Guide to Awesome Miscellaneous Stuff

Gameplay/Interface Tips

• You can use period or a # instead of colon for non general chat. No more accidents!
• You can click on the 'Chat' button at the bottom of the Dreamseeker window, and never have to type 'Say' again.
• Control + arrow key makes you face that direction so long as you are not clicked into the chat bar.
• Have throw active and you will automatically catch things. Dodgeballs are bugged and you can't catch them.
• You can pick up obj/effects like bullets if you time it very well.
• Some things that are normally static and dispense when clicked on (paperboxes, donut boxes) can be picked up by dragging to your character, which will put them in your active hand should it be empty (wonderful bonus for security officers needing to centralize their donut stock or arms-dealer cultists when they're mass-producing stun and teleport runes).
• You can click the internals on/off status display thing to turn your internals off or on, without having to fiddle with the tank in your belt. Shit saved me once.
• You can button up your labcoat by using the toggle-labcoat-buttons verb (or something like that).
• Fore = north, aft = south, starboard = east and port = west.
• You can right-click on a tile to see what area it is assigned to. If you can't see it, then you're looking at an area you are not in. If you can see it, then you are in that area. Good for locating where shuttles will dock, or where a pod used to be.
• You can drag two things at once, as long as one of them can have the grab intent used on it. Ctrl+click one and grab intent the other. Very useful in Xenobiology where you're trying to drag a bunch of monkey or slime corpses at the same time. You can do something similar with non-grabbable things with telekinesis and Ctrl+clicking. Added: You can actually move 3 things with grabs-switch to the other hand. If this stops you from pulling, then it's only 2 things.
• Press tab to activate hotkey mode. WASD to move, Q to drop, R to throw, T to talk, F, G, Z to use what's in your hand, and X to switch hands.
• You can add items to boxes even if the box is already in your backpack. No need to Tetris.
• :l, :r, and :i are some of the most important things to know how to use in the event of radio issues. :r and :l will attempt to speak into radios held in either your right or left hand, and :i can be used to speak into an intercom if you're adjacent to it.
• Stretch to Fit pixel scaling distorts your view. Go to the preference menu by clicking "Setup Character" in the lobby or the Game Preferences button in the preferences tab. Go to Game Preferences in the preference menu and set Pixel Scaling to Pixel Perfect 2x.
• You can Ctrl+F search any BYOND window (helps A LOT with PDA's and computer terminals).
• In the job selection menu, from the lobby, you can use right click on the "Low/Medium/High" priority button to make it cycle backwards.
• The changelog ingame is usually out of date and unreliable, as noted your better off reading up on Github for any new changes.
• Double click to teleport as ghost.
• As a ghost click Observe to follow Nuke Disk during nuke ops. There's also a unfollow button if you don't want to follow dat disk.
• You can observe the AI eye and follow core.
• Alt + Click on a tile near you to open a list of its items in a tab.
• BYOND's command-enter bar has autocomplete. Sui will autocomplete to Toggle-Suit-Sensors, sa will autocomplete to Say ". Type "id" or "pen", hit space and enter to remove said item from your PDA. This doesn't work if you have more than one ID on your person.
• Right clicking the chat box brings up a menu. You can use that menu to get logs.
• You can just drag headsets to your screen too to open them, like PDAs.

Robustness Tips

• Bomb suits function as ghetto riot gear.
• Lit welding tools two- or three-hit carp.
• Steal an empty bottle from the bar, fill it with welder fuel and grab a lighter. Smash the bottle on your target's head and use the lighter on them while they're stunned. Now they are on fire. This is particularly effective as a self defence measure assuming you can't get your hands on some proper weapons. While fire will take several seconds before doing serious damage, most people won't be carrying anything to extinguish it. They can resist to put it out but resisting out of being on fire is an auto stun, otherwise they can keep fighting and all you'll have to do is keep your distance untill they burn to death. Their only option is running away. The added benefit of fire is that armors don't generally have fire protection, that makes it a great weapon against better equipped foes like nuke ops with their pesky armor and shield, assuming you can get close enough, but once you manage it's going to ruin their day.
• Walking prevents you from slipping on water, if it is space lube, crawl instead.
• While you are crawling, projectiles will go over you unless you are directly shot at.
• Getting fully augmented at robotics makes you immune to both pressure and temperature differences.

