Guide to the Supermatter

Do NOT run into the Supermatter to commit suicide at round start as this will activate it before actual engineers can set up the cooling! You will be banned.

The Big Yellow Crystal. Do not touch it.

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 electrical arcs that are harnessed to power the station through tesla coils. Side effects include radiation emission, making everyone who could theoretically see it hallucinate, releasing hot oxygen and plasma, heating the air around, and exploding or creating singularity/tesla or eating the entire station if you screw up hard enough. It begins inert but being hit by an object or projectile will activate it and it'll start exhibiting nearly all of the aforementioned properties.

Words of Warning

1. 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.
2. You require safety gear. A full radiation suit AND meson scanners.
3. 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.
4. Anything that bumps into the Supermatter is fundamentally annihilated. Don't touch it. This means weld, and ask the AI to bolt the door to the Supermatter .
5. Of all clothing normally available on the station, only radiation suits and the CE's hardsuit have complete radiation protection. The engineering hardsuit has 75% radiation protection. Atmos hardsuit has 25%. RD's and CMO's have 60%. Even a small amount of radiation might end up being debilitating, so if you're working near an active Supermatter Engine, make sure you're dressed for the job.

Mechanics

The supermatter is an extremely unstable crystal with particular properties. Here's an executive summary on how it behaves:

1. A portion of the gas mixture on the supermatter's tile is absorbed by it. Most gases have unique effects on the supermatter which can be seen here. Most notably gases will change the heat output, allow internal energy to be generated from heat, change the power decay and influence the zap power.
2. The supermatter's internal energy (the entry with MeV/cm3 as it's unit) is calculated. This internal energy determines the power generated by zaps, amount and temperature of waste gas, range of radiation and hallucinations, and a slew of other factors.
   Internal energy is subject to decay over time, so if the supermatter is left without an energy source for too long it will output less and less power. To combat this decay most supermatter engines will have an external source of energy, most often emitters . Though there are a few other factors that can influence this internal energy such as special gas mixtures, energy weapons , items hitting the supermatter, or even kisses.
3. The supermatter will start taking damage if the absorbed gas is too hot, if the internal energy is too high, if there are too many moles, or if it's exposed to space while on (internal energy above zero).
   When the integrity reaches 0% the supermatter will initiate a 30 second final countdown and delaminate if not healed within that timespan. There are a few different delaminations that can occur.
4. The supermatter will spew out the initially absorbed gas mixture alongside extra waste gas that it produced. This waste gas is hot and is the most common cause of crystal delaminations. Without proper cooling a powered supermatter will delaminate.

Integrity

Under suboptimal conditions, the supermatter will start taking damage and lose integrity. As the supermatter crystal takes damage it will be harder and harder to save.

Damage Factors

Factor	Description
Heating Damage	How much damage is caused by the absorbed gasmix being hotter than the temperature limit.
Charge Damage	How much damage is caused by exceeding the 5000 MeV internal power threshold.
Molar Damage	How much damage is caused by absorbing more than 1800 moles of gas.
External Damage	How much damage is caused by external sources such as physical bullets and destabilizing crystals.
Space Exposure Damage	How much damage is caused by being on or near space tiles.
Low Temperature Limit	How much damage did we heal by being below the temperature limit.

The aforementioned Heating Damage is taken when the supermatter absorbed gas mixture is above a certain temperature limit. This temperature limit is usually at 626.3 Kelvins but can be changed by a slew of other factors.

Heat Resistance Factors

Factor	Description
Base Heat Resistance	Base heat resistance of 40 Celcius or 313.15 Kelvins. Additive amounts for other factors is based on the base heat resistance. E.G +100% means 313.15 extra Kelvins.
Gas Heat Resistance	How much additional heat resistance do we get from gases.
Psychologist. Heat Resistance	How much additional heat resistance do we get from the presence of a psychologist or anyone with the HYPERG1G4 skillchip around the supermatter hallucination range. Gives up to 45 Kelvins of additional heat resistance.
Low Moles Heat Resistance	How much additional heat resistance do we get from a low amount of gas in the supermatter. Goes up to +100% base heat resistance.

