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

DarknessShadow

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My end targed for powergen progression is something like:
1. Coal/Solid Fluels (Steam -> MV age)
2. Oil/Liquid Fuels (MV -> EV)
3. Nuclear (EV -> IV)
4. Fusion (LuV -> ZPM)
5. Who knows? :D

I must make some more changes until this works, but that is my current idea.
Nice to hear that Nuclear will be increased to EV -> IV :)
 

Nickolas Wood

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Jul 29, 2019
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Please no ... the 100% energy boost when you make a liquid cooled reactor should be enough..

Well, the no direct power from bigreactors is already set so I am guessing you are in disagreement with the disablement of direct EU from a standard IC2 reactor.

My thoughts are this:
reactors work on steam IRL, so why not emulate that.
IC2 has a version that produces steam; in a roundabout way
now, with new information, can't get direct power from big reactors, why should we still be able to get direct power from an IC2 reactor?
 

Pyure

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I guess my point is, it is much easier to create railcraft steam and use the turbines then it is to create the IC2 reactor and use the steam generator -> kenetic generator combo. Given that the cost/complexity of each setup is not 1 : 1, the quantity of the steam units per EU should not be 1 : 1 either. So, 200 EU/t using 320mb/t of steam is not equivalent to the 50 EU/t using 100mb/t of steam. So, 200 EU/t = 320mb/t from a single low complexity boiler -> turbine or 200 EU/t = 400mb/t of steam from an IC2 liquid reactor -> steam generator -> kenetic generator setup. The cost of IC2 is higher, the complexity is higher, and yet, the yields are lower... That is what I would like to see rectified.

Basically, steam from a boiler should not be as good or plentiful as steam form a reactor. Doesn't make sense.
Yep, I agree.

I suppose the good news is that while RC steam is way easier (and it is), its only "cheaper" per fuel if you use a tree-farm to supply it. A single thorium dust is worth an awful, awful lot of charcoal, but it doesn't matter if that charcoal is almost free.

It'll be neat to see how Blood attacks this, I didn't even realize it was on his radar.

now, with new information, can't get direct power from big reactors, why should we still be able to get direct power from an IC2 reactor?
Few reasons:
1) IC2 "passive" power is relatively weak, so it doesn't matter much (my thorium reactor only generates around 120 eu/t in passive mode)
2) Tradition? IC2 nuclear predates just about all other nuclear.
3) Probably hard for us to do anything about even if we wanted to.
 

Elthy

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Pyure, could you post some details of your thorium reactor, especialy the layout and the heat->power conversion?
 

Nickolas Wood

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3) Probably hard for us to do anything about even if we wanted to.

Fair point. I have no idea if disabling passive reactors is even possible.

Also, doing out the math a bit more:
a good reactor design generate 1000 Hu/t so, roughly, 500 EU/t (i believe it is a 1 : 1 ratio for Hu to mb steam)
a normal LPB generates 360 mb/t so; 200 EU/t using 1 turbine
a normal HPB generates 720 mb/t so, 400 EU/t using 2 turbines

the difference in cost/complexity to get 500 EU/t out of a liquid IC2 reactor and 400 EU/t out of a single HPB is far too low. To bring things more in line with the output of fusion :) I would tend to think that the heat unit to steam ration should be 4 : 1, making a single 1000 Hu/t reactor capable of generating 2000 EU/t. And that friends, is in line with this :) ...

My end targed for powergen progression is something like:
1. Coal/Solid Fluels (Steam -> MV age)
2. Oil/Liquid Fuels (MV -> EV)
3. Nuclear (EV -> IV)
4. Fusion (LuV -> ZPM)
5. Who knows? :D

I must make some more changes until this works, but that is my current idea.

Nuclear = EV age
 

Pyure

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Pyure, could you post some details of your thorium reactor, especialy the layout and the heat->power conversion?
Certainly.

