-[Suggestion]- Nuclear Reactors Mechanics : Getting rid off exploits, fuel balance and much more fun!

As the Nuclear system is being overhauled, I thought it would be the right moment to suggest the way it should IMO work.
I know it's partially done already, but I don't want it to go (IMO) in the wrong direction again.

I mean, the Reactor system is really awesome, and I've been hooked for hours, and even nights on my breeders and others Mk IV but ... I've 3 main thing to mention:

1) I kinda dislike the way it used to be exploitable. I mean, breeding depending on heat was a bad Idea, because you just had to keep the heat constant and you were good. In the other hand, I do understand the point of increasing risk to increase gain, but that, IMO, should be the thing that encourage player to keep surveilling his reactor, and not to automate it. Which leads me to my second point.

2) I'm not against automation. I know some will always find boring to have to replace manually components or anything, but ... to keep the fun of switching yourself components and watching it almost constantly running (^^), it should be more attractive, more efficient than doing it in an automated way, as sophisticated your system may be.

3) For the sake of realism, and also to have a nice balance between fuels, I think the way fuels emit energy should be reworked.

So there are my suggestions on how it should work in my opinion.

I: No difference between Heat and EU generated:


The heat generated by the fuel shouldn't just be a "risk", but works as described instead:
a) When Heat is generated, it can be cooled down by the primary circuit, which would transfer the heat to the secondary circuit, and then generate energy. Which means that each Cooling components would basically be a part of the primary circuit, defined by its thermal capacity as it is currently, and its max heat/tick transmission (to the 2nd circuit). THE STEAM GENERATED PER TICK WOULD BE THE SUM OF ALL THE HEAT TRANSMITTED PER TICK FROM THE COOLING COMP. TO THE REACTOR, which means that not only a not safe reactor would explode, but it would waste energy as well. However, they'd have really high max H/t.
The secondary circuit would only be symbolized by the fact that you put water in your structure, get steam from it and then put it your water back.


WATER COULD BE INSERTED DIRECTLY IN THE CORE TO COOL IT DOWN, BUT IT MAY INVOLVES MORE RISK (see below) and less potential efficiency since it would be risky to run it at the same temperature you would run a "normal" reactor)


b) Keeping a reactor hot would still be useful: it wouldn't increase breeding speed, but EFFICIENCY IN THE HEAT/STEAM CONVERSION. If you ask why, google efficiency of thermal machines I guess ^^. [(T(hot)-T(cold))/T(hot)=1-T(cold)/T(hot), with T(cold) and T(hot) being about 293°K and something between 393 and 1500/2000K).
BUT, keeping a reactor hot would mean "producing as much Heat as you consume it by Water", (Idea to discuss: Heat decreasing by itself faster and faster when above 1200K ?)


II: Pulsing = generating Heat and sending others neutrons (aka pulses triggers) arround.


a) To calculate the generated heat, the reactor should work as well:
Each fuel would have its own properties: Heat per radioactive decay/time [HD] , Neutrons per radioactive decay/time [ND] , Heat per Fission [HF] , Neutron per Fission [NF], durability.

First sec: Every single cell has a radioactive decay. Which, depending on the fuel, generates more or less Heat and send more or less Neutrons.
Second Sec: Every single cell has a radioactive decay as well, BUT, those with adjacent cells also have fissions. (and why not something based on "distance" between slots, instead of just adjacent cells ? I know it would be laggier, but the system I'm suggesting would be much more efficient, involving less GUIs for the same energy). So the amount of fissions of a cell would depend on the amount of neutron it would recieve, and so would depend the breeding speed of depleted fuels.
Third sec: same thing, but may (depending on the fuels used and their position) be way more Heat and Neutron generating.
Let's do an example:


: [HD]=2, [ND]=0.75, [HF]=10, [NF]=3 (I didn't tested the values, so it's kinda random, but that would be typically Plutonium). ND and NF are the numbers of neutrons sent PER SIDE. (with distance to other cells in the GUI instead of just adjacent, it would be a number/R², R being that distance)

: [HD]=1, [ND]=0.5, [HF]=8, [NF]=1 (Typically Ura)

: [HD]=0.25, [ND]=0.125, [HF]=6, [NF]=1 (Typically Thorium, with GT)

: [HD]=0.05, [ND]=1, [HFusion]=5, [NF]=0 (Typically, C14, but with a huge concentration)

