Posts by Omicron

  • Alright, so: MOX reactor designs.

    Quote from turkeygiblets

    Produces up to 700EU/t from 8 single cells, so no iron/copper requirements to keep it running

    Dual and quad cells return all the iron used in crafting them when you centrifuge the depleted parts... so only quad cells should have a running cost in IC2 experimental, and only one copper plate per quad cell (down from 40 in classic IC2 or 8 in GregTech). A much-needed improvement!

    I really like your upgradable reactor path! The four single-cell ones can all be converted from one to the next larger, without having any components left over. They're very diamond-heavy, but you don't have to spend them all at once - the cost is mitigated by allowing you a lot of time in between upgrades to procure more. Decently efficient, too; I haven't really found any good designs that go much beyond base 4, due to troubles spreading the heat fast and far enough (kind of similar to the "not enough sides to a block" issue you often have ingame). So up to 3.6 isn't half bad.

    I suppose a reactor using core transfer as described in the opening post could achieve higher efficiency but would have usability drawbacks because it couldn't maintain its heat level while switched off or out of fuel.

  • Alright, so: MOX reactor designs.

    Ahahaha I have an efficiency 20, 800 EU/t reactor... the fact that this actually works is hilarious.

    I think that particular trick's gonna stay my personal trade secret for at least a little while though :D


    P.S.: Nuclear Control works flawlessly now, you can use it without worries.

  • A Collection of Suggestions for IC2 Experimental

    Quote from RawCode

    there is no voltage, Alabaka never stated that V part inside LV HV EV is voltage.
    current implementation is "frame in tick" there is no power.


    Power is energy over time. EU/t is energy over time. Therefore EU/t is power. But let's not argue semantics on a suggestion post, okay? ;)

    Quote from RawCode

    stepup is frame limiter, removing it will make energy net unmanageble


    The energy net automatically steps up by adding all power per tick together. You don't need transformers to do it if the capapbility is already inherent in the network. Transformers stepping up have no usecase that cannot be replicated 1:1 without the transformer, just by connecting the cables.

    Quote from RawCode

    for scrap, just change UUM cost from 10kk to something lower in config.


    The energy cost is not the issue. The uselessness of scrap and the silly division of 10 by 6 is. The point in my suggestion is that it doesn't actually change total energy need all that much, and the details can be ironed out later.

  • Alright, so: MOX reactor designs.

    Time for some designs!

    You can easily design a MOX reactor with the reactor planner for the time being. At 8,496 degrees, the output multiplier is 4.4 with a high degree of precision. So now that MOX runtime is the same as the old value the reactor planner shows for uranium, all that you have to do is build an uranium reactor and then multiply the "Active EU/t" and "Total EU" figures by 4.4 each in order to get the numbers this design would give with MOX in build 297, at that temperature. I cross-tested several designs ingame yesterday, and this method is reliable.


    1.) Let's start off with this design. You've seen it all before - it's the reactor I've been running my tests with. It's a reasonably good first MOX reactor because of its very high efficiency, and because it requires only 4 MOX fuel rods - and if you wonder why this is important, you probably haven't tried to produce enough plutonium for that through legit gameplay yet. An uranium reactor with 9 fuel rods would have to complete 12 cycles of 5 hours 33 minutes each in order to provide the plutonium. In other words, you would be waiting for it for a minimum off 66 hours 40 minutes. RL hours, mind - now try doing this in a singleplayer world and get back to me next month. :wacko:

    Anyway. The downside of the reactor is that it has a running cost, due to the reflectors. You need thick reflectors, and each pair is good for two cycles. If you have the resources lying around, great, go for it. Because of its high efficiency, MOX fuel is much more valid with reflectors than uranium ever was. But eventually you might want to migrate to a better design.

    If you want to spend a lot less diamonds at the cost of adding two more chambers and more pure-metal components, you can also build it like so.

    Bottomline: 2 chambers, 2 dual fuel rods, 2 reflectors. 352 EU/t, 70.4m EU/cycle, efficiency 17.6 @ 8,496 degrees


    2.) Super basic MOX reactor. This design was highly popular before because the location dependant output bug and the heat plating stacking favored it. It's not as good anymore as it used to be in the bugfixed build 297, though. It's main selling point is that it's cheap and compact to set up, but efficiency is lacking.

    This base module can be repeated over and over in the same reactor for extra output. Four such modules will fit in a 0-chamber reactor.

    Bottomline: 0 chambers, 1-4 dual fuel rods. 88-352 EU/t, 17.6-70.4m EU/cycle, efficiency 8.8 @ 8,496 degrees


    3.) The vest pocket reactor. Okay, portability probably isn't really a given when you need special equipment to heat the reactor up, but this sure is one of the most attractive 0-chamber reactors around. Decent efficiency, decent output, decently low on diamond cost.

