So some maniac decided it'd be a good idea to place several Supermatter shards into the Supermatter crystal chamber. He misclicked, got dusted. The crystal sucked in the shard, and... nothing happened. Nothing occurs when a supermatter shard collides with the crystal. This doesn't seem right. A lot of us were expecting something to happen, but the shard essentially just vanished. So, I got a proposal for a potential change to the behavior of the supermatter crystal when it collides with a shard.
Essentially, putting a shard into the crystal should cause the behavior of the crystal to change. My primary idea would be that doing this would cause the crystal to become more powerful, but also more unstable.
First, the output of the crystal will increase. This means that it puts our more power and radiation with less input being required. Second, the crystal becomes more difficult to keep stable. The maximum stable pressure/temperature will be lowered, meaning the crystal will loose integrity more easily, requiring engineering to be more cautions with the cooling and atmos setup. Third, there are greater fluctuations in temperature and atmos. More gasses will be produced and at a greater temperature. If the crystal starts to delaminate, it will be much more difficult to rescue it. Finally, there becomes a chance for anomalies to spawn, even while stable. This spawn possibility is extremely low, but is 'safer' than intentionally destabilizing the crystal to create anomalies.
I feel this will encourage the engineering crew to experiment with the SM a bit more, and give an extra use for the SM shards that can be ordered through cargo.