The new 5x5 IC² Reactor

  • Thx sir.


    Bit of a shame really. I got into MOX because I couldn't figure out how to get fuel for a regular reactor at the time. I was hoping the 5x5 would be an upgrade, but having seriously fumbled through menenth's video walkthrough, I can't justify the extra effort.


    That said, always keeping an eye on this thread for new discoveries.


    I hesitate to build the 5x5x5 in my survival game until there's better documentation of how to set it up, including how to tell if the external components are oriented properly (and which face to sneak-click with a wrench if they're not, which isn't always intuitive, in might in some cases even require doing that to the side facing the reactor, which would be a problem) and how to determine how many external components are needed for an arbitrary reactor design. Also, I think there was a mention earlier in this thread of getting 11mb of water for a steam generator - does that need to be exactly 11mb in a ufc, and if so, how does one get that exact amount?


    I think I could get to translating mementh's video into text form for the wiki. How in depth is it? Since I haven't had the chance to watch the whole thing yet...

    i plan to do a re-cover tonight to do a new showing of the 1120 design that i have bene working with


    just got all the parts lists done and ready for showing ( plan to swap to survival sorta to build)


    so should have a new video in the morning for you all thats ALOT shorter

  • Hello, I just joined the forum and I have been using the experimental build of IC2 for some time now. I'm trying to make a nuclear power plant of 12 5x5 reactors (6 uranium, 6 MOX) using the sterling gen and one group of fluid ports per reactor. For some reason since the world was made before I updated I can't get the heat exchanger to work. when i tried a 420 REG Eu/t setup that i used in one of my earlier plants.


    This is also true for the MOX reactors as well with the plating changed for heat capacity buff. The sterling gen was full when I stopped the reactor I'm using the nuclear control mod to help shutdown the reactors automatically if something goes wrong, however I didn't like what was happening inside. In the other worlds with simple single cell reactors one pair of fluid ports is doing just fine, however when i get to "almost full" it stops working.

  • What do you mean by "one group" of fluid ports? If you're using the 420 EU/t "High power high running cost" design from the official reactors design thread ([Official] New Reactors design thread.), I've put that one in my planner (IC2 Experimental Reactor Planner open beta), and it indicates an average heat output for the 5x5x5 of 1344 HU/s, so it would require either 7 or 14 fluid ports, each with its own liquid heat exchanger, and then a stirling generator or steam+kinetic generators for each port.

  • I can comfirm that the high power high output reactors produce 1344 Hu/s so you need at least 14 liquid heat exchangers and a number of fluid ports that can handle thaat. I would guess you need 14 liquid ports if you are going pure ic2 exp. From the sound of it you don't have enough stirling generators to cool the reactor.


    If you are using the old reactor planner you can't look at the eu/output but rather you multiply the amount of heat generated times 2 to know the amount of Hu/s it will produce. in this case it's 672*2=1344

    A question that sometimes drives me hazy; am i or are the other crazy

  • cool! Look forward to seeing the results.

    So i got the video done.. building and explaining WHY and such and
    letting it get stable ( 5 mins worth of time abouts) is about a hour.. i don't think i could reduce it
    down anymore then i did..


    http://youtu.be/_Zn7UGDkQn0




    I found a small error in my calculations ( I missed 1 fluid port and 3 Fluid Regulators but my spreadsheet is updated for them)
    https://docs.google.com/spread…1rFfeiAg/edit?usp=sharing


    total materials is


    73Glass plates



    30Glass blocks/sand/macerated stone
    829Tin Bars


    32Lapis


    1113Lead bars


    1956Iron Bars


    100Gold Bars


    2Glowstone


    83Redstone


    1612Copper


    979Rubber


    216Stone/Cobblestone


    6Wood planks


    9Uranium

  • I never actually realised how bloody expensive the new reactors are, holy shit thats a lot of resources.


