Super Matter Generator

Steelpoint · Post by **Steelpoint** » Wed Dec 17, 2014 4:52 am #51512

Those of you who follow Github may have noticed that recently the Super Matter Generator (SM Gen) from VG/Baystation was ported to our codebase. I was asked to map out the SM Generator for Boxstation.

Thus here we are, this is a very early first iteration of the SM Generator, and is heavily inspired by Baystation's design (VG's is crap).

For some reading tips, here is Baystation's wiki article on the SM Generator: http://wiki.baystation12.net/index.php/ ... ter_Engine

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The basic idea is that you shoot stuff into the Super Matter cystal (in this case emmiters, though assistants work) and that produces Radiation and Plasma. The radiation is absorbed by the Radiation collectors and feed into the station's power supply, the leftover cooled oxygen and plasma is vented out of the chamber.

However if the generator overheats it can meltdown, meaning you have to keep pumping in cooled gas in the form of oxygen.

If things go horrible wrong, you can eject the SM crystal before it blows up.

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Here is how the SM Gen stands.

I intend to move the SMES cell room northward and place the SM Gen room there.

Any feedback is appreciated, thank you.

mrpain · Post by **mrpain** » Wed Dec 17, 2014 5:00 am #51514

Its about time we get another power source. I'm tired of rounds ending because LEL SINGULARITY LOOSE and with slow space no one wants to wire the solars.

Steelpoint · Post by **Steelpoint** » Wed Dec 17, 2014 5:01 am #51516

For the moment the SM Generator is being placed alongside the Singularity. However I should note that the SM Generator is more than capable of powering the station by itself.

paprika · Post by **paprika** » Wed Dec 17, 2014 5:08 am #51519

Doesn't this generate as much power as a singulo?

Steelpoint · Post by **Steelpoint** » Wed Dec 17, 2014 5:34 am #51525

From what people have told me it can generate more power than the singularity.

rockpecker · Post by **rockpecker** » Wed Dec 17, 2014 5:44 am #51529

mrpain wrote:Its about time we get another power source. I'm tired of rounds ending because LEL SINGULARITY LOOSE and with slow space no one wants to wire the solars.

I was hoping we'd get some version of the Goon thermoelectric generator, but this is good too. I like supermatter--it requires some actual maintenance and tweaking, it can still blow everything to hell, but there's more advance warning before it does and at least some chance to recover after.

paprika · Post by **paprika** » Wed Dec 17, 2014 7:26 am #51554

rockpecker wrote:it can still blow everything to hell

I don't think this is actually the case

In fact I think the SMG we ported is a harmless singulo that's much better than the singulo in every way.

Steelpoint · Post by **Steelpoint** » Wed Dec 17, 2014 8:03 am #51558

Updated iteration

Saegrimr · Post by **Saegrimr** » Wed Dec 17, 2014 9:30 am #51577

Can't wait for the ahelps to come in of "i touched the supermatter respawn pls"

Jalleo · Post by **Jalleo** » Wed Dec 17, 2014 9:49 am #51584

Its probably best to more focus on space cooled gas than freezers there is a pr waiting that balances them but needs testing.

Steelpoint · Post by **Steelpoint** » Wed Dec 17, 2014 10:19 am #51586

I'm not full bottled on the finer points of the SM Generator, hence why I set up this thread early in order to garner feedback and the like.

Newest iteration

Spoiler:

Steelpoint · Post by **Steelpoint** » Wed Dec 17, 2014 11:42 am #51606

First time I've positioned it on the station, here's how it should look like. Also changed the tiles around.

Post by **lumipharon** » Wed Dec 17, 2014 12:06 pm #51613

From what I can see at a glance, this requires manual shuffling of canisters? One connector is for chilled oxygen canister, going into the chamber, but what is the purpose of the connector port next to it?
Also the whole setup is fucking wide (or in the latest one, tall) as shit. You could make it way more compact if you had the two side rooms roughly where those engineering doors are, but eh.

Also maybe it's intentionally not so optimal, but looking at it, ideally you'd just have have the excess plasma generated fed directly into the waste loop (Where else does the corporation get all the plasma gas that's in atmos?). Also the input oxygen could be filtered direct from distro, with a largish heatpipe setup in space to rapidly cool it before going into the chamber.

