A list of good reactor designs (IC² v1.103 and earlier)

  • The thing is, Mark II reactors capable of runnung more than 15 cycles are considered to be Mark I. Reason is simple, You just wont stand there for 15 cycles to refuel your reactor under 3 mins after each cycle, so it will eventually cool down completely. It's not really necessary to have have Mark I.
    But if you really want to, you can make Mark I from my on by adding just one HD into one of corners - http://www.talonfiremage.pwp.b…etoapu0tmdc4wmnn2n7474000


    Ooh, I know. I wasn't trying to upgrade your design, I had one already set up, and happened to notice, after seeing yours, that if I re-ordered mine, it'd gain more cycles. I just wanted to get it from II-14 to II-E, but then I realized I could do I-O. Your last link there uses a lot less heat dispersers, though, so I'll probably utilize that one just so when I add more reactors, I don't have to craft any more of them. Thanks again.


    I've been messing with the breeder stuff, and I see that the breeder information mentions using over 100 buckets of lava in order to get to the initial heating. The wiki says that each bucket increases the heat by 2,000, and when testing, reactors exploded after about five buckets.
    I see a 'time between buckets' section, too. Does waiting that eleven seconds do something to really affect it? I can see the graphic of my reactor changing from blank to green while doing all this, but I'm not sure what it means.
    I'm gonna install the thermometer add-on later and experiment with more information at-hand.

  • I've been messing with the breeder stuff, and I see that the breeder information mentions using over 100 buckets of lava in order to get to the initial heating. The wiki says that each bucket increases the heat by 2,000, and when testing, reactors exploded after about five buckets.
    I see a 'time between buckets' section, too. Does waiting that eleven seconds do something to really affect it? I can see the graphic of my reactor changing from blank to green while doing all this, but I'm not sure what it means.
    I'm gonna install the thermometer add-on later and experiment with more information at-hand.


    Yes, time between buckets affects it much. Every component in your reactor can store 10000 heat itself. It means if you have 20 HD's in your reactor, its overall heat storage increases by 20 * 10 000 = 200 000 units. But, by adding lava buckets, heat is added directly to reactor hull, not to components. After that, you have to wait few ticks until that heat is divided evenly to every component in reactor, which has connection with reactor hull. Every HD is able to exchange up to 25 heat every tick, which is 500 heat every second. After adding bucket of lava, your HDs will immediately start to spred the heat from hull evenly to all components touching them, but that takes some time. If you add 5 buckets at once, reactor hull goes critical and it explodes immediately, since HDs are limited to 25 heat per tick (each). Better description of mechanics can be found on wiki or in reactor tutorial.


  • Yes, time between buckets affects it much. Every component in your reactor can store 10000 heat itself. It means if you have 20 HD's in your reactor, its overall heat storage increases by 20 * 10 000 = 200 000 units. But, by adding lava buckets, heat is added directly to reactor hull, not to components. After that, you have to wait few ticks until that heat is divided evenly to every component in reactor, which has connection with reactor hull. Every HD is able to exchange up to 25 heat every tick, which is 500 heat every second. After adding bucket of lava, your HDs will immediately start to spred the heat from hull evenly to all components touching them, but that takes some time. If you add 5 buckets at once, reactor hull goes critical and it explodes immediately, since HDs are limited to 25 heat per tick (each). Better description of mechanics can be found on wiki or in reactor tutorial.


    Aaah, I see. So that time is dependent on how long it'll take for the heat to get out of hull and into the components. And after some soul-searching, I've realized that the heat will be dispersed throughout the HDs until they are equal with the hull, and as long as it's neutral, the hull will keep that level of equal heat in everything, maintaining the heated hull environment, so that's why I need so many buckets of lava. Awesome, now I can start designing breeders with comprehension. Thanks.

