[GregTech-5][1.7.10-FORGE-1355+][Unofficial but approved Port][Stable] Even GT5 Experimental is slowly getting stable.

On an Industrialcraft note: I made a suit of nano armor. What I really want is the quantum armor, but after scanning the nano armor to get the construction sticks, it’s clear it’s well out of reach for me since I still haven’t found tungsten, and can’t really build an assembly line or the 8K volt items needed for the quantum armor.

I did test out the night vision feature of the nano helmet. Man, that sucks. By design it sucks. I think IC2’s night vision is the only implementation that renders you blind in light 7+, which renders it completely useless since 90% of the time you’re in a lit area peering out into the darkness. If there’s a config to disable this “feature” I’d love to know about it.

Most of my motivation for getting high-tech armor is venturing into the End for tungsten, since I haven’t found any of that. Which means defeating the Ender Dragon. Flight would be really handy for that, but just making a jet pack means severely compromising my armor protection. The quantum armor has built in flight... but it’s gated behind tungsten. If I had that I don’t really need the armor.

I’m debating grabbing Modular Powersuits when the time comes. Or just risk going in with a diamond helmet, jet pack, diamond leggings, and maybe rubber boots (to cut fall damage if it happens).

I think your posts don't get attention they (it?) deserve; also, i'd love to see some screenshots of your underground base.

I've reached the time to move to nuclear. Normal nuclear reactors aren't really worth it at 60 titanium each to get less than 500 EU/t, so I went straight to liquid cooled. I made a quick layout with 3 dual uranium rods in a creative world and the difference is huge: a normal reactor makes 360 EU/t, a liquid cooled one produces enough steam to power three turbines with large ultimet rotors (27000 L/s) and makes a whopping 2850EU/t, it's around 8 times the output! And that's even without getting super-heated steam.

Of course you need quite a bit of extra titanium for the large heat exchanger and all the other materials for the turbines, but it's worth it.

And when I'll need more power i can add 3 more reactors and get bonus power from switching to HP turbines.

I’ll make an effort soon to take some screenshots of my base; I think it’s interesting mainly for the Magneticraft conveyors feeding the Gregtech machines. To a lesser extent there’s also the railway for obtaining remote oil and ore from remote sites.

I’m not sure liquid-cooled reactors are worth it either.

On the one hand, 2850 EU/t is a lot more than the stuff I’ve read online has said I’d get from one. The number quoted was 1344 heat for 1008 EU/t; is the conversion rate from heat to EU better in the Large Heat Exchanger than in IC2? Or are you somehow generating 3500+ heat with just 6 fuel rods? If the latter, I’d like to know the layout.

On the other hand, a single Large Combustion Generator is 2048 EU/t even without oxygen boosting, and a lot less expensive than a reactor, heat exchanger, and 3 turbines. However, it does require an oil source and a fairly robust refining infrastructure, which may turn out to be nearly as expensive as the reactor setup. My distillation setup still uses single-block distilleries rather than distillation towers, and it’s slow enough that it can’t keep up with the demand from 4 HV combustion engines.

Boosted with oxygen, the output goes up to 6144 EU/t (!) and the efficiency up 150%. That’s a lot more power than the reactor. I’m not looking to build one yet because it requires an 8kV dynamo hatch, and I haven’t found tungsten yet.

I'm getting ~1000HU/s; each liter of hot coolant in the LHE makes 80 liters of regular steam so I get 80000L/s of steam, just enough to support three turbines. I've also considered the diesel generator since I've already got the refinery set up, but the thing should consume a high octane gasoline cell every 9.4 seconds and I'm not sure if I can keep up with it, considering I already use it to power everything I have except the refinery itself. Plus, when I've got a single power source I tend to build everything clustered together and later regret it, while the single block generators, even if slightly inefficient, allow me to build things further apart, are more flexible and don't need any buffers with redstone to switch on/off only when they are needed.

To address your last point first: isn't that an argument for petroleum and against nuclear?

