Supermatter

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.

Setting Up Your First Supermatter Engine (Cold Nitrogen Loop)

It is normal to feel daunted at the array of numbers and options available to you when making one of these. However, do not be afraid! The most basic supermatter setups are incredibly safe and create more than enough power for an entire station.

Keep in mind that different stations will have a supermatter chamber at different stages of assembly. Some may already have pipes and filters laid down, while some others may just give you a dark room in maints with a radioactive rock behind a curtain. Go down and make a checklist to make sure everything that has already been assembled for you, has been assembled correctly.

1. Set up a supermatter chamber

A supermatter chamber should ideally be a 3x3 glass box with the supermatter in the middle of it. You can add grilles below the windows for safety, and you can also make them reinforced plasma windows to shield you from the radiation while you work. Chambers that are smaller or bigger than this tend to be less optimal.

Leave a door so we can go in and out.

2. Put down an air alarm, injector and scrubbers

We need a constant flow of cold nitrogen going into the chamber. We do this because nitrogen is abundant, safely interacts with the SM, and is easily enough to cool down the crystal's ever-rising temperatures.

Although nitrogen is safe and inert, the supermatter will slowly heat it up with time and eventually overheat. Set up an injector inside the chamber, then scrubbers in every other tile. The injector will introduce the nitrogen, while the scrubbers scrub everything away. Don't forget to wire some LV over to the chamber to power these devices.

We ideally want the nitrogen to come out of the injector, pass through the crystal, then into the scrubbers, so it's preferable to have the pipes on opposite sides. It's not horribly important, though. An injector alone already outputs quite a large volume of gas, and low pressures tend to be more ideal for the chamber.

3. Set up a nitrogen cooling loop

The nitrogen ideally must be as cold as possible before it enters the chamber. As for the hot nitrogen that leaves the chamber through the scrubbers, we can separate it from the waste gasses and then add it back into the same cooling loop.

As always, the easiest way to cool down anything is using radiators and space.

As for the scrubbers, we add a filter to get the nitrogen out of the waste gasses. We cycle back the nitrogen to the start of the cooling loop, and the other gasses are safely vented out to space. Add volumetric pipes on opposite sides of the loop to keep it constantly flowing.

Cold nitrogen goes in, hot plasma, oxygen and nitrogen come out. We keep the nitrogen and shove it back into the cooling loop. It then returns to the chamber at a safe temperature once again.

4. Set up the air alarm and filter

The air alarm needs to tell the scrubbers to scrub away everything, so we can keep a constant influx of cold N2 coming in. If you leave the nitrogen inside, it will eventually heat up and start damaging the SM, even if it's not actively on fire.

IMPORTANT: Turn off auto mode to keep the air alarm from spontaneously reconfiguring back to default. I have seen way too many supermatters delaminate because of this.

While you're at it, there's no harm in setting it to WideNet instead. Once you're done, set up your filter to filter out nitrogen from the waste and turn it on.

5. Set up radiation collectors and wires, finishing touches

Finally, don't forget the part that actually gives you power, the radiation collectors and wires. Make sure to place the collectors in a spot where radiation will actually hit them. If you're putting them outside the chamber, you will need to use regular windows for that side.

For this setup, I will be changing one side of the chamber to regular windows, then add some directional plasma windows for safety.

Do a final checklist. Make sure that the nitrogen's actively cooling and being recycled, that there's no oxygen in the chamber, and that your supermatter console's linked to the supermatter. Once you turn on the rock, there's no going back.

6. Activate the supermatter crystal

Once you're done, just chuck a random item at the supermatter to activate it. If everything is properly set up, it should be cold and well-behaved, while generating a constant 3 rads.

With just 6 radiation collectors, this supermatter engine is already generating 200kW, enough to power most small stations. Simply adding a second wing of radiation collectors will net you 400kW, enough to power most medium-sized and a few large stations.

The only maintenance involved with it is to keep the collectors filled. The pumps that actually keep the engine going take very little power, so there's not much consequence to forgetting to fill the collectors. If you have solars to any capacity, they can power those pumps until you refill the collectors.

With this, you are done setting up your first supermatter! There are a few things you can do to increase power output, such as introducing new gasses to increase power transmission, or shooting it with emitters to increase its internal energy. However, in most situations, it is completely fine to just leave it like this and check up on the collectors every once in a while.

Delaminations

A delamination is what happens when the supermatter's integrity hits 0%. It usually just explodes in a big radius, taking the entire Engineering department with it. Some other times, it may produce a tesla ball or singularity instead. Regardless, it's not good.

