Supermatter Engine

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Engineering SOP

Return to Engineering Portal

If you are intending to build your own Supermatter Engine from the ground up, see Supermatter Engine/Construction.

Setting up an engine is a daunting process, so work with your engineering team to make sure the powering up process goes smoothly. If you don't feel comfortable setting up this engine and there is nobody to help you, consider setting up Solars first so that the station has power and you can take the learning process at your own pace.

Atmospherics seems like magic to most people, but just taking a peruse through the Guide to Atmospherics will help a lot.

The Supermatter Crystal

It isn't quite clear where the Supermatter Crystal comes from, or how Nanotrasen managed to acquire a stable one. First and foremost, a supermatter crystal is dangerous and can be extraordinarily radioactive once activated. It is one of the most dangerous things aboard the station, if handled improperly. Although it is very pretty, anyone who decides to touch it (willingly or not) turns into ash instantly.

When properly contained and left on its own in a stable environment, it will not do much except occasionally let out small bursts of radiation. However, when its EER level begins to rise it will begin shooting out much more radiation and start producing a highly flammable Oxygen/Plasma mix. Both of these effects become more violent as the integrity of the crystal begins to falter.

Setup

Safety and Safety Equipment

The Supermatter Crystal is dangerous, producing large amounts of radiation, causing hallucinations and occasionally setting itself on fire and exploding. As such some safety equipment is required: In order to avoid getting irradiated by the glowing rock we call an SM crystal, you will need to don a radiation suit and hood, as well as a pair of Meson Goggles.

• Messon goggles - These will stop you from hallucinating when around the engine.
• Radiation Suit and hood - aside from the advanced modsuit that the chief engineer gets, engineering and atmos modsuits don't offer sufficient radiation protection to be used around the engine, so unless absolutely necessary a radiation suit and hood should be worn instead
• Magboots - Whether using boots or the modsuit module magboots are one of the most important tools when working on the engine, especially in the chamber. Gravitational anomalies, the flow of gas in the chamber or even the crystal itself can push and pull you in unexpected ways.
• Railing - If you want to do some setup inside the engine chamber put some railings around it first. These can be made from rods and will prevent errant objects and engineers from finding their way to the crystal's warm embrace.
• Atmos holoprojector - found in the atmos and chief engineer lockers. These create a barrier that allows solid objects through but blocks gasses. Use on on the door to the chamber to allow you to open it without disturbing the mix and to stand in the opening to the chamber without being affected by the temperatures.
• Nanofrost particles - Atmospheric technician's and the chief engineer's modsuit both come with a firefighting module and there is also a firefighting backpack in the atmos tech lockers. All of these include a nanofrost particle cannon. These nanofrost particles can take burning plasma and O2 and turn them into cold N2. Bear in mind that they will also freeze over any vents they touch, so it's important to unweld them using a welder. If you can't go into the chamber put an atmos hololock in the doorway(better to do so from the start) and weld the closets vent and scrubber from there.
• RCD - Can be used to remove the floor from the engine as an absolute last resort. A spaced engine still takes damage just from being in a vacuum, but it gives you some amount of breathing room to sort out the loop and coolant.

The two most common dangers around the engine are radiation, and fire. Radiation being dangerous to engineers and fire being dangerous to the engine. When working on the engine make sure to always consider your priorities, and use the appropriate equipment for the situation. Most fires can be resolved using the cooling loop and air alarm, but sometimes there is no choice but to go in and get irradiated when the engine is about to delaminate.

Note: The SM crystal only produces radiation when activated, so radiation suits are not required around docile engines. Mesons, on the other hand are always required.

Gas Loop

Default Setup

Basic Setup

Default Setup

1. Set each pump outlined in green, as well as the filters also in green, to 4500kPa output. Alternatively, replace the pumps (Not the filters) in green with pipes, for optimization.
2. After that, you will want to turn the gas pumps circled in red off (forgetting this is how you speedrun blowing up the engine)
3. The Green outlined gas filters in the bottom should be set to filter back in whatever gas you are using as a coolant inside the engine.