    Think nuclear could use some buffing or windpower some nerfing
    You could make something like 10 wind turbines at 160 height and it would produce 800-1000 eu/tick for about a stack of copper and tin, 400 ish iron, 90 steel and 2880 coal powder. that does not feel right considering the cost of that reactor :S

    A question that sometimes drives me hazy; am i or are the other crazy

  • the new wind power yes.. the old was junk ...
    right now from what i can tell in my current setup


    a 1120 hu/t reactor gives 810 eu/t
    thats 1.383 HU to make 1 EU


    a 400 gives about 300 eu/t.
    thats 1.33 HU to make 1 EU


    wind's
    only issue as far as i know is its variable.. but being honest.. does
    that matter if you have excess generation to your usage over time IE you
    use a MFSU to buffer the EU


    so i would say nuclear compared to that is alot of work.. fun work but .... player might be better to find a way to buff it..
    to
    make it smarter have a internal shut down part that prevents blowing
    up? ( would be a expensive part but worth it for mark 5/s or mox's)


    reduce the mats to make the vents and blocks ( IE more pressure vessle blocks per... craft or making 2x the vents ?)



    make the turbines last longer ( alot longer then 2 cycles ) ( right now its bugged to not ever fail?)




    buffing
    steam output.. IE superheated steam gives 200 eu/t and regular 100
    eu/t this would also make the stierling genrator a non viable option ( I
    use one on my design as a variable and one using full heat.. if both of
    those gave 100 eu/t or the boiler couls stay at 100C with the 20 hu/t
    but output steam randomly it would be more viable to make 2 more turbine
    systems)


    its as you say not viable for the cost.. as it stands i
    could make a wind turbine farm cheaper then a nuke to put out much much
    more energy... even with parts wearing down its more viable to go wind.
    or is there something we are missing ?


    will let others stew over this.. is a nuclear reactor something viable for a end game item that is not overpowered but usefull ?

  • I can comfirm that the high power high output reactors produce 1344 Hu/s so you need at least 14 liquid heat exchangers and a number of fluid ports that can handle thaat. I would guess you need 14 liquid ports if you are going pure ic2 exp. From the sound of it you don't have enough stirling generators to cool the reactor.


    If you are using the old reactor planner you can't look at the eu/output but rather you multiply the amount of heat generated times 2 to know the amount of Hu/s it will produce. in this case it's 672*2=1344

    is your 1344 a stable mark 1? or unstable other mark? (IE can you set it and forget it or do you have to have something watching it)

  • stable mark 1, its the high output low efficiency reactor from the regular reactor thread.


    I would use the maximum efficiency thought as it is a lot more efficient (more than double)


    I might have said this several times before but all the designs found in this thread works for 5x5 reactors and they are all stable mark 1 reactors


    [Official] New Reactors design thread.


    To calculate the 5x5 output just double the heat generated in the old reactor planer.


    Due to how the heat generation scales with efficiency for 5x5 generators it is a lot better to use efficient designs rather than high output low efficiency generators.


    The best full scale stable mark 1 reactor from that thread is this one
    http://www.talonfiremage.pwp.b…adh05nlzbpykw84kwczan05q8


    Stable, cheap and produces 1280 Hu/s with only 12 uranium rods, half of which isnt even quad core. doesn't require any diamonds. Also since it produces 1280 Hu/s you can also easily automate it with ic2 only. You use 6 steam cycles (just watch memenths video) with 12 liquid heat exchangers fully loaded for 1200 Hu and you then dump the rest into a liquid heat exchanger with only 8 heat exchangers and a stirling which uses exactly 80 hu.


    IMO the best reactor by far for 5x5 as it stands right now both with respect to price, ease of setup and efficiency.


    Ofc it still gets crushed cost for cost by windpower but as far as 5x5 reactors go, this is the one you should go with. it also works well with a stirling setup or just as a regular reactor so you can easily adjust how complicated you wanna go.


