Casuc, CRCS, Mark 1, Mark 5, Breeders, where do I start?

1st Official Post

    Howdy all. I've been looking at all the various reactor designs on these forums, absorbing information. But I have one big question that it seems nobody has the answer too: What is actually the most cost effective reactor to use, for the largest eu/t output. Now I noted that there are several different types of reactors:


    Casuc:


    Relied on items that are no logner in the game, not relevant anymore.


    Mark 1: Uses single, dual, or quad uranium cells to create decent eu per tick with a stable reactor who only needs the automatic replacement of the cells. Usually provides about 100eu per tick for single chamber reactors, up to 300/420 eu per tick for max size reactors.


    Breeder Reactors: Get more uranium out of your...uranium. Get uranium, put it in cells so that its near depleted, re-enirhc it in a breeder reactor, centrifuge the re-inriched to get more near depleted, re-inerch those, convert those ones to standard uranium cells using coal dust, and send all the cells that you make using your new surplus of cells to multiple mark 1 reactors? seems to be a massive investment, but automation isn't that difficult. but is it worth it, making all the so called production reactors and then the large breeder reactor? while it does increase your uranium efficency by about a factor of 16, it also produces byproducts like plutoinum and thorium which...well, what the flip do you do with plutonium and thorium except burn it in specially designed reactors for it to produce even more energy. Balancing a system like that then becomes complicated, perhaps even as complicated as CRCS Reactors. but is it worth it? What's the payoff for this type of reactor.


    CRCS Reactors:


    DDoS: Appears to use cooling cells in one reactor stuffed to the brim with quad uranium cells and then stop it right when its on the brink of melting components, taking out the cooling cells, placing them in reactors that are pretty much glorified chests, and putting in the previous batch of cooling cells that have now cooled down in. The automation is difficult to set up, but the payoff is huge (3740eu per tick I've read somewhere). But really in danger of exploding if not managed properly, requires TONS of resources to make tons of cooling cells and reactors and heatvents, and not much information is available on how to actually automate it properly. Is it worth it?


    HVC: See above, but replace every instance of cooling cells with overclocked heat vents.


    Hayo crcs reactors: Appear to generate more eu/tick then the ddos and hvc parts, but what the heck do you take out and cool down. The coolent cells? the overclocked heat vents?


    With so many reactor types and designs, I feel confused and lost. What system is the "best". I understand best is realitive, so I'll lay out what I believe is best: Produces massive eu per tick in the entire assembly (somewhere over 1k eu per tick is good). Ease of automation. Cheap components, and most importantly: Easy to understand. I have to know what to do, exactly.


    So what is the way to go: A superbreeder feeding uranium cells and plutonium cells and thorium cells to a shitload of production reactors? Or crcs reactors. In the former case, what's the best type of breeder/production reactor to go with. What's the best way to deal with the thorium and plutonium created by centrifuging the cells. In the latter case, whats the cost, and how does one automate it. Which reactor/cooling designs should I go with.


    I know I'm not the first noobie to feel lost with reactors, someone who just really wants to produce insane amounts of eu/tick (obviously not as much as a fusion reactor though), wants it to be sustainable, and power their base with nuclear power. But with so many reactor designs out there, how does one choose what to create. I hope this thread, and everyone who answers it, can serve as a reference to future noobies who have the same questions as I do.


    -Lost and irradiated


    Vcordie

    I would not recommend someone new to reactors use any of the advanced multi-reactor designs using coolant cells, condensers, cooling towers + damaged components, etc.


    Start with vent cooled type 1 reactors and if you want to try something more complicated then you might dig into the higher risk higher output reactors.



    Useful Vent cooled Reactors:
    New [Official] Reactors design thread.


    The most important reactor is a breeder. For some coal and some time, 1 uranium ingot becomes 8 enriched cells. Without radioactive bees Uranium fuel is finite, so this 8x gain should rarely be bypassed. You can start with the cheap breeder to supply a handful of reactors and scale to the full heat breeder to supply 20+ reactors or more.