And in terms of balance, having it as good as/better then the singulo making the singulo pretty redundant. It's this ultimate station rape machine, compared to an engine that at worst will make a piddly explosion that will just keep a couple of engineers occupied for a bit.

RogerWilco · Post by **RogerWilco** » Wed Dec 17, 2014 12:25 pm #51618

Supermatter Cascade event caused by colossal fuckups when?

Remie Richards · Wed Dec 17, 2014 3:50 pm

RogerWilco wrote:Supermatter Cascade event caused by colossal fuckups when?

Never, we don't have the cascade, it wasn't ported.

Raven776 · Post by **Raven776** » Wed Dec 17, 2014 7:28 pm #51696

I'm for the plasma feeding directly into atmos... That way a savvy atmos tech can sabotage the pipes and force the engine to fail. Just turn off the first filtering and eventually BOOM.

iyaerP · Post by **iyaerP** » Wed Dec 17, 2014 7:52 pm #51700

Can't speak for the supermatter, as I have 0 experiance with it, but there was a TEG on ministation when we still had that as a thing, and I have to say that the TEG is shit and worthless. Could barely power ministation, and only for a short while, and requires constant maintenance and refeuling to be useful.

Saegrimr · Post by **Saegrimr** » Wed Dec 17, 2014 8:04 pm #51702

TEG was a pain in the ass but I enjoyed it. Not much else for engineers to do on ministation except ER- uh, Er...adi..cate hull breaches.

My experience on the Supermatter Engine on /vg/ has been Atmos cold loop dickery outside the room to perpetually feed into the thing, but since this looks like its going on the SMES side of engineering then that might be out of the question.

RG4 · Post by **RG4** » Wed Dec 17, 2014 9:43 pm #51730

INB4 Sing combining with Super Matter for amazing results.

iyaerP · Post by **iyaerP** » Thu Dec 18, 2014 3:15 am #51831

What happens if a singularity touches the supermatter crystal?

RG4 · Post by **RG4** » Thu Dec 18, 2014 4:30 am #51847

IIRC I think it make the sing go nanners or something.

Steelpoint · Post by **Steelpoint** » Thu Dec 18, 2014 4:35 am #51849

For most intents and purposes the SM Generator I've created is functional, we are just ironing out the kinks since on the prior iteration the generator would always overheat within five minutes of operation, but also give out insane levels of power (From 5 to 8 million).

Wild Bill · Post by **Wild Bill** » Thu Dec 18, 2014 8:11 am #51879

Steelpoint wrote:[...]give out insane levels of power (From 5 to 8 million).

Yes, you'll have to balance it. We're currently in the (very slow) process of aligning the engines and unifying their output/risk-reward/etc.
Also good to see another mapper who cares about elegance in atmos/engie. Our designs on /vg/ are mainly functional, but ugly.

Recommendations:

Maybe remove the auto ejector for extra danger
One unary vent may not be strong enough
One canister of gas for each loop is a little low
Try not to cross pipes

Steelpoint · Post by **Steelpoint** » Thu Dec 18, 2014 8:15 am #51880

I have a feeling that only one scrubber is not enough to keep venting the chamber. Also the gas filters are extreamly wonky and hard to set up correctly so I have to funk around with them.

Lo6a4evskiy · Post by **Lo6a4evskiy** » Thu Dec 18, 2014 8:26 am #51882

What's the point of having multiple engines if they all:
a) Produce practically infinite amounts of power unless sabotaged (or someone fucks up)
b) Go boom if sabotaged (or someone fucks up)

Power management isn't really a thing. There either is power or no power (with a very rare case where solars are up, but aren't up enough to power everything). So all this is just cosmetics, really.

Wild Bill · Post by **Wild Bill** » Thu Dec 18, 2014 8:34 am #51888

Lo6a4evskiy wrote:What's the point of having multiple engines if they all [serve the same purpose]

Variety

Whoisthere · Post by **Whoisthere** » Thu Dec 18, 2014 9:29 am #51906

If this shit just explodes then please make it more deadly in the event of a fuckup, or at least make it require R&D, or maybe so much maintenance that the whole engineering department has to watch over it, because why have a safe power source. We already have a TEG and a bunch of solars.

