Big Reactors Turbines?

[randomhobo]

So I'm a huge fan of big reactors, I try to set one up ASAP when I create a new world so my energy needs are taken care of. However, I've never built one of the turbines, basically because I couldn't understand what was the point when the reactor can just directly generate power. So I'm wandering what the advantage is, are they more efficient or faster or are they just a way to show off the amount of resources you have?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[McJty]

You can produce more power with the same fuel input if you do active cooling with turbines.

 

[midi_sec]

So I'm wandering what the advantage is, are they more efficient or faster or are they just a way to show off the amount of resources you have?

a little from column A, a little from column B. but mostly from column A.

 

[MigukNamja]

Turbines are more efficient, yes. Unfortunately, with the way the BigReactors mod is *currently* setup, you can't build one until *after* you've had a reactor running for a while. That's a shame, IMHO. Turbines are best built *from the beginning*. Indeed, you don't need a reactor to power one. Any steam will do, such as Railcraft boilers, or a Factorization Solar Boiler.

When I play a new world with BigReactors again, I will use MineTweaker to substitute something like gold, diamond, or diamond blocks for the Cyanite and Blutonium in the Turbine recipes. I'll also try powering the Turbine with Railcraft boilers, just to do something different.

 

[zilvarwolf]

too much work. Just cheat in the cyanite and blutonium and trash a block of diamonds in exchange

 

[MigukNamja]

too much work. Just cheat in the cyanite and blutonium and trash a block of diamonds in exchange

(edit : the previous GIF was epileptic seizure-incuding)

MineTweaker somehow makes it official, bringing the cheat into the light of day and purifying it.

 

[midi_sec]

Spoiler

 

[zilvarwolf]

(edit : the previous GIF was epileptic seizure-incuding)

MineTweaker somehow makes it official, bringing the cheat into the light of day and purifying it.

I suppose I can see that, but it would bother me to make that a change (maybe an added recipe) when I'd only want to change it BACK after the turbine had been running for an hour or four.

 

[Pyure]

Turbines are more efficient, yes. Unfortunately, with the way the BigReactors mod is *currently* setup, you can't build one until *after* you've had a reactor running for a while. That's a shame, IMHO. Turbines are best built *from the beginning*. Indeed, you don't need a reactor to power one. Any steam will do, such as Railcraft boilers, or a Factorization Solar Boiler.

When I play a new world with BigReactors again, I will use MineTweaker to substitute something like gold, diamond, or diamond blocks for the Cyanite and Blutonium in the Turbine recipes. I'll also try powering the Turbine with Railcraft boilers, just to do something different.

I actually came up with a functional argument to this once, I don't recall that you ever responded

You could argue that Big Reactors added the turbines as a bit of a tier. If you want to reach Tier2, you need to get through Tier1 first. I think that's plausible, and its decent game design.

 

[MigukNamja]

I actually came up with a functional argument to this once, I don't recall that you ever responded

Oh, man, very sorry for missing it. My fault and I apologize. Would you please point me to that ?

You could argue that Big Reactors added the turbines as a bit of a tier. If you want to reach Tier2, you need to get through Tier1 first. I think that's plausible, and its decent game design.

I can totally see that was the design intent, yes. However, my allowing the Turbine to run on *steam*, EregeonousBeef either intentionally or unintentionally opened up the door for other steam-producers to power it.

As for a Tier 2, and this is just *my* opinion, a different, more refined fuel source with perhaps different fertilization and heat characteristics would have been more appropriate. Perhaps one would you have to centrifuge Cyanite or Blutonium to get to this 2nd-tier, higher-output fuel source.

The Turbine, in *my* opinion is a parallel add-on that has the added benefit of making Yellorium-to-RF more efficient. Not really a Tier 2 the way it's implemented. Designed, perhaps, implemented, no.

But, that's my opinion.

 

[Pyure]

Oh, man, very sorry for missing it. My fault and I apologize. Would you please point me to that ?



I can totally see that was the design intent, yes. However, my allowing the Turbine to run on *steam*, EregeonousBeef either intentionally or unintentionally opened up the door for other steam-producers to power it.

As for a Tier 2, and this is just *my* opinion, a different, more refined fuel source with perhaps different fertilization and heat characteristics would have been more appropriate. Perhaps one would you have to centrifuge Cyanite or Blutonium to get to this 2nd-tier, higher-output fuel source.

The Turbine, in *my* opinion is a parallel add-on that has the added benefit of making Yellorium-to-RF more efficient. Not really a Tier 2 the way it's implemented. Designed, perhaps, implemented, no.

But, that's my opinion.

Good arguments!

My counter argument, and in its current alpha stage, its a compelling one: if there's nothing forcing you through "tier 1", nobody will do it. There's no reason to get less-than-optimal nuclear efficiency if you can cut straight to turbines. By removing the cyanite requirement, you're essentially obsoleting their whole passively-cooled reactor mechanism.

(Lack of mineable resources, obviously, is never a valid obstruction to cutting straight to tier 2. Unless, I guess, its freaking iridium)

BTW: I'm having fun running my steam into railcraft turbines for EUs

 

[MigukNamja]

Good arguments!

