Guide to the Supermatter

The Supermatter Crystal is the primary power source in most stations. A Supermatter Shard can be ordered from Cargo, which works the same way, but can be moved around. Its primary features are emitting tons of radiation, making everyone who could theoretically see it hallucinate, releasing hot oxygen and plasma, heating the air around, and exploding or creating singularity/tesla if you screw up. It begins inert but being hit by an object, projectile, or laser will stimulate and activate it. It will then start producing huge amounts of radiation, which can be converted to power with the radiation collectors.

Do NOT run into the Supermatter to commit suicide! You will be banned.

Words of Warning

1. You require safety gear. A full radiation suit and meson scanners. See (6) for more.
2. Anything that bumps into the Supermatter is fundamentally annihilated. Don't touch it.
3. The Supermatter is VERY DANGEROUS. Activating the Supermatter should be the last step in setting up any form of Supermatter based power! If you ordered it from cargo the crate should stay LOCKED AND SECURED until everything is ready.
4. Do NOT setup the Supermatter's air alarm until you are absolutely satisfied with the supermatter cooling loop. A common delamination occurs when engineers scrub the gases from the Supermatter first without replacing it with a suitable gas in the chamber, causing a vacuum. A vacuum will activate the crystal quickly spawning MASSIVE amounts of plasma, oxygen, and heat resulting in an engine fire which can only be stopped by an extremely robust Atmosian.
5. The Supermatter is an 'atmospheric' engine. Most of "setting up the Supermatter" involves a gas loop that is designed to cool down the Supermatter chamber. While not required, please have some knowledge of gasses or atmospheric properties.
6. MOD/Hardsuits, excluding the CE's MODsuit, have limited radiation protection. The engineering MODsuit has 75% radiation protection. CE's MODsuit has 100%. Atmos hardsuit has 25%. RD's and CMO's MODsuits have 60%. If working near an active Supermatter Engine, use a radiation suit or the Chief Engineer's MODsuit if permitted. Even with the 75% protection of an engineering MODsuit, you will become lethally irradiated in time.

The Safe Setup

The Supermatter engine on current (2025) rotation maps can be set up in many different ways and experienced engineers are encouraged to experiment. The less experienced engineers can refer to the safe guide below. This is a simple nitrogen setup, easy to maintain and has two methods to handle sabotage (freezer backup and N₂ preset). It will almost always last the entire round, and almost always generates enough power for the entire station.

MetaStationBoxStationDeltaStationCardStationCorgStationEchoStationFlandStationKiloStationRadStation

MetaStation Layout:

MetaStation Supermatter Engine Room.

Secure Storage: West, above the SMES .

Emitters: East

Reflectors: East

Thermomachine Array: North

Space Loop: South

Thermoelectric Generator: Not Applicable

MetaStation Irregularities: MetaStation is like the white bread of most stations. It has a sweetness to it, but is entirely mundane and without anything unique. This also serves its benefit for being an ideal map for fresh engineers to learn.

BoxStation Layout:

BoxStation Supermatter Engine Room.

Secure Storage: North and West, beside the SMES .

Emitters: South

Reflectors: South

Thermomachine Array: East

Space Loop: West

Thermoelectric Generator: Not Applicable

BoxStation Irregularities: BoxStation, like MetaStation, lacks any major irregularities. It makes for a good station for beginners to learn the engine on, and is often competing with MetaStation for the most used station.

DeltaStation Layout:

DeltaStation Supermatter Engine Room.

Secure Storage: South east by the SMES , or far south in engineering proper.

Emitters: North

Reflectors: North

Thermomachine Array: West

Space Loop: West

Thermoelectric Generator: Not Applicable

DeltaStation Irregularities: On Delta station, the reflectors require being moved before being turned on emitters. You must unweld them, then drag them into the proper position. Alt-clicking them changes rotation, or click to open their rotation menu. The Engine room is also located above atmospherics, disconnected from the rest of engineering. You will have to walk through atmospherics to reach the Supermatter.

CardStation Layout:

CardStation Supermatter Engine Room.

Secure Storage: East

Emitters: North

Reflectors: North

Thermomachine Array: West

Space Loop: South

Thermoelectric Generator: Not Applicable

CardStation Irregularities: On CardStation, the emitters fire directly through the access airlock into the Supermatter. This means that to access the air alarm, you must avoid getting hit or turn off the emitters. The space loop bypass is also a simple valve. This means you can simply open the valve instead of replacing it.

CorgStation Layout:

CorgStation Supermatter Engine Room.

Secure Storage: East, above the SMES room.

Emitters: South

Reflectors: South

Thermomachine Array: South, east of the emitters.

Space Loop: North

Thermoelectric Generator: North, east of the space loop.

CorgStation Irregularities: CorgStation has numerous irregularities compared to most other stations. Here, Central Command cheaped out and only provided a Supermatter shard for the purpose of 'testing an ejection system'. They assure us that it performs just the same as a regular full sized crystal.

The emitters also fire through the side of the core of the engine, leading to a reduction in the number of radiation collectors.

Finally, the engine also features a Thermoelectric Generator, or TEG, which can be largely ignored if you remove the pumps marked with big red X's in the image to the right.

EchoStation Layout:

EchoStation Supermatter Engine Room.

Secure Storage: Northeast

Emitters: Southeast

Reflectors: Southeast

Thermomachine Array: Yes

Space Loop: Not Applicable

Thermoelectric Generator: Not Applicable

EchoStation Irregularities: Echostation has some irregularities, most associated with the fact it is a land based station. This means there is no space loop, because there is no space! Instead you are given several thermomachines in place of this, including spare parts to upgrade one of them. Make sure to turn all of these on and set them as low as they can go! Even then, the engine will run hotter than most by standard, and be afraid of surges. They're the hardest to deal with when on this station.

FlandStation Layout:

FlandStation Supermatter Engine Room.

Secure Storage: South

Emitters: Northeast

Reflectors: Northeast

Thermomachine Array: South

Space Loop: South

Thermoelectric Generator: East

FlandStation Irregularities: FlandStation has multiple irregularities that should be considered. When it comes to filling the plasma tanks, a large plasma canister is located at the northwest most portion of the room. You can hook an air pump to this without opening secure storage to fill your plasma tanks.

The engine room also features a Thermoelectric Generator, or TEG, which you can completely ignore. Its use is more a pain than it is generally worth when in connection to the Supermatter.

Finally, the emitter and reflector array must be configured before use. The reflectors do not come in a manner in which they are ready to use, and you need to align the reflectors for the emitters to fire into the crystal.

KiloStation Layout:

KiloStation Supermatter Engine Room.

Secure Storage: Northwest

Emitters: South

Reflectors: South

Thermomachine Array: North

Space Loop: Southwest

Thermoelectric Generator: Not Applicable

KiloStation Irregularities: KiloStation generally lacks any major irregularities. It is, however, significantly smaller than most other stations. This leads to a rather cramped environment, but is usually a non-issue.

RadStation Layout:

RadStation Supermatter Engine Room.

Secure Storage: Northeast

Emitters: East

Reflectors: East

Thermomachine Array: South

Space Loop: West

Thermoelectric Generator: In Atmospherics to the north.