Delaminations

Once the supermatter reaches 0% integrity it will initiate a 30 second countdown and delaminate. During this 30 second window there are two important things to consider:

1. The supermatter can still recover from the delamination.
2. The supermatter can still take damage. I.E. the integrity can go to the negatives but is not displayed in the UI.

To recover the crystal from the impending delamination, the supermatter needs to heal back up to a positive integrity, including the damage taken during the 30 second timespan.

If the supermatter is not saved within this timespan, the supermatter will delaminate into one of four possible conditions, with conditions mentioned later in the list taking priority. (I.E. if a supermatter can delaminate into a tesla or singularity, it will prefer the singularity):

1. Explosive / Default Delamination
   The supermatter will simply explode depending on the gas heat power generation of the absorbed gasmix. Alongside this the supermatter will also irradiate any nearby living beings, cause stationwide hallucinations and mood debuff, and spawn anomalies. Triggered without any causes.
2. Tesla Delamination
   The supermatter will explode, spawn an energy ball, irradiate, hallucinate, and spawn anomalies. Triggered by a delamination with the supermatter internal energy above 5000 MeV.
3. Singularity Delamination
   The supermatter will spawn a singularity, irradiate, hallucinate, and spawn anomalies. Triggered by a delamination with the supermatter absorbing more than 1800 moles.
4. Resonance Cascade Delamination
   The supermatter will initially explode and hallucinate. It will then spawn crystal mass all over the station that can dust things that hits it. The emergency shuttle will no longer able to be called, and CentCom will open an exit portal as the last means for evacuation. Once the crystal mass hits this escape rift, the round will end. Triggered by a delamination with the supermatter having more than 40% Anti-Noblium and 40% Hyper-Noblium with absorbed moles being above 270 or by a Destabilizing Crystal traitor item.

Internal Energy

The crystal's power determines how much energy is produced each tick through arcs, and also the range and amount of radiation and hallucinations generated. (a 'tick' usually takes around 1-5 seconds depending on lag). Internal energy will also be a major factor in the heat output of the supermatter, so efforts to lower it while saving a delaminating supermatter should be undertaken.

Internal Energy Factors

Factor	Description
External Power Gain	Energy that is applied immediately to the supermatter. Usually by heavy duty energy devices such as emitters.
External Power Trickle	Energy that is first pooled and then added over time to the supermatter. Usually by smaller, secondary energy sources such as items hitting the supermatter or small arms laser.
Gas Heat Power Gain	Energy added to the supermatter depending on the temperature. This effect is only available for gases that support Heat Power Generation such as Oxygen .
Internal Power Decay	How much energy the SM passively lost. A higher amount of internal energy means a higher amount of internal power decay. Usually most supermatter setups will stabilize around a set amount of power depending on it's energy source.
Gas Power Decay Negation	How much of the energy lost by the SM is recouped. Influenced by the amount of CO2 in the gas mixture. Power decay is fully negated at 100% composition.
Psychologist Power Decay Negation	How much of the energy lost by the SM is recouped. Influenced by the presence of a psychologist or anyone with the HYPERG1G4 skillchip around the supermatter hallucination range. Power decay negation from psychologist only goes up to 20%.

Power Production

Supermatters produce power through electrical zaps absorbed by tesla generators. The main zap can be modified by various factors.

Without a high priority zap target these electrical zaps will zap humans and cause burn damage. If grounding rods or tesla generators are not present you are going to need shock protection.

Zap Multiplier Factors

Factor	Description
Base Zap Multiplier	Base zap multiplier of 1x.
Gas Zap Multiplier	How much change to the zap multiplier did we get from gases. Modified by the Power Transmission effects of various gases.