Delaminations happen for an array of reasons, but the most common are:

A. Temperature is over the temperature limit

A classic culprit of delaminations is not properly disposing of the oxygen and plasma produced by the supermatter. Eventually, the heat will ignite the built up oxygen and create a plasma fire. The plasma fire will create tritium, CO2 and water vapor, all of which make the supermatter produce more waste, turning into a vicious cycle that gets the temperature up to 20,000K and beyond.

Some other times, the supermatter can simply be too hot, even without a visible fire. This is usually because non-flammable gasses (such as nitrogen) are slowly heated up by the supermatter, eventually overcoming its temperature limit.

B. Internal energy is over 5 GeV

The supermatter directly eats up entities, emitter shots and ammonia to gain internal energy. There is no limit to how much energy the crystal can store, but it will start taking damage to integrity if it is over 5 GeV. In some advanced setups, the SM is able to safely run at over this limit without taking damage thanks to the healing from extremely low temperatures. However, the moment this cooling fails, the supermatter will begin taking integrity damage until its internal energy naturally goes back to safe levels.

C. Absorbed moles are over 1800

Can sometimes happen when you use frezon, or other very cold and high-density gasses. The supermatter can only hold 1800 moles at once before it starts taking damage. Since it absorbs 15% of moles in its tile per tick, this means that you cannot safely shove more than 100,000 moles of anything into the chamber. However, doing so is incredibly rare.

Stopping an Active Delamination

In general, delaminations are pretty easy to identify. The supermatter yells at you over engineering radio when any drop in integrity is detected, and then on common radio when it gets low enough. If the supermatter is on fire and outputting an outrageous amount of radiation, it is most likely dropping in integrity. Remain calm, don't panic, and work quickly. This situation is most often completely reversable if you follow these steps:

1. Space the chamber

Use your RCD or fireaxe to open up a single tile into space within the chamber, then wait for all the hot waste gasses to vent out. This may take a while, especially if the supermatter has absorbed a lot of moles. Be patient and let the fire go out on its own.

2. Double-check scrubbers and pipes

Check that the gas inside the pipes leading up to the chamber aren't also full of plasma and oxygen. If need be, destroy them with an RPD and lay down new pipes. Check that the scrubbers inside the supermatter chamber are powered and scrubbing the correct gasses. If you don't know which gasses are being used, default to inputting nitrogen into the chamber and scrubbing all gasses.

3. Flood the chamber with nitrogen

It is generally helpful to have an auxiliary pipe of nitrogen ready for delaminations. If you don't, simply check that all the gas inside the pipes has emptied out, then fill it with nitrogen. Finally, un-space the chamber and let nitrogen flow in. Ensure that hot nitrogen and waste is being disposed of. Integrity should no longer be dropping at this point.

4. Cool down the supermatter

By this step, the supermatter should no longer be on fire, at the very least. Now, you have to try to get the supermatter to the coldest you can get it, since this will restore its integrity. Make sure that the nitrogen entering the chamber is cooled with either radiators or freezers.

Getting Serious With Your Supermatter

If you want to get the most you possibly can out of your supermatter, there's a few variables that you will have to try and maximize. They are all shown in your supermatter console.

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.