: [HD]=1, [ND]=1, [HF]=0 [breeding instead], [NF]=0 (Wastes, that may be breeded or used as triggers, even though several wastes/depleted fuel may exist)

[1 surrounded by 4 , because screw the forum to make things looks like GUIs ^^]--> First sec, 2+4*025 Heat generated, Pu send 0.75 Neutron to each Thorium Cell, each Thorium cell send 0.125 Neutron (0.5 in all) to the Pu. Which is still not enough to get one fission, so the second

second (^^) happens similary. But then at the 3rd one, Pu got 1 Neutron at the end of the 2nd second, and each Th cells got 1.5 Neutrons. So each of these fuel has one fission, which emit 3 Neutron for each Th and 4 neutrons for the Pu, PLUS the radioactivity. Fissions releases alot more heat than radioactive decay, and from this test I get that those numbers should be lowered, or be the one for the highest concentration, because even this small setup would be pretty unstable (The Heat Generated would *almost* grow exponentially ... WHICH is the phenomenom called "chain reaction" and which is used in Nuclear Bombs.
So safe reactors would tend to a Maximum Heat/t they would reach after a short time, while unstable could be used like MkV are currently: just for 2 sec and then wait for the whole thing to cooldown ^^.

The risk would still be heat, but explosion wouldn't be the aftermaths all the time:
Nuclear Explosion would happen when the Heat goes over 5000 and when the H/T is over X/tick (dunno how big should X be).
"simple" Core Fusion would happen at 1500/2000/3000 depending on the Core material. See upgrades (below ^^)
Some others things I don't know, but Hydrogen Explosion and Pressure Explosion could happen as well.
(The first would be throwing water directly on a reactor to cool it down, which would create Hydrogen above 1000°K, and then explode when the amount of H2 is too high [BUT you could also pump it before it reach that level, and thus avoiding the explosion and gaining EVEN MORE ENERGY! The second would happen when you don't take the steam quick enough, in case of you put the water directly in. Converting Water into Steam AND H2+O2 would drastically reduce the Heat, making it a good urgency solution, but quite risky in some ways)
You'll say me: "then how could a reactor explode if it meltdown before ?" Because the reactor will "keep running", which just mean "keep producing heat" when it will have melt, unless you cooled it down and shut it down. Which means the Meltdown is the riskier event as it creates flowing Lava and may lead to a Nuclear Explosion.

The point of that Fuel system would be to allow distinctions between fuels such as "trigger" (C14/other "renewable" radioactive isotopes or some wastes), "chain reaction maker" (Pu) "balanced fuel" (Ura) and "safe-and-cheap-but-has-to-be-helped-to-run-properly" (Th).

Upgrades:
The reactors could also have upgrades:
As the thing is going to be MultiBlocks, those upgrades should in my opinion be (apart from size upgrades, for Steam Turbine and Reactor Hull):
Heat-resistant [Alloy from Invar to Tungstensteel in GT, from Refined Iron to Iridium/I dunno what in IC²] Upgrade: Increases the max temperature before meltdown (and so potentially the efficiency)

Carbon Moderator Upgrade: The higher the level, the higher the H/t it can stop. Basically, you can't stop a reactor running if you haven't the necessary tier of moderators, which means the higher the output you want, the higher the Tier of moderators you need, unless you don't care about stopping your reactor (will stop itself without fuel ^^)

Heat Exchanger Upgrade: an expensive thingy that would slightly increase the output, for no risk/consumption more, just the cost of the upgrade.

That's all (I think I didn't forget anything but I'm not sure ^^) for the system I wanted to suggest, but some thing may be awesome as well (but more likely to be in GT than in IC²):

More efficient than water fluid (Molten Salts for instance) that could (in the case of Molten Salts) multiply by something the Neutron Emitted per Fission (since in theory it increases the capture rate of Neutrons by Nucleus) or increase efficiency a lot (CO2).

NUCLEAR TRANSMUTATIONS! Turns materials into some others using the power of Nuclear Reactions! That'd be an awesome GUI-game ^^.

The final word: I know such a system would be kinda laggier, but as I already told, more efficient = less reactor = less lag as well ^^.
Also, did I mention already that for each Fuel, each properties has to be multiplied by its Concentration ? (so you can make 5% Pu cells or 50%, if you're a mad scientist ^^)

Quote from Chocohead

What a whole lot of changes that I bet half of IC uses wouldn't appreciate It's a nice idea but can't see people like Direwolf20 liking it.

