Alright, so: MOX reactor designs.

  • This has been extremly informative i must say. I just assumed the progress bar on the components where damage and not the temperature on the components. Does that mean that the designs i posted are stable and could possibly work in game?


    I have to admitt i dont fully understand how to use reactor heat exchangers effectively. However when i try to simulate your reactor it cools down for some reason during the cycle. However if it works as you say it does it would make for some interesting designs as you can actually pull out more from the reactor than you are producing with overclocked head vents (which are awesome) and then just put it back in. that is you overshoot on the core heat and then go for exactly 640 cooling and the rest goes back into the core.


    The thing about the size of the reactors was just an assumption from my part. the effectivness of the overclocked heat vents are best utilized on the middle of the design when you have only overclocked heat vents and component heat vents which usually require quite a lot of space since you need at least 1 free slot away from the edge. The edges are a lot less effective space wise so i just assumed they where not better when compared to the regular design since they dont have as much "middle space" to work with.


    It is true that my design isnt asymtotical with two separate cooling systems. However it is stable as far as i know as they actually have a little bit of excess cooling on each side of the cooling system. (644 instead of 640) Im gonna go into creative mode and test it in game and se if it works as soon as i get the time to do it.


    Could you explain how you automate it with hoppers? i would be really interested in learning a few ways to automate mox reactor design with different mod packs. Ive only used thermal expansion item ducts so far with whitelisted items, However that only works for a few reactors. How do you replace specific fuel rods and place them in the right spot? feels like most automated system cant put items in specifik slots. Only factorisation routers can do that afaik. Maybe you know a thing or 2 about this omicron? :)

    A question that sometimes drives me hazy; am i or are the other crazy

  • I tested all of my designs except the latest 6-chamber ingame, I will do that later.
    But my designs aren't actually vulnerable to increased hull transfer. As Blackpalt described, they draw more heat out of the reactor hull than they can vent anyway, and put the rest back into the hull.


    On hopper automation:
    I recommend https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVPY7yM5zy0,
    but there are tons of other videos about it on youtube, if you don't understand it in this one.
    You can't actually put items into specific slots with hoppers.
    My plan to automate designs with different cells is to get a signal via comparator from the hopper that is pulling one type of fuel out, and sending it to the hopper that is replacing that fuel cell.
    But I have to test that because I'm not sure whether I need a pulse lengthener, and if I do, that might make the automation a little bulky.
    This would obviously only work on designs that do not require a specific placing of the rods.


    In the meantime, you could take a look at the 2- chamber I posted a few pages ago: http://www.talonfiremage.pwp.b…9enaetb3z9oxfu72cv1r7n5t3
    It definitely works with the described methods, in fact it's powering my base right now :D


    On other Mods that can place in specific slots:
    Off the top of my head, gregtech and Steve's factory manager.
    But I'm not sure on either one of them.


    Edit: slightly wrong link, you had to click on the annotation with his newer design to get to the one I was using.

  • Even though I used instant wire, the delay from the comparator seems to be enough to not make it work without heat loss 100% of the time. I may come up with something later, but for now, I'm not doing testing on automating reactors with more than 1 cell type anymore. :(

  • I have several Questions regarding MOX Reactors:
    How long is a Cycle until the fuel is burned? I remember something about 80min but i cant find it anymore...
    The ideal temperature is 8499°, since at 8500° everything starts to melt, right?
    What do you do with all the surplus Plutonium? As far as NEI shows it i get 1 surplus tiny plutonium back for every MOX fuel. (Im playing with GT if that matters)

    • Official Post

    More MOX, until I run out of Uranium, then RTG fuel.

    145 Mods isn't too many. 9 types of copper and 8 types of tin aren't too many. 3 types of coffee though?

    I know that you believe that you understood what you think I said, but I am not sure you realise that what you read was not what I meant.


    ---- Minecraft Crash Report ----
    // I just don't know what went wrong :(


    I see this too much.

  • MOX fuel lasts 10,000 seconds - the same as uranium did in old versions of IC2. The online reactor planner still shows that value. Uranium now lasts twice as long, 20,000 seconds.


    As for the heat, depends on how it is implemented. First the melting function was added, then it was removed again, then it was returned, and nobody knows which of the two is ultimately intended. And then the devs stopped toying with it and started the 1.7 port instead. Right now, it's probably the safest bet to stay below 85% temperature.


    And yes, the intended "final destination" for your nuclear waste is radioisotope generators (or nukes, if that's striking your fancy).

  • Recently started in a modpack with gregtech so im gonna try this silly little thing. (TPPI)


    http://www.talonfiremage.pwp.b…um8uig02iqw1bljxg6e0lzpek


    Just a rough first version. Will probably do some in game testing late. According to the simulator it cools down just as snahsnahs reactors however as it should be heat stable as it only cools as much as it produces and puts rest back into the core. Should work nicely with iridium neutron reflectors.


