Any point to Nuclear Engineering?

Are we talking normal solar panels or compactsolars solar panels?

Not really. If you're using compact solars its far too easy to have a huge amount of power. But thats a discussion for another day/thread.

Half the problems with normal solars is the huge amount of cabling and space. I think nuclear is great delivering high power easily. Also if you're confident you don't need to set up all the reinforced stone which means just a hole, some water and then the chambers, and you can have more than one reactor going obviously.

Oh and:

Quote

http://www.talonfiremage.pwp.blueyonder.…vc2od1my1isu2bk
Eu/tick: 70
Cost: Iron 118, Copper 154 and Tin 80

70 Solars:

Quote

coal 210
cobblestone 560
copper dust 456
iron dust 700
redstone 420
sand 210
sticky resin 912
tin dust 280

Display More

Quote from krulin

I've been playing around with nuclear power for quite some time now on a test world and lurking the forums here for good reactor designs, but I've yet to find a reactor design that beats having a solar panel farm. It just seems like nuclear reactors don't output nearly as much EU (once you get a decent sized farm together), and also have the disadvantage of having to replace the uranium cells every so often. The designs that do output a good chunk of EU and aren't horribly inefficient usually either have to be cooled manually with ice, water buckets, ect, or have to be so horribly micromanaged so they don't go boom. I know you can setup redstone timers for this as well, but then there's still the problem of the reactor having to cool for like 90 minutes before you can start it over again. So unless I'm missing something, there's not real point to nuclear reactors unless you're just in a place where you can't have a solar farm, or don't want an "eye sore" in front of your base. I guess if someone could point me in the direction of an amazing reactor design it'd help, but lurking on the forums for the past few months, I've yet to find one.

you call 1840EU/t for a total of 320.000.000EU "a good chunk of EU"?
i don't know what other people think, but CASUC reactors are extremly efficient, can pump you your UU-matter for the quantum suit in 2,5h without scrap and the designs are good enough that they only blow up if you made a mistake with the construction. the only problem is to get the uranium to start it.

The reason for nuclear engineering is "Risk vs Reward". It's cheaper to run 70 solar panels for god knows how long, and without a doubt safer(even if nuclear power is safe enough if you aren't a idiot and decide to jam it full of Uranium and hope for the best), but solar power has no risk, thus the reward is lower.
One can make a CASUC reactor which will output over a thousand EU PER TICK. To do that with solars, you need over a thousand solar panels, something you would either need to mine for a month real time to build, use EE2 to get the resources needed via "passive" EMC generation or just chuck tons of other resources into the right machines to get, or, have a decent CASUC Nuclear Reactor powering a Mass-Generator for a few minecraft days. Scrap wouldn't hurt, but it wouldn't be needed.(scrapboxes work better anyway, and it's only slightly harder to make one then it is to get 9 scrap)

It's true, the passive EU from solars is nice, and without a doubt safer then even a Mk1 reactor. But it costs so much more to generate enough power to edge out Nuclear Reactors with solars then a sane person would argue is "better".
Just because it's safer, doesn't mean it's better. Dance the razors edge! The rewards you reap are much nicer, not just because they are better, but also because you enjoy them more, as you truly EARNED THEM.
edit: Oh, I completely forgot to mention, you must have been lurking on a different site, because if you've been here for a few months looking for good reactor designs, then you must lack eyes. I mean, it's not like there's a STICKED THREAD FULL OF GOOD REACTOR DESIGNS on this forum. Nope, most certainly not a thing which anyone who has eyes to see with could notice within "a few month of lurking". But if one has eyes and can read, then yeah, there is a sticked thread full of good designs just WAITING to enter your world. Including several NEUTRAL BREEDERS, something which, if I remember correctly, Alakazam(what? I suck at names), decried as a myth when he released breeder reactors.
As for getting the uranium needed to generate the power, you'd be surprised how easy it is to find if you just go spelunking. Or set up a decent sized quarry, frame or otherwise.

