[FTB Ultimate] Bees + Uranium + Nuclear Power. Doable?

[BLSmith2112]

My friend and I are looking for a new way to do power in our small private server of 10. We are Tekkit Lite veterans and want to try something new, rather than switching to the fast and easy methods of generating power like geothermal. My friend was going to focus on learning bee's, and I was going to see how in the world to run nuclear energy without my precious Reactor Coolant Injector that was present in Tekkit Lite.

Our server has a limit on quarries: No landmarks and one default 9x9 quarry per-person. So we're trying this approach to potentially generate limitless power from bee's. From what I hear, however: this is a very difficult process (to get uranium), let alone mass-produce it to eventually run a high 2500+ EU yield Nuclear Power Plant off it. Do y'all have any tips for us before we get started? Are we just wasting our time, or is this entirely possible?

 

[PoisonWolf]

To get to the radioactive bee, you'll need to climb most of the bee-tree, even more so if you want to infuse the best production traits into the radioactive bee.

But to answer your question, yes, it is possible and by no means difficult. You'll need alvearies + the best radioactive bee to do it (if you want to reduce the number of alvearies you need).

Case in point:

With the bee above, I have about more than 20+ stacks of uranium, which I use periodically to make solar panels. I'm not sure how that translate to nuclear power (i.e., how many uranium ores are needed, etc).

There are many bee-threads in this forum. If you want some guidance, I've written a good start here (link here) in another previous bee-related post. It may appear daunting and confusing, but take it a step at a time and the beekper in your server will be off in no time.

 

[sks0315]

"sniff"

That is one uber bee.

 

[PoisonWolf]

That is one uber bee.

Thanks bud, it's bee-cause I love bees. Lol.

 

[eric167]

That is one uber bee.

now he just needs "longest" lifespan on that thing.

 

[Aetherr_]

How much uranium do you get? In 10 min

 

[PoisonWolf]

now he just needs "longest" lifespan on that thing.

I find the longest lifespan to be useless when bees are automated. The time lost (when the princess is being piped back into the alveary) to be insignificant. I rather have shorter lifespans so I don't spend too much time breeding. With the shortest lifespan + cocoa frames, each manual breeding cycle is 2 full bee cycles (about 1 minute?). This makes bee-breeding much faster when done manually.

How much uranium do you get? In 10 min

I got 0 radioactive combs (note: radioactive combs has about a 50 ~ 60% chance I think to get an ore when centrifuged) in the past 10 minutes. It is a specialty product (meaning it is not 100% per cycle), and my alveary has no frames to improve production rates. This is from just a single alveary, however. If you truly wanted an radioactive farm going, you'd use at least 4 alvearies and up with the same bees. My default farm sizes for any single product is 9 alvearies without frames.

EDIT: Just centrifuged 3 stacks of radioactive combs and got 1.5 stacks of uranium ore. So it's 50% chance to turn a radioactive comb into a uranium ore.

 

[BLSmith2112]

I set up nuclear power with gates over three MFSUs in which all three must bee empty for the nuclear to even activate - which translates into much longer cycle times stretching well beyond the standard 2hr 47min. So I guess depending on whatever the maximum automatable nuclear power EU/t is in ftb ultimate would be at least over 100 uranium every 72 hours... Also over 800 copper every cycle, but I've yet to come up with a copper solution too haha.

 

[eric167]

I find the longest lifespan to be useless when bees are automated. The time lost (when the princess is being piped back into the alveary) to be insignificant. I rather have shorter lifespans so I don't spend too much time breeding. With the shortest lifespan + cocoa frames, each manual breeding cycle is 2 full bee cycles (about 1 minute?). This makes bee-breeding much faster when done manually.




I got 0 radioactive combs (note: radioactive combs has about a 50 ~ 60% chance I think to get an ore when centrifuged) in the past 10 minutes. It is a specialty product (meaning it is not 100% per cycle), and my alveary has no frames to improve production rates. This is from just a single alveary, however. If you truly wanted an radioactive farm going, you'd use at least 4 alvearies and up with the same bees. My default farm sizes for any single product is 9 alvearies without frames.

EDIT: Just centrifuged 3 stacks of radioactive combs and got 1.5 stacks of uranium ore. So it's 50% chance to turn a radioactive comb into a uranium ore.

if youre going for production though, longest lifespan is what you want.
breeding, yes you want shorter lifes and soul/oblivion frames.

