[1.7.10][LISTED] InfiTech 2 Modpack v3.2.21 [HQM][GregTech balanced hard-mode modpack]

[Ieldra]

So 4 pairs of mfsu+gt transformer per 1 IV battery buffer. I could work with that, I'm sure I'll find a way to make it space-efficient

The thing is, the the transforming and buffer output incurs its own loss, and as you go higher with the voltage, it may be more efficient to use normal cables. For instance, power leaving your four EV transformers will incur an additional power expenditure of 4*2^6 =256 EU for the four EV packages needed to make one IV package of 8192 EU total when leaving the transformers. If you use IV cables, you have an added expenditure of 2^7=128 EU per IV package of 8192 EU when leaving the IV battery buffer and you'll lose 1 EU per metre, so it's actually better to use the IV cable if the length of your power connection is less than 128 blocks.

Which means that at any voltage above EV, battery transport in MFSU's becomes less efficient than GT cabling at short and medium distances.

 

[Ieldra]

Now that I've finished building my Mk I fusion reactor (It awaits activation after enough fuel has been created - which will take awhile yet), here a few observations on the differences between ReactorCraft's fusion reactor and GregTech's, with the caveat that Reika's mods went through signficant updates since I played them last. Also note that it would be extremely hard, if at all possible, to build an ReC reactor in a limited-water setting without transfer nodes.

(1) ReC's reactor is more powerful by several orders of magnitude. Even GT's highest-yield recipe generates about 20 times less power than an ReC reactor. In addition, that generation is completely self-sustainable and requires no non-renewable resources, which GT's only does with its lowest-yield recipe.
(2) As opposed to GT's reactor, ReC's reactor can't use different recipes (that may have changed, I recall it was in the plans) and consequently it is not variable in its output - though that does not matter much since keeping it running costs no non-renewable resources. It also can't make rare elements through fusion.
(3) You can actually shut off GT's reactor. Long-term operation is desirable, but you can shut it off completely without your base turning into lava (I'd like to know if Reika has addressed this since).
(4) GT's reactor requires many more different materials, and many more rare materials, to construct than ReC's, while ReC's requires significantly more material in total, but almost all of it is reasonably common. In addition, RotaryCraft - through which you must progress if you want to build the ReC reactor - provides efficient means to gather those resources, while GT provides no help at all.
(5) The materials for both reactors and their supporting infrastructures require significant amounts of secondary processing, but GT's take drastically more time - I count ReC in real-time hours, GT in real-time days. This is also because RotaryCraft provides more efficient power generation at lower levels, so that you can power your processing machines efficiently, while with GT, the power required to run parallel processing on the same level would require exactly the fusion reactor you are building.
(5) Crafting of reactor components in GT is significantly more complex than in ReC, but GT machines are, as a rule, much easier to automate than RoC/ReC machines. AE2 integration comes naturally with GT (in fact, I don't think I know another tech mod except EnderIO that makes it so easy), with RoC/ReC it's a PITA.
(6) The supporting infrastructure of an ReC reactor requires more different machines and processes, GT's requires more "machine spam".
(7) ReC's reactor takes up significantly more space, which makes it much more difficult to integrate it into your bases.
(8) To generate power with GT's fusion reactor, no magically overpowered farming is required.
(9) ReC's reactor looks cool in operation, GT's is unimpressive since you don't see anything happening.
(10) ReC's reactor is more realistic in several ways - two examples: it should not be possible to extract tritium from deuterium in usable amounts without exposure to radiation, and it should not be possible to store plasma. Thus, some method of getting the power out of the plasma should be an intrinsic part of the reactor structure rather than a separate machine.

All in all, I don't think I can rate one as preferable over the other. Both have their strengths and their weaknesses, which balance out if you take into account both building and using them. With one exception: I really wish I had my teleporting mining frame carrying four RoC boring machines from my FTB Monster world. Resource gathering in GT....may just be the post painful thing I've ever forced myself to do in modded Minecraft.

 

[MigukNamja]

@Ieldra Excellent comparison and write-up !

For GT Mk I fusion, how much energy positive is it to run the reactor and maintain it (processing the input) ?