    Also about windpower: The carbon wind turbines last FOREVER. we are talking hundreds of in game hours. i had one since the start of my current survival server and its down to like 80%. The amount of power you can produce before you break one of those wind turbines is absolutely insane

    A question that sometimes drives me hazy; am i or are the other crazy

    Edited once, last by Blackpalt ().

  • I never actually realised how bloody expensive the new reactors are, holy shit thats a lot of resources.


    Think nuclear could use some buffing or windpower some nerfing
    You could make something like 10 wind turbines at 160 height and it would produce 800-1000 eu/tick for about a stack of copper and tin, 400 ish iron, 90 steel and 2880 coal powder. that does not feel right considering the cost of that reactor :S


    Now I'm curious. Has anyone made a table comparing the resources needed to produce a certain amount of eu/tick (e.g. 1000 eu/t, either average or peak) using different methods (old-style reactors, new-style reactors, simple generators, water power, wind power (including compact windmills), solar power (including advanced and compact solar panels), etc.)?

  • i would nerf the new totally overpowered wind turbines and buff the liquid nuclear. especially the Steam part, since the stirlings are very easy to use, but the steam setup is a lot harder to do and requires more knowledge and experiments.


    right now, fluid reactors are , sorry for that but, bullshit. with wind you can easily generate much more power. and if you really wanna use reactors, than go mox. its way cheaper and produces more energy than the fluid reactors. and with nuclear control its also nearly 100% safe.



    BUT remember guys you can nerf/buff the energy output of nuclear, wind, solar, water and so on in the config

  • The resource count for lead there is obviously way off; it does not take anywhere near that much lead or you'd be mining for a VERY long time ( lead is about as rare as uranium ). Looking at the spreadsheet, it looks like you compute the number of containment vessels needed, then divide that by 4 in cell C10, since each batch you make gives 4 vessels, but then when you compute the amount of lead and stone required, you multiplied by the original count of vessels in B9 rather than the number of batches in C10.

  • but it needs to be set as a good setting from the start! and i am bad about choosing balance propperly :(


    The resource count for lead there is obviously way off; it does not take anywhere near that much lead or you'd be mining for a VERY long time ( lead is about as rare as uranium ). Looking at the spreadsheet, it looks like you compute the number of containment vessels needed, then divide that by 4 in cell C10, since each batch you make gives 4 vessels, but then when you compute the amount of lead and stone required, you multiplied by the original count of vessels in B9 rather than the number of batches in C10.

    hehe fixed :) thanks :) yeah :) still alot of steel and copper :)

  • What do you mean by "one group" of fluid ports? If you're using the 420 EU/t "High power high running cost" design from the official reactors design thread ([Official] New Reactors design thread.), I've put that one in my planner (IC2 Experimental Reactor Planner open beta), and it indicates an average heat output for the 5x5x5 of 1344 HU/s, so it would require either 7 or 14 fluid ports, each with its own liquid heat exchanger, and then a stirling generator or steam+kinetic generators for each port.

    Yes that's exactly what I mean. I use nuclear control on the reactor inside of the 5x5 vessel before sealing it so the remote thermal monitor will send an inverse redstone signal through the redstone port to stop production of EU on the sterling generator. Is there a design that will only need 1 pair of fluid ports that still uses quad cells (both uranium and mox) thats stable in 5x5 format? It seems that the standard reactor designs are a tad bit unstable for the new 5x5 format. When the core temp is maintained components melt because they can't keep up then the heat rises and then KABOOM I get a crater. All six reactors have space for only one fluid port since I put them in a rectangle with 4 block space in between columns (two of them a Wall) and 1 block spacer wall in between each reactor in each column.

