Tower of Power: CRCS Edition!

    Quote from ShneekeyTheLost

    I wonder if the latest version of Logistics Pipes can assist. Set up a Supplier Pipe to keep x 60k cooling cells and y nuclear material. As long as you don't have nuclear material and cooling cells pulled at the same time, it shouldn't get its wires crossed, although it is something of a risk I suppose. I believe LP can sent requests through an ME Network.


    Ehhh... Although I agree that that might work, I wouldn't want to run that risk. Although getting a coolant cell and a uranium cell swapped would probably not be catastrophic, such a Logipipe-managed reactor would not be reliable enough in my opinion for commercial use.


    Some problems that my thought-experiments indicate could come up, in no particular order:


    1. Coolant cell gets pulled (by ME Fuzzy Bus, I assume), and enough time passes before Logipipes can replace it that the reactor explodes.
    2. U-cell expires and leaves some depleted cells, LP tries to restock before AE pulls the depleted cell, either a U-cell or a coolant cell drops on the ground because it won't fit in the reactor. I'm not sure if this can actually happen in the current version of Logipipes, now that pipes don't usually drop things.
    3. Several U-cells burn out at the same time several coolant cells get pulled, LP replaces the cells in the wrong places, leaving one U-cell adjacent to only other U-cells and maybe an OC vent (but no coolant cells), the OC vent melts, and the reactor explodes.
    4. LP fails to restock uranium cells because it can't access the ME Molecular Assembler Chamber with U-cell recipes. Yes, I'm fully aware of the existence of workarounds to this problem (i.e. using Logistics Crafting Tables to craft quad cells on demand, using an Export Bus to craft quad cells and pump them into a chest with a provider pipe on it, using AE components to keep quad cells stocked in the AE network itself, etc.).
    5. Supplier pipes turn out to work like precise busses, and refuses to mess with 75% cooled cells at all.


    I think it's actually number 3 that I'm most worried about.


    Side note: I'm currently writing a LUA script for an Inventory Turtle (introducing two MORE mods, ComputerCraft and MiscPeripherals) that replaces whatever happens to exist in the particular slots in the production reactors with uranium cells. Most of the code is written, but it keeps crashing when it tries to actually swap the items. I'm relying on AE flooding the whole reactor with coolant when the uranium cells expire and Buildcraft turning the reactor off when there's a space in it to prevent explosions.


    EDIT: I've completed the LUA script. Setup is a bit complicated, as this is actually the first LUA program I've written aside from "Hello World!" and some short-lived programs intended to help me learn how some things work.


    1. Position your Inventory Turtle (make sure that the inventory module is installed on the RIGHT-HAND side of the turtle) atop a Charging Station (facing upward), below the production reactors.
    2. On your turtle command line, type "pastebin get FHWBDsAj NukeFuel", without quotes. This is for Shneeky's single-chamber double-stacker design.
    3. Type "edit startup".
    4. Type some simple startup script, such as:

    Code
    while true do
  if rs.getInput("back") then
    shell.run("NukeFuel")
  end
  sleep(60)
end


    5. Hit "Ctrl" on your keyboard to bring up the menu. Press "S" to save, then "Ctrl" followed by "E" (not at the same time) to exit the text editor.
    6. Give the turtle some fuel to get it started, type "refuel all", then press and hold "Ctrl" and "R" for a few seconds to reboot the turtle.
    7. You should see the "TurtleOS" thing, but not a command prompt.
    8. When your nukes run out of fuel, give the back of the turtle a redstone signal, and it'll kick into action within a minute.


    And because a picture tells a thousand words...



    This shows the entire setup. Note the Fuzzy Export Busses on the LEFT side of the reactors, and the turtle on the RIGHT. The cobblestone at the top is also crucial- it tells the turtle when to stop.
    Not shown around back (because I forgot to put them in) should be some Buildcraft gates, set to "Inventory Full" > "Redstone Signal". These turn the reactors off when there's a space in them, preventing explosions while swapping coolant cells. Make sure that these do not turn off the Fuzzy Export Busses, which are configured the same way as Shneeky's.



