Several Interaction Questions.

  • (This may not be the right section)


    I read the tutorial, but I have a few things I do not understand/are unsure about.


    -Is heat an integer? Is heat for components/hull stored as an integer, meaning that you cannot have half of a heat unit? if you can, Most of my questions are not neccisary.


    -How does plate heat splitting work? I assume it cannot split heat to the tile it got the heat from, but I assume the heat can be tranfered between two plates in the case of two heat pulses going on oppisite directions. Also, it is unclear on how it splits uneven amounts of heat, such as 3 heat to 2 tiles. Does each tile get 1 heat, and one is stored in the plating? Do they get 2 heat, creating 1 extra heat magically? Does it do either, but use stored heat to equalize it?


    -How much does plating increase hull durability by? Also, Unless you had orphaned urainium cells, or a HD, I see no way heat would find it's way to the hull. Do platings interact with the hull to cause this? Does external cooling do nothing unless the hull has heat stored, or does it start to apply to the components in that case?


    -How long does it take to refine a almost depleated uranium fuel cell, in the case of 0 heat? I know it is 2x as fast in the case of 3k heat, and 4x as fast for 6k, and 8x as fast for 9k. (would higher amounts be possible if you have plating as well, which I think increase the threshhold for something, I assume increases the threshhold for explosions, but does it also increase the threshholds for melting/radiation? I am not sure about this either.


    How would you design a reactor that heats up, but does not melt any components without using a HD? I am pretty sure that unless some magic occurs for plate conduction/other interaction, this is impossible to do. I know that if you give a cooling cell exactly 2 heat per tick, it will melt EXACTly at the moment the reactor deactivates, unless I missed part of the model, such as how heat gets to the hull without a HD or orphaned reactor.

  • How would you design a reactor that heats up, but does not melt any components without using a HD? I am pretty sure that unless some magic occurs for plate conduction/other interaction, this is impossible to do. I know that if you give a cooling cell exactly 2 heat per tick, it will melt EXACTly at the moment the reactor deactivates, unless I missed part of the model, such as how heat gets to the hull without a HD or orphaned reactor.

    I am pretty sure that you have to use the HD here. Or maybe, put an isotope cell against an edge of the reactor, I dunno.

    • Official Post


    -Yes, heat is an integer. No decimals here.


    -The Plating will only distribute "fair" heat. If you got 2 heat but 3 connected takers, it will store the 2 heat on itself. In the next hit, it will subtract 1 from it's own heat to increase the "received" heat to 3, then equally distribute 1 heat to each taker.


    -Each chamber provides 1000 additional "hp", each piece of plating 100. Probably need to increase that. To determine "heat effects", there is a ratio calculated, based on currentHeat/maxHeat, where maxHeat = 10000(Reactor)+1000*chambers+100*Plating. A result of 1.00 or higher is meltdown. 0.85 is lava spawn, etcetc First effects start by 0.45


    -In case of 0 heat, it should take 80000 ticks, thus "8 cycles". I strongly recommend setting up breed reactors on heat 6500 with 2 uranium cells surroundung 1 breeder cell.


    -Start the reactor, then, after a few ticks, switch all coolant cells against fresh ones :3 But ye, per design it's near impossible not to use HD's... yet.

  • Anouther thing, I *designed* a rather interesting Mark 5 reactor. Basically, I stuff the whole thing with Uranium fuel cells. It has an efficiency of 4.44444... and can run for 3.75 seconds (to hit 9k heat) before taking 6 minutes to cool off (water cooled, could be accelerated via buckets of water). It actually is quite efficient, because with extremely simple redstone circitry, you can automatically turn it off after the 3.75 second period, and use a button or similar to reactivate it. Unless a delay in deactivation exists, or say the power production scaled up from 0% to 100% in ~10 seconds, I think this is the optimal reactor, at least for total power output/uranium. It also appears to be 100% safe, unless you did some evil coding magic to make it not.



    Ok, thanks for the answers. it helps significantly on my premptive designing XD

    • Official Post

    Afaik such a rector design is possible.
    Of course, the efficiency is A++, but in redo you will produce FAAAAAAAR less energy over time.
    A basic safe Mark II can produce steady 40 EUt along his entire cycle, nonstop.
    Your reactor will merely produce a few 1000 EU within 3 seconds... then need a whole cooldown for half a day.


