Supermatter

Supermatter

The big, mean, yellow rock.

The supermatter (SM), or supermatter engine (SME) is one of the power sources available to Engineering.

It produces power by generating radiation in response to gasses in its chamber, much like a singularity. However, unlike a singularity, a supermatter does not need to be within a containment field. The SM begins the shift completely safe and inert, until an entity (such as a piece of trash, a mouse or a Technical Assistant) touches it, immediately vaporizing it into ash. This is why everybody tells you not to touch it. Only a select few hardsuits (such as the Chief Engineer's hardsuit) can actually touch the SM without ashing.

After it vaporizes an entity for the first time, the supermatter is permanently activated and reactive. An activated supermatter reacts with gasses present in its tile, outputting more rads and heat, along with waste in the form of oxygen, plasma and pluoxium. If these waste gasses are not scrubbed away quickly, they will form tritium and ignite.

Generally, you don't want this thing to be on fire, if you can help it.

Supermatter Console

In the same room as the supermatter you will often find a supermatter console. They allow you to track the variables governing the SM's state in real-time, and shows the following values:

• Integrity: The "health bar" of the supermatter. If it goes down to 0, it will delaminate, destroying half of your department and potentially leaving you with a loose singularity or tesla ball to deal with.
• Internal Energy: More commonly called the supermatter's "power", it's a measure of how much energy is stored inside the crystal. It increases as the supermatter absorbs gas and entities, and goes down naturally with time. The total radiation (and therefore, usable power) that the SM can provide heavily depends on its current internal energy.
• Radiation Emission: Exactly how many rads the SM's currently outputting.
• Absorbed Moles: The amount of moles the supermatter is actively processing into more internal energy.
• Temperature: How hot it is.
• Temperature Limit: How hot it can get before it starts taking integrity damage.

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Gas Interaction Variables

The SM interacts with each gas differently. Every gas in the game has four attributes that can influence the supermatter's functioning:

• Power Transmission: A direct multiplier for how many rads are generated. Maximizing both the current Internal Energy and Power Transmission are the two most important things when it comes to making more power.
• Heat Penalty: A multiplier for how much heat and waste gasses are generated. Positive heat penalty generates more heat and waste, negative heat penalty generates less.
• Heat Resistance: Modifies the SM's temperature limit. Better heat resistance will allow you to run safer, hotter engines.
• Power Mix Ratio (PMR): A magic number that ranges from 1 to -1. Influences virtually every other variable. A higher PMR leads to an SM that gives out more rads, heats up more quickly, decays less in power over time, and more. You want to maximize this if you can, but gasses that have a PMR of 1 tend to be "dangerous" gasses, while those with a PMR of -1 (such as Frezon or Nitrogen) are "safe" gasses.

Gas Interactions

Gas	Transmission	Heat Penalty	Heat Resistance	PMR
Oxygen	+50%	N/A	N/A	1
Nitrogen	N/A	-150%	N/A	-1
Carbon Dioxide (CO2)	N/A	-80%	N/A	1
Plasma	+300%	+1400%	N/A	1
Tritium	+29000%	+900%	N/A	1
Water Vapor (H2O)	+100%	+1200%	N/A	1
Ammonia	N/A	N/A	N/A	1
Nitrous Oxide (NO2)	N/A	-500%	+1565.75K	-1
Frezon	+200%	-1000%	N/A	-1
BZ	N/A	+500%	N/A	1
Healium	+140%	+400%	N/A	1
Pluoxium	N/A	-250%	N/A	-1
Nitrium	+29000%	+900%	N/A	1
Hydrogen	+24000%	+1000%	N/A	1
Hyper-Noblium	+24000%	-900%	+1565.75K	-1
Proto-Nitrate	+14000%	-400%	+939.45K	1
Zauker	+100%	+400%	N/A	2*
Halon	+10%	-80%	-281K	0.1
Helium	+10%	-80%	-281K	0.1
Anti-Noblium	-50%	+1400%	N/A