Gas Production

The crystal produces plasma and oxygen while it's active. Plasma and temperature is produced according to the energy, while the main factor for oxygen will be the temperature of the absorbed gasmix (energy also plays a small role). These are then multiplied by the waste factors detailed below.

While the supermatter starts taking damage at 626 Kelvin by default, plasma and oxygen combusts at 373.15 Kelvin. This combustion is exothermic and will very often bring the temperature of the supermatter well above the 626 Kelvin threshold. For most cases this combustion temperature will be the number you want to avoid instead of the damage threshold.

Waste Factors

Factor	Description
Base Waste Multiplier	Base waste multiplier for the supermatter. Fixed at 1x.
Gas Waste Multiplier	How much of the waste multiplier is being changed because of the gases around the supermatter.
Psychologist Waste Multiplier	How much of the waste gas multiplier is reduced by the presence of a psychologist or anyone with the HYPERG1G4 skillchip around the supermatter hallucination range. Waste multiplier reduction from psychologist only goes up to -20%.

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 gasmix in the supermatter chamber.

Gas	Safety	Description	Notable Properties	Gas properties(100% composition)
Hyper-Noblium	Extremely Safe	Prevents interactions(such as plasmafires) at 5 moles per tile and above 20k, which massively increases the safety of the SM, allowing you to run flammable gasses without the SM immediately turning into an inferno if things go even a little sideways. Massively decreases the waste multiplier of the SM, even moreso than Freon, and minorly affects power generation and power transmssion. It is however, part of the resonance cascade delamination, alongside anti-nob.	Stops reactions with a minimal presence and temperature. Reduces waste gas production massively, reducing the amount of oxygen and plasma created.	Power Transmission +30% Waste Multiplier -1400% Heat Power gen -100%
Helium	Very Safe	Nonreactive with the SM, helium does nothing for or against the SM.	completely nonreactive to the SM, which is weird.	Nothing
Freon	Very safe	When present above 30% of the mix, it will stop any power emission. It greatly helps the SM cool down at the cost of hampering the power generation (useful if dealing with hot delaminations). It has high specific heat, even higher than plasma. Warning though, when the SM cools down the freon will start interacting with the O2 generated by the SM being active until depleted and could generate hot ice which will promptly turn into hot plasma if not collected. It's useful for emergency stopping the SM, not so much general use. Use it for cooling the SM with heat exchanges in the chamber, not exposing it to the SM itself.	Very low heat penalty Stops power generation at high concentrations May generate hot ice	Power Transmission-300% Waste Multiplier -900% Heat Power Gain -100%
Proto Nitrate	Very safe	Increases the power generation, adds heat resistance, and generates more power from being hot. Just a good gas all around.	Very low heat penalty High bonus to power generation Increases the heat resistance of the Supermatter	Power Transmission +150% Waste Multiplier -400% Heat Resistance +400% Heat Power gain +100%
Nitrogen	Very safe	N2 is the basic gas most SMs will run exclusively, being bog simple to set up for. It dampens the power generation from heat, and reduces the amount of plasma the SM belches out, making it good for when you aren't trying to do something silly.	Low heat penalty The most commonly used gas	Waste Multiplier -250% Heat Power Gain -100%
Pluoxium	Safe	Pluoxium is almost exclusively in the SM as a byproduct of running CO2. It negates CO2's bonuses and penalties for Heat power gain and Waste multiplier, while also just lowering the power transmission of the SM itself. Remove it from the SM as soon as you can simply because it serves you no purpose.	Negates some of the usefulness of CO2 can be saved for use in internals	Power Transmission -50% Waste Multiplier -150% Heat Power Gain -100%
N2O	Safe	N2O reinforces the heat resistance of the supermatter crystal, allowing for much hotter setups than usual. However, at higher temperatures (such as during a heat delamination) it will decay into O2 and N2. While N2 is good for the supermatter, O2 most certainly is not. This O2 will also react with the Plasma to create Tritium and then, to the further horror of many an Engineer, a Tritium fire. However, as long as the SM isn't over the tipping point, adding N2O will slow a delamination.	Standard heat penalty Increases the heat resistance of the Supermatter	Heat Resistance +500%
O2	Relatively Dangerous	Oxygen provides a boost to power transmission without actively increasing the waste gas amount or temperature. Pretty risky to use, as any disruption of the cooling loop will soon cause a plasma fire in the crystal chamber. Even just a high concentration of O2 will activate and continuously power the crystal. If you're badass enough to run an O2 setup: Always precool it before flooding the Supermatter chamber and have a way to deal with the accumulation of waste oxygen.	Increases heat power generation Little bonus to power generation Produced by the supermatter inherently	Power Transmission +15% Heat Power Gain +100%