Or I don't know, add it as an objective? Steal the supermatter or whatever.

Wyzack · Post by **Wyzack** » Thu Dec 18, 2014 9:40 pm #52004

Can we get a clear answer on the meltdown thing? I think a radiation based catastrophe of some kind would be really cool, and there needs to be some risk involved or else it is just singu plus

Remie Richards · Thu Dec 18, 2014 9:44 pm

Wyzack wrote:Can we get a clear answer on the meltdown thing? I think a radiation based catastrophe of some kind would be really cool, and there needs to be some risk involved or else it is just singu plus

You get a bunch of rads, a bunch of hallucinations and a big boom.
that's what you get.

Also if you know or not, touching the supermatter kills you instantly, you turn to ash, So don't do it.
This includes being pushed into it by air pressure and such.

Wyzack · Post by **Wyzack** » Thu Dec 18, 2014 9:52 pm #52009

Does the radiation bathe the whole station? Just the area near engineering? Is maintenance better shielded? Also is assstation gonna get one? We really need alternate power, our singularity is too fucking deadly and we have no alternative.

Remie Richards · Thu Dec 18, 2014 10:10 pm

Wyzack wrote:Does the radiation bathe the whole station? Just the area near engineering? Is maintenance better shielded? Also is assstation gonna get one? We really need alternate power, our singularity is too fucking deadly and we have no alternative.

Maintenance isn't better shielded against radiation, that's only true for the station wide radiation event.

The range of the radiation is determined by this:
range(src, round((power / 100) ** 0.25))

power is a value worked out from the energy the crystal has received (from emitter shots, people, gases) the amount degrades over time if you don't feed it.

Besides this, I really couldn't tell you any more, but looking at it, power is not capped so if you goal was to use this as a big bomb, then go for it, the more you sabotage it the wider range it'll fuck up the station.

rockpecker · Post by **rockpecker** » Thu Dec 18, 2014 10:11 pm #52013

Wyzack wrote:Does the radiation bathe the whole station? Just the area near engineering? Is maintenance better shielded? Also is assstation gonna get one? We really need alternate power, our singularity is too fucking deadly and we have no alternative.

I don't know how exactly it was ported, but on other servers:

- There is no shielding, except possibly from radsuits / engineering hardsuits. Usually the entire station is hit.
- It's not the "radiation storm" event. The radiation will not kill you.
- It causes some toxic damage.
- It will also give everyone hallucinations. These will continue until you neutralize it with antitoxin. (For some reason not hyronalin/arithrazine, even though that would make more sense--Remie, did you fix that?
- The explosion itself is usually limited to the reactor room. I've seen a sharp engineering crew actually order a new core and get the reactor working again after that, though it wasn't pretty.

Wyzack · Post by **Wyzack** » Thu Dec 18, 2014 10:20 pm #52014

Are there any plans on making the meltdown have more severe consequences? Or are we trying to replace the singularity entirely? Hallucinations and small tox damage for all is nothing compared to the wrath of lord singuloth, and if the SM engine can do just as much power, the singularity engine is a completely unnecessary and outrageous risk

iyaerP · Post by **iyaerP** » Fri Dec 19, 2014 6:31 am #52092

Honestly the mass hallucinations and radiation sounds a lot like a blowout in the Zone in STALKER. It should also create anomalies across the station, and if anyone dies from the radiation, they get turned into hideous monsters.

Stickymayhem · Post by **Stickymayhem** » Fri Dec 19, 2014 2:20 pm #52165

I've been playing with it a lot today and it's so much fun.

Favorite use so far is putting it on a rogue mule as antag.

Bombadil · Post by **Bombadil** » Fri Dec 19, 2014 2:45 pm #52172

If it explodes it should cause bluespace artillery strike like effects to explode randomly around the station rather than just takign out the engineering bay its in. Its essentially a safer singulo as far as I can tell. I mean the only risk is explosion tox damage and hallucinations?

I mean if its as easy to setup as singulo or easier why not use it?

