(survival) My First 5x5: BioGas, ~900EU/T, self feeding. 10 Uranium Rods Stable

1st Official Post

    It uses this Component layout:


    http://www.talonfiremage.pwp.b…2xwed2k0a8xjtsa61jr3se5mo


    Probably not the best component layout around, certainly open to adjusting it, but I think it's efficiency per rod is good, even before gas conversion. ( I heart biogas )


    Sugar is grown up top, managed by cropmatron and harvestor, pump from ocean feeds cropmatron's hydration and canning machine. All equipment powered by 1 semifluid generator, which gets fed by the machine before export of gas. Harvestor>Macerator>Solid/Fluid Canning, then fed into fermenters. There are 18 fermenters connected to 18 Liquid heat exchangers. This turned out to be overkill, there's simply not enough hot coolant to go around.


    All Fertilizer is fed back to the sugar patch up top. I've got 53 Semifluid Generators to expend the gas produced. That seems about the right number.


    Confusingly the reactor display says 1056hu/s, that can't be right, it must mean HU/t? I don't think it could be supply so much otherwise.


    1056hu/t
    40,000 heat to make a bucket of biogas
    = 1 bucket of biofuel every 37.87 ticks


    32,000 EU per bucket of biogas


    32,000 / 37.87 = ~845, but my numbers are a little better than that, not including feeding the separate generator that runs the system.


    Also the rods seem to be lasting a VERY long time, I think much longer than the 2 hours and 46 minutes projected by the Java app.


    I don't know how much bounce per ounce you get from steam. But I like biogas, and I think this is a pretty cool set up :). I swap the rods out once in a great while, otherwise it needs no intervention from me.


    I suppose someone could convey energy losslessly over great distances this way, though they'd have to grow a lot of cactus first.


    I'd love to hear any input.

    • Official Post
    Quote from CraftyFellow

    Also the rods seem to be lasting a VERY long time, I think much longer than the 2 hours and 46 minutes projected by the Java app.


    They last twice as long as the planner says now. That was one of the experimental changes.


    But using biogas instead of steam with a 5x5 is quite a cool idea, probably a lot cheaper in survival than the huge iron costs for steam too.

    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.

    Substantially less aggravating to get working than steam as well, and the cost of biomass is pretty trivial...


    Quote

    This turned out to be overkill, there's simply not enough hot coolant to go around.

    Maybe not, in my tests I can't get more than 1000Hu/t stable with 13 of them, it's possible 18 broke that. Or you're gonna eventually have a meltdown.

    I'm not going to lie, I do not understand what's going on here. How is biogas being combined with the 5x5 reactor?


    This is my own failing: I've only done the new reactors and biogas (separately) in creative.

    Now that I look at the reactor itself, you've made a pretty amazing discovery. Every test I've done in a fluid reactor is 5 reactor heat=8


    I'm fairly sure it'll eventually melt down if you don't have a nuclear control cutoff, my 13exchanger setup drops to 1000hu/t after a bit and gains core temp (in the reactor interface, you need to be sure that the hot coolant isn't slowly gaining over time, once the coolant hot coolant reservoir fills up this happen), but the 18 will last longer. If you do have a nuclear control cutoff though you should be gold, if you don't make sure there is no hot coolant at all actually in the reactor, it should completely empty into the exchangers every second (it may take a while to actually start building up).


    Whats really cool about the biogas setup is how easily RTG gens are gonna plug into this. every... 7.2 cycles you get another 64hu/t and a bonus fermenter, and the slow fuel rates means you should be able to just plug it into your existing pipes no problem.


    Your cooling arrangement is pretty expensive, though it obviously works.

    Quote from Pyure

    I'm not going to lie, I do not understand what's going on here. How is biogas being combined with the 5x5 reactor?


    This is my own failing: I've only done the new reactors and biogas (separately) in creative.

    5x5 reactors create hot coolant which needs to be dealt with. You remove it from the system via a Reactor Port, whereupon most people put that hot coolant into a Liquid Heat Exchanger, which they use to heat steam, to get kinetic energy that they turn into electricity. What's happening here is instead of making steam, I'm using multiple heat exchangers to heat multiple fermenters, making a ton of biogas burned in 53 semifluid generators, all fed by that one source: Hot coolant from the 5x5 reactor ( that and sugar ;) )

    Quote from Requia


    it's possible 18 broke that. Or you're gonna eventually have a meltdown.

    Could happen, had a clean cycle though. My only concern is if electricity demand in my base dropped, then the generators would stop eating through the gas, the gas would have nowhere to go, the fermenters would stop etc. I'm gonna set something up soon that deals with this.