WARNING: While this setup technically works, it doesn't work well and is difficult to work, the pumps can easily end up clogging if anything goes wrong, and provide more points of failure besides. Transforming is into the basic setup can be done with minimal effort, so it is always preferred, as it is more stable and easier to maintain.

Basic Setup

1. Replace all the pipe sections (where the pumps used to be in the default setup) outlined in red with regular pipes.
2. In the area outlined in blue, add regular pipes that circumvent the gas filter.
3. Activate/Deactivate remaining pumps and air alarms as dictated by the default setup.

While the default setup technically works, the basic setup will prevent most gas setups (CO2 and N2 especially) from going into a difficult-to-reverse delamination when John Greytider touches the Supermatter Crystal. This is the preferred and most commonly used setup and your Chief Engineer will likely direct Engineering to use it. While it isn't the most powerful, most stable or even the easiest to operate, it is very quick and simple to set up.

Producing power

EER

One of the main two metrics for The Supermatter Engine's power production. A higher EER means stronger radiation pulses, and at certain breakpoints also causes arcing and anomaly generation.
EER is increased by emitters, when the crystal dusts things, and when the crystal is excited by a gas such as CO2.
If the engine delaminates while above 5000 MeV/cm3 it will generate a Tesla.

Crushing

When the tile the crystal is in has more than 11333 moles of gas in it the crystal is said to be crushing. This is denoted by spacetime warping around the crystal as well as a distinct strong purple glow. Crushing increases radiation production by an amount equivalent to increasing EER by 7000 MeV/cm3.
Additionally, crushing will cause anomalies and above 12000 moles of gas on the crystal tile the engine will also start taking damage from having too many moles.

If the engine delaminates while crushing it will generate a gravitational singularity.

Arcing

While operating at an EER above 5000 MeV/cm3 and occasionally when significantly damaged the Supermatter Engine will produce arcs in this manner:

• 5000 MeV/cm3: start of arcing and anomaly generation. The crystal sends out 2 arcs at a time that deal small amounts of damage to those without shock protection. These arcs have a power production multiplier of 10.
• 7000 MeV/cm3: The crystal sends out 3 arcs at a time that deal more damage and can also damage objects. These arcs have a power production multiplier of 20.
• 9000 MeV/cm3: The crystal sends out 4 arcs at a time that explode machines when they strike them and also stun living creatures they hit. These arcs have a power production multiplier of 40.

While these arcs can be destructive, they can also be a source of usable power when captured by Tesla coils. The amount of useable energy an arc can impart to a tesla coil is EER squared(capped between 4000 and 20000) multiplied by the the power production multiplier, and each coil struck reduces the amount of power to the next one to a third of what it got. Grounding rods are always needed when running an arcing engine, and you want at least 3.

Radiation Waves

The main method of extracting usable power from the Supermatter Engine is by collecting the radiation emitted from it. Radiation comes out in waves, which irradiate whatever they cross, and the strength of these waves reduces with distance from the source in accordance with the inverse square law. This means at a distance of one tile away from the engine you get the full strength of the wave, at two tiles you get a quarter, at three you only get a 9th.
Additionally, the wave expends some of its energy each time it irradiates an object. This object will then become irradiated and release radiation waves of its own, outputting back a portion of the energy it received.

Radiation Collectors

Take plasma tanks and place them in the radiation collectors directly outside the SM chamber and then turn them on so you can produce power. It is generally advised to fill these tanks up full by using the plasma canister in Secure Storage. 1012kpa is the max pressure for a small tank. The tanks can suffice for a full 2 hour shift if not filled up, but they should be payed attention to for extended rounds. In order to get maximum power you want the radiation collectors to receive as much radiation as possible. And since radiation waves decay according to the inverse square law the most effective way of increasing the amount of radiation the collectors receive is by getting them closer to the crystal.
This is something best done before activating the crystal, and it's recommended to put up some railings around the crystal before doing so.

