Mod Feedback [By Request] RotaryCraft Suggestions
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I used Google for my searches, everyone knows that terrorists use Yahoo, I know this because I looked it up on Google. 
In all seriousness, to get the train back on the tracks though, (even though this is a Reactorcraft train on Rotorycraft tracks) I am curious what potential Reactorcraft add ons are in planning, if any at all. Thorium is in the game, however from my understanding the most abundant way to get Th is from Monazite (which would require additional ore gen), and I believe another usable isotope of Th is a daughter decay product of Uranium-238. I know Reika is all about realism (which is why I play his mods), but there is a fine line between injecting science into a sandbox type game, vs turning the mod into a hard nosed simulator. I'd eventually love to see reactor designs where a central core fueled with a fissile fuel fires neutrons off to hit other cores filled with fertile fuels, such as Thorium or Uranium-238. I honestly use the mods for the science and the challenge, the power output is just a plus. If I wanted to turn off my brain and just go pure power I could use countless other mods that can fill my power needs, so for that Reika, I thank you.
Side Rotarycraft note: I wonder if the concept of using hydraulic power ever came to mind? Would be an interesting concept to turn shaft speed and torque into a PSI mechanic. What it could be used for? Who knows, but it would add an different wrinkle into Rotarycraft that I think is more true to it's nature then some of these more "magical" ideas floating about.
In all seriousness, to get the train back on the tracks though, (even though this is a Reactorcraft train on Rotorycraft tracks) I am curious what potential Reactorcraft add ons are in planning, if any at all. Thorium is in the game, however from my understanding the most abundant way to get Th is from Monazite (which would require additional ore gen), and I believe another usable isotope of Th is a daughter decay product of Uranium-238. I know Reika is all about realism (which is why I play his mods), but there is a fine line between injecting science into a sandbox type game, vs turning the mod into a hard nosed simulator. I'd eventually love to see reactor designs where a central core fueled with a fissile fuel fires neutrons off to hit other cores filled with fertile fuels, such as Thorium or Uranium-238. I honestly use the mods for the science and the challenge, the power output is just a plus. If I wanted to turn off my brain and just go pure power I could use countless other mods that can fill my power needs, so for that Reika, I thank you.
Side Rotarycraft note: I wonder if the concept of using hydraulic power ever came to mind? Would be an interesting concept to turn shaft speed and torque into a PSI mechanic. What it could be used for? Who knows, but it would add an different wrinkle into Rotarycraft that I think is more true to it's nature then some of these more "magical" ideas floating about.
Thorium was initially added because I was planning on making Thorium reactors. Those plans were shelved when I realized it added nothing new to the gameplay.
That actually existed in RC for a version, but it was immediately removed because it was no more easy to use than shaft power, was expensive ingame, and was ill-fitting for a shaft power mod.
V25 is already out, so not likely, especially considering that I can see nothing that changed from a code standpoint, and thus hours of digging would be required to actually find the issue.
Thank you for addressing my curiosities Reika. After I initially thought of hydraulic power I remember the interpretation of old school MJ as kind of a pneumatic power and realized it would be like reinventing the wheel when you are already building sports cars. I'm sad to hear that Thorium is shelved, and am hopeful it is more like back burner-ed. Although it is "just another type of fuel" for reactors, it does have it's differences from the two other in existence.
First and perhaps the most important is a significant reduction in waste. As we all start to build ridiculous fission power plants and really push the envelope of what can be done, waste is (and should be since it's realistic) a major factor. Secondly is it is more common in the Earth and requires very little processing. Lastly is that Thorium is unique in that once the fissile fuel is removed or depleted, all reaction comes to a complete halt, which could become a blessing or another note in planning for players.
Of course it would have it's disadvantages as well, such as the extensive time it takes in a breeder reactor, and the reprocessing of the fuel, but even this reprocessing could open other possibilities, such as being able to pull Uranium out of the irradiated Thorium fuel, to then have those neutrons further continue the reaction.
Thorium could also influence resources required to build machines, since its commonly paired with magnesium and tungsten in high temp situations, however since this is commonly used in the aerospace community, I'm sure you are well aware of that and opted from it for good reason.
Regardless I just wanted to say, as a player, that you created a monster that has captured the imagination of a lot of players, including myself. The possibilities are vast, and although different designs may seem tedious or redundant, since in the end all we are doing is creating steam to power turbines, we could all settle for the safer pebble bed reactors, but that just isn't fun at all!
