[Official] New Reactors design thread.

  • One of my design, for overall best efficiency (how do I get overall efficiency? do I need an addon?):


    • Eu/tick: 140
    • Efficiency: 7
    • Overall efficiency: ?
    • Cost: 64 coal, 505 copper, 160 gold, 353 iron, 36 redstone, 108 rubber, 173 tin.
    • Running costs: ? the neutron reflectors?


    code: 0D140D0C080C0D140D0D140C0803080C140D0D140D0C080C0D140D0D140D1409140D140D0D140D1409140D140D0D140D1409140D140D

  • You use more heat exchangers than necessary. This one should be cheaper


    Bonus uranium
    1523150C0D0C0D00002303230D140D14000015230D140D140D00000C0D0C0D0C0D0C00000D140D140D140D00000C0D0C0D0C0D0C0000
    http://prntscr.com/845s7x
    Eu/t: 140(448-672)
    Efficiency: 14 (44,8-67,2) [Meu/fuel rod]
    Cost: 3 advanced alloy, 512 coal, 619 copper, 96 gold, 4 iridium reinforced plate, 314 iron, 3 lead, 14 redstone, 42 rubber, 600 tin. 4 uranium fuel
    By: Blackpalt


    Price is a bit scewed due to iridium neutron reflectors but if we change those it should be a lot cheaper
    With regular reflectors
    3 Advanced Alloy 64 Coal 367,000 Copper 96 Gold 314 Iron 3 Lead 14 Redstone 42 Rubber 152 Tin 4 Uranium Fuel

    A question that sometimes drives me hazy; am i or are the other crazy

  • here are my reactor i made.


    Normal design



    Eu/t 340
    Efficiency 2.83
    Cost 501 Copper,184 Gold, 334 Iron, 40 Redstone, 120 Rubber, 91 Tin, 24 Uranium Fuel
    By BoggyDG
    Running cost?



    Link for the new reactor planner: 0C140D140D140D140D140D030D140D030D140D140D1403140D140D0D140D0D0D0D0D140D140D030D140D030D1402140D140D140D1402


    image


    MOX design


    Eu/t 240 at 0%, 920 at 70%, 1056 at 84%
    Eficiency 3,
    Cost 424 Copper, 26 Diamond, 64 Gold, 746 Iron, 16 MOX Fuel, 32 Redstone, 96 Rubber, 125 Tin
    By BoggyDG


    Link for the new reactor planner: 0C0A140A140A140A000A0C0A060A060A0C0A140A140A140A140A14140A140A140A140A140A0C0A060A060A0C0A000A140A140A140A00


    image


    Feel free to enter the blank spots with anything you want!(as long as it doesn't mess with the hull. Advanced vents, component vents, and component exchangers wont mess with it)





  • [Mk V]


    Hey, I am actually asking for some help with my reactor
    I am searching for a (non-breeder) reactor setup with a high efficiency as well as a high effective power output, let's say "eff x effoutput = as big as possible"


    Naturally, for this, increasing the efficiency has more effect than decreasing the output.


    So far, this is my optimal design (I know it's still pretty basic):
    http://www.talonfiremage.pwp.b…bgujcx2ycv31j8awenp75iccg
    Effective output: up to 284,5 EU/t
    Runs: +- 4 hours
    Efficiency: 5
    Needs a redstone clock or nuclear control
    No components in need of replacing, except the 4 quad uranium cells of course.

  • This is the best I could come up with that is both reasonable EU/t and also reasonable efficiency:


    Code: 0A140D0C0A140D140A140D0C0D0C0D0C0D140D0C0D0C0D0C0D0C0D140D0C0D0C0D0C000C0A0C0D0C0D0C0003020C0D140A140D0C0203
    EU/t: 280
    Efficiency:: 4.67


    Cost:
    443 * Copper
    5 * Diamond
    104 * Gold
    551.5 * Iron
    16 * Redstone
    48 * Rubber
    137 * Tin
    12 * Uranium Fuel


    It uses a mixture of dual and quad cells. I am sure that there are better designs out there. Has anybody put something together that's strictly better yet?


