A few beginners Questions

1st Official Post

    Hi there,


    I'm playing on a tekkit server with a friend and we are looking into building a nuclear reactor. We already build one on our old world but I basically just used a layout I found without really knowing the details WHAT I'm doing ;) Now we are planning a bigger project and want to look into it a bit more detailed. But I already have a few questions where you might help me get on my tracks:


    1.) All reactors I see have a running time of approx. 2:45 hours. Is there a way to make this longer? Or is it just the max the uranium cells hold? In other words: could I hava a reactor that runs 24/7 without the need to switch the cells 7 times a day but only once a day?


    2.) If 1.) is not possible: With an infinite layout I can simply switch the cells, but can I do this only manually or automatically (with CompuCraft perhaps)? As I understand, the depleted cells could be replenished with a breeder. Could that be done automaticly as well?


    3.) Is it possible to get a system running that, once it's setup, need no "new" materials like uranium at all? So like a closed cycle that takes the empty cells, refuels them, adds them in again?


    I found a link to a huge setup with CompuCraft that does exactly what we need, but unfortunately it's for the old cooling design and would not work for us. But I guess it's somehow possible...


    Our main goal is to run a 64x64 quarry with power from the reactor. And that means I need power for roughly 12 hours (if not more), so we would prefer a system with power 24/7, although we don't need excessive amount of EU/t.


    Any helps or points into a direction is very much appreciated...

    Be careful here when you say the word Tekkit, it is usually treated with contempt, bile, lipase and H2SO4 sulfuric acid vitriol sometimes here.


    1.
    Uranium as fuel has a set time limit of 10k reactor ticks, or 10k seconds, which gives that 2 h 46 min 40 s limit. If you have GregTech (which does not support Tekkit), it has Thorium fuel and Plutonium fuel which last longer. They were changed recently, but I remember their old values were 50k reactor ticks (13 h 53 min 20 s) and 20k reactor ticks (5 h 22 min 80 s) respectively. The values may change depending on server tick-rate.


    2 & 3.
    It is possible, however Uranium is not infinite without using some cheaty mod like EE2, as each uranium/thorium/plutonium cell has only a 25% chance of leaving a Nearly Depleted Uranium Cell, and there was (no longer is) a UU-recipe for Uranium. Thorium was centrifugable from Coal Dust IIRC but that has been removed. Plutonium requires Uranium to make, so that's also not renewable. You will also need Tin to craft the cells, however that is renewable through UU-matter, and Copper, which is also renewable through UU-matter, for the multicells. In case your design use Reflectors, which are a bad idea in general, you will also need Coal Dust, which is renewable through UU-matter.
    Regarding automation: It is however you can't just use ComputerCraft without MiscPeripherals (I'm not sure if that's in Tekkit) as you need item automation since you will need to insert Uranium Cells.
    Possible methods of item automation

    • Buildcraft: Uranium, Tin and Copper to autocrafter of choice to produce cells. You may need a Diamond Pipe to control how much cells go where if your design uses a mixture of different cell types. After that, you need to fill up blank spaces in the reactor with the Reactor Platings (available in 3 varieties, Heat-Capacity and Containment) to prevent Buildcrash from inserting them into the wrong spaces. If you use Condensators, then too bad as Condensators are also bad ideas and Buildcrash won't know which slot to insert into. You will also need Emerald Pipes to extract the NDUCs. Additionally, the age of Buildcrash automation has been long past as it is pretty well-known for causing lag if you process a load of items due to item rendering stuff and if your system doesn't handle overflow.
    • Vanilla (1.5+): When paired with a mod that supplies Autocrafters you can actually get the functionality of Buildcrash with a hopper chain at a slightly more expensive cost (5 iron per hopper) or you could hook up redstone with Droppers and ComputerCraft.
    • Redpower: Also a well-used automation. RedPower has the downside of no standalone autocrafter, but IIRC Tekkit has TubeStuff which has a RedPower-compatible autocrafter. It will also cause issues with Condensators like previously said. RedPower automation used to be near flawless but Eloraam has disappeared and there are some bad crash bugs with pr6. It can also cause massive lag with the timer's lighting updates (but you can use ComputerCraft pulsers) and the re-rendering (or so have I heard) of the Filters with backlogs and stuff. Lag will also hit you big if you have lots of stuff flowing through tubes.
    • Factorization: Factorization's Routers are actually quite awesome when paired with another automation mod as you can specify which slot to insert into.
    • GregTech: Since you have Tekkit, no GT for you. However if you plan on ditching that modpack then GregTech has some pretty awesome automation when you look past the nerfs that is sadly under-documented. The Advanced Regulator and Advanced Buffers are actually quite awesome for this purpose. You will have to sacrifice your EU output as they require EU to do so, but quite a small amount, really. It also comes at an expense of no items visually flowing but that actually improves performance.
    • Applied Energistics: Also not sure if in tekkit, but it is a fairly new mod that adds very awesome automation. Like GregTech no item visually flowing but that improves performance. It also has some visually cool blocks and models. It is rather expensive energy-wise to maintain though.
    • MiscPeripherals: Again, not sure if in Tekkit but there are Inventory Turtles which can output into a specified slot though.