RadStation Irregularities: RadStation has only a couple minor irregularities. The first is the need for the emitters to run around the exterior of the chamber before finally firing into the crystal. Take care to set these reflectors properly and avoid the line of fire.

Second lies with the thermomachine array. Must like with DeltaStation, the array has several pipes you must configure before the use of the thermomachines. This is best circumvented by simply replacing these pipes.

Step One: Gear Up

1. All races except IPCs, Plasmamen, and Diona will require a radiation suit . Look for yellow lockers marked with a black radiation symbol to get a suit and helmet.

   Why: Once the engine is started, it will generate significant amounts of radiation. Any race not immune to these effects will find themselves quickly gaining a lethal dose of radiation. While some MOD/hardsuits provide partial protection against radiation, even at 75% protection, a lethal dose will take effect eventually. Only a radiation suit and the Chief Engineer's MODsuit provide full radiation protection.

2. Put on an optical meson scanner or engineering scanner goggles on meson mode.

   Why: Meson Scanners protect from hallucinations, while the suit protects from radiation. IPCs, and Plasmamen are inorganic and thus are immune to most of radiation's effects, but they CAN still suffer hallucinations. Once the engine is started, it will cause hallucinations to the unprotected eye.

3. Grab both a Rapid Piping Device and wrench . You will be using these tools to edit or optimize the SM near constantly, so it's always good to keep them on your character.

   Why: The Piping Device can place or destroy pipes, as needed. While the wrench is the tool to either secure or unsecure the piping in place.

4. If you are an engineer, use your PDA. Open up the Supermatter Monitor app and hit details. This will open a screen giving detailed information on the status of the crystal.

   Why: The information displayed in this app can be used to diagnose the exact state of the crystal. An experienced engineer will be able to see a delamination before it starts when familiar with the display.

Step Two: Prepare The Gas Loop

1. Unwrenchand remove gas pumps (green circle in picture), then replace them with straight pipes.

   Why: Whoever designed this horrible loop has no idea how gases actually operate. If you expect to be constantly pumping gases through an area as fast as possible, the pumps will actually slow them down. This is especially problematic for pumps before the space loop as the gas has yet to receive cooling.

2. Toggle the gas filters (yellow square in picture) ON and set to desired gas. The first filter, the one on the green pipes, is for harvesting gases. This is often best simply replaced with a straight pipe for the same reasons as the pumps unless you need to harvest gas. For the four filters on the red pipes, these are waste filters. They separate your desired running gas from waste gas. The selected gases go on to the light blue pipes on the side, while the unselected gases go onward in the red pipes. By default the gold standard gas to choose is Nitrogen or N₂. These four are usually set to keep just Nitrogen by default, and should only need to be turned on.

   Why: The gas filters work by separating chosen gases from a pipe. In the safe setup, this means that N₂ is removed from an array of other harmful gases that exhaust from the SM such as plasma or oxygen. The exhaust exits the red pipe and dumps into space.

3. Wrench one of the red N₂ canisters to activate the gas loop. This should be done when you have finished setting up the rest of the loop. Keep the other unconnected to save it for later. This is useful for if the engine has, for some reason, lost nitrogen or needs urgent injection of nitrogen to displace or cool the gas in the loop. Wrenching both canisters into the loop when not needed may waste the spare can.

   Why: Nitrogen (or whichever gas you end up using) must be put in the pipes in order to circulate. If you need to add other gases, you can add them in these two gas addition ports, or through the ATMOS to SUPERMATTER pump. Though the latter will require understanding some atmospherics department piping.

4. Set the air alarm next to the core chamber. Open the air alarm menu by clicking on it. If it is locked, unlock it with a permitted ID by alt-clicking. Next click Vent Controls and turn off the external and internal regulators. Picture (click it):

   Why: Some players insist that "Internal 0" is the best setting for the vents, but it is functionally identical to simply disabling both regulators. Either way, this ensures the vents try to push all available gas into the crystal chamber. It is best to set the vents before scrubbers to prevent pulling vacuum in the chamber. If you have only added one canister of Nitrogen, this should be fine.

5. Continuing to set the air alarm , back out of Vent Controls and click Scrubber Controls. Then change the scrubbers to siphon (by clicking "scrubbing") and Expanded Range. You don't need to change any of the filter settings besides the mode, since, on "siphon", all gases get sucked out. The scrubbers will show an animation if they are set up to siphon correctly. Do NOT set the operating mode to "panic siphon" as that's not the same thing. Picture (click it):

   Why: Siphon makes the scrubbers remove all gases as quickly as possible. This is to ensure hot gasses are removed from the chamber as fast as possible, preventing too over-pressure in the chamber. The filters you set in step 2.2 will handle the removal of desired gases from undesirable gases. Expanded range extends the range of the scrubbers to pull from all tiles in a 3x3 area around them instead of just the tile they sit on.

Step Three: Starting The Radiation Collectors

# Obtain six plasma tanks . One can sometimes be found by the radiation collectors, and up to ten more can be taken from the tank dispenser by right clicking. Feel free to unwrench the dispenser for easier transportation of all the tanks.

1. Use either the plasma canister in Secure Storage to fill the tanks, or ask/fill one yourself from atmospherics. This is done by inserting a plasma tank into the plasma canister, turning the regulator to the maximum (2533kPa or near such), and opening the valve. Once you see the tank is filled, you can quickly replace it with an unfilled tank by simply clicking the new tank onto the canister. Repeat until six tanks are filled. On the final tank, close the valve and reduce regulator pressure and then remove the final tank. You may have to break your way into Secure Storage if a Chief Engineer or AI is not available to assist. Find the APC for the room in which the Secure Storage is located. Unlock the APC by using your ID on it or alt+clicking. Then open its menu and turn off environment power. This will allow you to crowbar the blast doors open. Once they are open, turn the environment back on and lock the APC.

   Why: If you simply insert the tanks into the radiation collectors in the next step directly from the dispenser, then within about thirty minutes to an hour the collectors will shut off due to running out of plasma. By filling the tanks, you prolong this to multiple hours, essentially removing the need to replace the tanks for the remainder of the round.

2. Insert each plasma tank into a radiation collector , then turn each on by clicking it with an empty hand. If you are feeling extra, lock them with your ID card when you are done.

This is no longer needed as radiation collectors have been fully replaced by Tesla Coils which the engine zaps to supply the station with power. Tesla coils are correctly set up by default, so you can leave them be.

The engine is now ready to produce power.

Step Four: Start the Engine!

1. Double-check to ensure the cooling loop is active, you don't want to have an active Supermatter with a pump still set to 101kPa or the vents/scrubbers inactive! Using the Supermatter monitor app on your PDA or the engineering computer console, you can see if the oxygen has been removed and the chamber is cool. This will indicate that your filters and cooling are working respectively.
2. Align the reflectors so that the emitter beams are deflected towards the Supermatter crystal.
3. Head into the emitter chamber. Just click each emitter with an empty hand to turn them on. Don't stand in front of them unless you want some serious laser burns! You can also lock these with your ID, but it is not recommended. If they turn yellow instead of green, this means they lack power. You can cut the wires that lead to them in order to separate them from the station. Get the P.A.C.M.A.N. and spare plasma sheets located in Secure Storage, add the plasma to the generator. Then place a wire knot connected to the emitters in the spot you cut the wire and wrench the generator in place on the knot. Finally turn it on and power should be supplied to the emitters.
4. Close the radiation shutters with the Radiation Shutters Control button (if available).

