Posts by Omicron

If you have a mod with logic gates, such as any Redpower replacement as suggested by Korlus, you can do a nice compact thing with a toggle latch. If you only have vanilla redstone at your disposal to build a handmade toggle latch, I wouldn't bother - those things can get pretty large (think 5x5 redstone circuit).

Set your MFSU to "emit if partially filled". Patch the signal through a NOT gate to invert it. You now have a setup that delivers a high signal whenever the MFSU is empty OR whenever it is full. The toggle latch is a special circuit that toggles its state back and forth everytime it receives a high signal. Can you guess where this is going?

Connect your signal from the NOT gate to the toggle latch, and connect the output of the toggle latch to the reactor. Now you must prime the system: make sure the MFSU is partially filled, so that the NOT gate sends a low signal and the latch is dormant. Then toggle the latch manually, for example by placing a redstone torch next to the wire between the NOT gate and the latch. Just one quick pulse is enough, then you can (and must) take the torch away again. You will see the latch toggle to high, and your reactor will start running.

It will keep running until the MFSU is full. Then the MFSU stops emitting, the NOT gate inverts that to high, which toggles the latch, which turns off the reactor. Then the MFSU maybe stays full for a while, or maybe it starts draining immediately, it doesn't matter. What matters is that at some point, the MFSU is no longer full, therefore drops back into its "partially filled" status and emits redstone. The NOT gate inverts that to low, which takes the signal off of the latch, making it ready to receive the next high pulse. That comes when the MFSU is completely empty, and thus no longer "partially filled", which has exactly the same effect as when it was completely full. Again the latch is toggled into the other state, this time turning the reactor back on.

As long as no wayward redstone signal interferes with the MFSU, the reactor or the line in between, this system will stay perfectly self-regulating for all eternity, and you don't need an expensive second MFSU to make the redstone logic work. However, beware of one corner case: if the reactor is on, and runs out of fuel, and the partially filled MFSU also reaches completely empty before you replace the fuel rods, then the system will toggle itself permanently off. You will need to prime it again as you did when you first constructed it.

Snahsnah, if you run your second design at a 4.75 multiplier, that essentially turns it into an efficiency 20, 1000 EU/t reactor with a running cost of 4 copper, 2 iron per cycle. This is not very far away from Voltara's six-chamber, efficiency 19, 950 EU/t design with 2 copper, 1 iron running cost per cycle... except that Voltara's design is heat stable for all eternity. Admittedly, yours can be built without diamonds, but given the tricky operation I'm still debating if that alone is reason enough to put it on the list.

I do like the design principle with the reactor exchangers, though. As a pure uranium reactor, this is definitely among the better ones I've seen. I don't think Requia has an efficiency 4,2 quad-chamber in the official list.

The first one... well, at 4.75 multiplier you get 33.25 efficiency and 665 EU/t versus a combined running cost of 64 coal, 64 tin, 38 copper and 1 iron per cycle. Considering what IC2 lets you do with coal, you're basically paying a running cost of 1 diamond per cycle, plus the full stack of tin and more than half a stack of copper. The efficiency is nice, but the running cost is really painful. With a single MFSU now costing 40 diamonds, your coal is definitely better invested in that direction, because when in doubt, reactor fuel is much easier to get in bulk. An extremely high efficiency design such as this only makes sense in an environment where you really only have a tiny amount of reactor fuel to work with.

Quote from Elvi

(...) i've been searching for a reactor that can output around 400eu/t with no external cooling and as efficient as possible, the 420eu/t reactor in the reactor thread isn't very efficient with it's 7 quad rods scatered around.

Welcome to the forums! And thank you so much for actually reading the sticky thread, you have no idea how rare that is

Simplified, nuclear reactor design boils down to the following: "Efficiency, Output, Low Heat - pick two". This is because heat output of fuel rods does not just scale lineraly with output... it also scales exponentially with efficiency. The more efficient your reactor becomes, the less fuel rods you will be able to insert, because at high efficiency each fuel rod will run searing hot. For the same reason, the higher output your reactor has, the further you need to step back on efficiency in order to still keep up with cooling. That is the reason why the 420 EU/t reactor has only efficiency 3 and places all of its fuel rods so that they do not touch each other - anything else would be utterly uncoolable.

You're not getting efficiency 5 with 400 EU/t output on internal cooling. It's physically impossible, there's just not enough slots for cooling components to move 960 heat. Unless, of course, you use MOX fuel. But that requires that you first run a large amount of uranium through a normal reactor in order to produce plutonium from depleted rods, so that's likely not an option for you right now

Quote from Elvi

Right now i'm building up a multipart reactor system, started out with 4 180eu/t 1 chamber reactors i found in that thread, sure i could use that and make multiple layers but the more reactors the more uranium it eats up (...)