    1.) It's the lifetime of uranium cells: 10,000 seconds. It cannot be modified in any way.


    2.) Fully automated systems are perfectly possible. But, if you do not have a mod that lets you insert an item into an exactly specified slot, you're limited to designs that only use one cell type (only single cells, only dual cells, only quad cells). Because breeders automatically need a second cell type (the isotopes being recharged), you'll have to at least partly operate them manually unless you have such a mod. If your Tekkit pack includes Factorization, the routers can do it.


    3.) There can't be a closed cycle. You can greatly extend the output of your uranium with breeding, but you will eventually need more.



    Here are some good designs that you can easily automate with just some redpower filters or emerald pipes:
    http://www.talonfiremage.pwp.b…6ucaceovy6uixc92gxt2grpxc - full size, 300 EU/t, good efficiency
    http://www.talonfiremage.pwp.b…toq796klia30emh5avt7y27eo - 3 chambers, 160 EU/t, decent efficiency, will require you to fill the empty slots with some plating
    http://www.talonfiremage.pwp.b…d83b78y8enonfoolys5g23280 - minimum size, 100 EU/t, okay efficiency, no copper running cost



    EDIT: holy crap ninja'd in force :P

    Wow... just Wow.....


    Thanks to both of you for that detailed answer. It's much more than I hoped ;) A lot of the things are clearer now and I think I go with a semi-autmatic route with factorization (as that is included in my *nottobenamedmodpack* :-))


    Thanks again.. it's really appreciated and I'm digging now more into the matter ;)

    Quote from Ellegon


    Wow... just Wow.....


    Thanks to both of you for that detailed answer. It's much more than I hoped A lot of the things are clearer now and I think I go with a semi-autmatic route with factorization (as that is included in my *nottobenamedmodpack* :-))


    Thanks again.. it's really appreciated and I'm digging now more into the matter ;)

    Not sure if Tekkit is on 1.5 but I heard that on 1.5 Routers have been nerfed to need Charge (the mod's energy system). You may need to set up a mirror & solar boiler system which will lag slightly or you could use Power Converters, not sure if it's in your modpack, a bit OP though.


    Again, that's what I heard, so take this with a pinch of salt.

    Yea, Breeders can extend the life cycle of your Uranium, but cannot create a closed cycle. Still, Applied Energistics can be amazing at automating a breeder. Import Bus (fuzzy import bus in 1.5.1) pulling depleted cells into the breeder, Export Bus pulling out re-enriched cells. Fully and completely automated for the life of the breeder.


    Applied Energistics can, again, be used to automatically refill a reactor, assuming all of your consumables are identical, and all the other slots in the reactor are filled (plating is good for filling blank slots). I'm working on a system involving Applied Energistics to fully automate a CRCS Reactor. Having a bit of a trouble, unfortunately, but I'm working on it still. But I wouldn't suggest a CRCS system for your first reactor. Look up some of the Mk. I reactors, the one producing 420 EU/t ought to suffice for your needs currently.

    Thanks a lot for the additional info.