For the design, see http://www.talonfiremage.pwp.blueyo...uqidkb1jhko81a3ofjkkcathr1b1h594m7ewstl3b0u80

Of course, most people can't open that due to java shenanigans that are a pita to work around, so also see:
upload_2015-7-31_14-15-39.png


For a pic of my heat-exchanger infrastructure, you'll have to look at my post a couple pages ago, in a spoiler.

The short version is that the reactor is producing 450 heat {Edit: I need to check this number when I get home, I don't think its right). I'm sending hot coolant from this reactor into 10 liquid heat exchangers. Those LHEs are in turn feeding 10 Stirling Generators which output 50 eu/t each.

I could improve the efficiency here considerably by doing 10 LHEs and 5 Steam Generators, producing superheated steam + steam. But the power-train for that is really complicated and space-consuming. I'm holding out for Blood Asp's Large Heat Exchanger which may handle the scenario better.

Note that the eu/t (112) demonstrated there is for a passive reactor, not an active one.

Also be aware that this entire setup, including the neutron reflectors (iridium) and the heating coils you put in the LHEs, is....rather expensive to assemble, thankfully in primarily low-end resources.
 

Pyure

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Also, doing out the math a bit more:
a good reactor design generate 1000 Hu/t so, roughly, 500 EU/t (i believe it is a 1 : 1 ratio for Hu to mb steam)
a normal LPB generates 360 mb/t so; 200 EU/t using 1 turbine
a normal HPB generates 720 mb/t so, 400 EU/t using 2 turbines
You get considerably more eu/t if you use superheated steam, although the power-train for that is annoying. It also restricts you to designs with multipliers of 100 hu/t (or 200 hu/t, I forget)

On the other hand, for what its worth: logistically, nuclear power is a lot more handy. It reaches full potential almost immediately, unlike your 720 mb/t HPB which takes (literally) hours to spin up using charcoal.

This isn't a big deal for people who run their boilers 100% of the time, but I never do that. There are times when my base is drawing almost no power, and times when its drawing 5000 eu/t.
 
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Nickolas Wood

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I could improve the efficiency here considerably by doing 10 LHEs and 5 Steam Generators, producing superheated steam + steam. But the power-train for that is really complicated and space-consuming.

Have you seen MysteryDump's setup? I linked a video in a while back. She has cooling towers that are compact and snazy looking making this power-train really nice. Here is the video again to make it easy :)


A build video of one of those towers is here too:


This is the reason I want those mekanism pipes by the way
 
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Elthy

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Pyure, could you post some details of your thorium reactor, especialy the layout and the heat->power conversion?
 

Elthy

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Yeah, now i saw that, somehow a refresh of the page didnt show my post or the ines after that, so i guessed it got lost in the depths of the internet and posted it again. Thx for the answer.
 

Ieldra

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Admit it, you're being sneaky.
No. As I said before, any argument that simply extends playing time to infinity *is* completely invalid. And that's more than a personal opinion. Reasons:
(1) Compared to infinity, the time you spend playing, regardless of how long it is, is infinitesimally small.
(2) This would make 1 EU/t equal to 1000000 EU/t, since 1 times infinity is just as a infinite as a million times infinity. Clearly, one RTG is not equal to 100.

What counts is not total output in EU over time compared to resources invested, but EU per time unit compared to resources invested, assuming that fuel supply is a minor problem and can be disregarded (I'd say this is the case for a medium-sized Big Reactor for any plausible time spent playing).

So far I've built several RTG generators and pellets. They're powering a few farms and my thaumcraft AE system.
They were incredibly, ridiculously, depressingly cheap once I found a single plutonium vein.
RTGs scale linearly. Unlike many other power systems, you don't require a big starting investment. That skews the picture if you only ever use RTGs for small applications. Compare, however, what you'd need for a Big Reactor and RTG clusters of equal output. I doubt very much that you'd ever be able to match even a small actively-cooled Big Reactor with RTGs from several plutonium veins, to say nothing of the megatons of iron you'll need.