The Supermatter is now being stimulated by the lasers and producing radiation that the collectors are collecting for power!

Final Step: Set Up the Power Storage Units (SMES)

1. Go to the room in engineering with multiple SMES .
2. Set each of their target inputs to 200 kW and target outputs to 190 kW.

   Why: This increases how much power they forward to the rest of the station. 10 kW will be used to keep the SMES fully charged for backup power. If you forget to do this, the station won't see the power needed to keep the lights on!

TEG-based SM Irregularities

Some stations such as FlandStation, RadStation, and CorgStation start off with a ThermoElectric Generator (TEG). A Supermatter crystal produces heat when active, this heat can be used for the hot end of a TEG to produce power that would otherwise be lost to space in the cooling loop. A particularly keen engineer may instead use the waste oxygen and plasma to create a burn chamber for the hot end of the TEG. Do note that you can always set up a TEG on any station given the research has been completed by the science department. For a new engineer, it is generally ill advised to set up a TEG alongside a Supermatter crystal and considered best to avoid it entirely if possible.

Congratulations! The Supermatter engine is set!

Minor Set Up Improvements

A basic set up with three major improvements. (Yellow Box) (1) Harvesting Filter Bypass. (Pink Circle) (2) Plasma Buffer Filter. (Red Box) (3) Filter Section Changes.

While the basic set up given above poses significant improvements over the map default set up, it is still relatively incapable while having multiple issues. There are sections where gas may get trapped and clogged, higher level surges can delaminate the crystal without engineering intervention, and the filters can be significantly improved to leverage other useful gases! Here will detail three very simple improvements to make a set up significantly more robust with very little work.

Improvement One: Gas Harvest Filter Bypass

The yellow boxed area in the image to the right highlights this change. The filter that is normally present here can and should often be bypassed. This can be done by replacing the pipes immediately before and after it with layer adapters. Follow this up with one more pipe on a different layer between the adapters, and the bypass is made!

Why: If you refer to the above images of other basic set ups, you will see this filter sits between the crystal and the space cooling. It sits here normally to ensure that any of the desired gas is always 100% collected into the two harvesting canisters. As detailed in later sections, the fact that this resides before any cooling can cause the filter to clog if hot gas enters the system. This can be a death sentence during a delamination or surge. Creating this bypass ensures that the gas is instantly cooled. If paired with the third improvement detailed in this section, then you wont lose any of your harvested gas anyways!

Improvement Two: Plasma Buffer Filter

The pink circled area in the image to the right highlights this change. This is one of the easiest, and by far one of the most effective improvements that can be made to this basic engine. This is done by simply replacing this one piece of pipe with a filter. While the set up pictured is for MetaStation, this works for almost any station by simply placing this filter into the return side of the space loop. Once this filter is placed such that its side port is pushing back into the return side of the space loop, set the filter to plasma. Picture (click it):

Why: The reasoning behind this one requires a little more knowledge of gases and atmospherics. In short though, plasma has a very high specific heat (or heat capacity), meaning it takes a lot of energy to heat it up. This means that in large quantities, plasma can act as a sort of heat sink. By adding this filter here, you trap the plasma that the Supermatter naturally produces in the space loop. The trapped plasma in the space loop will then cool down, and stay cool in this section. As a result, any gas entering this section will mix with the plasma and instantly drop to the equilibrium temperature. Given the high heat capacity and eventually large quantity of plasma, this equilibrium temperature will be very low. You essentially build a buffer of cold plasma that cools any gas that enters it. This improvement paired with the first can allow you to run a fairly high percentage oxygen engine!

Improvement Three: Filter Section Alterations

The red boxed area in the image to the right highlights this change. This change is not the most effective, but still nets significant benefit in some situations. Again referring to the basic set ups as seen above, you will notice that the red filter section has four filters in series (or sequence) one after another. Only one filter is needed to achieve the same effect as all four of these filters. You can remove the following three filters by replacing them with straight pipes and leave the first filter in place. Then you can set the remaining filter to also filter H₂O, Hypernoblium, and Pluoxium. If you are willing to take some immediate risk for profit or long term reduced risk, you can also select CO₂ and Nitrium. Picture (click it):

Why: The set of four filters in sequence is an obsolete design from when filters could only pull one gas at a time. Given filters can pull as many as selected, only one filter is needed to do the work of several in series. With this in consideration, you can then set this one filter to maintain several gases instead of just Nitrogen. These are mostly detailed in Section 5 - A Deeper Look: Mechanics of Supermatter as to why they may be beneficial. In most cases, the main benefit is that you no longer loose the gases you are trying to harvest, allowing them to cycle through the core for another chance to later be picked up by the harvesting section. The other main benefit is that when a surge strikes, some of these gases may form and keeping them will generally increase your chance of recovery!

A More Robust Setup

This set up is far more robust than is needed for any typical operation. You will be hard pressed to find a surge that would actually cause this set up to begin having trouble and start delaminating. The set up pictured to the right can also run using a lot more dangerous gases fairly easily like Carbon Dioxide or Oxygen! If an engineer is skilled enough to set this engine up and know the key features behind it, they are more than likely skilled enough to know exactly how to save it in a rush too!

A more robust Supermatter set up. (Green) (1) Straight pipe replacements. (Pink) (2) Volume pump replacements. (Red) (3) Added scrubbers and altered waste output for filter-less design.

Step One: Gear Up

Get the same gear as usual for your work as detailed in Section 2.1 - Gear Up. You will also need a space suit of some kind, and an ATMOS holofan projectoris highly recommended. You can use the Engineering or Atmospherics MOD/Hardsuits instead of a radiation suit for the duration of your work. The crystal will not emit any radiation until it has been activated.

Step Two: Prepare The Gas Loop

To the right, you will see MetaStation used as an example. It follows a lot of what the former safe set up from Section 2 - The Safe Setup laid out, but with some added modifications.

1. Straight pipe each of these positions, often replacing a gas pump or linking two formerly disconnected loops. The green boxes in the image to the right highlight this change.

   Why: This is largely for the same reason as before in the safe set up. The removal of pumps ensures that gas can move much quicker through the engine, ensuring harmful waste is removed and gas is cooled as fast as possible. It also combines the entire loop together such that the gas from the scrubbers is being pushed back through the vents as fast as possible. This only works if you also follow through with step 2.3.

2. Replace the gas pumps with volume pumps for the gas addition ports. The pink box in the image to the right highlights this change.

   Why: The former gas pumps have a maximum pressure of 4500kPa. The former suggestion of straight piping these also allows for backflow into the cans which stops you from fully emptying them. The volume pumps can push to just over 9000kPa, ensuring that they will empty the cans in their entirety. There is a trade of for this though. The straight pipe gas ports also allowed you to add the entire can to the loop instantly. Use your judgement to determine which is best for your use.