 

[PoisonWolf]

if youre going for production though, longest lifespan is what you want.
breeding, yes you want shorter lifes and soul/oblivion frames.

It doest make a difference since the bees gets cycled back in. The few seconds it takes to turn the princess back into a queen is moot to me versus the time I'd be spending when dealing with the longest life span (even with chocolate frames, long life span is much longer than 1 minute, an amount I'm not willing to pour real life time into lol).[DOUBLEPOST=1375885900][/DOUBLEPOST]

I set up nuclear power with gates over three MFSUs in which all three must bee empty for the nuclear to even activate - which translates into much longer cycle times stretching well beyond the standard 2hr 47min. So I guess depending on whatever the maximum automatable nuclear power EU/t is in ftb ultimate would be at least over 100 uranium every 72 hours... Also over 800 copper every cycle, but I've yet to come up with a copper solution too haha.

One of the bees produce copper combs. I'm not sure if you get copper when centrifuging lava in Ultimate (I get copper in Mindcrack).

But if it's just 100 ores in 72 hours, it definitely sounds like 3-4 alvearies, even without frames will match that.

 

[Shakie666]

It doest make a difference since the bees gets cycled back in. The few seconds it takes to turn the princess back into a queen is moot to me versus the time I'd be spending when dealing with the longest life span (even with chocolate frames, long life span is much longer than 1 minute, an amount I'm not willing to pour real life time into lol).[DOUBLEPOST=1375885900][/DOUBLEPOST]


One of the bees produce copper combs. I'm not sure if you get copper when centrifuging lava in Ultimate (I get copper in Mindcrack).

But if it's just 100 ores in 72 hours, it definitely sounds like 3-4 alvearies, even without frames will match that.

Since you must have extra bees installed to have access to uranium bees, you also have access to the inoculator. This means you don't need to do any more breeding to give them the longest lifespan (even if its an increase of only 1% or so, its still worth it considering it lasts forever). By the way: which bee has the 'flowers: none' trait? I didn't know this existed.

Centrifuging lava does give copper in ultimate. Alas, people don't realise that centrifuging lava wouldn't be necessary if IC2 ore generation was enabled.

 

[Jammyjezza]

By the way: which bee has the 'flowers: none' trait? I didn't know this existed.

The barren branch of bees have the no flowers trait, so from arid onwards you can get this trait: http://mc.nessirojgaming.eu/bees/index.php?title=Arid_Bee

 

[Runo]

uranium bees require min-maxing with frames in an alveary to be a sensible approach. if youre on 1.47, you can produce about 1,000 uranium a day in a 6 frame alveary, and in 1.52+ you can get about 150-250 uranium a day per alveary without swarming your queen from overproduction. It is the only real viable way to get renewable uranium in large quantities without using an always-on frame quarry.

Supporting systems you should keep in mind that are needed:
-A tree farm and seed oil farm to produce the frames, absolutely vital for uranium production. It will multiply yield per alveary by 16 if used properly.
-Tin equivalent to uranium count, doable either through lava centrifuging (GT+MFR installed), mass fabricator (non-GT ic2, eats 1m EU per 10 uranium used), or bee production.
-Copper if you are using multi-cells, produced the same way as tin.
-Coal if using a breeder, 16 times the uranium count. I recommend avoiding this method as its easier to scale uranium comb production and inefficiently using uranium bars directly to cells than to scale coal, tin, and copper. Your mileage may vary depending on mod pack.

This setup is infinitely scaling and usable for your only power source if you so desire, just gotta get the ratios right. One alveary in 1.47 provided an overflow of uranium for an eff 3.87 reactor tower I used that consumed 1028 uranium/day. Conveniently, 2520eu/t, the same amt you're looking for.

 

[PoisonWolf]

Since you must have extra bees installed to have access to uranium bees, you also have access to the inoculator. This means you don't need to do any more breeding to give them the longest lifespan (even if its an increase of only 1% or so, its still worth it considering it lasts forever). By the way: which bee has the 'flowers: none' trait? I didn't know this existed.

Centrifuging lava does give copper in ultimate. Alas, people don't realise that centrifuging lava wouldn't be necessary if IC2 ore generation was enabled.

