Gregtech Nuclear Reactor Designs (That actually work)

[Crispen]

Uranium, Thorium, Plutonium and Breeder Designs! High Efficiency and Output, Midgame cost.

So I've played with reactors a lot using uranium, thorium, and plutonium. I like to be efficient, so I prefer to balance efficiency and total output. Efficiency is how much power you get per cell. I shoot for between 4 and 5, max possible efficiency is 7, anything below 3.5 is bad, unless you just have a ton of resources. So here are the reactors that I run, and came up with myself and with the collaboration of Detoxii. All of them are full cycle, and fairly expensive. Only my Uranium only design uses Iridium Neutron Reflectors.

Uranium Only (230 EU/t, Total 46million eu, Eff 4.6) http://www.talonfiremage.pwp.blueyonder.…jti3diliw51p0jk

Thorium Only (192 EU/t, Total 192million EU, Eff 4.8 ) http://www.talonfiremage.pwp.blueyonder.…yxzaz4mx5hgdips

After experimenting with plutonium, I've come to the conclusion that a plutonium only reactor isn't feasible if you desire efficiency instead of burst energy, so I've combined thorium and plutonium. You'll need to replace the cells, but a RedPower 2 filter or BuildCraft 3 Autarchic Gate makes that simple.

Thorium/Plutonium Hybrid (353 EU/t, Total 353million, Eff 4.93) http://www.talonfiremage.pwp.blueyonder.…l0uge9eqebhmbcw

Now you can put another single plutonium cell on the above design for increased output and efficiency, but the fourth plutonium only gives 50 eu/t whereas the 3 in this design give 90, 90 and 130. So that one plutonium cell that gives 50 isn't very efficient.

Breeder that uses Thorium (20 Cells recharged at a time, total of 200 recharged, 20 every 5000 seconds) http://www.talonfiremage.pwp.blueyonder.…5a3wg7fys2q4dmo

I always welcome improvement to my designs, I'm not claiming that they're the best. I hope you guys find these useful!

 

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Oh for the love of Notch...

You post this over in the IC2 Nuclear Engineering forum in its own post. People carefully explain why it isn't really all that good. And then you post the exact same designs over here?

For those not familiar with the IC2 forums, the two threads to look for actually viable designs are:

New [Official] Reactors design thread

And for GT:

The Greg-Tech reactor designs thread

As a word of caution, with the way Plutonium and Thorium are changing their pulses per second, things are still a little up in the air, and reactors using these materials may have significant changes once the 1.5.1 update occurs.

If you wish to be introduced to a horse of a different color, you can enroll in the CRCS For Newbies (a reference guide for the rest of us) Seminar. Word of warning, CRCS reactors are not for first-time users, and require a bit of fiddling with to get going properly. If you're just wanting a design you can drop down and play with, you're going to want one of the two previous threads.

 

[Omicron]

Yeah, we're still waiting whether or not Greg's going to fix thorium, though he seems to be refusing to comment on his plans. Right now its neighbour scaling is broken in 1.5.1, meaning you barely get any output increase when pairing them with other cells or reflectors. Kind of makes thorium pointless for any job other than breeding or powering (non-overclocked) recyclers...

 

[Crispen]

I've been running all of these designs in game, and the thorium/plutonium reactor is stable. I have to replace the plutonium twice, so it takes a total of 7.5 plutonium cells to run a full cycle. The purpose of the thorium is to make the plutonium pulse more often. I'd like to see a design of yours that uses only 7-8 plutonium cells with an output of 310eu/t for a full cycle. I'm aiming for efficiency and long game rather than pouring all of my resources into a reactor that I can only run a few times. Also, the automation for refilling my thorium/plutonium reactor is a very simple, easy and cheap setup. I've had no problems with thorium, and have tested these designs in game, they all work just as I said they do.

 

[Peppe]

Here is a 4 chamber thorium neutral reactor, 367 EU/t:
http://www.talonfiremage.pwp.blueyo...tqm8ry4n3rdgai3yty5us10kbpppyf8ji8znssf1xklq8

It is called thorium neutral because a full cycle of it will use the same amount of thorium that will be generated when you centrifuge enriched cells for plutonium.

I think that is my favorite reactor in 1.4.7 since it is only 4 chambers you can stack it:
http://i.imgur.com/JPFOwo6.png
http://imgur.com/a/4HrDc


Going imbalanced you can get higher output numbers, but lose space efficiency.
Example imbalanced designs:
420 EU/t that needs 4 thorium extra per cycle:
http://www.talonfiremage.pwp.blueyo...vtyat23qsucdxz1l07xnymxri6yeufxrqgy53n15hzq4g

Which for most efficient fuel use you would group thorium positive/negative reactors to balance out the fuel consumed with the proportions it is created in.