Miasma	Relatively Dangerous	Miasma gets consumed by the supermatter to generate more power. A single mole of miasma corresponds roughly to a 10 MeV/cm3 increase.	Gets consumed by the supermatter	Heat Power Gain +50%
Healium	Relatively Dangerous	Increases the power generation slightly at a minor cost to the heat penalty.	Small heat penalty Moderate bonus to power generation	Power Transmission +24% Waste Multiplier +300% Heat Power Gain +100%
Halon	Dangerous	Halon Directly doesn't interact with the SM, but will react with oxygen to create CO2, which is bad. In any situation where Halon might be useful, it will instead mess you over by creating CO2, turning your heat delamination into a charge delamination. Just don't.	Creates CO2 Consumes oxygen	Nothing
CO2	Dangerous	CO2 is a potentially dangerous yet very rewarding gas - in low concentrations, it will increase the crystal's power generation and can be used to produce Pluoxium as well. In high concentrations, however, it will raise the crystal's energy to extremely high levels. With proper management and preparation, this is a phenomenal way to generate power. With poor management and insufficient or downright bad preparation, it will eventually exceed safe energy levels and begin a charge delamination, producing electric arcs and anomalies until it eventually explodes into a Tesla ball.	Moderate heat power generation Reduces the energy decay of the supermatter	Waste Multiplier +100% Heat Power Gain +100% Power Decay Negation +100%
Zauker	Dangerous	Increases the power generation quite significantly with relatively moderate heat penalty. The difficulty lies in procuring this gas.	Moderate heat penalty High bonus to power generation	Power transmssion +200% Waste Multiplier +400% Heat Power Generation +100%
BZ	Dangerous	At above 40% composition, it begins shooting extremely high energy nuclear particles that are visible to the naked eye. These particles can make it lethal to be around your engine, no matter what equipment you have. Not useful for power generation though.	Moderate heat gain Malus to power transmssion increases waste gasses	-20% Power Transmssion Waste Multiplier +400% Heat Power Gain +100%
Water Vapor	Very dangerous	Water vapor is BZ but worse in every way, it is also created by fire reactions in small amounts, which will spike the SMs waste output if allowed to accumulate. It'll also make the chamber slippery. Do not allow it to accumulate.	High heat penalty Malus to power generation Makes the chamber slippery.	Power Transmission -25% Waste Multiplier +1100% Heat Power generation +100%
Plasma	Very dangerous	Plasma is very similar to Oxygen but provides a higher power boost as well as a much higher waste and heat penalty. The extreme pressures and volumes of gas produced by this gas are very likely to clog pipes, overheat the chamber, and overpower your cooling system. WARNING: The roundstart setup cannot handle pure plasma setups.	Very high heat penalty Little bonus to power generation	Power Transmission +40% Waste Multiplier +1400% Heat Power Gain +100%
Tritium	Very dangerous	Tritium increases the power production of the Supermatter by up to 3 times, there is one slight issue with it. Tritium is dangerous. Tritium is very dangerous. Tritium is a horrifyingly irritable and jumpy gas. While it isn't as harmful to the heat level as Plasma is (just barely), it also has the second worst heat capacity of all gasses while Plasma has the second highest. This means that Plasma can be kept happy with enough cooling, whereas Tritium eagerly goes from a safe space loop into a burning hellfire. Add to this the byproduct of large amounts of Oxygen production (not exclusive to Tritium. An issue in a Plasma engine too), and you have a tritium fire and a very hot crystal. Do not use this gas unless you have a very strong understanding of atmospherics and the Supermatter, and are willing to get creative.	High heat penalty Huge bonus to power generation	Power Transmission +300% Waste Multiplier +900% Heat Power Gain +100%
H2	Very dangerous	Similar to tritium, less power generation, same heat production and a bit of heat protection.	High heat penalty Huge bonus to power generation Increases the heat resistance for the Supermatter somewhat.	power transmission +250% Waste Multiplier 900% Heat Resistance +100% Heat Power Gain +100%
Anti-Noblium	Extremely dangerous	Probably a sign a resonance cascade is about to occur, or someone with a massive ego is about to get humbled. Attempting to cool your engine with this gas is like trying to cool your engine with absolutely nothing. It has by far the lowest specific heat, while having the same heat penalty. It is also bad for power generation. There are only bad reasons to put this gas in your engine.	Keeps the crystal from zapping as much Increases zaps Probably a sign a resonance cascade is about to occur	power transmission -50% Waste Multiplier +1400% Heat Power Gain +100%