    Quote from ShneekeyTheLost

    But I wouldn't suggest a CRCS system for your first reactor. Look up some of the Mk. I reactors, the one producing 420 EU/t ought to suffice for your needs currently.

    Yes.. and no :) For us part of the fun is the experimenting... if it really blows up, we'll recover from it. Or, in the worst case, reload a backup :) But the challenge to get it to running is the fun. But I agree that the basics are better learned in a "starter reactor" than a fully automated system :)


    In addition, the reactor you mentioned would of course be sufficient. But then again, it's not. For us not the amount of output is the critical factor, it's the duration. For the quarry we need around 48 MJ to run a quarry at full speed. Taking the Conversion Ratio from the "Power Converters" mods this is about 120 EU/t. So even a very basic reactor is enough. BUT... it will only run for 2:46 hours, while the quarry needs much more time to dig (around 10 minutes per Layer, so by starting at Layer 70 we would need roughly 12 hours of energy).


    I'm now thinking of just filling MFSU's and drain from there. But if my math is correct, not even a 6 chamber reactor can bring me the energy I need in one cycle. The Quarry needs roughly 50MJ/t. That is around 120 EU/t. For a running time of 12 hours I need roughly 105'000'000 EU. And even the biggest layout I found here "only" brings 84'000'000 EUs. So besides the 11 MFSU's I'd have to build I'm not getting the amount of energy I need :) What I could do, of course, is to build several reactors. 3 Mid Level 1's (from the official list here) would proabably be enough to fill the 11 MFSU's in one cycle. But that brings me into another dilemma.... the more efficient the reactor, the less Uranium I need, but the higher the building costs. So I could go for 5-6 very efficient small one and need tons of copper... or I go for 2-3 more unefficient ones where less copper is needed, but more uranium (which I have to refill again). I'll have to do some heavy calculations here :-))) (but again, this is part of the fun for us, so I'm not complaining) :)


    Not sure what to do now.. another idea is to run it with a couple of Geothermal Generators where we pump in the lava directly from the nether. But a huge nuclear plant with 2 or 3 reactors sound like a great challenge as well.... And I just love the idea of a huge Monitor screen with tons of data running on it :)

    I suggest you use the zero-chamber reactor I linked to in my earlier post. 100 EU/t isn't 120, but quarries have diminishing returns on higher power input anyway so you'll hardly notice the difference between 40 and 48 MJ/t.


    Next, set up an emerald transport pipe with an autarchic gate on the reactor. Set the filter in the emerald pipe to only pump out "near-depleted uranium cells". Those are sometimes leftover when an uranium cell expires. Set the autarchic gate as "space in inventory -> energy pulse". The pipe should ideally lead to a storage chest, of course.


    Then place down another chest two blocks away from the reactor and fill it with uranium cells. Use a wooden transport pipe followed by a diamond transport pipe to connect the chest to the reactor, and branching off from the diamond pipe, build a loopback to the chest. In the diamond pipe interface, place an uranium cell in the exit leading toward the reactor. Place red pipe wire on both the wooden pipe and the diamond pipe. Place an iron OR gate on the diamond pipe, and set it to "space in inventory -> red pipe wire signal" and "no space in inventory -> redstone signal". Place an iron autarchic OR gate on the wooden pipe, and set it to "red pipe wire signal -> energy pulse".


    Make sure you do not have a lever attached anywhere; the iron OR gate supplies the redstone signal to turn the reactor on so long as it is filled with cells.


    This may sound convoluted, but it really isn't - and keep in mind that once established one time, you can re-use this setup with however many quarries you wish.


    What happens is this: as soon as the reactor runs through its first 2:46 hour cycle, the uranium cells will disappear, and the "no space in inventory" condition on the diamond pipe's gate becomes false. This means it will stop outputting a redstone signal, which in turn means the reactor will turn off.


    Also, the "space in inventory" condition on both attached gates becomes true, triggering the autarchic gates. The emerald pipe will remove any leftover depleted cells that may have spawned (you can throw those in a breeder later), while the wooden pipe supplies fresh uranium. The diamond pipe will force the first six uranium to go directly into the reactor, but as soon as that is full, the remaining cells in transit are allowed to try the alternate exit, which leads them back to the uranium storage chest (instead of spilling out, which would happen without a loopback path).


