Big Reactors Mod : General Discussion

[MigukNamja]

I didn't find an existing thread that discussed the Big Reactor mod in general, so I'm making one. However, if there is one, please point me to it and I'll close this one with a link to that one.

I'll start the discussion off by saying that Big Reactors is a great mod that has uses in almost any mod-pack. It has fairly low entry requirements : less than a stack of Yellorium Ingots, and it scales up very well throughout the game all the way to end-game.

It has also been designed very well on purpose and/or on accident to *not* have a 1 design that's best in every situation, thus avoiding the cookie-cutter / recipe trap that takes the fun out of many mods. You can tinker endlessly with your reactor and Steam Turbine to get the best design that's right for *you*.

On the downside, with the default configs, Yellorium burn rate may be too efficient for some. Also, requiring huge quantities of cyanite to make Steam Turbine makes the transition to actively-cooled reactors too big/huge for some. Once you get an MFR Laser or similar auto-fuel obtainer up and running, there's really no incentive to make the reactor even more efficient, which is a shame, because the Steam Turbine is very fun.

In the end-game, here's what I find fun about the mod, to name a few:

• Countless reactor designs to tinker with
• Balancing steam production with steam usage with coils with blades may not be trivial
• Can power the Steam Turbine with *any* steam producer
• Relatively low client and server footprint

What are your thoughts on Big Reactors ?

 

[MigukNamja]

One suggestion for Erogenous Beef (I'll send him a tweet as well) : rather than making Steam Turbine a linear progression dependent upon running a reactor for a while or else using the new recipe to convert Yellorium to Cyanite, I think the mod would better served if the Steam Turbine had a parallel development path. Mod-pack authors can do this with Mine Tweaker, but it would be preferable if Erogenous Beef did it.

The reasons I'd like the Turbine to be parallel are:

1. It's cool as hell. Looks cool, the controls are cool, and it's a lot of fun !
2. It can run off of any steam, including Factorization, Railcraft, etc.,.

I understand the original intent of gating the Turbine behind the Reactor. After all, the mod *is* called Big Reactors, but at this point in the mod, the Steam Turbine is a great multi-block in its own right.

 

[Ieldra]

What I like about it is that the reactors are so eminently scalable and configurable. You get the necessary resources for a small reactor rather easily, but since smaller reactors are less efficient than bigger ones to a certain degree, you'll have an incentive to build different ones and replace the ones you have as the game goes on and you need more power, rather than just adding a ton of identical small ones.

At the other end, Big Reactors are excellent high-end power generators and their fuel can be made renewable in several ways. If you aim even higher at ReactorCraft reactors, Big Reactors are a good intermediate means of power generation that fill the gap that makes creating the necessary infrastructure much easier.

On the downside, if you want to call it that, is that they're much less realistic in their infrastructure requirements than ReactorCraft's reactors are. I sometimes feel Big Reactors make generating power in the tens-of-KRF range too easy. But then there isn't any other mod that generates power on this level at all, regardless of whether you call it high-end or intermediate, so Big Reactors convenently fills a gap that no other mod does.

 

[MigukNamja]

On the downside, if you want to call it that, is that they're much less realistic in their infrastructure requirements than ReactorCraft's reactors are. I sometimes feel Big Reactors make generating power in the tens-of-KRF range too easy. But then there isn't any other mod that generates power on this level at all, regardless of whether you call it high-end or intermediate, so Big Reactors convenently fills a gap that no other mod does.

Agreed. They aren't as "realistic" as ReactorCraft's reactors, but they do fill a *much-needed* gap, and do it in a player, server, and client-friendly manner. ReC is gated upon RoC and I consider it a more 'advanced' mod than BigReactors. Still, BigReactors is more interesting, IMHO, than the old 1.4/1.5 standby of tree farm --> charcoal --> RC boiler.

 

[Golrith]

I like them. Just built a reactor in Arg Skies based on Chris Bekes design. It's larger than I would ever need, even with a laser drill running.

The only thing I will personally tweak with the mod is it's recipes. Steel, Graphite Bars and Yellorium and a choice of coolant isn't that expensive or difficult for the power it produces. Just slightly more expensive than a railcraft steel tank, and all that does is store liquids.
If they were more expensive to build, it might promote players to only build a small reactor to get Cyanite to progress to Turbines. Shrug.

 

[MigukNamja]

Steel, Graphite Bars and Yellorium and a choice of coolant isn't that expensive or difficult for the power it produces

Agreed.

The mats for the reactor are balanced with vanilla ore gen with just a few mods installed. If you're mining by hand in a normal world with vanilla oregen without any other Yellorium OreDict ores other than Yellorium, it will take you a few hours to gather enough to start just a small reactor, much less power it.

However, AgS's recipe for Yellorium completely upsets the balance. Other mods that add OreDict equivalents of Yellorium also upset the balance somewhat.

 

[Golrith]

Agreed.

The mats for the reactor are balanced with vanilla ore gen with just a few mods installed. If you're mining by hand in a normal world with vanilla oregen without any other Yellorium OreDict ores other than Yellorium, it will take you a few hours to gather enough to start just a small reactor, much less power it.

