Relatively cheap Mark I EA*

Unfortunately this design has an extremely high running cost due to the reflectors - if you paid the running cost with UU-matter, you would have to spend nearly 60% of all energy this reactor generates just to keep it running, resulting in a net efficiency of less than 3.

You should only use this if you have a huge overabundance of copper, tin and coal, and a scarcity of uranium.

And if you do use it, it can be built cheaper still with 5 chambers.

1+ for reading the the instructions
1+ for looking at other designs
10+ for thinking of what you want
30+ for experimenting
100+ for your first design.

your first design is a very good designed reactor.
as expected from someone new in reactor development, it lacks certain parts of cost reduction.

now for an improvement:
http://www.talonfiremage.pwp.b…nvtbw3ty0gbfg5qt6blzlk3k0
this is one reactor that already existed, but he got forgotten.
it has only 4 chambers.

now why this desing got forgotten:
it has an extremly high maintenace cost of 88 uu per cycle.
this reduces the continueus eff down to 2.97.

so you can see it
eats up copper
like a mad man.

if you have gregtech you can use the iridium neutron reflector:
with these you still have a eff of 6.46

http://www.talonfiremage.pwp.b…4jcc0r93y5x5fw43evsh6xhc0
yes it is cheaper than omicrons design.

And here I thought to myself, "I could swear there was a 4-chamber design somewhere". And I searched around for 5-10 minutes, but my google-fu was weak

protip look in the old official reactors thread..

I did, but it's not in the recommended listing and I was too lazy to check every post in a 14 page thread :p

it is in the recommend part, just search for the eff 7 reactors...

The thing is that the thick reflectors will expire. Each time you insert a new quad uranium cell, you also need to insert 4 new thick reflectors. That's what makes the reactor so incredibly expensive to run. Also, nothing against you but I highly doubt that you "easily" have the resources required for the reflectors from one quarry cycle GregTech changes the recipe and you now need roughly 10 emeralds per thick reflector. Even a 64x64 quarry in an extreme hills biome won't usually turn up 40 emeralds per full cycle.

The iridium reflectors never expire. You build 4, you can use them forever. However they are unbelievably expensive. 310 emeralds for only one of them, 1240 for the whole set. And that's not counting the other costs either.

A possible alternative here is to invest resources and time/effort into managing a breeder reactor, and turning your uranium into GregTech's plutonium and thorium that way. This can be more efficient than reflector setups, without the cost of the reflectors - and depending on which version of GregTech you run, the advantage could be small, or it could be massive. It adds another layer of complexity to the whole thing though.

Ah yes, then of course it's entirely possible to build a couple of them. In fact, as far as UU-matter is concerned, disabling the need for berylium drops the cost down by more than half.

you're better off not using thick reflectors at all. just use the cheaper standard reflectors, and use an advanced regulator to replace them once they wear out. then you don't have to worry about berylium. as far as iridium reflectors go remember that without even counting the iridium required, it takes 32 cycles for it to pay for itself, which is several days of constant running. It is even more than that when you compare it to standard reflectors.

Can't you get berylium from ender pearl dust? That would be WAAAAAAAAAY cheaper.

yes, but not having to use it at all is cheaper than that.