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Pressure System
Gregicality Science's Pressure system can begin as soon as the steam age.
The Steam Ejector will likely be your first interaction with the pressure system. It will consume steam and lower its pressure down to 130mPa (0.0013Pa) over time. Pressures lower than Atmospheric Pressure (103.325kPa) are considered Vacuums, and pressures above are considered Pressurized.
Depending on your configs, Vacuum Tubes may require the Small Steam Vacuum Chamber to be produced. This machine requires a vacuum. Vacuum Pipes, used for transferring vacuums over distance, are not available by default at this point in progression, so you will need to place the Vacuum Chamber directly adjacent to the Steam Ejector.
The Steam Ejector's output port directs the Vacuum connection, so be sure to point it into the chamber with a wrench. The chamber will then start to equalize its pressure with the pressure in the Ejector. Pressure is always transferred by equalization between the two things connected.
Once the pressure meter in the Vacuum Chamber is near the top, it should have the appropriate pressure to run the Vacuum Tube recipe. Recipes requiring vacuums will slowly increase their pressure towards atmospheric as they run. Recipes which use pressures above atmospheric slowly depressurize and grow closer to atmospheric as well. Remember that all machines start at atmospheric and must be changed to another value.
As long as the pressure is within one power of 10 of the target, the recipe will progress successfully. This means a recipe requiring 10^6 pascals will continue working without issue if supplied with pressure no further away than 10^5 or 10^7 Pa.
All pressure-handling blocks have limits to the pressure they can contain. Going below the minimum or above the maximum will result in consequences! Going below the minimum means the container was under vacuum conditions, which results in an Implosion, represented by a minecraft explosion that does not break blocks (but still hurts!). Going above the maximum results in an Explosion, which is a minecraft explosion which DOES break blocks, unless machine explosions are disabled in base GregTech CEu's config.
Many machines are careful to not blow things up, like the Steam Ejector and Pressure Hatches when outputting. However connecting a pressurized container to something that cannot handle that pressure will cause and implosion or explosion, so be careful!
Pressure Equalization can be difficult to manage at times. Multiple containers connected to a pressure pipeline will each interact with the pressure in the pipe at different times. This means that machines can increase and decrease the pressure of the pipe and cause fluctuation.
Pressure Pipes are used to transfer pressure over distance, and will be necessary to use the powerful pressure-changing multiblocks. The pipes are one giant container that increases in Volume as you add more pipes. They also have quite a few rules.
First, pipes of different thicknesses should not be connected together. They will not be able to get a full "seal," and may blow up! Pipes also should not be connected or wrenched when not at near-atmospheric pressure. This too will cause damage, when when placing one pipe onto another to connect it.
Breaking pipes while pressurized will NOT blow them up! Also, breaking pressurized machines or hatches will NOT blow them up.
Pipes additionally do NOT constantly leak when unconnected. They have an automatic shut-off valve, which makes them leak only once when a connection changes. Leaking in this case means growing closer to atmospheric pressure.
You will notice a Volume quantity on pressure pipes. This is used to determine how pressure should equalize between containers. The bigger the volume, the easier a pipe is to decrease in pressure. The smaller the volume, the easier it is to increase in pressure. You can think of pressure like Concentration with GCYS (in fact it is concentration internally as well). Concentration is equal to the number of "particles" or "things" divided by the Volume. In other words it is how many things are in a given space.
As you increase the volume, the particles will be more spread out to fill the space, and thus concentration/pressure will be lower. This is why high volume makes changing to very high vacuums much easier. Decreasing the volume will increase the concentration/pressure, as the same amount of particles is now squeezed into a smaller space, and is why lower volumes makes attaining very high pressures easier.
If a machine is not pressurizing, be sure the machine's pressure intake is connected properly, as the machine does the pressure equalizing and never the pipe.