Overclocked Vents and OP Mk I Reactors

The planner is bugged which causes overclocked vents to be a lot cheaper than they are supposed to. 16 copper it was i think.

The core of the designs is homogeneous - a grid of component vents and overclocked vents - but the edges are where the variation comes in. If you've got ample gold and space, then you just remove the outer overclocked vents and you're all set, but the 'interesting' cases are how you handle it otherwise, how you shuffle heat around the edges. Right now those designs are all frowned upon, since their costs are enormously compared to the (incorrect) 'cheap' overclocked vents, but once that display issue in the planner is fixed, I have hope Reactor Exchangers and the like might get a lot more use in the highlighted designs.

Before, the bulk of your non-casuc reactors were various combinations of heat dispenser-cooling cell 'plus' shapes, (the coal balls are just for spacing)

Successful designs were mostly about how best to pack those around the uranium. Now, you're mostly deciding which resources you want to spend as you design the edges of your component vent-overclocked vent grid, exchanging between gold, copper, and iron, depending on which style of cooling you prefer, with gold being the most space-efficient.

I do miss the Mark II and Mark Vs, though. I figure the lack of RedPower doesn't help (since it makes Mark Vs sooooo much easier to manage), but there just aren't many places to store heat for Mark II and Mark III to take advantage of. All the Mark IIs I've made have basically been Mark I reactors with one piece removed - and that cost savings is negligible overall. If there were some way to automatically swap out heated components for fresh ones, that'd be very useful ... but it would basically be a CASUC that used a cooling reactor instead of ice compressors.

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Duals/Quads (assuming the lifetime bug is fixed - and they have acknowledged it's a bug) and reflectors are about which resource is more valuable to you, the Uranium or the copper. In principle, copper is renewable via UU matter, whereas uranium is not. So the premise of spending copper on increasing the output of the uranium has appeal (I *think* it's still a net gain, even with remaking the copper out of UU matter). However, if you've got ample uranium, then of course they would have far less appeal.

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Edit - The lack of full, 6-chamber designs seems to me to be because of the way heating scales. With Quads, your heat skyrockets as you add more adjacent uranium, so you quickly go from a reactor that you can cool with ~2 chambers, to a reactor that even a 6-chamber can't cool with diamonds. The 6 chamber designs seem to mostly be multiple copies of 0-, 1-, and 2-chamber reactors stuck into one 6-chamber reactor, rather than really creating something uniquely larger. The single-cell uranium (ie non-dual/quad) reactors seem to be the only real area for 'true' 6-chamber designs, and they haven't gotten much attention in the 'good reactors' threads.

Quote from n1ght5talker

I started out disagreeing with you, but after doing a bit of study I could possibly agree that when duel/quad lifecycles are fixed the copper required won't be too much. This doesn't go for reflectors though, those things just aren't worth the copper.

I didn't see you disagree with my statement about suggesting that cooling components should be more efficent then cooling the core. I'm thinking now thats really the main point of what I want to change. If storing heat in coolant cells and slowly cooling them was better then just grabbing heat from the core, things would be more interesting.

Oh, I dunno... I've got a Mk. II system set up with an output of 1360 Eu/Tic that uses coolant cells transferred into a series of cooling towers. Still working the bugs out of it before I post the finished result, mostly in the automation. RP2 will solve this problem for me handily.

The problem seems to be that cooling cells don't store enough heat to make them worth using, since your going to need to use an exchanger anyway you might as well use a vent instead. If its not an MK 1 its going to be an MK 5 with a ridiculous cooldown time, and if it isnt an MK 1 or 5 than a component vent or 2 will fix it.

It sucks because I liked to burn up cooling cells with a higher efficiency and eu/t reactor, not quite as powerful as a CASUC but I didn't use that much power.

Edit: I like your idea of cooling cells being able to exchange heat quicker.

Also the OC vent do the most cooling AND pull heat from the core so not only is it the best cooling but you dont need exchanger so transfer heat to it, meaning you can fit more vents into the reactor.

Quote from Zombie

The problem seems to be that cooling cells don't store enough heat to make them worth using, since your going to need to use an exchanger anyway you might as well use a vent instead. If its not an MK 1 its going to be an MK 5 with a ridiculous cooldown time, and if it isnt an MK 1 or 5 than a component vent or 2 will fix it.

That does seem to be the core problem with cooling cells - a 60k coolant averages out to a regular heat vent, so they only shine in a Mark III or Mark V. Without RedPower, Mark III & V are far less appealing, especially given how slim the gains are now. I'd disagree about the "ridiculous cooldown time" part, however - the incredible heat output of adjacent quads tends to mean you've got an impressive cooling system, so once the reactor shuts off, all that can be applied to the cooling cells.

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Quote from n1ght5talker

I started out disagreeing with you, but after doing a bit of study I could possibly agree that when duel/quad lifecycles are fixed the copper required won't be too much. This doesn't go for reflectors though, those things just aren't worth the copper.

For Copper Plates, it looks like they each cost 400k EU (or more accurately, ~430k EU including the Recycler - still need to factor in macerator and compressor to be truly accurate):

So a Quad costs 2m extra (5 plates * 400k EU/each). A 2x2 of single-cells is 3 eff, as is a quad, meaning you lose 2m with the Quad. Adjacent Quads is 4eff, gaining you 4m over using 8 cells (3.5 eff) ... which is exactly as much as you spent on Copper Plates (excluding processing). So to actually get a *gain* from Quads, you either need more of them, or a more complex arrangement (e.g. a quad with adjacent single-cells). That's much worse than I'd expected, so thanks for getting me to look more closely at the numbers >< It does still provides a relatively efficient copper->EU conversion, though, which can be circumstantially useful, and of course it does create a more compact reactor layout, allowing for more cooling components.

