The Zooblar! Skrippus Pathway to Janitorial Excellence

[Stush]

Heya, Fellow Nanotrasen employees! Zooblar! Skrippus here, You mighta seen me running around in my trademark princess dress, probably quickly ducking into your department to clear out a couple of stains on the floor and then runnin off down the hallway, probably yelling “Stay safe!” afterwards or something, anyway, i’m here to talk to you all about the best ways to keep the station clean, i’ve got more experience with this than just about anyone, so i’ll be sure to give you some strategies that’ll help you provide the rest of the station with a nice clean workplace.

Part 1: The Tools


Sponge

The sponge is the go-to piece of cleaning gear, even if you don’t have any of the other stuff, if you have a sponge you can do most of what you need to do, it’s simple to use, just wet it in a sink and use it on tiles or on stains directly, if you use it on tiles you can reclaim the water afterwards, making it incredibly efficient, it’s much faster than any of the other tools too! This is what you use when you want speed!

Mop/Bucket

Mop’s for cleaning up simple stains like bloody footprints, dirt on the floor, vomit, or it’s for cleaning up puddles of liquids, using it for cleaning up stains on the floor, you’ll want a bucket,you can either carry a small bucket or drag around the large mop bucket cart thing, up to you, anyway fill the bucket with water and a little bit of cleaning fluid, then dip your mop in it, then clean up the tile the stain is on, then soak the water back up, you don’t need to dip back in the bucket until it’s dry (Although if you want to clean up any tougher stains, like gibs or whatever, if you dip it in the bucket to get a fresh batch of cleaning fluid on it, you’ll be able to clean tougher stuff.)

Vacuum/Garbage bags

The vacuum is essential for clearing up all the tiny little objects the crew tends to dump on the floors, shards of glass, empty medicine bottles, empty drink bottles, sheets of paper, bullet casings, just use your vacuum on them and you’ll suck them up into the garbage bag that’s inside it, once it’s full, just go over to a trash chute and use the vacuum on it to dump the contents within inside, you can do this on a closed trash cart or any other kind of container. If you can’t find a vacuum you can grab a garbage bag and manually pick up trash and load it in, but the vacuum is the way to go.

The other great thing about the vacuum is that it also contains a bucket and can suck up gas clouds and ants, if you run into miasma, just suck it up with your vacuum, same with any weird chemical weapons that science whips up, you can even suck up ants with the handy contraption, like with the solid trash, just use it on a sink to empty it out.

Spray Bottle

The spray bottle is kinda inefficient, but it has its uses, it can clean any tile the same way a sponge can but it uses cleaning fluid each time you do, the place this thing comes in handy is for cleaning anything that you can put items inside, usually if you try clean those, you’ll just put your sponge inside of it, with the spray bottle you can just spray the area to clean up any toolboxes or bibles that have a bit of blood on them.

Also one thing i forgot in my initial post, be careful to use the spray bottle on the tile, not on the mess itself, or you'll scoop a bunch of blood or vomit into your spray bottle, which is a real rough time.

Cleaning Grenades

Cleaning grenades are your emergency item, useful for when the situation has gotten completely out of hand, just pull the pin, throw it, and all the messy stuff magically vanishes! Just be sure to warn people or apologise for slipping them afterwards.

Towel

The towel is a fairly basic cleaning item, used for wiping things down, i usually use it to clean blood off of my fellow employees.

[Tommy_211]

Holy shit this is a gift from god

[DioChasek]

Addendum the Floor Buffer. If you can handle the decrease to your overall movement speed you actually can clean large spills significantly faster. And never forget you can put any chemical inside your reserve tank and if you use a single space cleaner can it will take care of ANY mess you encounter especially handy in a mass gibbing incident.

[Stush]

Addendum the Floor Buffer. If you can handle the decrease to your overall movement speed you actually can clean large spills significantly faster. And never forget you can put any chemical inside your reserve tank and if you use a single space cleaner can it will take care of ANY mess you encounter especially handy in a mass gibbing incident.

Thankyou for this! I never actually use the dang thing so it's good to have input from someone who's got experience!