    Misc. Notes - 4 blocks used for generation, and 640 total vent cooling.

  • Pretty good design, but I think the one I use is slightly better.


    Code: 2303230C0A140D140A03230C0D0C0D0C0D14230C0D0C0D0C0D0C0D0C0D0C0D0C0D0C0D0C0D0C0D0C0D0C0D0C0D140D140D140D140D14
    EU/t: 240
    Efficiency: 6



    If you can't afford the 4 iridium reflectors, you can use 6 thick neutron reflectors per iteration. If even that is unpalateable, use the following design which uses only 1 iridium reflector or half of a thick reflector per iteration.


    Code: 0302000C0A140D140A02030C0D0C0D0C0D14230C0D0C0D0C0D0C0D0C0D0C0D0C0D0C0D0C0D0C0D0C0D0C0D0C0D140D140D140D140D14
    EU/t: 290
    Efficiency: 4.83



    Both are basically the same design with different fuel loads. 680 vent cooling is the best I've been able to manage, but I think I've seen designs that have 692.


  • Yes... in fact, this thread's opening post from 2013 has the same fuel rod configuration with more efficient cooling, resulting in a lower build price. Thus strictly better than yours :P
    The links there are out of order (so I'm not surprised you didn't check them), but here are the codes for all the opening post reactors with the new (current) reactor planner. See "highest overall efficiency".


    Don't let it get to you though. :) The more efficient use of components comes down to knowledge of how exactly the reactor internally iterates from itemslot to itemslot for each of its "ticks", and that kind of stuff can border on the arcane. For your own work, coming up with the design you presented is quite good - you successfully identified the highest possible zero-reflector efficiency configuration possible under internal cooling, and set up a configuration for it that works reliably.



    Meanwhile, a question for everyone:
    What are the best designs that use only dual cells and no consumables or reflectors nowadays? I'm *very* rusty :P Aiming for practical efficiencies between 3 and 4, and minimzed unused space. A quick poke at the planner yielded this modification of an old MOX design of mine, which I doubt is as good as it gets... (3 chambers, two empty slots, efficiency 4.00, 160 EU/t, no running cost)
    000C0D0C0D0C0000000C0D140D14090000000D1402020D0C0000000C0D020214090000000D140D140D0C0000000C090C090C00000000

  • Yes... in fact, this thread's opening post from 2013 has the same fuel rod configuration with more efficient cooling, resulting in a lower build price. Thus strictly better than yours :P
    The links there are out of order (so I'm not surprised you didn't check them), but here are the codes for all the opening post reactors with the new (current) reactor planner. See "highest overall efficiency".


    Don't let it get to you though. :) The more efficient use of components comes down to knowledge of how exactly the reactor internally iterates from itemslot to itemslot for each of its "ticks", and that kind of stuff can border on the arcane. For your own work, coming up with the design you presented is quite good - you successfully identified the highest possible zero-reflector efficiency configuration possible under internal cooling, and set up a configuration for it that works reliably.


    Thanks. The old reactor planner page no longer works for me, so I had dismissed the first post as unable to be read. I'll have to go through the post that you linked to to see if I can have some more fun with the reactor planner.


    I've been looking around, and I am struggling to find an item that provides some way to directly access specific slots from within a reactor that isn't GregTech or Factorization. Do you (or anybody else) have any suggestions? Without it I am hesitant to automate some of the more complicated designs - e.g. I was looking at setting up a reactor using coolant cells and a second (single chamber) reactor to cool them, as both cells and fuel rods will need regular replacement.


    The alternative is to work on timers and select two timers which pause one another while the swap duration is on, and factor into one another such that they will never overlap. This seems plausible, but also susceptible to some form of problem (it's less fault resistant), which is not what you want when dealing with potentially explosive reactors.