I definitely see where you are coming from with regards to the machines. I just personally don't see a point, even if it is done easily in machines, in it because I don't find the gains to be worth it. I don't want to split and have two strains in my giant chest box. I prefer all my bees to be identical in traits.

And I never use machines, on principle, when it comes to bees. The only exception was when I was using the acclimatiser to get the 5 tolerance and 5 humidity trait into my common strain that will pass it on to the other bees.

With autarchic gates putting my short-life princesses back into the alvearies, it really doesn't matter to be if I got 1 ~ 5% more. My whole base is chunkloaded anyway and is running 24/7. As it stands, for the materials/combs that I do want, I produce so much daily that I have to recycle most of them anyway.

My 2 cents.

uranium bees require min-maxing with frames in an alveary to be a sensible approach. if youre on 1.47, you can produce about 1,000 uranium a day in a 6 frame alveary, and in 1.52+ you can get about 150-250 uranium a day per alveary without swarming your queen from overproduction. It is the only real viable way to get renewable uranium in large quantities without using an always-on frame quarry.

Supporting systems you should keep in mind that are needed:
-A tree farm and seed oil farm to produce the frames, absolutely vital for uranium production. It will multiply yield per alveary by 16 if used properly.
-Tin equivalent to uranium count, doable either through lava centrifuging (GT+MFR installed), mass fabricator (non-GT ic2, eats 1m EU per 10 uranium used), or bee production.
-Copper if you are using multi-cells, produced the same way as tin.
-Coal if using a breeder, 16 times the uranium count. I recommend avoiding this method as its easier to scale uranium comb production and inefficiently using uranium bars directly to cells than to scale coal, tin, and copper. Your mileage may vary depending on mod pack.

This setup is infinitely scaling and usable for your only power source if you so desire, just gotta get the ratios right. One alveary in 1.47 provided an overflow of uranium for an eff 3.87 reactor tower I used that consumed 1028 uranium/day. Conveniently, 2520eu/t, the same amt you're looking for.

You can also go the farmed bee route to get seed oil if you don't want to mess with tree farms and want to stream line the look without needing another section for farms.

But I think looking at all of it, all of the requirements can be done via bees alone. The only thing that can't be done via bees would be getting the wood to make those alvearies.

 

[Quesenek]

Yeah Its totally doable. I had a bee like PoisonWolf's and I was producing so much uranium I couldn't ever use it all.

 

[Shakie666]

You know, I really wish there were thorium and plutonium bees now that they're worth using. There's already bees for most of the other Greg metals, why not these as well?

By the way, in 1.5 arid bees use dead bushes as flowers. There aren't any bees that use nothing.

 

[Runo]

You know, I really wish there were thorium and plutonium bees now that they're worth using. There's already bees for most of the other Greg metals, why not these as well?

By the way, in 1.5 arid bees use dead bushes as flowers. There aren't any bees that use nothing.

I don't know how that'd be able to be balanced because uranium already uses the lowest chance rate. Plutonium is double value of uranium so it'd obsolete the uranium bee.

 

[Shakie666]

I don't know how that'd be able to be balanced because uranium already uses the lowest chance rate. Plutonium is double value of uranium so it'd obsolete the uranium bee.

Actually, uranium bees have a 2% chance of producing radioactive combs. Platinum bees only have a 1% chance of producing platinum combs. Plutonium bees could also have a 1% chance.

Besides, I don't think they would be game-breaking in any way. While plutonium produces less heat than it used to (exactly double that of uranium, it used to be more than double), its still hard to make a practical reactor setup with it. Thorium is easier to use, but its already easily available with an industrial grinder. With that, 1 monazit ore gives 2 thorium dust, and 1 coal ore gives 1 tiny pile of thorium. This is enough to power some people's bases all on its own.

 

[Runo]

Actually, uranium bees have a 2% chance of producing radioactive combs. Platinum bees only have a 1% chance of producing platinum combs. Plutonium bees could also have a 1% chance.

Besides, I don't think they would be game-breaking in any way. While plutonium produces less heat than it used to (exactly double that of uranium, it used to be more than double), its still hard to make a practical reactor setup with it. Thorium is easier to use, but its already easily available with an industrial grinder. With that, 1 monazit ore gives 2 thorium dust, and 1 coal ore gives 1 tiny pile of thorium. This is enough to power some people's bases all on its own.

Good call, my mistake. I was thinking 2% was lowest for some reason, but of course it should go lower. Duh.