---

Holy shit this is a gift from god

Thankyou, i've been meaning to do a wiki on this stuff but i'm really bad at completing projects, so i figure maybe if i make some posts i can have all the information here and it'll push me to compile it all into a wiki.

[DioChasek]

Oh and another good thing to grab is a single body bag never know when you are going to find a decaying body.

[Stush]

Part 2: Mess types

Here's a quick chart i made up of some of the most common mess types you'll run into, and which tools work on them, Green means it works well, red means it doesn't work, and orange means there's some issues, Mop w/ Cleaner just means a mop freshly dipped in a bucket with a mixture of space cleaner and water.

The orange section on the Oil Splatters is because cleaning them this way clean lead to your mop or sponge getting oil in it, which will cause it to make tiles slippery until you clear it out, the best way to do this with the mop is to go to a quiet area, put down the water from the mop, and then soak it up with the sponge, do this until the mop is dry, then re-wet it, make sure to dry the tile afterwards, with a sponge the best way to clear it out is to use it on a sink again.

The orange section on Spray Bottle (Direct) is because using the spray bottle directly on certain mess types might put them into the spray bottle, a spray bottle with a bunch of vomit and blood in it isn't going to be much use for cleaning.

---

Addendum the Floor Buffer. If you can handle the decrease to your overall movement speed you actually can clean large spills significantly faster. And never forget you can put any chemical inside your reserve tank and if you use a single space cleaner can it will take care of ANY mess you encounter especially handy in a mass gibbing incident.

Yeah i'm going to go over all the secondary gear you should carry in a later post, i was focusing on the main tools at first.

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Fluid Puddles

You can use your mop or sponge to soak up fluid puddles, mop’s the most efficient way, but you can do it with a sponge if you need to, just be sure to have somewhere to wring it out, but some fluid types need special treatment (I honestly haven’t encountered a lot of the crazier fluid types, i’m gonna try set up some stuff on a private server to test some stuff out later).

Here’s a few of the basic fluid types you'll run into and how to deal with them.

Water, Blood, Vomit, Drinks, Milk, Space Drugs

Most normal fluids like these can just be soaked up with your mop or sponge no problem

Oil

Oil presents a problem in that it will make your mop into a slipping machine, the way i deal with a large amount of oil puddles is to either carefully sponge it up, returning to a sink occasionally to replace the oil in the sponge with water (Be sure to squeeze and mop it up afterwards to empty it again), or to go find one of those fluid containers and empty it in a shower or somewhere with a drain.

Chemicals that react with water (Potassium)

Potassium is real rough to deal with, treat it like oil that can explode, empty your sponge, soak it up, squeeze out the sponge on top of a drain (Making sure there’s no water nearby), you can do it with a dry mop too, or a fluid container.

[Mrprogamer96]

what is the best way to clean wall that have been hit by blood splatters?

[DioChasek]

what is the best way to clean wall that have been hit by blood splatters?

Your sponge does the trick there.

[Love]

Zooblar stands as unassailable colossus of the janitor rankings. And the tips are comprehensive.
I'll toss in a few random cleany tips too!

Acetone is your friend for sticker removal! 
Most every janitor closet has a bottle or two of it. But it goes a heck of a lot further if you add a bit of it to an already near-full sponge and bop people with that. Presumably adding a bit to a nearly-full spray bottle (even full of water) would work too. Even the towel might, since it seems to pick up reagents like styptic powder!

You have pharmacy access!
Use it, if the doctors aren't making actual medicine in it at the moment.
You can click a fuel can on a wall or drain to cleanly empty it. Then go and fill it up with space cleaner. 400u of refills in one slot, if you like the spray bottle!
Oshan floods are a pain that causes repetitive stress injuries. But the recipe for fluorosurfactant isn't so difficult! The stuff that makes your cleaning grenades foamy also deletes entire floods. Just have a beaker of it, grip it tight and dump one click on any flood to make ALL connected water vanish. You could make it go even further with a spray bottle. Thousands of clicks, down to one. It can work with other fluids, so long as you add water to the spill.

