Starting the Engine (For Dummies and Advanced Students)

[Mech__Warrior]

So you want to start the engine of the Sulaco? All right. It's pretty easy to do, but judging from what many other MTs and CEs have told me, it's almost impossible. So let's clear that up.

STEP 1; OBSERVE YOUR SURROUNDINGS



At the start of the shift, this is how the engine room should look, and how you should look too; got your rad suit on, rad helm on, and a pair of meson's goggles on. The reactor room has power, and you can start the engine. IF AT ANY POINT DURING THE SHIFT THE ROOM DOESN'T LOOK LIKE THIS, USE YOUR ENGINEERING SKILLS TO TRY AND BRING THE ROOM BACK TO THIS STATE

STEP 2; TURNING THE RAD COLLECTORS ON



In this step, you would have noticed that on those racks are four phoron tanks each. Those phoron tanks need to be topped off using a phoron canister (The orange canister in the room). To do this, hold the tank in your active hand, and click on the canister. The tank will attach to the canister. From there, hit the plus sign furthest to the right to set the pressure at 1013 kpa and hit 'Open valve'. When the tank says it is at 1013 kpa, hit 'Close valve' and then 'Eject tank'. IF YOU DO NOT CLOSE THE VALVE, IT'LL FLOOD THE ROOM WITH PHORON AND YOU WILL DIE.

Now that all the tanks are full, hit that button I highlighted in blue and go into the collector access, and put one tank per collector. Then click on the collector again to turn it on. Do this for the other side.

STEP 3; MAKE SURE COOLANT LINE IS ON



Chances are the coolant line is already hooked up and running but in case it isn't, you need the N2 canisters (The red canisters) hooked up to those connectors and make sure the freezers are on. If they are not, well, the engine isn't getting coolant and will blow up.

STEP 4; FIRE THE EMITTER



Now, fire the emitter. Eight to twelve shots is usually good enough, but personally, I love to overcharge it. Just keep in mind that the more you charge it, the hotter the core will get and the more radiation that will be emitted. This radiation will pass through the reactor room and reach you in the monitoring room if it is strong enough.

STEP 5; TURN THE REACTOR SMES ON



You need to set the SMES of the reactor room to charge at the maximum charge rate. This will make sure the room doesn't run out of power and have all the equipment in the room shut down and cause your reactor to overheat.

STEP 6; MESS WITH THE ATMOSPHERIC CONTROLS ON THE ENGINE (OPTIONAL)



This is optional but it will help keep the engine cool. Make sure the air injector is on and pumping in coolant at 700L/s, and maximize the amount of pressure being taken away by the air vent (This allows the gases to be vented from the engine and enter the waste loop).

STEP 7; SET ATMOS (OPTIONAL)



This is also optional, but a good idea to make sure the waste loop doesn't get backed up. You need to go to each one of the marked computers and make sure the air injector is toggled to on.

And there you have it, everyone.

[TopHatPenguin]

You need to set the Maint shaft smes's to the north and south of the central ladders as well otherwise medical and the bridge will eventually lose power.

[Ithalan]

You need to set the Maint shaft smes's to the north and south of the central ladders as well otherwise medical and the bridge will eventually lose power.

The Maint SMES's have both their inputs and outputs connected to the main grid. They essentially take excess energy in the main grid and store it, then feed it back to the main grid when the power supply from engineering falls below the power demand on the main grid, but they don't have to be online for ship areas to receive power from the grid (provided the power supply from engineering is sufficient). I personally have the habit of turning the output on them off. That way if main power goes away, the entire ship won't drain them dry before I have a chance to disable APC charging in non-essential areas.

Here's a rough chart of how the upper deck power grid is laid out:



Other tips and tricks:

• Unweld the emitter after you have started the engine to give yourself some time to react when baldie MTs or CEs rush in to overload the engine. Overloaded engines can require a lot of babysitting if they are even recoverable at all, so better to have the time to call in the MPs to bust up the baldie before he figures out why it won't fire.
• If you're not overloading the engine (ie: giving it 10 shots or less), consider changing the target temperature of the engine coolers to 293 kelvin (room temperature) or thereabout. It won't affect the coolant temperature much during operation, but if the core for some reason gets ejected, it makes the coolers stop once the core chamber reaches room temperature. This saves both valuable power in the engine room SMES and lets you go into the core to place a new supermatter crate with just internals rather than requiring a full pressure suit.
• Get a feeling for the expected power draw of the upper deck and the individual APCs on it by watching the main grid monitor at the engineering front desk. Changes in APC power usage can indicate a problem (ie: drop in usage due to broken lights or spike due to vents attempting to depressurize a breached room)