  • Meanwhile, a question for everyone:
    What are the best designs that use only dual cells and no consumables or reflectors nowadays? I'm *very* rusty :P Aiming for practical efficiencies between 3 and 4, and minimzed unused space. A quick poke at the planner yielded this modification of an old MOX design of mine, which I doubt is as good as it gets... (3 chambers, two empty slots, efficiency 4.00, 160 EU/t, no running cost)
    000C0D0C0D0C0000000C0D140D14090000000D1402020D0C0000000C0D020214090000000D140D140D0C0000000C090C090C00000000


    I wasn't sure on the double-posting ettiquette, but I realised I might be able to help with this after making the initial post, I haven't been back to edit that one. Is that accepted?


    Anyway, the first post lists this:


    0D02020D000D02020D0C0D0D0C000C0D0D0C0D0C0C0D000D0C0C0D020D0D0200020D0D02020D0D0200020D0D020D0C0C0D000D0C0C0D
    As 360EU/t with an efficiency of 3, with six empty slots.


    I'm fairly sure we can do better. Here's the best I could come up with with ten minutes in the planner:


    0A140D0C000C0D140A0C0D0C0D0C0D0C0D14000C0D0C0D0C0D0C0D02020C0D0C0D0C0D0C0202000C0D0C0D0C0D020200000C000C0A11
    Efficiency: 4.33
    Generates: 260EU/t
    Empty: 6 slots.
    Total Vent Cooling: 572 of 580 (max heat generated, 560)


    I'm fairly sure there's a more compact version of that design to be found.


    Pre-posting edit:


    I consulted the first post designs, and this one "Mid power low running cost" is very similar to mine in basic design, but is currently broken:
    02020C0D110A110D0C0202150C0D0C0D0C0D02020C0D0C0D0C0D12020C0D0C0D0C0D0C0A0C0D0C0D0C0D0C0D0C0D120A110D0C0D110D


    It seems that if we could increase the cooling slightly, and re-adjust some of the vent distributions, it might be able to work? I tried for a while and ended up with the same numbers in a different configuration ( 02020C0D120A140D0C0202000C0D0C0D0C0D02020C0D0C0D0C0A12020C0D0C0D0C0D0C0D0C0D0C0A0C0D0C0A0C0D120D140D0C0D140D )

    • Official Post

    Here's the reactors I use, in the new format.
    6-chamber, 320 EU, 640 heat, 16 uranium. Builds easily into the next one.
    EFF: 4.0
    0003030C0A140D0C0A03000C0D0C0D0C0D14030C0D0C0D0C0D0C0D0C0D0C0D0C0D0C0D0C0D0C0D0C0D0C0D0C0D140D140D140D140D14


    6-chamber, 240EU, 672 heat, 8 uranium + 16 iridium, for efficiency or for heat reactors:
    EFF: 6.00
    2303230C0A140D0C0A03230C0D0C0D0C0D14230C0D0C0D0C0D0C0D0C0D0C0D0C0D0C0D0C0D0C0D0C0D0C0D0C0D140D140D140D140D14


    6-chamber, 420EU, 672 heat, 28 Uranium, for when you just need more EU and don't care about efficiancy:
    EFF: 3.0
    030C0D140D0D0C0D00000C0D0D0C0D0D030D000D030D0D030D0D0C0C0D0D0C0D0D0C0D000D030D0D030D0D030D0C0D0C0C0D0C0C0D0C


    6-chamber, 260EU, 603 heat, 12 Uranium. If you want slightly more efficient than 4.0.
    EFF: 4.33
    0303000C0A140D0C0A03000C0D0C0D0C0D14000C0D0C0D0C0D0C0D0C0D0C0D0C0D0C0D0C0D0C0D0C0D0C0D0C0D140D140D140D140D14


    Edited to add efficiency.