As for "not outputting nearly as much EU as a decent sized solar farm", I'm pretty sure all those 2k EU/tick CASUC Reactors shit all over that lie. Because a "decent sized solar farm" still doesn't output 2k EU/tick 24/7, perfectly, immune to weather screwing up my power supplies, able to work anywhere in the world(including at my bedrock FCS, where I have the launch codes for all my ICBMs stored and ready to be entered into my mainframe to destroy the world, and at my End base, where I farm pearls and mock dead dragons), and it works in all my Mystcraft Ages, including my stormworld hell age where I go for vacation.

Solar/wind/water farms have specific advantages in renewability/'free' energy -- in that regard they make fine 'endgame' targets.

Nukes however, have the crown in energy/block density, and in material investment. In that regard, nukes are definitely king for speed-of-deployment, at least until you've build Alblaka's solar spamatron.

Quote from kainorg

Solar/wind/water farms have specific advantages in renewability/'free' energy -- in that regard they make fine 'endgame' targets.

Nukes however, have the crown in energy/block density, and in material investment. In that regard, nukes are definitely king for speed-of-deployment, at least until you've build Alblaka's solar spamatron.

The solar spamatron was a challenge, not something one should actually use. Plus getting all the UU-Matter to build it all would, again, require Nuclear Reactors.
Honestly, you seem to have your endgame plans a *bit* backwards. One uses "free" energy since it doesn't consume resources to keep running, which means it's great for when you're starting a base. Endgame power generation is about simply having a massive amount of power at your fingertips, which while one doesn't has to balance input resources against output power, one does need to look at output power and see what works best, which coincidently, over a thousand EU/tick from a small system which one could quite easily just build a few more of and still not spend as much as a "free energy" system of comparable output to the first system.

"Green Energy" is a good idea. But so is Communism. Both really only work on paper, though. Green energy can't output more EU then a well built nuclear reactor, unless one wants to waste inordinate amounts of resources in a desperate attempt to prove "It's just as useful". A ultimately futile decision since the power one gets from it does not compensate the cost or size of it's construction.

"Free Energy" is what you use in a tiny part of your base. Such as, say, powering your luminators.

Green has it's merits. Uranium is finite, and you can't get more than 63 million of EUs from one uranium ore. And it is roughly 800 solar-hours. I'm to o lasy to calculate ROI now, but investing resources in green plants can give you exponential growth of energy income, and with compact solars it can even really work for some time.

Without compact solars... how many wind/water/solars make game unplayable?

Quote from baturinsky

Green has it's merits.

it doesn't endanger it's enviroment with drastical redesigning, so it's boring
even my oil-fab-generator leaves a nice crater should one of the combustion engines overheat. it's just not cool if it can't explode.

Quote from YX33A

Green energy can't output more EU then a well built nuclear reactor, unless one wants to waste inordinate amounts of resources in a desperate attempt to prove "It's just as useful". A ultimately futile decision since the power one gets from it does not compensate the cost or size of it's construction.

"Free Energy" is what you use in a tiny part of your base. Such as, say, powering your luminators.

776 iron, 513 stone, 3 gold, 4 rubber, and a stick is not expensive for average 128 EU/t continuous. -- investing in the diamond+redstone to move that down to ground level may be more expensive, alternately building a floating castle also may not be desireable.

Those look expensive at first glance, but once its up and running 24/7, nukes just dont compare.

In my main game world, I use wind towers in my main base, but nukes at satellites/mining stations, and geotherm in the nether. Use the right tech for the right location.

My primary answer to the OP's question is: nuclear reactors are fun. This is all the reason I need to "bother" with nuclear engineering. This is similar to Gaxx's requirement for potential explosions, now that I think of it.

I do have one specific point to make about this, though:

Quote from Ops

70 Solars:

Namely: one-time costs don't compare, as far as I'm concerned -- my games are always long and therefore all my one-time costs are effectively zero (or, at least, trivial). The only real difference becomes fuel cost, which is zero for the free energy generators (solar, wind, water) and nonzero for nukes.

Realistically, though, fuel costs aren't enough to dissuade me from using nukes -- I also use geothermals powered by lava gathered from the overworld (not the effectively infinite nether lava, which I count as cheating), which gives not only non-zero fuel costs, but also nontrivial transport requirements. Building systems to manage these problems is part of the fun!

