How to Engine

[Convair880]

[...]I'm not interested in creating an engine that produces 100 yottawatts or 10 novettawatts of power, simply something that will give me a constant, stable 400KW so that I can set up the SMESes and walk away[...]

Perhaps this example is something you could give a try. Ran the engine like this a couple of times and as far as lazy setups go, it seems to serve the purpose.

1. Set all engine pumps to one.
2. Dump some char ore in the furnaces.
3. Connect one tank of plasma to the cold loop and another one to the engine room's auxiliary port.
4. For the hot loop, take a canister of plasma and connect it to the auxiliary port on the opposite side.
5. Take care of the usual stuff (valves, SMES etc).
6. Come back ~25 min later and load more ore in the furnaces.

In my experience, you can expect a stable output of around 1.3 MW for the duration of a typical shift. Using plasmastone instead of char ore will add another 1.5 MW or so, if QM or miners are cooperative.