 

[Pyure]

Now that I've finished building my Mk I fusion reactor (It awaits activation after enough fuel has been created - which will take awhile yet), here a few observations on the differences between ReactorCraft's fusion reactor and GregTech's, with the caveat that Reika's mods went through signficant updates since I played them last. Also note that it would be extremely hard, if at all possible, to build an ReC reactor in a limited-water setting without transfer nodes.

(1) ReC's reactor is more powerful by several orders of magnitude. Even GT's highest-yield recipe generates about 20 times less power than an ReC reactor. In addition, that generation is completely self-sustainable and requires no non-renewable resources, which GT's only does with its lowest-yield recipe.
(2) As opposed to GT's reactor, ReC's reactor can't use different recipes (that may have changed, I recall it was in the plans) and consequently it is not variable in its output - though that does not matter much since keeping it running costs no non-renewable resources. It also can't make rare elements through fusion.
(3) You can actually shut off GT's reactor. Long-term operation is desirable, but you can shut it off completely without your base turning into lava (I'd like to know if Reika has addressed this since).
(4) GT's reactor requires many more different materials, and many more rare materials, to construct than ReC's, while ReC's requires significantly more material in total, but almost all of it is reasonably common. In addition, RotaryCraft - through which you must progress if you want to build the ReC reactor - provides efficient means to gather those resources, while GT provides no help at all.
(5) The materials for both reactors and their supporting infrastructures require significant amounts of secondary processing, but GT's take drastically more time - I count ReC in real-time hours, GT in real-time days. This is also because RotaryCraft provides more efficient power generation at lower levels, so that you can power your processing machines efficiently, while with GT, the power required to run parallel processing on the same level would require exactly the fusion reactor you are building.
(5) Crafting of reactor components in GT is significantly more complex than in ReC, but GT machines are, as a rule, much easier to automate than RoC/ReC machines. AE2 integration comes naturally with GT (in fact, I don't think I know another tech mod except EnderIO that makes it so easy), with RoC/ReC it's a PITA.
(6) The supporting infrastructure of an ReC reactor requires more different machines and processes, GT's requires more "machine spam".
(7) ReC's reactor takes up significantly more space, which makes it much more difficult to integrate it into your bases.
(8) To generate power with GT's fusion reactor, no magically overpowered farming is required.
(9) ReC's reactor looks cool in operation, GT's is unimpressive since you don't see anything happening.
(10) ReC's reactor is more realistic in several ways - two examples: it should not be possible to extract tritium from deuterium in usable amounts without exposure to radiation, and it should not be possible to store plasma. Thus, some method of getting the power out of the plasma should be an intrinsic part of the reactor structure rather than a separate machine.

All in all, I don't think I can rate one as preferable over the other. Both have their strengths and their weaknesses, which balance out if you take into account both building and using them. With one exception: I really wish I had my teleporting mining frame carrying four RoC boring machines from my FTB Monster world. Resource gathering in GT....may just be the post painful thing I've ever forced myself to do in modded Minecraft.

Fun

I'll add to your list that the ReC version also seemed to take more time to put together, likely a direct product of things you already touched on: larger machines and more complicated infrastructure.

 

[Xavion]

As a minor note it is actually possible to make the nickel plasma recipe renewable in this pack, it's not even that expensive to sustain. Machine wise it'd be 3 MV Electrolyzers, 7 LV Centrifuges, and 2 EV Macerators (Pulverizer) as far as I can tell, over all if you can make it that far it could be viable. Of course getting the resources to pump into those machines is a bit trickier, the cobble gen you'd need is easy but you need nether quartz in sufficient quantities to need either a lot of bees or more cobble gen, macerators, furnaces, water gen, and probably a charcoal farm to do it the thaumcraft way.

That's the kind of cross mod interaction that's interesting to me, combining several mods to get an overly complex set of requirements and steps that let you do something that wasn't conceived of as possible otherwise.

 

[Pyure]

you need nether quartz in sufficient quantities to need either a lot of bees or more cobble gen, macerators, furnaces, water gen, and probably a charcoal farm to do it the thaumcraft way.

