Reactor Planner and evaporating water

    I'm very new to reactors and have come up with what I think is a pretty decent cold-start breeder in reactor planner:


    http://www.talonfiremage.pwp.b…a=1p101010110010101001010



    I can then turn around and use another setup I found using four cells and a six-chamber reactor. This setup provides 16 Million EU. Assuming I am able to breed the four cells in my first setup, I would essentially be generating 16 Mil EU for the cost of one uranium cell. My overall goal right now is to have a "hands-off" approach to reactors until I learn the mechanics better.


    That's getting off topic though, what I came here to ask was whether or not the reactor planner takes evaporating water into account. I know about having the water flowing from above, but what happens when any source blocks *under* your reactor evaporate?

    No, it does not take evaporating into account. (As far as I know)
    When a source block evaporates, it gets replaced by flowing water block from nearby source block. If not, it just stops cooling the reactor, since it is not present anymore.
    Also you probably pasted wrong link.

    Well, nothing appears as it seems!


    Towards the end of my first run with that reactor setup, everything went wrong. Basically, the cooling wasn't working quite as expected. All of a sudden, I lost my add-on chamber! poof, gone! I quickly grabbed the uranium cell and near depleted cells out of the reactor and avoided a complete catastophe but I noticed fire being generated down in the water source blocks on the floor. I'm assuming that was my reinforced concrete trying to generate flowing lava as they quickly turned to stone. I also checked all my source blocks and minus the ones just turned into stone, the rest still existed.


    So, now I have to figure out exactly what went wrong and fix it. Any ideas?

    Quote

    I can then turn around and use another setup I found using four cells and a six-chamber reactor. This setup provides 16 Million EU. Assuming I am able to breed the four cells in my first setup, I would essentially be generating 16 Mil EU for the cost of one uranium cell.

    It will take more than one cycle to breed those four cells from a cold start. Also, don't forget the 2kk EU you get from one full breeding cycle.

    Quote from Sniper061

    Towards the end of my first run with that reactor setup, everything went wrong. Basically, the cooling wasn't working quite as expected. All of a sudden, I lost my add-on chamber! poof, gone!


    So, now I have to figure out exactly what went wrong and fix it. Any ideas?

    You're better off using a Neutral Breeder and use a heating cycle to get it up to 9k heat. The reactor planner just tells you if you go to 10k heat, 9500+ hull heat isn't good for the environment around the reactor.

    Hmm, okay. I think I have a design that will work. I have to use six chambers but at the end of the first run, I should be sitting at about 8,500 hull heat. All I have to do from that point is change out 5 components and plug in a new uranium cell. That'll put me at about 8,250 heat. Not optimal, but it works! I also figure that every couple of cycles, I can throw in a second uranium cell for just a couple seconds to keep the heat up. Dangerous, yes, but without a thermometer to check the hull heat, it's the best I can do :-/. I'll just make sure to keep a bucket ready to toss in there if I start taking radiation damage.

    Cold start breeder is a positive breeder.


    Positive breeders work best when they end their cycle at near melting, which is what your design does, so + points go to you for that...


    However.


    If everything goes perfectly, the hull temp ends up at ~81% of maximum. If 2 or 3 waters evaporate, its melting time, both internally and externally around the chamber, quite possibly culminating in a big boom. You cannot have imprecise external cooling and breed. Breeding is all about running it close to the razors edge of disaster. Rolling the dice and hoping for perfect luck multiple times is a sure way to end up with a bad result.


    Raise the roof. Literally. Put source blocks of water in a 3x3 centered above the nuclear reactor core by 3 blocks. They don't evaporate up there. When you add chambers, do bottom first, then top, then sides. Put solid blocks in the corners of the 3x3 centered 2 blocks below the reactor to make the water flow under the side chambers. If you cannot make these adjustments, breed knowing a meltdown is likely.

    Thanks for Giving drill access to miners!