Complex reactors are pointless?

    Hello,


    I’ve been playing around with nuclear reactors for a few days and found out quite unpleasant thing.


    Let's say we’ve got a simple reactor with no additional chambers filled according to the following layout:



    It is Mark I-O EC reactor that can produce 4kk EU and emit it at a rate of 20 EU/t. We can see that it’s also very cheap, as it has only two expensive HD and four much less expensive platings.


    Now let’s build four of them. We’ll get 16kk EU at a total rate of 80 EU/t, and it will cost us totally 8 HD, 16 platings, 16 cooling cells, and 8 Uranium cells, not counting 8 reactor chambers and 16 advanced circuits required to build 4 reactors.


    And here it goes. I dare you to make one six-chamber Mark I-O reactor that produces 16kk EU at 80 EU/t without extra user-provided cooling. I’ve watched through couple of threads here, and the best six-chambers reactors I’ve seen were Marks II with more than one cycle providing about 50 EU/t.


    Someone might think that six-chamber reactor is less resource-consuming to build that four single reactors. Well, latter do require more advanced circuits to build, but on the other hand, they need less HD that are more expensive to me.


    Am I missing something? Or there really is no point in inventing and using more advanced reactors?

    P.S. Sorry for my bad English.

    Count total resources, If you ignore any of them you will get an incorrect result. This means compare the cost of those four reactors to a six-chambered reactor.

    You would need 2 6-chamber reactors to match the eu output. 2 filled 6 chamber reactors are alot more expensive than 4 0-chamber reactors that dont even use all slots. This is caused by op external cooling.


    Better change the title through i got a really complex generator that makes 640 eu/tick on average.


    btw: http://www.talonfiremage.pwp.b…c0=1p10101001501521s1r11r
    cheaper :)

    Okay, I’ve made detailed calculations.


    Starting with basics. I simplified some steps (f.e. 2 ref. iron = 2 iron ingot/dust = 2 iron).


    Electronic circuit = 6 ins. copper cable + 2 redstone + 1 ref. iron = 3 copper + 6 rubber + 2 redstone + 1 iron.
    Adv. circuit = 1 electronic circuit + 4 redstone + 2 glowstone + 2 lapis lazuli = 3 copper + 1 iron + 6 rubber + 6 redstone + 2 glowstone + 2 lapis lazuli.
    Bronze = (3 copper dust + 1 tin dust) / 2 = 1½ copper + ½ tin.
    2 adv. alloy = 3 ref. iron + 3 bronze + 3 tin = 3 iron + 3 × (1½ copper + ½ tin) + 3 tin = 3 iron + 4½ copper + 4½ tin
    2 integrated platings = 8 copper + 2 adv. alloy = 3 iron + 12½ copper + 4½ tin.
    1 cooling cell = (4 tin) / 16 = ¼ tin.
    2 HD = 4 copper + 4 cooling cells + 2 platings + 2 adv. circuits = 4 copper + 1 tin + (6 iron + 25 copper + 9 tin) + (6 copper + 2 iron + 12 rubber + 12 redstone + 4 glowstone + 4 lapis lazuli) = 35 copper + 8 iron + 10 tin + 12 rubber + 12 redstone + 4 glowstone + 4 lapis lazuli.
    Machine = 8 ref. iron = 8 iron.


    2 reactor chambers = 2 machines + 8 adv. alloy + 6 platings + 2 HD = 16 iron + (12 iron + 18 copper + 18 tin) + (9 iron + 37½ copper + 13½ tin) + (35 copper + 8 iron + 10 tin + 12 rubber + 12 redstone + 4 glowstone + 4 lapis lazuli) = 45 iron + 90½ copper + 41½ tin + 12 rubber + 12 redstone + 4 glowstone + 4 lapis lazuli.