However, AgS's recipe for Yellorium completely upsets the balance. Other mods that add OreDict equivalents of Yellorium also upset the balance somewhat.

Main reason I'm still sifting sand is now for Yellorium. I do also find the default ore generation quite high too. But I tend to find all ores generate way to high, and always customise to 4x less ore generation (now supplemented with "poor ores" that smelt to nuggets, no ore doubling). Gives a reason for those ore processing systems now. 2x+ ores is not needed.

 

[zilvarwolf]

Love big reactors. Easy to use, easy to conceptualize, easy to tinker with, and absolutely not punishing WHEN mistakes are made.

I also love that I built a 7x7x3 reactor, hooked a computer and 3 tesseracts up to it and I'm providing power for a small server population. Easily. (magical crops helps...). I think I figured that I have enough yellorium for 6 months of constant power, and it's not constant

 

[Pyure]

While I agree that its a bit easy to create power with so little fuss, I give the mod major points for being configurable.

At 1x output, 14x consumption, i still found my reactors to be extremely powerful in my world.

And, slightly tangential, in a GT game we found that by minetweaking the recipe to require something expensive (such as stainless steel), we're forced to start with tiny reactors and gradually work up to anything larger.

 

[MigukNamja]

While I agree that its a bit easy to create power with so little fuss, I give the mod major points for being configurable.

At 1x output, 14x consumption, i still found my reactors to be extremely powerful in my world.

And, slightly tangential, in a GT game we found that by minetweaking the recipe to require something expensive (such as stainless steel), we're forced to start with tiny reactors and gradually work up to anything larger.

Recipes and configs can indeed be tweaked, but the mechanics and look and feel of the mod are brilliant, and not as in "complicated", but as in "simple to get into, but very fun to tinker with". I imagine Big Reactors can be made to easily fit into nearly any tech-themed mod-pack. Sure beats small engine/dynamo/generator spam.

 

[epidemia78]

Well, even though I have the mod installed and have used it in my last world, honestly I dont quite see the point. It does nothing that a bunch of small engines couldnt do. If I wanted to, I could build a big rectangle and fill it with liquid ender and call it a reactor, I dont need a new mod with its own ores to do that. Literally the only reason I installed it was because the textures look pretty decent so at least its a good looking pointless rectangle. Oh and the fact that turbines exist also helped me decide, because hey...they move.

 

[Yusunoha]

I love how simple Big Reactors is and how versatile it is... need more power? just build it bigger. only need a small amount of energy? build a really small reactor and you're done.
ofcourse there are some things I'd like to see changed or improved... I'm someone who likes to make builds as efficient as possible, but with Big Reactors there isn't really a way to do it the most efficient.
yes you could use some different liquids in the reactor for cooling, but the difference isn't that much, so it'd be nice if the difference would be a bit bigger, with perhaps the shape and size also affecting efficiency.

it'd also be nice if there was an alternative way of getting cyanite... perhaps through another machine or a certain reactor setup that'd quickly burn up yellorium and produce cyanite.
it'd also be cool if nuclear control would work with Big Reactors... well, to be honest it'd be pretty cool if nuclear control would become a standalone mod with support for other mods, just love those smexy displays.

it'd also be nice if the GUI of Big Reactors could become a bit better looking... it's not bad as it is, but there's always room for improvements

 

[MigukNamja]

Well, even though I have the mod installed and have used it in my last world, honestly I dont quite see the point. It does nothing that a bunch of small engines couldnt do. If I wanted to, I could build a big rectangle and fill it with liquid ender and call it a reactor, I dont need a new mod with its own ores to do that. Literally the only reason I installed it was because the textures look pretty decent so at least its a good looking pointless rectangle. Oh and the fact that turbines exist also helped me decide, because hey...they move.

You must not use a lot of power or else don't mind engine spam. Many people's builds, including my own, go well over 20K RF/t. You would need 250 (yes, two hundred and fifty) 80 RF/t dynamos or equivalent to provide that much power, and that doesn't include the infrastructure to produce the fuel.

Also, have you tried the Steam Turbine ? Balancing the reactor steam output into the turbine so its spins at either 900rpm or 1800rpm is not trivial. There's usually a lot of fiddling with the control rods, coils, and turbine blades. And, you need to make sure all of the steam exits the reactor or else it will overheat. Sure, the reactor is pretty easy and hard to screw up, but getting efficient Turbine usage is not always easy.

 

[zilvarwolf]

There seems to be a lot of enjoyment and people who've practiced using BR around, so this is probably a good place to ask for tips too (hopefully)

I setup the reactor mentioned above and tried to get a rednet controller to control it, which ended up being a complete and utter waste of time. Ultimately, I had to write a CC program to control it the way I wanted.

My reactor doesn't rely on radiation, and only puts out about 3k rf/t, so it's on the piddly scale from what I'm seeing...of course, I'm keeping it stocked with magical crops, so I don't need to power a laser either.

