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

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.

Quote from CrazyIvan44

...(you can just set an Project Red logics to turn reactor on/off depend on base main power storage)....

In fact i'm doing this with RS latch and some street magic.

Quote from Gus_Smedstad

I’ve got thousands of thorium crushed ore stored as a byproduct of drilling for other things.

I thought that way too before realised that depleted thorium made from regular thorium fuel rods in reactor in 50000 seconds. I got 2 reactors now stuffed only with 26 singlecell thorium each and heat vents and in two weeks did not got an 1/3 of lutetium amount needed (actually don't need it now, just want to get it and forget for later)

Quote from Gus_Smedstad

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?

Turbine Enabled means it will start spinning (generate EU and grow speed) when new steam (whatever amount) will be added into input hatch. It also had 10 sec spindown effect, in which i think it can spin up again when steam applied. After full stop there will be full spin up again. Spinup is just 5 times longer than spindown.

I’m still pretty short of titanium, so I probably won’t be making any throwaway thorium reactors soon. Though obviously if you’re running the reactor solely to get depleted thorium, you can just make a regular EU reactor and forget about turbines and the other complications of fluid cooled reactors.

I’ll bear in mind the need to collect depleted thorium in the future. Assuming I don’t burn out before then.

I’m doing my first real forays into large steam turbines. The steam source is still my large titanium boilers, rather than the nuclear reactors that have been the subject of our discussion.

My motivation is primarily water recycling. My water collection tanks really can’t keep up with the boilers if they’re running full blast. Since large turbines return distilled water, I can run the boilers on a closed loop and greatly reduce my water consumption. I’ve got lots of molybdenum for ultimet rotors (though chrome is still a persistent problem).

Secondary benefits are a 50% increase in efficiency, boosting my steam output to 1500 EU/tick, and some real experience with large turbines in case I do build a fluid reactor later.

In passing, I discovered that my existing power setup wasn’t working correctly. I was underneath the steam tank and noticed the existing HV turbines were only running sporadically, and were starved of steam, despite a full tank.

The turbines were directly connected to the tank. It turns out that Railcraft tanks will only output 1000 L/tick of fluid per valve, which is 20,000 L/sec. HV turbines consume 31,000 L/sec. Pumps can’t affect this (I tried), it’s a strict limit of the valve. Once I added an additional valve and pipe for each turbine, they started running at full output.

The large turbines I’m adding will consume only 18,000 L/sec and produce a tad more power (518 EU/tick) with a ultimet rotor. I’d go with large ultimet rotors for 945 EU/tick, but I still haven’t found tungsten. I figure I can always make large rotors later and drop them in as replacements.

On an unrelated note, I finally got around to making a mining laser. Primarily as a weapon, since I’m not really all that interested in mining with it. I wanted a ranged weapon with a flat trajectory that did fair damage.

It’s a little dopey, because the shots travel quite slowly. Much slower than an arrow, which is silly. I guess it’s not really a laser, or the speed of light is absurdly low in Industrialcraft.

It’s not really all that damaging, even in long-range high-damage mode. The slow speed of the shots mean that targets frequently move before the shots arrive.

That said, it was quite effective when I took on the local bandit camp (placed by Ancient Warfare). The fire rate is quite rapid, with a dozen bandits attacking me, I was almost certain to hit some target with each shot. It also had the amusing effect of destroying a fair bit of the camp, with from direct hits and setting the tents on fire.

The flat trajectory is really helpful, even if the shots are slow. This is particularly true because I’m playing with Vivecraft, which has the “feature” that your aim with the bow depends on the relative position of your right and left hands. This means that fairly often I end up shooting to the left of where I think I’m aiming, because when I draw the bow, my right hand is usually a bit to the right rather than perfectly aligned.

Still, I‘d like a mod with a more reasonable high tech weapon. One where the shots travel at a reasonable speed, if not instantly (which is how a laser should work).

You can put damaged (or not) turbine rotor in disassembler and get rotor blades and rod separately and made bigger rotor with some additional blades and another rod later. IV disassembler is 100% efficient, EV 90% etc., meaning that every component has X% chance to appear in disassembler inventory after process. It's expensive on energy, but you don't use any material resources (especially chrome, you'll need it later much too).

Also be careful as rotor damages, my LHE and then reactor exploded once upon it reach 33% damage or so, though I don't know really was it a reason or it's just water that had depleted (2000L I mentioned before), just saw it after it happened. My memory gives me feeling I read about it somewhere on wiki, but now can't find anything about it anywhere.

In this case I think some safety logic you mentioned is necessary.

And yes, fighting enderdragon in space with set of nanoarmor and jetpack with...enchanted bow and flint arrow...that was kind of weird. There was mod ic2 combo armors back on 1.4.7 that added nanobow, but apparently it will never get to 1.7.

Also what is your water collection rate? There is another way in getting water: you can grow cactus as ic2 agricultural crop (there will be pretty high yield if you invest some time in selection) and put them in fluid extractor. While it cost some energy you don't need vast rain collection setups and actual rain. You also don't really need any fertillizer too.

Also ic2 crops is great way in resource saving: it increases outcome 4 times, purifies crashed ore + gives additional byproducts. (another way is bees but I dont know what mod they really from (it marked gregtech, but not mentioned anywhere in wiki))

The Large Heat Exchanger explodes if it ever runs out of water while operating. Just like Large Boilers. My boiler explosion last year is what prompted me to stop playing for a while. Now I won’t operate one without red stone logic to turn it off if the water drops below about 80%.

I don’t think Gregtech turbines explode when the rotor gives out. There are turbines from other mods that do that, though.

The first thing I did when I reached EV was build a disassembler, to make it possible to repair electric tools (which are otherwise pretty expensive, despite the reduced wear). I held off until EV because 10% loss rate is twice as good as 20% loss at HV. I can’t build an IV one yet.

I don’t know exactly what my water collection rate is. I’ve got 9 3x3 Agricraft collectors and 4 Railcraft collectors. The issue is that the Agricraft collectors only collect water during rain, and I don’t have an estimate for how often it rains, or for how long. They’re much, much more efficient at collecting water overall than Railcraft collectors or Gregtech drains.

I’ve got an automated cactus farm for the dye, but it uses vanilla cactus. I tinker now and then with the IC2 crops, but generally don’t put a lot of energy into them because it’s so random, time consuming, and tedious.

Extracting water from cactus is still something worth keeping in mind if I ever build an ore rig in a desert biome. That will give me local water collection for making drilling fluid even without rain.

Bees are from Forestry. I’ve got Forestry, but I haven’t put any effort into bees this time because, like IC2 crops, making progress is slow and somewhat labor intensive. I’ve also got the problem that I’m playing with Vivecraft, and the 1.7.10 version of Vivecraft has a bug that makes bees fail to render in inventory. I can select them and move them around, but there are no icons. I brought it up with the Vivecraft devs and they said they didn’t care because 1.7.10 is old and it doesn’t happen in later versions.