Oh, while I'm doing my devil's advocate bit, nobody seems to have brought this up: solar arrays (and other free energy generators) can be set up incrementally, giving you nonzero power income from the moment the first one's built and set down. Compare nukes which generate nothing until they're set up and fueled (but provide more power once ready, and can be set up faster than the equivalent solar array).

That's my two cents. Have at it!

Quote from kainorg

776 iron, 513 stone, 3 gold, 4 rubber, and a stick is not expensive for average 128 EU/t continuous. -- investing in the diamond+redstone to move that down to ground level may be more expensive, alternately building a floating castle also may not be desireable.

Those look expensive at first glance, but once its up and running 24/7, nukes just dont compare.

In my main game world, I use wind towers in my main base, but nukes at satellites/mining stations, and geotherm in the nether. Use the right tech for the right location.

while i agree that such a solar panel array can support an over average IC2 base it's not enough if you want to do stuff like using UU-matter as constant resource, e.g. when building you quantum suit (costs 280UU-matter) or for redstone (never have enough of it).
but uranium is seriously expensive, so only relying on nuclear power could be a problem. i always prefer to have a smaller side system, like geothermals when i build a mining platform that also produces lava cells on mass (there's more lava in the overworld than most people think^^)

Quote from krulin

For starters, there is a difference between, "earning" your power, and having to babysit the source of your power. Casuc reactors require some form of cooling and thus fall under the category of either non-renewable or having to have a long string of things creating ice blocks or some such to keep going. What I guess my main gripe is, is that in real life, nuclear power produces a TON of power and relatively safely now, but that's not the case for the nuclear reactors in minecraft.

what do you mean with "earning" your power? i think i pretty much earn the power for the casuc i set up and cooling is infinite since we know water is a very renewable resource. it's a non-renewable generator because it needs uranium.
i also think that the nuclear reactor in IC2 is better than a real one, since it does pump a ton of EU and contrary to a real reactor it doesn't produce radioactive waste for which we have still haven't found a way to dispose it.

Quote from krulin

Read his post. He was saying that Nuclear power is more rewarding because you have to earn the power it generates and you just can't sit and collect energy like you can with solar panels. I was saying that there is a difference between having to put effort into making something work and having to babysit something because you're afraid if you turn your back for too long there will be a crater where your lovely base was. Also true about the nuclear waste, that would be kinda overkill on the realism though. I guess I would have just liked to see a little more depth in the components. Maybe more tiers of components or something. Like having different levels of coolant cells or something. I kinda feel like the Nuclear reactor system is a cheesy puzzle minigame and that it doesn't have much depth considering what it is. On the other hand though I'm not saying it should be completely realistic, it just should have a bit more to the innards of it. It also shouldn't be so easy to just pump it full of Ice and let it go. No stratedgy in it, and that's about the only way you get those lovely 2k Eu/T numbers that are getting thrown around (at least if you want to keep them for extended periods of time without a meltdown). Don't really see a need for that much power generation either unless you're just mass producing UU-Matter, but even then, it's still overkill.

On a side note, I like the idea of using the Nuclear reactor for power at a mine, since it won't matter so much if it goes boom there. I never thought of that.

You can easily get 2020EU/t with a 9x9x8 bucket CASUC without a risk of a meltdown if you know what you're doing.

Quote from krulin

True, but with all these technological machines, I find it silly that to cool a nuclear reactor, we have to pump buckets of water or ice blocks into it >_>. That's like the equivalent of owning a computer, but trying to fix it with a hammer every time it does something wrong.

This part is actually quite accurate. Reactors require huge amount of cooling, usually in form of water. Fukushima was caused by tidal waves destroying pumps that provided reactors with water, afaik.

Quote from krulin

True, but with all these technological machines, I find it silly that to cool a nuclear reactor, we have to pump buckets of water or ice blocks into it >_>. That's like the equivalent of owning a computer, but trying to fix it with a hammer every time it does something wrong.

in fact a real nuclear reactors works with water at every step^^ they're nothing more than giant steam plants, vaporizing their cooling water to drive the generator.