Vents lock out too easily

[K-Dynamic]

Description

A single syndiebomb will usually cause vents all over the station to lock out, even if the pressure doesn't decrease substantially. This causes repressurisation to be almost impossible and require player intervention to manually unlock vents.

Reproduction

Somewhat difficult to reproduce reliably but it seems to occur after 'large' explosions (ranging from meteors to syndiebombs at the edges of the station), which will cause lockouts in a much larger radius. Needs further testing to check air alarms and pressure readings.

[thebadman4662]

Its partially caused by very high lockout pressure(like 20% loss already can lock most vents) but also by maps lack of airlocks to protect the atmos, little bit of spacing and half of station atmos are gone at times, bonus points if there is no power for some reason and the smart spessmen do not lock maints as usual.

If nearby sets of airlocks were connected to eachother and set to close they could greatly reduce atmos drain while still not slowing crew too much as they go on their daily lives and spacing station via maints.

Then we have firelocks that often are poorly placed, on door or literally adjacent to door so you can't create small pocket to open from without spacing bigger parts of station. 1-3 tiles of space between firelock and airlock/another firelock set would save stations a lot of atmos and lockouts.

[K-Dynamic]

Really vent lockouts should be tied to firelocks and checking if the room is airtight before unblocking

[thebadman4662]

Really vent lockouts should be tied to firelocks and checking if the room is airtight before unblocking

As AI, I could not agree more. Perhaps it should even bolt while in fill mode as safety measure and require hacking(safety wire wyci)/emag to bypass it.

[dylanstrategie]

After discovering how this system works myself, I fully agree it is really, REALLY bad for station operation unless you have an insanely cracked Atmospherics Technican running around manually repressurizing everything

The vent lockout should definitely be set MUCH lower so only rooms which are either obviously spaced or next to a breach don't get refilled. It's not normal that a few people quickly forcing a firelock causes the entire hallway to become permanently depressurized

It's also a bit weird that the only way to fix this is to intentionally set the air alarm to Fill or screwdriver the vent repeatedly. You really have to be VERY aware to see the yellow vent or know what it means, and nowhere are you told that screwdrivering the vent allows you to refill the room if you can't access the alarm. It doesn't even tell you what you did when do end up screwdrivering it!

[thebadman4662]

It's also a bit weird that the only way to fix this is to intentionally set the air alarm to Fill or screwdriver the vent repeatedly. You really have to be VERY aware to see the yellow vent or know what it means, and nowhere are you told that screwdrivering the vent allows you to refill the room if you can't access the alarm. It doesn't even tell you what you did when do end up screwdrivering it!

So, what exactly screwdriving does? Forces fill for X seconds? Till air alarm changes it again?

[dylanstrategie]

It's also a bit weird that the only way to fix this is to intentionally set the air alarm to Fill or screwdriver the vent repeatedly. You really have to be VERY aware to see the yellow vent or know what it means, and nowhere are you told that screwdrivering the vent allows you to refill the room if you can't access the alarm. It doesn't even tell you what you did when do end up screwdrivering it!

So, what exactly screwdriving does? Forces fill for X seconds? Till air alarm changes it again?

I was literally just told this by a developer, and apparently it disables the lockout for like 10 seconds maximum. But it allows someone without air alarm access to manually refill their room

[slarticodefast]

A single syndiebomb will usually cause vents all over the station to lock out, even if the pressure doesn't decrease substantially

Our atmos simulation is kinda broken at the moment. We do have instant spacing using a floodfill algorithm, but it is supposed to stop at firelocks and activate them in between atmos ticks. This does not happen at the moment, causing the whole station to be depressurized and the firelocks trigger only when it is already too late. On top of that a few bandaid changes had been made to make spacing slower, which however causes the lockouts not to trigger correctly.

[Ilya246]

it's intentionally set high, without this the vent just never becomes space and keeps voiding air even if there's a breach nearby i am a first-order source on this as i have tested it

[deltanedas]

theres an ancient pr to make lockout smarter