    This is the GUI of the Fuzzy Export Busses. The only thing different from those in Shneeky's design is that they are "Active Without Signal"- so the turtle can turn them off. This isn't a problem, because if one coolant cell gets pulled while the (surprisingly fast) refueling is taking place, the BC gate will detect the empty space and turn the reactor off.



    This is a closeup of the bottom of the tower. When it needs fuel, the turtle sends a redstone signal through the MiscPeripherals Turtle Charging Station (which is facing upward), turning off the redstone torch, allowing the splitter cable to transfer EU.


    The ME Interface is set to keep four quad uranium cells stocked at all times. There may be problems if the ME network can't restock those cells faster than the turtle pulls them out.

    If you stare at my avatar hard enough, you'll notice that it consists of three triangular rings, interlocked in such a way that if you were to remove any one of them, the other two would be free to float apart.

    Edited once, last by Someone Else 37: Added information relating to new LUA script. ().

    [double-posting so my update actually gets seen, unlike my edit above]


    I think I've finally worked out most of the kinks in my tower-refuelling script.


    Changelog:
    1. The program now runs itself in an infinite loop, so need to use an additional startup script.
    2. Instead of checking for a redstone signal every minute (or however long), the turtle will respond and start its refuel routine the instant it receives a redstone signal at the back. It waits passively for a redstone update, so no worries about lag.
    3. There are now two versions of the script- one for Shneeky's double-stacker design as before, and also one for the more efficient 8-quad-cell solid-core design (that Shneeky might have called a "Pocket Reactor"). The only difference is in line 3, if anyone's interested.


    Installation:
    1. Check the post above (as well as the OP) for info on how to set up the towers.
    2. In the turtle's GUI (make sure there is an Inventory Module attached to its right-hand side), type one of the following commands:
    For the double-stacked design:

    Code
    pastebin get sju45rSF startup


    For the solid-core design:

    Code
    pastebin get drP7DMi5 startup


    3. Hold "Ctrl" and "R" on your keyboard for a second to reboot the turtle. You should see the "TurtleOS 1.5" text at the top of the screen, but no command prompt.
    4. Send a redstone signal to the BACK face of the turtle when your fuel cells have expired, to instruct the turtle to refill them from your AE network.
    5. How you detect when the reactors have burned their fuel is up to you, but I recommend running a Mass Fab or some other machine with a constant power draw off a BatBox or MFSU set to "Emit Redstone When Empty". Just make sure that this doesn't interfere with the splitter cable.


    Also, I've noticed a bug where the Charging Station sometimes glitches out upon world loading, and eats EUs without charging the turtle. This may or may not have something to do with the turtle powering the redstone torch through the charging station.

    If you stare at my avatar hard enough, you'll notice that it consists of three triangular rings, interlocked in such a way that if you were to remove any one of them, the other two would be free to float apart.

    Quote from Someone Else 37

    You'll need a total of 18 routers per tower of production reactors- each of which will need a machine filter upgrade. Painful, considering that each filter requires logic matrix takes 20 minutes to crystallize. Note that you can use lines of furnaces to connect the different towers. You'll probably want a Speed upgrade for each as well, but the other upgrades are probably not necessary.

    A few points.

    • You can make 5 logic matrices at a time in a crystallizer.
    • You don't need the machine filters on all the inserting-into-the-reactor routers, just the one that inserts into slot 0. The other connected devices (the other routers) don't have any slots higher than 0, so a router attempting to insert into slot (say) 48 on another inventory will automatically skip it.

    And on that note (and because I'm probably insane), I'm going to try making a setup like this. Wish me luck! :)

    Quote from Anaerin

    A few points.