    Played around with it a bit more, you can do some pretty interesting stuff with these types of designs


    High output (1800) efficiency 3, 6 chamber
    http://www.talonfiremage.pwp.b…dtxzl3ldx6ah0iw47nmdjfa4g


    1600 efficiency 4, 6 chamber
    http://www.talonfiremage.pwp.b…induw17h8rdymzh4rammz0cu8


    gregtech shenanigans, output 1000, efficiency 5, 4 chamber
    http://www.talonfiremage.pwp.b…d59rghiyem9nyr2a3iextfsow


    I'm gonna test them all later however im still quite far away before im where im able to produce reactors like this. Been playing around with mekanism x5 and big reactors 3.0 alot lately but i will update this as soon as i get around to it.

    A question that sometimes drives me hazy; am i or are the other crazy

    Edited 2 times, last by Blackpalt ().

  • I like it!
    Especially since you can automate all of them with hoppers because they only use quad cells (except if you want to use normal reflectors on the first one)


    I actually posted one very similar to the first one on here already.


    The 3rd one looks awesome!


    But you should definitely test the 2nd and 4th one ingame.


    The 2nd looks like it wont work at all - where does the heat of the OC-vents in the middle go, they should overheat, shouldn't they?


    The 4th has the problem of very long ways from the OC vents in the bottom right to the reactor heat exchangers.
    That's bad because every thing on the way from the reactor heat exchanger to the outmost OC vent has a slightly higher heat than the one before, because the heat exchangers need a gradient to actually transfer heat.
    That means it's very hard to heat up without accidentally destroying vents, or the heat at the outmost OC vent could be so high that you can't even run the reactor at 85%.
    I hope this was somewhat understandable :P
    tl;dr:
    I recommend putting the reactor heat exchangers somewhat in the middle of all vents that transport heat to it because transporting the heat over many things is bad.


    Maybe these ones will push Omicron over the edge to include them :)


    Edit:
    this is the one I made:
    http://www.talonfiremage.pwp.b…azsabrxutjxaza7k12hpynxow
    as you can see I tried to avoid long ways from OC vents to reactor heat exchangers.

  • A big problem right now is that the reactor designer doesn't seem to work with this designs very well. Would love to see an update on it as it's lacking in quite a few aspects now.


    I assumed the second one would work since its stable in the planner. But now that you point it out i also noticed that it should not work. it should draw out 32 heat per second that has nowhere to go in the middle.


    Problem with putting things in the middle is that it reduces the amount of heat you can remove since the middle is the most efficient place to place the overclocked heat vents. i prefer to try to place them in "voids" where you cant easily place other cooling components.


    In theory i dont think it should make any difference how long away the oc vents are away from the reactor heat vents. i mean regardless of the temperature of the core as long as there is a surplus suply of heat in the core it should always pull the same amount of heat through the overclocked heat vents. ofc the maximum lenght you can do this depends on how much heat the heat vents can move. Have you tested it and know it works like this? maybe omicron can shead some light on it


    I do think these designs has a place in the list, however it should be in its own section. also unless they update the reactor designer they would need to be tested in game to make sure they work properly.
    I have no problems seeing that people would be interested in this type of reactor. It is a bit harder to use but it pays of in designs with higher efficiency and higher output for a same size reactor. I'm quite sure i could make some pretty good designs with this if i put some time into it.

    A question that sometimes drives me hazy; am i or are the other crazy

  • Yes I tested that. As I said, to move heat from a vent onto an exchanger, the vent needs to have higher heat. Otherwise, the exchanger wouldn't draw any heat from it.
    Since there is constantly heat being moved, each object needs to have a slightly higher heat than the last. at equilibrium, the further away a vent is from the reactor heat exchanger, the higher its heat is.
    Also this is more unstable and dangerous when heating the reactor up for the first time.



    Before reactors melted blocks at 85% heat again, the outmost vent melting was the reason I always added a recommended max heat to my designs.


    But since the way on your design is very long, I suspect that max heat % before the outmost vent melts would be below 85% again, so you lose efficiency.
    You should test it.

  • i will trust you on it, my server just crashed due to ender quarry so its seems im back to square one. It's quite far off. I might try it in creative later

    A question that sometimes drives me hazy; am i or are the other crazy

  • Maybe these ones will push Omicron over the edge to include them :)


    If you'd like to help out with that, it would be great if you guys could assemble a list of hull exchange reactors you consider to be the best of the crop.


