gregtech-nuclear reactor

[raiju]

I thought Thorium put out less output per tick than Uranium as well...

Correct. They give the same total EU, but spread out over 5x as long. this means 5x less per tick - a near 200 EU/t thorium reactor like the one another linked is near as high as a Mark 1 gets.

As I mentioned in the other thread, plutonium reactors seem pretty meh since it's nearly impossible to cooldown stacked quad plutonium cells without condensators. 260 eu/t? Not bad... but thinking about the amount of centrifuging time to run it in the first place is probably an idea, given how little plutonium you get per uranium dust. I guess some will see it as an "addition", it just seems worthless when that 16x more common and obtainable without centrifuging uranium can happily put out over 400 eu/t on an MK1 without condensators.

 

[eculc]

I imagine so, especially sine the fact that they release less heat means the heat level is a bit easier to control.

 

[raiju]

You don't need to "bring up the temperature" anymore really, since you just plug in the required amount of heat cells (they stack in the reactor and your inventory).

I haven't played with thorium breeder reactors, in fact it wasn't till this morning I even considered the idea either. You could probably make an insanely longlasting breeder with that in mind, considering there's a breeder I saw on IC2 forums using uranium that chargers 84 cells per uranium
(http://www.talonfiremage.pwp.blueyo...te900px6dllafwpxyzz9gk3k2a7f54vx08hxzq0j5jwye - credit to Rick from over there for design)

While thorium needs less cooling to balance it, I'm not sure that will be relevant in that build.

I don't know how breeders work for thorium or plutonium but assuming they enrich at the same pace as uranium regardless of what cell is in them (although I have no idea why they would and no source to back this up), then theoretically 420+ should be possible using thorium cells. Once again, assuming thorium breeds the same way uranium does.

 

[Peppe]

For breeding it is much easier to just use heating cells to always keep the reactor at 64k. That is the max you can do with heating cells since they turn off when the reactor heat equals their stack size * 1000. If the heating cells touch enough components to counter the venting the reactor will hold pretty close heating cells stack size * 1000.

With thorium you need almost no cooling so you can run at 64k without taking damage when you are close to the reactor:
http://www.talonfiremage.pwp.blueyo...uxasb30merizrf5y4i7sdhhjp255o3zlqumrxtui533p0

If you don't mind damage you can stick 1-2 more breeding cells in. It should hold together at 60k:
http://www.talonfiremage.pwp.blueyo...te5pbrxsc1tn61uh35rgfubzkzfyvinw464twojmsvh1c

 

[SeniLiX]

Thorium reactor:

192 EU/t
192.000.000 EU total
http://www.talonfiremage.pwp.blueyo...qtv8mfz5uzgsilsgonw84hgwi6onr7he28k6kojr69o1s

Just made a couple of in-game tests. It seems like quad thorium cells are bugged as well, as the above design is putting out 950 EU/t
(Just found my new reactor design)

Plutonium reactor:

240 EU/t
96.000.000 EU total
(The neutron reflector should needs replacing. Alternatively, swap to Iridium neutron reflector)
http://www.talonfiremage.pwp.blueyo...uf1p5cwb7nbroxxr83pjhhp2cy7nuvu1louk7q8m70phc

Correct output is 236 EU/t

 

[eculc]

I haven't played with thorium breeder reactors, in fact it wasn't till this morning I even considered the idea either. You could probably make an insanely longlasting breeder with that in mind, considering there's a breeder I saw on IC2 forums using uranium that chargers 84 cells per uranium
(http://www.talonfiremage.pwp.blueyo...te900px6dllafwpxyzz9gk3k2a7f54vx08hxzq0j5jwye - credit to Rick from over there for design)

While thorium needs less cooling to balance it, I'm not sure that will be relevant in that build.

Replacing the Uranium cell with a thorium cell results in an increase from 88 recharges to 440 recharges -- in other words, a lot more, pretty much as many as you can get your hands on. using a dual thorium cell gives 880, so if you have an automatic setup and a LOT of depleted uranium, you can get as many re-enriched cells as you want.

 

[Feanarang]

I'm starting to play with reactors and I'm a bit of a noob when it comes to them. The above poster mentions an "Automatic setup." Anyone here know how to do such a thing (or have a link to a video tutorial)? Is there a way to automate the swapping of near-depleted and re-enriched cells? Thanks in advance!