Nethermind can generate convert terra and vitreus into nether quartz, fwiw. Not sure if that's your Thaumcraft way.

 

[Ieldra]

@Ieldra Excellent comparison and write-up !

For GT Mk I fusion, how much energy positive is it to run the reactor and maintain it (processing the input) ?

According to my calculations, fuel processing and maintaining the reaction takes about 14000 EU/t and the plasma is worth 32000 EU/t at 100% efficiency. So, depending on power less and turbine rotor efficiency, between 16000 and 20000 EU/t net gain should be achievable.

Fuel processing is the reason my reactor isn't running yet. I have to make some fuel at my present power, which is significantly less than the full facility needs.

 

[Xavion]

Nethermind can generate convert terra and vitreus into nether quartz, fwiw.

Forgot about that, well for reference you'd need about 1 Nether Quartz every 3s from what I can tell, haven't played with using the Nethermind to generate quartz but you'd need about 1 ore every 15s as GT gives fairly easy 5x multiplying of nether quartz (macerator + sifter).

Also I massively misinterpreted NEI, it's actually 1 LV Macerator and not 2 EV Macerators.

 

[Ieldra]

As a minor note it is actually possible to make the nickel plasma recipe renewable in this pack, it's not even that expensive to sustain. Machine wise it'd be 3 MV Electrolyzers, 7 LV Centrifuges, and 2 EV Macerators (Pulverizer) as far as I can tell, over all if you can make it that far it could be viable. Of course getting the resources to pump into those machines is a bit trickier, the cobble gen you'd need is easy but you need nether quartz in sufficient quantities to need either a lot of bees or more cobble gen, macerators, furnaces, water gen, and probably a charcoal farm to do it the thaumcraft way.

That's the kind of cross mod interaction that's interesting to me, combining several mods to get an overly complex set of requirements and steps that let you do something that wasn't conceived of as possible otherwise.

Renewable means using only resources that are available in infinite quantities in a finite area. I'm not seeing how that's possible with potassium and fluorine. How would you do it?

 

[Pyure]

Forgot about that, well for reference you'd need about 1 Nether Quartz every 3s from what I can tell, haven't played with using the Nethermind to generate quartz but you'd need about 1 ore every 15s as GT gives fairly easy 5x multiplying of nether quartz (macerator + sifter).

Ok neat. The nethermind seems to generate an ore every few (3-5) seconds as far as I can tell. The trick would be harvesting it in its large (9x9x9) area. Something like a pneumaticcraft drone could do the trick, factoring in fuel costs.

I'd keep it simpler and process the ore via the SAG mill, which I believe produces 4 nether quartz by default with no grinding balls, at 7200 RF (1800 EU) per ore with no capacitors.

Oh, the other trick would be providing it vitreus and terra. Terra's usually easy via a cobblegen. For Vitreus, you'd probably have to send some of that nether quartz back into the system, or look into mass-producing glass.

 

[Xavion]

Renewable means using only resources that are available in infinite quantities in a finite area. I'm not seeing how that's possible with potassium and fluorine. How would you do it?

Black Granite provides both potassium and fluorine in trace quantities via biotite, chisel granite is oredicted with black granite so can also be used to attain biotite. Chisel granite however is attainable in a non-world gen method via crafting it from nether quartz and diorite, diorite is itself available from cobble and nether quartz as a non-world gen solution. The only reason those numbers on machines are so low despite the trace quantities is because you really don't need much for the reactor, potassium is the lower resource at 9 nickel runs per 22 biotite and at 1 biotite per 5 dust and 9 dust per granite you get 1.358 granite per 125L of nickel plasma. So as long as you can attain both nether quartz and cobble in sufficient quantities and set up the convoluted chains to do that and process it you could create unlimited potassium and fluorine.

On that note I've checked and we can actually have all of the plasma recipes except Helium and Oxygen be renewable.

• Deuterium and Tritium are both from water
• Helium requires Endstone and I can't figure out a way to get that.
• Aluminium from TC transmutation.
• Lithium from clay which is from bees or dirt.
• Beryllium from ender pearls.
• Silicon from a ton of things, notably sand.
• Magnesium from granite or obsidian.
• Potassium from ender pearls or granite.
• Fluorine from granite.