    Bottomline: 0 chambers, 1 quad fuel rod. 264 EU/t, 52.8m EU/cycle, efficiency 13.2 @ 8,496 degrees


    4.) The reactor affectionately known as the Z-snap. Probably one of the best beginner MOX reactors around, because you can use the single fuel rods for extra-precise initial heatup without crafting an extra uranium rod that will never be used anywhere else. The major downside is that it needs 6 fuel rods to set up, which are tough to come by initially. Output and efficiency, however, are very impressive for something with zero running cost.

    Bottomline: 3 chambers, 2 single + 2 dual fuel rods. 484 EU/t, 96.8m EU/cycle, efficiency 16.13 @ 8,496 degrees


    5.) I like to call this one the tsunami, both because of its ripple shape, and because it buries you under a deluge of power. This is what you can expect, roughly, from a high-end MOX reactor with internal cooling. You can start with a smaller reactor when you have just a few fuel rods, and then later when you have enough plutonium to make 8 at once, upgrade to this while reusing pretty much all your components. It'll give you a performance you've never before seen in an internal vent cooled reactor - not even in the legendary age of GregTech hybrid reactors!

    Bottomline: 6 chambers, 2 quad fuel rods. 704 EU/t, 140.8m EU/cycle, efficiency 17.6 @ 8,496 degrees


    Now I'm eager to see what kind of designs you guys can come up with :)

  • A Collection of Suggestions for IC2 Experimental

    Since the mod is still heavily in development, I feel like this is the best time to make suggestions. They are provided as-is, based on my opinion and playing experience. For all suggestions made, I aim to provide an example of how I would do it; but if you like the suggestion but not my example, that's fine as well. They are mostly aimed at improving the nebulous concept of "user experience" - improving accessibility, simplifying uneccessarily confusing things, improving the fun factor and modernizing outdated mechanics to today's accepted modding standards.


    1.) Replace all references to "voltage" with "power". Only EU/t remains under the new e-net; talking about anything else only confuses the player. Thankfully, only few instances remain ingame. A lot of them are replaced with either "tier x" or an EU/t figure already. What remains are mostly transformers. Instead of "LV transformer", for example, we should maybe have a "LP transformer", or a "tier 1 transformer".

    2.) Remove step-up functionality from transformers. Stepping up is performed automatically by the e-net, by simply connecting multiple sources to the same cable. Setting them to fixed step down mode by default and removing access to the transformer GUI will do it. (Right now, the transformer GUI is only an invitation for user error.)

    3.) Rework the crop system. Yes, potentially big change, but you can do a lot to make it more usable with very little effort. The biggest issue with it currently lies in the cryptic and counter-intuitive mechanics related to biome choice and elevation dependency. Simply removing that, and basing performance completely on the current biome's temperature and humidity, will instantly result in the whole system becoming vastly more accessible and logical. As another change, making the crops compatible with Forestry farms (again, they used to be but are not anymore) could provide an automation solution. Players can put crop-matrons just above the plants on a multifarm in order to provide water, fertilizer and weed-ex as needed.

    Here's a more detailed collection of ideas on how things could work:

    Display Spoiler


    Remove all dependency on y-level/height.
    Instead of having all plants behave equally better or worse depending on your biome choice, as it is now, plants could have individual preferences.

    Three existing plant stats: growth, gain and resist (Rename "gain" to "yield" to make its purpose clearer)
    Additional new plant stats: desired temperature, desired humidity
    For simplicity, desired temperature/humidity stats could be species locked and not passed on through crossing like the other stats are.

    If desired temperature and desired humidity match the biome exactly, plant grows with all base stats at their full rated values
    If desired humidity is higher than what the biome offers, growth stat is reduced proportionally
    --> if player/crop-matron supplies water, this is ignored, but water is consumed based on difference between desired and actual humidity
    If desired temperature is higher than what the biome offers, growth stat is reduced proportionally
    --> if player/crop-matron supplies fertilizer, this is ignored, but fertilizer is consumed based on difference between desired and actual temperature
    If either (or both) desired stats are lower than what the biome offers, growth stat is kept full but resistance and gain/yield stats are lowered proportionally
    --> plant will not consume fertilizer/water if biome is hotter/more humid, even if provided

    For example, a cactus-like plant would desire hot temperatures and low humidty. If planted in normal or cold biomes it would grow more slowly unless provided with fertilizer. If planted in biomes that are not dry, its resistance would decrease and it would not give as much produce.

    Special requirements (ore block beneath plant etc.) can still work normally with this system.