Starting the Engine

1. Fill the inlet side of the cooling loop with your coolant of choice, either getting it supplied via the line from atmos(recommended) or using the N2 tank in the engine room
2. Now go over to the air alarm inside the SM Airlock .
3. Click vent controls and set each of the vents to 0 kPa internal(This basically means the vents are always trying to empty themselves), as well as ensure they are set to BLOWING. (This is true at shift start, but checking never hurts). A busted air alarm is usually a one way ticket to a delam, so it's best to triple check.
4. Go over to scrubber controls and set each scrubber to extended and to scrub all gases. (Leaving some gases out on the scrubber setting will cause build up of gas in the chamber, which can rapidly heat up and lead to a delam.) It is not advised to set the scrubbers to siphon. Siphoning will work just as fast as scrubbing, but will stop working if the pressure in the pipe reaches 5066.25kPa or above. This can easily happen in the event of a delamination, and can impede your efforts to stop it.
5. Set the SMES input to max and the output to just below that. NOTE: The emitters are powered by the SMESs, so if they do not provide enough power to the station and emitters, the emitters will, of course, not fire. If the engine output isn't enough for max input for all 4 SMES, try messing with the input settings to find a proper balance, but always keep the output less than the input.
6. If using CO2, ignore the emitters.
7. At this point you can connect more emitters to the emitter area if you wish. This can be done at any point, even long into the shift.
8. Turn on the emitters in the room below and watch the magic happen. It is advised to activate one emitter at a time and monitor the effects before turning more on.

Upkeep

SOP states that if the emitters are firing the engine must be monitored constantly. It is also advisable that you periodically verify the filters, pumps, and air alarm are all correctly configured. Consult with other engineering staff if there is a nonstandard configuration.

Note: Do NOT attempt to change a stable engine if it looks iffy. If the numbers on this page do not match with the readings from the engine, contact your Chief Engineer, or call another engineer immediately. These numbers are rough generalizations meant for newer players.

Monitor Checklist

1. Verify the temperature is under 310 kelvin. Anything over 150 Kelvin is most likely wrong as well, but it won't damage the crystal as it is.
2. Verify the relative EER is under 5000 MeV/cm3, unless intentionally making an arcing setup.
3. Verify the primary coolant (usually either N2 or CO2) is over 70%.
4. Verify moles on each tile are under 12000(only relevant for crush setups)

What to do if energy (EER) is too high

1. Turn all emitters off.
2. If the primary coolant is CO2, flush some gas away. Since CO2 excites the crystal, removing some is like taking wood out of a fire. This can be done by venting some CO2 to space by unsetting it in the filters or by turning off some of the vents which will cause the overall amount of gas in the chamber itself to drop, at which point you can safely go around to the filters and remove some CO2 to either the waste loop or space.
3. When in doubt, flush with N2. This is most easily done by turning on the pumps on the northeast side of the engine that are connected to the red cans. Make sure you set N2 in the filters so it doesn't get immediately dumped to space

What to do if there are too many moles of gas in the chamber

This is a situation mostly encountered in crush setups, so for the most part just making sure the coolant flows around the loop rather than being stuck in the chamber is good enough.

1. Verify the scrubbers are scrubbing out the coolant, are turned on and are set to scrubbing
2. If you still have too much coolant turn off the vents as well.
3. Check the output of the loop and make sure your coolant indeed goes there

What to do if the temperature is too high

This is usually indication that the engine is on fire. The easiest way to deal with this is to replace as much of the coolant as possible with and inert gas such as N2. N2O calms the crystal down like N2 and also increases the crystal's ability to resist heat damage, but it decomposes to N2 and O2 above 1400K in an exothermic reaction that will make the chamber even hotter.

1. If the engine is on fire, make sure N2 is set on the filters and pump some in, preferably cold.
2. Turn off the emitters.
3. Once the fire is put out check the cooling loop
4. Verify all Supermatter Engine scrubbers are scrubbing on extended.
5. Verify all Supermatter Engine vents are at max output (set to INTERNAL pressure check, 0 kPa).
6. Check the temperature of the gas in the cooling loop. If it isn't cold the issue is with your space cooling loop.
7. Verify the pressure at the pipes at the outputs of all the filters is below 4500kPa
8. If it isn't make sure you are properly venting your waste gasses to either space or the waste loop

In an emergency, you can also directly cool the engine down and try to extinguish fires using either a handheld fire extinguisher or a backpack/modsuit mounted version. Ensure you have magboots active so you do not get sucked into the crystal. Placing an atmos holofan to stop the chamber's gasses from flowing into the engine room is also strongly recommended.

