...Except uranium fuel is constantly being consumed, the reactors themselves aren't (unless they blow up, which with a Mk 1 is basically impossible). That, and copper, iron and tin are WAY more common than uranium.
Whay he means is that there's no copper being used in making duo/quad uranium cells.
Maybe the canvas bag dupe bug?
Notice the word "legitimately" there?
Anyway, a quad plutonium cell surrounded by neutron reflectors generates over 1000 heat per second. You can't cool that with just internal vents, I'm afraid. You could use Shneekey's distributed coolant system (dumping the heat in coolant cells, swapping in fresh ones and pumping the depleted ones into cooling towers where they are restored), but I'm not sure you'd want to bother with that...
A good alternative are GregTech's hybrid reactors though. They run off single plutonium cells surrounded by quad thorium cells, which creates a sort of snowball effect between them that results in more pulses than conventionally possible. Thus you can get over efficiency 9 with them, and they are convenient in their fuel requirements because the same process you use to generate plutonium also gives you thorium.
There's even a crazy setup dubbed the "hybreeder", which is an efficiency 9.175, thorium-neutral hybrid reactor that pulls 367 EU/t and at the same time breeds almost three times its own fuel need out of depleted isotopes. However it is quite difficult to automate, since you not only need to constantly remove re-enriched isotopes and insert depleted isotopes into that specific slot, but also occasionally replace the plutonium cells and remove depleted isotopes from those specific slots. Off the top of my head, I wouldn't know how to do this - I know some GregTech machinery can target specific inventory slots, as can Factorization routers (but they require Factorization energy come the next update), but I've never even attempted doing anything like that.
Still, if you feel like tackling it - or running it manually - here's the layout: http://www.talonfiremage.pwp.blueyo...4qbzfj7njhh1swr8v5nzsm9upgcbzzc239mx3b3o7pvr4
The thing was designed by Peppe with some help of Requia on the IC2 forums, if I recall correctly.
Also keep in mind that GregTech's 1.5 update will change how plutonium works a bit. I'm told hybrid reactors still work (Greg himself wants them as a buff to nuclear reactors), but the exact numbers and setups might change.
Just supply copper, tin, uranium and coal dust, and the reactor will keep itself running indefinitely.I've managed to implement Pepe's suggestion using Applied Energistics... quite awesome what you can do with it
It did take quite a bit of tinkering though; getting the correct amount of quad thorium and plutonium cells into the advanced regulator without congesting it (and thereby halting the breeding process) required integrating it into the AE network with a ME storage bus that accepts only these two cells, while preformatting the storage device to accept anything BUT these two cells, and then also feeding the regulator with an export bus controlled by a level emitter monitoring the amount of quad thorium cells in the network. As such the reactor kind of needs to be in its own network, and can't be in the overall base network. However, I could imagine a practical way to bridge the two using Redpower (but this is a topic for another day).
Currently I am running a test cycle or two. I am a little worried about the strict sequential nature of AE's autocrafting process. It will breed 8 isotopes, then pause for 1000 seconds while the industrial centrifuge does its job, then complete the quad thorium cell, and only then start breeding new isotopes (and then wait another 1000 seconds). Since the centrifuge needs to do five runs to supply fuel for one cycle, and the reactor first needs to heat up to get to its full breeding speed, I thought I better doublecheck if the process runs fast enough.
Note that because of the AE network draining 10 EU/t and the centrifuge requiring 5x 100k EU, the reactor's output is lessened from 367 million EU to 356.5 million EU, and thus its efficiency drops from 9.175 to 8.9125. Still, I think it's a decent tradeoff for the full automation.
Unfortunately I refuse to use turtles or anything else computercraft adds on principle (I don't even load CC or Miscperipherals). I agree that it can be fun to code programs, but personally I feel it doesn't fit thematically, and more importantly, I want to play Minecraft and not teach a robot to play Minecraft for me
So no, no turtles here.
It works well so far even without them. It finished crafting the first quad thorium/single plutonium pair before the plutonium cells in the reactor dropped anwhere near 75%, so the crafting process is way ahead of schedule.
I can provide screenshots tomorrow, but for now, time to move my European butt into bed.
Unfortunately I refuse to use turtles or anything else computercraft adds on principle (I don't even load CC or Miscperipherals). I agree that it can be fun to code programs, but personally I feel it doesn't fit thematically, and more importantly, I want to play Minecraft and not teach a robot to play Minecraft for me
So no, no turtles here.
It works well so far even without them. It finished crafting the first quad thorium/single plutonium pair before the plutonium cells in the reactor dropped anwhere near 75%, so the crafting process is way ahead of schedule.
I can provide screenshots tomorrow, but for now, time to move my European butt into bed.
