Make antimatter

Put an Antimatter Converter, an Antimatter Container and their power in orbit, bring them helium-3, and start the converter.

You need this once a tank of helium-3 has come up from the Moon. Helium-3 and antimatter explains why the factory has to be in space.

• You own Antimatter Containment, which sells the AM-4 Antimatter Container, and Antimatter Synthesis, which sells the AC-4 Antimatter Converter. Both are on tier 3. The wide AC-8 and AM-8 come from Antimatter Conversion on tier 5; the steps are the same for both.
• You have helium-3 in a tank, or a rig filling one. See Mine helium-3.
• Your rocket can put the factory and its power in orbit. An AC-4 is 1.4 t and an AM-4 500 kg, on the 4 m stack; an AC-8 is 5.2 t and an AM-8 1.8 t, on the 8 m one.

Steps

1. Build the factory. In the hangar, open the ‹ Mining drawer and put an AC-4 Antimatter Converter and an AM-4 Antimatter Container in one stack (an AC-8 and an AM-8 on an 8 m stack). A container launches empty: this converter is the only thing that fills it. Helium-3 and antimatter both run along every joint, so their order does not matter. Add a command part, a radio if nobody is aboard, and a Docking Port for the tankers.
2. Give it power. A working AC-4 draws 0.48 u/s, which is two SP-6 Twin Arrays in full sun; an AC-8 draws 1.2 u/s, five. A loaded container draws its upkeep on top: 0.13 u/s for an AM-4 in low Earth orbit, 0.24 u/s for an AM-8. Add a battery that carries the container through the orbit's shadow: see Keep antimatter safe.
3. Launch it and choose its orbit. Both parts launch empty and idle, so the climb is an ordinary one. The higher the orbit, the cheaper the container is to keep: the gravity gauge has the table. Deploy the arrays once you are above the air.
4. Bring the helium-3. Dock the tanker to the factory: see Dock two ships. Docked, the two are one ship, and the converter draws from the tanker's tanks as they stand. To send the tanker away again, first pump its load into a tank of the factory's own with Transfer resources.
5. Start the converter. Tap the converter and tap Start. A line on the flight screen says AC-4 Antimatter Converter started.
6. Read its sheet. Tap it again. Working at 100 % means it has all the power it asks for. A lower figure means it is short of power and working that much slower, which wastes no helium-3.
7. Leave it running. At full work an AC-4 turns 7 kg of helium-3 into 16 μg of antimatter a day, and an AC-8 21 kg into 48 μg. It goes on while you are in the hangar or the game is shut. It stops by itself when the helium-3 is gone or every container is full.

What you should see

In the readout at the top left the helium-3 row falls and the antimatter row rises. Tap the container: its sheet reads Holding 16 μg after an AC-4's first day, above the gravity gauge's line. The first time a converter of yours works, the Anti-Hero achievement pays, and an AC-4 working round the Moon pays Home Brew.

If it didn't work

• The sheet says Works only in space: above the air, off the ground. The ship is on the ground, on the pad or inside an atmosphere. It works only once launched and above the air.
• The sheet says Nothing to convert. No helium-3 aboard can be reached. Dock the tanker, or check that its tank has anything in it.
• The sheet says Nowhere to put it: every store is full. Every container aboard is full, or there is none. An AM-4 holds 50 μg and an AM-8 170 μg; add another.
• The sheet says No power. The batteries are flat, usually in the orbit's shadow. Stop the converter at once if a container aboard is loaded: the container needs that power more. See Keep antimatter safe.
• The container reads POWER SHORT: leaking. The converter and the container share one battery, and it ran dry. Tap Stop on the converter before each shadow, or carry more battery.