Whilst nanofrost will instantly choke a fire and cool the chamber down significantly, it will also weld all scrubbers and vents closed. These must be unwelded immediately to stop the engine overheating.

Events

Now you have set up the Supermatter Engine, it's fine to leave it by itself, right? Wrong. Throughout the shift, an event can occur to the engine; this can be either a minor hiccup or cause a delamination that destroys engineering! There are five categories of events that can occur, Class D to S.

D Class

Events that only affect certain types of non-standard setups, minimial operator intervention required. These events occur instantly and engineering will be alerted on telecomms.

D-1: About 2000 moles of nitrous oxide are released by the crystal.
D-2: About 2000 moles of nitrogen are released by the crystal.
D-3: About 2000 moles of carbon dioxide are released by the crystal.

C Class

Events with mild effects to standard setups. Operator intervention may be required, such as checking coolant or disabling emitters. Engineering will be alerted on telecomms.

C-1: About 2000 moles of oxygen are released by the crystal.
C-2: About 2000 moles of plasma are released by the crystal.
C-3: The temperature threshold at which the engine starts to lose integrity is lowered for a few minutes.

B Class

Events with significant effects to standard setups. Action may need to be taken to prevent a delamination event. Engineering will be alerted on telecomms.

B-1: The amount of plasma and O2 released by the engine is doubled for a few minutes.
B-2: The amount of heat released by the engine is doubled for a few minutes.
B-3: The engine's EER is raised slightly above critically for several minutes, regardless of outside factors.

A Class

Events with SEVERE effects to standard setups. Action will need to be taken to prevent a delamination event. Engineering will be alerted on telecomms.

A-1: The engine's APC is shorted due to a power spike, requiring its wires to be mended.
A-2: The engine's air alarm resets its self as an effect of radiological interference.
A-3: The amount of plasma and O2 released by the engine is quadrupled for a few minutes.

S Class

Events that require immediate intervention and a specialized response to prevent a delamination event, such as a specialized coolant or grounding rods. Coordination with other departments is HIGHLY recommended. A warning will be broadcasted on engineering and general communications before these events.

Arc Type: The engine's EER is raised massively several minutes, resulting it a supercritical state. Grounding rods from Science is highly recommended for this type.
Heat Type: The amount of heat and gas released by the engine is massively increased for several minutes and an EMP blast is released at the beginning of the event. Specialized coolants from Atmos is highly recommended for this type.

Delamination

Oh shit oh fuck it's on fire

While it may be panic-inducing, the SM Delamination usually gives a long enough time for it to be fixed, or at the very least limit the damage. It is recommended to take all steps listed under Upkeep first in the event of a delam before attempting the extreme emergency steps in this section.

If there is too much power, temperature, or pressure the crystal starts losing integrity. If this hits zero, it will go through a total delamination.

Integrity

Delamination happens after the Supermatter Engine spends 30 seconds below 0% integrity. The Supermatter Engine loses integrity while operating outside of certain temperature, EER and molar count thresholds. It is also gains integrity by operating at temperatures below 313.15K. This happens every process cycle of the crystal, which is 2 seconds:

• The Supermatter Engine will gain 0.0074% integrity for each degree Kelvin below 313.15K. This only happens when there are less than 12000 moles of gas on the engine tile.
• The Supermatter Engine will lose 0.052% integrity each cycle for every 1000 moles of gas above 12000 on the Supermatter Engine tile
• The Supermatter Engine will lose 0.055% integrity each cycle for every 1000 MeV/cm3 of EER over 5000 MeV/cm3

