O2 mysteriously depleting......

[Dontmindme]

Another possibility is the dreaded Zoltan. There are instances when your power bars are limited and when Zoltans move through rooms that can result in power loss to a system. One example is if a Zoltan is traveling through a room (and thus powering it) while another system is being repaired, it's possible that a repair completion might take your last power bar. If this happens while the Zoltan is powering O2, as the Zoltan walks out of the room, O2 will not repower.

If I were a betting man, I'm going to bet it was an Ion Storm you ran across which depowered your systems, but above is yet another possibility.

[UltraMantis]

And people wonder why i space Zoltan crew.

sorry.

[U824942]

Another possibility is the dreaded Zoltan. There are instances when your power bars are limited and when Zoltans move through rooms that can result in power loss to a system. One example is if a Zoltan is traveling through a room (and thus powering it) while another system is being repaired, it's possible that a repair completion might take your last power bar. If this happens while the Zoltan is powering O2, as the Zoltan walks out of the room, O2 will not repower.

If I were a betting man, I'm going to bet it was an Ion Storm you ran across which depowered your systems, but above is yet another possibility.

After playing a few more rounds, I think there were a combination of issues; I was hit by a plasma storm, which lowered total energy output and the O2 system went offline (I never thought to check it), I also had engine damage w/ encounter and my guess is I didn't turn it back on. I haven't ran into Zoltans yet so I can only guess what they do. Thanks for the suggestions - all are great and I'll try and keep them in mind.

[UltraMantis]

It's not the enemy Zoltan that will cause problems, they almost never board your ship as they're rather weak.

When you have Zoltan crew however, there can be power distribution issues. Each Zoltan provides 1 unit of free energy when he is in a room that uses power (main systems such as shields, engines, etc. but not helm, doors, or sensors since they are allways powered), and that 1 unit is taken away when he moves out.

Moving Zoltan across your ship can give and take this free power, and often the player will not notice that for some reason or another the power distribution has changed. It can happen that there was not enough power left at the exact moment a Zoltan left a system, so that system stays unpowered until the player manually powers it. Hence my comments about tossing poxy Zoltan out of the airlock.

They are usefull if you can keep them in ONE place without having to move them, and can even make your shields immune to Ion weapons (Ions deplete energy, but cannot affect Zoltan free energy). I prefer the airlock though.

[5thHorseman]

I love Zoltans on my ship, be they enemy or friendly. Enemies pop like balloons and friendlies give free power. There's an issue when they leave a room if you're not careful but after you get bit (i.e.: die horribly in a totally unfair way) a few times you remember what to check for.

One way to guard against the depowering of rooms is to have an extra power floating in your engine core not being used for anything. This seems dumb considering the entire reason you have the Zoltan is to not have to buy that extra power, but I only do this when I have drones that I may need to turn on (it's a lot easier to get that defensive drone powered up if you have a bonus power available) and/or I have multiple Zoltans on the ship. 2 in the shields is particularly nice for the reason UltraMantis gave. 1 in the weapons can be a major pain because I tend to put my largest guns first on the stack. If you think your shields dropping from 3 to 2 could cause problems, imagine your Glaive Beam powering down 3 seconds from firing.

[The Captain]

One time recently I got beat up by Zoltan boarders. It was the Rock B, it was early enough that I just had the 4 Rocks. I tried to stage my response, but the adjacent room was only two squares, and Rocks move so slowly, that the first one in was still facing 4-on-1 till the second arrived. I sent the third in, too, but failed to send the pilot - or perhaps I didn't think I needed to. Eventually, being outnumbered, I had to pull them out to go heal, and the Zoltans rampaged, wrecking at least a couple systems. And that, plus my low HP and the Zoltan ship blew me up.

As far as Zoltans on weapons, if I don't have extra power, I sometimes move that first weapon into the second slot to avoid having it depowered, should I need move the Zoltan out.

I do like the extra power. Sometimes I feel like I'd firebomb a settlement to have an extra column of power.

[zeek]

I love zoltan crewmen because I always end up with maxed reactor energy by the end of the game. So, the only way to power more systems is to have zoltan crewmen.

[UltraMantis]

I do like Zoltan cruisers, and maybe i'm too harsh on Zoltan crew on other ships, but in my experiences their free power is not really free at all. There's strings attached In any case, to maintain sanity keep them out of the weapons bay at least.

[gir489]

I guarantee you this person did not read the random encounter.

Some slug encounters or even mantis encounters will hack your systems. If you read it, it will say something along the lines of:

"You exit the jump and all looks well. Wait a second. Oh no! It's a slug cruiser off the port bow! They hail you "ssssssurender or be sssssssuffocated." It appears they are hacking your Oxygen systems!"

1. Continue

2. (Advanced Oxygen) Reroute power to critical systems