I'm interested in any tips people might have had on setting up a PRC to run the reactor so that there's no wasted energy. I'm currently set with my program to kick on if stored power drops below 10% and fill it back up to 90%, then shut off. It cycles on every few minutes, then cycles off...unless something weird happens (still don't know the cause), and the computer loses track of what's going on and it just cycles to ON and runs until I deactivate it. I'm looking for something more stable.

 

[epidemia78]

You must not use a lot of power or else don't mind engine spam. Many people's builds, including my own, go well over 20K RF/t. You would need 250 (yes, two hundred and fifty) 80 RF/t dynamos or equivalent to provide that much power, and that doesn't include the infrastructure to produce the fuel.

Also, have you tried the Steam Turbine ? Balancing the reactor steam output into the turbine so its spins at either 900rpm or 1800rpm is not trivial. There's usually a lot of fiddling with the control rods, coils, and turbine blades. And, you need to make sure all of the steam exits the reactor or else it will overheat. Sure, the reactor is pretty easy and hard to screw up, but getting efficient Turbine usage is not always easy.

Yeah, I guess the real challenge comes in finding a way to spend all that power. My last world I had 14 dynamos burning fuel which kept everything running until I built a reactor that I didnt really need. I eventually built some MFR lasers to keep it busy but by that point I was already God so...

 

[MigukNamja]

There seems to be a lot of enjoyment and people who've practiced using BR around, so this is probably a good place to ask for tips too (hopefully)

I setup the reactor mentioned above and tried to get a rednet controller to control it, which ended up being a complete and utter waste of time. Ultimately, I had to write a CC program to control it the way I wanted.

My reactor doesn't rely on radiation, and only puts out about 3k rf/t, so it's on the piddly scale from what I'm seeing...of course, I'm keeping it stocked with magical crops, so I don't need to power a laser either.

I'm interested in any tips people might have had on setting up a PRC to run the reactor so that there's no wasted energy. I'm currently set with my program to kick on if stored power drops below 10% and fill it back up to 90%, then shut off. It cycles on every few minutes, then cycles off...unless something weird happens (still don't know the cause), and the computer loses track of what's going on and it just cycles to ON and runs until I deactivate it. I'm looking for something more stable.

I haven't tried it myself, but I believe you can control the control rods. You can have them be directly proportional to your stored power %. If the stored power is at 0%, rods are at 0% (all the way out - full power). If the power is full, rods are at 100% (inserted all the way in). However, the "steady state" will be somewhere in between, depending upon your steady-state power draw. Your reactor will remain "on" with the rods at the % matching your power draw.

 

[Pyure]

You would need 250 80 RF/t dynamos or equivalent to provide that much power, and that doesn't include the infrastructure to produce the fuel.

...or the infrastructure to fuel the dynamos, or the infrastructure to extract the power.

That would be a big rectangle box, with a lot of fiddly wires and piping (thank the spirit gods for enderio?)

 

[MigukNamja]

Yeah, I guess the real challenge comes in finding a way to spend all that power. My last world I had 14 dynamos burning fuel which kept everything running until I built a reactor that I didnt really need. I eventually built some MFR lasers to keep it busy but by that point I was already God so...

Yeah, that happens

I use MFR Laser and I use bees. A full ExtraBees and Gendustry setup can easily draw 10K RF/t when being actively used.

In my future worlds, I will be using MineTweaker or the new Cyanite recipe so I can build the Steam Turbine from the beginning. A 3x3, active-cooled reactor connected to a very small (starter) 5x4x3 4-blade steam turbine with an iron or gold coil should bridge the gap between 2 or 3 charcoal-fuel Steam Dynamos and end-game power.

The approach to the mod varies significantly if one is doing just pure Reactor vs. Reactor + Turbine. With the new recipe or MineTweaker, one can also do just pure Turbine and supply it with RC boiler steam, FZ solar steam, etc.,.

 

[zilvarwolf]

I haven't tried it myself, but I believe you can control the control rods. You can have them be directly proportional to your stored power %. If the stored power is at 0%, rods are at 0% (all the way out - full power). If the power is full, rods are at 100% (inserted all the way in). However, the "steady state" will be somewhere in between, depending upon your steady-state power draw. Your reactor will remain "on" with the rods at the % matching your power draw.

Now that's an interesting idea.

I hadn't considered the use of the fuel rods, but if the program is recoded to reactor.setAllControlRodLevels( (reactor.getEnergyStored()/100000)) every 5 or 10 seconds, it'd probably stabilize itself.

Thanks

 

[epidemia78]

...or the infrastructure to fuel the dynamos, or the infrastructure to extract the power.

That would be a big rectangle box, with a lot of fiddly wires and piping (thank the spirit gods for enderio?)

Dont really need a centralized power source for everything though, do we? I consider tesseracts to be mighty cheaty, and actually like to see the pipes and wires in my builds, so it looks connected and machine-like. Especially in my latest world where my main motivation to play is to cover large distances with trains and carts, seems small power gens dedicated to one specific function would suit me best. Each balanced so it produces just enough energy.


But I will eventually have to build a turbine just because they are cool. And then its time to come up with creative ways to waste that energy.