How so ? If you use "stable" configs, it wouldn't be that different from the current system ...

Although, I did not mention it, but I think with such a system Coolant Components should have a "range", which means they would cool down up to 20 slots arround (so you could have setup with some Fuel cells not adjacent to a Coolant Component without using Reactor Heat Vent/Exchanger/Overclocked Heat Vent or any kind of stuff allowing what I would call "delocation" (^^) which should in my opinion be removed or COMPLETLY nerfed.

And "noobs" could like it as well, as this system would allow stable MkI reactors producing decent amounts of EU, given you provide the ressources for the components ... because basically you would also have muc better components, much more expensive as well ofc.
Then the "rewarding-for-good-players" part would be the fact that you can get EXTREMLY HIGH outputs with the chain reaction principle, but you won't ever succeed making those reactors MkI or even MkII. Thus the balancing risk wouldn't only be heat but the chain reaction thingy, which would be very hard to control.

Also, I think components such as "Coolant Cells" (which would be reworked to be much more efficient, as the rest) would be (more expensive as well, as the rest) completly different.
I mean, currently they are just single-use coolants, which you can cool down using others components. With my system, they would STORE heat (Molten Salts would be very efficient for that, wouldn't they ? ^^), which mean they would still be "buffers" as they currently are, but that mean using some with "normal" Coolant Components (since good tiers of components would have "ranges", OR maybe because they could cool themselves down slowly, thus generating energy), you could make a Mk I (if you have enough Coolant Components for each High Thermal Capacity Cell [sounds like a good name]) or a MkII/III that would CONTINUOUSLY GENERATE ENERGY! How so ? Because with my system, storing Heat to cool it down during Cooldown time would generate energy during those cooldown time as well, if you read it well

Quote from Chocohead

Still confused after the 106 reactor changes in parts, changing it again is just mean.

Lol. What was it, CASUC removal right ?

Quote from Chocohead

The changes you suggest seem to get better as you go down there page

Which means the top is crappy ?

I think this would sum up what is cool (IMO) with the Chain Reaction system:
You're bad at Nuclear Reactors, you are a so-called "noob" ? Just don't use a chain-reaction config, just use Fuel in a non-efficient (but easy to cool at least ^^) way which makes efficiency tends to a limit.
You're good ? Use the chain-reaction system to get an extremly high efficiency, but when you get your efficiency and extremly high output STABILIZE your reactor, otherwhise the reactor won't have any limit of efficiency ... but will explode
Which means that stuff like Pu would be used to increase a lot the amount of fission per sec per cells, and used with a stable config that send 1 Neutron for 1 received, you could get an extremly high efficiency then you would replace the Pu per the Fuel you used for the rest of the config (For those who want Maths, it's a mathemathical suits story: during the chain-reaction phase the efficiency/output would be like U[n+1]=XU[n] --> U[n]=U[0]^n, and during the running phase, you would just replace the Pu to get X at one, making the thing stable).
In the same way, C14 or Radioactive wastes would be used to trigger reactions that would normally not work.

Quote from Chocohead

And yes, some of the ideas to the top I completely disagree with. Automation for example is a wonderful thing and you shouldn't be punished for being able to use it successfully.

I didn't said automation shouldn't work. I just said that, to keep the fun running your reactors yourself, that'd be cool if some mechanics were implemented to ENCOURAGE people to keep switching/surveilling their reactors themselves. As an example, a special Fuel that'd be extremly powerful but that would have react randomly would be cool. That's not that I found automation should be punished. I'm just thinking non-automation should be rewarded :). Hey, what am I useful for if no team need me to run their reactor with a good efficiency ? ^^. Also, one of the issue with automation is the CC's issue: some people may say it's nerfed by the need of skills, but anyone can copy the setup (or code for CC) and get the same result.

Now, a thinking I had in a physic class (yup, it's hard to me to pay attention in class ^^):
The number I put for Pu/Ura/others were completly wrong ^^. I just made a bit of maths (ya know, suits, recurrency, differential equations and such ...), and found out that even the 4 Th 1 Thorium I took for the example would have exponetials N(t) and H(t) (functions of number of Neutrons and Heat ofc) ...
So this should really have a rework about the numbers ^^.

