Shield Generator
Information in sandbox pages, including this one, should not be relied upon as factual or complete.
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.
Contents
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.
Controlling the Shield Generator
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
The shield generator's control menu is divided into four major sections. They are, from top to bottom, system status, controls, logs, and modifications.
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.<ref name="sg_only">Due to an oversight, this is currently only available on the shield generator itself, and cannot be seen via the Shield Control program.</ref>
- 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.<ref name="sg_only" />
In addition
References and footnotes
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