  • I consulted the first post designs, and this one "Mid power low running cost" is very similar to mine in basic design, but is currently broken:
    02020C0D110A110D0C0202150C0D0C0D0C0D02020C0D0C0D0C0D12020C0D0C0D0C0D0C0A0C0D0C0D0C0D0C0D0C0D120A110D0C0D110D


    It seems that if we could increase the cooling slightly, and re-adjust some of the vent distributions, it might be able to work? I tried for a while and ended up with the same numbers in a different configuration ( 02020C0D120A140D0C0202000C0D0C0D0C0D02020C0D0C0D0C0A12020C0D0C0D0C0D0C0D0C0D0C0A0C0D0C0A0C0D120D140D0C0D140D )


    Yeah, I remember that design well. Problem is, it just won't work. You need a certain amount of advanced heat echangers and vents in order to keep the overclocked vents at the rim alive, those that aren't fully surrounded by component vents. And in order to fit that amount, you need to sacrifice cooling capacity... enough cooling capacity to drop below the heat output of the fuel rods. You're stuck in a catch-22: you either have the cooling capacity but it melts itself to pieces uncontrolledly, or you keep alive every part but the reactor is heat flow positive. Regardless of how you arrange the pieces, if it's heat flow positive it will eventually melt. The best I've been able to do is just shy of 7,000 seconds lifetime for the first component to fail, which leads to the reactor detonating shortly after the 8,150 second mark.


    02020C0D120D0C0A120202000C0A0C0D0C0D02020C0D0C0D0C0D0C020C0D0C0D0C0D0C0A0C0D0C0D0C0A0C0D120D120A0C0D120D0C0D


    No, to fully stabilize it, you'd need to make use of that one empty slot, the one next to one of the fuel cells. Unfortunately, that's appears impossible, because no part exists that survives being being the only neighbour that interacts with an efficiency 5 dual rod for an entire cycle.


    Fun fact: you used to be able to do it. An efficiency 5 dual rod puts out 2x60 heat. The core heat exchanger can do 72 core transfer. But at some point during IC2 Experimental's development, the transfer values for all of the exchangers got accidentally doubled. So the core heat exchanger did 144 core transfer. You would put one of these in that empty slot, and because the fuel rod now had a component next to it that could accept heat, it would stop dumping its heat directly into the core, and instead dumped it all into the exchanger. Which, in turn, would dump it into the core. At first glance that looks like it gained you nothing, but: that exchanger is surrounded by three component vents. So even though all you did was route the heat into the core through a slightly different path, you magically gained 3x4 additional vent cooling. And since the whole design is only 3 heat over, suddenly the reactor was stable!


    The strange doubled exchanger transfer rates persisted for many versions - certainly straight through 1.6 and also 1.7 for a good while - but it appears that it has been reverted since I last looked into it.


    ... OR HAST IT?!


    *checks ingame*


    Yes. Yes it has. :P The core exchanger melts in under two and a half minutes.



    EDIT: Incidentally, this is stable: 02020C0D120D0C0A120201020C0A0C0D0C0D02020C0D0C0D0C0D0C020C0D0C0D0C0D0C090C0D0C0D0C0A0C0D110D120A0C0D120D0C0D
    You can even swap an advanced vent and an advanced exchanger for basic variants, as I have done in that link.
    The reactor goes from efficiency 4.286, 300 EU/t, 14 rods per cycle to efficiency 4.067, 305 EU/t, 15 rods per cycle. You know, though it looks a bit awkward and fails to satisfy the itch for ORDNUNG MUSS SEIN, I might actually prefer this variant over the defunct original, for reasons I have laid out in response to albijoe below. Still higher efficiency than I'd usually opt for (I aim to stay between 3 and 4), but the packing density of the reactor is pretty good, and it has no running cost - so it definitely has some things going for it. Maybe if someone ends up unusually short on uranium...




    Here's the reactors I use, in the new format.


    *snip*


    Those are not the best designs I'm afraid. Well, all except the third, which is a standard design from page 1. :P


    You've got 692 vent cooling, and none of your fuel rod configurations manages to make use of all of it - like, the fourth one runs only at 560 heat. You could probably pull that off with a 5-chamber design.


