Guide to Munitions
Welcome to the place where things go boom. Hopefully not boom inside the ship, as boom inside the ship leads to doom from the tip... of the brass...? Uh, guide! Yes, guide. Here is guide.
Loading things
As a Munitions Technician or Master At Arms, your job is to supply the various weapons on the ship with the ammo they need to continue firing. This includes the point defence cannon (PDC), the railgun, and the torpedo tubes. The faster you do this, the better, as it reduces the strain on everyone else, since they don't have to worry about the ship disappearing from underneath them.
Point Defense Cannons
The PDC loading racks are located to the north of the munitions bay and are indicated by white squares where you would stand to load them. They require ammo from the PDC ammo crates, which are coloured yellow and red. To load the racks, you simply grab some ammo and stuff it in. There are five of these total racks - three up north near the railgun, and two to the west opposite the entrance to the Munitions Bay. Each magazine contains 100 bullets, and bullets are fired in bursts of 3, meaning you don't need to replace these often. Once you do need to replace them, simply click with a full magazine, and you'll swap it out for the empty one.
Railgun
This is the great big thing that does great big damage. It uses teflon-coated tungsten rounds, which can be found in two grey boxes in the centre of the Munitions Bay. You can load up to four of these at once before the railgun is full - once it's loaded, go to the console in front of the railgun, click "Load Tray", then "Chamber Tray Payload", and finally "Disengage safeties". You'll have to click all of these in reverse order to re-load the weapon.
Missile Tubes
These are the difficult ones to understand, at least until you understand them. They're really quite simple:
To move torpedoes around, you need a Munitions trolley (one starts next to the railgun at the top) and some torpedoes. Pull the munitions trolley next to a torpedo, then drag the torpedo onto it. Each trolley can carry up to four torpedoes. To load the tubes, pull the trolley next to one of them and unload a torpedo. Drag that torpedo onto the tube, and then go to the console. Click "Load Tray", "Chamber Tray Payload", and "Disengage safeties", and that tube will be ready to fire. To reload a tube, re-engage safeties and repeat the process.
Gauss Guns
Gauss guns can be found exclusively on multi-z maps, and fire 300mm teflon coated tungsten rounds. Unlike other ship weaponry, these are not controlled by Bridge Staff using the tactical console, and are typically manned by Munitions Technicians. To man gauss guns, buckle yourself into the gauss gunner chair and you'll raise into the cockpit above. Gauss guns eat through ammo FAST, and you'll ideally want someone below deck keeping you loaded at all times. Loading tungsten rounds is as simple as placing them in a crate, click dragging it to the loading rack, and sending it up for reloading.
Ammo stocks run dry? Never fear, each gauss gun emplacement comes equipped with a gauss ammunition dispenser, which will periodically deposit a fresh pile of slugs. (These can be upgraded, so complain at science to do their job and upgrade machines)
We've run out of things
That's not normal. Don't worry. Depending on the thing, this is easy or somewhat difficult.
PDC/Railgun/Flak
This is easy! Just ask for them from cargo. If there is no cargo or they're being idiots, just send yourself directly to cargo via conveyor.
Torpedoes
This is less easy. You need multiple things from cargo - components, casings, and warheads (four types - lightweight, standard, armour piercing, and decoy. You cannot get more nuclear warheads, boo hoo.). Once you have all of these, a mechanical toolbox, a cable coil, and a welding helmet, we can start a revolution.
- Get casing
- Add propulsion system.
- Wrench propulsion into place.
- Add guidance system.
- Screwdrive.
- Add IFF card.
- Screwdrive.
- Add warhead.
- Wrench again.
- Wire it.
- Wrench once more.
- Weld it.
Weapon maintenance
The torpedo tubes and railguns require maintenance when they're used too much. You probably want to perform maintenance between each bout of combat.
Note: make sure there's nothing in the weapons and that the safeties are on, to prevent unnecessary explosions.
- Unscrew the maintenance hatch on the primary external casing
- Unbolt (wrench) the internal maintenance panel
- Use a crowbar to carefully lever out the internal panel
- Apply 10 units of Oil to the exposed internal machinery
- Replace (crowbar) and bolt (wrench) the panel, then fix (screwdriver) the hatch back in place
ok cool what else do i do
Uh, you repair the fighters after they inevitably break and load them with torpedoes, too. You serve the Fighter Pilots order things from cargo, I guess?
There's also the Gauss Guns (Enterprise only) if you're bored, just northeast of the fighter bay, which allows you to swap between firing PDCs and firing super-cannons with like 2 bullets apiece.
You'll be kept busy with supplying things for everyone anwyay. Have fun, don't drop the nuclear missiles.