Thorium positive (+8) design 484 EU/t design:
http://www.talonfiremage.pwp.blueyo...ijdgvz13qh8la4qkn1xr3hn2q7305ojevdwlgr2te2n7k

I put together a test rig a while back with the extra space in the neutral designed used to set it up as a breeder to run itself and 3 other reactors:
http://forum.feed-the-beast.com/thr...to-power-matter-fabricator.16327/#post-186188

 

[Crispen]

These setups are actually pretty good, Peppe, they're definitely more efficient in regard to Plutonium, and since thorium is so easy to acquire now, I'm not too worried about running out. Unfortunately when I browse for setups, the vast majority of what I see is terrible. Yours are definitely some of the best I've seen.

 

[Peppe]

None of those are purely my design. I had a hand in the 367 design, but the others come from the reactor thread:
http://forum.industrial-craft.net/index.php?page=Thread&threadID=8966

That is where many of us post or find what is deemed most efficient then tinker with existing designs or add something new if it is better.

Some things to think about on your designs:
Your uranium designs with a gregtech reflector are odd in the mix of reactors. If you have gregtech then you will get almost triple the production out of your fuel by running it as thorium/plutonium. You might use uranium early/mid-game, but you won't have that reflector early-mid game, so the design does not really have a usage scenario.

Your hybrid is getting close, but as someone in the reactor thread pointed out to me. That layout of fuel generates more heat then is needed. There may be more efficient layouts out there, but the 367, 420, and 484 seem to be the most efficient in 1.4.7.

Your breeder is also tough to find a usage. I suspect you were swimming in thorium and wanted to find a use. Cold breeders can work, but you get so much more charging if you can up the heat. Thorium seems like a natural fit for a breeder, but since there is soft cap at 64k heat (max stack size of heating cells) there is room for uranium breeders, which honestly do the job quite well. So to innovate in this space the breeder needs to do something better than other available solutions.

Keep working at it maybe you will discover something new or interesting.

 

[Crispen]

I know about that thread, but after looking at the designs on there, and seeing how horrible the vast majority of them are, I decided that it wasn't worth my time. I guess if I'd waded through all the terrible designs, I could've found these decent ones.
I did get that reflector up fairly early game, and I do have an overabundance of thorium, so in regard to the breeder, I'm aiming for lots of cells recharged quickly rather than efficiency.

 

[Peppe]

I know about that thread, but after looking at the designs on there, and seeing how horrible the vast majority of them are, I decided that it wasn't worth my time. I guess if I'd waded through all the terrible designs, I could've found these decent ones.
I did get that reflector up fairly early game, and I do have an overabundance of thorium, so in regard to the breeder, I'm aiming for lots of cells recharged quickly rather than efficiency.

The reactors all fill a niche and until you get down to the Gregtech section they are all IC2 only reactors. Other than the 100 EU/t 0 chamber I would not run most of them, but in base IC2 you can find a use for just about all of them depending on your current need. Not sure what you are looking for in a good IC2 reactor, but other than the ones below 2 efficiency i would not call them horrible. My personal benchmark is the 100 EU/t 0 chamber reactor. If the design does not beat that reactor for my current need then I would not build it.

If you are looking for effiency 5+ in IC2 reactors, using reflectors in IC2 may gain you efficiency on paper, but it nets you very little in overall efficiency. In the Gregtech reactor section you don't see reflectors because even if you using iridium reflectors the boost to uranium's efficiency is less than what you can get running thorium+plutonium without any reflectors. That makes reflectors a needless expense.


On your breeder,
Lots of cells charged quickly means you should be running high heat. In total you are only charging 40 per tick spread across 20 isotopes. In your design each isotope is getting 2 charges per tick, so 5000 reactor ticks to enrich -- ~83 minutes. You have sacrificed speed and efficiency. Over the life of your 10 thorium 200 cells will be recharged that is only 20 cells per thorium.

This lowly cheap breeder almost produces as much over the same time period. If you replaced the uranium each time it would produce about 140 cells over the life the thorium with a set of cells about every 24 minutes.
http://www.talonfiremage.pwp.blueyo...wt6pj6y7sfq5ztfvcf1h0g6qsbvixywnyd51gvkxykc7f

Drop in dual thorium for the uranium and you get 280 cells over the life of 2 thorium in just 2 chambers with cells charged in about 12 minutes:
http://www.talonfiremage.pwp.blueyo...kbdv5jza07j7az75ome1pehvrwixc04w2h3pd7kqacq17

These cheap breeders even cost less than your current breeder.