    Also, this may be personal bias, but I'm not a fan of reflectors and chasing efficiency in general. I've used nuclear reactors since Minecraft beta 1.2 (which is long before Minecraft 1.2, which is long before where we are now). And while I was initially also very gung-ho about optimizing my efficiency at all cost, eventually I noticed a common theme about every game I played with IC2. Namely: uranium is never the bottleneck. Just the act of mining the resources necessary to build and run the really big and expensive reactors would turn up so much uranium on the side that you'd be set for days, if not a week of real time. During which your (generally fully automated) high-end mining solutions would pull up uranium faster than you could use it.


    The idea then of trying to maximize the output of every single fuel rod seems kind of pointless then. The idea of burning other resources to stretch your uranium supply seems outright folly. Now add to the fact that a lower efficiency reactor actually puts out higher EU/t numbers for the same cooling system, allowing you to run your mass fab faster and get more iridium sooner, and I started to wonder why I've even been bothering.


    And then they added plutonium and MOX fuel. Now, you have an even greater incentive to not go for high efficiencies - because ultimately, you want plutonium. Its mere existance further stretches your uranium supplies because your nuclear waste can go for a second, super-efficient cycle; you can use it to convert your useless, excess U-238 into something useful (more plutonium); and you finally end up with an infinite passive EU source of not insignificant magnitude. And you only get plutonium by burning through fuel rods. So you want to burn as many of them in as short a time as you can. You're actually gaining something by being wasteful!


    Quad cells do have one thing going for them - they can result in a greater packing density inside the reactor, which is why that 420 EU/t standard reactor is such popular compromise between efficiency, EU/t and plutonium per cycle. All for very modest running costs. But reflectors? Complete waste of time and resources. Even the iridium ones. Why would I spend my ultra-expensive iridium on even more expensive reflectors, if I could spend it on my quantum suit instead, and just use more fuel rods in that slot in the reactor for the same effect but with more valuable plutonium throughput? If I just do that, then by the time I have built my quantum suit, I have enough pellets to fill up a RTG already. :)

  • ...Okay, folks. Riddle me this.


    02020C0D140D0C0D140202000C0A0C0D0C0A02020C0D0C0D0C0D14020C0D0C0D0C0D0C0D0C0D0C0D0C0D0C0D0C0D140A0C0D140A0C0D


    The overclocked vent in the lower right corner fails. Ordinarily, this would be expected; it is only flanked by two component vents, so it can dissipate only 28 heat, while drawing 36.


    HOWEVER! This design has 5 excess vent cooling. Reactor components are supposed to tick one by one, row by row, top left to bottom right. By the time it is that vent's turn to tick, it should not be able to draw 36 heat, because it is the very last component in the tick order. It should be drawing 23. You can confirm this by deleting that vent outright: the reactor now has 23 excess heating. Which is precisely the amount that vent would need to handle. All the other components are isolated from this lonely corner vent, and run at capacity; there is not a single one that cools less than what it is specced for. Therefore we can say with confidence that up until this point, the cooling system has removed all but 23 points of heat from the core. All the fuel rods have already ticked much earlier in the pass, so there is nothing that adds heat to the reactor core right before the lonely vent takes its turn. There should simply not be enough for the vent to draw to melt itself.


    What gives? Is this a bug in the planner, or does IC2 act the same way? And if so, is it a bug in IC2, or intended?


    EDITed: I went and confirmed this inside Minecraft: IC2 does exactly the same in practice. The vent overheats. But how? Hull heat is permanently at 0.00%, and only 23 excess heat is available for a part that can cool 20+4+4. What changed about the reactor simulation that caused this? And is it intended?

  • Hi guys. Very long time unregistered lurker, long time player (since right after IC2 first came out). Came back to IC2 after a long hiatus (Warframe kinda took up a lot of my time) to explore the changes.


    One of the biggest to me is the old reactor planner going AWOL, but the new one is pretty nice, though. I went looking for a very high efficiency plan for producing plutonium (don't care about the EU output) but the only thread I found uses the old planner, not the new codes. I finally registered today to ask this: does anyone have a decent layout for producing the most plutonium for the least effort?