Also big props to Demosthenex, your research with the fission reactors really made me want to push the envelope in my own builds. Sorry to hear about your exploding issues, I appreciate you posting your findings in an easy to read and interpret fashion.
First and perhaps the most important is a significant reduction in waste. As we all start to build ridiculous fission power plants and really push the envelope of what can be done, waste is (and should be since it's realistic) a major factor. Secondly is it is more common in the Earth and requires very little processing. Lastly is that Thorium is unique in that once the fissile fuel is removed or depleted, all reaction comes to a complete halt, which could become a blessing or another note in planning for players.
Of course it would have it's disadvantages as well, such as the extensive time it takes in a breeder reactor, and the reprocessing of the fuel, but even this reprocessing could open other possibilities, such as being able to pull Uranium out of the irradiated Thorium fuel, to then have those neutrons further continue the reaction.
Thorium could also influence resources required to build machines, since its commonly paired with magnesium and tungsten in high temp situations, however since this is commonly used in the aerospace community, I'm sure you are well aware of that and opted from it for good reason.
Regardless I just wanted to say, as a player, that you created a monster that has captured the imagination of a lot of players, including myself. The possibilities are vast, and although different designs may seem tedious or redundant, since in the end all we are doing is creating steam to power turbines, we could all settle for the safer pebble bed reactors, but that just isn't fun at all!
Also big props to Demosthenex, your research with the fission reactors really made me want to push the envelope in my own builds. Sorry to hear about your exploding issues
, I appreciate you posting your findings in an easy to read and interpret fashion.
So thorium fuel essentially burns cleaner? How is it normally obtained? I am willing to work it in as long as it can be cleanly inserted.
HOLY COW!!!! That is one big changelog! Time to break out the coffee and sleeping bags, this might just be an all-nighter!Bring a sleeping bag.
EDIT1:Good thing about the bedrock axe algorithm, I have had to unplug my computer to fix crashes in the past.
EDIT2: I am a little sad about the converter lube requirement though. Goodbye line of magnetostatics powering my factory!
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Bring a sleeping bag.
I read every line and it was riveting! I can't wait to try it out on our next server! Woot!
Reika, I'm very impressed how many of the suggestion from this thread made it in the changelog. I counted at least five I was aware of. Thank you for being so responsive!
I'm off to upgrade so I can grind chickens and make Chicken McReika's!
Just thought of a suggestion I haven't seen here.
I've seen the Applied Energistics Grinder, where you have a handle on the top and you have to right click it to turn and grind ore.
Would it make sense to have a "manual engine", which is a three meter lever on an axis, where each time you click it you produce 5kJ? What possible use could that have? You could slowly charge a coil to run a grinder, or other things?
I've seen the Applied Energistics Grinder, where you have a handle on the top and you have to right click it to turn and grind ore.
Would it make sense to have a "manual engine", which is a three meter lever on an axis, where each time you click it you produce 5kJ? What possible use could that have? You could slowly charge a coil to run a grinder, or other things?
A human can generate at most 400W or so. It could not run a single machine.
I was hoping someone would notice that.
@Reika - There are a lot of theories regarding Thorium, and proposed ideas, however the practical applications that have been done are actually very promising and very "plug and play" with your systems already in game.
-Thorium is, as I mention, strictly used for breeding. Much like how non fissile uranium can be bombarded to become plutonium, thorium can actually be turned into a fissile isotope of uranium (U-233). Now scientists in the late 50's and 60's actually were able to do this in reactors that once bred plutonium, meaning the mechanics are more or less the same. Easy peezy. Since you handle breeder fuel as a special fuel source, instead of taking a fertile element and bombarding it with neutrons from a fissile element, it probably would be handled best as a "substitution" for the depleted uranium in the crafting grid. HOWEVER, another potential draw towards Thorium, is that they have done Th-Pu breeder environments, so as someone had mentioned before about wanting to use Plutonium to make fuel, this would indeed do it. The only difference would be that using Thorium in either a Th-U or Th-Pu breeding environment, would result in Uranium and not Plutonium, however the resulting waste, as previously mentioned is estimated to be "Thousands times less then Uranium" and what waste that is produced, the average half life is only a few hundred years versus thousands and so on.
-The breeding reaction was reported to be much slower and requiring much more energy, so actually thermal energy production isn't the main draw in this build, the glory lies in the ability to "mass produce" uranium.
