Advice on getting more power?

[weedenbc]

I'm playing my first FTB install on Monster 1.1.1 and am fairly far along in the game. Full AE system, pretty much all the resources I could want, etc. In fact, I'm at the point where my mid-game power system is holding me back from moving into the end game.

This pic shows my current power setup. It's pretty basic. I've got enderpumps from a Mystcraft oil desert world tesseracting in oil which has been converted into fuel. On the far right of the pic is the railcraft tank with 4,800 buckets of fuel. The 5 refineries feeding it are more than enough to keep up with demand.

That fuel is feeding two banks of 24 compression engines (48 total), for a total max output of 3840 RF/t. The output is fed through two Resonant energy cells to a tesseract, all located right between the engine banks.

I guess I could always replicate this a few more times but that's not really space efficient. So what are my alternatives? Is there something more space/power efficient that could make use of all that existing fuel? Or do I need to go to an entirely new setup, such as a reactor?

 

[Zenthon_127]

Space-wise, a long tower of a conduits surrounded by dynamos on all sides has been best for me, especially because it's only 3x3 vertical and easier to pump both coolant and fuel into the dynamos. On the other hand, though, you're about to hit the point where it's very hard to supply compressions with enough fuel. Feeding your existing fuel into an RC liquid boiler may be a good idea. Of course, BigReactors is also a viable method and once you have a working reactor you can get a BR Turbine or two for your boiler(s).

So basically, if you want more RF, there's plenty of ways to go about it but most involve Steam.

 

[Padfoote]

ReactorCraft will give you plenty of power. A 3x3 core reactor was giving me about 965 MW average, and I know it wasn't an efficient setup. It also was about the same size as your current setup, maybe slightly smaller.

Edit: The only thing about this setup is that you will have had to have gotten into RotaryCraft a bit, and you'll have to convert the power into RF.

 

[weedenbc]

Where does rotarycraft come into play? I've dabbled in it a little bit, just enough to get a bedrock breaker going, a fan-based canola farm, and a spawner controller. But I was just looking at a Big Reactors video overview, and there wasn't any mention of rotarycraft as Big Reactors seems to have its own turbines:

Can you get a more efficient setup if you mix in rotarycraft?

 

[belgabor]

Big Reactors != ReactorCraft
Also another option: use gendustry to make nice saplings and go the ethnol route =)

 

[ThatOneSlowking]

Where does rotarycraft come into play? I've dabbled in it a little bit, just enough to get a bedrock breaker going, a fan-based canola farm, and a spawner controller. But I was just looking at a Big Reactors video overview, and there wasn't any mention of rotarycraft as Big Reactors seems to have its own turbines:

Can you get a more efficient setup if you mix in rotarycraft?

Reactorcraft has nothing to do with Big Reactors. ReactorCraft is a RotaryCraft addon

 

[Padfoote]

@weedenbc ReactorCraft is not Big Reactors. ReactorCraft is an add-on to RotaryCraft, and as such everything in it requires components from RotaryCraft.

And yes @ThatOneSlowking, you ninja'd me. I blame typing on a phone.

 

[ThatOneSlowking]

@weedenbc ReactorCraft is not Big Reactors. ReactorCraft is an add-on to RotaryCraft, and as such everything in it requires components from RotaryCraft.

And yes @ThatOneSlowking, you ninja'd me. I blame typing on a phone.

Im on ipad mini and got there. Pro ninja brah

 

[Padfoote]

Im on ipad mini and got there. Pro ninja brah

That's what I normally use, but when the battery dies I'm screwed.

@weedenbc This beautiful monster is ReactorCraft:

 

[weedenbc]

Got it, my bad.

Started looking at reactorcraft and got a bit scared. Looks fairly complicated with lots of room for screw ups, at least compared to big reactors. What's the payoff, aside from geekiness and bragging rights? Are reactorcraft reactors more powerful/efficient than big reactors?

 

[Padfoote]

Got it, my bad.

Started looking at reactorcraft and got a bit scared. Looks fairly complicated with lots of room for screw ups, at least compared to big reactors. What's the payoff, aside from geekiness and bragging rights? Are reactorcraft reactors more powerful/efficient than big reactors?

I actually haven't seen any comparisons between the output on the two, but I do know that there's a good chance your world will be retired before you find a way to use all of the power from a fusion reactor. Can't say the same about Big Reactors (from what I've seen).