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	Details
Oxygen	+50%	N/A	N/A	1	Oxygen's great in paper. It has a positive PMR, increases rads by a fair amount and it doesn't heat the SM too much. The horrible news is that it catches on fire. Plasmafires without an open flame do not occur below 500K, so if you can find a way to keep it under that temperature, you're fine. Keep in mind that O2 has a worse specific heat than N2, which makes it even harder to cool.
Nitrogen	N/A	-150%	N/A	-1	This is the default gas most supermatters run on. It comes out of a miner, doesn't ignite, and is relatively easy to cool down. Running on pure nitrogen is completely fine, and generally "enough" to power most stations.
Carbon Dioxide (CO2)	N/A	-80%	N/A	1	A staple of most "advanced" setups. On top of having a PMR of 1, CO2 also slows down natural decay of internal energy. A mix of more than 750 moles with 66% CO2 is enough to stop all power decay. This is incredibly important for supermatter engines running at over 5 GeV.
Plasma	+300%	+1400%	N/A	1	Plasma's similar to oxygen. It has better power transmission but generates a TON more heat and waste, while also being somewhat easier to cool down due to its high specific heat. The annoyingly jumpy expanding of hot plasma is bound to clog your pipes eventually, though.
Tritium	+29000%	+900%	N/A	1	Tritium is tied for the best power transmission in the game, AND it has a positive PMR. However, tritium is a horrifying gas. While it doesn't produce as much waste as plasma does, tritium has a specific heat of 10 to plasma's 200, making it 20 times harder to cool down and control. A tritfire can also ignite at 313K, far lower than plasma fires at 500K. Can be safe if you somehow keep it from overflowing the internal energy or igniting, usually through the use of hyper-noblium or frezon, or through a very intricate and long cooling system. If you can somehow tame tritium to never go over 300K, it is currently the strongest fuel you can give to the supermatter.
Water Vapor (H2O)	+100%	+1200%	N/A	1	H2O makes your supermatter run over 10 times hotter, and has a special function where it decreases your bonus power transmission depending on what percentage of the fuel mix is H2O. There are only drawbacks to having vapor in the chamber, and is most often only found as the byproduct of an active fire.
Ammonia	N/A	N/A	N/A	1	Ammonia is awesome. While it doesn't have any crazy attributes, the SM directly consumes ammonia to add 10 power (0.010 GeV) per mol. This means that just 500 mols of ammonia adds a total of 5 GeV to power. Incredibly vital to advanced setups that want to get power up to 6-8 GeV and keep it there through the use of CO2.
Nitrous Oxide (NO2)	N/A	-500%	+1565.75K	-1	Generally a better nitrogen, producing 5 times less waste heat and improving the SM's heat limit by quite a bit. However, keep in mind that at over 800K (so, during delaminations), it decomposes back into non-flammable nitrogen, and VERY flammable oxygen.
Frezon	+200%	-1000%	N/A	-1	Increases rad output while making plasma fires near impossible through a mix of low temperature and very good heat penalty. Solid, reliable option that can be mass-produced easily. However, one thing to keep in mind. Low temperatures decrease pressure as per the ideal gas law, which is why you can fit upwards of 30,000 moles of frezon in one can. The supermatter, too, is a storage can of sorts, and it will start taking damage if it's currently holding more than 1800 moles. Don't shove an entire 9000kPa can of frezon into the chamber, instead trickle it at 100-200kPa. It will be enough for power.
BZ	N/A	+500%	N/A	1	BZ is a very poor choice. It gives no tangible benefit over carbon dioxide, and creates far more waste. Save it to make better gasses instead.
Healium	+140%	+400%	N/A	1	Increases power transmission and PMR at the cost of more waste. Decent and reliable positive PMR option.
Pluoxium	N/A	-250%	N/A	-1	Same numbers as N2, but less waste. Too valuable to just let the supermatter eat it, though. Created as a byproduct of oxygen and carbon dioxide interacting with the supermatter.
Nitrium	+29000%	+900%	N/A	1	Nitrium has the same numbers as tritium, but it doesn't ignite. This sounds fantastic, until you remember that nitrium decomposes into hydrogen at 343K, which ignites immediately, creating water vapor. A nitrium SM is possible, but even more dangerous than a tritium one.
Hydrogen	+24000%	+1000%	N/A	1	Very similar to tritium, except harder to obtain, generates less power, and burns at 373K rather than 313K. It also generates more water vapor when ignited compared to tritium, which is far worse for the supermatter. Generally worse than tritium.
Hyper-Noblium	+24000%	-900%	+1565.75K	-1	Hands-down the best gas available for your supermatter. Incredible power transmission, very little waste, and tied for the best heat resistance possible. Not to mention that hyper-noblium shuts down all reactions if more than 5 mols are present, including plasma and tritium fires. The only drawback is a negative PMR, but a hypernob SM will still easily break 17-22 rads.
Proto-Nitrate	+14000%	-400%	+939.45K	1	Proto-Nitrate is one of the best gasses for the SM. It's incredibly safe to use, creates a ton of rads, and decreases waste. However, it also heats the SM up a fair bit. Normally, this is completely fine, since an environment of 100% proto-nitrate will bump up the temperature limit to 1252K. However, the moment you use another gas with less heat resistance, or the moment you run out of proto-nitrate, you will have a very angry rock at perfect plasmafire temperature. Although safe, it still demands cooling.
Zauker	+100%	+400%	N/A	2	Zauker notably has a PMR of 2. PMR can't actually be that high, but if you're using a gas with a PMR of -1 such as frezon or hypernob, you can turn it into a 1 by mixing in equal parts zauker. How useful zauker actually is highly depends on the -1 PMR gas you're pairing it with. The extra waste production isn't too bad, either.
Anti-Noblium	-50%	+1400%	N/A	1	Tanks half your transmission for +1400% waste generation. I cannot think of a single reason why you'd want to use this. In SS13, it was created as a byproduct of a delaminating SM, but this function is currently not present in SS14.
Halon	+10%	-80%	-281K	0.1	See Helium below. Exact same effects.
Helium	+10%	-80%	-281K	0.1	Halon and Helium are hands-down the most dangerous gasses you can slip into your SM. They quickly lower the supermatter's temperature limit down to 32K, which will immediately make the crystal suffer the highest possible integrity damage per tick. An environment of 100% helium or halon is possibly the fastest way to trigger a delamination. DO NOT USE THIS.