Additional Hazards

The supermatter is dangerous for multiple reasons.

• 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.
• It releases radiation while powered. You will need radiation protection from specialized modsuits or radiation suits.
• It causes hallucinations to people that have direct sightline to the supermatter in a certain range when powered. You will need meson scanners or the HYPERG1G4 skillchip to mitigate this.
• It will spawn anomalies when powered above 5000 MeV, at sufficiently low integrity, and after delaminations. Efforts to push the engine past this point will require mitigation of anomalies, especially pyroclastic which can toast equipment and spawn sentient slimes.
• It will pull items around it when powered. You will need magboots for protection.
• The primary method of power generation (electrical zaps) will prioritize humans without the presence of a grounding rod or tesla coil. Complete protection is only afforded by specialized modsuits in combination with insulated gloves.

A Practical Guide to The Supermatter

So you wanted to skim the theory and jump right into the action? We got you covered. This is a step by step walkthrough to set your local supermatter crystal up. Beware however, there are many improvements that could be made!

Step one: Safety and Preliminary Preparations

1. Put on an optical meson scanner (Engineering scanner goggles works too, if changed to meson mode) and a radiation suit in case someone prematurely activates the supermatter crystal.

   Why: Meson Scanners protect from hallucinations, while the suit protect from radiation. Once the engine starts, it will start emitting both.

2. Insert your ID into your tablet and download the NT CIMS program if you haven't already. The NT CIMS provides critical information on the state of the crystal and all good engineers should have it installed and running.

Meta Station SM

Delta Station SM

Ice Box Station SM

Step two: Prepare the gas loop

1. Color code: Green. Turn the bypass pump off

   Why: This pump is used to bypass the chamber and to precool the gas before entering it. This pump however is a detriment to us on started Supermatter crystals, since it reduces the amount of cooled gas inserted into the chamber.

2. Color code: Red. Your first step should be wrenching the N2 canisters in place. Afterwards, turn the pump on and maximize it. (Hotkeys: ctrl-click to turn on, alt-click to maximize)

   Why: When the crystal is generating power it produces plasma and oxygen and heats up the air surrounding it immensely, thus it needs to be properly ventilated. We start by making the gas loop push N2 around the loop, cooling it with the coldness of space before re-entering the engine room again.

3. Color code: Orange. Maximize the pumps leading to and out of the Supermatter chamber

   Why: A larger quantity of cooled gas inside the Supermatter will snuff out waste gas and heat better than one that isn't properly filled. This also makes the gas movement for the whole engine much quicker. (Be mindful of molar delaminations, though this is unlikely.)

