Beginner's Big Reactors Guide

[namiasdf]

Hmm, just to clear things up a little. This is just aimed to allow newer players to jump into BR and actually learn the mod, instead of being confused about all the technical detail.

The TEMPERATURE of your reactor dictates how quickly you burn fuel (i.e. convert yellorium). This is affected by geometry and coolant fluid.

Now higher temperature and higher fuel consumption, in these reactors does not translate to more RF/t. The energy export block (w/e it's called) takes into account the geometry/coolant inside of your reactor. It then, based on some predetermined algorithm(s) poops out an RF/t. This is why you have so many different reactor setups.

It would seem that the algorithms are set up to be optimized at 400 & 800 C. This is what has been said multiple times and in the spotlight I watched.

So your main goal is to setup your reactor in such a way that you can get to 400 or 800 C. When you reach that temperature, that is the most efficient RF/t you can get for your mB/t consumption of fuel. This number will vary based on reactor dynamics as determined by the energy export block (or the entire reactor, I'm just saying the port for simplicities sake).

So you should:

(a) Design a reactor you think is good. There are many different types already present in literature, so pick one with an RF/t that is quoted nearest to what you want.

(b) Determine whether the mB/t consumption of fuel is something you can sustain.

(c) Once you become a pseudo-expert in that type of reactor, begin to make refinement changes. Things such as adjusting the control rod, coolant, geometry, etc. and experimenting. Be sure to report your results to the forums.

(d) Switch to a turbine with your optimized setup. It will invariably produce more RF/t with the same setup. That is the point of the progression.

I know it's quite overwhelming. Even for me, the initial learning step was quite a bit. This should simplify things and give noobies a direction in terms of how you want to progress in BR, instead of being thrown into a technical hell, which only few can make sense of.

 

[namiasdf]

-Fixed spelling-

 

[namiasdf]

Thoughts?

 

[Padfoote]

What types of coolants are there? What do control rods do? What shapes can it be? What are the benefits of using an active cooled reactor? Why would I make a turbine? And so on. These are questions that should be addressed in a beginner's guide for Big Reactors as they are the most common ones around here.

 

[namiasdf]

What types of coolants are there? What do control rods do? What shapes can it be? What are the benefits of using an active cooled reactor? Why would I make a turbine? And so on. These are questions that should be addressed in a beginner's guide for Big Reactors as they are the most common ones around here.

Literature for these simple questions are answered on the wiki/other more direct guides. This is just mainly to give beginners a direction, because jumping into this confusing technical mess of arbitrary, random difficulty, isn't easy for the laymen, let alone an engineering student.

The easy stuff I don't need to address. I'm more aiming at a teaching mechanism here, used to guide players in their learning.

 

[MacAisling]

I only set up a passive reactor to get the cyanite to make the turbine, so it didn't really matter how good it was, & the faster it burned fuel the sooner I could take the next step. Note if you plan on converting the reactor instead of replacing it or making a 2nd reactor, it would be better to do it right from the beginning.

The hardest thing to figure out is how much steam you can actually get from a given actively cooled reactor design. I think I still need to increase my water input before I can accurately test this.

Once you get 1 up & running, it is much easier to figure out how to fiddle with it for improved performance. My time may have been better spent testing for myself in creative than it was watching more spotlights hoping for a clearer explanation.

 

[Padfoote]

Literature for these simple questions are answered on the wiki/other more direct guides. This is just mainly to give beginners a direction, because jumping into this confusing technical mess of arbitrary, random difficulty, isn't easy for the laymen, let alone an engineering student.

The thing is, those things are points that should be addressed in a beginner's guide. There is no wiki documentation for Big Reactors that I know of, and the only documents about it are spreadsheets that beginners won't understand. Those questions are going to be asked by people getting into BR for the first time. They will want to know why they should do something, how it will help, and why it's better than another setup. With the current state of your main post, assuming I was a beginner, I'd know that I need to hit two temperatures to ensure the best efficiency, and that a turbine can produce more power. And that's it. It doesn't clear up any questions other than that a turbine gives more power. Elaborate more. People who aren't beginners with BR more than likely won't need a guide, they'll use the spreadsheets that are available and design around that.

 

[MacAisling]

And here is my post from another thread describing my set-up:

I gave up trying to figure out what reactor design would give me the right amount of steam & just picked a layout that one of the many tutorials I watched preferred. I went with a 7x7x4 reactor with 18 fuel rods (& 9 control rods) in a 3x3x2 in the center surrounded by gelid cryotheum (the passive coolant still gives you an efficiency boost in an actively cooled reactor). Setting 6 control rods to 90% & 3 to 100% dropped the temp down to just over 1200 degrees & dropped the fuel consumption rate to almost nothing (0.017 mB/t) while still outputting the 240 mB/t of steam needed to spin my turbine at 900-1000 rpm.

