Subset Games Forum

If you have all crystal crew and Engi med bot dispersal, could you operate your ship completely devoid of oxygen? So long as your Medbay is on, the crew are regenerating health, helped by the crystalmens reduced suffocation damage.

You'd be virtually immune to boarders and fire. Sun jumps and Mantis encounters becomes significantly easier to deal with.

What's the point of running it like this all the time when venting the entire ship with all airlocks open and oxygen off takes about 2 seconds?

Dralax wrote:What's the point of running it like this all the time when venting the entire ship with all airlocks open and oxygen off takes about 2 seconds?

Well, it does free up 1 power from keeping the O2 off. And having the ship being in a vacuum gives you a bit of a head start vs boarders.

Problem with it is that the Engi Medbot Dispersal probably wouldn't be able to keep up with any combined damage from asphyxiation plus the room being struck by weapons fire or boarder attacks (before the die, which admittedly would be quite quickly).

By all means give it a whirl and post the results though!

Well, I heard medbots improve with higher level medbay. I'm guessing rank 2+ would do it, combined with reduced asphyxiation damage from crystal men.

One easy way to test it is on Engi A ship, rank 3 medbay turn off O2 and see if their life drains on regular crew. I know there is a modder out there wanting to make a custom crystal ship that uses this concept.

Saving 1 power on Oxygen is going to be useless when you need 2+ to power the medbay at all times.

Can you have multiple medibots?

My understanding is that Medbots do not improve with more Medbay power. I know that I have read this somewhere on these forums, but I can't say that I have personally verified this.

Okay, I tested this. I took the Engi-A to the nearest shop and sold the weapon and drone. That, plus the 10 credits I started with, got me 95 credits, which conveniently is exactly what it costs to upgrade your medbay from 1 to 3.

I then put 1 crewman in the airlock room and opened the door (instantly depriving the room of air) and started a timer. I let him die. I then upgraded the medbay to 2 and repeated the process. Finally, I upgraded to 3 and repeated the process. Seriously, it's like they designed this ship exactly to run this test.

Level 1: 21 seconds
Level 2: 21 seconds (uh oh)
Level 3: 21 seconds (confirmed)

So, the medbay does not affect the nanobots. Which is sad, really, but I assume it was a balance thing.

Perhaps it would be appropriate to mention DryEagle's excellent Amber Shard mod here. It is a no-oxygen ship which is specially designed to not kill the all-crystal crew

And the Ghost Stories mod, though that one is a very different experience.