 

[ICountFrom0]

Isn't there a recipe that crafts uranium and a number of cells right into depleted? So perhaps build one of these first, start from depleted, and get more for the uranium?

 

[Feanarang]

I know that recipe. What I'm talking about is switching the cells in the reactor itself (once the depleted ones have been recharged). is there a way to not have to do that manually? Like with pipes and such? Thanks again!

 

[Peppe]

I believe the redpower pipe system would allow this or logistics pipes. I don't believe either mod is released for 1.4.5 yet though.

The buildcraft pipes we have just treat the reactor chamber like any other chest and load/unloads left to right top to bottom.

For breeder the best you can do is calculate roughly when you would need to change cells and setup some redstone to only run the reactor for that many minutes. You need about 20-30 minutes depending on your breeder temp. Easiest long delay timers without redpower are dispenser chains (stick 4 in a row one triggering the next on item despawn and you have a cheap 20 minute shutoff timer). Repeater racetracks might work, but i've never found them reliable or compact... same for piston ring counters chained to eachother.


If you had enough uranium to run this reactor and fancy pipes you could do something like this:
http://forum.industrial-craft.net/i...17&s=3e006018c178ec0ded65fedb5f3e17c10965c4b9

 

[MektonZero]

Would thorium be good for those, as they last longer, and thus could enrich more units?

Not really needed since you can now directly set the heat level of a reactor to any level you like and just leave it there. There is a design on the IC2 forum that recharges 88 cells per Uranium Cell used and requires no maintenance or special heating. You build it, it heats itself up to 64,000 and happily sits at that temp forever. I haven't played around with automating it, but I feel it's possible with the mods we've got to work with in FTB.

You need about 20-30 minutes depending on your breeder temp. Easiest long delay timers without redpower are dispenser chains (stick 4 in a row one triggering the next on item despawn and you have a cheap 20 minute shutoff timer). Repeater racetracks might work, but i've never found them reliable or compact... same for piston ring counters chained to eachother.

Breeder temp of 64k gives you recharge cycles that are 455 seconds long. For me, the easiest delay timer without Redpower is a ComputerCraft computer.

 

[raiju]

Isn't there a recipe that crafts uranium and a number of cells right into depleted? So perhaps build one of these first, start from depleted, and get more for the uranium?

I was completely unaware of such a recipe, thanks for the heads up! This could really make it easy to get a *lot* of uranium early on and completely out-do solar energy!

Now I need to take myself away from 6 chamber builds for the purposes of an early game reactor that doesn't use all of my copper personally A small breeder would use enough. A 64k breeder would make my copper supplies cry early game so I will probably use the 1 chamber breeder and just get them slower..

 

[Peppe]

I was completely unaware of such a recipe, thanks for the heads up! This could really make it easy to get a *lot* of uranium early on and completely out-do solar energy!

Now I need to take myself away from 6 chamber builds for the purposes of an early game reactor that doesn't use all of my copper personally A small breeder would use enough. A 64k breeder would make my copper supplies cry early game so I will probably use the 1 chamber breeder and just get them slower..

Yeah your first reactor really has to be your first 2 reactors. Breeder + actual reactor. Hybrid might be ok, but I couldn't really get into doing both jobs average when you could do both tasks well at twice the cost

This is a great first production reactor:
http://www.talonfiremage.pwp.blueyo...qr867wl4ylcn4qdoix3yd83b78y8enonfoolys5g23280

I like an always hot breeder, which at low temps means making sure your cells do more heat than your vents, which can be difficult.
I came up with this design:
http://www.talonfiremage.pwp.blueyo...r4flzku6qs8nuc0foqd9yjeu8m06u8j5a3s8ojmospjpc
Most on the IC2 reactor thread say they just manually heat up a reactor for breeding with a quad cell, which seems crazy to me. Most design then use one stack of cells and only hold heat while the cells are charging.

Anyway you will need at least a full stack of copper blocks + some lose stacks to get this foundation up. Once you have it though all the parts will be used in bigger/better designs, so nothing goes to waste. After your first uranium cell you can convert the rest to 8x isotopes for breeding and run the full cells through the production reactor for days.