    Your first reactor really should be your first two reactors. A breeder and a production reactor.


    Now with enriched cells it sounds like you want to get the most total power out of them?


    In IC2, you should get like 30-40 million EU per ingot running bred uranium in production reactors from the thread. One of the best bang for your buck reactors is the beginner reactor 3 (100 EU/t, no running cost, 3.33 efficiency). It scales well and would only lose to reactors with higher total efficiency. If you are just starting making 10 of the 100 EU/t reactors is not a bad way to get to 1000 EU/t. I like it a lot because it is 0 chamber, so you can pack several of them in a tight spot.


    In Gregtech for minecraft 1.4.7 you should centrifuge enriched cells for plutonium and thorium. There is no competition. Each ingot then is worth at least 80-100m EU. See the gregtech reactors in the thread above. They take about 4 ingots worth of enriched cells to startup and a little less to maintain. Once you are running you should average 120-140m EU per ingot.

    Quote from Peppe

    The most important reactor is a breeder. For some coal and some time, 1 uranium ingot becomes 8 enriched cells. Without radioactive bees Uranium fuel is finite, so this 8x gain should rarely be bypassed. You can start with the cheap breeder to supply a handful of reactors and scale to the full heat breeder to supply 20+ reactors or more.

    Thanks, this is really solid advice. So the best bang for your buck seems to be a breeder reactor due to the return

    Quote from Peppe

    Your first reactor really should be your first two reactors. A breeder and a production reactor.

    What beginning breeder should one use? It seems to be that starting with a single breeder and zombes reactor for production seems to be the way to go, and add more 0 chambers as you build hotter breeders.

    Quote from Peppe

    Now with enriched cells it sounds like you want to get the most total power out of them?

    Not quite. I'm wondering about the balancing act. You need 4 near depleted in order to re-enrich them (correct me if im wrong, because 1 near depleted->1 re-inrched->centrifuged for 3 near depleted+1 plutonium+4 thorium. if you dont need 4 near depleted cells in order to re-inrich them, a single near depleted makes an infinite number of near depleteds.) So you have to consume exactly as many plutonium and thorium cells as you produce per near depleted somehow.

    Quote from Peppe

    In IC2, you should get like 30-40 million EU per ingot running bred uranium in production reactors from the thread. One of the best bang for your buck reactors is the beginner reactor 3 (100 EU/t, no running cost, 3.33 efficiency). It scales well and would only lose to reactors with higher total efficiency. If you are just starting making 10 of the 100 EU/t reactors is not a bad way to get to 1000 EU/t. I like it a lot because it is 0 chamber, so you can pack several of them in a tight spot.

    and with that 1000 eu per tick I can power a matter fab reasonbly well to produce the iridum and stuff for the nice bigger reactors, in addition to the obvious centrifuging lava

    Quote from Peppe

    In Gregtech for minecraft 1.4.7 you should centrifuge enriched cells for plutonium and thorium. There is no competition. Each ingot then is worth at least 80-100m EU. See the gregtech reactors in the thread above. They take about 4 ingots worth of enriched cells to startup and a little less to maintain. Once you are running you should average 120-140m EU per ingot.

    See, I knew theres a recipe for centrifuging re-enriched cells, but I can't seem to find it on the wiki. What exactly is it?

    Quote from vcordie


    Quote looks bonkers


    On the reactor thread the cheap breeder is a good start. Then make one or more production reactors. Then work on upgrading the breeder. All or nearly all the components in the breeder upgrade for use in the hotter versions, so no loss there.


    The hottest breeders take tons of copper, so start with this 'cheap' one:
    http://www.talonfiremage.pwp.b…0g6qsbvixywnyd51gvkxykc7f
    you can add chambers and heating cells to this as you get the materials and steadily improve the breeding rate or save up and jump to the hot one.


    Eventually end up here:
    http://www.talonfiremage.pwp.b…2vt1g6tuvvbtxfdj9vbrmejx8



    Seems to be a little confusion on the fuel life cycle.


