BigReactors and Turbines (and Railcraft)

[xBlizzDevious]

Hello! For reference, I'm using Monster V1.1.2

I'm playing on a server that my friends and I are building up quite rapidly (spare time galore) and we're at the stage where we're not sure what power source to use (after moving our base). Currently, we've got a 7x7x7 BigReactors reactor that I built as an emergency power source when our power usage sky-rocketed past what our Railcraft Boilers could handle (damn 11x11x11 MAC)...

Anyways, I've been researching active BigReactors and turbines all night and cannot get my head around quite what I'm needing.

Basically, we're currently producing up to 14.3kRF/t (rednet controlled reactor) and that's quite a bit more than we need. BUT, we're going to build at least one MFR laser, probably four eventually, that we want to be able to run at full power. As for the rest of the base, we don't and won't need too much, though somewhere between 10k and 20kRF/t is probably a safe solution.

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So sums-wise: for now, we want something that'll produce around 30-40kRF/t, but with the ability to scale to 100kRF/t. Whether that be by building it bigger later or by using control rod limits. What would be the best solution for reactor(s) and turbines or perhaps RC Boilers and turbines?
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For RC Boilers, we've got a significant amount of fuel and we have an ocean oil field world made with Mystcraft so we're never going to have a shortage of oil. Would it be easier to set up a number of HP boilers (we already have a couple built) and run them on Buildcraft's fuel?

And the one thing I cannot figure out is fluid management. Nothing seems to be non-laggy and sufficient. From my testing with an ME system, it seems to be very difficult to pump in enough water and when you succeed, it's very difficult to control as well as keep power usage down. I have a small ME system that uses something like 4MJ/t on its own. I added in a fluid interface and pumped in as much water as I could with a single ExtraUtilities transfer node and the power usage sky-rocketed to 240MJ/t!!!

TL;DR: Read the bit between the asterisks for a slightly detailed description or:
100kRF/t, what build should I go with?
What is the best solution for fluid management, especially making enough water?

 

[GreenZombie]

On the water management front - A steam turbine converts *all* the steam it gets back into water - so a Big Reactor / Turbine combo can run as a closed loop, with only an initial injection of water.
Most, if not all fluidducts that carry water and steam have a per connection transfer limit (both in and out I think) so you can (technically) create a bunch of input/output ports on a reactor and turbine and connect one fluidduct so it spans multiple ports on either side. I think 40 ports on each, 20 each for input and output would do it as a turbine has a max of 2000mB/t and each connection can do 100mB/t iirc.
Tesseracts have no such restriction so if you can get around the fact that exotic teleportation technology needs to be used to transport steam and water less than 10 meters these are the most lag free method. A single input and single output tesseract on a reactor can support any number of turbines.

Of course, with all that buildcraft fuel it would be foolish to not consider using RC HP steam boilers feeding the turbines. Max sized HP steam boilers can produce 720mB/t steam so you need 2.7 steam boilers per max sized turbine.

As an alternative to Tesseracts as they are cheesy in the extreme:
* EnderIO has apparently got impressive per connection flow rates.
* This mod deserves a look in: http://www.minecraftforum.net/forum...essure-pipes-v0-9-4-unlimited-fluid-transport

 

[Skyqula]

Adding on to @Chris Becke: You can build your turbine and reactor next to eachother with the I/O ports connecting. They will automaticly eject into eachother, since the turbines return all steam used as water you create a closed loop without the need for anny piping at all.

If your going to add in mods, you could also look into mekanism, those pipes also have quite high transfer limits.

As for a reactor, your current 7x7x7 should do, at most with a few small tweaks. The pattern you want is like this:

C C C C C C C
C A E E E A C
C E R G R E C
C E G R G E C
C E R G R E C
C A E E E A C
C C C C C C C

Where:

• C = Casing
• A = annything (air/glass/etc)
• E = Resonant Ender
• G = Gelid Cryotheum
• R = Fuel Rod

This reactor will at most produce 8060 mb/t. Enough to power 4 max sixed turbines, at 24000 RF/t each thats good for 96000 RF/t. Setting the controll rods to 25%/50%/75% you reduces the steam produced to 6000/4000/2000. Wich translates into 72000 RF/t, 48000 RF/t, 24000 RF/t.