If you need more cells. This is a good reference uranium speed breeder from the thread:
http://www.talonfiremage.pwp.blueyo...gg180idwpyd50ekg0zxd2vt1g6tuvvbtxfdj9vbrmejx8
This charges 160+ per tick and each isotope gets 21 charges a tick, so is enriched in 476 ticks ~ 8 minutes. Over the life of the 2 uranium ~168 cells will be recharged.

It's fairly trivial to get up to 60-63k heat for a thorium breeder, so you can toss 3-4 single cell thorium however you like and run them at 60k+.
Here is a dual cell verity that follows from the uranium design above:
http://www.talonfiremage.pwp.blueyo...yucahzlg5pcggj7t8r24qpcdjqxzm78wmgf2axc7g0jfg
Charges 336 total a tick, which is 42 at each isotope, so enriches in just under 4 minutes. Almost 1680 cells charged over the life of the 4 thorium.

Just for the lols:
Quad thorium at 63k. 352 total per tick, 88 per isotope, recharge set of 4 in 1 minute 53 seconds. 1760 total isotopes charged.
http://www.talonfiremage.pwp.blueyo...t2x5rym7yijrdgj5troy4i5mb25r8d9nffho35nk6kod8

 

[Yousei]

So, i was bored waiting for enough resources to turn up to do fusion, then figured i'd sidetrack to some nuclear power.

As a result, i've been told to go post my designs...

Breeder - 3 chamber, sits happily at 28k, charges a decent amount at that heat. Its trivial to expand to 6 chambers if you felt like it to push the heat to whatever you wanted. Runs on quad thorium as a breeder source.
http://www.talonfiremage.pwp.blueyo...2as9nwgnk3gvecynzwl8w7twujaac0pwi7tmnh6yh9p1c

Reactor - 4 chamber, eff 5, 2 iri reflectors. 200 eu out, mk 1 ea - something to do with those iri plates you'll need for the fusion coils. Runs on quad uranium
http://www.talonfiremage.pwp.blueyo...p7q8zcl4dfgy0h9f8k8n1gaju6kgabsu9478a7vf68buo

Reactor - 4 chamber, eff 7, 4 iri reflector, 140 eu out, mk1 ea - if you wanted more efficiency for some reason.
http://www.talonfiremage.pwp.blueyo...12z2znexewyn703x4xwet51vq4yndj07nuqfffh48ao00

Enjoy!

 

[Omicron]

Psssst.... iridium reflectors are bad, mm'kay?

 

[dragonfire2876]

WARNING! in the minecrack pack theys designs dont work! the reactor planer has NOT been updated to the newer Plutoniam and Thorium so theys designs are defunct!

 

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Psssst.... iridium reflectors are bad, mm'kay?

I dunno... I'd say iridium Reflectors are about the only ones worth building, because at least they don't get worn out. Having said this... that doesn't necessarily mean they're worth building either. I think a lot of people forget how expensive they are to build, and just liberally season their reactor designs with them. Of course, most of the time, they really don't provide that much benefit either. Oh, sure... the original DDoS reactor designs used 'em, but that was more to normalize the heat output of the various components more than trying to increase output. It made calculations much more simple when all of the coolant cells would hit the same percentage point at the same time.

 

[Omicron]

The problem is that one single iridium reflector costs 223 UU-matter... IF you're running "beryliumreflector=false". The default setting, however, is "beryliumreflector=true", and that elevates the cost to a whopping 477 UU-matter. And since we're talking GregTech, that's 16.66 million EU each.

So that reactor that outputs 140 EU/t? That costs you an investment comparable to 31.8 billion EU just for the quad reflectors. That's nine zeroes behind a two-digit number. At 28 million EU per cycle, that reactor would have to run nearly 1138 cycles (almost 3150 hours straight - some three months and ten days, 24/7!) just to break even, and the number does not even factor in any other required resources, or the 5,690 copper worth of running costs accrued during that time.

Now it might be worth it if the reactor was special, a really high output design that helps you achieve a specific goal that you couldn't solve with your existing resources. However, that thing? 140 EU/t? Never ever worth it.


("But I have too many resources anyway!" - Good, then why are you not building a fusion reactor instead? )

 

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Valid point. Don't waste NR's on a small setup. The reactor I was using NR's on was producing nearly 4k EU/t (DDoS with Quad Plutonium).