Life Support

From Garry's Goons

Several life support devices welded to a plane.

IMPORTANT NOTICE

In the coming weeks, it is very plausible that LS will become obsoleted on the current server, Guneland. More to follow soon.

Resources

Life support has 3 different resources you need to know about. These 3 resources are used in all the life support devices to help keep you breathing and warm in the freezing vacuum of space.

Those three resources are:

• Energy
• Air
• Coolant

These resources are constantly being generated, transferred, and used. The flow of resources is as follows. First they are produced at a generator(like one of the many listed below), from there, they are transferred into a resource container for storage. From there, they can be used by any Life Support device that is wired to that resources container. For example, if you produce Energy with a Wind Turbine, the produced Energy needs to be transferred into an Energy Cell. Now, any devices that you want to use that Energy will need to be wired to that Energy Cell. You CANNOT wire devices that need a resource straight into the resource generator. It just won't work.

Generators

All resources have to come from somewhere right? In Life Support mod, all the resource generators can be found in the Generators column of the tools list. The types of generators are as follows:

• Solar Panel
  • Produces energy
  • Solar Panels work just like you would expect real solar panels to work. By having the Solar Panels facing the direction of light, they generate energy, the rate of which can be affected by the planets atmosphere. On Earth like planets you get around 10 energy per second, while in space you get around 20. Remember, that Solar Panels do not work underwater!

• Wind Turbine
  • Produces energy
  • Wind Turbines gather energy from the atmosphere of a planet, so the more dense an atmosphere, the more energy is produced. Since space has no atmosphere, Wind Turbines do not function in space. Wind turbine energy production is sporadic because of the way it is coded, but generally, on Earth you get anywhere from 1 to 60 energy per second, but they can generate more than that on other planets depending on the atmosphere. If submerged in water, wind turbines fail catastrophically, so do not get them wet, that is what the Hydro Generator is for.

• Hydro Generator
  • Produces energy
  • Only works when submerged in water, provides around 60 units of energy per second.

• Fusion Reactor
  • Produces energy
  • The most efficient generator by far. It can create 3,000 energy per second, but to do so it consumes 80 coolant per second. To feed the Fusion Reactor coolant, wire it to a coolant tank. Without coolant, the generator will produce a beeping sound for awhile, and then the sound will change to an alarm, at which point it will start arcing electricity. A few minutes after that it will explode and destroy anything around it, including your spaceship and you. DO NOT LET IT EXPLODE OR EVERYONE WILL HATE YOU.

• Coolant Compressor
  • Produces Coolant
  • The Coolant Compressor produces 80 coolant per second and supports overdrive.

• Air Compressor
  • Produces air
  • The Air Compressor will take air from a breathable atmosphere(like Earths) and compress it into your air tanks. It supports overdrive, but do not submerge it in water or it will break, that should be pretty common sense though.

• Oxygen Scrubber
  • Produces air
  • The Oxygen Scrubber is a necessity for every spaceship. When you are far from a breathable atmosphere like Earths and are running low on air, Oxygen Scrubbers allow you to land on any planet with an atmosphere, or even under water, and convert air for use in your systems. It converts roughly 5 energy into 1 air per second, so you will need a few to generate enough air for you to survive. I usually equip about 10, although you could survive with less.

As you read above, some devices are "overdrive capable". Overdrive means the device will produce more resources but it will cause wear and can destroy the generator, it is best to use it only in emergencies. To activate overdrive, hit your use key twice in rapid succession while looking at the device.

Storage Devices

This bicycle is equiped with two Small Air Tanks, allowing the driver to breath for extended flights.

So now you are generating resources, but where do you put them? Well it's pretty simple, each resource has a large and small container for it, and all resources can be out into a universal container called a Resource Cache.

The containers are as follows:

• Large Energy Cell
  • Used for storing energy, can hold 50,000 energy.

• Small Energy Cell
  • Used for storing energy, can hold 4,000 energy.

• Large Coolant Tank
  • Used for storing coolant, can hold 12,000 coolant.

• Small Coolant Tank
  • Used for storing coolant, can hold 4,000 coolant.

• Large Air Tank
  • Used for storing air, can hold 12,000 air.

• Small Air Tank
  • Used for storing air, can hold 6,000 air.

• Large Resource Cache
  • Can store 24,000 of each resource.

• Small Resource Cache
  • Can store 6,000 of each resource.

Life Support Devices

You've got generators making resources that are being stored in containers. So how do you put these 3 resources to work for you? Environmental controls of course! They come in several varieties.

• Small Air Exchanger
  • Air Exchangers use energy and air to make a breathable atmosphere around you. It takes 20 air and 5 energy per second for the SAE to produce a breathable atmosphere within its radius in space.

• Large Air Exchanger
  • Just like the SAE but larger. With it's increased size comes an increased radius in which it will create an atmosphere, and it also takes more resources, needing 25 air and 5 energy per second.

• Small Heat Exchanger
  • Just as the Air Exchangers convert air and energy into a breathable atmosphere, the Heat Exchangers convert coolant and energy into a habitable climate. Without them, you would freeze in the cold darkness of space, and boil in the hot climates of some foreign planets. Coolant is only needed for cooling off the atmosphere, so in space, it only takes about 20 energy per second to create a habitable climate in space, and no coolant.

• Large Heat Exchanger
  • Large Heat Exchangers work just like the SHE, except once again, it is larger, and uses more resources at the cost of creating a larger habitable area. This time it takes about 100 energy per second to make space habitable.