That would be a misconception. The only thing that governs how much uranium is eaten up is efficiency. Nothing else matters. Four reactors producing 100 EU/t at efficiency 3 will consume exactly as much uranium as one single reactor producing 400 EU/t at efficiency 3.

Therefore, the solution to your request for 400 EU/t at high efficiency is indeed multiple reactors. Build two of these, for instance, and you will have 560 EU/t with efficiency 4.67.

The process isn't as dangerous as it sounds, because you can get pretty precise. Using one single cell, you can heat a reactor in 0.02% steps - two heat units per second out of 10,000. That's so little, you wouldn't even get cited for driving with that amount of alcohol in your blood.

All posted MOX designs here work fine and safe with regular uranium, albeit at 1/5 the EU/t and efficiency (since they don't get the MOX multiplier).

Alternatively, Requia's stickyed reactor designs thread in this subforum has a large number of good uranium designs, including 0-chambers.

As an addition:
You can see the reactor heat level directly in the GUI nowadays, in the form of a colored bar. It starts green and gradually grows red. If the bar maxes out, your reactor explodes. If you have Nuclear Control installed, the information panels combined with remote sensor kits can show you the exact temperature numbers (and more). Rightclick a remote sensor on the reactor to receive a card which can be inserted into an info panel.

The reactor will spawn fires, but if there is no block that's actually flammable, the fire will simply hang around a bit and then die out. Reinforced stone is not flamamble, IC2 cables are not flammable, the reactor itself is not flammable... technically, the only thing unsafe about that reactor is the fact that it could set you on fire. But with a reactor that hot (and the radiation poisining from the fuel rods) you're going to be wearing a hazmat suit anyway.

If the constant fires annoy you, encase the reactor in something. Water should work, but you can also use glass blocks or anything else that isn't flammable.

Not entirely convinced by the concept of microcycle MOX reactors, especially ones using overclocked vents. Almost all designs involving OC vents will see them melting when running at temperatures above 0, even if the design is perfectly stable at 0. The reactor planner may show them surviving one microcylce, but it needs to survive ALL microcycles to be useful. And that can be fairly tricky if the active period lasts up to 25 times as long as the inactive one. Personally I'd feel very uncomfortable running one of these anywhere near my base.

Also note: you won't get the full x5 multiplier because you're never actually at maximum heat (the automated temperature control will switch off when you get close). So the EU/t and efficiency you get out of them will be less than what you calculate.

Then there's the issue with on-demand power generation. These designs aren't heat stable, meaning that if you don't continuously run them, they will cool down to 0 eventually. This introduces a re-heating period everytime you need a bit of power, and depending on how much or how little you need and the heat profile of the reactor, you might never be running above 10 or 20 percent heat. And that utterly kills your output and efficiency. And even if it's on all the time, it needs complete and full automation of fuel rod replacement, because running out of fuel also makes it lose all of its heat in short order.

Also keep running costs in mind. If you place reflectors against quad cells, they will degrade twice as fast as if you put them against dual cells. So your first suggestion actually eats two full thick reflectors every cycle. Obviously the boost is also bigger, but it's starting to get quite expensive.

Finally, the reflector-less variant can be improved with 8 extra cooling power by rotating the fuel rod setup by 90 degrees and adding a reactor heat exchanger like so: http://www.talonfiremage.pwp.b…edavrsyoxwh53u2ssfs0erwn4

After my computer auto-updated to 7u51, I was unable to open the reactor planner at the default security level. I had to go to control panel -> java and manuall adjust the security level defined there.

But as a quick answer to the questions posed: yes, existing uranium designs still work. No, breeders do not work anymore, the whole depleted cell mechanic got scrapped. You now process depleted fuel rods in a thermal centrifuge to extract plutonium. Through using both uranium fuel and MOX fuel, you ultimately convert all your uranium ore into pure plutonium, which ends up being your "nuclear waste". However you can still put it to work in a radioisotope generator, which will produce a low amount of EU/t free, forever.

NEI should answer 99% of your questions as to "how" and "where".

MOX fuel is temperature sensitive. The closer percentage-wise to maximum heat you are, the bigger your EU output will be, without increasing the reactor's heat output (so yes, you can run stable at 99%). The maximum multiplier is x5 over a comparable uranium design. However, the fact that you want a high persistent heat level requires special considerations when designing the cooling system. I have a thread in this subforum which lists a number of good MOX designs.

That is actually not correct, regardless of font size.