    1 reactor = 2 reactor chambers + 4 adv. alloy + 2 adv. circuits = (45 iron + 90½ copper + 41½ tin + 12 rubber + 12 redstone + 4 glowstone + 4 lapis lazuli) + (6 iron + 9 copper + 9 tin) + (6 copper + 2 iron + 12 rubber + 12 redstone + 4 glowstone + 4 lapis lazuli) = 53 iron + 105½ copper + 50½ tin + 24 rubber + 24 redstone + 8 glowstone + 8 lapis lazuli.


    Thus,


    4 reactors = 212 iron + 422 copper + 202 tin + 96 rubber + 96 redstone + 32 glowstone + 32 lapis lazuli + 4 generators.


    1 six-chambered reactor = 53 iron + 105½ copper + 50½ tin + 24 rubber + 24 redstone + 8 glowstone + 8 lapis lazuli + 3 × (45 iron + 90½ copper + 41½ tin + 12 rubber + 12 redstone + 4 glowstone + 4 lapis lazuli) + 1 generator = 53 iron + 105½ copper + 50½ tin + 24 rubber + 24 redstone + 8 glowstone + 8 lapis lazuli + 135 iron + 271½ copper + 124½ tin + 36 rubber + 36 redstone + 12 glowstone + 12 lapis lazuli + 1 generator = 188 iron + 377 copper + 175 tin + 60 rubber + 60 redstone + 20 glowstone + 20 lapis lazuli + 1 generator.


    Basically you’ll need only 13% more iron, 12% more copper, 15% more tin, 60% more rubber, redstone, glowstone and lapis lazuli, and also three more generators, I was too tired to count them on. But again, that’s not a big deal to me, I’m on to sacrifice a little more time and invest it into stability and simplicity.

    P.S. Sorry for my bad English.

    Rick, could you please show a screenshot of your reactor? That reactor planner seems broken to me, it doesn't show saved reactors. Also, how should I title topic better?

    P.S. Sorry for my bad English.

    Yeah we've done a bit of research on this before


    http://forum.industrial-craft.…page=Thread&threadID=1973


    The math is so close on this that its negligible. strictly speaking the safest and most space efficient way of generating EU is several 0 or 2 chamber(at the most) reactors, or using RP and making some crazy internal cooling machine. The reason for this is that you get more external cooling off single chamber reactors than massive advanced reactors.


    The entire extra chamber system should be shelved and redesigned. The columns the chambers add should add an appropriate amount of cooling to the entire reactor when submersed in water, or, at least that column should receive the same amount of external cooling because as it stands right now there are only 2 designs to use for eu/t.


    2 extra chambers on a regular reactor should blow away the output on 2 single 0 chamber reactors every day of the week, thats not the way it is right now.

    Yes i figured this out about 4 weeks ago: the only real reason to making larger than two chamber reactors is to Increase gross Uranium efficiency (output) at the cost of Average EU/t output:


    http://www.talonfiremage.pwp.b…6i=1o10101001501521s1r11r
    Mark III 150/350 second cycle
    http://test.vendaria.net/index…CXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX


    but when you have gotten a higher technology infrastructure (most probably on a server)
    you may want to reduce wasteage in your uranium (even though you get heaps it is a nonrenewable resource)
    and that is what the costly designs are for.


    also there is CASUC but there are large risks involved
    and simply having more space to work with allows people to experiment and find advantageous patterns and these are what get posted on the forums.
    the reason for this is simply that the external watercooling disproportionately more useful than the cooling effect offered by coolantcells so Mark I is only attainable at a certain point of heat generation (around 40-60 heat).

    The extra chambers also give you thermal buffering, but that's not vastly important in light of either being safe to begin with or having automated cooling that will keep up.


    Far easier might be to make different /class/ of reactor core blocks (adding chambers to them on a crafting table results in a single block, but with an expanded 'internal' framework) and then also having neighboring reactors interlink to share thermal and electrical conduction; like packing batteries together end to end.


    I can see a column. Redstone kill signal in from one far end, power out the other. Each 6 chamber core connected to 2 input and 2 output systems.