  • Hi guys. Very long time unregistered lurker, long time player (since right after IC2 first came out). Came back to IC2 after a long hiatus (Warframe kinda took up a lot of my time) to explore the changes.


    One of the biggest to me is the old reactor planner going AWOL, but the new one is pretty nice, though. I went looking for a very high efficiency plan for producing plutonium (don't care about the EU output) but the only thread I found uses the old planner, not the new codes. I finally registered today to ask this: does anyone have a decent layout for producing the most plutonium for the least effort?


    I'm not sure what you consider to count as the "least effort", but in terms of keeping the other components as simple as possible, you could just go with this design:
    010901090109010901090109010901090109010901090109010901090109010901090109010901090109010901090109010901090109
    (alternating uranium fuel rods and heat vents in a checkerboard pattern)
    For the most total uranium you can safely put in a single reactor, the best I can come up with right now is 39 with this design:
    020D010D020D020D010D020D020D010D020D010D010D010D010D010D020D020D010D020D020D010D020D020D010D010D010D010D010D


    BTW, you can copy links for the old planner and paste them into the new planner.

  • Wow, I must be getting rusty, considering I'd forgotten about that thread. Also, the 43-rod design is actually an enhancement of a 41-rod design I came up with in that thread last year. I'm not sure how blackpalt figured that multiple small reactors would be easier, though, since the reactor requires 3 chambers to craft it, plus some extra components. 3 of those "0-chamber 14 rod" reactors would cost more total materials than a single 6-chamber 43-rod reactor, and only allow 42 rods total.


    In answer to your question about the url or the code portion, take your pick. The new planner recognizes both. However, it's usually easier to grab the whole url, since you can just right-click the link and choose "copy url".

  • Hey Mauve, I don't suppose you could help me with my confusion above? Considering you wrote the planner, you must have some insight into ghow the components tick inside the reactor nowadays... (I hope :P )


  • Wow, I must be getting rusty, considering I'd forgotten about that thread. Also, the 43-rod design is actually an enhancement of a 41-rod design I came up with in that thread last year. I'm not sure how blackpalt figured that multiple small reactors would be easier, though, since the reactor requires 3 chambers to craft it, plus some extra components. 3 of those "0-chamber 14 rod" reactors would cost more total materials than a single 6-chamber 43-rod reactor, and only allow 42 rods total.

    I think his reasoning that it would be easier was a direct aim at plutonium production efficiency and ignoring EU/resource efficiency.

  • Hey Mauve, I don't suppose you could help me with my confusion above? Considering you wrote the planner, you must have some insight into ghow the components tick inside the reactor nowadays... (I hope :P )


    I have a little insight, but not enough to figure out why that happens. I had a brief thought about the overclocked heat vent building up more heat than it could dissipate on its own due to being last in the tick order, but based on what you said about it only having 23 heat to draw from the reactor core, that's only 3 excess heat per tick, which the adjacent component heat vents should be able to dissipate in the following tick.


    That design uses heat exchangers, which complicate things - the descriptions on the wiki don't adequately explain them, based on what I found when I decompiled the mod a while back, so I got special permission to adapt the decompiled code for my planner. However, none of them are adjacent to the failing overclocked heat vent.


    There is an enhancement to the planner I've thought about a few times that might help to figure this out: I could add some advanced logging to track details of the reactor components after each tick. The details would be output to a csv file, which obviously could slow the simulation way down, so there'd be a warning about that.


    I think his reasoning that it would be easier was a direct aim at plutonium production efficiency and ignoring EU/resource efficiency.


    Huh? Can you explain that further? The only way I can think of that those "0-chamber" reactors can be more efficient at producing plutonium is in terms of space - they have 3 columns in one block space, as opposed to 1 extra column per block for added chambers. However, they would still each need a redstone signal, and if you wanted to automate them, setting up AE2 cabling and separate import/export buses (or whatever the MC 1.8+ equivalents from other mods are, I confess I haven't looked into that much yet) for each, that could end up taking up more space than using 6-chamber reactors.