  • It's inefficient and expensive, but I've seen much worse. ;) Try to avoid using that much Heat Dispensers in your next one.
    It is even possible to remove some without any effect on cooling - http://www.talonfiremage.pwp.b…pi6xgplukr80tvtxftvcy82dc
    As always, I was curious how much can I improve it and this came up - http://www.talonfiremage.pwp.b…etoapu0oyo741nf3r6v1audxc


    Edit: Or do you post this because of a strange behavior of the planner ?

    I made a slight improvement to your excellent 2nd redesign of mine. Came up with this Mk1-O; http://www.talonfiremage.pwp.b…tn0obirb4o55vcdq866k7b400

  • I made a slight improvement to your excellent 2nd redesign of mine. Came up with this Mk1-O; http://www.talonfiremage.pwp.b…tn0obirb4o55vcdq866k7b400

    Ragans reactor is still better because its cheaper. 1 excess heat can be pretty much ignored you wont be able to instantly refuel it 21+ cycles in a row.


    Can anyone do this with 1 chamber less?

  • This is a big of a long shot design, but here's my attempt at a reactor. This is my first real attempt at making a good design by myself and one that i'd be willing to use for my own reactor.


    Mark II-E
    28,000,000 ET
    http://www.talonfiremage.pwp.b…epgvkmbr5keqq0oy7vcihllxc

    • Eu/tick: 140
    • Average Eu/tick: 137
    • Efficiency: 1 of 1
    • Cost: Six chambers, 18 integrated heat dispensers, 14 uranium cells, 22 cooling cells
    • Cooldown per cycle: 0

    I really dont want to be harsh but see my previous post why this reactor isnt good.

  • Well for a mark I/Mark II-E, I haven't seen any other designs that produce more then 28,000,000 EU total. Then again, i haven't looked around all that much so i could be wrong.

  • Well for a mark I/Mark II-E, I haven't seen any other designs that produce more then 28,000,000 EU total. Then again, i haven't looked around all that much so i could be wrong.

    The inefficiency is the killer, total EU output is an extremely poor metric for the worth of a reactor design. 2 of Rick's Mk II-E reactors costs almost exactly the same amount of resources (the total difference is less than 20 resources) but they output 4 million more EU for 57% of the Uranium.

  • Now this is the problem if you want to run this reactor:
    -It can run 35,71 cycles in a row (so lets call that endless)
    -It eats 14 uranium cells per cycle.
    -This means that you have to find 1 uranium ore every 10 minutes (which is pretty quick considering you arent mining 24/7) to keep it running unless you use a breeder (but we all know how much babysitting that requires).


    Now the question is what will come earlier? Will it explode from heat or will you run out of uranium? Also not to mention that with higher efficiency reactors you can run more of them at the same time for the same uranium cost thus you get a way higher eu output in the end. This reactor is good at burning through your uranium cells but thats it.


    So i havent even looked at the cost of this reactor and it doesnt look too well.


  • Wow, I love the 3.5 efficiency on that!


    I've never run a Mk III before. The applet says that it can run 29 minutes, and then it needs a 106 minute cooldown. Is that what you do?
    Or do you just use a redstone circuit (or RP2 sequencer) to turn it on for a second and then off for 3?

  • Wow, I love the 3.5 efficiency on that!


    I've never run a Mk III before. The applet says that it can run 29 minutes, and then it needs a 106 minute cooldown. Is that what you do?
    Or do you just use a redstone circuit (or RP2 sequencer) to turn it on for a second and then off for 3?




    I use a redpower circuit: A sequencer set to 11,5 seconds, connected to a timer(10 seconds) wich activates toggle latch so the reactor runs for 10 secs, then the timer togles the latch again and the latch the connects back to the back of the timer so it turns itself off after 10 secs, i'll add a picture with more details later. (Ofcourse a bit more advanced redstone engineer can also make a similar timer with vanilla redstone circuits)


    Note that you can use the sequencer to set up more reactors: I got 4 of these reactors set up with one sequencer and they run one at a time while the others cool down.




    Btw I don't know if im allowed to post detailed redpower circuits in this forum section ;) but you can also run it just for 29 minutes :)