Shield Generator

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The shield generator is a versatile and life-saving piece of equipment.

The shield generator is a heavy-duty machine in Engineering, used to shield the ship from external threats such as meteors, space carp, and drones. It is located in the Shield Generator Room on Deck 4, and is accessible by going down the stairs from Atmospherics. It is an extremely versatile piece of machinery to an expert, but can be very frustrating to figure out to a novice.

Introduction to the Shield Generator

The shield generator is an old piece of equipment that generates shields around the ship itself. How well it will perform its job depends entirely on how well it's set up: if it's set up improperly, it may not be effective in preventing meteors from breaching the ship.

In addition to being old, the shield generator is also inefficient: it produces a lot of heat, and the more work it has to do, the more heat it produces. While this can be mitigated to a degree, overworking the shield generator will cause it to overheat, and if it overheats, it is designed to shut down to protect its internal components from damage. And with the ship being so far out into deep space that it cannot contact NanoTrasen, this is probably for the best - it's not like you can easily get another one.

The Shield Control Interface

The shield generator can be controlled by interacting with the primary core directly, or by the Shield Control program on a console or laptop. Inside, there are various options you can use to tune the shield generator to your liking, or as the situation demands. Bear in mind that modifying the shields will cause the shield generator's workload to increase, so care should be taken to only enable what is absolutely necessary, lest the shield generator overheat.

The interface for controlling the shields. The picture shown is from the generator itself.

The shield generator's control menu is divided into four major sections. They are, from top to bottom, system status, controls, logs, and modifications.

System Status and Annunciator Panel

The system status section tells you everything you may need to know about how the generator's running.

• Generator is [...] - Displays whether the shield generator is running or not.
• Shield integrity - Displays how much charge the shield generator has, in comparison to its total capacity.
• Shield capacity - Same as above, but in a more technical fashion.
• Mitigation - How well a shield cell will be able to handle different types of damage. You can think of this as its "armor" value, with any damage left over being passed to the affected shield segment.
  • EM - Electromagnetic pulses and disruptions.
  • PH - Physical damage, such as blunt force trauma and projectiles.
  • HE - Thermal damage, such as lasers.
  • MAX - The maximum percentage of damage the shield generator is capable of mitigating.
• Upkeep energy use - How much power (of the total input) is required to sustain the shields at their current settings and current generator temperature.
• Total energy use - How much power the shield generator is currently drawing, and what the power limit is set to. If the input limit is not set, it will show "(No Limit)" instead of a second number.
• Field size - Total number of shield segments currently active, versus how many the generator can support.
• Internal temperature - The interstage turbine temperature of the shield generator, or in layman's terms, how hot or cold it currently is. The bar's range is -20 to 120°C. ^{[note 1]}
• Exhaust gas temperature - The temperature of the gas it is expelling from the generator; can be used to gauge how hard you're running the turbine. The bar's range is -20 to 140°C. ^{[note 1]}

In addition, there is also an annunciator panel in the interface, to allow you to take a quick glance at how everything's working. ^{[note 1]} There are a total of 8 annunciators:

ANNUNCIATORS

GENERATOR ONLINE	GENERATOR OFFLINE	GEN TEMP HIGH	GEN OVERHEAT
SHIELD OFFLINE	GEN TEMP LOW	SHIELD OVERLOAD	EXH TEMP HIGH

• GENERATOR ONLINE - The shield generator is online. This does not necessarily mean the shields are online, however.
• GENERATOR OFFLINE - The shield generator is offline.
• GEN TEMP HIGH - The shield generator is above normal operating temperatures.
• GEN OVERHEAT - The shield generator is overheating.
• SHIELD OFFLINE - The shield generator is not producing any shield segments.
• GEN TEMP LOW - The shield generator is below normal operating temperatures, and will require more power than normal to sustain its current workload.
• SHIELD OVERLOAD - The shields have overloaded and shut down to regenerate faster.
• EXH TEMP HIGH - The shield generator's exhaust air is above the temperature required to force an emergency shutdown.

Controls

The basic controls sit below the annunciator panel.

• Turn On/Off - Allows you to turn the shield generator on and off safely. Turning the shields off using this button will require it to take 60 seconds to shut down the shields, and another 60 seconds before it's able to be turned back on again.
• EMERGENCY SHUTDOWN - Shuts the shield generator and all shield segments off quickly, with some severe drawbacks: the generator will require ten minutes to cool down from discharging the shields so quickly, and if the integrity of the shields is greater than 50%, has a chance of creating an EMP pulse.
• Set Field Range - Set the maximum radius for the shields.
• Set Input Cap - Sets the maximum amount of power that the shield generator can draw. Note that the power draw is calculated in the heat generation code, so setting it to an absurdly high number (or disabling it entirely) may cause it to overheat.

Logging

The shield generator's logs are below the basic controls, and detail every bit of damage the shield generator receives, as well as every configuration change that occurs. The logs also show where each entry was triggered. This is useful if a contractor keeps messing with your shield setups.

Shield modifications

Below all the status information, the basic controls, and the logs, lie the buttons to make the shield generator work its magic effectively. Each shield modification changes how the shield works, at a cost: for every shield modification you turn on, you increase your upkeep power usage, and, even more importantly, you increase the amount of heat the shield generator puts out.

There are a total of 11 shield generator modifications; 2 of which require the shield generator's safeties to be disabled. They are:

• Hyperkinetic Projectiles - Blocks blunt-force trauma, bullets, and meteors.
• Photonic Dispersion - Blocks laser weaponry and light.
• Humanoid Lifeforms - Blocks humans (including Unathi, Tajara, et cetera) from crossing the shields.
• Silicon Lifeforms - Blocks cyborgs, drones, and other silicons from crossing the shields.
• Unknown Lifeforms - Blocks various living mobs not stated above, such as carp, from crossing the shields.
• Atmospheric Containment - Prevents air from crossing the shields. Useful for dealing with a breach, less so if it covers a vent.
• Hull Shielding - Makes the shield cover the hull, instead of projecting out in a circle.
• Multi-Dimensional Field Warp - Makes the shield cover more than one deck.
• Adaptive Field Harmonics - Allows the shields to more effectively counter different types of damage, at the cost of high power draw.
• Diffuser Bypass - Counters the effect of shield diffusers, at the cost of high power draw. Requires the safeties to be disabled.
• Field Overcharge - Makes the shields into essentially a giant death ray to anything that touches it. Requires the safeties to be disabled.

Heat and Mitigation

The shield generator is an old and inefficient piece of equipment - it chews up a lot of power, and pushes out a lot of heat.

Footnotes

1. Due to an oversight, this feature is currently only accessible by interacting with the shield generator directly, and is not available with the Shield Control program. A hotfix is waiting to be merged.