Safety mechanisms

    I know there are numerous of them posted around here but I don't think there is a topic titled for just that. To be precise im talking about the mechanisms that shut off your reactor if something goes wrong. If you have a safety mechanism you would like to share, do post here!


    (Sneaky way to get help, eh?) :whistling:

    I've seen people use redstone going over wool close to the reactor, if the reactor gets hot, it burns the wool, tripping the signal, and sends redstone to the reactor, shutting it down.

    To be precise, those designs always have an inversion somewhere with the final segment of that process turning on to force the reactor off. You must hope that at that point your reactor hasn't burned/magmaed/flooded out whatever it is that you are using to keep it held off.

    The problem with safety mechanisms is that we don't have much information available to us from the reactor. If we could have a reactor status block that you link with a reactor and that status block has a GUI where you can pick among various conditions then we would be able to make proper safety systems.


    What we need to know from the reactor is:


    • Temperature level (That is, a number of detectors that output a signal when a certain temperature is exceeded)
    • Component failure (If a component inside the reactor fails, a redstone signal is pulsed per failed component)
    • Chunk reload (This could be programatically difficult for Alblaka, it outputs a redstone pulse when the chuck that the DETECTOR is in is reloaded into memory)


    That way we could have safety systems around the reactor that actually trigger in time before stuff start going out of control.


    Other than that, in a non CASUC design (if you are making a CASUC you have a few ways to tell if your cooling flow is failing) the only way is what has been mentioned already. When a flammable block burns out, a redstone signal is removed and the reactor gets shut down. But the delay between the block burning out and the redstone being applied and the reactor actually shutting down can be quite long. And that delay may mean your reactor is already in "lava" mode that burns out the shutdown switch... And worse!

    Additionally, 'lava mode' reactors produce exclusively 'flowing' (uncollectable) lava and can even convert surrounding Re-Enforced stone blocks (not always, but I /have/ seen it happen).