Ignoring processing costs (macerating, compressing, recycling), a Reflector costs 4.2 UU, or ~700k EU. Each Reflector seems like it would yields a raw 1m EU extra, translating into a ~300k EU gain. While the processing costs will eat into that, I suspect the Reflectors are still a gain overall, but probably not a large enough gain to be worth the hassle. I expect the Thick reflector is a net loss or negligible gain, as the 400k EU copper plate would probably consume any actual gain from the four reflectors.

All of this, of course, presumes you need to account for the materials consumed. If you're just burning what you dug out of the ground and would otherwise sit unused in a stockpile somewhere, then most of these 'losses' could evaporate. That's largely a playstyle preference, but useful to keep in mind with respect to the value of the feature to players overall.

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Quote from n1ght5talker

I didn't see you disagree with my statement about suggesting that cooling components should be more efficent then cooling the core. I'm thinking now thats really the main point of what I want to change. If storing heat in coolant cells and slowly cooling them was better then just grabbing heat from the core, things would be more interesting.

Something to make reactor design more 'interesting' would certainly be welcome. Personally, I think the Component Vents are the primary source of the problem, because they provide a unique and incredibly powerful capability (moreso, imo, than the Overclocked Vents, if only one of the two were present).

You essentially seem to be suggesting a world which heavily favors Mk II, III, and V reactors over Mk I, which I agree would be more appealing. How you'd actually balance that, I have no idea, and figuring out how to make such a system *work* is a large obstacle.

Mark 2-4 is mostly dead, yes, because heat capacity is no longer free.

But microcycle reactors (i.e. Mk5, running in short bursts) is still a way to get high effectiveness. May be best way, even.

cooleant cell needs to store three times more heat than now. six cooleant cell pack can store 6heat per second. that is too low to be interesting as it is cooling capacity of basic heat vent.

Cooling cells should also provide some minor cooling (less than a normal vent ofc)

Quote from Rick

Cooling cells should also provide some minor cooling (less than a normal vent ofc)

I would respectfully disagree. Instead, I'd say that it would draw heat to itself from adjacent components or even from the hull itself. That is, at the core, what a heat sink does, after all, it draws heat to itself by virtue of being cooler than the surroundings, and allowing conduction and convection take place normally.

So rather than requiring it being spoon-fed, accepting heat but not drawing it to itself, it would be more proactive at drawing heat to itself.

Storing more heat would make cycles last longer, but would make it no less complicated to exchange them. Unless you want to make heat sinks so large that they can store up enough heat for a full cycle, all you are really doing is changing the period rather than the amplitude.

Quote from ShneekeyTheLost

I would respectfully disagree. Instead, I'd say that it would draw heat to itself from adjacent components or even from the hull itself. That is, at the core, what a heat sink does, after all, it draws heat to itself by virtue of being cooler than the surroundings, and allowing conduction and convection take place normally.

So rather than requiring it being spoon-fed, accepting heat but not drawing it to itself, it would be more proactive at drawing heat to itself.

Storing more heat would make cycles last longer, but would make it no less complicated to exchange them. Unless you want to make heat sinks so large that they can store up enough heat for a full cycle, all you are really doing is changing the period rather than the amplitude.

Changing the period is exactly what you need for mkII and up

With minor cooling i mean very little cooling that purely happens because it conducts heat to the outside. Like 1 cooling for 10k cell and 3 cooling for 60k cell.

Also base cooling should return but it should be rebalanced so 0 chamber reactors arent op compared to 6 chamber reactors

I hope you goys dont mind shameless self-promotion too much.
I made a thread about this in the suggestion forum section. Intended to post that post here, but it grew way too big and too general.
Link

http://www.talonfiremage.pwp.b…iiumb28r3l94gwobtdom24agw

24mil EU generated over 2 hours, no CASUC. No cooldown time. I tend to play it safe and be happy with lots of EU over a time period rather than most of these people that rather have advanced machines so they can only run it in short burts, with many resources etc.

Quote from SpitFir3Tornado

http://www.talonfiremage.pwp.b…iiumb28r3l94gwobtdom24agw

24mil EU generated over 2 hours, no CASUC. No cooldown time. I tend to play it safe and be happy with lots of EU over a time period rather than most of these people that rather have advanced machines so they can only run it in short burts, with many resources etc.

Umm... no. That design is horribly expensive and inefficient.
Please see a list of good designs here:
[OFFICIAL] List of good reactor designs

I can get more out of a three chamber.

It does create an interesting experiment, though - designing a Mark I reactor that uses 0 gold, no more than 18 diamonds, and only single-cell uranium, with a minimum of 120 eu/t. Its easy if you go for horrible efficiency, like the original, or even if you go with 2 2x2 uranium blocks (for 120eu/t exactly), but if you go with a single 8-uranium pile (an extra 20 eu/t for 62 more heat), it's surprisingly challenging. I'm way too accustomed to relying on Overclocked Vents, and ignoring diamonds completely.

Apparently a grid of component heat vents and reactor heat exchangers does quite well.

I got 140 EU/t with an efficiency of 3.5:

http://www.talonfiremage.pwp.b…vmsnp0w80x62e0iucjyhfjdvk

Also, you can just add two more heat exchangers and another cell or two (depending on placement) to get a bit more power at the cost of efficiency.