Department Tips

Medical Tips

• Performing the patch wounds and treat burns surgeries on corpses will treat their wounds and allow them to be defibbed, synthflesh has this same effect.
• Attempting to combat people in medbay causes more conflict in than it already has. Calling security or the CMO to get rid of people will scare them off or cause them to be arrested.
• 30u is the most common overdose threshold for healing medicines, this include Bicaridine, kelotane, and anti-toxin. Be sure to be careful when administering over 30u of medicines that they dont have an overdose threshold.
• If a sleeper reports a patients brain as 'abnormal' it means they have brain damage which can be healed with mannitol.

Chemistry Tips

• The Chemical Recipes guide outlines steps to get a large beaker of core healing chemicals.
• Placing medicines on the table instead of inside the smartfridge will incline more people to take them.
• A source of donkpockets for omnizine is Virology and the Kitchen

Virology Tips

• Use a dropper to mix 1u of chemicals instead of a syringe, it will have the same effect of inputting 5u and improve your efficieny.
• Sugar can be substituted for Saline-glucose solution.
• A virus with Stealth 2 or above will be invisible to MedHUDs and Health analyzers, making finding the cure more difficult. Even more so if you destroy the PanD.E.M.I.C.

Engineering Tips

• Changing the arrangement of the reflectors for the SM will allow you to add more emitters.
• During a gravitational anomaly, turning the Gravity Generator's APC off and on again will re-enable gravity.
• Filling the plasma canisters to maximum capacity will allow the radiation collectors to run for longer.

Atmospheric Tips

• Using a multi-tool on a volume pump will overclock it, allowing it to pumps more gases but at the cost of some gases leaking out. Be sure to place a srubber next to the volume pump to intake the leaked gases.
• Thermo-electric Engines take up the least space of all engines for the amount of power they produce. A productive TEG can produce up to 3 megawatts.
• Taking the fireaxe or the Atmospheric Hardsuit without needing them is a mortal sin looked down upon by the Atmosian Elders.

Science Tips

• Drinking just the right amount of alcohol will allow you to research new technologies faster, but drinking too much will make it slower.
• Advanced Bluespace Research and Advanced Mining Technology should be researched as soon as possible so that the miners can mine more efficiently.

Security Tips

• Using a screwdriver or wirecutters on security gas masks or SWAT masks increases the severity of their HALT feature. Emagging them will make your enemies cry.
• If a substantial amount of cameras are disabled on the security camera console it means theres probably a lot of haemoglobin there.
• While wearing SecHUDs you can set people to arrest by examining them and changing their status at the bottom of the examination.

Other Tips

• Help intent: People run through you. Other intents: People bump into you.
• Disposal units with stuff in them have a little blue light at the bottom, which is dark when the disposal unit is empty (disposal units can be toggled not to eject their stuff).
• You can check how long a round has been going on for. Open a PDA and check the time, every round starts at 12:00; find the difference by taking 12 hours away from what the time currently says on the PDA. I.e.: 13:37 - 12:00 = 1:37 --> The round has been going on for an hour and thirty seven minutes.
• You can throw people into windows to break them faster than you can smash them down with your emergency tank.
• You can actually change your in-game hairstyle (and facial hair) by clicking on a mirror (like in the dorm bathrooms). Incredibly useful to get your looks back after being cloned, and even to disguise yourself (because some disguises won't cover your hair, especially long hair).
• Pete the goat will eat Space Vines instantly. In a similar vein, robust enough tools, such as fire axes, circular saws, and surgical drills, are just as effective as welders against the vines. (unless they mutated a resistance)
• Apply a welder to solid plasma to turn it into plasma gas (that is on fire, you stupid shitbag).
• You can wrench showers to make them either retardedly hot or retardedly cold. One time I used a cold shower to survive a raging plasma fire.
• You can shoot Medibots with tasers to disable them briefly. Go figure.
• You can tase fire alarms to drop the doors. Actually hitting them with anything activates them.
• Crowbars can be used to open fire doors
• If you see a pAI with a great reputation who you like, and someone else has claimed it first, use an emag to unbind it.
• You can click on a holopad to request the AI's presence.
• Moving things with pulling:

1. Pull something!
2. Click the turf of an adjacent tile with your bare hand!
3. Watch in amazement as the object moves to that tile!