4. Color code: Blue. Turn the filter on, maximize it, and set it to filter nothing.

   Why: This filter is commonly used to collect useful gases from the Supermatter engine to be used elsewhere. We do not need this filter to be set to anything for stable power generation, though they are not mutually exclusive.

5. Color code: Violet. Maximize the pumps leading to the space exchangers.

   Why: This makes the gas movement for the whole engine much quicker, allowing gas to be cooled and pumped in faster.

6. Color code: White. Turn on all the filters and maximize them. Set the filter with the double circle to Nitrogen (they are set to Nitrogen by default, might be worth it to double check them.) All other filters can be set to nothing.

   Why: This filter complex dictates which gas will be let inside the Supermatter chamber. We are currently running a simple Nitrogen engine, so we need only the first filter to be set to nitrogen. The other three filters still need to be on and set to nothing in order for the bad gas to actually get vented, keep this in mind! If the first filter had been tampered with and the chamber is running out of nitrogen, repeat step one with Nitrogen canisters obtained from other parts of the station.

7. Color code: Brown (where applicable). Turn on and maximize these freezer (or freezer bypass) pumps.

   Why: For meta and box derived Supermatter engines, the brown pumps are the last piece of pump separating the cooled gas from the chamber. In some maps (e.g. Ice Box) it is preferable to incorporate the freezers from roundstart due to freezers (73 Kelvins) being colder than space (180+20 Kelvins). For several maps where the space loop is colder (2.7+20 Kelvins), the bypass might be preferred until upgrades are available.

8. Color code: Pink (where applicable). Turn on and minimize the temperature on these freezers.

   Why: For reasons stated above, this will mostly be used on supermatter engines with suboptimal space loops.

9. Color code: Grey-blue (Where applicable). Turn the space valve on.

   Why: This valve separates the filtered waste gas from the space injector. Turn this on to prevent clogging. Only applicable in delta station.

10. Color code: Yellow. In the same air alarm , click Vent Controls and disable the external limits by clicking on External(Just make sure internals is green and externals is blue). Do not change the vent option from Pressurizing. Picture (click it):

    Why: Internal and External acts as limits for the vents. Limits can only slow down vents, and we want vents to be as fast as possible. So we disable the limits to allow gas to flow into the supermatter in any condition.

11. Color code: Yellow. Proceed to the air alarm next to the crystal room. Open the air alarm menu (on most maps it will start unlocked), click Scrubber Controls and change the scrubbers to siphon (by clicking "scrubbing") and Expanded Range.

    Why: Siphon makes the scrubbers remove all gases. This is to ensure hot gasses are removed from the chamber as fast as possible, to prevent too high pressure in the chamber.

12. Color code: N/A. Review the crystal's status using the NT-CIMS program.

    Why: The NT CIMS provides great insight on troubleshooting supermatter related problems. If you did everything correctly, the temperature should be dropping, the gas composition will shift heavily towards pure nitrogen, and there should be enough moles inside the chamber (above 8).

With these all done, the nitrogen should be cycling through the system and getting nice and cool. Give yourself a pat on the back, for the hardest part is over!

Step three: 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!
2. For supermatter engines on Delta Station, you need to set everything yourself. Haul emitters and reflectors around to your desired setup, wrench and weld the emitters once aligned properly (rotate with Alt-Click), and weld the reflectors. Wire the plating under them and hook them up to a powered cable.
3. Align the reflectors so that the emitter beams are deflected towards the supermatter crystal.
4. Head into the emitter chamber. It is on the right side of the picture above. 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!
5. Close the radiation shutters with the Radiation Shutters Control button (if available).

The supermatter will now begin arcing and generating power.