-The isotope of Th used for breeder reactors is the majority of all naturally occurring thorium. To quote the wiki, "The preparation of thorium fuel does not require isotopic separation, unlike the preparation of uranium fuels." As far as how to produce it..
"Thorium is found in small amounts in most rocks and soils; it is three times more abundant than tin in the Earth's crust and is about as common as lead. Soil commonly contains an average of around 6 parts per million (ppm) of thorium. Thorium occurs in several minerals including thorite (ThSiO4), thorianite (ThO2 + UO2) and monazite. Thorianite is a rare mineral and may contain up to about 12% thorium oxide. Monazite contains 2.5% thorium, allanite has 0.1 to 2% thorium and zircon can have up to 0.4% thorium. Thorium-containing minerals occur on all continents. Thorium is several times more abundant in Earth's crust than all isotopes of uranium combined and thorium-232 is several hundred times more abundant than uranium-235."
So short of having a new ore gen, it looks like there are traces of it in soil and common rock. Maybe we can produce it similarly to Tungsten, where we would have to run stone through the extractor stacks at a time? The only trip up would be, would we really want 5x duplication of cobblestone as the primary product with a small chance of thorium by-product? Also this would raise a duping issue, since cobble and stone are basically the same and can be reverse produced. Would it be possible to ignore the law of matter conservation and have the resulting "primary" by-product of cobble/stone/whatever have you, through the extractor literally be so insignificant to even be worth an item? ie: run 1 cobblestone through the extractor, get stone dust, slurry, etc, but once it's about to get turned into flakes, if no Thorium is produced, literally have no product for that operation? If you respect the laws of nature too much perhaps have the resulting "primary" product become something that cannot be turned back into stone, but makes sense, like the over purification of rock becoming sand at the end. Regardless, if you decide to go this route, this would 1) Make cobblestone/stone actually valuable, 2) Make it more of a time sink considering we are basically by-passing the uranium enrichment process. Maybe even make a requirement to overclock the extractor before you could even start to get thorium by-product. Once in dust/flake form, just throw it in the easy-bake oven to make an ingot and there you go. The much more scientific and reliable way to do this, again uses machines already in place, however new chemical recipes would have to be added. I will bow down to your technical superiority and ability to make complicated science into hands-on minecraft procedures, so I'll just link you here.
There is an interesting downside to this, however I don't know if you would want to handle it, is that during the decay of Th to U, although it produces very little to no hazardous waste, it actually produces Uranium-232 as a by-product, which emits intense gamma radiation, making it more lethal then even plutonium.
Now don't let the sheer amount of homework I did sway you in either way shape or form. If you don't see a useful application of this, or find the concept of "making uranium" potentially game breaking, please feel free to go "Thanks, but no thanks." I just wanted to do research to back my idea rather then going "Dudez you gottas do eet! Why? becuz you its just sweet!" To be honest if they scientifically proved that you could use Demosthenex's chickens as a type of reactor fuel, I'd write up a large post on that as well. I just think that your reactors are the most realistic and fun to play around with, and the more variation and practical application that can be injected into it, just makes it that more enticing.
Sorry for the long ass post, but you literally did ask for it.
-Thorium is, as I mention, strictly used for breeding. Much like how non fissile uranium can be bombarded to become plutonium, thorium can actually be turned into a fissile isotope of uranium (U-233). Now scientists in the late 50's and 60's actually were able to do this in reactors that once bred plutonium, meaning the mechanics are more or less the same. Easy peezy. Since you handle breeder fuel as a special fuel source, instead of taking a fertile element and bombarding it with neutrons from a fissile element, it probably would be handled best as a "substitution" for the depleted uranium in the crafting grid. HOWEVER, another potential draw towards Thorium, is that they have done Th-Pu breeder environments, so as someone had mentioned before about wanting to use Plutonium to make fuel, this would indeed do it. The only difference would be that using Thorium in either a Th-U or Th-Pu breeding environment, would result in Uranium and not Plutonium, however the resulting waste, as previously mentioned is estimated to be "Thousands times less then Uranium" and what waste that is produced, the average half life is only a few hundred years versus thousands and so on.
-The breeding reaction was reported to be much slower and requiring much more energy, so actually thermal energy production isn't the main draw in this build, the glory lies in the ability to "mass produce" uranium.