Consider carrying tools. And Epi-pens.
Janitors patrol more than even the most antsy SecOff. That has some knock-on-effects.
At least make sure very sure you carry a crowbar. You will run into lots of closed firedoors. You will run into lots of flipped vending machines. You can use them to quickly replace floors so they look less horrible, and thus clean.
You will also run into lots of dying people. An emergency epinephrine injector from any medkit will make it far more likely you can drag someone all the way to medbay, alive. They help with wasp stings too! I almost never fail to find a place to use an epi-injector or three in a round.

Become Monke.
No, really. It's not really a serious janitorial tip. It's a pain to do and deal with. But if you do it, you ascend as a janitor. With tableflipping and mail-chutes you can get into a lot more places to clean that you'd have to beg or ignore, otherwise.

Just do mind that bartenders WILL shoot you the second you cross their bartop, without any warning or questioning, 100% of the time. So... do ask if they don't mind you cleaning.

Menus. And Ants. 
Have to deal with ants everywhere? Don't have a spray bottle, or they're on a blocking tile like a food vendor? The sponge CAN clean them. They can be hard to land a hit on, though, especially smaller ant decals. Using the right-click menu can let you use the sponge directly on them, however, without clicking a tiny moving pixel. I recall hearing the vacuum can suck them up too! But, since I never remember to try... I cannot confirm. I am ashamed.
If you're miserly with your sponge-water when dealing with a full-tile dirt decal, or a puddle is hiding under something, the menu can let you target the tile under a covering decal, or a puddle directly.

[DioChasek]

Ant cleaning tip number 2 a glass beaker or other liquid container can gather the little buggers. And also gives you a fun gift for the clown to drink! (Please don’t force feed the clown ants.)

[Stush]

Zooblar stands as unassailable colossus of the janitor rankings. And the tips are comprehensive.
I'll toss in a few random cleany tips too!

Acetone is your friend for sticker removal! 
Most every janitor closet has a bottle or two of it. But it goes a heck of a lot further if you add a bit of it to an already near-full sponge and bop people with that. Presumably adding a bit to a nearly-full spray bottle (even full of water) would work too. Even the towel might, since it seems to pick up reagents like styptic powder!

You have pharmacy access!
Use it, if the doctors aren't making actual medicine in it at the moment.
You can click a fuel can on a wall or drain to cleanly empty it. Then go and fill it up with space cleaner. 400u of refills in one slot, if you like the spray bottle!
Oshan floods are a pain that causes repetitive stress injuries. But the recipe for fluorosurfactant isn't so difficult! The stuff that makes your cleaning grenades foamy also deletes entire floods. Just have a beaker of it, grip it tight and dump one click on any flood to make ALL connected water vanish. You could make it go even further with a spray bottle. Thousands of clicks, down to one. It can work with other fluids, so long as you add water to the spill.

Consider carrying tools. And Epi-pens.
Janitors patrol more than even the most antsy SecOff. That has some knock-on-effects.
At least make sure very sure you carry a crowbar. You will run into lots of closed firedoors. You will run into lots of flipped vending machines. You can use them to quickly replace floors so they look less horrible, and thus clean.
You will also run into lots of dying people. An emergency epinephrine injector from any medkit will make it far more likely you can drag someone all the way to medbay, alive. They help with wasp stings too! I almost never fail to find a place to use an epi-injector or three in a round.

Become Monke.
No, really. It's not really a serious janitorial tip. It's a pain to do and deal with. But if you do it, you ascend as a janitor. With tableflipping and mail-chutes you can get into a lot more places to clean that you'd have to beg or ignore, otherwise.

Just do mind that bartenders WILL shoot you the second you cross their bartop, without any warning or questioning, 100% of the time. So... do ask if they don't mind you cleaning.

Menus. And Ants. 
Have to deal with ants everywhere? Don't have a spray bottle, or they're on a blocking tile like a food vendor? The sponge CAN clean them. They can be hard to land a hit on, though, especially smaller ant decals. Using the right-click menu can let you use the sponge directly on them, however, without clicking a tiny moving pixel. I recall hearing the vacuum can suck them up too! But, since I never remember to try... I cannot confirm. I am ashamed.
If you're miserly with your sponge-water when dealing with a full-tile dirt decal, or a puddle is hiding under something, the menu can let you target the tile under a covering decal, or a puddle directly.