3. Add three scrubbers, optimally red colored on layer one or five, in the middle three tiles of the chamber between the current vents and scrubbers. Then straight pipe these into the waste output, removing all filters from the engine. This red box in the image to the right highlights these change. A layer adapter will be needed if you did not use layer three. It is highly recommended to do this before configuring the air alarm or you will require a space suit and internals to enter the core. Be extremely careful while in the core to not touch the crystal. When placing the scrubber underneath the crystal, you should alt + click the crystal and use the menu at the top right to place the scrubber on the floor. If you click the crystal it will dust you or whatever you may be holding and start the engine. Magboots are recommended.

   Why: Scrubbers already have their own ability to selectively remove gases from an environment. You will not need any filters if you dedicate these three scrubbers to your waste gas and the original three to your running gas. You will directly remove and vent the waste gas directly to space and ensure that only your choice running gas receives cooling. This massively boosts your engine's capability to handle undesirable heat and gas.

4. Add the harvest section filter bypass as detailed in Section 3.1 - Minor Set Up Improvements: Gas Harvest Filter Bypass.
5. Replace the waste air injector in space with an array of passive vents. Picture (click it): .

   Why: The normal waste injector in space can only move 200L/s and actively requires power from an APC to function. This means it can clog easily, and adding more is very difficult as it requires remapping via blueprints or removing sections of the interior of the room. By using an array of passive vents, it can output a large amount of volume into space extremely quickly without the need for power. This prevents the waste scrubbers from getting clogged as they pull hot Oxygen and Plasma from the core.

6. Optional: Replace the 3 vents in the SM chamber with injectors.

   Why: In the event of a delamination, the pressure within the Supermatter chamber may get excessive. As the pressure rises, the vents will have trouble pushing out gas, even potentially stopping if their maximum is reached. Injectors lack this issue, instead injecting 200 L/s no matter the pressure of the output. This can make the engine more resistant to delaminations. However, a major concern arises if these are turned off. Injectors cannot be configured via air alarm, and must be done by hand. This means correcting issues relating to them, notably if power to the room has been cut off at any point, must be fixed by entering the engine. A combination of vents and injectors may be ideal.

Step Three: Configure The Air Alarm

1. Set the vents and/or injectors. For vents, refer to Section 2.2.4 - Prepare The Gas Loop: Set The Air Alarm. For injectors, activate them and maximize their output.

   Why: Just as with a basic set up, doing this first is ideal for preventing you from pulling vacuum on the crystal resulting in its activation before you're ready!

2. Set the scrubbers. Your waste scrubbers should be the last three scrubbers in the list. Set these to pull all your waste gases, along with any others you would like removed from your engine. Your first three scrubbers in the list are the original three. Set these to pull the gases you wish to keep in your engine as your running gases. If you are uncertain about what to choose, pick N₂, Pluoxium, Hypernob, and H₂O for the top three. Then the remaining gases for the bottom three scrubbers. Finally set all of them to expanded range. Picture (click it):

   Why: Since the filter section has been removed, you need to use the scrubbers you set up to filter for you. As a result you need to set the scrubbers that are connected to your cooling loop to only pull the gases you wish to run your engine on. You also need to set the scrubbers connected to your waste output to pull whatever gases you want to get rid of. Depending on what you want to run your engine on, the selected gases may change. Setting the scrubbers to expanded range makes it so that they pull from a 3x3 area instead of just the tiles they reside on. This means all scrubbers will pull from as wide of an area as possible.

Here it is important to do a last check before starting your engine. You should see the the oxygen reduce and disappear from the Supermatter monitor as you set your waste scrubbers. Once you set your good scrubbers you should see the pressure and moles drop. If you see the temperature getting cold, you have done it right. If the temperature stays the same and/or pressure continues to drop, you may have messed up your scrubber selection or your vents may not be functioning. Turn off the good gas scrubbers and check your loop again. It may be worth examining each scrubber and comparing their names to the list in the alarm to ensure you've set the right ones.

If all is good, set the radiation collectors as shown in Section 2.3 - Starting The Radiation Collectors.

Step Four: Start the Engine!

You can start the engine the normal way through the use of emitters. This is detailed in Section 2.4 - Start the Engine! However, a common issue is that the station may have run out of power due to the amount of time an inexperienced engineer might take to set up this engine. This means the emitters will turn yellow and not fire until powered. A couple ways you can start the engine without emitters:

1. Oxygen. Don't scrub oxygen from the engine. In fact, add more. Get a canister from Atmospherics and add it to the engine.

   Why: Once enough oxygen is present in the engine, it will activate itself and begin producing power on its own. Emitters not required! A few other gases do this too, but they may require more care in their addition and management. An immediate step up might be CO₂.

2. Pull vacuum on the engine. Temporarily turn off the vents and injectors until you see the engine start to spike plasma, oxygen, and heat. Potentially even wait for it to really quickly catch fire for just a moment. Once it has started sufficiently, turn the vents and injectors back on. You might need to spray a fire extinguisher into the engine.

   Why: Pulling vacuum on the crystal will activate it, it will then start to output waste oxygen and plasma. Given it doesn't have any nitrogen to calm it down, it will continue to output waste at increased rates and heat. This will continue until a fire starts which will make the crystal very active. This should be more than enough to jumpstart the engine. Given the gas content is still minimal compared to the normal amount in the engine, once you turn on the vents and injectors, they will displace the burning gas and cool the engine very quickly.

3. Power the emitters. If you absolute must use emitters to start the engine, you can power the emitters on their own using a P.A.C.M.A.N. . This is done by cutting one of the wires in the emitter area to separate them from the station. Then place a knot of wire connected to the emitters. Retrieve the generator from the Secure Storage along with the spare plasma in the crate. Add this to the generator, and place the generator over the wire knot. Wrench the generator in place and turn it on. Power should be supplied to the emitters now, if they turn green and start firing, you have done it right.

If all has gone well, and your engine is no longer on fire, congratulations! You have completed a far more robust set up than most players. Start experimenting with the ideas given here, try tweaking things that you might want to change. The most robust engine designs are far more complex and take a lot more modification to achieve. The most dangerous engines will even require unique gas mixes on top of the design in order to function safely.

A Deeper Look: Mechanics Of Supermatter

The Supermatter is an extremely unstable crystal with particular properties. Here's how it behaves:

Power

The crystal's power determines how much energy is produced for each tick, and also the range and amount of radiation and hallucinations generated. (a 'tick' usually takes around 1-5 seconds depending on lag)

• Power decays over time.
• Hitting the crystal with a non-physical bullet (usually emitters) will increase its power. When hit by a "bullet" it increases power by the damage dealt multiplied by two.
• Power is increased every tick depending on the gas mix. This scales with the gas temperature.
• Consuming an object or mob will increase the power by a significant amount, independently from the object's size.
• Power decay can be lowered or even completely prevented with CO₂.
• Too much power will result in dangerous side effects, like arcs of lightning or anomalies.

Instability

The crystal must be kept stable if you don't want it to explode.

• Stability will not change by itself.
• The crystal grows unstable if the gas mix is hotter than 310K and stabilize if below.
• Physical bullets will destabilize the crystal, depending on the damage they do.
• Large amounts of power will destabilize the crystal. The highest safe limit of the Supermatter is 5000 MeV/cm³.
• Large amounts of moles will not only destabilize the crystal but also prevent the stabilizing effect of cold gases. This effect starts at about 12000 moles of any gas on the Supermatter's tile.

