Big Reactors : Smallest self sustaining?

[neeneko]

But that doesn't really help us if we're looking for "smallest" self sustaining.

Since one of the key requirements is 'self sustaining', I would say that helps.

 

[Pyure]

Since one of the key requirements is 'self sustaining', I would say that helps.

Hey, since you're the op, if you're happy with that, so am I

 

[KnightOwl]

Hey, since you're the op, if you're happy with that, so am I

Is there a video anywhere showing how to setup Cryo in this kind of setup? I've never seen anything that officially says flowing liquids count as coolant or how to best get cryo flowing.

 

[Pyure]

Is there a video anywhere showing how to setup Cryo in this kind of setup? I've never seen anything that officially says flowing liquids count as coolant or how to best get cryo flowing.

Dunno about a video. Fwiw the word on the street is that you don't need just source blocks, flowing work fine.

 

[ChemE]

Dunno about a video. Fwiw the word on the street is that you don't need just source blocks, flowing work fine.

I've never used source blocks in my reactors. Flowing works perfectly fine. In fact the only BR I ever build uses exactly 4 buckets of gelid cryotheum despite have 25 fuel rods!

 

[neeneko]

Well, I will now admit, active cooling is being nice and complex, though the available ways of moving so much steam has been disappointing.

Though in trying to balance things, is it my imagination, or does the mb/t vary by how much fuel is in the reactor? That is going to make autobalancing interesting.

It is a pitty there is no redstone output for rod insertion since that would make for some nice feedback.

 

[ChemE]

Well, I will now admit, active cooling is being nice and complex, though the available ways of moving so much steam has been disappointing.

Though in trying to balance things, is it my imagination, or does the mb/t vary by how much fuel is in the reactor? That is going to make autobalancing interesting.

It is a pitty there is no redstone output for rod insertion since that would make for some nice feedback.

I don't usually attempt to move the steam. Just build the turbine right next to the reactor so that the reactor coolant ports touch the turbine fluid ports. You will need a third reactor coolant port to fill the system with water initially, but once the turbine is up to speed you can stop feeding water and run the system as a closed loop.

 

[GamerwithnoGame]

I don't usually attempt to move the steam. Just build the turbine right next to the reactor so that the reactor coolant ports touch the turbine fluid ports. You will need a third reactor coolant port to fill the system with water initially, but once the turbine is up to speed you can stop feeding water and run the system as a closed loop.

Hmm I've been umming and ahhing about building a turbine touching my reactor, as I'm pretty sure it would be across a chunk boundary. Aside from resources for tesseracts (which I've already pre-built) do I lose anything by having them connected by tesseract?

 

[Ieldra]

Well, I will now admit, active cooling is being nice and complex, though the available ways of moving so much steam has been disappointing.

Though in trying to balance things, is it my imagination, or does the mb/t vary by how much fuel is in the reactor? That is going to make autobalancing interesting.

It is a pitty there is no redstone output for rod insertion since that would make for some nice feedback.

I recommend Mekanism Mechanical Pipes. The ultimate version can move 6400 mB/t, that's enough to supply three maximum-size turbines. I haven't looked at the new Thermal Dynamics though, maybe the fluiducts can now be upgraded.

As for control, I recommend the Programmable Redstone Controller from MFR. An extremely simple way to control a passive reactor is to output the percentage of energy in the energy buffer and return it unchanged into the Control Rod Insertion channel. The energy buffer gets full if the reactor produces more than needed and vice versa. Works like a charm. For active reactors, the same might work with the steam buffer, but I haven't tried that yet.

Edit:
@Gamer:
I've used Tesseracts in the past. Works perfectly.

 

[neeneko]

I don't usually attempt to move the steam. Just build the turbine right next to the reactor so that the reactor coolant ports touch the turbine fluid ports. You will need a third reactor coolant port to fill the system with water initially, but once the turbine is up to speed you can stop feeding water and run the system as a closed loop.

*nod* in my creative world I ended up using tesseracts, but for my actual base this is what I am intending to do. The downside though is that this means I can only hook up one turbine so my reactor will have to stay stepped down. Unless I build a whole bank of bedrockium drums. Hrm......

 

[Ieldra]

*nod* in my creative world I ended up using tesseracts, but for my actual base this is what I am intending to do. The downside though is that this means I can only hook up one turbine so my reactor will have to stay stepped down. Unless I build a whole bank of bedrockium drums. Hrm......

You can have as many coolant ports as you want. You should have no problem attaching up to 6 turbines directly to one reactor, assuming its external dimensions are at least 9x9. I had a reactor with 16 coolant ports - 8 in, 8 out - in my AS reactor. There I had to use tesseracts of course, but the point is that the number of coolant ports is not limited to 2.

 

[neeneko]

I recommend Mekanism Mechanical Pipes. The ultimate version can move 6400 mB/t, that's enough to supply three maximum-size turbines. I haven't looked at the new Thermal Dynamics though, maybe the fluiducts can now be upgraded.

As for control, I recommend the Programmable Redstone Controller from MFR. An extremely simple way to control a passive reactor is to output the percentage of energy in the energy buffer and return it unchanged into the Control Rod Insertion channel. The energy buffer gets full if the reactor produces more than needed and vice versa. Works like a charm. For active reactors, the same might work with the steam buffer, but I haven't tried that yet.

