Good Big Reactors setup

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Varogh

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Jul 29, 2019
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I have a lot of spare Yellorite Ore in my Monster server, so I'm looking for a good design to make an efficent and powerful reactor.
Should I make a reactor with control rods and temperature checks or should I just build it as big as I can?
 

b0bst3r

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Jul 29, 2019
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There's no right or wrong answer to this (probably why no one's replied).

You are building one because you have spare Yellorite is probably not a valid reason for building one :p but hey it's just a game right and you want to build one to see what all the fuss is about.

If you have power requirements then build to a size you need, start out small, if it's not enough power then you can simply cut off the yellorite supply and let it fizzle out then enlarge it or add in more rods.

If you don't have power needs then there's not really any point in making one (unless you can use a backup system), cos where's the power going to go :D
 

JoeDolca

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Jul 29, 2019
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If you need a shiteloade of power, you can make one roughly 9x9 and 6 blocks tall. Leave a water outline inside the reactor and then use a checkered pattern for the fuel rods. This setup should produce termendous heat and energy, and with the control rods you can adjust the efficiency to something more comfortable with your yellorite acquisition rate. Remember to fill everything with water.

Also remember to setup a cyanite enricher to reuse your waste.

A small one produces roughly as much as 4 magmatics, while one this size should produce at about 10 to 12 times a magmatic dynamo.
 

Varogh

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Jul 29, 2019
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Well, the more power, the better :p I was planning on running one or more quarry+ quarries with it.

I'll try your design, @JoeDolca, thanks!
 

Skyqula

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Jul 29, 2019
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I have tried quite alot of Big Reactor setups and found a 7x7x7 to have the best results. Its at 980 degrees, wich seems to be just below the point where powergenerator drops off ALOT. Mine is cooled with gelid cryotheum instead of water and produces over 1700RF/t. As for the fuel rod pattern, see spoiler :)

bQFzyaB.png

When cooling with water I found a 6x6x6 reactor with a 2x2 fuel rod surrounded by water to be most effective. Produces ~1300RF/t.
 
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chayde

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Jul 29, 2019
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I have tried quite alot of Big Reactor setups and found a 7x7x7 to have the best results. Its at 980 degrees, wich seems to be just below the point where powergenerator drops off ALOT. Mine is cooled with gelid cryotheum instead of water and produces over 1700RF/t. As for the fuel rod pattern, see spoiler :)

bQFzyaB.png

When cooling with water I found a 6x6x6 reactor with a 2x2 fuel rod surrounded by water to be most effective. Produces ~1300RF/t.

How did you produce the Gelid Cryotheum? Did you just Magma Crucible/Liquid Transposer Cryotheum dust?
 

Tristam Izumi

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Jul 29, 2019
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How did you produce the Gelid Cryotheum? Did you just Magma Crucible/Liquid Transposer Cryotheum dust?
In Skyqula's screenshot, that looks like a creative world, so probably just spawned it in (a la creative style), but yes, in general the way to make gelid cryotheum is to take the dust, crucible it, and then either transpose it into buckets or just output it from the crucible into your preference of tank.
 

Lordlundar

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Jul 29, 2019
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I have tried quite alot of Big Reactor setups and found a 7x7x7 to have the best results. Its at 980 degrees, wich seems to be just below the point where powergenerator drops off ALOT. Mine is cooled with gelid cryotheum instead of water and produces over 1700RF/t. As for the fuel rod pattern, see spoiler :)

bQFzyaB.png

When cooling with water I found a 6x6x6 reactor with a 2x2 fuel rod surrounded by water to be most effective. Produces ~1300RF/t.

Diamond blocks in the gaps with liquid ender around the perimeter is a little better with an average of 1900 RF/t so if you have the diamonds and ender pearls to spare (Liquid ender only needs the top layer placed as it flows down instead of dropping like cyrotheum) it will work a bit better.

And here's a table of some testing done. I imagine when it starts to make sense I'll be able to let you know how they came up with their numbers but at this point your guess is as good as mine.
 
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kittle

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Jul 29, 2019
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I must be missing something here with these reactors.
Using the link from LordLundar, I made a 7x7x7 reactor, filled it with plain vanilla water, added 3 fuel rods (with plans for more), and im making 2700RFT/t. The temp tops out around 585. Based on the wiki, it says the lower the heat, the more efficient the reactor is.

but I see posts about temps around 900 degrees being ideal. What am I missing?
 

Wagon153

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Jul 29, 2019
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I must be missing something here with these reactors.
Using the link from LordLundar, I made a 7x7x7 reactor, filled it with plain vanilla water, added 3 fuel rods (with plans for more), and im making 2700RFT/t. The temp tops out around 585. Based on the wiki, it says the lower the heat, the more efficient the reactor is.

but I see posts about temps around 900 degrees being ideal. What am I missing?
Way I see it, Big Reactors are kind of like real reactors in that the hotter you can get them, the better, to a point. HOWEVER, heres the part that trips people up. They think "So if I get it to 1000 degrees, it'll produce massive amounts of power". Wrong wrong wrong. Around 950ish is the optimal temperature as far as I know. Any higher, and power production goes down.[DOUBLEPOST=1391629640][/DOUBLEPOST]Also, the more rods you have, the more power you get as well.
 