    In fact, maybe it's time for a new thread entirely. Requia's old thread contains at least one design which no longer works in IC2 Experimental, and this thread here isn't necessarily apparent as a resource. Maybe find a moderator to unsticky Requia's old thread, and instead sticky a new one dedicated to IC2 Experimental. It could be structured something like this:


    Post 1:
    - Table of Contents
    - Disclaimer about the outdated reactor planner, and what it is still useful for nowadays
    - The nuclear fuel lifecycle (showing how uranium ore goes through various types of reactors and eventually converts into 100% pure plutonium that ends up in RTGs)
    Post 2:
    - List of uranium reactors (bug- and sanity-checking Requia's list will go a long way, I expect)
    Post 3:
    - List of direct exchange MOX reactors
    Post 4:
    - List of hull exchange MOX reactors


    For the direct exchange MOX reacvtors, you can just copy&paste the list I made in this thread, which seems fairly complete at this point (I haven't seen entries challenged in a while). But it's probably not a good idea to have me manage a potential new thread, because I really have very little spare time at the moment. I've even stopped playing Minecraft for the time being because I've got too much else going on that I need to deal with. It would be a small but appreciated weight off of my conscience if someone could take over maintaining this.

  • What I was trying to say in the above post is that I do not have the time to maintain such a thread anymore. However, I encourage anyone who wishes to step up to the task.

  • The main disadvantage of MOX reactors is that you have to heat them up every time you want to use them. This problem can be negated by only using advanced heat vents and component heat vents, since they only pull heat out of the fuel rods and not the reactor itself, meaning it'll retain its heat forever. I saw such a design in this video, but its the efficiency is pretty bad. Since my security settings are preventing me from using the reactor planner (and because I suck at reactor design anyway), could someone come up with a more powerful/efficient reactor design, without using any components that draw heat out the reactor hull?

  • (...) could someone come up with a more powerful/efficient reactor design, without using any components that draw heat out the reactor hull?


    The list I've maintained in this thread on page six (linked from the OP) is exactly that - all of them are direct exchange reactors that are heat stable even when turned off / out of fuel. All you need is have a look at it.


    Now, I understand that you can't open the reactor planner links (though temporarily toggling your security settings down and then back up after you're done would solve the problem), but unless you tell us what you want, we cannot really help you. The answer to "could someone come up with a powerful and efficient reactor without hull exchange" is "yes, we already did that". But I could link you 0-chambers or 6-chambers, reactors focused on efficiency or focused on output, reactors with running cost and without running cost, reactors with reflectors and without reflectors, reactors with low diamond cost and ones that make diamonds cry... unless you specify your use case and/or your desired specs, it's pointless trying to guess :p

  • The list I've maintained in this thread on page six (linked from the OP) is exactly that - all of them are direct exchange reactors that are heat stable even when turned off / out of fuel. All you need is have a look at it.


    Now, I understand that you can't open the reactor planner links (though temporarily toggling your security settings down and then back up after you're done would solve the problem), but unless you tell us what you want, we cannot really help you. The answer to "could someone come up with a powerful and efficient reactor without hull exchange" is "yes, we already did that". But I could link you 0-chambers or 6-chambers, reactors focused on efficiency or focused on output, reactors with running cost and without running cost, reactors with reflectors and without reflectors, reactors with low diamond cost and ones that make diamonds cry... unless you specify your use case and/or your desired specs, it's pointless trying to guess :p


    Sorry, I didn't see the designs on page 6. I think I'll go with the 1500 eu/t one (with the 5 quad cells). Its a bit misleading to call it 1500 eu/t though, that's just the theoretical maximum (you can't reliably run it past 85% heat).

  • At the time the list was assembled, you could run it at 99.9% heat because there was no melting behavior then (just spreading random fires around). Then came a moment when reactors were changed to melt indestructible blocks to stop people encasing them in such things and completely disable the random fires. Which of course had the entirely foreseeable side effect of being able to melt bedrock. This led to the melting behavior being changed again, restoring the standard melting behavior from the days of yore.


    I ultimately decided against recalculating the numbers because it was unclear where the final intent of the devs lay. And then I kind of stopped having free time so I also stopped maintaining the list. (Thankfully it seems like no new direct exchange reactors are cropping up for the time being.)


    For now, you can easily get performance at 85% by dividing output/efficiency by 5 and then multiplying by 4.4. Or just multiply by 0.88 if you're using a calculator.

  • At the time the list was assembled, you could run it at 99.9% heat because there was no melting behavior then (just spreading random fires around). Then came a moment when reactors were changed to melt indestructible blocks to stop people encasing them in such things and completely disable the random fires. Which of course had the entirely foreseeable side effect of being able to melt bedrock. This led to the melting behavior being changed again, restoring the standard melting behavior from the days of yore.


    I ultimately decided against recalculating the numbers because it was unclear where the final intent of the devs lay. And then I kind of stopped having free time so I also stopped maintaining the list. (Thankfully it seems like no new direct exchange reactors are cropping up for the time being.)


    For now, you can easily get performance at 85% by dividing output/efficiency by 5 and then multiplying by 4.4. Or just multiply by 0.88 if you're using a calculator.

    Well that's annoying. In the version of IC2 i'm using, reactors can melt anything, including themselves (which is really the only thing keeping me from running them at 9999 heat). Still, 1320 eu/t isn't much less than 1500, so I guess I can make do. Now I just have to work out how to make uranium 235...