Antimatter

Antimatter is a resource that can be collected or manufactured. It becomes visible to the player after the Antimatter Containment research is completed, and it is used for a variety of advanced spaceship components.

Antimatter cannot be purchased from Earth. However, it can be sold to Earth for a base price of 2,500 per unit, which can be raised with projects, and lowered by selling large quantities to Earth. See Resources#Buying_and_Selling_Space_Resources for details.

Acquiring Antimatter

Antimatter can be acquired in three different ways - artificial antimatter production, collection of naturally occurring antimatter, or as a reward for completing certain faction projects. However, these three methods are not equal. For example, to acquire 0.01 antimatter, you can do any of the following:

• Run a single tier-2 Atomsmasher for one month.
• Complete all faction projects in the tech tree that give antimatter rewards.
• Collect naturally occurring antimatter at every site in the solar system, using the best possible collectors, for forty million years.

Because of this, the artificial production route is almost always the dominant source of antimatter for your faction.

Artificial Production

Particle Colliders are used to produce antimatter. Colliders can only be built in orbit.

Module	Tier	Build Cost	Monthly Upkeep	Monthly Income	Special rule
Particle Collider	1	4 7 8 1 60 Days	6 2 2 1 1 1 100 10 Crew	2 0.0001	Adds 1% Energy Science
Atomsmasher	2	20 35 40 5 180 Days	20 10 10 5 5 3 250 20 Crew	5 0.01	Adds 2.5% Energy Science
Supercollider	3	120 280 320 80 360 Days	120 30 30 20 20 10 750 100 Crew	10 0.1	Adds 5% Energy Science

These modules have high power and resource costs, and get more efficient as they get larger, meaning that it is typical to build them at habs that can support extremely high energy consumption. Since they can only be built in orbit, solar mirrors also cannot be used to help with these power costs. As such, the high natural solar power production of Mercury is often used to produce antimatter.

Project Rewards

When your faction completes a project with "Antimatter" in the name, you will typically receive a small amount of antimatter to enable you to begin using the technology right away. (This presumably reflects the production that happened during the research process.) These are one-time bonuses, available to each faction.

Project	Antimatter Reward		Production Equivalent
Antimatter Microfission Drive	0.000 000 000 001 5	1.5p	500 fuel tanks
Antimatter Spiker	0.000 000 000 18	180p	60 spikers
Antimatter Particle Cannon	0.000 000 000 64	640p	16 point defense batteries or 2 spinal cannons
Antimatter Torpedoes	0.000 006	6u	1/2 of one torpedo
Antimatter Plasma Core Reactor I	0.002		200 tons of reactor
Antimatter Plasma Core Reactor II	0.002		2,000 tons of reactor
Antimatter Plasma Core Reactor III	0.002		20,000 tons of reactor
Antimatter Beam Core Reactor	0.005		1 ton of reactor

These projects give a total reward of 0.011 006 000 821 5 antimatter.

Natural Antimatter Harvesting

Certain locations in the solar system produce antimatter naturally, and this antimatter can be captured by specialized hab modules.

Module	Tier	Build Cost	Monthly Upkeep	Monthly Income	Special Rule
Antimatter Trap	1	0.1 0.5 1 0.4 30 Days	2 0.1 0.03 5 2 Crew	5	Harvests 25% Antimatter of Orbit. Max one per orbit. Adds 10% Energy Science Max one per Hab.
Antimatter Harvester	2	0.5 2.5 5 2 90 Days	5 0.5 0.1 20 10 Crew	10	Harvests 50% Antimatter of Orbit. Max one per orbit. Adds 25% Energy Science Max one per Hab.
Antimatter Farm	3	4 20 40 16 180 Days	10 1.5 1 80 50 Crew	15	Harvests 100% Antimatter of Orbit. Max one per orbit. Adds 50% Energy Science Max one per Hab.

The table below shows the orbits where antimatter can be harvested, with only the Medium Saturn Orbit being in the pico-units per month, the next closest being 25 times lower.

Source	Antimatter per month
Medium Earth Orbit	0.000 000 000 000 000 033 3	33.3a
Low Jupiter Orbit	0.000 000 000 000 058 3	58.3f
Medium Saturn Orbit	0.000 000 000 001 67	1.67p
Prometheus Parking Orbit	0.000 000 000 000 066 7	66.7f
Pandora Parking Orbit	0.000 000 000 000 066 7	66.7f
Epimetheus Parking Orbit	0.000 000 000 000 066 7	66.7f
Janus Parking Orbit	0.000 000 000 000 066 7	66.7f
Mimas Parking Orbit	0.000 000 000 000 066 7	66.7f
Low Uranus Orbit	0.000 000 000 000 007 5	7.5f
Low Neptune Orbit	0.000 000 000 000 007 5	7.5f

These quantities are based on real-world astronomical estimates, which means that they are incredibly small by the standards of the game. Even Medium Saturn Orbit, which produces more than 4x as much as all other locations combined, still only barely makes enough for one Antimatter Spiker every two months. However, the research bonuses of these modules can occasionally make them worth building (even with their microscopic antimatter production rates).

Using Antimatter

Component	Type	Antimatter cost
Antimatter Spiker	Utility	0.000 000 000 003	3p
Antimatter Torpedo Launcher	Missile	0.000 048	48u (=12u per missile)
Antimatter Point Defense Battery	Particle	0.000 000 000 04	40p
Heavy Antimatter Point Defense Battery	Particle	0.000 000 000 080 4	80p
Antimatter Cannon	Particle	0.000 000 000 08	80p
Heavy Antimatter Cannon	Particle	0.000 000 000 160 8	161p
Spinal Antimatter Cannon	Particle	0.000 000 000 321 6	322p
Antimatter Plasma Core Reactor I	Power Plant	0.01% of reactor mass
Antimatter Plasma Core Reactor II	Power Plant	0.001% of reactor mass
Antimatter Plasma Core Reactor III	Power Plant	0.0001% of reactor mass
Antimatter Beam Core Reactor	Power Plant	5% of reactor mass
Antimatter Microfission Drive	Drive	0.000 000 000 000 003	3f per fuel tank
Antimatter Pulsed Plasma Core Lantern	Drive	0.000 18	180u per fuel tank
Antimatter Plasma Core Torch	Drive	0.000 41	410u per fuel tank
Advanced Antimatter Plasma Core Torch	Drive	0.002 2 per fuel tank
Pion Torch	Drive	5 per fuel tank