The fluid reactor generates steam. Steam's bulky. You can't really generate it in one place and pipe the steam to local turbines beyond LV. A single-block HV steam turbine wants 31,000 L/sec of steam, which means at least a Huge Titanium Pipe, which is utterly impractical. I've only made it work myself by connecting the HV turbines directly to the steam holding tank.

This means that a nuclear setup, particularly one that uses large turbines, is necessarily a central power generation setup. A cetane diesel or high octane gasoline setup can pipe fuel to local generators, and cheap tiny plastic pipes are more than enough. 1200 L/sec cetane = 300,000 EU / tick of energy flowing through those tiny pipes.

I tend to oscillate back and forth between central and distributed power. At LV I was piping steam everywhere. At MV I switched to central power and a few directly-connected turbines because steam pipes were too expensive. Once I had cetane diesel I started making local power nets again, piping fuel instead of steam. Since single-block generators stop at 512v, I feel I have to shift back to central for 2kV stuff. The 512v generators are just too awkward if the local demand is 4000+ EU/tick, which is just 2-3 2kV machines.

You mention distance, but really, worrying about distance is a holdover from LV. You can run a wire 100 blocks at 512v for a 20% power loss. For a 2kV line it's only a 5% loss for 100 blocks.

So why did I flirt with distributed power again at HV? Because in a central power setup, your primary power line limits the total draw of your entire base. I had wired everything for 4 amps @ 512V for distribution at MV (using step-up transformers), and I had to add stuff that could easily draw 2000 EU/tick by itself. I didn't want to rip out all that 4x cable and replace it with 8x. 8x cable is kind of pricey, too, at 4 ingots per block.

Still, power generation at 2kV looks complicated enough that it's easier to do it in one place. I think if I find myself in the "need a 8x main cable" dilemma again, I'll go with step-up transformers and the next higher voltage instead.

I've read and re-read the IC2 nuclear reactor, liquid heat exchanger, and steam turbine pages, and the Gregtech large heat exchanger page. I think I've figured out what's wrong with those pages, but haven't tested it in Creative yet.

The IC2 liquid heat exchanger page says "hot liquid" (hot coolant or lava) is 200 heat units / L. Then it says 1000 L lava is 20,000 HU. So it's actually 20 HU / L.

The GUI and the simulator talk about "heat / second." They don't mean HU / second. They mean Hot Coolant / second. The actual HU output is 20x that much.

The IC2 steam generator converts 1 HU to 1 L steam, or 0.5 L of superheated steam. That's 1 L hot coolant (20 HU) = 20 L steam or 10 L superheated steam. The Gregtech Large Heat Exchanger produces 80 L and 40 L respectively, 4x as much. It's even more efficient with lava, producing 160 or 80, compared to the IC2 heat exchanger which treats lava and hot coolant the same.

Getting superheated steam out of a Gregtech large heat exchanger is much tougher than getting it from an IC2 steam generator. You need 4000 L/sec of coolant in the Gregtech exchanger. An IC2 steam generator has no minimum, you just set a slider.

A superheated steam / regular steam turbine series is 50% more efficient with either setup.

Single-block Gregtech steam turbines have poor efficiency, but you don't want to use them with a nuclear setup anyway. Among other things, they eat the steam without returning the distilled water you need for the heat exchanger.

Gregtech rotors increase steam -> EU efficiency, but the big step up is the massive increase in steam you get from a large heat exchanger.

Where an IC2 setup can get at most 0.75 EU/ tick from 1 "heat / sec" (1 L coolant / second, 20 HU / sec, 1 HU / tick), using superheated steam, Gregtech gives you 2 EU / tick with regular steam, and 3 EU/tick with superheated steam. With a 115% efficient medium sized Ultimet rotor and regular steam, that's 2.3 EU / tick. With a Large rotor it's 2.8 EU/tick, but that requires tungsten. Superheated setups require at least 4 reactors to run.

Of course with nuclear you still need the on/off switch, but this way you aren't using the fuel you could feed to single block generators; you could always scale up oil refining, but that requires more distillation towers and more oil drilling rigs.

Fuel is certainly a good way to go for EV power, but I wanted to try out nuclear and see how it works for me.