• Holo-eswords can deflect projectiles like a normal esword.
• Using wirecutters or a kitchen knife on a book lets you hide stuff inside said book.
• PDA Messenger serves as a handy ghetto crew manifest.
• You need just 16 kPa of oxygen to survive. As long as whatever you're breathing contains that, you won't suffocate. This means you can put your emergency oxygen tank from default 21 kPa to 16 kPa, having 24% more time to breath your tank empty!
• You can use the dresser located in dorm four to change your underwear. Upon further investigation you can use the dresser to change into the opposite sex's underwear.
• Holding certain items, like a knife or C4, change what happens when you suicide. Crayons... how horrifying):
• Your signature CANNOT be copied.
• Your most powerful tool in Space Station 13 is communication. As any head role you can order about your underlings, a lot of the time they will actually do it, and a lot of the time you can trade goodies for them following your orders. As RD, if you want to get into tech storage but the HoP didn't give you access like the pansy he is, you can go hunt down tools yourself. Or you can order an assistant to do it (clown often works as well), and it's often done faster than you could have with no effort on your part. Two chemists can spend a round not once talking, but a "Hey dude, what's up?" or a "I like your hair, Alisen~" can gain you a valuable resource: a friend, the most important protection against changeling attacks. Detectives gain a surprising amount of information just by chatting with people like the bartender and the mime. You can often have food delivered to you via the disposals system with just a PDA, not once leaving your office. Speaking of orders, always give an order to a person, not the department. Ordering your department to do something is rarely carried out, ordering a person to do something is more often than not followed.(although still not followed that often).
• If you use a Cup Ramen on a sink twice, it becomes warm.
• The abandoned ship, abandoned satellite, and AI satellite teleporter room are all on one z-level. The DJ station, derelict, and crashed clown ship are all on another.
• You can open containers like boxes and bags by standing next to them and drag and dropping their sprite onto your character's sprite.
• You can use your ID/PDA to open doors with unscrewed panels.
• You're more likely to get cleared for offenses by security if they feel like you're someone who's trustworthy and more likely to get close to the heads as well. I've had several occasions where I've found myself promoted to head positions just by taking the initiative to do seemingly mundane tasks that nobody gives a shit about like repairing minor damage from PDA bombings.
• Sleeping heals you.
• An amazing method of exploring space: Get your volunteer, then shotgun as many tracking beacons as you can protolathe into space with the mass driver. Give the explorer a hand tele; send him to the beacon where you want, then set it to home so he can loot stuff through tele to the teleporter room or bridge. ADDED: Easier way: Get exactly one tracking beacon. Put it by the mass driver. Get an explorer (or yourself) with EVA gear and a first-aid kit, play mass-drive roulette, teleport back, repeat. ADDED: Definitely cheaper. Maybe faster. Works solo. But the beacon shotgun allows you to select the structure you want to arrive at.
• You can enable your suit sensors as long as you aren't in crit, i.e. when a changeling paras you.
• Universal recorder's print transcript translates other species.
• You can put a box of body bags in your bag. ADDED: You can drag a closed body bag to your character to pick it up.
• Tracking beacons, used for the teleporter, can be used as station bounced radios if you use :l or :r for each hand.
• Going to space? No jetpack? Drag a paper bin onto your character and put it in your bag for 30 easy access throwing papers.
• Instruction books/sheets of paper can be opened and left open even if you get rid of the book/paper.
• Dead mice are now considered items, so that means you can: Stuff one into a cake, implant it into someone you don't like, throw it as a projectile, beat Runtime to death with one.
• You can teleport into the shuttle mid-travel using a beacon. This is incredibly useful for those meteor rounds.
• Hydroponics, the Bartender and Cook have a common service radio channel with :v.
• You catch the lasers that mutate wizards shoot at you? The wizard is technically "throwing" them. You can also catch taser shots and bullets.
• You can eat crayons to unleash your inner two year old.
• You can lean on (hitting the resist command when welded in a locker) lockers to try to get out of them when dead.
• Teleport is a great weapon.
• 4noraisins are, of the solid snack machine foods, the best food to eat. They contain 6 nutriment, whereas all others contain less than 5, and if they have less than 4, some sugar in them.
• The ion rifle can EMP airlocks open by shooting at them. They are rechargeable as well.
• An electrical toolbox has a very small chance of holding insulated gloves.