Yeah acetone is important to know, remember to use it in your hand to grip it tightly and just dispense a few units each click.

And i'll have to remember that i'm pretty used to playing on RP now, so i'll have to remember to make a point of that, on RP i try to not step on the doctor's toes too much and let them do their job.

Ahahah man i'm so bad at sticking with projects, i got all hyped to write this stuff up for a bit and then i just lost interest as soon as i made a couple of posts.. i'll try do more soon.

[Love]

It's not taking any doctors job to bring people to medbay as not-a-corpse, because Epi bought them more time to be dragged in.

Fixing people is far more fun than cloning them!

[gleb09]

I also have another item that becomes incredibly useful in certain situations.

The Fluid Tank.

Instead of trying to mop up a room full of liquid, which would probably take the whole round, just drag the fluid tank over the pool and within a few seconds the liquid will be gone.

[Stush]

Fluid Puddles in-depth

I’m going to try go through all of the different chems you can encounter as puddles and make a list of how they react to certain cleaning methods, here’s my methodology.



I set up an area in a cogmap2 pod bay with a chem dispenser, a drain (To the north), and two sets of mop and sponge, one set being dry and one set being wet, after each test i’d make sure no fluid at all was on the dry ones and that only water was on the wet ones, i’d test each type, clean up, then move on to the next chemical.

I started with all the basic chemicals you can dispense from a chemical dispenser.



For a lot of these, i could already predict the results, but i felt that if i was going to do this, i’d at least be thorough, no real surprises here except for the fact that a wet sponge can clean up radium when nothing else will, it makes sense in a weird way i guess, Barium and Potassium explode when exposed to water, the effect being worse with a sponge than with a mop simply due to the mop being able to clean further away, and carbon and magnesium come out in a powdered form so they can only be cleaned with wet mop and sponge.



After testing all of these, i ran down to medbay and filled a tray up with the beakers laying around and whatever bottles i could vend from the medbay vendors, using the same methodology to test these.



Nothing! They’re all perfectly safe to clean with whatever you’ve got, which makes sense with medical chemicals i guess.

Next i'll start working on some of the other manufactured chems, and then maybe some of the more mysterious stuff (I will consult with people to figure out which stuff i can talk about or not)

[Stush]

I figured i'd write up a quick start reference for any new players just so they could get some of the most vital information in an easy format.

Sponge: Use on sink to fill with water, use in hand to wring out and empty all water, use on tile to lay down puddle that cleans all stain types, then soak water back up, use directly on stain to clean stain, use on bloody items to clean them.

Mop: Use on bucket to wet mop, use mop on tiles to put down puddle that cleans blood/vomit, soak back up, use on bucket again if dry.

Bucket: Can be used from backpack or pocket, fill with water/cleaning fluid mix for best results, click mop on bucket to refill, do not use to refill sponge, it will use all of the bucket’s water, use bucket in hand to dump contents/make into helmet, use in hand again to revert to bucket.

Spray Bottle: Use on tile to clean items in tile, good for containers, do not use directly on stains or you will pollute bottle.

Vacuum: use on adjacent tile to suck up all small objects, or miasma/gas clouds, when full, click on trash chute or sink to empty, use in hand to remove bucket/bag, use these on vacuum to place them back inside it.

Towel: Use on bloody crewmembers/items to clean them.

Cleaning grenades: Use in hand to pull pin, then throw, will create slippery area for a few seconds, when it dissipates all messes on floors should be cleaned.

Trash Cart: Drag item into cart to place all similar items in the cart in adjacent tiles at once, place on top of large floor trash chute and drag from cart to chute to move all items from cart into chute, may take some time to complete, will get a message when done.

Garbage Bags: Place items inside, if you want to remove a random item from bag, hold in one hand and use it with your other hand.

Body Bags: Use in hand to place on floor, use bag on floor to open and close it, drag bag from floor into hand to hold again.