Nuclear or solar?

Quote from ShneekeyTheLost

Yea, geothermals seem to be king. A battery of nine geothermals, around three golden waterproof pipes, produces 180 EU/tic.

To get that kind of energy output, the nuclear plant with an identical EU output is found here. This has a MASSIVE amount of resources and subcombines necessary, and has a (slight) explosion risk, due to it being a Mk II-1 reactor

i agree with that. hopefully the next IC2 version will change that, but to date those normal reactor designs only waste uranium by using it below it's capabilities and don't have a higher output than an easy to build geothermal plant. in the middle range of EU production, geothermals are king. nuclear reactors rule the high-end energy production as CASUC's.

Quote from Gaxx

frames

That and RP Pumps... those things can stretch for miles if you use them right, lol

Course, I will admit that I am excited to see what the new nuclear mechanics are going to be in the 1.3.2 version of IC2. If it's an interesting enough change, I may consider investing into it...

I've been doing some "How to get started best" games with only IC² mod, the idea was to try each of the generators as primary power supply from the beginning and see how you progress with it at the early game.

The result: Geothermal > all. Just dig down, find some lava and fill the GT with lava buckets. A single GT keeps your base running all the way till the endgame if you don't mind some waiting and lava is very easy to find/get. Second is wind generator, as from the green-gens it has the highest output (~1,5 EU/t / generator). Just stack some scaffolds and build your base at y=140. It requires some climbing, but 4 wind mills (=48 iron) keeps one set of macerator/extractor/furnace going for free and once you have some extra iron just stack more wind mills. If done right (and by spending thousands of iron) a farm of wind mills can easily power a matter machine at zero cost.

The remaining generators are far behind that for various reasons. Building a water mill farm is slightly expensive but possible to do early game and they are a reliable source of EU without any resource requirements, however it requires a lot of digging. I tried solar generation but they are for once way too expensive at early game and are basically only useful in SP, if you skip every night by sleeping. If you can't/won't skip night, you have 1/3 of a wind mill for about twice the price that won't work half of the day with the only plus that you can just place them on your roof.

Quote from GregoriusT

Manned Watermill with Waterbuckets makes 500EU at 1 EU/t, while doing the same with Watercells generates 1000EU at 2EU/t, since IC² 1.103, so its no longer relyable or effective.

I do not man water mills, it is hell of a lot of annoying and yields only a fraction of EU / bucket you toss into it. I have setup a chain of water mills hooked up on tin cable that allow me to generate 1 EU/t for each 4 water mills build, and with my setup I can chain 20 x4 mills in a row for a total of 20 EU. However at early game I just build 6 x4 mills (=96 iron) to keep my basic stuff running. The big plus of unmanned water mils is: once you have them setup, they just produce guaranteed EU and require absolutely nothing to keep them going, so you can build them everywhere you have the space available.

Quote from GregoriusT

But werent we talking about Nuclear vs. Solar? Why didnt you test Nuclearreactors in earlygame? (Dont say they're too expensive).

Just wanted to point out that solar power is the worst possible generator setup for early game, yet many people do build it.

I in fact did try to build a nuclear reactor as primary power source, and yes it was too expensive. I am still trying to find a setup that is possible to do very early, but no matter how you do it, you will need a prior setup to generate the materials. I think I already have a nice 0-chamber 5 components setup, just need to optimize the way to get there fast.

why is nobody using power converters water strainer? it's still very cheap and you can pump water via a BC pump powered by 4redstone engines directly into it, which is enough to power 4 strainer for 8EU/t, a good enough output to get your first machines running.

Because waterstrainers are abysmal.
I would rather use a deployer+retriever combo than that.

Not everyone uses RP or BC. I for myself for example only play IC² unmodded.

Makes sense right, because waterstrainers are in unmodded IC's.
Oh wait.

edit: Two, if you weren't referring to my statement then ignore that line.
For pure vanilla a combination of Charcoal/Geogen and windmills are your best bet, while gearing towards nuclear for endgame.

Nuclear is early midgame. In vanilla IC2 endgame you will run out of uranium, because your mining speed is limited. Windmills are endgame.

Quote from baturinsky

Nuclear is early midgame. In vanilla IC2 endgame you will run out of uranium, because your mining speed is limited. Windmills are endgame.

Ever heard of Breeders? It'll go a long way to stretching out your uranium supply. Besides, once you get your full Quantum, what is there to do that requires that much power?

Quote from Gaxx

why is nobody using power converters water strainer? it's still very cheap and you can pump water via a BC pump powered by 4redstone engines directly into it, which is enough to power 4 strainer for 8EU/t, a good enough output to get your first machines running.

