BIOS Terminal
 BIOS Terminal  | |||||||||
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| In-game Description | Maintenance Stats | ||||||||
| Allows the NERON admin to alter certain AI behaviors aboard the ship.During NERON's psychotherapy, its interface was opened to make it more flexible. The input-output interface remains available to a handful of people.. |
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The BIOS Terminal, an equipment located in the Nexus, is where the 
NERON Administrator (initially 
Janice Kent) performs their duties. It contains a selection of settings that change the way certain things on the ship are performed, and control efficiency bonuses and specialist locks for certain actions.
Normaly, only the NERON Administrator has access to the settings. However, anyone using a 
Hacker Kit or a 
Mush with 
Bypass can also get access and change the settings however they want. The Level-17 skill 
NERON Depression further allows to randomly scramble the settings, without having to be physically present in the Nexus.
As opposed to most other computer terminals, the BIOS can be accessed while 
Dirty.
BIOS Settings
Foodstuff Destruction
Defaults to: 'Yes'.
Recommended: 'No'
When activated, any perishable food will be destroyed on day change, preventing the risk of 
Food Poisoning, but depraving the crew of what might be a vital consumable. It may also destroy alien fruit and 
Alien Steaks you bring from expeditions before you get a chance to plant or superfreeze them (and planting is not even affected by decay).
Also the first stage of decay (
Unstable) does not actually bring any drawbacks or risk of disease yet, which only sets in after 2 days. Therefore it is generally best to change this setting to 'No' and coordinate information about decaying food with the 
Chef instead.
(And finally, mild illnesses like Food Poisonig are not always a bad thing, as they show the patient to be human.)
CPU Priority
Defaults to: 'None'.
Recommended: 'Astronavigation'
When set to 'Research' or 'Project', research efficiency in these fields will be increased by 1%, which is not much except when researching the 
Plasma Shield or 
Retro-Fungal Serum with untrained crewmembers. When set to 'Astronavigation', one additional zone will be revealed with every Analyze action, which can often double the effectivity of a non-
Astrophysicist.
An agile Administrator can switch this setting to whatever is needed at the time. Otherwise it is wisest to leave this on 'Astronavigation' where it has the largest effect.
According to in-game tooltips, the CPU Priority can only be changed every 8 cycles.
Bug: This is inconsistent at best. Some report being able to change it immediately, others can change the setting after a page refresh, and for others it works as advertised. (See below)
Confirm: It appears that one can change this setting as much as they want, provided they switch any other setting in between.
Plasma Shield
Defaults to: 'Inactive'.
Recommended: 'Active'.
Becomes available when the Plasma Shield is researched. Only when set to 'Active' will the Shield start to absorb damage and regenerate, so this is obviously something that should be done as soon as possible.
Only a Mush could ever benefit from deactivating it.
Crew Lock
Defaults to: 'Piloting'.
Recommended: 'Piloting'.
This setting determines which field of work should be exclusively available to its experts. When set to 'Project', only 
Designer characters can access NERON's Core. When set to 'Research', only 
Biologist and 
Medic characters can access the Research Lab. When set to 'Piloting', only 
Pilot characters can launch the various craft on the ship, including Patrollers, the Icarus and the Pasiphae.
'Piloting' is most useful here, as it prevents non-Pilot Mush from taking your ships, and less experienced non-Pilot crewmembers from performing inefficient to outright damaging actions they do not have the skills for, i.e. fighting Hunters. Not only do they aim badly, but take-offs and landings come with various dangers to the hull, the craft and the rookie pilot themselves.
Do switch this away from 'Piloting', however, for situations where you specifically want a non-Pilot to fly: Either to collect scrap in the Pasiphae (which can be worth it, even with a little accident) or to launch Expeditions where a Pilot is in the team but wants to conserve his 
for Hunters.
Vocoder Announcement
Defaults to: 'Unauthorized'.
Recommended: 'Authorized'.
When 'Authorized', the NERON Administrator can choose to speak as NERON by typing /neron before a chat message. This can be used to open fun avenues of role-play, make important announcement more visible... but also to create fake NERON reports.
Note that this will work for new chat threads as well as chat replies.
Because a Mush Administrator can authorize himself to use this feature very stealthily, it is better to just turn it on and use its advantages as well. In fact, a crew that is aware of this mechanic in the first place is less likely to fall for false messages.
Report Deaths
Defaults to: 'Yes'.
Recommended: 'Yes'.
If activated, NERON will automatically announce the death and cause of death of any crewmember.
Again, only the Mush can draw any benefit from disabling this, to obscure murders. However, the crew member gauge at the top of the screen will still be updated with a 
deceased crewmember, and any private channels the victim was in will explicitly declare their demise. So this option is of limited utility, even when combined with a forged death announcement.
Inhibit DMZ-CorePeace
Defaults to: 'Yes'.
Recommended: --
When enabled, only Mush are able to use 
Grenades aboard the ship, and NERON is forced to use short, informative language in his announcements (with short psychotic outbursts once in a while).
Disabling this allows all crew members to use Grenades onboard of the Daedalus as well as unleashing NERON's highly intelligent, sarcastic and spiteful personality. NERON Announcements will become much longer and less coherent, hinting that moral and functional constraints have been removed from the AI.
As Mush can cause harm with Grenades either way, this option is largely a matter of taste unless you are afraid of Griefers.
Magnetic Net
Defaults to: 'Yes'.
Recommended: 'Yes'.
Becomes available when the Magnetic Net is completed. Only when set to Active will the Magnetic Net automatically catch and dock any Patroller (including Support Drones) in orbit.
This should only be set to 'No' if you want to deliberately leave somebody behind.
Actions
- Requires: Must be NERON Administrator (can be hacked with the Hacker Kit or the skill Bypass)
- Effect: Opens the BIOS Terminal
Public log: [Person] has accessed the BIOS Terminal.
BIOS Terminal
Clicking on any setting will have immediate effect.
This is completely free and Invisible, except for Inhibit DMZ-CorePeace, for which an 
Announcement is made.