-The isotope of Th used for breeder reactors is the majority of all naturally occurring thorium. To quote the wiki, "The preparation of thorium fuel does not require isotopic separation, unlike the preparation of uranium fuels." As far as how to produce it..
"Thorium is found in small amounts in most rocks and soils; it is three times more abundant than tin in the Earth's crust and is about as common as lead. Soil commonly contains an average of around 6 parts per million (ppm) of thorium. Thorium occurs in several minerals including thorite (ThSiO4), thorianite (ThO2 + UO2) and monazite. Thorianite is a rare mineral and may contain up to about 12% thorium oxide. Monazite contains 2.5% thorium, allanite has 0.1 to 2% thorium and zircon can have up to 0.4% thorium. Thorium-containing minerals occur on all continents. Thorium is several times more abundant in Earth's crust than all isotopes of uranium combined and thorium-232 is several hundred times more abundant than uranium-235."
So short of having a new ore gen, it looks like there are traces of it in soil and common rock. Maybe we can produce it similarly to Tungsten, where we would have to run stone through the extractor stacks at a time? The only trip up would be, would we really want 5x duplication of cobblestone as the primary product with a small chance of thorium by-product? Also this would raise a duping issue, since cobble and stone are basically the same and can be reverse produced. Would it be possible to ignore the law of matter conservation and have the resulting "primary" by-product of cobble/stone/whatever have you, through the extractor literally be so insignificant to even be worth an item? ie: run 1 cobblestone through the extractor, get stone dust, slurry, etc, but once it's about to get turned into flakes, if no Thorium is produced, literally have no product for that operation? If you respect the laws of nature too much perhaps have the resulting "primary" product become something that cannot be turned back into stone, but makes sense, like the over purification of rock becoming sand at the end. Regardless, if you decide to go this route, this would 1) Make cobblestone/stone actually valuable, 2) Make it more of a time sink considering we are basically by-passing the uranium enrichment process. Maybe even make a requirement to overclock the extractor before you could even start to get thorium by-product. Once in dust/flake form, just throw it in the easy-bake oven to make an ingot and there you go. The much more scientific and reliable way to do this, again uses machines already in place, however new chemical recipes would have to be added. I will bow down to your technical superiority and ability to make complicated science into hands-on minecraft procedures, so I'll just link you here.
There is an interesting downside to this, however I don't know if you would want to handle it, is that during the decay of Th to U, although it produces very little to no hazardous waste, it actually produces Uranium-232 as a by-product, which emits intense gamma radiation, making it more lethal then even plutonium.
Now don't let the sheer amount of homework I did sway you in either way shape or form. If you don't see a useful application of this, or find the concept of "making uranium" potentially game breaking, please feel free to go "Thanks, but no thanks." I just wanted to do research to back my idea rather then going "Dudez you gottas do eet! Why? becuz you its just sweet!" To be honest if they scientifically proved that you could use Demosthenex's chickens as a type of reactor fuel, I'd write up a large post on that as well.
I just think that your reactors are the most realistic and fun to play around with, and the more variation and practical application that can be injected into it, just makes it that more enticing.Sorry for the long ass post, but you literally did ask for it.
I do not like the idea of making it an Extractor byproduct. Making it an ore would also mean it would have to wait until the 1.7 update, as it is far too late to add worldgen to 1.6 worlds.@Reika - There are a lot of theories regarding Thorium, and proposed ideas, however the practical applications that have been done are actually very promising and very "plug and play" with your systems already in game.
-Thorium is, as I mention, strictly used for breeding. Much like how non fissile uranium can be bombarded to become plutonium, thorium can actually be turned into a fissile isotope of uranium (U-233). Now scientists in the late 50's and 60's actually were able to do this in reactors that once bred plutonium, meaning the mechanics are more or less the same. Easy peezy. Since you handle breeder fuel as a special fuel source, instead of taking a fertile element and bombarding it with neutrons from a fissile element, it probably would be handled best as a "substitution" for the depleted uranium in the crafting grid. HOWEVER, another potential draw towards Thorium, is that they have done Th-Pu breeder environments, so as someone had mentioned before about wanting to use Plutonium to make fuel, this would indeed do it. The only difference would be that using Thorium in either a Th-U or Th-Pu breeding environment, would result in Uranium and not Plutonium, however the resulting waste, as previously mentioned is estimated to be "Thousands times less then Uranium" and what waste that is produced, the average half life is only a few hundred years versus thousands and so on.