Regarding my experience with power generation in general - and this is a personal impression again - I felt that I never had enough power to do more than the bare necessities until I got to fusion power. Almost every new tech facility I wanted to build required thinking about power again. And again. And again. And I had about 2.5KEU/t before fusion. That's 10KRF/t. I don't think I ever needed that much power for any of my other bases, ever, in any pack, just for processing and production (exception, my ReC fusion reactor base). I never had time for any luxuries. I barely had time for aesthetics. That was the reason why I got to fusion so fast. I wanted to reach a point where, thrice damn it, I didn't have to think about power for a real-time day, and not because I spent the time playing with magic mods instead. Well, maybe that's how you want to play, but I admit I don't understand why anyone would want to do that.
 
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Pyure

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No. As I said before, any argument that simply extends playing time to infinity *is* completely invalid. And that's more than a personal opinion. Reasons:
(1) Compared to infinity, the time you spend playing, regardless of how long it is, is infinitesimally small.
(2) This would make 1 EU/t equal to 1000000 EU/t, since 1 times infinity is just as a infinite as a million times infinity. Clearly, one RTG is not equal to 100.

What counts is not total output in EU over time compared to resources invested, but EU per time unit compared to resources invested, assuming that fuel supply is a minor problem and can be disregarded (I'd say this is the case for a medium-sized Big Reactor for any plausible time spent playing).


RTGs scale linearly. Unlike many other power systems, you don't require a big starting investment. That skews the picture if you only ever use RTGs for small applications. Compare, however, what you'd need for a Big Reactor and RTG clusters of equal output. I doubt very much that you'd ever be able to match even a small actively-cooled Big Reactor with RTGs from several plutonium veins, to say nothing of the megatons of iron you'll need.
I was trying to be nice dude.

There's all kinds of problems with your logic. You're pretending that people play for 1 day and then never play again. You're hand-waiving any sources of fuel that don't suit your argument. Even worse, you're comparing RTGs to the single most powerful source of power (Big Reactors), which you've also already admitted was too much trouble to work with due to the conversion and infrastructure requirements. This is insane.

We don't have to scale over infinity. With the tiny number of resources required (some iron and plutonium), an RTG overtakes any other source of power generation over a reasonable timeframe in an apples-to-apples cost/benefit scenario. This isn't fantasy, its just math, pure and simple.

No, I don't promote cheap, unlimited energy in a hard core pack. No, I don't agree with you that it's not ridiculously simple to make RTG pellets given a single plutonium vein. I've tested this and established via experience that RTGs are mindlessly simple to assemble and mindlessly simple to afford with the existing ore generation.

A really good response at this point would be "oh, that makes sense pyure", but failing that, I get it man: this pack isn't for you, you've said it yourself. There are a billion packs out there that promote easy, infinite energy. Please understand that some players want just one pack that takes that crutch away.

If you remove plutonium veins could you make a small mod that would replace all plutonium ore with uranium ore?
Preferably u235 (jk)
 

Ieldra

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Apr 25, 2014
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@Pyure
Now you're twisting my words.
(1) I never said that RTGs weren't simple to build - recall I said I would prefer more complexity? I said they were expensive to build if you want to use them for more than small applications. That I maintain. Did you test this with, say, a setup that equals the output of your IC2 reactor? I venture to guess you're going to spend about four times as much metal. And uranium is so easy to come by in the amounts needed that it fulfils even my requirement for being not much different from renewable over a plausible time frame.
(2) I never spoke about mayfly games lasting one day. The game I played lasted, in my estimation, real-time weeks.

Well, it's clear that we have drastically different perspectives on this, especially in what we consider cheap and expensive, and enjoyable. So it's better that we don't continue this. It's a moot point anyway since easy plutonium will go away soon and I'm playing something else. It may surprise you to hear, however, that I agree with removing plutonium veins for the reason indicated by Blood Asp: world plausibility. In the end, I care about that more than about perceived balance, and I'd be willing to put up with much more in its name.
 
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DarknessShadow

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Can someone help me?
I've build the Steam Generator + 2x Kinetic Steam Generator from this video here
but when i run it get explosions constantly ... :(
Why are there explosions happening :(?

Btw is 150eu/t good for 200HU/t?
 