Probably because some of us like playing with BC 3.x's Gates, and Power Converters is STILL not compatible with it? Or how about Power Converters not even being updated for 1.2.5, and is pretty much Abandonware at this point?

And a pump with four redstone engines is good enough for *nine* strainers, for 18 eu/tic.

Powerconverters is updated, right here

Quote from T10a

Powerconverters is updated, right here

Doesn't seem to be working with IC2 v 1.103 and BC 3.15. Or if it is, the recipes are hidden, and changed. Or maybe it isn't compatible with Forge build 171. Whatever it isn't compatible with, it isn't working.

Quote from ShneekeyTheLost

Probably because some of us like playing with BC 3.x's Gates, and Power Converters is STILL not compatible with it? Or how about Power Converters not even being updated for 1.2.5, and is pretty much Abandonware at this point?

Quote from ShneekeyTheLost

Doesn't seem to be working with IC2 v 1.103 and BC 3.15. Or if it is, the recipes are hidden, and changed. Or maybe it isn't compatible with Forge build 171. Whatever it isn't compatible with, it isn't working.

i have no idea what you're both talking about. i'm using PowerConvertersBC3_Client_1.3.4 with the latest IC2 and BC3.1.5 and everthing works fine

Quote from ShneekeyTheLost

And a pump with four redstone engines is good enough for *nine* strainers, for 18 eu/tic.

how do you line them up? when i place them above the pump the first layer works, but the second layer stutters very hard.

Quote from Gaxx

i have no idea what you're both talking about. i'm using PowerConvertersBC3_Client_1.3.4 with the latest IC2 and BC3.1.5 and everthing works fine

how do you line them up? when i place them above the pump the first layer works, but the second layer stutters very hard.

What version of Forge are you using, and do you have Modloader also installed? Because I just tried on a fresh install, and it wouldn't work. It didn't crash, but it didn't load PowerConverters either.

How do I have them set up? Simple. You have three gold waterproof pipes set up, with a gold pipe going back from the middle connected to the pump. Three above the gold waterproof pipes, three in front of, and three behind. Used to work all the time, before the mod died.

Eh, not much point in the mod now, except the Water Filters to replace the whole bucket-driven RP2 setup. Forestry has all your conversion needs.

Quote from ShneekeyTheLost

What version of Forge are you using, and do you have Modloader also installed? Because I just tried on a fresh install, and it wouldn't work. It didn't crash, but it didn't load PowerConverters either.

my forge build is 171 aka 3.4.9.171 and i don't have modloader installed, only forge.

Quote from ShneekeyTheLost

Eh, not much point in the mod now, except the Water Filters to replace the whole bucket-driven RP2 setup. Forestry has all your conversion needs.

i still like to use multiple oil-fab-generator for endgame EU production.

Quote from ShneekeyTheLost

Ever heard of Breeders? It'll go a long way to stretching out your uranium supply. Besides, once you get your full Quantum, what is there to do that requires that much power?

Breeders != infinite uranium. Even with them you can't get more than 70 mil of eu from ore.
And as for what to do with power - it can be used to create nearly anything with uu and crapboxes. There is not much use for them in vanilla Ic (because IC fails at providing energy sink), but if you have other ways to spend ersources, like auto-building epic mechanisms, buildings and mechanical buildings...

I personally would say solar once you get enough materials for cables and/or batboxes, MFE's, MSFU's. i made an array of 49 solar panels and it completly filled an MFE worth of EU and then some more EU.

here's how much EU it generated in one day:

614,376 EU. in one MINECRAFT day. I had set up the array completely at night.

this is vanilla ic2. no addons. unless you count TooManyItems as an addon.

Now that you can get a reliable 420 eu/tic out of a Mk I plant, I think the tables might well be turning. It would take an awful lot of resources to match that with solar.

By comparison, your array of 49 solar panels produce 49 eu/tic. This produces almost ten TIMES that much.

Quote from ShneekeyTheLost

Now that you can get a reliable 420 eu/tic out of a Mk I plant, I think the tables might well be turning. It would take an awful lot of resources to match that with solar.

By comparison, your array of 49 solar panels produce 49 eu/tic. This produces almost ten TIMES that much.

I would say that reactors are meant for short, medium, and long term use, however solars are meant for very long term use. What I mean by this is that if given an infinite/very long amount of time, the reactors would eventually reach a point (unless you are using Mystcraft) where there was no uranium left in the world (along with the general semi-scarcity of uranium as is), and at that point the solars would have overtaken the reactors in total eu generated. Plus at the cost of a lot less energy, but less resources you get a no maintenance generator that you can just put down and never worry about again, so overall I would say that while reactors are better overall, for these reasons people are more inclined to create solars and use them as a power source instead.