It sends air to all the vents on the station for the crew to breathe.The cyan air mix pipe loop is specialized to mix and provide the air mix to the distribution loop, and is used to fill air pumps outside the front door of atmospherics.The red/green pipe loop retrieves gas in the station via the air scrubbers and passes them through a set of filters (red -> green).The yellow pipe loop is used for custom gas mixes that can be fed into the canister charging station in the middle of atmospherics or fed into the mixing tank.Now for business. The two machines at the top of the atmos room can dispense infinite pipes, and your wrench can disconnect and re-connect pipes to each other. You cannot disconnect pumps if they have too much pressure in them.Set all red circled filters ON and set them to maximum pressure so waste gases will actually be moved.Go through the N2 and O2 and set their output to 4500 kPa.Set the pumps next to the computers at 4500 kPa as well.Set the air-computer's output to maximum.Replace the blue circled normal pump with a volume pump as well.Congratulations, the basics of setting up atmospherics as well as the basic understanding of how the atmos system works are now somewhat in your (and my) grasp!After atmos work is finished, make sure pipes aren't broken. If they are, fix them.Go around swiping your ID on air alarms and setting them to filter plasma and N2O, then swipe again to lock them.Fill all air pumps with air using volume pump.Have fun, experiment, etc.