This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.
The original was posted on /r/stationeers by /u/FINALCOUNTDOWN99 on 2024-06-27 06:28:24+00:00.
162 in game days ago, I embarked on my second ever save file (in the first, I failed so badly that I quickly restarted). I created Toast Station. At first, Toast Station's airlock was barely an airlock, you would open and close two doors and lose a cube of air with each cycle - at the times when Toast Station had air at all!
After lots of struggling for survival, this basic proto-airlock was upgraded into the Mk 1 airlock, built primarily using the tutorial on the wiki. It sure beat venting a lot of air into space each time.
Me and the Mk 1 spent a lot of time together. Some of it was trapped outside the base, inside the base, or even inside the airlock as the power died while I was stuck in it. More still was spent figuring out why it would randomly stop working (so many burst pipes haha) and trying to fit upgrades to my first gas system in the one cube of space I had to work with next to it.
But mostly, my time spent with the Mk 1 airlock was spent waiting. Press the button. Wait a second for the doors to close. Wait a second for the pumps to start. Wait 5-10 seconds for the air to fill or evacuate the airlock, depending on how much pressure I had in the oxygen tank. Wait another second for no reason. Wait another second for the doors to open.
As big of an achievement as the Mk 1 airlock was, I knew I could get that cycle time down. I had probably lost an hour of my life just waiting for the airlock to cycle. So of course, I would spend more than an hour making a better one.
Toast Station had by now expanded significantly. The first expansion doubled the living space, and then a later expansion provided a huge dome with space for three more spokes, each twice the size of the previous base. Two spokes had since been built, a gas module, with a massive gas and liquid separation system (that had only accidentally filled the entire base with nitrous oxide twice, so by my standards it is doing a pretty good job), and a hydroponics wing. One airlock wasn't really enough any more, as I'd have to walk all the way to one just to go outside.
So I built the airlock Mk 2 on the other side of the base. Six active vents (with room for more if needed) and an IC10 with my own code powered the whole thing. It had its own backup battery to prevent getting stuck, it shouldn't permanently lock ever, and it has windows so you don't feel super cramped.
When I first tested it, I was blown away. Reliably under 2 seconds total from button press to ingress/egress. In one early test I sat waiting for the door to open only to realize it had already opened! And I can double the vents if I want to, and make it go slightly faster!
I was so excited. I had entered the future of airlock technology!
But then I had to use Airlock 1 again, and it felt so painfully slow that I concluded I'd have to replace it.
With anything I do, be it Minecraft or Kerbal Space Program or Stationeers, after a certain amount of time has passed after constructing something, I tend to grow very emotionally attached to it and do my best to keep it in its original condition. Things cease to be of active use and become historical artefacts.
Tearing out the Mk 1 airlock actually made me cry a little. When I realized I had turned it off for the last time, well, that hit hard. Yeah, call me silly.
About then a friend in Discord told me "Blow it up! Viking burial!" and I responded that I'd love to, but doing so would destroy the most important part of my base, the most historic part of my base, and depressurize the entire base (which would kill a lot of plants and vent an atmosphere equivalent to over a dozen inventories of nitrice and oxite).
So I started carefully disassembling the airlock and placing its components on the floor.
Evidently the airlock had overheard this conversation and had decided that, yes, it did want a Viking funeral.
Not 30 seconds after I responded to that friend on Discord, I must have misclicked at some point while disassembling the airlock walls, and I took apart the outer door by mistake... The airlock section became a rocket engine, sucking me and the rest of the airlock components out and tossing them throughout the Lunar surface! The force was so strong I couldn't get back in!
I managed to race around to airlock 2 and shut the emergency door so that most of my air was not lost and the plants lived. I'm very glad I didn't tear that door out like I said I would!
The Mk 1 Airlock got to go out with a bang after all! I still can't find my wrench, which I must have set down at some point. The final casualty of the Mk 1 Airlock.