    Basically I am going to make a few more generators than ever get successfully filled when demand is full (mass fab). Then I'll hook an EU detector cable to one of the generators that SHOULD never get juice. If it does get juice it will turn on a red stone signal, that turns on a pump that starts kicking the gas out into a big storage pit with the use of a FloodGate from buildcraft........which I almost like better than having EU anyway....giant repositories (I'm going to TNT down to bedrock) of BioGas....Or....Maybe I'll just dump it all into the ocean on top of some squid :)

    Quote from Chocohead

    But using biogas instead of steam with a 5x5 is quite a cool idea, probably a lot cheaper in survival than the huge iron costs for steam too.

    Thank you :). Though admiteddly I did use SOME iron in the 53 semi-fluid generators :P

    Quote from Requia


    Now that I look at the reactor itself, you've made a pretty amazing discovery.
    ...
    Whats really cool about the biogas setup is how easily RTG gens are gonna plug into this. every... 7.2 cycles you get another 64hu/t and a bonus fermenter, and the slow fuel rates means you should be able to just plug it into your existing pipes no problem.


    Your cooling arrangement is pretty expensive, though it obviously works.

    Thank you, but what are RTG gens? My reactor climbs to 4% core heat, then stays there forever. Funny that.

    Doing some more tests, the discovery is me fucking up some math in first experiments on how much heat the test reactors were making (i though the basic was 5, not 4 for some reason).


    I assumed once core heat started building it was gonna go badly (mine went way over 4%, but at the same time that was a much hotter reactor), I'll have to test more if it stabilizes. Some pretty massive fluid reactors could be built if there's no 1000hu/t limit.


    RTG is radiothermal generators. You fuel them with the plutonium you get from thermal centrifuging the depleted cells. It takes a lot, 12 depleted cells per pellet, and 6 pellets to fill the RTG. But each full RTG thermal generator makes 64hu/t, and they never ever have to be refueled.


    What I would actually do in terms of full storage shutdown, is feed the gas through a big big tank. Then use a buildcraft gate to shut down when tank is full. This gives you a supply of gas if you want ever want to deploy power at a distance that doesn't rely on the reactor being on.

    Quote from Requia

    What I would actually do in terms of full storage shutdown, is feed the gas through a big big tank. Then use a buildcraft gate to shut down when tank is full. This gives you a supply of gas if you want ever want to deploy power at a distance that doesn't rely on the reactor being on.

    I'm afraid I don't know how all those fancy "gates" work yet. Unless you just mean the floodgate. I'll either look it up and take your advice, or take half of your advice: Storage before use. Blast giant pit. All gas gets dumped down in there from a high up FloodGate, then there's a pump at the bottom (powered by gas ;) ) that sends all the gas back up to the generators.


    ...Now if only I could make galacticraft rocket fuel from biogas I'd have a great excuse to hoard the stuff. That and squid cruelty.

    Gates are fancy things that attach to buildcraft pipes. When x condition is met they do y thing (the number of options for x and y is dizzyingly high, but the important ones are 'tank full' and 'emit redstone'.


    Floodgates I don't know, does this place fluids in the world?


    I'm tempted to go drown myself in oxygen.

    Quote from Requia

    Gates are fancy things that attach to buildcraft pipes. When x condition is met they do y thing (the number of options for x and y is dizzyingly high, but the important ones are 'tank full' and 'emit redstone'.


    Floodgates I don't know, does this place fluids in the world?


    I'm tempted to go drown myself in oxygen.

    Oh, those sound great.


    And yes, that's what flood gates do. A while back I made these big silos for holding biogas:

    I'm sure that's how people put UU liquid into the world, as I understand being in the stuff gives regen 2. Also, I found that if you put Lava through a heat exchanger, you get Pahoe lava as output. Dump that into the world, and it will dry as basalt. Not aware of a use for basalt yet.


    I also used a floodgate to make a giant pool of my own blood (blood magic mod)...and I swam in it....and whether or not I drowned a chicken in it is none of your business. :whistling:


    With floodgates, I reccomend putting them at the TOP of whatever container you intend to fill. If I'm not mistaken the flood gate isn't willing to create new source blocks of liquid above it's own level, but it certainly makes them pile up below itself.


    I think it would be awesome if IC2 gained the ability to use Flint and Tinder on source blocks of biogas and KABOOM!

