After landing you have a suit, a helmet and a few supplies. Before you unpack the first kit, it pays to know what the suit actually does – and how you notice that things are getting tight. All numbers on this page come from Stationeers 0.2.6428.
The suit: six slots
The Eva Suit has six slots. The game decides what goes where:
| Slot | Name in game | Takes |
|---|---|---|
| 0 | Air Tank | gas canister |
| 1 | Waste Tank | gas canister |
| 2 | Life Support | battery cell |
| 3–5 | Filter | gas filter |
The suit itself holds 10 litres of gas, the Space Helmet 3 litres. That is not much – the air inside is used up quickly once the canister in the air tank slot is empty.
A second full canister and a second battery cell in your backpack save you when you misjudge your first trip.
Breathing air: oxygen partial pressure is what counts
How well you breathe does not depend on total pressure but on the partial pressure of oxygen. The game takes the oxygen partial pressure divided by 16 kPa, clamped between 0 and 1.5. With 16 kPa of oxygen you breathe at full efficiency.
An example: normal Earth air with 21 % Oxygen at 101 kPa has an oxygen partial pressure of 0.21 × 101 ≈ 21 kPa – more than enough. The same mix at only 50 kPa gives 10.5 kPa of oxygen, roughly two thirds of full efficiency.
Without oxygen you start taking damage after about 7.5 seconds.
What is toxic – and what is not
- Toxic are Pollutant, Methane (called Volatiles in game), hydrazine, silanol and hydrochloric acid. From 0.5 kPa partial pressure you get a warning, from 1 kPa damage.
- Carbon Dioxide is not a poison in the game. It only becomes dangerous when it pushes out the oxygen.
- For breathing air the game uses 20 kPa as the lower and 607.95 kPa as the upper limit.
Outside that does not help much: according to the world data, the air on Mars is about 95 % carbon dioxide and only 1.4 % oxygen. The Moon and Mimas are vacuum. See Planets for details.
Judging gas canisters
A Canister holds 64 litres and withstands 10,132.5 kPa. How much gas that is follows from the gas equation n = p · V / (R · T):
- 10,000 kPa · 64 L / (8.3144 · 293 K) ≈ 263 mol at 20 °C.
Important: the pressure in a canister rises with temperature. A cold canister filled right up to the limit can burst once it warms up. If the pressure difference is above the limit, the canister takes damage after more than 5 ticks and then bursts. So leave some headroom when filling.
Water
At 20 °C you drink about 0.9 litres of water in 30 minutes. A Water Bottle holds 1.5 litres – enough for just under an hour.
Early on, water comes from ice. One piece of Ice (Water) releases 20 mol of water and 5 mol of nitrogen when it melts. At 0.018 litres per mole, 20 mol of water are 0.36 litres. A full bottle therefore takes a bit more than four pieces of ice.
Oxygen from the ground
Ice (Oxite) is frozen oxygen with a little nitrogen: melting it releases 22.5 mol of oxygen and 2.5 mol of nitrogen. That is an almost ideal base for breathing air. Oxite melts from 273.15 K (0 °C) – so in a warm room it melts on its own.
Power for the suit
The Life Support slot takes a battery cell. The Battery Cell (Small) stores 36,000 J, the Battery Cell (Large) 288,000 J – eight times as much. How long a cell lasts depends on how hard the suit has to work. According to the game code, filtering into the waste tank costs 10 J per tick (0.5 s), the helmet lamp 50 J per tick, and heating uses half the heat the suit adds; cooling is almost free at 1 %. The starting kit puts the large cell in the suit. Switch the helmet lamp off when you do not need it – on its own it would empty a small cell in 6 minutes.
A safe room
As soon as you can, build a closed room. Mind how much pressure difference the parts can take:
| Part | holds pressure difference |
|---|---|
| Iron Wall (Type 1) | 200 kPa |
| Composite Wall (Type 1) | 300 kPa |
| Airlock | 1000 kPa |
On the Moon or Mimas it is vacuum outside. A room at 101 kPa puts 101 kPa on the walls – even an iron wall holds that. If you pump in more later, it gets tight.
Checklist for the first minutes
- Close the helmet and check the readout: pressure, oxygen, battery.
- Keep a spare canister and a spare cell at hand.
- Collect ice and oxite while they are close by.
- Build a small, airtight room.
- Set up power – see Power grid basics.
Continue with Atmosphere and pressure.