As an example, Pu should be like:
[HD]=2, [ND]=0.1, [HF]=10, [NF]=0.75

U235: [HD]=0.5, [ND]=0.01, [HF]=8, [NF]=0.3
U238: [HD]=0.5, [ND]=0.01, [HF]=none, [NF]=none (breeding into Pu239)
Th: [HD]=0.1, [ND]=0.0025, [HF]=6, [NF]=0.1

So basically Th wouldn't run in "normal" reactors (or you could using Pu but it'd be better using something else with Pu for the gain in efficiency would be much higher), but could if you increase the capture rate of Neutrons from Nucleus (aka using Molten Salts for instance), given you trigger it with Pu.

Also, from a scientist point of view, I think efficiency shouldn't be "the more Heat/tick, the higher the efficiency". I mean, IRL you look for high neutron emission per sec because Neutrons emitter are kinda rarer, because you want a high output and because it increase a bit efficiency, but not that much.

So I think eff should be: sqrt(numberOfFissionperSec).
Which basically means that Fuel will also deplete faster if you use it in a more effective way ... but in the same way, not only it will last forever (like in a RTG) if you do only use radioactivity, which means all your cells are isolated (which isn't that cool given it would generate very few amounts of EU ^^), but also that the speed of breeding will depends on the Neutron/sec received by the cell (and breeding is also Transmutation!). And with my system, breeding would be much easier, since Depleted cells wouldn't emit heat when receiving Neutrons!

However, cells with to-breed-fuels as well as usable fuels in it would last longer, assuming the Neutrons would both generate Fissions and generate Transmutations! Which means that stuff such as Ura235/238 would, depending on the % of each isotope, generate EU up to U325 lack, but then would turn into U238 cells, PARTIALLY BREEDED ALREADY (and that you could breed again).

Also, I think some Sci-Fi upgrades would be cool: what about a "Neutron Collector" Upgrade that you'd put on top of your reactor, and that would send Neutrons to the cells in your GUI ? Of course this would send very few amounts of Neutrons, but they would be "free" ^^. And ofc, the amounts of Neutron they would generate would depend on the size of the MultiBlock Collector/The amounts of collector if this isn't MB, but also on the Biome ... *Hint* End probably has lots of Neutrons flowing in it, isn't it the End of the Universe, aka the area with all those dead stars ? *Hint*

Last but not least: what about unifying Heat-based generators into a Nuclear-like thingy ? I mean, it could be a good way to upgrade normal Generators or Geothermal Generator, wouldn't it be ? The difference would be the size of the GUI:
Some few ideas about how a GUI for all generators could be useful:
Balance mechanic could include cooling components, oxygenating components (to increase fuel efficiency, but would take a bit of room, aka less potential output from the generator), recycling components (that would recycle what Lava and Fuels are leaving while generating energy, which means impurities for fuels, Obsidian for Lava) and that kind of stuff ...

Make no mistake though: to me, the most needed is clearly a "realistic" overhaul of Nuclear Reactors: Sci-fi upgrades and GUIs for every generators are just features I would find really cool, but I do not NEED them.

Quote from TSlavo

You mentioned molten salts as a type of possible coolant for your reactor idea, why not also a molten fluoride thorium fuel?

Isn't Fluoride a "salt" ? Then that kind of reactor in the category of MSR already ^^. Fluoride is just the more-likely-to-be "Salt" atm.

Quote from TSlavo

That said, some wouldn't like it because it requires learning new things they didn't need before.

Yup, that's an issue. However, not only it wouldn't be that different (even noobs would understand than 2 adjacent cells being more efficient than 2 isolated cells would still work), but moreover you wouldn't have Heat/EU separation anymore (which is useless and a bit less realistic than Heat=EU once cooled) and the cooling system would be easier, given you could just invest more to be sure you'd cool your reactor (up to a certain point though).
I mean, the only components would be Cooling Cells (several types, depending on their size [capacity] and the material they use [capacity and heat transfer/sec]), exchanging components aka direct coolant (those with the higest rate of Heat/sec transfered to the second circuit, but almost no thermal capacities), and maybe Pump/Vents that wouldn't cool normal reactor down but transfer Steam [Or Hydrogen if you're running a high-temperature reactor that makes water to dismutate ... not to mention it's one of the riskiest setup, but also one of the better for EU/t].

So yeah, I did not speak about that, but IMO vent should be kept for primitive reactors with only 1 circuit, aka those were water is directly injected in the reactor ... can be much more powerful (those would have a better Steam/Heat ratio), but a lot riskier.