• Climate Regulator
  • The Climate Regulator is the jack of all trades for climate regulation. It can regulate both climate and atmosphere, and needs all 3 resources to operate properly. In space it converts 85 air and 37 energy per second into a warm and breathable bubble around itself. Again, if it was in a hot atmosphere, it would use coolant to cool it to make it habitable.

• Suit Dispenser
  • The Suit Dispenser is something every ship should have. When used, it converts about 2000 of each resource into a suit which the player wears, and allows them to survive in space or on foreign planets temporarily without needing other life support devices. If for some reason you find your ship in need of repairs in the middle of space, a Suit Dispenser can save your life. You can also wire a suit dispenser directly into any vehicle or seat and directly receive life support resources in the most efficient way possible since you aren't having to incur the resource cost of providing life support to a large area.

• Air Hydroponics
  • Oxygen Scrubbers only work on planets with atmospheres. So what are you to do for air when on a long voyage or space station? This is where Air Hydroponics in useful. Each Hydroponic plant provides 1 air available for Oxygen Scrubbers, so by placing 5 around an oxygen scrubber, you can provide enough oxygen to support yourself.

• Atmospheric Probe
  • An Atmospheric Probe lets you check on planetary conditions before you wander into their environments unprepared. It delivers several key pieces of information, such as if the planet is habitable, if there is pressure, if there is gravity, and the temperature. All but the temperature is a boolean value, which means it will be either 0 or 1. 1 means it is true, 0 means it is false. If the probe reports that the habitability of the planet is 0, it is not habitable. All this information can be seen by either looking at the probe, or by hooking the probe up to some Wire mod components. Wire mod is quite a bit more complex than Life Support, so I have dedicated a separate section of this tutorial for it.

Other Devices and Tools

• Supply Connector
  • Supply Connectors are used to transfer resources between ships and refill stations. To use a Supply Connector spawn one, and then wire it to whatever resource you want to share or take. If you would like to limit how fast you can take or give resources, check the "Uses Pump" box and adjust the transfer rate to what you like. This will keep larger ships from sucking all your resources dry.

• Cutoff Valve
  • This is good for isolating life support systems, especially supply connectors. To use a Cutoff Valve, spawn one, and then wire one end to a resource container and the other end whatever will use the resource, whether it be a generator or a supply connector. Now by hitting your Use key when looking at the Valve, you can stop the flow of resources along that path. In this way you can keep people from using your supply connector completely, or keep an emergency backup of a resource separate from your main cache.

• Gravity Plating
  • A very important Life Support tool. In essence, it adds gravity to any object you use it on. Without gravity plating, in space, you will float off of your props. After applying gravity plating however, you stick to the props just like you would on a planet. Make sure to apply gravity plating to all your walking surfaces before taking off into space or you will find yourself going in one direction and your ship in the other.

• Link Tool
  • The link tool is what connector everything to everything else. It has several settings you can adjust. The first is the ropes width. I set my rope width to 0, this way the rope is invisible and besides looking more clean, it also improves performance, although just a little. One negative aspect of setting your rope width to 0 is that you cannot see what is linked to what, so you may want to leave the rope visible as you first start up. The second setting you can change is the rope material, you can pick whichever you prefer, it doesn't make a difference. The third and final setting is the rope color. Again, this doesn't really affect anything, and is up to your personal preference.

Wire mod options (Advanced Stuff)

Life Support has some wire mod support which can be used for such things are turning generators off and on, monitoring resource quantities, and even telling you about the planet which you are landing on.

• Turning Generators and Environmental Controls on and off
  • The Coolant Compressor, Fusion Generator, Air Compressor, and Oxygen Scrubber all support Wire mod input. They can be hooked up to any Wire mod component that can output a 0 or a 1 and should be wired to any of the previously listed generators "On" option, and can be used to activate or deactivate the generator. The Coolant Compressor and Air Compressor also have an "Overdrive" input option, but I suggest not using that one because it is a bit buggy and the generators may get stuck on overdrive. Environmental Control devices can be used exactly the same way, and the Supply Connector can be deployed in the same manner as well.

• Monitoring Generator Status
  • Just as Wire mod inputs can be used to activate Life Support Generators, Wire mod can screens can be used to show if generators are on or off. For instance, if you had your generators out of range of hearing, you wouldn't know if they were on or off. With your generators hooked up to a Wire mod screen, you can tell if they are on or off simply by looking at the screens. To hook up your generators to a Wire mod screen, spawn a screen, then using the Wire tool, click on the screen, choose either screen A or screen B, and then click on the Life support Generator. Now, when the generator is on, it will display a 1 on the screen. When the generator is off, a 0 will appear instead.

• Monitoring resource quantities
  • If you have your cockpit in the front of your ship and your resource containers somewhere hidden in the back, you don't want to have to go all the way back there to check how your air supply is do you? Of course not! That is where Wire mod can come in handy. Any resource container can be wired to a Wire mod Screen to show the current contents of the container. To do this, simply use the Wire tool in the Wire mod tool list, click on a screen, choose either the A or B screen,and then click on the resource container. If you are using a Resource Cache, you can right click until you select the resource you want to monitor, then left click to make the connection. The amount of that resource will now be displayed on the Screen you wired it to. In this fashion you can watch all of your resource supplies from one vantage point, like your cockpit.

• Atmospheric Probe
  • The Atmospheric Probe can output all of its information to Wire mod, and its screens. For example, you could have an Atmospheric Probe on a boom at the front of your ship, then wire the probe outputs to screens in your cockpit. When the boom with the probe on the end of it is stuck inside the atmosphere of a planet and turned on, all the probe information, like temperature, gravity, pressure, and if it is habitable, will all be relayed and displayed to the screens in front of you, without putting you in danger.