  • Yes that's exactly what I mean. I use nuclear control on the reactor inside of the 5x5 vessel before sealing it so the remote thermal monitor will send an inverse redstone signal through the redstone port to stop production of EU on the sterling generator. Is there a design that will only need 1 pair of fluid ports that still uses quad cells (both uranium and mox) thats stable in 5x5 format? It seems that the standard reactor designs are a tad bit unstable for the new 5x5 format. When the core temp is maintained components melt because they can't keep up then the heat rises and then KABOOM I get a crater. All six reactors have space for only one fluid port since I put them in a rectangle with 4 block space in between columns (two of them a Wall) and 1 block spacer wall in between each reactor in each column.


    I'm sorry, but that still doesn't make it clear what you mean by "group of fluid ports", and I'm having trouble visualizing your setup based on your description. Like Blackpalt said, some pictures would be nice. I don't understand how they would only have space for one fluid port each. However, with the 5x5x5, I think arranging several of them tightly together is a bad idea, as is putting walls between them. You want some room around them for multiple fluid ports and heat-to-energy conversion setups connected to each fluid port.


    Edit: I looked again at the edited first post of this thread, which says a single reactor fluid port and LHE can handle up to 200 Hu/s. I checked in my planner, and a simple design with one quad cell (0C0D0C0000000000000D030D0000000000000C0D0C000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000) will generate 192 Hu/s average (and maximum), which is close to that limit, so if you insist on only using one fluid port per reactor, you'll also have to limit yourself to one quad cell per reactor.

  • I'm sorry, but that still doesn't make it clear what you mean by "group of fluid ports", and I'm having trouble visualizing your setup based on your description. Like Blackpalt said, some pictures would be nice. I don't understand how they would only have space for one fluid port each. However, with the 5x5x5, I think arranging several of them tightly together is a bad idea, as is putting walls between them. You want some room around them for multiple fluid ports and heat-to-energy conversion setups connected to each fluid port.


    Edit: I looked again at the edited first post of this thread, which says a single reactor fluid port and LHE can handle up to 200 Hu/s. I checked in my planner, and a simple design with one quad cell (0C0D0C0000000000000D030D0000000000000C0D0C000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000) will generate 192 Hu/s average (and maximum), which is close to that limit, so if you insist on only using one fluid port per reactor, you'll also have to limit yourself to one quad cell per reactor.

    how can a Liquid heat exchange handle 200 hu/t ? it has space for only 10 of the heat things ( can't remember name ) ...

  • Hi - i'm trying to generate more power by using steam kinetic generator.
    For now i hooked up heat exchanger to steam generator, and it receives heat -> good.
    Then it is hooked up by liquid exchanger to steam generator, but it refuses to accept water, instead water can flow right through it to the other side appearing at output(?) as some milibuckets/tick... of water.
    I tried to hook up fluid pipe, also to kinetic steam generator -> which with fluid ejector upgrqade pumps fluid to whatever pipe is hooked to it. So i tried to make steam/water circuit with fluid exchangers, but steam generator is not accepting water input.


    also - should i hook kinetic generator to steam kinetic generator ? or just plug cable directly ?

    Inteligence is not everything - wisdom is more than that.
    "Survival is survival dammit.. don't give me this stinky cheated diamonds.. .. or else.." - by unknown hero

  • Hi - i'm trying to generate more power by using steam kinetic generator.
    For now i hooked up heat exchanger to steam generator, and it receives heat -> good.
    Then it is hooked up by liquid exchanger to steam generator, but it refuses to accept water, instead water can flow right through it to the other side appearing at output(?) as some milibuckets/tick... of water.
    I tried to hook up fluid pipe, also to kinetic steam generator -> which with fluid ejector upgrqade pumps fluid to whatever pipe is hooked to it. So i tried to make steam/water circuit with fluid exchangers, but steam generator is not accepting water input.


    also - should i hook kinetic generator to steam kinetic generator ? or just plug cable directly ?

    i made a video a bit ago that goes through the enire setup..
    http://youtu.be/_Zn7UGDkQn0 it takes time but shows just about everything needed