Reactor Rebalance

1st Official Post

    First of all i dont suggest any bg new content here. Only changings of existing stuff and/or addition of some smaller things...


    The Problems I See With The Nuclear Reactor:
    with the rework of the reactor many components came, and many ways to setup your reactor were obsolete...


    1) A few design are way better than others (see later points)


    2) Cooling Cells are really useless... they merely store heat. Why use them when you can add another Overclocked Vent instead
    (yes i know some experiment with reactors that heat up cells and a second reactor cools them down, but those are always way more expensive for the same EU)


    3) Therefore no Long term cooling reactors... i loved my Mark II that ran for one cycle and then cooled down for 90mins...


    4) LZH is not as good as old CASUC (only my opinion)


    5) Outside Cooling looked pretty good imho


    6) Some components are just too expensive for their effects... why pay diamonds when i can add more overclocked vents?



    yes the rework did some nice things... like the heating cell for breeders... but all in all there are way less ways to build your reactor now


    My Suggestions To Solve This (post your own if you like):


    1)
    Suggestion:
    Usable Cooling Cells. They store a little more heat and when they reach high heat levels they slowly lose some heat to the atmosphere (can be more expensive to prevent people from just melting them if needed)


    Options it Adds:
    You can either build a reactor that runs a long time and then needs a long time to cool down or build one that can run 24/7 but always at high heatlevels


    2)
    Suggestion:
    Direct Water Cooling. Add the item "Water Vent" (let the marketing section choose the name i'm just the engineer). It works like LZH, and maybe replaces it. It will also replace the config option to output RC Steam (therefore they will only work when railcraft is installed). It will not recharge but rather consume water it finds anywhere (near reactor, or via pipe/tube) whenever it removes heat and also output steam/reduce EU. They wont work when the steam cant go anywhere.


    Options it Adds:
    Reactors will look a bit better with this i think, also more realistic than LZH i guess. Adds a CASUC option with a little malus: when you cant put your steam anywhere the reactor will eventually overheat (and output EU instead).


    3)
    Suggestion: (The one that is the easiest to add)
    Make overclocked vents more expensive and/or less powerfull and vice versa with advanced vents
    same for component heat exchanger and advaned heat exchanger


    Options it Adds:
    2 Options to choose from instead of one



    Thank you for reading


    Luckbot

    List of People I know who didn't blew up a machine from Advanced Machines addon by wiring them to MV: { }


    Yay math exam is soon... lots of fun... "you love taylor approximation with parameters" *beat head with stick*

    It's been so soon since the last reactor update, and reactors are already fairly underpowered as they are. In general, all reactor suggestions have been
    DENIED
    Until further notice.

    I agree some components are UP, and others OP ... even if, compared to what you can get with solar pannels (especially for FTB users, using Advanced solar Pannels ... :p), those components are still UP.
    I think Heat absorbed by Cooling Cells should be increased of 20-50%. Also, some Exchanger seems useless for now.


    Note for Greg: and Breeding with Thorium is really cool, but it would be even cooler for it to be a REAL source of EU, while heating a little bit more ... I mean, I don't think one Th cell should give more EU/t, but to be "realistic", wouldn't be possible to make them output 2/3 additionnal EU/adjacent cells, and heating a bit more than now ? Because IRL, the main problem of Thorium Reactor is the fact it's hard to get some chain reaction with Thorium, which don't emit that much neutrons, and need a lot to start reacting, but it would actually be a good source of energy if we solve this problem (because it's way cheaper than Uranium).


    Soon with Molten Salt Reactors, right ? :D
    NERF THA FUSION REACTOR!

    50% boost wouldn't be enough either.


    A 60k coolant cell has the same effect as an extra 6 heat vented per pulse (assuming that you don't have all kinds of additional mods to keep em swapping, which isn't easy anyway as the number of cooling towers needed is kindof obscene) on top of that the heat isn't distributed evenly with cooling cells, meaning your vents go from underworked to overworked when the cell dies. A 50% boost to 9 cooling per pulse is not a significant improvement, even pushing to 200k is marginal.


    A better fix might be allowing them to draw in heat at around double the rate of exchangers (but no output, unlike exchangers) from the core/nearby components, this would allow for short bursts of intense cooling, then long cooldown times. Possibly also increasing capacity.so that mark II-Is work again.

    Quote

    Also, some Exchanger seems useless for now.

    Which? I've seen all 4 used in designs, and have everything but advanced in most of mine.

    reactor shoud run 10-20 times faster (providing 10-20 time more energy and heat per tick, without any increase in heat dissasipation rates) this will allow to generate hurge amount of EU in short time.



    current implementation inferior to windmill towers and other passive generators, that need no maintance and provide constant powers without need of recharge every 2 hours.

    I'm replying more to keep an eye on this thread, but I think in general, reactors, should


    1. be an order of magnitude larger without increasing the slots, to account for shielding.
    2. require cooling towers
    3. the recipies sould be waaay more expensive
    4. last a lot longer and output more EU. When I run 420EU/tick, I have trouble running 15-20 machines. Some are power hogs, but really, it shouldn't be an issue for a nuclear reactor.
    5. Uranium should be a lot more rare
    6. when they blow, permanently irradiate the area that can even overcome the hazmat suit. I live 90 miles from TMI, and there are still buildings there no human can enter. This adds some balance, but makes sure people take care of them - else learn an expensive lesson.
    7. lastly: this could/should probably be its own suggestion, but fits with the rest. create a new tileable block that looks like four pipes in a square, but varying sizes.It is placed touching the reactor or a chamber, and blocks are placed to the outside of the containment shell. The shell would either have no door, or it would almost always be unused. the four pipes would be:


    a) carries the redstone signal
    b) carries the EU out
    c) carries the signal for an information panel, and
    d) has a new block that would support automating the configuration of the reactor and facilitating moving the parts fuel in and out.

    Quote

    1. be an order of magnitude larger without increasing the slots, to account for shielding.


    Minimum size safe shield is a 7x7 casing of reinforced stone...


    Quote

    3. the recipies sould be waaay more expensive

    I've built reactors that cost over 2000 copper. Not including shielding (see above).

    Quote from Requia

    Minimum size safe shield is a 7x7 casing of reinforced stone...


    I've built reactors that cost over 2000 copper. Not including shielding (see above).


    Quote from Requia

    Minimum size safe shield is a 7x7 casing of reinforced stone...


    I've built reactors that cost over 2000 copper. Not including shielding (see above).


    1. This may be a matter of semantics. I think of the reactor as the device, and the structure around it as a containment housing, so when I say that the reactor should be larger - maybe 3x3x3 - I'm taking about the thing itself. It's particularly small when compared to other multiblock structures from other mods, and truthfully, these devices are relatively small IRL, but they also have tons of shielding. It's a frikken nuclear reaction :O


    3. When I say that the recipes should be more expensive, I mean required ores should be more advanced, and the processing should require more steps - maybe even a bigger crafting table. This would make it more realistic, yet balanced. Fuel pellets in nuclear subs last for a couple of years, I think, which is awesome, but then again, you can't just run down to the corner drug store and pick up a kilo of plutonium. (Bonus points if you recall the reference)


    Maybe it this could be controlled by config switches. I don't want to spend my time maintaining a half a dozen reactors - I want to make it, use it, automate it, but that's because I don't see the reactor as the end goal. Maybe a lot of folks just want to build 10 of them and keep them up and running.