I've created this pretty decent reactor design using 6 quad thorium cells and 3 plutonium cells (4.63 efficiency, 512 EU/t). However, I am having problems cooling it. I have gotten extremely close to stabilizing it (12 excess heat) with this design, but I cannot get it to 0. It is extremely frustrating knowing that this nice reactor is so close to being possible. Are there any nuclear reactor wizards around here who can make this happen with only heat vents and exchangers?
Cooling This Reactor
- Thread starter SpartanBlockhead
- Start date
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http://www.talonfiremage.pwp.blueyo...3c79nahojuhggnky9lr2qrmfkz64jnvl8kqigh36w9m2o
but this thing chews tons of lapis... I'm not sure if you are willing to use that much lapis
take a look at this design:
http://www.talonfiremage.pwp.blueyo...8e14p1hj6nvwumtw9il6j174pcjvi0741z65hpi449clc
by the way, with the conversion to 1.5, the thorium-plutonium reactors won't work anymore. as generating 8 near depleted cells out of 1 piece of uranium won't work anymore aswell. prepare yourself and get a stock of near depleted cells.
but this thing chews tons of lapis... I'm not sure if you are willing to use that much lapis
take a look at this design:
http://www.talonfiremage.pwp.blueyo...8e14p1hj6nvwumtw9il6j174pcjvi0741z65hpi449clc
by the way, with the conversion to 1.5, the thorium-plutonium reactors won't work anymore. as generating 8 near depleted cells out of 1 piece of uranium won't work anymore aswell. prepare yourself and get a stock of near depleted cells.
About that first one, you're right, I don't really want to use a bunch of resources every cycle. That's why I like just using vents and exchangers, as they require no running cost and no cooldown. As for the second one, it just doesn't have the power I'm looking for, considering this is the one I have now. Anyway, by swapping the thorium and plutonium cells around in the reactor in the OP, I was able to make a successful reactor with a 5.11 efficiency and only 6 less EU/t. I'm probably just going to use it instead. Here is the design if you're curious.
but the one you have now eats a ton of not so readily available plutonium.
and as always. if you have a good design and need more power: how about using 2 reactors?
and as always. if you have a good design and need more power: how about using 2 reactors?
I know the plutonium will be really hard to get, so I'm still trying to find a way to effectively cool the original. Also, I have 3 reactors already; this main one, one to use up excess uranium cells, and a hybrid. I would make another but it's just too copper-intensive.
This won't work in 1.5 -- heat of the GT fuels changed, but we did take a good look at getting a 512 EU/t reactor running in 1.4.7.
This was about the best they did on the reactor thread (http://forum.industrial-craft.net/index.php?page=Thread&threadID=8966&pageNo=4):
http://www.talonfiremage.pwp.blueyo...bv7np9b1ngheu54sbio0vvrazss4pzv78lyzn1o2tz01s
~1 redstone every 6 minutes.
Or a cooling cell version should run 1 cooling cell swap every ~50 minutes.
http://www.talonfiremage.pwp.blueyo...e3fixtouvmjikj9oryn5517fi1aekg54lot22jz1x01ds
This was about the best they did on the reactor thread (http://forum.industrial-craft.net/index.php?page=Thread&threadID=8966&pageNo=4):
http://www.talonfiremage.pwp.blueyo...bv7np9b1ngheu54sbio0vvrazss4pzv78lyzn1o2tz01s
~1 redstone every 6 minutes.
Or a cooling cell version should run 1 cooling cell swap every ~50 minutes.
http://www.talonfiremage.pwp.blueyo...e3fixtouvmjikj9oryn5517fi1aekg54lot22jz1x01ds
Well, I didn't realize how difficult it would be to make a 512 EU/t reactor. Anyway, what are these changes coming up in 1.5 that are messing with nuclear reactors?
but plutonium acts as a double uranium cell with double lifetime. this way, the energy of a plutonium cell is more than doubled, and it is even a good idea to make the quad-cells, as one would produce 64 mio EU at 160 EU/t.
and neutron reflectors were never that efficient... even the ones without iridium
EDIT: did a few calculations, a quad plutonium cell with 4 reflectors produces 320 EU/t and 128 million EU over its lifetime.
EDIT2: compared with a quad uranium cell, it gives an extra 25 million EU. since uu-matter costs just 16.6 million and it takes 1 uu-matter to craft plutonium out of uranium, it's even a good idea to make plutonium through this way.
and neutron reflectors were never that efficient... even the ones without iridium
EDIT: did a few calculations, a quad plutonium cell with 4 reflectors produces 320 EU/t and 128 million EU over its lifetime.
EDIT2: compared with a quad uranium cell, it gives an extra 25 million EU. since uu-matter costs just 16.6 million and it takes 1 uu-matter to craft plutonium out of uranium, it's even a good idea to make plutonium through this way.
Yeah, and that quad reflector quad plutonium setup is also completely and utterly uncoolable.
