Reactor with IC2+RP2

Quote from MJEvans

The overflow issue is entirely in IC2.

From another discussion I remember that IC2 specifies a 'chest' size of X for the reactor core. This is tied to the block ID, irrespective of damage value/etc. It just happens to /show/ us only the number of columns for the chambers we have installed. Every so often (every reactor tick?) it ejects the things stuffed in to the spaces that are unseen by automated insertions (which just take the next numerically open slot).

The easiest way of fixing this would actually be to just have the reactor stuff it's self with some (near) useless item. Wooden shovels for example. However I guess even those /burn/ which is exploitable... so something even /less/ valuable. Maybe a stone shovel with 1 HP of damage left.

Second easiest is a variant on the above, but simply not process the items in the hidden slots (leaving them to fill up until the unit is removed or something else empties them).

Third easiest is to, on each tick, have a 'pre tick' that goes through the 'hidden' spaces and stuffs whatever was in them in to the open slots within the reactor... before evicting the rest.

I -suspect- option #3 is what was chosen.

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It's not actually a 'pre tick' it's on the tick where the power is produced. It goes through every slot checking for invalid items or items that are out of the "useable size" of the container and chucks them before it goes into the actual calculations for the reactor.

Also it was brought up earlier in this thread how other mods treat the reactor's inventory "kind of funny", this "add-on" takes out some of the funniness (or at least allows you to fill up the entire inventory, not just a row or so). Currently it doesn't have much of an impact, but fully automated reactors may be possible with the next release of red power 2.

Quote from MJEvans

You completely miss the point.

We are talking about the expected item 'Retriever' ( http://twitter.com/TheRealEloraam ) from the imminent RP2pr4

Was this directed at me?
I know about the upcoming retriever but it isn't here yet... So how do you make a design incorporating something that doesn't even exist?

The thread ventured in to a slightly tangential, but still on topic, discussion of 'what kind of reactor would be possible with the next version of the mods in question'.

Quote from MJEvans

The thread ventured in to a slightly tangential, but still on topic, discussion of 'what kind of reactor would be possible with the next version of the mods in question'.

Right, well i responded to the OP in general. Not to the current discussion of the thread.

Either way, to me it looks like the Retrievers will be capable of retrieving several different items from a chest since it has a 3x3 grid to place items into.
If that is the case then perhaps you can use just one retriever to collect 4 empty buckets at a time. (or less if there are less)

The problem with a "empty bucket" retrieval system is that it has to sort through the empty vs full buckets and retrieve said empty buckets and replace new buckets on demand. There is no way to anticipate when a bucket will be emptied in the reactor, all such designs are based on assumptions. We assume one or more buckets will be emptied that reactor tick but we cannot predict how many so we send new buckets on demand which is rather slow unless we can figure out a way to teleport the buckets into the reactor. (I dont think teleport pipes will help here btw)

Thus, it's better to have a constant flow that takes all buckets (full or not) and replace them with fresh ones. (This gave me a new design idea for a 5 chamber CASUC without using the new retriever, just now)

Oh well, retrievers look interesting none the less but I can't help but think they are too "magicky" for my taste. They make it too easy the same way EE makes making ice blocks too easy.

Actually with my 'starved' reactors (running at equilibrium) I /did/ know exactly how many buckets would be produced; exactly N per second. I ran the filter full-tilt pulling out empties, and the full buckets would slot in to the empty spaces nicely.

The RP2 - PR4 release we hoped would save us is here (well here's a copy of the links if it's still hammered http://paste2.org/p/1810158 ) However it seems it may only be for minecraft 1.0.0

This really puts the pressure on IC2; I hope the next release is like a 'tock' release where only bugfixes and underlying technology get updated for a faster release.

Here's a preliminary design I have been working on. It's a 'Full-Tilt' setup which extracts empty buckets each pulse and sends full buckets, regardless of the state of the buckets in the Reactor. A chest is used to collect and redirect any overflow, so no backstuffing of the Retrievers takes place. Please note that I'm 'simulating' the Reactor using 8 Deployers. The deployers fire once every .4 seconds, as does the entire cooling system. So, that's 8(ish) buckets incoming to the reactor every .4 seconds.

One serious issue is that on the initial startup, and every time the Reactor is restarted, you have to load it with plating or some other filler instead of U-Cells, leaving room for the buckets. As the cooling system gets flowing you can begin to replace the plating with Uranium Cells... Alternatively, you could just leave the Reactor empty and replace buckets in the system with U-Cells until you reach equilibrium.

Fortunately, because empty U-Cells still produce heat (or at least the 'Depleted' ones do) you can just reload the Reactor with new Cells when it needs it, without a shutdown.