Besides, looking at the energy cost of some of the later recipes (mainly circuits and ore processing), i don't think the reactor will be turned off often.

Quote from Gus_Smedstad

...Flight would be really handy for that, but just making a jet pack means severely compromising my armor protection. The quantum armor has built in flight... but it’s gated behind tungsten. If I had that I don’t really need the armor...

There's a mod GraviSuite, it has a Advanced NanoChestPlate that is NCP with electric jetpack storing 3m EU.

Btw made a QCP recently and it has no fly option (maybe because of GraviSuite? dunno, just too lazy to check)

Add: Mod also compatible with GT5U, it even has assemblyline recipe for GraviChestPlate

IMO, nuclear power is much more promising in GT5. You don't need vast oil processing setups, or to worry about oilfield depletion and extraction effectiveness, or much of generation management (you can just set an Project Red logics to turn reactor on/off depend on base main power storage). While machinery is quite expensive nuclear fuel itself is cheap (not to mention thorium - it's like dirt-cheap an even not need much processing from raw mineral). Your mid-game power comnsumption will be EBF and you will need constant energy gain in some periods (i mean hours or even days on fullHV or even fullEV), alternating with periods of almost no consumption at all when you gather resources or processing em or using LV machinery or whatever.

Also there are late-game resources, like lutetium that can only be made from depleted thorium, and eventually you will need stacks of it. eNaquadah is also most efficient in liquid nuclear reactor (btw remember to NEVER take it without hazmat suit - you will surely die).

And when I count retrospectively resources on my oil refining facility it is MUCH more expensive than nuclear reactor with all stuffing and 3 large steam turbines.

Actually, anything involving turbines requires a fair amount of logic to control it. The nuclear reactor's main logic control is about turning it off if your steam buffer is full, but the turbines need on / off logic based on the current energy buffer and steam buffer states. The reactor can be a simple comparison, but the turbines need a couple of RS latches so they start when steam is plentiful and the energy reserve is low, and stop if steam is running out or the energy buffer is full.

The logic's needed because the large turbines aren't "smart" the way the single block turbines are, they'll continue to run when there's no demand, or there's no steam. Plus, since they have a spin-up time, you really want to configure them so they'll have long run times before they have to turn off. The reactor logic is mainly because the reactor will merrily continue even if you can't store the steam, which means you're destroying steam in the output hatch of the large heat exchanger. Which will mean running through your distilled water reserve and an explosion.

The logic doesn't concern me too much, since the control logic for large steam boilers is similar. A RS latch to allow for long run times from steam empty to steam full, and some safety logic to turn it off if there's any shortfall in the water input hatch. I've taken to putting the control logic for those into Compact Machines, and I expect to do the same for any turbines I make.

Quote from CrazyIvan44

There's a mod GraviSuite, it has a Advanced NanoChestPlate that is NCP with electric jetpack storing 3m EU.

Btw made a QCP recently and it has no fly option (maybe because of GraviSuite? dunno, just too lazy to check)

I'm aware of that one, it was a possible alternative to going whole-hog for Modular Powersuits. I wasn't sure how current the mod was, since it's something Mauve Cloud made several years ago, and he's not currently playing.

The flight option for quantum armor is GT5U only, not Industrialcraft. It's also apparently turned off by default, you have to hit a mode switch key or something to turn it on. I haven't looked into it too carefully.

When you run reactor and turbines on a long term energy loss on start is insignificant, i mean really. Turbines actually stops after steam input is empty, whatever it written in wiki (Nuclear Control Advanced Information Panel approved). I think wiki means that turbine stays in "machine processing Enabled" (in fact like all machines without machine controller installed or recent structural changes made) state that swiches by soft hammer and doesn't have effect on its inner process directly. I mean that all system depends on steam, steam depends on LHE, reactor activity and finally redstone signal in reactor redstone port.

P. S.: Actually LHE has its own startup penalty that is about 3 times longer than turbines.

P. P. S.: Turbines doesn't use up rotor durability when out of steam.

And there is no need to store steam anywhere, because steam-dist.water is close cycle system without any loss (almost). Only must have dist water buffer in LHE side input for insurance. Actually i thought this way about cseam buffer too, but it proved its useless in first minute.