Gas Interactions

Each gas has a different effect when it surrounds the Supermatter crystal. The strength of each effect depends on the percentage of it in the gas mix in the Supermatter chamber.

Can	Name	Relative Safety	Description
	Pluoxium	Safest	Pluoxium is by far the most effective engine shutdown gas while being easy to produce. It can be produced by putting CO2 into the engine and letting the crystal absorb it. In large quantities Pluoxium will reduce the heat production of the engine while also significantly reducing radiation output preventing power production. This is paired with the fact that Pluoxium has the third highest heat capacity of any gas, making a can of cooled Pluoxium extremely effective at calming down most delaminations.
	Hyper-Noblium	Fire Prevention	Similar to water and Nitrium, Hypernoblium has no significant effect on the engine itself. However, it has two main changes to the interaction of the gases themselves in the engine. When present in quantities above 5mol per tile, Hypernob prevents gases from reacting so that it will stop fires entirely. Paired with the fact that Hypernoblium has the highest heat capacity of any gas by a significant margin --ten times the second highest, plasma-- and it becomes the most effective gas at stopping engine fires. This means a can of cooled Hypernob can snap freeze an actively burning engine due to the shear amount of heat it can absorb.
	N2	Standard	Nitrogen is considered the golden standard of Supermatter operating gases. Not only is it easily available in large quantities, but it provides significant benefits to the engine too. N2 significantly reduces the heat and waste gas production of the crystal in large amounts, even more than Pluoxium! The drawback is similar to Pluoxium in that it will also reduce the engines radiation output, although this is largely a non-issue.
	Nitrium	Sub-Standard	Nitrium has no significant effect on the engine compared to most gases. It is less safe than Nitrogen in that it does not net the safety benefits of N2 while also having half the specific heat making heat mitigation difficult. The engine will run a little hotter and provide some increased power, but for the difficulty of producing this gas compared to the effects, it is largely a waste to use it in the Supermatter Engine.
	Water Vapor	Slip Hazard	Water Vapor has no significant effect on the engine compared to most gases. It has over twice the heat capacity of Nitrogen, providing a good benefit in cooling if introduced. This does not come freely though, as it does not have the benefits that Nitrogen provides while also creating a slip hazard due to wet floors. This can become lethal very quickly when cooled below 293K as it will freeze and create ice on the floors. Entering a frozen chamber will cause one to slip directly into the Supermatter crystal.
	N2O	Medium Danger	Nitrous provides some significant benefits, but also some significant risks when being used in the engine. N2O raises the heat resistance of the engine by a large margin, making it less affected by high temperatures. This means that, in theory, it could help prevent damage during a delamination. However, Nitrous Oxide also decomposes into Oxygen and Nitrogen at high temperature such as during a delamination. The increase in Oxygen could lead to a more dangerous situation than before as it may help start or increase an active fire in the core. In short, while Nitrous may help reduce damage, it will also likely make the whole situation worse if used during an engine fire.
	O2	Medium Danger	Oxygen is a very useful gas, but comes with its own dangers in kind. In large quantities Oxygen will significantly increase the crystals power generation. In very high percentages the crystal will also power itself, removing the need to utilize emitters to generate power. This comes with the significant draw backs of generally increased temperature and also providing an Oxygen rich environment for any potential fires that may form as a result. Running an oxygen engine will almost always require some kind of improved cooling and/or filtering systems to remain stable.
	CO2	High Danger	Carbon Dioxide is a very dangerous, and yet very useful gas. When introduced in any quantity, it will begin to produce Pluoxium when interacting with the crystal. This means that trickling in small amounts over some time will yield a large volume of Pluoxium. Another major benefit is that it will generally increase your crystals power generation. The draw back with this is that in high concentrations, CO2 will raise the Supermatter's EER to dangerous levels. Sustaining this past 5000 MeV/cm3 will result in the crystal beginning an overcharge delamination and throwing tesla arcs which will kill unprotected individuals. This effect will intensify at 7000 MeV/cm3, and if it reaches in excess of 9000 MeV/cm3, this delamination will result in a tesloose. This is often singularly grounds for a shuttle call. Some engineers may use this to actually purposefully induce a slow delamination by feathering the Carbon Dioxide content on a heavily modified engine. This will produce anomalies which may then be harvested by a skilled crew. One way or another, this requires significant engine modification to sustain.
	BZ	High Danger	BZ is a very unique gas, in which its main danger is not inherently just to the crystal, but the crew around it. BZ will increase the radiation output of the engine more than any other gas available. This means that the radiation collectors can net significantly more power than most other gases. This is paired with the fact that at concentrations above 40%, BZ will cause the Supermatter to begin firing radballs. These radiation balls will penetrate any clothing or armor and heavily irradiate the target. Even species who are immune to ambient radiation like IPCs will fall victim to these particles. To run a higher concentration engine of BZ, significant modification may be required to remain safe.
	Plasma	Violent	Plasma is one of the scariest gases to run in an engine. While plasma itself has a high heat capacity leading to the engine being capable of moving a lot of heat out very quickly, this also means it will retain heat very easily. Plasma has the highest increase to heat and waste output from an engine out of any gas. This means that with the massively increased hot oxygen output, a fire is very likely to form. If the fire is not put out very quickly, the plasma within the engine is liable to heating and becoming incredibly difficult to cool and stop. The major trade off is that plasma also has the highest power transmission modifier of any gas, leading to some of the highest output possible from an engine. Another major benefit of plasma is to use it in an unconnected secondary space cooling loop. In this secondary cooling loop, one can ensure only plasma is present to prevent fires while also adding heat exchange pipes to supply the engine with direct passive cooling. For this purpose, plasma is often the go-to choice.
	Tritium	Engine Killing	Tritium is by far the most difficult gas to run an engine off of. Not only does it have all the same issues of creating fires like plasma, but its also inherently radioactive to boot. It provides the second highest increase to heat and waste output, only second to plasma, while massively boosting the engines radiation output on top of the gases inherent radioactivity. This is all compounded by the fact that it is tied with Nitrium for the lowest specific heat out of any gas. A fire breaking out in a tritium engine is almost unavoidable while also being nearly impossible to stop due to how easily tritium reaches a high temperature. To run a safe tritium engine, it would require significant overhaul of the standard set-up while also potentially requiring a unique gas mixture to help prevent fires and aid heat transfer. Be ready with multiple pre-cooled Pluoxium shutdown canisters should you dare to run a tritium engine.

Gas Production

The crystal produces plasma and oxygen while it's active.

• Plasma and Oxygen burn if they're hot enough. This will heavily increase the temperature and reduce the oxygen percentage; if not kept under control this can end up destabilizing the crystal.
• The amount and temperature of the produced gas are determined by the current crystal power.
• The amount of oxygen is proportional to the temperature of the absorbed gases. Very cold gas input will result in very little oxygen.
• Introducing CO₂ to the engine will produce Pluoxium, even in small quantities.

Irradiation

The crystal will affect nearby mobs while it's active.