Steelpoint · Post by **Steelpoint** » Fri Dec 19, 2014 2:48 pm #52173

The main drawback to the SM Generator is that it would require constant maintenance to maintain it. Currently it will rapidly overheat even under the most ideal of circumstances, not to mention setting it up is extraordinarily dangerous as a wrong move will see your body destroyed and unrecoverable.

Tue Dec 23, 2014 12:17 am

The CE built a functioning one of these in a round a while back
Quite a few people sacrificed themselves to it and it moved around a lot probably from gas pressure meaning the emitter never really hit it
The plasma caught on fire once and nothing happened
It seems like nothing can cause it to melt down

despite all that though I love this feature

paprika · Post by **paprika** » Tue Dec 23, 2014 1:14 am #52882

Holy fuck people trying to discover how SM works is the funniest shit

Saegrimr · Post by **Saegrimr** » Tue Dec 23, 2014 6:27 am #52926

paprika wrote:Holy fuck people trying to discover how SM works is the funniest shit

So many people fucking zapped themselves. I'm not entirely sure all of them were accidental either. I had a feeling this would be comedy gold for about a month.

Steelpoint · Post by **Steelpoint** » Tue Dec 23, 2014 6:58 am #52931

What I'm tempted to do is to put the Super Matter crystal in a high security room near the middle of the station, such as near the Gravity Generator.

Either that or in Secure Engineering Storage.

rockpecker · Post by **rockpecker** » Tue Dec 23, 2014 7:12 am #52935

Steelpoint wrote:What I'm tempted to do is to put the Super Matter crystal in a high security room near the middle of the station, such as near the Gravity Generator.

Either that or in Secure Engineering Storage.

On many servers that use supermatter, it starts in the reactor chamber so that nobody has to touch the damn thing.

Steelpoint · Post by **Steelpoint** » Tue Dec 23, 2014 7:16 am #52936

But that's not fun.

Also I'm still having trouble keeping the Generator room cool, I inject air that is around -200 degrees yet the chamber will easily go up to 500 degrees.

Post by **lumipharon** » Wed Dec 24, 2014 12:10 am #53073

Your setup isn't efficient, it needs much more intensive cooling, which is why it's getting hot. At some point I'll design a full setup if I can be assed. Just from watching a few people fuck it up on Sibyl, and thinking about it, I have a good idea of what I'll do.

callanrockslol · Wed Dec 24, 2014 2:33 am

This is actually hilariously fun, its a brand new feature that very few people understand and everyone wants to play with, causing all sorts of shenanigans.

It would be so much better if the coders wrote it so they didn't actually understand how it worked properly and it had to be figured out.

deathhoof · Post by **deathhoof** » Wed Dec 24, 2014 3:33 am #53107

I think singulo needs to be removed entirely since it makes no physics sense. The temporal effects of a singularity are tremendous. So much so that every second on the station would be 10 or so years in a place away from any singularities. Not even to mention the fact that a singularity irl would not shrink in size without accelerated particles swung at it. I could go on about how the singulo is a disgrace to science fiction, but instead I'm just gonna say this: Although supermatter would also be cartoonish, it makes a lot more sense than singulo. It makes more sense for the crew to be able to harness supermatter from a dorf star or something, rather than spontaneously cause a cataclysmic space ripping supernova within the confines of a silly little singularity machine shaped like a coil.

Saegrimr · Post by **Saegrimr** » Wed Dec 24, 2014 4:28 am #53120

deathhoof wrote:I think singulo needs to be removed entirely since it makes no physics sense.

Don't... Please don't.

Post by **NikNakFlak** » Wed Dec 24, 2014 5:19 am #53124

A couple of bugs that I discovered that i'm too lazy to make a bug report for

I built a super matter thingy on centcom and it blew up and radiated the station. It did this on a separate Z-level. I have not tested it, but this might imply that no matter where the super matter crystal is, if it detonates, there is no minimum safe distance.
It can disintegrate your hallucinations and it is hilarious.

Post by **lumipharon** » Wed Dec 24, 2014 5:48 am #53135

That's the same as centcomm/head annoucements etc working across the universe.

whodaloo · Post by **whodaloo** » Wed Dec 24, 2014 5:50 am #53136

I can't test this now but from what I remember hiding in a locker protects you from supermatter hallucinations. So if you see the instability messages, duck into a locker.