My counter argument, and in its current alpha stage, its a compelling one: if there's nothing forcing you through "tier 1", nobody will do it. There's no reason to get less-than-optimal nuclear efficiency if you can cut straight to turbines. By removing the cyanite requirement, you're essentially obsoleting their whole passively-cooled reactor mechanism.

That might be true for some players, yes. However, many will choose (as they are choosing today) to stay with a passively cooled reactor design and simply make it bigger, never bothering to setup a steam turbine. There are many reasons why it's this way and many ways to fix it, but I don't believe parallelizing the Turbine will make passively-cooled reactors obsolete.

One way you could make it more *difficult* to build a steam turbine is requiring more experience material, like steel, diamonds, blocks of gold, iridium, etc.,. Hence, you could build an actively-cooled reactor earlier in the game, which is a soft tiering/gating rather than the current hard tiering/gating mechanism.

(Lack of mineable resources, obviously, is never a valid obstruction to cutting straight to tier 2. Unless, I guess, its freaking iridium)

BTW: I'm having fun running my steam into railcraft turbines for EUs

And *that* is one of the reasons I really like this mod and see a bright future for it. It fully embraces *steam* power, which is, IMHO, the only truly universal power medium out there. People bitch about IC2 power (packets, voltage, transformers, etc.,.), RF (it's too easy), and MJ (it's out-dated). However, I haven't heard anyone bitch about steam, mainly because it's so simple *and* it has direct correlation to the real world.

In the real world, the majority of fixed power relies upon steam production and turbines.

 

[Pyure]

One way you could make it more *difficult* to build a steam turbine is requiring more experience material, like steel, diamonds, blocks of gold, iridium, etc.,. Hence, you could build an actively-cooled reactor earlier in the game, which is a soft tiering/gating rather than the current hard tiering/gating mechanism.

I still maintain that its a less compelling gating system, except in special circumstances: GT specifically makes a lot of resources hard to get, and they make fantastic gating mechanics.

And *that* is one of the reasons I really like this mod and see a bright future for it. It fully embraces *steam* power, which is, IMHO, the only truly universal power medium out there. People bitch about IC2 power (packets, voltage, transformers, etc.,.), RF (it's too easy), and MJ (it's out-dated). However, I haven't heard anyone bitch about steam, mainly because it's so simple *and* it has direct correlation to the real world.

In the real world, the majority of fixed power relies upon steam production and turbines.

Agreed; love steam power. Its a shame that the only "universal-ish" power is also kind of, well, steam-punk.

Slight tangent: if @Reika's ElectriCraft irons out its last performance quibbles (variable input fluctuations), its going to be my all-time favorite energy system. ElC successfully implemented in a clear and uncomplicated way what eu's tried (and failed) to do.

I'd pay money for ElC to magically work on IC2 machines.

 

[MigukNamja]

I'd pay money for ElC to magically work on IC2 machines.

Oh, yeah. Call me a masochist, but I actually liked IC2 EU power in 1.5. The packets made sense and the transformers *worked as designed*. IC2 EU power since 1.6 has been an exercise in "WTF ?"

 

[Pyure]

Oh, yeah. Call me a masochist, but I actually liked IC2 EU power in 1.5. The packets made sense and the transformers *worked as designed*. IC2 EU power since 1.6 has been an exercise in "WTF ?"

So true

I've heard rumors that 1.7 GT addresses this. No idea how well.

 

[Reika]

I'd pay money for ElC to magically work on IC2 machines.

While this is possible for me to do, it would make me very unpopular with IC2/GT devs.

 

[Pyure]

While this is possible for me to do, it would make me very unpopular with IC2/GT devs.

I actually didn't think it was possible (or at least meaningfully workable). If you're not aware, they no longer have a two-part electrical system. Its 1V per packet, and everything is sent around in various-sized packets. (true as of 1.6. I have no idea what's going on with 1.7)

 

[Reika]

I actually didn't think it was possible (or at least meaningfully workable). If you're not aware, they no longer have a two-part electrical system. Its 1V per packet, and everything is sent around in various-sized packets. (true as of 1.6. I have no idea what's going on with 1.7)

That makes conversion easier.

 

[Peppe]

Current Version of Big Reactors adds a recipe for cyanite. It is sand + yellorite.

Can jump right into turbines as soon as you have enough iron.

To the OP.

What does a good passive reactor produce in ~ 9x9x3 size? Maybe 8-10k RF/t? Turbine is potentially 70k RF/t for ~.111 yellorite a tick.

In active cooling you can get a little over 6k steam. Each turbine can use 2k.

I build two types of turbines:
enderium coil = 24k RF/t
or electrum coil = 14k RF/t

 

[Pyure]

Current Version of Big Reactors adds a recipe for cyanite. It is sand + yellorite.

Can jump right into turbines as soon as you have enough iron.

also:

Can be disabled via enableCyaniteFromYelloriumRecipe setting.

so everyone's happy