RTG

I'll be toying with MOX fuel as soon as I can get a reactor set up to produce some in my 1.6 world... unfortunately I don't have as much time to play as I'd like.

Quote from mcmz4e

RTG seems to be a no brainer ATM....16 eu/t forever...so OP.

Have you calculated how much EU it takes to build and fill a single RTG? Not just the fuel but the machine itself as well.

Quote from SirusKing

A lot

Yes, exactly. I'd wonder how many (RL) days it would take to produce enough EU with a single fully filled RTG to produce a second one

I might actually test it in a creative world ...

Quote from SirusKing

Wait, you mean ignoring the ore costs and stuff?

No, not ignoring anything. I meant processing all the ores from mining to fully built and operational RTG.

RTG's are passive energy generation, true, but they suffer from economical imbalance. Currently, Water Mills are far cheaper to set up properly to produce the same EU output. Granted, they have a bigger footprint, but that footprint can be put nearly anywhere. So you can just bury it under your base or whatever. Solar flowers also kick it to the curb pretty seriously. Wind towers, properly managed, completely outclass them.

The problem with RTG is that by the time you get to the point where you can make and fuel one, you've already GOT all of the other passive options, which are all cheaper.

RTG Fuel requires plutonium, which means you need to have already gotten a nuclear reactor up and running to generate the depleted cells to process into plutonium. By that time, 16 EU/t isn't going to be very impressive, and it will require multiple cycles.

The best design I've come up with to chew through cells is this design which chews through 36 cells per cycle and generates 360 EU/t. Granted, efficiency sucks, but that's kind of the point in a reactor design like this.

There is always hope that other greengen gets balanced to be in line with RTG

You know, there's also the possibility that RTGs aren't meant to be the end-all of energy generation Maybe they're just meant as an option for you to stash away your nuclear waste. They don't need to be excellent, they just need to be decent.

IC2 already has too powerful and cheap passive energy input from too many sources. With the increased energy draw from machines in the experimental branch and the (admittedly needed) nerf to geothermals, it's getting to the point where any non-passive energy source except for nuclear is borderline incapable of powering anything at all, and you're forced to go with solar, wind and water as your only hope to keep a decent power income. Bit like GregTech, really, which had this huge cost for UU-matter but for a long time didn't add any useful power generation options, so you couldn't even make UU-matter without other mod's tools or spamming solar/wind. Nowadays with the big multiblock generators that's much improved.

I'm currently playing in a world that for the longest time has had only IC2, so I could focus on testing the mod (I later added in Buildcraft and Forestry and Railcraft). That meant no means whatsoever to teleport lava in from the nether, and no auto-treefarms to spam charcoal for generators. I was basically forced to choose between either not using the thermal centrifuge at all, or spending 90% of my playtime on running back and forth between the base and the nether with an inventory full of batteries. I opted for the former until I had a nuclear reactor setup (30,000 EU for a 11% yield boost is a pure luxury proposition anyway, if you already have a machine that does 100% boost for 800 EU).

Point is, I'd sooner see a more sensible solution / progression option for midgame conventional power (that doesn't rely on an external mod) than buffing existing passive generators even more.

Unless, of course, IC2 is now developed and balanced for the assumption that certain other mods are always present. That would be a very strange approach, though.

I see it as an eventual infinate power, you can power more and more of your base as time goes on and you build up more and more plutonium, to me its more of an incentive to use nuclear power, despite its possible risks.

I think you guys are misusing the RTG. when i first saw the RTG, my thought was to use it for my satellite bases. plant one in the nether next to a bat box for when i'm there, same for The End. Rather than running a line under the streets of the town to power the luminators, a single RTG under each lamp, or lamp block set. I think it is supposed to be a portable power supply, since it would be easier to tear-down and move than some of the other options. once you are away from the overworld, power gen gets a little more tricky, especially in The End.

think of them as the fission batteries from Fallout.

I see the RTG as more of a "backup energy source", it works all the time, and produces a decent amount of power, but in order to get a lot of power from them you would need a lot of Uranium/MOX fuel cells. For example, to get 16EU/t from 1 RTG you would need 15 plutonium aka 135 Uranium/MOX cells, which would be more then enough energy to last a good while.

As SpwnX said, they are a great portable, use anywhere generator for powering remote bases, quarries, miners, anything that doesn't need too much power and isn't near your main base.

And as for "abusing RTGs as your main power source", I think it would be much easier (not as easy with GregTech) to spam solars or windmills for your main power source then burning through enough nuclear fuel for that amount of Plutonium, not to mention that (like I said above) as long as you are not running a mass fab, that much fuel should supply enough power to run an average base for a while.

Quote from TuxedoSteve

And as for "abusing RTGs as your main power source", I think it would be much easier (not as easy with GregTech) to spam solars or windmills for your main power source then burning through enough nuclear fuel for that amount of Plutonium, not to mention that (like I said above) as long as you are not running a mass fab, that much fuel should supply enough power to run an average base for a while.

Which leads me to the following suggestion:
GREG, MAKE THEM FINITE!!! (config).

Greengens or RTGs?

Quote from SpwnX

Thats pointless. Breeding enough plutonium to make RTGs a decent power source would take AGES and tons of nuclear fuel, so it is valid.

Not to mention that IRL the half life of plutonium 238 is 87.7 years, or 1.21 years of continuously playing in 1 minecraft world to equal that many years ingame.

Quote from TuxedoSteve

Not to mention that IRL the half life of plutonium 238 is 87.7 years, or 1.21 years of continuously playing in 1 minecraft world to equal that many years ingame.

Why do all of you keep saying that ? Do you think IRL the life of Pu in a reactor is 2h47 ? It's more like a year ... (maybe less, I would say half a year)