    Finally, as soon as six new cells have been inserted, the "no space in inventory" condition on the diamond pipe's gate becomes true again, reactivating the redstone signal and thus turning the reactor back on. At the same time, both autarchic gates are turned off.



    Thus you have a fully automatic reactor that will keep running as long as it finds uranium cells in its supply chest to keep replacing the consumed ones. You could plop down a big chest with lots of uranium cells, or use an ender chest and have an autocrafting system in your base continually provide new cells (just make sure you always leave some space for the cells returning via the loopback). The downtime between cycles when swapping in new cells should be in the neighbourhood of 10-15 seconds, so the quarry will not even finish slowing down before the reactor goes back online.


    Have fun! ;)

    I'm not sure I understand what you are trying to say, but the design above will run for 2 hours 46 minutes for every 6 cells you provide in the chest, plus the first cycle already in the reactor.


    If you provide 60 cells in the chest and 6 in the reactor, it will run for more than 30 hours without needing attention.

    Thank you Omicron very much. For the advice and to spell it out in a way even I can understand it :-))


    I will test it first in a single player world before I go live though :) But I have noticed one thing that seems very strange: I have setup the reactor you mentioned and connected an MFSU. I also added an Information Panel. But strangely enough, the Panel shows me a running time of over 11 hours? How is that possible? Maybe because the Uranium is cheated?

    This Spambots are annoying, especially since the new Spambot Thread kept any users away from the Offtopic and the reports-thread. *Remember Good Old Times when the Offtopic had serious RP's and was not devastated by an awefull new RP that is even too Godmode for me*

    I can't say why the IIP is showing you 11 hours for runtime. 10,000 seconds should translate into roughly 2 hours 46 minutes 40 seconds.


    Of course, you can test this. Let it run for an hour, observe how the number reported by the panel changes. Also check on the damage bar on the uranium cells inside the reactor, and see if they really expire in under 3 hours (and what the panel shows in the last few minutes before expiration).

    Quote from Omicron

    I can't say why the IIP is showing you 11 hours for runtime. 10,000 seconds should translate into roughly 2 hours 46 minutes 40 seconds.


    Of course, you can test this. Let it run for an hour, observe how the number reported by the panel changes. Also check on the damage bar on the uranium cells inside the reactor, and see if they really expire in under 3 hours (and what the panel shows in the last few minutes before expiration).

    I did run the test and it seems it's really because of the "cheated" uranium cell. I took some screenshots in case someone stumbles over this thread with the same phenomenon:


    1. Overview: You can see that it still shows over 9 hours of running time...



    2. Cells: You can see here that all cells are depleted equally, except one. My theory is, that this cell is kina invincible (I probably got them in a goofy way when I filled my inventory in creative mode):



    3. Cell Description Normal: This is the detail of a normal cell (one of the 5 that is half depleted). The 6336 is counting up -> probably the seconds it's already in use.



    4. Cell Description Cheated One: This is the dame detail of the "invincible" cell. Notice that the timer is negative.




    => Conclusion: The time is surely bugged (or cheated) and in a normal game mode would be as expected. Just for the lulz I will leave it running and see what happens once the 5 normal cells are depleted ;)

    Hah, yeah, that damage value is totally borked :D


    It shouldn't affect the operation of the reactor or the refueling system much, though. It'll just refill the 5 cells that go missing, instead of 6.

    I just finished testing the setup Omicron mentioned and it worked like a charm :) Thanks again for your efforts Omicron! That really helps a lot, not only for the reactor, but also for using gates and stuff :)


    EDIT: Just noticed something: The reactor runs for as long as there are cells in it. However, is it possible to add an additional trigger? Thought: I would love to add an MFSU to the reactor (if he's not powering the quarry) and fill it. As soon as the MFSU is full, he should stop. But since the rector runs for as long as there are cells, that doesn't work. Also a lever does not work (as you mentioned in your description...)