This wont be the most efficient reactor, but it is still efficient enough to selfsustain of a MFR laser drill with no foci. Thats also without re-using the cyanite, wich on its own could run a second reactor.

Edit: BTW, I recommend using a redstone port to set the controll rods, just adjust the "while redstone signal is low" section.

 

[xBlizzDevious]

On the water management front - A steam turbine converts *all* the steam it gets back into water - so a Big Reactor / Turbine combo can run as a closed loop, with only an initial injection of water.
Most, if not all fluidducts that carry water and steam have a per connection transfer limit (both in and out I think) so you can (technically) create a bunch of input/output ports on a reactor and turbine and connect one fluidduct so it spans multiple ports on either side. I think 40 ports on each, 20 each for input and output would do it as a turbine has a max of 2000mB/t and each connection can do 100mB/t iirc.
Tesseracts have no such restriction so if you can get around the fact that exotic teleportation technology needs to be used to transport steam and water less than 10 meters these are the most lag free method. A single input and single output tesseract on a reactor can support any number of turbines.

Of course, with all that buildcraft fuel it would be foolish to not consider using RC HP steam boilers feeding the turbines. Max sized HP steam boilers can produce 720mB/t steam so you need 2.7 steam boilers per max sized turbine.

As an alternative to Tesseracts as they are cheesy in the extreme:
* EnderIO has apparently got impressive per connection flow rates.
* This mod deserves a look in: http://www.minecraftforum.net/forum...essure-pipes-v0-9-4-unlimited-fluid-transport

Interesting. I won't be able to add mods in, unfortunately, though that does look like a good mod to have with such high throughput machines.

Thanks for the other info too.

Adding on to @Chris Becke: You can build your turbine and reactor next to eachother with the I/O ports connecting. They will automaticly eject into eachother, since the turbines return all steam used as water you create a closed loop without the need for anny piping at all.

If your going to add in mods, you could also look into mekanism, those pipes also have quite high transfer limits.

As for a reactor, your current 7x7x7 should do, at most with a few small tweaks. The pattern you want is like this:

C C C C C C C
C A E E E A C
C E R G R E C
C E G R G E C
C E R G R E C
C A E E E A C
C C C C C C C

Where:

• C = Casing
• A = annything (air/glass/etc)
• E = Resonant Ender
• G = Gelid Cryotheum
• R = Fuel Rod

This reactor will at most produce 8060 mb/t. Enough to power 4 max sixed turbines, at 24000 RF/t each thats good for 96000 RF/t. Setting the controll rods to 25%/50%/75% you reduces the steam produced to 6000/4000/2000. Wich translates into 72000 RF/t, 48000 RF/t, 24000 RF/t.

This wont be the most efficient reactor, but it is still efficient enough to selfsustain of a MFR laser drill with no foci. Thats also without re-using the cyanite, wich on its own could run a second reactor.

Edit: BTW, I recommend using a redstone port to set the controll rods, just adjust the "while redstone signal is low" section.

My current passive reactor is almost exactly that. I've got a 7x7x7 with 5 rods, and ender around the edge, but I put ender on the inside too as we've not gotten Cryotheum yet. From my quick testing on a single player creative world, I was producing 2521mB/t or something like that, but I thought you couldn't put liquids within an active reactor? EDIT: Just tested again with your setup, yes, I can put fluids in an active reactor and yes, it does make around 8000mB/t of steam.

However, I seem to have no feasible way of supplying it with water. I've got 6 transfer nodes with a stack of each upgrade pouring in tonnes and tonnes of water and it still can't keep up. I even made one whole side inputs just in case that was the bottleneck. It's sitting around 7700mB/t and occasionally rising to above 8000.

Thanks for the info though. Really helpful!

EDIT: I suppose the whole water thing doesn't really matter. I was only running one turbine, so that's not going to return all the water that the other - non-existent - turbines aren't using.

However, how will I deal with activating individual turbines - ie. when I have the reactor on 75%, I want to not have the steam go to the three other turbines, but I guess it'll spread it between them all, right?