My turbine is a 7x7x6 with an 8 enderium block coil & 3 rotors with 8 blades each (24 blades total). Set at 240 mB of steam, the rotors spin at 996.2 rpm & produce 5218 rf/t (I altered this line in the config: D: PowerProductionMultiplier=2.0, the setting in the DW20 pack is 1.0, I think 1 of the vids I watched said the normal default is 1.66, & the guys on the Resonant Rise server had it cranked all the way up to 11.0).

With 24 rotor blades, I should be able to get 11 enderium blocks up to 1800 rpm w/600 steam. I think I can get that out of my reactor if I can get enough water flowing into it, but I have not yet tested this.

 

[namiasdf]

The thing is, those things are points that should be addressed in a beginner's guide. There is no wiki documentation for Big Reactors that I know of, and the only documents about it are spreadsheets that beginners won't understand. Those questions are going to be asked by people getting into BR for the first time. They will want to know why they should do something, how it will help, and why it's better than another setup. With the current state of your main post, assuming I was a beginner, I'd know that I need to hit two temperatures to ensure the best efficiency, and that a turbine can produce more power. And that's it. It doesn't clear up any questions other than that a turbine gives more power. Elaborate more. People who aren't beginners with BR more than likely won't need a guide, they'll use the spreadsheets that are available and design around that.

Ah, I see your point. But the point of this guide is also to force the beginner to learn how to do his/her own research as well. I believe that it is an important skill. I, for one would've benefited greatly from a guide like this. Perhaps it is just my bias as a technical expert by trade.

 

[Padfoote]

Ah, I see your point. But the point of this guide is also to force the beginner to learn how to do his/her own research as well. I believe that it is an important skill. I, for one would've benefited greatly from a guide like this. Perhaps it is just my bias as a technical expert by trade.

Then give them the basics to go off of. Explain how to make a very basic, one core reactor, and explain which liquids are going to help cool it the most. There are a lot of people that won't sit down and run tests with these reactors due to the large amount of time needed to get accurate data, and because of it giving beginners basic information (such as the order of which coolants are the best) will help quite a few people.

 

[namiasdf]

Then give them the basics to go off of. Explain how to make a very basic, one core reactor, and explain which liquids are going to help cool it the most. There are a lot of people that won't sit down and run tests with these reactors due to the large amount of time needed to get accurate data, and because of it giving beginners basic information (such as the order of which coolants are the best) will help quite a few people.

Numbers without knowledge is just numbers. I know the numbers exist and are readily available. Learning progression and generalization of the mod into simple terms is not. Everyone is talking about bouncing neutrinos, etc. etc.

Seriously.

 

[RedBoss]

TL;DR your "beginner's guide" is just a few tips that people who already have knowledge of the mod would find mildly interesting or useful. This post is not a guide and is exactly the kind of post that beginners complain about. There's no basic information, no clear direction, and it's titled such that these things are expectations.

@Padfoote has a good beginner's guide to Blood Magic that gets you going but doesn't baby walk you through the mod. @Succubism has the same with Thaumcraft. THOSE are beginner's guides, your OP is just a list of hints and observation.

 

[namiasdf]

Hmmm, this is supposed to be the opposite of TL;DR. I didn't want to bash noobies with a wall of text, more so direct their research in hopes that they become self sufficient.

My bad. =)

 

[trajing]

What. The. Crap. I know more about this than you and I NEVER USE TURBINES.
EDIT: Alright, fine, constructive criticism.
The amount of fuel is based on how many fuel tubes you have. Resonant Ender is the best coolant. Gelid Cryotheum is the second best.

 

[namiasdf]

1. Need fuel, orientation of fuel effects heat, thus energy consumption. It also effects RF/t.
2. Need coolant, orientation of coolant effects head, thus energy consumption. It also effects RF/t.
3. Thus, orientation of stuff in reactor is most significant.
4. 400 C or 800 C most optimal temperature for most efficient RF/t for mb/t fuel consumption.


A. Thus, aiming for the optimal temperature will optimize your reactor.
B. Find reactor with RF/t you want.
C. Figure out if can sustain mB/t.

Edit: tl;dr

Edit: LOL.

 

[Sephlington]

Couple of weeks late to the argument, but as a total newbie looking to start with Big Reactors, this was kind of useless. Sorry to be harsh, but your title is a total misnomer: this is a couple of useful tips for Big Reactors, not a beginner's guide.

When you say there's plenty of pre-existing guides, could you possibly point them out? I can see a couple of wiki entries, but they tell me how to make the blocks, not how to get started with making and managing a reactor. I have seen a couple of video guides, but I far prefer a written guide to a video, hence coming here.
I'm not sure how possible it is to rename threads on this forum, but I'd thoroughly recommend renaming this one.

 

[Peppe]

Beginner's Big Reactors Guide...
Fuel Rods generate particles horizontally in the cardinal directions. The particle release and hitting another fuel rod generates energy and heat. This fuel rod to fuel rod interaction is shown as reactivity in the reactor controller. Higher is better, but will also run hotter.

