The new 5x5 IC² Reactor

  • Hello, i can't figure out how to pump water into this multiblock reactor. Neither Pump adjacent to reactor fluid port without (or even with) fluid ejector upgrade nor pump with fluid regulator or distributor works. What am i missing?

    • Official Post

    You don't pump water into it, you pump coolant into it. Which is made from either 1 bucket of water and 8 lapis dust or 1 bucket of distilled water and 1 lapis dust.

    145 Mods isn't too many. 9 types of copper and 8 types of tin aren't too many. 3 types of coffee though?

    I know that you believe that you understood what you think I said, but I am not sure you realise that what you read was not what I meant.


    ---- Minecraft Crash Report ----
    // I just don't know what went wrong :(


    I see this too much.

  • Ok, how the hell do you build the new multiblock reactor? I've tried a hollow 5x5x5 cube of pressure vessels, with 3 replaced with 1 each of an access hatch, fluid port, and redstone port, but no joy. I've also tried a solid cube with the same 3 replaced, also no joy. What am I missing?


    Google turns up nothing, as does the craptastic forum search. Is this information even documented anywhere?


    Edit: Ok, so I finally figured out that you put the 5x5x5 cube of Reactor Pressure Vessels AROUND the existing nuclear reactor setup. Jesus that was obtuse.

    • Official Post

    You're nearly doing it right. You want your hollow structure of 5x5 of pressure vessels, 1 access hatch, 2 fluid ports is best and 1 redstone port. But you need to put a normal reactor in the 3x3 space inside, with all 6 chambers attached. Then when you click on the access hatch, you should see the reactor GUI, with a tank either side of the normal reactor slots.

    145 Mods isn't too many. 9 types of copper and 8 types of tin aren't too many. 3 types of coffee though?

    I know that you believe that you understood what you think I said, but I am not sure you realise that what you read was not what I meant.


    ---- Minecraft Crash Report ----
    // I just don't know what went wrong :(


    I see this too much.

  • Anyone know if MOX is worth it in the fluid reactor system? since the new system makes "power" by the dissipation of heat through vents into the cooling fluid and not directly i think mox makes more Heat per tick if the core has heat ( a quad mox with 2 ajacant quad mox heats a 60k cell by 20 "damage"/sec at 0% coretemp, and around 36 "damage" per second at 75% coretemp) thats not the proposed increase mox should have.


    and that crcs system that was just shown, what itemtransport mod are you using to pull out/put in cooling cells?.


    edit: using #562,

  • Let's talk balance.


    Preamble: Some people dislike IC2's reactors because the component setup is entirely in-GUI, which is understandable given that Minecraft is particularly good about building structures. Just look at the Big Reactor's About page : "A reactor shouldn't be a series of toggles on a menu, or slots in an inventory!". And yet, I like IC2's reactors more than building-based Big Reactors, or the more realistic ReactorCraft. I think what draws me to IC2's reactors is that - despite the GUI - the component system offers real choices. Nobody can tell you what the "best" layout is, because it's up to you whether you want to aim for high efficiency, high power, low cost, high portability, uranium or MOX fuels, internal cooling or CRCS etc.


    I really like thunderdark's recent work on the reactors, both for the sake of realism and for the sake of building things. However it currently doesn't really add much fun, because it doesn't offer many choices.


    Let's say you have a reactor that would normally produce 100EU/t.


    The way I see it, there are 4 ways to set up a reactor's output, in order of increasing resource cost.
    A) Simple EU reactor - 100EU/t
    B) 5x5 reactor connected to Stirling Generators (0.5EU per HU) - 200Hu/t turns into 100EU/t
    C) 5x5 reactor connected to 2 Steam Boilers at 100hu/t each making regular steam (50EU/t per turbine) - 200Hu/t turns into 100EU/t
    D) 5x5 reactor connected to a Steam Boiler at 200hu/t making superheated steam (100EU/t for the first turbine, 50EU/t for the second stage)- 200Hu/t turns into 150EU/t


    The good:
    - The most expensive option produces the most EU
    - The most efficient option is produces less than 1EU per HU, avoiding any positive feedback loop exploits with the Electric Heat Generator (which is 1HU per EU)


    The bad:
    - Options B and C do not provide any benefit at all given their increased cost. Since they are inferior in every way, they aren't really a gameplay choice.
    - The only choice we're left with is A vs D, power vs cost.


    I would like to see these options differentiated a bit more, if possible, though I'm not sure how.


    The only suggestions I have are:
    1) Increase the HU output of the 5x5 reactor to 2.5 or something. Thus even a simple Stirling Generator setup would be better than the standard 3x3 reactor.
    2) Improve the efficiency of steam to 0.6EU per HU to give the single-turbine setup an edge over Stirling Generators. If the superheated steam factor remains 2.0, then a double-turbine setup would increase to 0.9EU per HU, which is still below the 1 to 1 practical limit.
    3) Give players a reason to choose single-stage turbines instead of a two-stage setup even though the two-stage is more powerful. Perhaps superheated steam damages rotors faster?


    Thoughts?