• The range and power are determined by the current power. Being further away from the crystal also mitigates the effect.
• The crystal will cause hallucinations to nearby mobs if they're not wearing meson scanners or equivalents.
• The crystal will irradiate nearby mobs. A radsuit or other protective clothing can negate this effect. IPCs, Plasmamen, and Diona are immune to this effect, but will still be irridated. Take care not to irradiate your surroundings.

Consuming

Anything that touches the crystal will be consumed and turned into dust. No exceptions. The only way to "safely" transport a shard is to pull it, being careful to not be pushed back into it by someone else.

Collapsing

If the crystal reaches 0% integrity, it will enter its final delamination process. From here it will begin a thirty second countdown on common radio for the entire station to here before finally delaminating. Do note, the crystal can be saved even in this last thirty second count down if it were to recover above 0% integrity again. There are several different events that may happen when the crystal delaminates and they all depend on the state of the crystal during delamination.

• A crystal in an environment where it is oversaturated in excess of 12000 of moles will collapse into a singularity.
• A crystal that has an excessive EER rating above 9000 MeV/cm³ will cause an explosion and release several tesla energy balls.
• A crystal that is neither heavily oversaturated or overcharged to meet the prior criteria will simply explode, with several factors including its power amount or pressurization contributing to the resulting explosion size.

Troubleshooting AKA Oh god it's on fire what do I do!?

Pictured is the MetaStation Supermatter actively melting. Note the remarkably increased radiation and power production!

The Supermatter's in trouble! Here is an example of some trouble shooting from /tg/station! Note the gas meters!A short GIF.

Handy Guide To SM Repair

Here is a nice check list of things to try and do in a rush that will help you save the engine. They don't all have to be in this exact order, but they all certainly help!

1. Yell for help! If other engineers, AI, or borgs are present that may know how to help, their extra hands or circuits may be your saving grace!
2. Turn off the emitters , their active effect on the engine cause it to be even more unstable and take more damage during a delamination. Turning them off calm it down, even if by a little bit. If they wont shut off, they may be locked, use your ID on them to unlock them or simply cut their wire!
3. Turn on the thermomachines , they are likely to be off during normal operation, but their cooling power is significant during a delamination! Make sure to set them to their lowest temperature.
4. Try to get more gas into the cooling loop! Lug cans of Nitrogenfrom Atmospherics and add them to the engine. The Nitrogen will help displace the burning Oxygen and Plasma while cooling it down!

Beyond these few tips, you will have to begin actually looking for the fault in the engine. The Supermatter is on fire for a reason, you need to find it or the fire will just start again!

Inspect the gas loop to confirm it is intact and operational.

Check the meters to quickly ascertain where a problem may lie.

If any of the meters report an unusually high or low amount of gas, then you're close to finding the issue!

Common gas loop failures include:

• Gas pumps are OFF or left on the wrong pressure (Crank them up to 4500kpa!).
• Gas filters are OFF or set to the wrong gas. Remember! Filters do not allow ANY gas to pass through if they're turned off! If you don't wish to filter anything, leave them online but set to filter nothing.
• Part of the coolant loop has been broken or unwrenched. You must don a space-worthy suit and go fix it! This may mean wrenching it back or recreating it with your RPD .
• Supermatter chamber air alarm has the vents improperly configured. Turn turn off both internal and external regulators, make sure ON is toggled.
• Supermatter chamber scrubbers not siphoning or turned off. Set to siphoning, expanded range, and ON.
• One of the pipes has been broken or unwrenched. You can easily put it back in place with a wrench or recreate it with your RPD .
• Too much gas for standard setup! Remember that gas pumps are the lowest tier for circulation. If a section has too high of a pressure, the pumps cannot push anything more into it!
• Too little gas! The more (cold) gas there is, the faster the gas will be able to siphon heat away from the crystal. A Supermatter crystal in near-vacuum is just looking for an excuse to overheat.
• Did you set the filters to allow Pluoxiumor Water Vapor? These often form during delaminations and may help you keep the crystal cool!

Sabotaging the Supermatter

Want to sabotage the crystal but can't figure out how to pull it off? Here are some pointers and hints:

General Hints

• You can break the APC of the room to stop all pipes and scrubbers from working.
• Cut cameras near the engine.
• Cutting and/or disabling the engineering tcomms server will prevent radio alerts from being sent to the engineers during the delamination. Special delaminations are also not broadcast on the common radio channel, this prevents anyone of knowing of your sabotage until it is too late!
• Straight piping the Supermatter coolant loop greatly increases the rate of delamination. It can also be saved easier, so ensure it is not corrected fast. A non-robust engineering department is doomed.
• Instead of turning off pumps and filters, you can just set them to extremely low values instead. They'll still appear to be working while actively slowing the cooling to a halt!
• Taking out all the engineers before attempting a delamination helps a lot.
• Opening a canister of plasma in engineering and igniting it will make it a lot harder for people to fix your sabotage. Even more effective if the radiation levels are high.
• Keep a flash or EMP on hand. The AI and its borgs are pretty much guaranteed to try and intervene to prevent harm.
• Stay around and pretend to be helping so you can undo all the repair attempts by other people.
• With a little bit of tinkering, you can sabotage the station's distribution loop with any of the multitude of harmful waste gases produced.

Regular Delamination

These are the easiest to pull off and require no special conditions. You can cause a normal delamination by:

• Turning down or turning off gas pumps
• Turning off or changing the gas on a gas filter
• Unwrenching any pipe. Note: This will release all gases stored in said pipe (bad if plasma or superheated gas).
• Shooting guns at the crystal is extremely effective, but it's likely that you'll end up in the blast.
• Disabling the scrubbers or vents in the air alarm.
• Adding a very harmful gas like plasma, but make sure you have the gas filters set to allow it in circulation first.
• If you plan to delaminate the supermatter, consider cutting telecommunications or edit it so it filters Engineering out. They wont hear the warnings until it is too late...
• Stealth sabotage: Unwrench a portion of the space loop. Generally, no one looks in space to correct this, and it is not obvious a piece is not connected.

Overcharged Delamination

This kind of delamination requires careful gas management but is faster, far more destructive and there's a good chance it will irradiate, burn and shock the engineers who are trying to fix it.

1. Wear as much radiation protection as you can. Hide or destroy the rest.
2. Wear insulated gloves so you are not shocked by arcs. Destroy any other gloves remaining.
3. Shut off all cameras.
4. Keep the emitters online and firing. Add extra emitters if possible. You can swipe an ID to lock them (which even the AI is unable to bypass), but the wires can still be cut.
5. Break into atmos and configure pure CO₂ to be sent to the engine coolant loop. A better way of doing this removing the pipe into atmos from space and rerouting it that so it cannot be turned off.
6. (Optional) Deal with tcomms through destruction, depowering, or filtering out the Engineering Radio Channel.
7. Now to start the delamination. Set all air filters to CO₂.
8. If needed, enable the pipe of CO₂ from atmos you configured earlier.
9. Access the air alarm and turn off scrubbers. Pump as much CO₂ into the chamber as possible.
10. Sabotage entry to the room, and/or release plasma in the room around the SM chamber.
11. The anomalies, gravity pulses and lightning arcs will quickly turn the engine room into a deathtrap. Make sure you have everything set up correctly before this starts happening.
12. The engine will start broadcasting obvious and dire messages that something is very wrong over common radio frequencies. If comms are down, this is not a problem. Note: People carrying laptops, PDAs, or tablets can still see the engine status.
13. Stick around only long enough to ensure that it is not stopped.
14. Embrace the energetic god.