-The breeding reaction was reported to be much slower and requiring much more energy, so actually thermal energy production isn't the main draw in this build, the glory lies in the ability to "mass produce" uranium.
-The isotope of Th used for breeder reactors is the majority of all naturally occurring thorium. To quote the wiki, "The preparation of thorium fuel does not require isotopic separation, unlike the preparation of uranium fuels." As far as how to produce it..
"Thorium is found in small amounts in most rocks and soils; it is three times more abundant than tin in the Earth's crust and is about as common as lead. Soil commonly contains an average of around 6 parts per million (ppm) of thorium. Thorium occurs in several minerals including thorite (ThSiO4), thorianite (ThO2 + UO2) and monazite. Thorianite is a rare mineral and may contain up to about 12% thorium oxide. Monazite contains 2.5% thorium, allanite has 0.1 to 2% thorium and zircon can have up to 0.4% thorium. Thorium-containing minerals occur on all continents. Thorium is several times more abundant in Earth's crust than all isotopes of uranium combined and thorium-232 is several hundred times more abundant than uranium-235."
So short of having a new ore gen, it looks like there are traces of it in soil and common rock. Maybe we can produce it similarly to Tungsten, where we would have to run stone through the extractor stacks at a time? The only trip up would be, would we really want 5x duplication of cobblestone as the primary product with a small chance of thorium by-product? Also this would raise a duping issue, since cobble and stone are basically the same and can be reverse produced. Would it be possible to ignore the law of matter conservation and have the resulting "primary" by-product of cobble/stone/whatever have you, through the extractor literally be so insignificant to even be worth an item? ie: run 1 cobblestone through the extractor, get stone dust, slurry, etc, but once it's about to get turned into flakes, if no Thorium is produced, literally have no product for that operation? If you respect the laws of nature too much perhaps have the resulting "primary" product become something that cannot be turned back into stone, but makes sense, like the over purification of rock becoming sand at the end. Regardless, if you decide to go this route, this would 1) Make cobblestone/stone actually valuable, 2) Make it more of a time sink considering we are basically by-passing the uranium enrichment process. Maybe even make a requirement to overclock the extractor before you could even start to get thorium by-product. Once in dust/flake form, just throw it in the easy-bake oven to make an ingot and there you go. The much more scientific and reliable way to do this, again uses machines already in place, however new chemical recipes would have to be added. I will bow down to your technical superiority and ability to make complicated science into hands-on minecraft procedures, so I'll just link you here.
There is an interesting downside to this, however I don't know if you would want to handle it, is that during the decay of Th to U, although it produces very little to no hazardous waste, it actually produces Uranium-232 as a by-product, which emits intense gamma radiation, making it more lethal then even plutonium.
Now don't let the sheer amount of homework I did sway you in either way shape or form. If you don't see a useful application of this, or find the concept of "making uranium" potentially game breaking, please feel free to go "Thanks, but no thanks." I just wanted to do research to back my idea rather then going "Dudez you gottas do eet! Why? becuz you its just sweet!" To be honest if they scientifically proved that you could use Demosthenex's chickens as a type of reactor fuel, I'd write up a large post on that as well.
Sorry for the long ass post, but you literally did ask for it.
Right! I'd then prefer to make a wooden turnstile and chain to it three cows, two bunnies, and Conan. Would that generate a kW or two? ;]
That's an average dependent on a lot of factors like metabolism and caloric intake, but... damn, what type of humans are you keeping? is this 400W total? or per hour?
Some personal math: 1 Cal = 4.184kJ = 4184J If I consume 3600 Calories in a day, I'm radiating the majority of 15,481kJ as heat, which is 179W per hour. I'm not a top tier athlete, just a fairly average cyclist that does krav maga on the side, so I can't even imagine the caliber of humans you are harnessing for 400W per hour.
my maths are terrible, so this could be off by a lot. or none at all.
I think he meant torque generated by a human, not heat energy. ;]
Maybe we are weak flabby men, that's why I threw in Conan.
torque would be a silly measure to use since the majority of our energy is radiated right off the top of our head, and even if added to the total energy would be inconsequential.
in terms of power output, we are weak as a species. our strength is between our ears.
I am talking sheer muscle output. I have seen demonstrations of people using exercise bikes hooked up to generators; they rarely generate more than 300W.