    • Official Post
    Quote from CraftyFellow

    I'm sure that's how people put UU liquid into the world, as I understand being in the stuff gives regen

    Right clicking on the ground with a cell of it will work too

    Quote from CraftyFellow

    Not aware of a use for basalt yet.

    Building, but that's it.

    Quote from CraftyFellow

    If I'm not mistaken the flood gate isn't willing to create new source blocks of liquid above it's own level, but it certainly makes them pile up below itself.

    Yeah, the floodgate will fill up to the level it's on, but not higher.

    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.

    Quote from Requia

    Gates are fancy things that attach to buildcraft pipes.

    Thanks for the recommendation, had a look up to speed now. I set up a pretty simple option. My reactor's redstone port is now activated with a redstone torch. I have a logic gate on the nearest fermenter. If it ever becomes completely full (gas) it emits a redstone signal that suppresses the redstone torch that enables the reactor. Thank you :)



    Quote from CraftyFellow

    5x5 reactors create hot coolant which needs to be dealt with. You remove it from the system via a Reactor Port, whereupon most people put that hot coolant into a Liquid Heat Exchanger, which they use to heat steam, to get kinetic energy that they turn into electricity. What's happening here is instead of making steam, I'm using multiple heat exchangers to heat multiple fermenters, making a ton of biogas burned in 53 semifluid generators, all fed by that one source: Hot coolant from the 5x5 reactor ( that and sugar ;) )


    Awesome, thanks for clarifying. I take it you've confirmed that the result produces more energy than steam/kinetic? (I would imagine so at a glance)

    Quote from Pyure

    Awesome, thanks for clarifying. I take it you've confirmed that the result produces more energy than steam/kinetic? (I would imagine so at a glance)

    To be honest I have no idea what people are getting from steam, I just like biogas :). My system is turning 1056 Hu/T into an average of 916Eu/T. However I think it could do more with better fluid distribution. Some of the Semifluid generators in the front are completely full, while a few in the back struggle stay on. Running the machine for a very long time seems to start filling the ones in the back (I've been adding more).


    Also there is one spot where I have all 18 fermenters' outputs passing through one iron fluid pipe, then joining into a single gold pipe. This may be creating a bottleneck. I'm going to try giving each of the three 6 cluster fermenters it's own golden pipe all the way to the Generator complex.


    By the way it seems like this is more power than I should be getting....Maybe I have some old information, but I thought that


    (1056 hu/t / 40,000 hu per bucket ) * 32,000 Eu per bucket


    should be giving a mere 844.8 Eu/T


    but we're a little over 900, and may get more when gas is better distributed.

    Some of the 'good reactors' are still pretty valid, now that I have a better idea of how the fluids work (my 1000hu/t capout problem was apparently that corners aren't valid places to exchange heat, also I'm now predicting hu/t better) I was able to get a 1280hu/t sterling reactor running in creative (Up until I accidentally broke the cable leading to the power void, at which point I was not able to run to my redstone switch fast enough to avoid a meltdown).


    It was based on, though not identical, to this, this version is cheaper though, my version is a modification meant for stable heat with MOX.


    http://www.talonfiremage.pwp.b…adh05nlzbpykw84kwczan05q8


    If the ratio is the same, it should bust 1100EU/t.


    You will need over two stacks of semifluid generators though OR I did some tests, and liquid heat gens+sterling gens produce the same total EU from biogas at 16EU/t. It's not actually less gen blocks, but it'll be much more compact.

    Quote from Pyure

    Awesome, thanks for clarifying. I take it you've confirmed that the result produces more energy than steam/kinetic? (I would imagine so at a glance)

    I can't get more than 150 EU/t out of 200 Hu/t with (high pressure) steam. I'm shit at steam (and have no plans to improve, seriously devs just make forge steam, so we can have a central power source), but if that setup is accurate, this thing is ~20% more powerful, and doesn't waste heat that isn't a multiple of 200, at the cost of a massive number of gen blocks (wheras if I understand right, all high pressure steam can be fed through 2 turbine/kinetic gen combo blocks, to push all the power out in one spot).

    Quote from Requia

    liquid heat gens+sterling gens produce the same total EU from biogas at 16EU/t. It's not actually less gen blocks, but it'll be much more compact.

    That's surpising. I thought Stirlings simply turned Hu/T into half as much Eu. Whereas fermenters turn 40,000 heat into a bucket of biogas worth 64,000 heat or 32,000 Eu



    And that's a great looking component config, I'll have to try it, thanks.

    Stirlings do exactly that, as you point out biogas is 64kHu, or 32Keu, 32 is half of 64, but making heat is twice as fast as making EU directly.