Sadly I am working within the constraints of the DW20 pack, so no Mekanism. The new Thermal Dynamics pipes are still pretty limited, upgrades can double the pull rate but that is still way below the 2000mb/t needed.

I had not checked to see what MFR options were available under active cooling, I should peek that. I admit I have been kinda avoiding both MFR and CC since I prefer in-world building as opposed to programmable blocks (too much coding in my day job ^_^), so I try to find solutions that use redstone or project red stuff. The redstone port almost does the job, or would if it had more output types. Hrm, I wonder what it would take to change the mod or write a companion....

 

[Ieldra]

I admit I have been kinda avoiding both MFR and CC since I prefer in-world building as opposed to programmable blocks (too much coding in my day job ^_^)

LOL, same here. I do this all day, so I really prefer to get away from it when I play, but the PRC setup is really simple. The problem with actively-cooled reactors is that the turbines' RPM have a "sweet spot" and they get really inefficient if you're too far away from it, so the same kind of analog return I used in the passive reactors may not work as well in active ones.

BTW, I don't know if you're on a server controlled by someone else, but if not, adding Mekanism to your modpack shouldn't be a big problem. The newest version needs upgrades to Waila and AOBD, but otherwise the latest manual upgrade worked well for me.

 

[DrKnoz]

Or just add rotarycraft and reactorcraft and build a proper nuclear plant that is somewhat realistic and puts out more power than you will ever need ;-)

While we are at adding mods ;-)

 

[Ieldra]

Or just add rotarycraft and reactorcraft and build a proper nuclear plant that is somewhat realistic and puts out more power than you will ever need ;-)

While we are at adding mods ;-)

Been there, done that. Building the fusion reactor was one of the most interesting projects I've ever done in modded Minecraft. Running it, however, not so much. As long as you can't shut the damn thing off (i.e. you can't shut off the pipe containment) and it needs an insanely overpowered canola farm to keep up with the lubricant needs (you count those in buckets per second) I won't go there again. If you just need the power for other projects rather than make the reactors your main projects, you're better off with Big Reactors unless you really need power in the MRF/t range.

 

[DrKnoz]

I just set up an HTGR and its looking very good so far.
I bet i could have just filled the big power plant building with one enormous big reactor, but it would provide less power than 170k , unless you overheat it to the max, and be really lame and boring.


Disclaimer: I am running 1.6.4. and slightly older versions of the mods because i disagree with a number of recent changes - like requiring lubricant for magnetostatic engines, changes to the power conversion ratio (which fucks every other addon completely and makes reikas stuff totally unbalanced with everything else) and some other stuff that is just creating artificial difficulty/a big mess.

Addon versions as of techworld 2 1.1.7


Would be interesting to know how the useable reactors(everything non fusion) work in Minecraft 1.7xxx modpacks.

For 1.6.4 they are definitily the most cool, and ultimately most effective power sources.

 

[Ieldra]

@DrKnoz:
Yeah, before Reika changed things so that everything runs on lubricant rather than reactor fuel now (that was in v25 of 1.6.4 I think) things were much more enjoyable. I'd probably be running another one just now. Reika's mods are really intricate, and I like that, but that also means some changes have repercussions I just won't go along with.

 

[Pyure]

Though in trying to balance things, is it my imagination, or does the mb/t vary by how much fuel is in the reactor? That is going to make autobalancing interesting.

The reactor does run more efficiently when its cores are full of power. This is sensible since we're talking about chain reactions which would increase exponentially with the amount of fuel inside.

That said, the input hatch buffer doesn't count towards this value. Just whether or not your fuel is at 100% when you look at the controller.

I don't usually attempt to move the steam. Just build the turbine right next to the reactor so that the reactor coolant ports touch the turbine fluid ports. You will need a third reactor coolant port to fill the system with water initially, but once the turbine is up to speed you can stop feeding water and run the system as a closed loop.

I recommend doing this too. I've never had a problem with the parts crossing chunk boundaries, and its nice to reduce the amount of infrastructure (piping) impact on your cpu/gpu.

 

[GamerwithnoGame]

You can have as many coolant ports as you want. You should have no problem attaching up to 6 turbines directly to one reactor, assuming its external dimensions are at least 9x9. I had a reactor with 16 coolant ports - 8 in, 8 out - in my AS reactor. There I had to use tesseracts of course, but the point is that the number of coolant ports is not limited to 2.

Now there is a thought: Can you use 1 output and 1 input port on the reactor, but (for example) 1 tesseract on each turbine coolant input tuned to the same frequency as the reactor's output tesseract? i.e. it divides the steam equally amongst each?

 

[neeneko]

The reactor does run more efficiently when its cores are full of power. This is sensible since we're talking about chain reactions which would increase exponentially with the amount of fuel inside.

That said, the input hatch buffer doesn't count towards this value. Just whether or not your fuel is at 100% when you look at the controller.

So values are consistent as long as I have fuel in the buffer.

Hrm, does anyone know what the redstone port '% energy' represents when running in active mode? I was hoping to use it to compensate for the efficiency change, but it looks like it is just signalling all the time.