    Applying weed-ex works as it does now, preventing weeds regardless of resistance but damaging the gain/yield stat if overused


    As an additional neat thing, the cropnalyzer (or a new tool designed for the purpose) could graphically scan a growing plant to determine its water, fertilizer and weed-ex levels in a similar way to how Terrafirmacraft hoes read out nutrient levels in the farmland:

    4.) Add iridium ore to all loot chest types. Currently, there is a chance of 4.5% to discover iridium ore in a dungeon loot chest - a roughly 1 in 22 chance on average. However, dungeon loot chests are only a small subset of the loot chests the player can find in the world. Currently you cannot find any iridium ore in abandoned mineshafts, in nether fortresses, in strongholds, in desert temples, in jungle ruins or in NPC villages. As a result, it's a perfectly realistic expectation to have to open over 50 chests without finding any iridium ore at all. I would know, I opened 60 chests without luck and then gave up and cheated some ore in.

    Content gating by random number generator is a really, really bad idea. For example, you won't find any MMOs where, upon creation of a guild, the game randomly decides that the guild will be allowed to raid boss X but not boss Y or boss Z. Unfortunately, IC2 currently does exactly this - a fair number of players will be locked out of the entire endgame of the mod through no fault of their own, simply because of bad luck streaks in both world generation and loot list population. Adding equal ~5% chances for iridium ore to all chest loot types will still result in streaks of 30+ unlucky chests with regularity, but at least the player will have a chance to discover some ore regardless of which types of loot chests the world generator decides to give them.

    5.) Re-tune the UU-matter system. The division by six when using scrap always results in terrible numbers that are hard to memorize and unintuitive to handle; in addition, the value of scrap is so low that making UU-matter to replicate a single item takes entire quarries' worths of recycleable blocks. This promotes (or even enforces) the cannibalizing the landscape and creating hundreds of laggy automatic cobble generators by the player, both of which are things that make the player extremely unpopular in the eyes of server admins.

    I made this suggestion before in a discussion thread; I have replicated the details in the spoiler here for convenience.

    Display Spoiler


    - Make the energy bonus from scrap a five-fold multiplier instead of a six-fold one. This makes amplifier a bit weaker but results in much easier to handle numbers.
    - Multiply the amount of amplifier gained per piece of scrap or scrapbox by 4. That means 20k/180k instead of 5k/45k.
    - Reduce the uu-matter cost of iridium from 42 buckets to 32 buckets. Diamonds could probably also use a reduction from 20 to 16. Overall, tighten up the spread of prices by bringing the larger numbers down - this compensates the reduced amplifier bonus.

    Here's a comparison of the effects these changes will have:

    Classic:
    166,667 EU + 34 scrap per uu-matter (~272 recycled blocks, +12,240 EU)
    1,166,667 EU + 234 scrap per iridium ore (~1,872 recycled blocks, +84,240 EU)
    46,666,667 EU + 9,334 scrap per quantum suit (~74,672 recycled blocks, +420,030 EU)
    OR
    1,000,000 EU per UU-matter
    7,000,000 EU per iridium ore
    280,000,000 EU per quantum suit

    Current:
    1,666,667 EU + 334 scrap per uu-matter (~2,672 recycled blocks, +120,240 EU)
    71,000,000 EU + 14,000 scrap per iridium ore (~112,000 recycled blocks, +5,040,000 EU)
    2,839,999,999 EU + 560,000 scrap per quantum suit (~4,480,000 recycled blocks, +201,600,000 EU)
    OR
    10,000,000 EU per UU-matter
    420,000,000 EU per iridium ore
    16,800,000,000 EU per quantum suit

    Proposed:
    2,000,000 EU + 100 scrap per uu-matter (~800 recycled blocks, +36,000 EU)
    65,000,000 EU + 3,200 scrap per iridium ore (25,600 recycled blocks, +1,152,000 EU)
    2,600,000,000 EU + 128,000 scrap per quantum suit (1,024,000 recycled blocks, +46,080,000 EU)
    OR
    10,000,000 EU per UU-matter
    321,000,000 EU per iridium ore
    12,840,000,000 EU per quantum suit

  • IC2 Expermental Feature Discussion

    The thermal centrifuge was a tier above the other machines before, being able to take HV without a transformer. Have you tested it? Maybe it can still take HV even though the other machines changed, and if not, maybe it can at least take MV.

    ...we seriously need to get rid of this faulty "voltage" descriptor X(

  • Plain 'ol IC^2

    Depends on your boiler size. Assuming I have access to blaze powder (from, say, Thaumcraft desert flowers), I tend to dot some 1 LP boilers around relatively early, to power things like tree farms. One single 1 LP boiler with a hobbyist steam engine taped to it can handle a maximum size multifarm arboretum no problem, and most of the time I don't even build them that large. Being solid fuel consuming, it can be fueled by wooden planks created from the tree farm's wood output in a simple and cheap auto workbench. The whole setup costs barely anything but wood, clay and cobblestone... just one redstone, two gold and three iron needed as far as "valuable" resources go, plus one third of a blaze powder.