The particle is absorbed by reactor casing and heats the casing.

The particle can be absorbed by fluids preventing the heat from reaching the casing. Each fluid has it's own chance to absorb -- the best fluid for absorption is liquid ender with a 90% chance.

Another common fluid is liquid cryotheum. It has a 66% chance to absorb the fuel rod particles.

Control rods can be used to reduce how often fuel rods release a particle. This will reduce fuel consumption, heat generation, and energy generation. Using high control rod values indicates you overbuilt your reactor for your current need.

Heat increases fuel consumption and can move in all directions. Liquids in the reactor provide different levels of cooling, with Cryotheum being the best and liquid ender being second best with 1/3 the cooling affect of cryotheum.

With the conditions above a good reactor will strike a balance of fuel density, heat/cooling, and absorption. Typically fuel rods will be clustered together in groups and then seperated by cryotheum or dotted with cryotheum. In either case the outer casing should be protected by liquid ender.

Example:
Quad 3x3 core(s) - http://imgur.com/P66FKcV
Dotted - http://imgur.com/tbHJjoh, ~9k RF/t or ~6400 Mb/t reactor

Dotted is more fuel efficient, easier to construct, and flexible pattern to expand -- downside is slightly lower output.

As you expand the number of cores or whatever pattern you use the more useful another layer of liquid ender is to reduce particles reaching the casing. 3 rows of ender liquid is generally the max you would ever use as most of the heat entering the casing would then be from direct contact of the fuel rods at the top/bottom of the reactor.

Those are the parts... now what to build?

Determine your goal:
Run a base + some quarries on big reactors.
Run fields of MFR laser drills on a big reactors.

To run a base on a big reactors you will want an efficient reactor and the dotted 9x9x3 shown above would be an excellent option. Flowing blocks in a reactor provide the same benefit as source blocks, so you can put 4 ender buckets in the corners and cover the outer perimeter of the reactor.

If you need more power than the basic reactor above you can either expand the pattern in any direction or convert the output of the reactor to active cooling mode, which outputs steam. To do this remove any power tap ports and placing 2+ coolant ports. The coolant here is separate from any internal coolant blocks you have used in the reactor and is always water. The water provides a lot of cooling, which will make the same reactor converted to steam run much cooler (improving fuel efficiency).

The steam should be sent to big reactor turbines. Ideally you can get 8x the rf/t through turbine(s) vs running a passive reactor.

Turbines can only consume 2000 mb/t of steam, so you may need several turbines to consume all the steam from even a modest reactor.

Water and Steam are consumed and created 1:1. Steam that passes through a turbine is returned as water. Your reactor + turbine setup should make use of this return option to avoid needing to generate large amounts of water on your own.

Common issues with coolant ports are transfer limits of piping systems. Most systems cannot keep up with the volume. You can use tesseracts, direct connection (place the coolant ports on the reactor touching the turbine fluid ports, they match up red to red and blue to blue), or multiple connections to supply enough water/steam to your reactor and turbines.


To run fields of MFR lasers:
You will want to run lots of turbines to power the lasers.

You will likely want to start with the least efficient, largest, and hottest reactor you can afford to build. The limit on how many turbines you can make will usually be how much cyanite you have, which is the waste product of yellorium after it has been consumed in a reactor. Good reactors for Cyanite are tall reactors with fuel rods in a diagonal pattern -- no cooling required.

Eventually when you have enough cyanite you can build an efficient reactor to supply your steam scaled to match your output needs. Lasers will generate more yellorite ore than they consume even without a laser focus. Yellow laser focus will increase the chance of yellowrite.

Once you are done building turbines you can also convert cyanite to bluetonium and run it as fuel in the reactor the same as yellorium.

I only use one type of turbine, which is 14x9x9 and is made up of 37 enderium blocks, 80 rotor blades, 12 rotors, ~500 casings. The interior of the turbine is 5 coils of enderium which has space for 40 blocks, but you leave 3 out anywhere you like. The remaining rotor space is all blades, with six sets being 3 long and one set 2 long. 2000mb/t input = 24077 TF/t Output.


0.3.3A references:
Turbine tests -
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...UxOUGxMRlpERWtPMmtGT213bmc&toomany=true#gid=1

Reactor Layout tests -
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1df7-8OqdOeWppfr1xZsV5eFqBWUeGGvtyQ6e1agJN2s/edit#gid=0

 

[Skyqula]

I highly recommend the 9x9x3 reactor (http://imgur.com/tbHJjoh). Easy to build and very very fuel efficient (throttle to 70% for 3k7 RF/t @ 0.041 mB/t fuel consumption). To add to this, its very scalable to late game. Turning it into a actively cooled reactor at 70% rod controll provides enough steam to power 1, 900 RPM turbine. While setting it to 40% rod controll provides the perfect amount for 2, 900 RPM turbines (47k RF/t @ 0.074mB/t fuel consumption).