    It's efficient, no doubt, but i wouldn't like to have a power plant of that kind XD

  • Afaik such a rector design is possible.
    Of course, the efficiency is A++, but in redo you will produce FAAAAAAAR less energy over time.
    A basic safe Mark II can produce steady 40 EUt along his entire cycle, nonstop.
    Your reactor will merely produce a few 1000 EU within 3 seconds... then need a whole cooldown for half a day.


    It's efficient, no doubt, but i wouldn't like to have a power plant of that kind XD

    I initally wouldn't either, but I would note that if you were to totally automate it, if doing the 3*6 grid, it produces a burst of 100k Eu before vaporizing (unless you hault it ofc, easy to do) Then cooldowns down in 6 minutes, for anouther 100k burst. The 3*6 runs for ~12 seconds stablely, and is about 163 Eu/sec averaged.

  • It makes for an interesting experiment, though: if you can somehow construct enough reactors to have one running constantly, and a redstone circuit controlling the timing, you could have a massive-output reactor set. unfortunately, it would probably take up nearly an entire render area (on flat ground, at least) to construct said reactors.

  • It makes for an interesting experiment, though: if you can somehow construct enough reactors to have one running constantly, and a redstone circuit controlling the timing, you could have a massive-output reactor set. unfortunately, it would probably take up nearly an entire render area (on flat ground, at least) to construct said reactors.

    That isnt required to have a smooth current, You can simply use a buffer (or a few, as MFE's can only transmit 64 per second max, at least in IC1) to store the burst, and release it at a steady rate (the average rate, rounded, via MFE configuration)

    • Official Post

    It makes for an interesting experiment, though: if you can somehow construct enough reactors to have one running constantly, and a redstone circuit controlling the timing, you could have a massive-output reactor set. unfortunately, it would probably take up nearly an entire render area (on flat ground, at least) to construct said reactors.


    That's what the controller will be used for.
    F.e. you could just place it next to the reactor, telling it to emit redstone if heat > 5000. The reactor will then proceed to go on/off around that line.

  • That's what the controller will be used for.
    F.e. you could just place it next to the reactor, telling it to emit redstone if heat > 5000. The reactor will then proceed to go on/off around that line.

    I was just about to propose the idea of such a controller. Will it be implemented in the near future? Also, will such controllers be available for determining the amount of EU in storage devices? Would be useful.

    • Official Post

    While we're on the topic of controllers, I had the idea to add a warning beacon that would sound a signal whenever the reactor is about to go critical. It's totally unnecessary, as with the restone automation through controllers, the player won't actually need to be aware of the reactor overheating. I just found a nice warning sound and wanted to use it. :D

  • As the reactor spawns lava at a certain level of heat and placing water around the reactor, can we assume that purposely placing lava will apply additional constant heat to the reactor? Might be interesting for building breeders.


    Also: will placing lava cells inside the reactor have any effect?

    • Official Post

    As the reactor spawns lava at a certain level of heat and placing water around the reactor, can we assume that purposely placing lava will apply additional constant heat to the reactor? Might be interesting for building breeders.


    Also: will placing lava cells inside the reactor have any effect?


    Lava will not directly heat the reactor up, but, yes, reduce the efficiency of outward cooling drastically.


    Nope, but try lava buckets :3

  • How do I know wich temperature the Nuclear Reactor has ? is there a way to display it ?
    i haven´t try IC² with BC yet, but can i use bc pipes to feed the nuclear reactor with ice ? :)

  • and i other thing ...
    i´ve tested around with nuclear reactors and found out
    when you put lots of lava in a reactor (ok only 4 buckkets ),
    2 uranium cells and then a Depleted Isotope Cell it become re enriched very, very fast.
    i think a bit to fast, it takes only a second a it is a Re-Enriched Uranium Cell i think thats is a bit overpowered


    And when you have a stack of Depleted Isotope Cell (over 9) it look like a empty cell :(

    • Official Post

    and i other thing ...
    i´ve tested around with nuclear reactors and found out
    when you put lots of lava in a reactor (ok only 4 buckkets ),
    2 uranium cells and then a Depleted Isotope Cell it become re enriched very, very fast.
    i think a bit to fast, it takes only a second a it is a Re-Enriched Uranium Cell i think thats is a bit overpowered


    And when you have a stack of Depleted Isotope Cell (over 9) it look like a empty cell :(


    1 Second? That's not intended. With 2 nearby cells + 4 lava it should take about 1 MC day. Probably a bug :/