Damage from heat is more complicated, so we'll refer to moles on the engine tile as mix_moles, the temperature of the chamber gas mix(in kelvin) as mix_temp, amount_coeff is mix_moles/1333.33 clamped between 0.5 and 1, and heat_resist is the maximum of 1 and 6 times the portion of N2O in the chamber gas mix.
We get:
((amount_coeff * mix_temp) - (313.15 * heat_resist)) * (mix_moles/12600000)% integrity loss per cycle(cannot go below 0)

This is a rather cumbersome calculation, fortunately, most setups have either very much or very little gas in the engine, so we can look at 2 common cases that are much simpler:

• With a CO2 / N2 setup with around 200 moles on the engine tile the engine loses 0.000015% integrity per cycle for every 2 degrees Kelvin above 616.30K.
• With a crush setup with around 11500 moles on the engine tile the engine loses 0.00091% integrity for every degree Kelvin above 313.15K

Additional notes:

• We can see here that just going over 5000MeV/cm3 will damage the engine. However, by lowering the temperature we can gain enough integrity to counteract that. Since temperature cannot go below 0 we can get at most %0.231 integrity gain per cycle from temperature. This is enough to maintain a net positive integrity gain up to around 9150MeV/cm3.
  However, being space cooled the engine mix seldom goes below 20K, which allows for up to 8850MeV/cm3 at a net integrity gain.
• After all integrity loss and gain calculations are taken into account, the final net integrity loss cannot exceed 0.2% per operating cycle(2 seconds). Meaning the engine will take at least 500 seconds to reach 0 integrity no matter what.

The Steps towards a Delamination

1. As the temperature reaches a critical value or too much gas is in the chamber, the supermatter will start losing integrity.
2. Once damaged the SM will start producing occasional arcs and anomalies, even below the normal 5000 MeV/cm3 threshold Note: Just because the EER of the engine is above 5000MeV/cm3, this does NOT mean it is in a state of delamination.
3. If the engine is on fire, the heat and gasses produced by it will contribute to EER, allowing it to sustain a fire that will keep damaging it until it delaminates.
4. As it grows nearer the actual delamination event, the SM will give out periodic warnings, informing the crew of its integrity and if it is still in a state of delamination. This means it will often be possible to be warned in time, and will often to be able to stop it if you can figure out the issue.
5. When the time is up, and the crystal finally delaminates, one of three things will happen. If there were over 12000 moles of gas on the supermatter's tile when it delaminated, it will become an SM Singulo. If EER was higher than 5000MeV/cm3, it would become a Tesla, and if none of those were true, it will "simply" explode.

Anomalies

If, as said above, the MeV/cm3 value is above 5000, the SM will spawn certain anomalies. NOTE: These anomalies will appear above 5000 MeV/cm3, even if the engine is not in a state of delamination.

• Gravitational: Sucks nearby loose entities and objects in and throws them around. These anomalies can propel projectiles fast enough to penetrate hardsuits and lodge debris in places like your pelvis. (Ouch.)
• Flux: Electrocutes everything that it touches. A shock from this WILL stun you for approximately 10 seconds and cause heat damage to all body parts.
• Bluespace: Teleports objects that aren't anchored to random location. This can teleport things into the supermatter chamber where they may be consumed.

If all else fails

Sometimes the usual steps either don't work or can't be performed due to accidents, supermatter events or sabotage damaging the supermatter setup. These are some emergency steps that can bring an engine back from the brink, or at the very least mitigate the disaster, and prevent a singularity or tesla from forming.

1. Put on your modsuit, preferably advanced or atmos.
2. Make sure the magboots are on. If you don't you will be sucked into the crystal and vaporized.
3. MAKE SURE THE MAGBOOTS ARE ON. No seriously, you will be vaporized.
4. If there is too much gas in the chamber(usually indicated by a dark purple shadow or glow) turn off all vents and make sure the scrubbers scrub everything and are set to scrubbing and not siphoning.
5. If the engine is on fire, or EER is too high turn off N2 on the air alarm scrubbers.
6. If the engine is on fire and you have nanofrost particles, use them. Unweld the vents and scrubbers, and go check what is wrong with the loop or air alarm. If you cannot go into the chamber this requires an atmos hololock in the chamber door so you can stand there.
7. If you don't have nanofrost particles,can't use them, or you're facing a delam that isn't due to temperature, and wasn't resolved by any previous step remove the floor(with an RCD if you have one).
8. Check the cooling loop inlet, if it contains a reasonable amount of coolant reconstruct the floor
9. Put out any fire that might have started due to the engine's only coolant being it's own exhaust.
10. If all the above fails remove the floor from the chamber and RUN (If you can.)