Long term system efficiency depends more on a base energy storage amount (now I have 4x100m, that fills up in a hour). Some amount of water (~2000L) somehow lost on login, maybe lost in pipes or something dunno, not critical if LHE input hatch has more.

Also if system is active after energy storage is full nothing bad happens exept for fuel rods and turbine rotors continue to deplete.

Quote from Gus_Smedstad

I'm aware of that one, it was a possible alternative to going whole-hog for Modular Powersuits. I wasn't sure how current the mod was, since it's something Mauve Cloud made several years ago, and he's not currently playing.

Um, if I'm reading this post correctly, you seem to be crediting me with writing either Gravisuite or Modular Powersuits (it's not entirely clear which you mean). I did not write (or even contribute to) either mod.

Quote from CrazyIvan44

And there is no need to store steam anywhere, because steam-dist.water is close cycle system without any loss (almost).

I'm talking theoretically here, since I've yet to build an actual reactor. My direct experience so far is with large boilers and single-block turbines, where a steam buffer is highly useful.

That said, I see a steam buffer as important for rate matching. The reactor / heat exchanger is never going to generate exactly as much steam as the turbines consume. If the reactor steam production is higher than consumption, it's a bit simpler since the reactor can cycle on and off, but the startup penalty for the heat exchanger seems like a good enough reason to have a system where the reactor can make long runs without cycling on and off rapidly.

If reactor steam production is a bit less than turbine consumption, there's the issue that the turbines will sputter while out of steam. They'll definitely be getting less than the optimal flow of steam, even if there's no spin up / spin down penalty, and efficiency will suffer. A steam buffer eliminates that problem.

Quote from MauveCloud

Um, if I'm reading this post correctly, you seem to be crediting me with writing either Gravisuite or Modular Powersuits (it's not entirely clear which you mean). I did not write (or even contribute to) either mod.

I thought you wrote Gravisuite - I must be confusing that with something else you did. I looked it up and apparently it was Sentimel. Who vanished about 3 years ago. If Gravisuite has GT5U support, it's clearly long out of sync with the current version of GT5U. Which may or may not be important.

Quote from ShumnayaBulka

i'd love to see some screenshots of your underground base.

I finally got around to assembling some screen shots. Since they're kind of large, I've put them in their own thread in the Screen Shots board, rather than take up space here.

Quote from Gus_Smedstad

...The reactor / heat exchanger is never going to generate exactly as much steam as the turbines consume...

Turbine mechanics made that way, that if you supply it with X% optimal steam flow its running as always but with X% efficiency modifier (if X<100). If you supply it with more it running as always too but without modifier (i. e. 145% steam = 100% EU output), water condences exactly in same amount as steam provided. Problems start if you provide more than 150% steamflow: steam overflows input hatch, pipe system and LHE output hatch with depletion of dist.water and eventual LHE explosion.

That was rather unclear (for me) from wiki page too

The steam buffer still makes sense, since you’re not throwing away steam (case #2) or running at reduced efficiency (case #1). Of course, in actual practice this may not be that important, but a buffer and a little additional control logic isn’t that hard or expensive.

I’m not so cavalier as you are about simply letting the reactor and turbines run when there’s no demand. My experience is that demand fluctuates greatly. Sometimes you’re asking for everything the power plant can provide and then some, sometimes there’s significant down time when you’re only running a few hundred EU/tick. I’d just as soon not burn more uranium or rotor durability than I need to.

Not that I’m planning a reactor right now. Though what you said about Thorium reactors echoes something that Asp said a while back, that you need thorium byproducts in the long run whether you care about the power output or not. I’ve got thousands of thorium crushed ore stored as a byproduct of drilling for other things.

One thing that isn’t clear to me is what happens if you cut off steam to a running turbine, and then restart it at the optimal flow. The turbine is still “enabled,” so it will re-start if you give if steam again, but does it spin down and require spin up when you feed it steam again? You’d think it would, but I’m not sure how it’s coded.