Editing Guide to the Supermatter (section)

=== A horror story of pumps and hot gas ===

First things first. Gas does not work like you think it does. Pipes do not clog, period. Filters clog, pumps clog, scrubbers clog, vents clog (depending on settings), pipes, however, do not. There is no upper limit on the pressure of pipes, however, there is an upper limit on what pressure pumps, filters, and scrubbers can get into pipes. This may sound similar, but it has large consequences.

[[File:Supermatterboxnew_pipenet.png|650px|right]]

To the right you'll find an image used earlier in this guide, but, it is updated to show the separate pipenetworks the roundstart Supermatter has on Box station. In Atmospherics, gas is always everywhere in a pipe, instantly. If there is a pipe connected to another pipe, without anything in between, then at any one moment the amount of gas in them will be the same, the pressure will be the same, the temperature will be the same. What is referred to here as a pipenetwork is simply all connected pipes that do not have a device of sorts between them (valves and heat exchange pipes not counting).

But dear Mr. Guide Writer, why does this matter, at all? Why show me just how many pipenetworks exist in the round start setup, what does it matter? The essence of the answer lies in two things, pumps, filters, and mixers do not efficiently pump connected pipenetworks at all, and the fact that gas is always evenly spread through a pipenetwork, without direction to it.

Let's start with the first thing, pumps. All types of pumps (not filters and mixers and the like) have 200L volume in the small bit of pipe before them, and 200L in the small bit of pipe after them. As such, a volume pump pumps all the gas that is in that node to the other side of the pump, per second (the maximum pump rate for volume pumps is 200L/s). As such, if a pipe network has 2000L of volume, connected to a volume pump that is pumping at its max rate, it will pump 1/10th of all gas in the network, per second. However, you also have to take into account that it's always 1/10th of the gas that is in the pipes, as such, pumps will pump less moles of gas per second as there is less and less gas in the network before the pump. That... doesn't sound too amazing anymore, does it? But wait, there's ANOTHER reason why pumps are poor practice.

Pumps have an upper-pressure limit, same for filters and mixers. For the gas pump, and the others, the pressure limit is plain to see, 4500 kPa. However, the volume pump also has a pressure limit, rated at 9000 kPa. Scrubbers in fact also have a pressure limit, sitting around 5200 kPa. Gas pumps, filters, and mixers are especially poor, as their pumping slows down the closer they get to their pressure limit. What does this mean for the Supermatter, especially in case of delamination? Well, the room is probably on fire, so, the gas is very much so expanded and pressurized. First, the scrubbers work their butt off to get to their pressure limit, the gas is hot, so that doesn't take very much. While this happens, a gas pump takes the tiny amount of moles in the pipenetwork the scrubbers are connected to and shoves a small amount of it into the pipenetwork beyond it. Slowing down even further, as the gas is so hot it easily reaches the pressure limit. This then reaches the filter, which again tries to pump the small amount of moles beyond it, with another case of pressure limit slowness and the fact, not all gas is available for pumping at any moment. And so on and so on, add to this the fact that the Supermatter produces plasma and oxygen, which are reacting with each other and burning in the pipes, likely pushing the pressure above the limits of what the pumps can handle and... well you got the point right? This is what people refer to as clogged pipes, extremely slowly circulating gas, caused by how gas and pumps work.

Well, that all sounded horrid, how can we prevent this?