Critical Mass Delamination

A critical mass delam is one of the more difficult methods. It takes longer and there is a chance it reverts to an overcharged delamination. It follows the steps of the previous delamination, but instead we will be pumping plasma from atmospherics. The goal is to have as much gases selected at the filters.

1. Get the gear.
2. Straight pipe the system.
3. Cut the cameras.
4. Select four different harmful gases - Oxygen, Plasma, Tritium, CO₂. Alternatively if you immediately start pumping N2 from atmospherics to the SM at the start of the round it will delaminate in about 12 minutes.
5. Disable the scrubbers from the air alarm OR unwrench part of the pipe leading out.
6. Sabotage the room.
7. Stay close until it's too late to save.
8. Run like hell.
9. The Lord arrives.

Please do note that the creation of a Singuloose or Tesloose is generally grounds for an immediate shuttle call. These are especially high-impact actions, ensure you have proper reason to do so beforehand.

A Deeper Look: Mechanics Of Atmos

This section is a little bit chunkier than the rest, but it attempts to deliver information in a dense manner with a couple of examples. The information here helps make the difference between a robust and fresh engineer.

The Flow Of Gas

TL:DR: Gas in pipes behaves more like electricity moving across wires (instantly) than actual gases.

A very common misconception that brand new engineering players may have is that gas must flow through a pipe from one end to the next. This does not apply in game as it does in real life. In a given system of pipes, a pipenet, all gas is equal. What this means is that any amount of gas added to one end of a pipe is instantly evened out between the entire length of pipe. This includes the overall composition, average temperature, average heat capacity, and pressure amongst the other properties. This is because of how the game is coded, and how pipes function as a result.

A set of pipes works more like a tank than an actual method of transportation. They provide a given volume, and when gas is added, it fills that volume. Using a pump from one set of pipes to the next is like moving from one tank to another. If you replace that pump with a pipe, its like replacing the entire thing with one much bigger tank by joining both sets of pipes. This is what makes getting rid of pumps so valuable, it removes the significant amount of time required to move large volumes of gas by just making everything one big tank. The transportation becomes instant.

It is because of this that you can actually do some neat tricks. For example, the cooling bypass that most Supermatter set ups come with on roundstart. There is no real major difference between this example without a bypass: (Click it) . Compared to this one with a bypass: (Click it) . There are some small nuances to this, but in normal operation all you have done is add a small amount of volume to that pipe network.

Pumps And Their Use

When considering the purpose of moving gas around from one place to the next, pumps will only slow down the process. As mentioned in the previous section, gas moves instantly through pipes. That means that moving large amounts of gas is best done with one solid pipenet, uninterrupted by pumps. So then one might wonder the purpose of pumps, and the answer is control.

With the respective types of pumps, they have different measurements that tell their different method of operations.

The pressure pump operates at a set pressure --maxing out at 4500kPa--, pushing whatever gas it has out at such a pressure. As it reaches closer and closer to its set pressure, it will slow down how much gas it pumps. If the pipe it is pushing to has a pressure equal or greater than the pumps setting, it will stop pumping. This means that at high pressure settings into a low pressure pipe, it will push large volumes of gas, but into a high pressure pipe it will push very little.

Compare now to the volume pump, which will push a set volume per second. The volume pump can be set for a volume and --for as long as it is able-- it will push that volume of gas to the next pipe. This goes until it also reaches its maximum operating pressure of about 9000kPa. The given pressures and measurements mean that one can control the flow of gas at a certain rate of volume transfer, or a certain maximum pressure in a system. The performance of the volume pump and gas pump is similar for any atmospherics device which has the same measurements.

The effect of control that pumps provide over your gas flows comes with a major drawback. Due to their maximum operating pressures, if the pipe that they are pushing to reaches or exceeds the pressure limit, then the pumps will create a phenomenon referred to as 'clogging'. This is where the pumps simply stop pushing any gas, and the flow stagnates. The effect is often lethal for most improperly set Supermatters as it leads to the gas in their loops becoming stagnant while the engine itself continues to heat. This is why replacing pumps in high heat or high pressure areas is vital for safe operation.

Preventing Clogs and Replacing Pumps

Simply put, pipes do not clog. Filters, pumps, vents, mixers, and any other atmospherics item can clog. Pipes, however, do not. They lack an upper pressure limit, enabling them to store infinite gas at any pressure without failure. They will also enable for this gas to be instantly pulled from anywhere in that pipenet.

What does this mean for the Supermatter, especially in case of delamination? Well, the room is probably on fire, so the gas has expanded, which in turn makes it far more pressurized. The knock-on effect? The pumps coming from the core have likely clogged. Repeat the above for all the following pumps. Add to this the fact that the Supermatter produces plasma and oxygen, which are reacting with each other and burning in the pipes, likely pushing the pressure above the limits of what the pumps can handle and then those also stop. Your engine is on fire, the pipes are burning, and the pumps have stopped providing cooling. That’s what happening to your pumps every single time the Supermatter ignites.

Well, that all sounded horrid, how can we prevent this?

The title spoils this for you. You desperately want to replace any unneeded pumps with normal pipes anywhere and everywhere possible. This is especially important for any sections prior to receiving any cooling as these gases are the highest volume. If you straight pipe from the engine core scrubbers directly to the space loop or thermomachines, you ensure that the gas which is removed from the core is instantly cooled. From here it is far easier for the system to handle as the gas has reduced in volume and pressure significantly. It also introduces another major benefit.

The volume of the pipenetwork is increased massively. As the pumps previously split the pipenet in multiple places, it has now all joined and made one large pipenet. This means that for a given amount of gas, the pressure will be much lower than before. This is important, as we’ve discussed, pumps have a pressure limit. The greater the number of pipes in front of a pump, the greater the volume that the pump perceives, and the more gas it can put in. Put simply, if you have a single pipe of 4500 kPa, a pressure pump cannot continue pumping. Add another pipe, and suddenly it’s 2250 kPa each, and the pressure pump will continue until both pipes are 4500 kPa. Every time a pipe is added, the ‘capacity’ increases. By replacing all these pumps with pipes you have changed a number of pipenetworks of only 10-20 each to a full pipenetwork of 50+. Suddenly the scrubbers don’t have to worry about pressure as much, especially on top of the instant cooling.

A good note on this point is to also be considerate of oversizing your pipe networks. Pumps work off of pressure difference, if the pressure is too low on the end they take from, then they will be incredibly slow. Simply making an obscenely large volume pipenet may backfire as all your gas gets to such a low pressure that the pumps cant move it anymore, and all your gas concentrates in that section starving the engine!

Lastly, though only vaguely related, keep your vents with their regulators turned off. Vents do not actually have a pressure limit at all. They can continue to add gas constantly. However, they do work faster if the chamber they are connected to is lower pressure and the gas they're pumping is cold, but this is always true. Essentially, vents pump a given amount of gas when they're at maximum speed. If nothing unusual is happening, then the gas the vents are pumping out should be colder than what is in the chamber given they have received cooling. As such, with the regulators off, the vents are pushing as hard as they can to add cold gas to the chamber. This ensures the core itself is always receiving as much cooling as possible via the addition of cold gas.

