Reactorcraft Fusion Reactor Experiments

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zemerick

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Jul 29, 2019
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I have recently been experimenting with the Fusion Reactor. In fact, I got a design up to powering 17 High-Pressure Turbines, for a little over 146GW. While this was fairly interesting, it was only the start.

You see, it reminded of a few posts I have seen on these forums. These posts would claim things like the Fusion Reactor has a set build that you can't deviate from, and that it is boring because of this. While the core of the reactor did seem to be this way ( more on that in a bit.. ) my designs always deviated. The actual neutron absorption, and power generation, had a fair bit of design work to it. My designs were always able to get a bit more power, using less resources, and looked much nicer. ( IMO )

Well, in my efforts to really improve my reactor designs, I started looking at the actual code for various parts of the reactor. Contrary to what many people seem to think, the Fusion Reactor is not 1 thing that you just build one way. It's a series of pieces that interact in certain ways. Understanding how these interact, and don't, allows you to really start modifying things.

So far, my 2 main ideas are the "Clean Compact" plant, and "Very Cheaty Compact".

First, we have the Clean version:

jGfQuSe.png


As you can see, it is pretty similar to the full Tokamak, just a bit more compact, with the plasma generation outside of the main ring. This required a minimal amount of code abuse, and is still very true to the proper design.

Next, the extra cheaty version ( Sorry about the snow, I was too far into building to stop, lol ):

kdLScBj.png


Here, we have the Solenoid completely outside of the ring. ( Don't be surprised if Reika changes this. If he does, it could also break my other design, depending on what exactly he does. ) As you can probably see, it has a number of weird spots in it, and is not exactly symmetrical. This design really pushed things to their limit. It is capable of powering 4 HPTs, which is a little over 34GW. ( I haven't bothered building power generation on the Clean design. It should be pretty much the same. ) This design heavily relies on several specifics in the way the code is written, so it's pretty likely to break with any changes to said code.

I'm still experimenting with it all to see what can be done, and Reika just read my posts this morning, so who knows what else might come from this. I just thought everyone might find it interesting, and is proof that the reactor is not a single exact, boring design:)
 

ljfa

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Jul 29, 2019
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I didn't think you could deviate from the standard, after all even one incorrectly rotated magnet causes the entire thing to not work
Nerf all the things! :p
 

zemerick

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Jul 29, 2019
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I didn't think you could deviate from the standard, after all even one incorrectly rotated magnet causes the entire thing to not work
Nerf all the things! :p

The core stuff is indeed pretty sensitive, hence having to understand a bit of the code to make the above designs. Once you know what it's trying to do though, some modification becomes apparent.

I'm currently trying to think of a way to do a double reactor, but that's surprisingly difficult without just completely cheating again. ( For example, having a Solenoid magnet outside of the reactor. I'm trying to avoid that. )

...and no. I have no idea what one would do with about 300GW of power:)
 

Someone Else 37

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Feb 10, 2013
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Hmm... If it's possible to feed plasma into the reactor from outside the ring, as in your Clean Compact design, would it be possible to have more than four of the plasma-producing multiblocks feeding into one ring? That could really boost the power output and efficiency of the reactor, if the rumors that I've heard about having more than one boosting the efficiency are true.
 

zemerick

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Jul 29, 2019
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Hmm... If it's possible to feed plasma into the reactor from outside the ring, as in your Clean Compact design, would it be possible to have more than four of the plasma-producing multiblocks feeding into one ring? That could really boost the power output and efficiency of the reactor, if the rumors that I've heard about having more than one boosting the efficiency are true.

I'm pretty sure that would be rather trivial. I think you could even use the basic design, then simply line up extra injectors with the current ones, from outside. ( Plasma doesn't interact with anything, so all of the power generation infrastructure shouldn't get in the way. )

Now, it should be extra trivial for my Clean design, and I could test that right now in a few minutes. I think I'll go with 8 injectors, and see how that compares. Catching the neutrons, and not melting things down, should be rather interesting though. ( Naturally, the power generation numbers will take me a fair while longer to obtain. )

Also, so far the double tokamak designs are all a bust without cheesing it.
 

Someone Else 37

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I'm pretty sure that would be rather trivial. I think you could even use the basic design, then simply line up extra injectors with the current ones, from outside. ( Plasma doesn't interact with anything, so all of the power generation infrastructure shouldn't get in the way. )

Now, it should be extra trivial for my Clean design, and I could test that right now in a few minutes. I think I'll go with 8 injectors, and see how that compares. Catching the neutrons, and not melting things down, should be rather interesting though. ( Naturally, the power generation numbers will take me a fair while longer to obtain. )

Also, so far the double tokamak designs are all a bust without cheesing it.
/me grins evilly

Also, what exactly do you mean by "double tokamak"? A regular sort of tokamak with another ring of magnets around it?
 

zemerick

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Jul 29, 2019
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I feel like @Reika would actually be pleased with this kind of abuse unlike that of the magnetostatic abuse :p

Well, he's "ambivalent" about it:) He approves of the creative use, but doesn't like that a lot of it is built more around the way it is coded than intended. He also doesn't like that it seems to yield the same power as a properly built reactor.

/me grins evilly

Also, what exactly do you mean by "double tokamak"? A regular sort of tokamak with another ring of magnets around it?

Any variation allowing 2 tokamaks to be combined, reducing resources. ( The way it works 2 rings wouldn't work without cheesing it....but neither did any of my other ideas so far. )

Also: Didn't notice the time. Gotta take a break for an hour, and didn't quite finish the initial test. I do have the extra preheaters warming up at least:)

EDIT: Yup. Works just fine. All I did was load up the Clean Compact world, and add an extra 7 injectors behind the current one. No toroids ( They wouldn't have recognized the solenoid anyways ), 1m gap between each one. Added more preheaters to keep up with the plasma demand. This produced an insane amount of neutrons. Like...this will test my ability to design the power generation to not melt-down constantly, lol. Then we'll see how the energy production compares to 2 independent fusion reactors.

Also: 8 injectors in a line produces quite a bit of fusion inside themselves. I'm getting a lot of neutrons out of there, before the plasma ever reaches the first toroid.
 
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zemerick

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Jul 29, 2019
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Update: With 8 injectors, I expected somewhere around 34 HPTs worth of steam. I haven't gotten it entirely stabilized ( that could take an entire day, just for a side experiment ), but it's only running about 26 HPTs. That's pretty far below. Part of the problem is likely the way I am running 8 injectors in a single line. Along this line is producing so many neutrons, that a neutron absorber melts long before it can spread the heat to the steam boilers. ( It hits over 2500 in about 1 second, and they melt at 1600...) To fix this, I placed a Neutron Irradiation Chamber in front of each to convert Deuterium to Tritium, making the reactor self sustaining. However, this removes a large amount of the neutrons, more than are actually needed for break even. Considering it is only 2 blocks and a certain amount needed for break even, this doesn't account for the huge discrepancy, but it does make a difference.

That being said, it does also only use 35 Toroids and 1 Solenoid, instead of 72 Toroids and 2 Solenoids needed for 2 full reactors. It seems to fit pretty nicely in the middle.

Neutron Absorbers, Steam Boilers and Steam Lines are all significantly more than what 2 reactors would have. ( Especially if the 2 were built right next to each other, so you wouldn't need 1 wall of absorbers/etc. for each of the reactors. )