A regular generator will happily waste fuel because as soon as you ask it to start burning a unit of coal (worth 4000 EU), then it burns that unit of coal completely, no matter if the energy is needed or not. So you could technically have a recycler connected to you energy network, throw in one item for 45 EU recycling cost, and waste an entire 4000 EU piece of coal. Provided you only have one generator. Multiple ones might all light up at the same time if the storage unit sends a 32 EU packet. Up to 32 generators can start burning a new piece of coal then.

None of the other generators works this way though. A geothermal will always output a maximum of 20 EU/t, regardless of whether it has its internal buffer filled or not. The generator works the same. Meanwhile, the renewables and the reactor don't have internal buffers in the first place.

The RTG is the odd one out in the pack, and it might be unintended behavior.

The dev response to this suggestion is currently in a quantum state. Nobody can make a statement about it unless it is observed first

My suggestion to the team regarding the e-net is simply:

"Just do it now."

I know Player has a good idea of where he wants to end up with it, and I do not understand why he doesn't make it the center focus of development. The e-net is such an important part of IC2 that having it fully featured is the biggest thing the Experimental branch needs. Not advanced miners or iridium drills or unreasonably expensive energium dust. We need the e-net. Everything else can come after it.

Of course, if the team is waiting for 1.7 because it's one of those features that require a full rewrite no matter what, then I can understand that. It's still not ideal, but it would be unreasonable to expect a futile effort.

Quote from Voltara

I made this reactor design interested in feedback.
http://www.talonfiremage.pwp.b…y0l0lw1hr2w96hgicakxr4m4g

It has 19 eff, 950eu/t and uses 10 mox/run.
Not the highest power possible and very close to, but not quite, the most efficient (without reflectors) but its a decent balance of both for people running a 6 chamber reactor.
Let me know what you think

I like it. Looks like you're riding the absolute threshold of how much heat can be moved away from a tightly clustered cell configuration. I'll add this to the list once I get back home and can access my price calculation spreadsheet.

Quote from alis990

Its my best project of reactor. It makes 360 EU/t and do not blow up
I named it "R17M4"

http://www.talonfiremage.pwp.blueyonder.…wfmmdwgpa5a2c7o

Well, if nothing else, this is an acceptable design for producing a lot of plutonium really fast, at the cost of grossly wasting all your uranium. I suppose if you play PvP and need the biggest nuke the fastest possible way...

However, for uranium designs you probably want the other thread. This one is not about uranium reactors. And no, your design will not work with MOX.

Quote from alis990

This project allows you to leave the reactor running without having to worry that you will have a hole in the ground. In addition, the EU produces 72,000,000 in the process. The other projects did not exceed 50,000,000.

The heat makes a difference only if you are using Quad Fuel.

I know it's inefficient if you all time take care of it, but if you wish leave reactor alone, you need save project.

If you need big effi and need save try this:
http://www.talonfiremage.pwp.blueyonder.…948w042ihnhwbnk

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...and neither will this. It's just bad, regardless of which fuel type you use.

I'll give you the same advice I repeat to everyone new to reactors: Try your design out in a legit survival world first, for at least one full cycle, and monitor closely how it behaves (ideally with a remote sensor kit). You will quickly notice severe issues that the reactor planner will never show you. That's why I can instantly spot any "theory only" design I come across - it takes more than just making some reactor planner numbers look fancy to make a practical design

Quote from Chocohead

Slightly more expensive (1 diamond instead of none) but doesn't loose heat: http://www.talonfiremage.pwp.b…r3oepvu0d8x1vrioqa74tbls0

Why is not losing heat important? Even heat-neutral, this will never stay stable above zero heat, as almost all designs with OC vents do. I'd rather remove the unnecessary exchanger in the second to last row, like so.

I don't have access to my IC2 Experimental reactor component cost spreadsheet right now, but instinctively I'd favor Karatemango's design over OndraSter's. All other things being equal and price being likely very similar, the latter has a (minor) running cost.

It's still notable for its very high output - beats every other system on the list in that regard, even the six-chambers. Some people like going for output, and it's an option in that case.

That's certainly a very unconventional design, good job thinking outside the box. If you heat it up all the way to 9990 degrees, you should be getting 1300 EU/t at efficiency 14.45.

Highest output I have seen so far on internal cooling alone, but efficiency is among the lowest. That's to be expected though, since you can only trade off one for the other if you are limited in how much cooling you have.

If you're looking for other designs, have a look here.

Quote from MagusUnion

Better question is why is it a big deal when someone disagrees with a feature?

It's not about your opinion. It's about the way you choose to express it. The anonymity of the internet does not legitimate unacceptable social behavior; it merely removes consequences. The fact that you seem surprised about negative backlash indicates that you have not understood how this is relevant to online social interactions.

*Alpha