    Not counting the water supply pump, but when you have a multifarm you have a water supply pump already anyway.

  • Alright, so: MOX reactor designs.

    Okay, Thunder, another question:

    Compared to the screenshot in my post above,
    - MOX fuel seems to not gain any bonus from reflectors anymore: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/44754370/2013-11-05_21.39.15.png
    - MOX fuel seems to not gain any bonus from being grouped up anymore: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/44754370/2013-11-05_21.39.30.png
    - MOX fuel does still get a bonus from being a multicell: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/44754370/2013-11-05_21.41.33.png

    Considering the multicell bonus kind of simulates fuel rods being grouped up, and only one of the two is still true - is this working as intended?

    EDIT: grouping up still increases heat generated, but not power output: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/44754370/2013-11-05_21.46.46.png

  • [Addon v1.118+] [SSP/SMP] Nuclear Control v.1.6.2b/e

    @ Shedar: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/44754370/2013-11-05_21.18.54.png (Build #296)

    - Sensor kit works properly

    - Heat display is correct

    - Info panel reports mB/t instead of EU/t
    There is no more Railcraft steam mode option in the IC2 config
    The reactor will gain coolant input/output capabilities/needs at a later point in time

    - Info panel reports 0:00:00 for MOX fuel time remaining
    This was already present in older builds of IC2 experimental
    Runtime for MOX fuel is equal to the old runtime of uranium (10k seconds)

    - Uranium reports its usual 2 hours 46 minutes for time remaining, but only ticks down once per 2 seconds
    This is because uranium lifetime was doubled to 20k seconds

  • Alright, so: MOX reactor designs.

    Oh snaaaap. 8|

    Well, it seems you can't get the coolant into the reactor yet, but I did notice that advanced vents (which usually don't heat up the hull) do heat up the hull when the reactor has no coolant. Looks like components are changing too, then.

    You realize this means that you need to select some poor soul on the team who gets to write a massive post like this? :P (I might volunteer to do it... maybe...)


    EDIT: In the meantime I confirmed that for now, MOX reactors are independent from absolute heat level (scaling only off of relative heat percentage), and are location independent. The reactor that previously gave me 577 to 585 EU/t now gives me 176, regardless of whether I use plating or not. That is still a satisfying 8.8 efficiency score, though... and the fuel lasts twice as long as before.

    Nuclear Control is kinda broken, reporting an output of 563 mB/t instead of 176 EU/t :D Heat monitoring remains working. MOX fuel still shows 0:00:00 for time remaining, that didn't change from older builds. Uranium shows the old runtime, but only ticks down once per two seconds.

    Screenshot: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/44754370/2013-11-05_21.18.54.png

  • Alright, so: MOX reactor designs.

    Quote from Thunderdark

    ?? i have no room for center in the Gui....

    What I meant was, the reactor GUI is not in the middle, it is sitting to the left: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/44754370/2013-11-05_20.09.26.png

    I was making a bit of a joke about desperately needing everything perfectly aligned ;)


    And ah, so the absolute heat dependency was also a bug. Good to know. Thankfully the efficiency formula we agreed on works anyway, the numbers will just be lower. Let's see if I can test some designs now that we have a "final" release of MOX...

  • LV, MV, HV should be renamed.

    Quote from NDospark320

    You can't insert a tiny lightbulb into a 220V power supply.

    But the reason for that is not voltage, it's power. Voltage alone does nothing. It's just a potential difference that governs the direction of the flow of electrons. If you don't have a flow of electrons, then it doesn't matter how large your potential difference it is. That flow of electrons has a name: current. It is defined as the amount of electrical charge (given in coulomb) traveling across a certain cross-section of material, and is given in ampere.

    When you connect a tiny lightbulb to a 220V outlet, the lightbulb fries because the large potential difference of 220V brutally tears all the available current across the tiny wire and simply melts it via joule heating. However, if you only had a comparatively tiny amount of current available, the tiny lightbulb would be much better off, despite the voltage. Of course, restricting current so far that the tiny lightbulb survives that much voltage is highly impractical and error-prone, which is why we use transformers to bring the voltage down. That way we can allow more current, which as a larger and more tangible thing, can be more precisely controlled.

    In all cases what matters is never voltage, but rather the end result of voltage x current. That result is power, defined as energy (given in joule) over time, and it's given in watt.

    Voltage alone is only ever a problem if you increase it so much that common isolators start to fail to contain the potential difference - especially the most common isolator, which is air. Give enough voltage, and the current simply seeks its way across the isolator, because the "pressure" is so great that it no longer matters. You get a lightning strike, and power flowing where it is not supposed to flow - for example, grounding itself through your body. I do not recommend to try this at home, and not at work either.