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Skyqula

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Jul 29, 2019
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Diamond blocks in the gaps with liquid ender around the perimeter is a little better with an average of 1900 RF/t so if you have the diamonds and ender pearls to spare (Liquid ender only needs the top layer placed as it flows down instead of dropping like cyrotheum) it will work a bit better.

And here's a table of some testing done. I imagine when it starts to make sense I'll be able to let you know how they came up with their numbers but at this point your guess is as good as mine.

Yeah, I had no idea that diamond blocks could be used (even then, just pure resonant ender is better). I never even tried resonant ender, because honestly, cryotheum is harder to get and should be the coolant. But meh :p

Id also like to note that I am using the default settings. AKA a power multiplier of 1 instead of a multiplier of 3 used in that table :)
 
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un worry

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Jul 29, 2019
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And here's a table of some testing done. I imagine when it starts to make sense I'll be able to let you know how they came up with their numbers but at this point your guess is as good as mine.

Made the 7x7x3 model last night, as per the specs in the above link. Some Iron, Yellorite and 4 stacks of ender pearls later - a nice steady 1200RF/t

There's some cool computercraft scripts that permit you to hook up a CC and Monitor to display and control the rods. Or Ako the builder recently spotlighted this spec. I found this recent reddit thread had some useful links and pastebins.

What sort of fuel consumption/efficiency are you experiencing with your Big Reactor?
 
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Lordlundar

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Jul 29, 2019
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Way I see it, Big Reactors are kind of like real reactors in that the hotter you can get them, the better, to a point. HOWEVER, heres the part that trips people up. They think "So if I get it to 1000 degrees, it'll produce massive amounts of power". Wrong wrong wrong. Around 950ish is the optimal temperature as far as I know. Any higher, and power production goes down.[DOUBLEPOST=1391629640][/DOUBLEPOST]Also, the more rods you have, the more power you get as well.
From what I've seen, the drop in power comes from a drop in effeciency. Near 1k the effeciency is roughly 10% loss. Over 1k it the loss shoots up to over 60%. because of the constant fuel resupply the energy takes a jit.
 

MoosyDoosy

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Jul 29, 2019
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I must be missing something here with these reactors.
Using the link from LordLundar, I made a 7x7x7 reactor, filled it with plain vanilla water, added 3 fuel rods (with plans for more), and im making 2700RFT/t. The temp tops out around 585. Based on the wiki, it says the lower the heat, the more efficient the reactor is.

but I see posts about temps around 900 degrees being ideal. What am I missing?
Yeah, that set-up is probably inefficient. Use one of the set-ups in the chart that someone posted above and here the direct links is:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0An54qOfSiXfJdEcyaHAxWURaZTR2eEpEWEFaU0xydXc#gid=0
and you'll be golden. I personally use the 7x7x3 as it uses its fuel the most efficiently and produces 4000 RF, which is essentially all I need anyway.
 

un worry

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Jul 29, 2019
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Yeah, that set-up is probably inefficient. Use one of the set-ups in the chart that someone posted above and here the direct links is:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0An54qOfSiXfJdEcyaHAxWURaZTR2eEpEWEFaU0xydXc#gid=0
and you'll be golden. I personally use the 7x7x3 as it uses its fuel the most efficiently and produces 4000 RF, which is essentially all I need anyway.

4000 RF is in Resonant Rise, due to the 3x power multiplier setting in their configs

Monster 1.09 has decreased Power Production Multiplier from 1.66 to 1.22, so adjust your expectations accordingly...
 

chayde

New Member
Jul 29, 2019
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Even with the multiplier reduction these reactors take up way less space than my 44 dynamos would with the cables and fluiducts to run the nether lava.
 

un worry

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Jul 29, 2019
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I added three lime focii to an mfr laser running off my 7x7x3 big reactor and its producing enough uranium to sustain itself and a second reactor.
The emeralds and miscellaneous ores are a nice bonus

Sent from my HTC Incredible S using Tapatalk
 

commandantjones

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Jul 29, 2019
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I see a lot of talk of temperature, but nobody is mentioning fuel consumption. Maybe I'm missing the point here, but while I understand the effect temperature has on production/efficiency, when I look for a reactor design I care about only 2 things: RF output, and fuel consumption in mB/tick. I just want to produce the most power per fuel that I can.

Why does no one post that information with their designs?


Edit/Update: to that end, I built a 7x7x3 and a 7x7x7 reactor, based on the google doc design, in Monster 1.1.0 (a lower power mulitiplier in the config than Resonant Rise).

I set them both up with redstone ports to turn them off when they reached 1% power reserves, and had them output to an empty resonant ender cell (50 million RF storage).

So basically they ran until they produced 50 million RF, then shut off.

The 7x7x3 produced 1400RF/t, at about 700 degrees, and when it was done, the output port had 8 cyanite ingots

The 7x7x7 produced 2400RF/t, at about 960 degrees, and when it was done, the output port had 8 cyanite ingots

As far as I can tell, within some minor variance, they used about the same amount of fuel to produce the same amount of RF. The 7x7x7 is of course much more expensive to build, but doesn't seem to burn much more fuel per RF. That said, if you need to boost your RF/t output, it might actually be cheaper to build 2 7x7x3 reactors, since they don't need 20 diamond blocks to cool them, as per the 7x7x7 design in the spreadsheet. 2 of them would produce about 2800 RF/t in Monster, and use about 16 ingots of fuel to produce 100 million RF in total, as far as I can tell.
 
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