Alternative Setups

The notes on gases below do not tell you what to do but what you can expect of different setups. Which setup is ideal and which setup turns engineering into a crater is up to you to find out.

Pure Gas Setups

Pure setups are the easiest, as they require no mixing. They are also usually the most efficient. Additionally, the Default Setup likely cannot handle anything other than pure N2 or pure CO2.

Pure N2

The beginner's engine coolant. N2 is a very stable gas and the engine tech's best friend for calming down an angry engine. An N2 engine will never delaminate by itself unless very specific actions are taken. Delaming an N2 on accident is something for the record books. N2 works best as emergency coolant in alternative gas setups, as it severely hinders the crystal's ability to make power. To get sufficient power by N2, multiple emitters are needed. If it delaminates, it will most often result in an explosion or, in very rare and specific cases, a singularity. It is also commonly used in crush setups, but in those it doesn't function as a coolant, strictly speaking, as cooling is handled entirely by an auxiliary closed cooling loop filled with plasma.

Pure O2

In some ways similar to N2, O2 will not cause high EER or high temp by itself, and does require emitters to create sufficient power. O2 as a gas will increase the power output. The danger with a pure O2 engine is the way that O2 reacts with a crystal. If the crystal becomes unstable, a snowball effect will trigger, producing more O2 and plasma. With no other gasses in the mix, a pure O2 engine has a high likelihood of catching fire. If it starts to delaminate and is on fire, expect pressure and temperature to rise very quickly.

Pure CO2

A considerably stable setup that produces marginally more heat than N2. This is often seen as one of the safest and most effective setups, right alongside N2. CO2 itself activates the crystal and the amount of CO2 will determine the EER. Very useful for powering the engine without the use of emitters. NOTE: Plasma fires will create CO2 as a byproduct and can potentially lead to a snowball effect if unchecked.

Pure Plasma

While plasma has excellent temperature retaining properties, it fails to be effective as a pure coolant. Surprisingly enough, plasma will not produce much power and will result a very ANGRY SM. Plasma heats the SM up A LOT and can be extremely dangerous in inexperienced hands. It is recommended do test out setups involving plasma on a test server before trying a plasma setup. Plasma is best used in a gas mix rather than by itself.

Pure N2O

Nitrous Oxide is like the brother of N2. It makes for an excellent engine retardant by reducing the activity of the crystal. If you want a very inactive engine, use this.

Mixed Gas Setups

By mixing gasses together it's possible to balance their properties in a way that gives you the best of both. This either requires great accuracy, constant monitoring or both.

N2 + CO2

By using a gas mix of N2 and CO2 it is possible to put enough gas in the chamber to achieve crushing while also maintaining high EER. The mix is highly sensitive and requires fine tuning to be most effective, and as such modification of the cooling setup of the SM is recommended.

N2 + Plasma

Using a similar proportion to the N2 + CO2 setup it's possible to run a crush engine with plasma and N2. The EER won't get very high, however the engine will create very large amounts of gas. While the exact mix ratio here doesn't need to be as tightly controlled it is constantly changing, and excess plasma from the chamber needs to be vented often. Still, if you need gas production it's hard to beat.

Sabotaging

If you're not a hijacker antag then you should definitely ahelp before messing with the engine.

Whatever this guide tells you to do in the case of preventing delamination, doing the exact opposite is usually a good place to start. The most efficient saboteurs will likely be those most familiar with the engine.

A textbook method of delaminating the SM on purpose is to pump plasma and oxygen into it. A delamination of lots of oxygen and plasma will be fast and violent. It would be helpful to either turn off the scrubbers, preventing them from taking gas out of the chamber.

Slamming two supermatter crystals together will yield fun results.