  • Some of these numbers are different from what I was observing (immediately after the release of the turbine) when the Liquid Heat Exchanger displayed 100/100 at max capacity instead of 200/200. That said, the HU/t I saw coming from my reactors didn't change even when the LHX got its GUI tweaked.


    I did see a significant drop to 64EU/t from turbines that had been giving me 128EU/t.


    Before that, though, yeah, the difference from stirlings to turbines was shockingly low from a level of effort standpoint.

  • There has been some balancing going on, so I'm not surprised our findings don't match exactly. Don't forget to delete your config file when updating. This is what I have as of build 564


    Running a Steam Generator with a single Liquid Heat Exchanger at 100HU/t, you can set the Steam Generator to 0 bar, 1mB/t water feed, and produce constant 100mb/t steam. The single turbine will produce 200KU/t, equating to 50EU/t. 0.5EU per HU


    Running a Steam Generator with two attached liquid heat exchangers for a total of 200HU/t, you can set the Steam Generator to 220 or 221 bar, 1mB/t water feed, and produce constant 100mb/t superheated steam. The first turbine will produce 400KU/t and pass its exhaust to the second turbine which will produce 200KU/t, equating to 150EU/t. 0.75EU per HU.

  • Gah, configs, yeah, I didn't delete.


    Also, I did not know you could chain turbines. I vote for tooltips or something.

  • Hello again guys, i wona ask how to merge steam turbine and kinetic steam generator to produce eU from kU? Yes, turbine is inside. kU generator just do nothing. Also do somebody get annoyng tons of steam flying around when steam generator works? I don't know to fix it and it is makes heavy lags.

  • @ kaldskryke


    Let's talk balance and it doesn't offer many choices. ;)


    Translation between EU Reactor and Heat Reactor are not 1:2
    example a QuadUranium Cell create 60EU/t or 192hU/t :rolleyes: 1: 3,2


    it is interesting if you have a 192Hu/t Reactor and SteamGenerator take 100/200/300,.. Hu/t what are you doing with the left 92Hu/t :P ...


    and Yes Electric Heat Generator will change... to prevent Loops.. Electric Heat Generator will take 1,5EU peer 2HU changes will add next weekend

  • Looking forward to it, TD. Thanks for the numbers, too.


    Will steam be made to generate at a water:steam ratio like Railcraft (for limited water worlds), and will it be the same fluid in pipes?

    • Official Post

    Will steam be made to generate at a water:steam ratio like Railcraft (for limited water worlds)


    IC2 steam generation is a better ratio then Railcraft's isn't it?

    145 Mods isn't too many. 9 types of copper and 8 types of tin aren't too many. 3 types of coffee though?

    I know that you believe that you understood what you think I said, but I am not sure you realise that what you read was not what I meant.


    ---- Minecraft Crash Report ----
    // I just don't know what went wrong :(


    I see this too much.

    • Official Post

    Actually, I think it might only be 100:1 now. Since 1 mB of water makes 100 mB of steam in the steam generator. Does increasing the steam pressure change that in any way?

    145 Mods isn't too many. 9 types of copper and 8 types of tin aren't too many. 3 types of coffee though?

    I know that you believe that you understood what you think I said, but I am not sure you realise that what you read was not what I meant.


    ---- Minecraft Crash Report ----
    // I just don't know what went wrong :(


    I see this too much.

  • @ Tomcat


    I was using ProjectRed's interface/piping system. It takes a bit of creativity to interact with the new reactors/components with the system. For eg. one of the extraction set ups on one end has to extract all coolant cells but the other end will not accept coolant cells that are above 25% health. Also the design only uses 50% of the capacity of the coolant cells to ensure that the coolant towers constantly output the same heat. If they don't regular steam will mix with the superheated steam. One problem I'm facing right now is that every-time I log out the steam generators lose their heat.

  • MOX should be totally doable for the same reason that it worked in any system where the vents pull out the heat. You just need a heat neutral system.


    I reckon the coolant gives you an additional way to keep it heat neutral, too, since you could keep a slightly over-cooled reactor hot by restricting the flow-rate of the coolant very precisely.

  • That's right, but with the current design MOX has no benefit over uranium in fluid reactors. On top of that, they last only half the time so it needs more automation and has no use( besides less uranium cost per run i think)


    Increasing the lifetime for fluid reactors would be an option.
    Another idea would be to increase the heat gen of MOX when the core temp is higher(maybe they already added that, last time i tested MOX it was like uranium with less lifetime and no benefit)


    For the coolant flow rate one would need additional components like a redstone emitting thermometer that can be set on a fixed temperature above/below it will emit redstone.

  • Yeah, I hadn't considered that MOX probably should give more heat when it's hot. [homersimpsonvoice] doh [/homersimpsonvoice]


    There are two ways in my mind that could work:

    • Bonus heat goes into the core and you've got to have components to deal with it. This would be very difficult.
    • Bonus heat is converted directly to output hU/t. This would be far easier to manage, but still means you've got to accommodate for additional coolant flow and conversion to power.

    There are efforts to port nuclear control, so we'll probably have such a thermometer when it's done and is given some interface to work with the 5x5 shell.