 

[Dorque]

If you're looking for options that aren't a reactor and you want to use fuel, you have a few.

My first would be Railcraft boilers. Full-sized boilers can make considerably good use of fuel and are fairly compact; you can use that steam to drive a number of different power producers, steam dynamos included.

Another would be to refine it further into jet fuel to power RotaryCraft turbines. If you want RF exclusively, you could then push it back through Rotational Dynamos, which can to the best of my knowledge output roughly 12,000 RF/t at max power. I think one Gas Turbine can fully power one Rotational Dynamo with proper gearing. Don't stand in front of it.

There are a couple other options but those are my favourites that make use of fuel. There are also plenty of highly useful non-fuel options in Extra Utilities; I'm currently in the process of cranking my mob grinder to full power and auto-processing Eyes of Ender for Ender Generators.

 

[ThatOneSlowking]

Got it, my bad.

Started looking at reactorcraft and got a bit scared. Looks fairly complicated with lots of room for screw ups, at least compared to big reactors. What's the payoff, aside from geekiness and bragging rights? Are reactorcraft reactors more powerful/efficient than big reactors?

Basically the monster padfoote linked could power a server of 50 people running more an 2 of every machine IIRC

 

[Dorque]

Basically the monster padfoote linked could power a server of 50 people running more an 2 of every machine IIRC

How ironic. A working reactor that can cause a server meltdown.

Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk

 

[YX33A]

Big Reactors != ReactorCraft
Also another option: use gendustry to make nice saplings and go the ethnol route =)

THIS. Doesn't get mentioned enough. Gendustry can do saplings and butterflies, not just bees.

 

[belgabor]

And they are ridiculously efficient. I'm currently producing 9600 RF/tick from the output of a single fermenter running on water and am still producing a surplus of ethanol. I don't even dare to estimate how many fermenters I could run on my sapling production...

Edit: And this is with compression dynamos, I could squeeze out even slightly more efficiency with steam boilers...

 

[Wagon153]

A fission reactor from Reactorcraft can easily blow a Big Reactor out of the water in terms of power production, being able to produce 80k RF/t. However, Big Reactors is much simpler and nicer to servers and your FPS.

 

[Pyure]

A fission reactor from Reactorcraft can easily blow a Big Reactor out of the water in terms of power production, being able to produce 80k RF/t. However, Big Reactors is much simpler and nicer to servers and your FPS.

The reactor Sir @Padfoote mentioned above produces closer to 160k RF/T I believe. And if I understand correctly, you can double that by switching to ammonia instead of water

I ran one for 3 cycles a few nights ago, and have been very comfortably running my industries off the stored power ever since.

PS: I've mentioned this before, but if you are particularly interested in fuel-efficiency and whatnot, a 7-core reactor will produce the same as that 9-core one, if you surround it with neutron reflectors. Yay

 

[weedenbc]

The reactor Sir @Padfoote mentioned above produces closer to 160k RF/T I believe. And if I understand correctly, you can double that by switching to ammonia instead of water

I ran one for 3 cycles a few nights ago, and have been very comfortably running my industries off the stored power ever since.

PS: I've mentioned this before, but if you are particularly interested in fuel-efficiency and whatnot, a 7-core reactor will produce the same as that 9-core one, if you surround it with neutron reflectors. Yay

What are you using to store your power? The capacitor banks from EnderIO?

 

[Pyure]

What are you using to store your power? The capacitor banks from EnderIO?

I tried that once. The mountain of them was stupidly big, and I swear it lagged my system down. It just takes way too many of them just to get the "maximum input" threshold high enough, and then you fill it in minutes (way before a single fission cycle is done)

I added ElectriCraft, which is (yet another) RotaryCraft add on. In addition to making your RoC energy grid easier to use and a lot more fun, it also provides (very expensive) Batteries.

The biggest battery, which I believe cost me something like 250 diamonds (!!) and a Nether Star is the Aurora Battery. It holds 280~TJ of power. This is approximately 50,000,000,000 RF. (Billion). Good luck using all that

The next highest battery IIRC holds around 2TJ which is still an awful lot of power. I think a single fission cycle (1 uranium each) on Padfoote's reactor will produce around 4TJ total, but don't quote me on that.

Edited to Clarify: Talking about the 3x3 fission reactor, not the monstrous fusion reactor also shown above that I'm too cowardly to attempt building.