Xavion

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So move the topic to a more relevant portion, RTGs vs solar panels. Personally I consider solar panels generally superior, while they're significantly more complex to create requiring a greater variety of resources RTGs have that massive reliance on plutonium veins for scale as mentioned. So why not pick on solar panels out of interest? Is it really just the increased complexity and much lower luck involved to mass produce them that does it?
 

DarknessShadow

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So move the topic to a more relevant portion, RTGs vs solar panels. Personally I consider solar panels generally superior, while they're significantly more complex to create requiring a greater variety of resources RTGs have that massive reliance on plutonium veins for scale as mentioned. So why not pick on solar panels out of interest? Is it really just the increased complexity and much lower luck involved to mass produce them that does it?
Solars are more expensive and only produce 1/32 of the power.
 

Pyure

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@Pyure
Now you're twisting my words.
(1) I never said that RTGs weren't simple to build - recall I said I would prefer more complexity? I said they were expensive to build if you want to use them for more than small applications. That I maintain. Did you test this with, say, a setup that equals the output of your IC2 reactor? I venture to guess you're going to spend about four times as much metal. And uranium is so easy to come by that it fulfils even my requirement for being not much different from renewable over a plausible time frame.
(2) I never spoke about mayfly games lasting one day.
Except in really excessive circumstances (more than 9*6*6 iron per RTG), materials in energy generation need to be calculated over the expected time span of the generator (e.g, the amount of time you plan to run it, or plan to play in that world.)

Let's say really conservatively, for most players its something like 3 months before we typically get bored of the nuclear age and move from one pack or world to a new one. I have no idea what a realistic number is but its probably a lot more than that for most players. I can't do the nuclear age for months on end like most peeps, so 3 months is probably about right for me (nuclear ages are boring)

An RTG, like all energy sources, costs X materials per day. In this case, that would be total resources spent over 90 days. We also get Y energy gained over 90 days.

My concern is that for most energy sources, the RTG utterly dominates this 90-day scenario, never even mind the 365 day scenario or more. Even my ultra-sweet-and-probably-OP thorium reactor might fail the 90-day test compared to the RTG, and as an energy source it itself is pretty ridiculous. But it also costs an absolutely monstrous quantity of resources to build plus has an ongoing running cost. Big Reactors would fail the 90 day test badly compared to RTG because yellorium is much, much harder to accumulate cheaply. Its hard to quantify "rarity" of a metal into cost, so I can't compare to, say, naquadah, but setting RNG aside, there's no way to easily and cheaply get large quantities of yellorium fuel.

For the record, I calculate an equivalent RTG network (480 eu/t) to require around 4860 iron and 270 plutonium in pellets. Not included is some the small cost of the generators themselves which I can't do off the top of my head, plus some transforming costs that apply equally to other energy generation. That's 15 RTGs (3 clusters?)


So move the topic to a more relevant portion, RTGs vs solar panels. Personally I consider solar panels generally superior, while they're significantly more complex to create requiring a greater variety of resources RTGs have that massive reliance on plutonium veins for scale as mentioned. So why not pick on solar panels out of interest? Is it really just the increased complexity and much lower luck involved to mass produce them that does it?
Because I haven't tested them and don't have the numbers.

Can someone help me?
I've build the Steam Generator + 2x Kinetic Steam Generator from this video here

but when i run it get explosions constantly ... :(
Why are there explosions happening :(?

Btw is 150eu/t good for 200HU/t?
You need to use a (powered) condensor or successfully remove steam from the exploding machines via pipes. Its hard as all hell to do it with pipes, which is why I typically give up on the setup at that point.
I *think* that's the standard output if you use superheated + steam.
 
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Blood Asp

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Can someone help me?
I've build the Steam Generator + 2x Kinetic Steam Generator from this video here
but when i run it get explosions constantly ... :(
Why are there explosions happening :(?

Btw is 150eu/t good for 200HU/t?
150EU/t is exactly the most efficient amount from superheated steam.
The explosions mean, you need condensers next to the secondary turbine to turn the steam back into water. currently the steam is just flowing out and you do not get back most of the water.
 
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