1504 heat/sec is more than twice of what the best internal vent system can possibly manage. And cooling cell or condensator setups would require you to drop one reflector.Basically, the "hybrid effect" of extreme overscaling when combining some of Greg's fuel cell types and sizes was a bug, not intended design. In 1.5, Greg fixed that bug, meaning that hybrid reactors now give you the exact same EU/t as you would get if you used the individual cells with appropriate amounts of reflectors. Instead of, you know, up to 75% more. It sucks - I too am a big fan of hybrid reactors and think it helped lift this extremely underused EU generation method back into usage - but what can you say? It was never meant to be.
There was also a general rebalancing of both plutonium and thorium. Some parts were nerfs, some parts were buffs. Overally, none of the old cell layouts work anymore (most of them will detonate spectacularly if you try). The summary of changes is as thus...
Plutonium:
- Now produces less heat. Previously had a base 9 standard heat curve, now has a custom flatter curve that behaves somewhere between base 8 and base 5.5 depending on what efficiency you're using. For comparison, uranium runs at base 4.
- Now pulses twice per tick. It will thus charge isotopes twice as fast, consume normal reflectors at twice the rate, and scale up in efficiency far more quickly (as of my last test, Greg was still tweaking this feature, so details might change).
Thorium:
- Now produces less heat. Previously had a base 1 standard heat curve, now has a base 0.8 standard heat curve.
- Received a -50% lifetime nerf. Still the same EU/t, but it simply only lasts 25,000 instead of 50,000 seconds. Thus total EU per cycle was halved as well.
I made a spreadsheet tracking and comparing the changes.
The result is that you can make very efficient setups using dual plutonium for the centerpiece and thorium as cheap, cool-running reflectors. But it will also run so searingly hot (even after the heat changes) that such setups can only use a small number of cells and won't have high EU/t. The rule of the thumb now is: uranium = highest power output, plutonium = highest efficiency, thorium = best breeding fuel, cheap reflectors and large-grid 'thorium sink reactors'.
It also means that unfortunately, a new efficiency metric is needed, as plutonium now scales differently from other fuel types and thus makes accurately comparing reactors based on classic cell value efficiency impossible. I've been thinking of basing it off the value of a freshly bred isotope, but for some reason nobody aside from Peppe seems interested in even discussing the topic. Seems like people would rather continue using the reactor planner numbers, which have been wrong for the past half year already...
Oh well. Hope that answers some of your questions, Spartan
thank you, very interesting posting.
so a quad plutonium setup can only be cooled with shutdown cycles, thus lowering the mean output of the system (but not the total amount of EU that can be generated).
I'm not completely sure about the thorium nerf, because it actually means that I need more tin for the reactor (although tin isn't an issue because there are large quantities in the world). on the other hand, after running 2 max size quarrys and mining manually with the rock cutter (it's a bit masochistic) and a jetpack, I currently have over 1200 thorium dust, 8 or 9 stacks of uranium and even 2 stacks of plutonium dust. I need quite some time to burn that stuff, not to mention the abillity to craft those near depleted isotope cells (a feature that will be gone in 1.5).
regarding your problem, that there is only one other person in the IC2 board even interested in that topic: I guess, for most of the people, it's just easier to stick with proven designs (if they use nuclear energy) or just drain the nether for cheap energy or set up some solars which are just so maintainance friendly (set it up and forget them).
so a quad plutonium setup can only be cooled with shutdown cycles, thus lowering the mean output of the system (but not the total amount of EU that can be generated).
I'm not completely sure about the thorium nerf, because it actually means that I need more tin for the reactor (although tin isn't an issue because there are large quantities in the world). on the other hand, after running 2 max size quarrys and mining manually with the rock cutter (it's a bit masochistic) and a jetpack, I currently have over 1200 thorium dust, 8 or 9 stacks of uranium and even 2 stacks of plutonium dust. I need quite some time to burn that stuff, not to mention the abillity to craft those near depleted isotope cells (a feature that will be gone in 1.5).
regarding your problem, that there is only one other person in the IC2 board even interested in that topic: I guess, for most of the people, it's just easier to stick with proven designs (if they use nuclear energy) or just drain the nether for cheap energy or set up some solars which are just so maintainance friendly (set it up and forget them).
That's the thing, though. If nuclear reactors need to become more approachable for people, then it's a really bad idea to let everyone - especially newcomers - run around basing their design decisions on completely wrong data. The planner has been showing wrong numbers ever since GregTech's parts got added back in 2012, and it'll be even more wrong in 1.5+ now (not to mention that it doesn't look like it's even going to be updated, as the author is "pulling an Eloraam", so to speak, and IC2 itself isn't even making any changes, only GregTech).
guess, who gets the complaints if a badly designed reactor goes off right in the center of the base. I had this one time (but it was my fault not taking care of a breeding reactor).
let's see when the modpack gets an update. as slowpoke wrote: if RP2 isn't available before 1.6, they drop it. and I guess, they are serious about that.
let's see when the modpack gets an update. as slowpoke wrote: if RP2 isn't available before 1.6, they drop it. and I guess, they are serious about that.