* The small note at the end of the section: You can consider placing restrictive pumps in certain areas so hot gas can't travel through quickly and give it more time to cool, though there are often better ways to do this that are less dangerous. Still, the option is there.

Breaking the laws of thermodynamics and a final word

Thermomachines and space cooling is very powerful. Space itself has a background temperature of 2.7 kelvin, and thermomachines will reach this same temperature when fully upgraded. Both of these options will very quickly reduce the temperature of a given gas, but it should be noted how much more powerful thermomachines really are in comparison. Singular upgraded thermomachines can provide more cooling than large quantities of heat exchange pipes in space, and more directly to the areas of your choosing. Both options still have their places however.

Thermomachines will only try to get a gas to their set temperature. That means prior to upgrades, where thermomachines can only go down to 73.15K, they will try to get a gas to this temperature. Regardless of being above or below 73.15K, it will try its hardest to get that gas to 73.15K. This is very very useful during delaminations and fires, but may be a hinderance during normal operation.

Space, however, is always at 2.7K. It will always lower the temperature of your gas until it is at 2.7K. Unfortunately, this requires adding large amounts of volume to your pipes, potentially reducing the pressure to an amount that the pumps may struggle with unless you have equally large quantities of gas. The other major benefit is that it requires no power to receive space cooling. The benefit space pipes add is entirely passive, and therefore resistant to power outages should something happen. Consider this as a method for providing passive cooling directly to the engine core!

If you've read this far, I applaud you. You are a more dedicated engineer than most who try the role. If you understand this section, then you should also understand that you are well on your way to becoming one of the best. I will also emphasize, you should try experimenting on your own. Some of the greatest fun to be had with the Supermatter is from trying things out and experiencing it on your own, for better or for worse.

Further Tips and Tricks

Your PDA

Normally, most people just throw this away at the start of the shift but as an engineer, your PDA has more use. From the start, your PDA should have a program labelled 'Supermatter Monitor'. Use this in its detail mode to watch the crystal and its performance. You can learn a lot about the crystal and how it acts from this app. Most importantly, however, it will alert you to if anything is wrong with the engine before you even get a radio alert. An experienced engineer will be able to see a delamination approaching and start making moves to correct it before it starts losing integrity.

It is good practice to always have your PDA on with the monitor up.

Pressure vs. Volume

Normally, your Supermatter is equipped with pressure pumps which max out at 4500 kPa, the problem is that they aren't that fast. In theory Volume pumps are just as fast, but they can pump until 9000 kPa. This means that in case of a heat delamination they can continue pumping even when normal gas pumps would already have given up. By replacing everything that still uses pressure pumps to volume pumps you can make the cooling of your SM a lot faster in a pinch.

The other layers

A huge part of the SM is the speed you can get gasses from the scubbers to the vents, the first and third layer helps a ton with this. By setting all your things with layer adaptors behind them and a device for every layer you can make everything a lot faster.

Filtering with the other layers

Normally you get 4 filters all on the third layer, but these are useless and just slow down the unfiltered gasses. Consider using layer adapters and placing filters on all five layers to provide a set of five filters in a small space. Each filter normally filters at 200 L/s, but with a set of five you push this to 1000 L/s, enabling the engine to filter out waste five times as fast.

The engine always has a bottleneck somewhere. If you have issues, find it, and fix it.

Plasma Cooling

Plasma may be seen as a gas that can heat up quickly and makes fires, but it can be used to cool down your SM way more. The reason for that is that Plasma has a very high heat capacity (200) compared to other gases (for example, Nitrogen has a heat capacity of 20). The higher the heat capacity, the more energy it takes to raise the temperature of the gas. This makes it very effective as a heat sink if you can prevent it from burning. Consider using it with its own space loop and heat exchangers to provide powerful passive cooling.

Space cooling with the other layers

The space loop starts out only on layer three. Consider using layer two and four as well!

Passive venting

Normally a SM has unary vents which if you set your air alarm up correctly will try to deplete its pipes to 0 kPa. Passive vents however link the atmosphere to the pipes, so the scrubbers will be scrubbing directly from the pipes and it will make gases going into the SM a lot faster. Be very careful when putting these into the SM room, one touch of the SM and you are turned to dust. It is also recommended to put an ATMOS holofan projectorin front of the door to the core so gas isn't leaked.

Scrubbing and cooling under the SM

Putting things under the SM is dangerous, but if you want to cool it more this is the next step and recommended for setups that involve dangerous gases. By alt-clicking the SM you can view the floor under it and put pipes and devices under the SM. You're gonna need heat transfer pipes and scrubbers.

The Scrubbers

The scrubbers should not be scrubbing all the air but instead should be scrubbing all the O₂ so a fire doesn't start and heat up the SM a ton.

The Heat Transfer Pipes

Adding heat transfer pipes with plasma and freezers hooked up to them can greatly cool the Supermatter. I you change these to heaters you can also greatly heat the crystal, resulting in a delamination.

The Anomalies

Main article: Anomalies

Once reaching 5k MeV (More at 7k MeV, however 5k is the safe upper limit), 7000 Kelvin or enough pressure, anomalies will start appearing outside the SM. This is a big problem because of their affects:

The easiest way to prevent anomalies from causing harm in engineering is completely removing all floor tiles leaving the cold space surrounding the SM, wrenching or remove anything that can move and welding the regular vents and scrubbers around the engine. Make sure you have appropriate space and radiation protection of course.

Don't forget that these anomalies can yield anomaly cores which science and cargo love.

The Pyroclastic Anomaly

The Pyroclastic Anomaly will spew out burning plasma and slimes which can make it very hard to contain the SM because everyone without sufficient heat protection will burn to death. If you somehow survive the fire you, then will be greeted by very angry slimes. The best way to reduce the affect of this anomaly will be spacing the area around the SM so all the plasma from the anomaly will go into space and no fire will start. The slimes will also die from space if you do this because slimes do not like cold things. However, make sure to avoid the slimes because they do cellular damage which is very hard to heal.

The Gravitational Anomaly

The Gravitational Anomaly will pull anything unwreched and unanchored in its surroundings to itself before throwing it. While not directly harmful, it can be quite annoying because it can throw you around as well, or throw hurtful objects at you.

The Shock (Flux) Anomaly

The Flux Anomaly appears as a ball of electricity. Touching this, even with insulated gloves and a hardsuit, will result in your electrocution. The only protection from such an anomaly is distance or insulated genetics.

The Hallucination Anomaly

The Hallucination Anomaly is rather self-explanatory. It is an anomaly which causes hallucinations for those near it, as well as taking various forms of its own.

AN IDIOT'S TL;DR

Welcome to bottom of the page, friend.

Did that seem like a lot of information? It sure feels like it.

Hell, maybe you didn't even read it!

FINE!

Here a few pointers. Just for you, buddy.

1. Heat bad
2. Pressure bad
3. High N2 good
4. low O2 good
5. low plasma good
6. Pumps bad
7. straightpipes good
8. Mess with the SM air alarm scrubbers and vents LAST

Hope that helps, pal.