So with pure GT you are capable of automating nitrogen plasma which is the third highest form, it would be iron plasma except I can't figure out how to automate lava production with pure GT, ender pearl farm and water are both within it's power though.

Ok neat. The nethermind seems to generate an ore every few (3-5) seconds as far as I can tell. The trick would be harvesting it in its large (9x9x9) area. Something like a pneumaticcraft drone could do the trick, factoring in fuel costs.

I'd keep it simpler and process the ore via the SAG mill, which I believe produces 4 nether quartz by default with no grinding balls, at 7200 RF (1800 EU) per ore with no capacitors.

Oh, the other trick would be providing it vitreus and terra. Terra's usually easy via a cobblegen. For Vitreus, you'd probably have to send some of that nether quartz back into the system, or look into mass-producing glass.

Yeah it's definitely a possibility, both it and alchemical duplication would need some relatively complex setups to run though. Bees being the alternative but you'd need a good few to be able to maintain 1 every 3s as they're not that quick, doesn't help even the best for it only has a 6% chance of giving one each output as it's only a specialty product with not great chances for both getting the comb and getting quartz from it.

 

[Xavion]

Actually mulling on things making it renewable isn't even that much of a concern, based off some checks your average chunk contains about 2 stacks of Chisel granite which considering potassium has other sources is mainly just going to be the source of fluorine which is a 1:1 ratio to nickel plasma and needs a mere 1.22 granite per cell of plasma means you can expect about 100 cells of nickel plasma per chunk worth of granite. As each cell is worth 59mil EU that's about 5.9 billion EU per chunk quarried, that's a pretty amazing rate. Even in a LuV generator that's about 105mins of power gen, considerably less than it takes to actually quarry said chunk and actually using up that LuV power constantly would require some ludicrous factories for simply unknown purposes.

Of course Nether Stars for 100mil EU in a magic convertor each still win IMO, way easier to get and run then a T3 fusion reactor. Although you actually do need the fusion reactors for HV so who knows?

 

[Pyure]

Somehow sounds like the heat exchanger hangs up once the output goes over a certain point. maybe i broke something while fixing the other bug there a few days ago.

I doubt this is at all relevant, but just in case: problem exists with Hot Coolant as well, not just Lava (tested last night on version .25)

 

[Ieldra]

Here an impression of my fusion facility:

What you're seeing (description taken from the second picture):
(1) The processing array clusters (8 each) in the background make hydrogen from water (right) and deuterium from hydrogen for the tritium production (left).
(2) The processing array clusters (2 each) in the tokamak ring make deuterium from hydrogen for directly feeding the reactor (right) and tritium from deuterium for feeding the reactor (left).
(3) The four transformer/battery clusters feed the reactor's 16 energy hatches. I'll only need one of the clusters for power generation, the others are needed for making metals in endothermic processes. Since the reactor does not generate power with endothermic processes (naturally), there are enough battery buffers for 32 lapotronic energy orbs. Using more than 16 requires a cable upgrade though, and anyway at the moment I have only 10 - these things are expensive and each of the processing arrays has one built-in.
(4) In the background there is the plasma generator. I am aiming for not more than 100% efficiency so I won't need to make a ZPM dynamo hatch and a set of added transformers. I haven't actually built the turbine rotor yet - tungsten rotors have 105% efficiency and just the right stats but I don't want to upgrade to the next tier just for 5% more power.
(5) The three cables going up to the ceiling will go away after the reactor is activated. They supply a small part of the processing arrays with power from my current grid. One cable going off the turbine will replace them.

BTW: which madman came up with the recipe for blue steel? I had to add ten crafting patterns to my ME network just for that.

 

[Pyure]

@Ieldra, are you still using Minechem? I found it made gathering certain raw resources such as tungsten much simpler, when you have its own Fusion and Fission Reactors running anyway.

In fact at one point I was accidentally creating piles of Osmium

 

[Ieldra]

@Ieldra, are you still using Minechem? I found it made gathering certain raw resources such as tungsten much simpler, when you have its own Fusion and Fission Reactors running anyway.