If the emitters are not firing despite being turned on, it means they are not being sufficiently powered. This could either be because a cable to them have been severed (less likely), or the station does not have enough power to run them. To fix this, you could:

1. Check the cable and ensure a proper connection is made between the power reservoir (SMES) and the emitters.
2. Maximizing the SMES might solve some fringe cases of the station having enough power stored but not enough power flowing.
3. Start the P.A.C.M.A.N generator to give the extra kick needed to start the emitters. Once the engine is supplying power, you can turn off the P.A.C.M.A.N.
4. Throw a useless object into the supermatter crystal in order to kickstart the engine. A commonly used object for this is a 1 credit holochip, available to you by Alt-Clicking your ID. Alternatively you can emote kiss(type *kiss when you are ingame) the sm from a distance(The kiss can land even through glass, be sure to do it through the glass to be safe).

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.

Congratulations! The supermatter engine is set!

Working with the Supermatter

Removing Pumps

Pumpless MetaStation Supermatter

Read more on gas equalizations and pipe networks here.

You want to replace most pumps you can find with either straight pipes or with valves. It is recommended to do this in the start of the round, so that we don't lose any gases from unwrenching atmospheric devices.

This is because gas in a network is always evenly spread through all connected pipe. Pumps exist only to create pressure gradients, but in the supermatter where gas is always flowing in a circular fashion it will only restrict flow, or even worse clog on delaminations.

Pictured to the right is the roundstart MetaStation SM setup, but modified to have all the unneeded pumps / filters removed. Pumps have a set limit on the amount of gas that can flow through each tick, and when dealing with a SM Delamination, every second counts.

Cooling

The direct turf (location/tile) of the supermatter is what dictates it's behaviour, and thus an integral part of any supermatter engine is sufficient cooling of the crystal's immediate environment. The cooling system used by the standard supermatter engine is a dynamic system; meaning that the gases around the supermatter flow to other parts of the engine in order to get cooled. This is why a single pipe being broken might cause catastrophic consequences.

On our standard supermatter setup, there are two main factors of cooling: heat exchanger pipes and freezers. Note that both of these apparatus perform cooling only on the gas in it's immediate "container". A single freezer or heat exchanger pipe will be less effective on a larger pipe network than a smaller one due to it getting a smaller share of the gas that it is able to cool. Keep this in mind when doing expansion to the setup.

Heat exchangers

Heat exchangers work on the basis of conduction, that is between the heat exchanger and the turf it is in. For our supermatter heat exchangers, the heat sharing will be performed with a space turf (with the temperature of 2.7 Kelvins and heat capacity of 7000 J/K.) or snow turf (with the temperature of 180 Kelvins and heat capacity that varies slightly). This conduction process will only happen when the temperature difference between the two gas mixtures is higher than 20 Kelvin or Celcius.
Expanding the cooling loop means expanding the part of the pipe network that is actually able to exchange heat, therefore increasing the cooling power. However doing also means that the filters will be able to work on a smaller amount of gas, lowering the amount of gas that goes into the supermatter chamber. It might be worthwile to pump in more coolant if efforts to expand the loop are undertaken.

Freezers

Freezers also work on the principle of heat exchanging. The gas directly present in it will have it's heat exchanged with a gas mixture with heat capacity and temperature dictated by the parts and setting. For more information on thermomachines head here.

In-Chamber Cooling

It is possible to use heat exchanger pipes filled with cooled Plasma directly inside the crystal's chamber for even better cooling. This method of cooling however is not present by default and will need to be added in by an engineer.

Mitigating Delaminations

The first step to averting delaminations is to turn the emitters off. Waste produced by the supermatter scales based on energy, so cutting the energy supply to the crystal is one of the best first steps to take.

There is no one sure way to fix the supermatter, but there are a few common causes:

• Gas pumps are offline or left on default pressure.
• Gas filters offline, left on default pressure.
• No gas filter set to filter coolant back into the loop. If nitrogen has fully ran out from the supermatter set up just set filters and add more coolant either through canisters or through the Atmos to Engine pipe in Atmospherics.
• Supermatter chamber vents improperly configured.
• Supermatter chamber scrubbers not siphoning.
• Heat exchange pipes broken. Space dust can slip through the defenses on occasion. Or a traitor may detach a section.
• Too much gas, especially on supermatter with pumps. If a section has too high of a pressure, the gas pumps cannot push anything more into it!
• Too little gas, especially on supermatter setups with an expanded cooling loop. Lack of nitrogen coolant will make the oxygen and plasma dumped by the supermatter take up a larger portion of the composition, raising the waste multiplier significantly.