    I wondered if I can add an additional signal to the diamond pipe with the gate that I could trigger independently. Or could I lose the red wire and just power it manually? -> probably have to test that...

    • Official Post

    Use an iron AND gate set on the following:


    Storage partially filled - red pipe wire (Doesn't matter if it's OR or AND since this's on the MFSU)


    Inventory full - redstone signal
    red pipe wire - redstone signal These two must be an AND gate on the nuclear reactor.


    But if you want to force turn the reactor on, you'll need a seperate redstone signal for the reactor. Unless you want a lever as a third conditional to turn the reactor on/off, you'll need a golden AND gate and just have a third conditional:


    redstone signal - redstone signal



    There may be better solutions on what you're trying to do, but this's what I could just come up with now.

    Quote from Ellegon

    I just finished testing the setup Omicron mentioned and it worked like a charm :) Thanks again for your efforts Omicron! That really helps a lot, not only for the reactor, but also for using gates and stuff :)


    EDIT: Just noticed something: The reactor runs for as long as there are cells in it. However, is it possible to add an additional trigger? Thought: I would love to add an MFSU to the reactor (if he's not powering the quarry) and fill it. As soon as the MFSU is full, he should stop. But since the rector runs for as long as there are cells, that doesn't work. Also a lever does not work (as you mentioned in your description...)


    I wondered if I can add an additional signal to the diamond pipe with the gate that I could trigger independently. Or could I lose the red wire and just power it manually? -> probably have to test that...


    Well, here's how you can do it...


    Since you have RP2, this is a snap. You set up an AND gate
    Input # 1 will be your manual on/off switch. In case you want to manually turn off the reactor for whatever reason.
    Input #2 will be your thermal monitor. If it gets heat, it shuts down. A NOT gate is hooked up to this so it will emit if there is not heat.
    Input #3 can be from your MFSU Power Full Emit Redstone. That might be borked, and you might have to hook up a structure pipe and gate to get it to work properly, however the gates' energy detection works quite well. You might want to set the gate to 'Energy 75% -> Redstone Signal' to give yourself a slight buffer. This then goes through a NOT gate to invert the signal (i.e. signal is transmitted if power is under 75%, otherwise it does not)


    This way, ALL THREE conditionals need to be met: Manual switch is flipped 'on', Heat is 0, and MFSU is less than 75% full, in order for the AND gate to trigger and emit signal to the reactor to turn it on. If any of these conditionals are not met, the entire reactor immediately shuts down.


    Use Wireless Redstone CBE if wiring gets obnoxious.

    Quote from Sinnaj63

    This Spambots are annoying, especially since the new Spambot Thread kept any users away from the Offtopic and the reports-thread. *Remember Good Old Times when the Offtopic had serious RP's and was not devastated by an awefull new RP that is even too Godmode for me*


    What spambot? The spambots wars?


    Anyway, if Tekkit (or tekkit pack) includes thermal expansion and either ender chests, teleport pipe or tesseract, you can teleport lava to magmatic engine array that is located near your quarry site. If there is no thermal expansion, geothermal array and lapotron charge/discharger can feed power converters. I'm just currently suggesting non-nuclear solution... but if you going nuclear, a full Mark 1 reactor with no empty spaces could be used for easy automation, meaning no need for advanced regulator and the like


    Dota 2 player at SEA server.


    For me nothing is OP. It just a mod for fun and I'm playing it for fun. Unless it created items from nothing. Automining not included, neither do in case of self replicating machine. However GregTech is still good, so:


    GregTech Documentation Task Force Needed!

    Quote from thepowdertoy

    What spambot? The spambots wars?


    Anyway, if Tekkit (or tekkit pack) includes thermal expansion and either ender chests, teleport pipe or tesseract, you can teleport lava to magmatic engine array that is located near your quarry site. If there is no thermal expansion, geothermal array and lapotron charge/discharger can feed power converters. I'm just currently suggesting non-nuclear solution... but if you going nuclear, a full Mark 1 reactor with no empty spaces could be used for easy automation, meaning no need for advanced regulator and the like

    As said before, he's playing on a server, Nether pumping would cause heavy problems, especially as no GregTech.