    The breeding process is:
    Craft the uranium ingot with 8 empty cells around it to get 8 depleted cells.
    Craft the depleted cells with coal to get 8 isotopes
    Place isotopes in an active breeder reactor next to a fuel cell (uranium usually)
    Isotopes convert in the reactor inventory to enriched cells


    Finally you make a decision on what fuel to use:
    Add coal dust to enriched cell to get uranium cell -- later versions of gregtech make this require a canning machine
    OR
    If you want thorium/plutonium instead of making uranium here you would centrifuge 8 enriched cells.


    The centrifuge recipe is 8 enriched cells = 4 thorium cells, 1 plutonium cell, 3 depleted cells. Some later versions of gregtech give you dust and require you to use the automated canning machine to get them back in the cells. So for your 8 enriched cells you use the 4 thorium and 1 plutonium in a reactor and re-enrich the depleted cells.


    When cells are consumed int he reactor they have a 25% chance to leave a depleted cell as well. To keep the reactors running you should always have depleted cells coming from ingots and the 25% from finished cycles to keep running.


    To use up thorium and plutonium in the quantities you get centrifuging enriched cells check the reactor thread for the gregtech reactors section. There is a 367 EU/t reactor that uses them in balance. Then a couple others that run slightly imbalanced -- where you would run two 420 EU/t reactors and one 484 EU/t reactor and have the fuel consumption balance across the 3 reactors. I personally like the 367 reactor sqeezed down to 4 chambers, so you can stack them in like zombie's 100 EU/t uranium reactor.


    Don't think the 4 chamber revision is in the first post, but is in the thread or here is a link:
    http://www.talonfiremage.pwp.b…s10kbpppyf8ji8znssf1xklq8


    Last thing to consider is all the GT reactors are changing in 1.5.1, so most of this will not work as well if you update.

    How exactly are the gt reactors changing in 1.5.1, if you don't mind me asking. Since that's the version I plan to be using when I construct my reactors.
    Also I didn't realize it was 8 re-inriched cells in order to centrifuge for the plutonium and thorium and near depleted, that makes a lot more sense. I thought it was one re-inriched. Thanks for all the links and information, it has been really helpful.


    One last other question:
    What advantages do the crsc reactors have over the breeder+production reactors setup?

    Quote from vcordie

    How exactly are the gt reactors changing in 1.5.1, if you don't mind me asking. Since that's the version I plan to be using when I construct my reactors.
    Also I didn't realize it was 8 re-inriched cells in order to centrifuge for the plutonium and thorium and near depleted, that makes a lot more sense. I thought it was one re-inriched. Thanks for all the links and information, it has been really helpful.


    One last other question:
    What advantages do the crsc reactors have over the breeder+production reactors setup?


    1.5.1 GT changes currently are 50% cut in thorium life and plutonium outputs EU and heat twice a tick. Thorium affect on other fuels has also been changed, so you don't get much running even quad thorium next to uranium/plutonium. These probably are not final, but the life change makes the ratios you would run thorium+plutonium much different to stay in balance. Most reactors for 1.4.7 will not work in 1.5.1. Some of us have started tinkering with designs, but the online simulator isn't updated for it, so you have to do it in-game using real reactors or the GT computercube.


    For the CRCS/DDOS style reactors. You still need a breeder(s). You might need multiple since most of them load up on quad cells. Their advantage is you can run a lot of quad cells -- instant higher efficiency than single cells and high output. Downside is heat, but that is managed through moving items into/out of the reactor. So instead of being limited to cooling within the single reactor you have the production reactor and several cooling towers that just cool off the components. These reactors depend heavily on inventory automation systems and timing. Where you can run vent cooled type 1 reactors without really any safety controls or timing circuit you would not want to run CRCS without some teamperature sensors or at least inventory full checks with buildcraft gate.

    so in the long run one would do good to switch to CRCS/DDOS style reactors, yes? but after one builds a nice factory using type 1 reactors and a breeder(s)