Nuclear Power - Reactors cooling on their own

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SightedNZ
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Nuclear Power - Reactors cooling on their own

Post by SightedNZ »

Hi there,

I'm playing a map with a lot of nuclear power plants to the point where I have a maximum capacity of somewhere around 80GW.

I've come across a strange issue though and I'm not sure if it's some sort of game limitation.
When my factory starts to draw enough power that it's closing on the theoretical output capacity of my power station setups, the reactors start cooling down which results in steam turbines shutting down. This happens to every single nuclear reactor on the map and they all cool down at the same rate, at the same time.

The only way I can get around this and get them back up to 999 degrees is to plop down more plants.

Is this behavior by design? I would have thought that when my maximum output got reached, the reactors would remain at their max temperature and the steam turbines would all be running at capacity.

Please note that I'm playing a game which runs the Bob's power mod and nuclear is the sole source of power for the factory.

DaleStan
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Re: Nuclear Power - Reactors cooling on their own

Post by DaleStan »

I suspect your heat exchangers and steam turbines can draw more power than your nuclear plants can produce. How many of each do you have, and what arrangement are your plants in? (Screenshots would probably be helpful here.)

Unless you're using MK1s, Bob's has different ratios of plant:exchanger:turbine than stock.

bobucles
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Re: Nuclear Power - Reactors cooling on their own

Post by bobucles »

Sounds like your ratios are off. Reactors produce 40MW per core and an additional 80MW per adjacency line. A 2x2 produces 480MW and every pair of reactors tacked on the end is another 320MW. That's the true limit of your nuclear design.

Nuclear components work at full strength down to ~500C and a smart reactor typically operates from 600-700C. Losing a little heat isn't a problem as long as it reaches an equilibrium point.

zOldBulldog
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Re: Nuclear Power - Reactors cooling on their own

Post by zOldBulldog »

I would suggest going to factorioprints.com, set the filter to "Most Favorited", then enter "Nuclear" in the search box.

You will get the most popular nuclear designs. Test implement them, and study them. That should give you great ideas about how to design your own in an effective way.

Also, I think Katherine Sky has a good Nuclear tutorial in youtube, discussing many of the principles. There are quite a few of other tutorials that will help you understand the math involved in making a good nuclear plant.

If memory serves, 8 reactor plants generate a lot of power (about 480GW or something in that range?) but two 4 reactor plants give only about 17% less power and have a much easier "find a good spot for" form factor.

Zavian
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Re: Nuclear Power - Reactors cooling on their own

Post by Zavian »

@zOldBulldog Doing that will get him plenty of blueprints for vanilla, but he is playing with Bob's power.

SightedNZ
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Re: Nuclear Power - Reactors cooling on their own

Post by SightedNZ »

I am using a vanilla design that's been upgraded with Bob's components. The design uses 6 reactors per plant for the adjacency bonus so yeah, my ratios are likely off.

Just so that I understand the mechanic, are the reactors cooling down because the heat exchangers are drawing more heat than the reactors can provide? It's the only explanation for the behavior I can think of.

DaleStan
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Re: Nuclear Power - Reactors cooling on their own

Post by DaleStan »

Then yes, that's what's happening. MK1 exchangers and turbines are the same as stock, and it takes 80 to consume that heat, and 138 turbines to consume the steam. But if you're using MK3 exchangers and turbines in your plants, those 80 exchangers can consume 1760MW of heat, and they'll draw that until they cool the heat pipes to 750C or run out of space to put the steam.

Mathy ramble follows:

800MW can be consumed by 37 MK3 exchangers and 51 MK3 turbines. Those numbers make the reactors the limiting factor. Remove an exchanger to make them the limiting factor (792MW) and also remove a turbine to make turbines the limiting factor (790MW). But do pay attention to your peak loads. As long as you have steam in your buffers, you can service 218GW peaks. (After that, it drops to 176GW until you run out of buffered heat.) This is nearly triple (and over double) your maximum long-term load. If you're using a lot of robots (excluding the fusion-powered bots), and they tend to sleep for a long time and then all charge all in one huge clump, this might be what you need. If you aren't using (many) bots, 6/37/51 is probably the correct choice. The largest peak you can service is only 80.5 GW, which is fine for most things, but risks brown-outs if you have a couple thousand bots charging all at the same time.

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