 

[raiju]

Yeah, the server admin is very cautious of nuclear (and see me as reckless ) so I tend to not touch nuclear much just because it's an effort to set it up far away from the house. Next server when redpower is out he's given me the go-ahead to do what I want with nuclear after me proving I can make a safe one plenty of times and explaining to him the basics, so now I can start it off early whereas previously I was always in at least midgame before touching nuclear.

I realize the inherent costs to start a reactor regardless of size have that heavy copper cost - and the first production breeder looks nice I will probably use that unless I feel like playing with the planner again before redpower comes up and find something better (unlikely, that looks very good for not using copper to tie cells together or extra chambers)

The breeder I had in mind was:
http://www.talonfiremage.pwp.blueyo...ubxm7xtfmg1g55hj3bjf34e8ly4aba4vpbxkbdgo8lz30
(very similar to yours)

 

[Peppe]

yeah they are basically the same at that size, but here is my argument that I could never communicate. When the cells charge or you have the breeder off this is what the reactor will do:
http://www.talonfiremage.pwp.blueyo...kih776xrk8awd5ylofvktw5nz5bzyom7wy0tfvzrmpluk
Drops to 0 degrees when not in use or off. The vents totally counter the 21 heat the cells apply -- they stay on trying to get the core to 21k, but they can't affect the temp alone.

Now here is what that extra stack of lava cells buys you:
http://www.talonfiremage.pwp.blueyo...ue27c08mv9ucc0pms5lp58xh69fe1q6kcncoqfiqxmhog
On or off it will always hold at 21k... it is an always hot breeder. So you make 21 extra heating cells you will need 64 total later for the optimal breeder anyway.

To me it is worth it, but everyone has to make that call themselves.

 

[raiju]

Maybe a midstep Those heat cells are using copper plates each as well, can't remember now many each. If it's just 1 that's still 8*21/2 = 84 more copper. That's after the heat plates using 3 copper plates each or something silly

 

[Baditude]

I think plutonium is pretty impractical atm. However I was able to come up with this design if you're going for mk1: (granted I don't know where you'd get this much plutonium...)

Reactor Only: (160EU/t)
http://www.talonfiremage.pwp.blueyo...psie80c7s0oeefzyc0ltazwod8ilo4uw5cfd2xdet58n4

You can repeat the same 3x3 pattern and make a reactor at max size as well: (480EU/t)
http://www.talonfiremage.pwp.blueyo...mcf3us3dm9jqecdnh316ovkuhicuoikroxwko09tqrn5s

I haven't tested either of them in game, but according to the simulator it should work. I haven't played around with thorium at all, maybe I will tomorrow.

 

[raiju]

I think plutonium is pretty impractical atm. However I was able to come up with this design if you're going for mk1: (granted I don't know where you'd get this much plutonium...)

Reactor Only: (160EU/t)
http://www.talonfiremage.pwp.blueyo...psie80c7s0oeefzyc0ltazwod8ilo4uw5cfd2xdet58n4

You can repeat the same 3x3 pattern and make a reactor at max size as well: (480EU/t)
http://www.talonfiremage.pwp.blueyo...mcf3us3dm9jqecdnh316ovkuhicuoikroxwko09tqrn5s

I haven't tested either of them in game, but according to the simulator it should work. I haven't played around with thorium at all, maybe I will tomorrow.

It should work fine in game in general - and while it is extremely inefficient you have done at least one thing - beat the amount you can get from uranium in a 6 chamber reactor If someone wants the most powerful MK1 (with no replacing condensators or reflectors) your plan would work for that.

 

[raiju]

If you want I can screenshot some of the designs and send them to you in a conversation, just tell me which ones.

Also about the thorium being bugged - tested ingame and indeed it is on 1.4.2 at least, That quad thorium reactor blew up glass fibre cables meaning it's running at least over 512 eu/t, instead of the 192 eu stated on the planner.

 

[Santavio]

Assuming you have a lot of plutonium and redstone or lapis

MK1 EA+
http://www.talonfiremage.pwp.blueyo...hlot1794150x2s5dly2atwuor65tdmzbjrldsx36rr4sg