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.
• When the crystal reaches 0% integrity a 30 second countdown until the explosion will be broadcast on common channel, even if telecomms is desintegrated.
• Disable the telecomms APC with the CE console to prevent the supermatter from announcing its status.
• Cut cameras near the engine.
• Instead of turning off pumps and filters, you can just set them to extremely low values instead. They'll still appear to be working.
• 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.
• Or ignore everything above and just empty a magazine into the crystal making it near instantly start the 30 second delamination countdown, before anyone can stop you, or even notice, this applies even if you want to do the more spicy delaminations listed below, since the crystal doesn't have to delaminate from high power or high pressure, it just has to be in the state needed when exploding and can delaminate from bullets.

Regular delamination

These are the easiest to pull off and require no special conditions. You'll want to keep the supermatter chamber very hot and full of plasma or CO2.

• Use the filters near the emitter room to filter out N2 and N2O while keeping Plasma, Oxygen and CO2 in the loop.
• Pump in pure plasma or burn mix from atmos.
• Disable or break the cooling array. Deconstructing a single piece of the heat exchanger can be enough.
• Shooting guns at the crystal is extremely effective, but it's likely that you'll end up in the blast you won't, you'll have 30 seconds to run after the crystal reaches 0% integrity.
• Disable the scrubbers once the chamber is hot enough.

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.

• Ensure that only CO2 is in the supermatter chamber at all times. Filter all other gases and keep the scrubbers running.
• Keep the emitters online and firing if you can.
• Get as much CO2 into the chamber as possible. Larger amounts of CO2 can even compensate for the oxygen and plasma waste.
• Wear as much radiation protection as you can. Consider bringing some anti-toxin medication as well.
• Try to keep radiation suits away from engineers, they won't be able to get near the overcharged engine long enough to fix it without one. They will however be able to go near it long enough to beat you to death.
• Make sure you are wearing insulated gloves to protect yourself from the lightning arcs.
• Disabling the cooling is not required. In fact, keeping the chamber cool might help you get more power.
• 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.

Critical mass delamination

This is difficult but also simple.

• Pump in as much gas as possible into the chamber. The easiest way to do this is to disable the pressure checks on the vent air alarms.
• Reverse the scrubber pump. It's a subtle alteration that might get overlooked in the heat of the moment and will prevent the excess gas from being pumped out.
• Make sure no gas leaves the chamber. Put up walls, deconstruct scrubber pipes, do whatever possible to keep the gas inside.

Resonance cascade delamination

This type of delamination requires particular care and effort, as it requires anti-noblium which is obtained from the Hypertorus Fusion Reactor or from the use of an Electrolyzer. Either way, this type of delamination requires the sourcing of specific materials which will require a rounds worth of effort.

• Ensure the supermatter chamber is filled with a gas mixture that is at least 40% Hyper-Noblium, and 40% Anti-Noblium.
• Ensure that the supermatter engine has an integrity that is greater than 80%.
• Ensure that there are more than 12000 moles of gas inside the Supermatter chamber.

Alternatively, if you are a dirty traitor and you received the objective to cause a cascade, do the following:

• Ensure the crystal has over 80% integrity.
• Attach the destabilizing crystal from your objective to the crystal. Make sure you have protection from the engine's gravitational force.
• A destabilizing crystal will not cause the engine to delaminate by itself. Proceed with one of the delaminations steps above.

Note that resonance cascade delaminations only work on the main engine, not on shards. You will not receive the objective if there is no valid engine.