In fact at one point I was accidentally creating piles of Osmium

I have it installed, but haven't used it much yet. My impression was that its more involved processes use a lot of power, which I didn't have. Once my reactor is running, this will no longer be such a concern, and I may be able to look into making GT resources with it. BTW, does it make ingots? Tungsten processing in the EBF is a giant PITA.

 

[Xavion]

@Ieldra, are you still using Minechem? I found it made gathering certain raw resources such as tungsten much simpler, when you have its own Fusion and Fission Reactors running anyway.

In fact at one point I was accidentally creating piles of Osmium

Should I post my updated minechem configs and script? Because I fiddled with them for my own world but didn't think anyone was still using it, among other things you can't abuse the fact the minechem fusion reactor wasn't balanced against the GT one in v2. The fusion cost particularly where minechem is thousands of times cheaper than GT, you'll need BR turbines as it requires hundreds of millions of RF, even fusing two hydrogens into a helium takes several million. I'm pretty sure the actual multiplier should be set at about 3700000. For reference I'm pretty sure the v2 mult was set at 200, so over 10,000x cheaper then GT in energy costs.

Of course without the updated script you can't make naquadah or neutronium in a minechem fusion reactor, although I couldn't figure what to do so neutronium just requires naquadah instead of naquadria, still limits the multiplier to about 6.5million though as I'm not game to raise the max energy stored over the max size of a 32bit int.

I have it installed, but haven't used it much yet. My impression was that its more involved processes use a lot of power, which I didn't have. Once my reactor is running, this will no longer be such a concern, and I may be able to look into making GT resources with it. BTW, does it make ingots? Tungsten processing in the EBF is a giant PITA.

Nope, part of my giant script was making it not make ingots. It'd be trivial to add support for them but it currently specifically disables them.

 

[Pyure]

I have it installed, but haven't used it much yet. My impression was that its more involved processes use a lot of power, which I didn't have. Once my reactor is running, this will no longer be such a concern, and I may be able to look into making GT resources with it. BTW, does it make ingots? Tungsten processing in the EBF is a giant PITA.

Shrug, EBFing the dusts isn't that big a deal. I have two EBFs at HV, and they're always processing tungsten these days. I have lots of the stuff now. But to run them at HV I have to down-transform twice from my 8192 eu/t grid. If I ever start to worry about my tungsten supplies, I'll simply use more power.

Minechem is fantastic for trivializing certain resource gathering. For instance, chrome used to be a joke: you could extract chrome from flowers, which you could mass-produce easily using bonemeal gimmics and timers (particularly on 2-block-tall flowers). My basemate on the server was able to crank out dozens of flowers per second to churn into chrome, from a single 2-block rose. It was ridiculous.

Its also great for things like Titanium, if you deal with the lack of automation options. The minechem reactors don't handle automation well at all. But sometimes I'd rather sit and babysit reactors than go mining and processing the ores.

Regarding the power consumption, yeah its pretty substantial but at least those high numbers are in RF

 

[Aiwendil]

the cobble gen you'd need is easy but you need nether quartz in sufficient quantities to need either a lot of bees or more cobble gen, macerators, furnaces, water gen, and probably a charcoal farm to do it the thaumcraft way.

Thaumic Energistics has an alchemy recipe for quartz. For nether quartz it's aqua (alchemical boiler), vitreus (cobble) and potentia (pick your poison, I'd use charcoal).

 

[Ieldra]

Its also great for things like Titanium, if you deal with the lack of automation options. The minechem reactors don't handle automation well at all. But sometimes I'd rather sit and babysit reactors than go mining and processing the ores.

Yeah, Titanium is another element you need in large quantities eventually, but where the ore is rare. And I definitely agree that babysitting a reactor can be less bothersome than mining... However, currently I have an ender quarry set to mine a 1000x1000 area. We'll see what that operation yields. Slower than I'd like since I can't run it at full power with a speed III upgrade yet, but building other stuff while I wait is way more enjoyable than mining. Since I now have a substantial AE2 autocrafting network, I can actually think about aesthetics. It never took me that long to reach this point before.