    • You can make 5 logic matrices at a time in a crystallizer.
    • You don't need the machine filters on all the inserting-into-the-reactor routers, just the one that inserts into slot 0. The other connected devices (the other routers) don't have any slots higher than 0, so a router attempting to insert into slot (say) 48 on another inventory will automatically skip it.

    And on that note (and because I'm probably insane), I'm going to try making a setup like this. Wish me luck! :)


    1. I probably knew that, but didn't think about it.
    2. Ah, interesting... If all the production reactors are in one tower, so you don't need to use furnaces or anything to connect them, that could work very well. Just make sure that you don't wind up dumping things into an ME Interface or something.

    If you stare at my avatar hard enough, you'll notice that it consists of three triangular rings, interlocked in such a way that if you were to remove any one of them, the other two would be free to float apart.

    Quote from Someone Else 37

    2. Ah, interesting... If all the production reactors are in one tower, so you don't need to use furnaces or anything to connect them, that could work very well. Just make sure that you don't wind up dumping things into an ME Interface or something.

    Not a problem, as ME Import/Export bus' are not iSided themselves, so Routers don't see them. And using the "Insert Near" functionality of Routers with Machine Identifiers, you can put the Cell-inserting routers on one side, and the Uranium inserting routers on the other side.


    Also, if you DON'T put "Bandwidth" upgrades on the router-feeding routers, they will evenly split the items among all the routers.


    You know, the easier way would be just to make a video on how it's done. So here's one.

    Edited once, last by Anaerin: Adding link to video ().

    As an alternative to Factorization Routers (which I hate with a passion that burns with a fury greater than the GT/TiCo drama bomb), you can use Steve's Factory Manager.


    From VSWE, the author of Steve's Carts 2, this mod can slot items into and out of specific slots of multiblock structures. It does it in a manner which I find to be more intuitive, and is, in my opinion, far more powerful than Routers.


    With SFM, I could quite easily set up a CRCS Tower of Power. If only I had some way of actually transmitting that level of power, that is...

    I know I am coming late in the game (this thread is pretty old), but I recently was inspired to build a CRCS reactor based on Shneekey's original design. I also wanted it to be completely automated.




    The Core Reactor


    The Six Chamber Cooling Towers (I forgot who to give credit to for these, I think it was SomeoneElse 37. Let me know and I'll edit the post)


    I attached the reactor to 10 of the Cooling towers via a ME (applied energisitics) network. An interesting note about this design is the reactor does not turn off when there is an empty coolant slot. Even if every coolant cell needs to be replaced at the same time it has enough heat capacity so that it can withstand the sudden onset of heat and then dissipate it before the next coolant exchange.


    I was inspired by Someone Else 37 to write a turtle script to automatically refill the reactor.


    The turtle uses the MiscPeripherals Nuclear Information Reader to know when the uranium cells are depleted. It then pulls cells out of a chest to fill the reactor and puts the coolant cells it replaced back into another chest connected to the ME network. It takes 3 reactor fill trips to fill the reactor. Also, the turtle outputs a redstone signal downward that is "AND" gated with the lever to turn the reactor ON and OFF. When the reactor is OFF, the ME Buses connected to the reactor also turn OFF. This allows the turtle to refill the reactor without new coolant cells entering and makes the reactor turn OFF until it is filled. The turtle has a charging station behind it which it turns ON and OFF when it needs power.


    I use one of these turtles for my Breeder reactor as well, with the ME network inputting depleted cells and pulling out the re-enriched cells. The turtle refills the uranium cells when the breeder runs out so I can keep my one breeder running 24/7 if need be.


    This is an old thread, and right now my turtle code is hard-coded to swap certain reactor slots. With a little bit of effort I could make it totally configurable. If you guys are interested I'll throw up a configurable turtle script to fill any reactor with uranium cells in any slots and quantity. Unfortunately, MiscPeripherals is no longer being updated and it is the only way for turtles to interact with specific slots (Inventory Upgrade for turtles, and the Nuclear Information Reader)....So mod packs are starting to drop it.


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