• You can use alcoholic drinks to remove ink from papers and books. Pure ethanol also works.
• If you're trapped in a disposal pipe, improvised explosives will allow you to break free without taking any damage. All the same, blowing one up while inside a locker will not damage you but will still damage everything around the locker. You can get a little revenge if some asshole welded you in and is dragging you around the station now!
• Are you dizzy (moving randomly) and it is annoying the hell out of you? Just take a rest (lay down) and you'll quintuple the rate of which you recover!
• If you're so full you can't eat by yourself anymore, someone else can forcefeed you more food.
• When being attacked by a space carp / space bear, go to sleep and they'll think you've gone to crit and leave you alone!
• You can release your chem implant into yourself by using *deathgasp.
• You can weld yourself into a locker as well as escape a locker you're welded into by using a welder from the inside. You can also lock lockers from the inside.
• Wearing a face concealing mask while copying your ass will cause your ass to appear as unknown in the photo.
• You can stick a pAI into a PDA.
• Some things about The Orion Trail:
  • Food is the number one killer; I've pretty much never won with all four settlers still alive. Going to the next stop (assuming nothing happens) eats up 2 food for every settler, and some events need you to 'wait', which is the same except for three stops; eating up 6 food for every settler. Losing a few settlers during 'accidents' increases your odds of winning substantially. Thankfully, waiting doesn't consume any fuel, but the 'go around' option for black holes does. The base consumption for fuel is 5 units for one stop. 'Slowing down' in an Interstellar Flux event eats up one extra stop of food and fuel, but doesn't carry the 75% chance of engine failure.
  • Going through the Asteroid Belt (second stop) has a high chance (70%) of causing a collision, which can kill a crewmember and lose you 5 to 15 food and fuel. Getting assaulted by raiders has the potential to lose you 1 to 10 food and fuel, with the odd addition that you can only lose a settler if no food/fuel was stolen. The Raiders do have a substantially increased chance to steal stuff as opposed to the collision.
  • The Black Hole is the third-to-last stop, and is a special case. Going around consumes 3 stops worth of food and fuel, but guarantees survival. Continuing carries a flat 75% chance of instantly dying, but doesn't consume anything if you appeased the RNG gods enough. Since there is still one stop after this, you can quickly determine if going around would be at all possible. Factoring in to this is the fact that the game checks for death before victory, so if you arrive at Orion with 0 food or fuel you still lose. At the Black Hole, you will therefore need at least 21 fuel, and (settlers * 8 + 1) food. Anything less than this and 'continue' is the only option with any chance of winning.
  • The breakdown/malfunction/collision events each can be used with their respective spare parts to continue at once, instead of having to wait three days. Due to the severe food consumption penalty for waiting, and the relatively minor chance of getting the same event twice, using the spare part is pretty much always the best option.
• Examine personal closets and they tell you who owns them.
• A laser pointer has the same optics disrupting effects of a flash. And stuns Borgs on use. Combine it with a fully upgraded pointer you can stop any rogue Borg before they get remotely close. It also EMPs cameras and flashes people even if they are wearing sunglasses.
• Just about anything that can be made out of a protolathe/autolathe can be put into an autolathe and recycled into new materials. This includes broken objects such as blown light bulbs and spent shotgun rounds.
• You can do that thing with Salt Shakers where you unscrew the lid so the next time someone uses it they get 100 units of salt in their food.
• Apparently if you make a character with the last name "Burns" you start with 1 burn damage.
• EMPs keep you from interacting with your headset for about 15 seconds.
  • If your headset gets emp'd, interact with it in your hand and just turn the channels back on.
• You can go through portals or use the teleport as a ghost.
• If you're someone who doesn't normally have insulated gloves and don't want security to take them away, dye them by washing them in the washing machine with a color crayon.
• The filing cabinet in the vault counts as a security console (and, as far as I could tell, it doesn't need ID).
• Doorbell systems are fun.
• Wirecutters get rid of spacevines in two-three hits, lit welders in one hit.
• People should know the origin of the lobby title theme.
• Using a crowbar on a vent will allow you to place items inside it (including the nuke disc!). Using a crowbar on it again will close the panel.
• Using a multi-tool on a camera to decrease its focus is much more stealthier than completely disabling it.