Perfect Nuclear Cloverleaf v3, Modular 1-4 cores book : 40-480MW, All the bells and whistles

[gGeorg]

Target
design the perfect power plant in several points of view - reliability, efficiency, easy to use, build expense, UPS and the design beauty.
Design incudes documentation of thermal balance, combinators and build expense. You might check why, or how it works, possibly find an improvement.
The blueprint book starts from 1 core power plant which could be upgraded on the same spot up to 4 cores. Blueprint design reserves the space in advance so you can start small then scale up later.
The blueprint book suits for early game by cheap start, also suits late game, as it fits into Megabase city block design(More on Nilaus's Youtube ).

The Perfect CloverLeaf book
contains 4 variants to choose from 40 / 160 / 280 / 480 MW . It is designed to be built on top of each other. When more power is needed, press Shift key and place the bigger one over an old.

It is belt based, but blueprint comes with a robo-attachment so its ready to go for bots. ( or just delete those two boxes on right top edge of blueprint and attach proper belt.)
It is friendly for pocket roboport build, so there is enough of space to let you walk inside.
It is saved with landfill, just for case.
It is compact square 56x57 = 3192 tiles
Power density is 480 MW/3192Tiles=150,4kW/tile of sustainable output

Water supply
It uses 6 ( 2x3 ) incoming water pipes from one (left) side. Each water-tube can consist up-to 200 pipe_units ( pipe_to_ground piece gives lenght up to ( (200pipes / 2 ) * 11One_section_lenght =1100 tiles ) to achieve required minimal flow per second. Make sure you dont use more pipe pieces than 200 per tube, otherwise fluid friction would limit water flow! Distance 1100 tiles to water source allows you to build plant almost anywhere. Simply attach 6 shore-pumps without additional pumping!


Perfect Activation
It autostarts. Wait till morning or until charge clock counts 200 seconds (upper right combinator area).

Perfect power output
83 turbines are producing dead straight line of 480MW in sustainable output. There is no power drop when new cell is inserted, because the cold interval is reduced to ~1 tick (usual game performance is 60 ticks per second).

Chart

Plant has 83 turbines so it can peak output at 483,6MW as long as steam reserve allows.
You can see the chart, in the beginning it produces 484MW until steam reserve is consumed then plant keep to produce sustainable output of 480MW.
There is serious reason why keep 83 turbines. A symmetrically_nice_plant with 84 turbines could consume more steam than it can produce. Result is, reserve level of stored steam reaches minimal value which triggers the new cell insert before the heat (stored in body mass) from previous cell is properly consumed. It means, after few (dozens) cycles the plant could (theoretically) reach 1000C and start waste fuel. Current design use over consuming steam 3,6MW per second, it is too low to reach overheating by common gameplay. The specific very precise timing of consumption cycles need to be kept repeating for hours of real real time to reach overheating. Although it is theoretically/mathematicaly possible, such precision for such long time can never can be achieved in any gameplay.

Blueprint size is x(56) * y(57) = 3192 tiles taken
Power density is 480 000/3192=150,4kW/tile of sustainable output

Lossless & Brownout prevention
Factorio CheatSheet says that 4 cores loss-less need 40 steam tanks. There is an inconspicuous note down-there saying : "not including heat stored in the reactor or pipes (both heat and steam). "
That note means, you actually need 2 ( y e s, t w o ) steam tanks.

Stored Heat Capacity in Details

in case fuel cells are inserted to the reactors but the plant disconnects off the grid at the moment, then all the energy have to be stored somehow. Nothing can be lost. i.e. lossless design
For designing lossless power plant, we need to know a thermal capacity of the plant. This allow as create design to hold energy of all the fuel cells. Design target is : thermal capacity off a plant have to be equal of energy of all the fuel cells inserted at once.
Include neighbour bonus we get:
1 core power plant 8 000 MJ
2 cores power plant 32 000 MJ
4 cores power plant 96 000 MJ

We store energy in heat of Cores, heat of Heat-pipes, heat of Heat-exchangers
We store energy in steam of pipes, pumps, turbines and tanks.
Here is computation of 4 cores design. Other designs in my book are estimated, not computed.

Here is the MS Excel sheet v3 for you:

Factorio_Nuclear_ThermalBalance.xlsx

(13.95 KiB) Downloaded 149 times

Now, let's keep a minute of silence for design abominations who fallowed false path of Factorio CheatSheet .
We see ( -1,5 ) steam storages are missing to reach lossless balance. So add 2 steam storages is enough to achieve a lossless plant.

Why I used 4 storages

1. Brownout prevention. When plant is re-started, all parts start at 500C. Steam is produced since 501C, but heat-pipes spread the heat by the analogue way, i.e. slowly. As you would expect , it takes time to deliver heat. Meanwhile cores are heating up the system, the plant need to consume reserve steam to prevent brownout.

Longer the heatpipes means longer the heating period therefore bigger the steam reserve is required.

For cloverleaf compact design, 12second of steam reserve is OK. This number could be computed, but difficulty to make proper table pushed me to an experimental testing. It is proven by tests that plant can output 480MW anytime, no brownouts guarantee.
2. design symmetry, allows liquid pumps deliver sustainable stream of steam reserve into turbine sections. I tried several minimalistic designs, with 2 steam tanks but I was not able to deliver stored steam fast enough to turbines. I mean, even the steam was available, it wasn't at the right place, in turbines. So for full brownout prevention is needed to store (more) steam at convenient places. Also, I find out, that steam flow must be storage > heater > pump > turbine OR heater > pump > turbine > storage. If you place the storage in the middle of the flow, it creates a "plug" for steam flow. It is because game mechanics of fluid pressure.
3. Bit more headroom on bumpy roads like unexpected steam drops when feeding coal liquification process, or fill up a train with steam tank wagons for an outpost power plant.

Fluid pump keeps turbines under pressure
Each turbine section, each leaf of the four-clover, is fed by a pump. It is for reasons:
1. turbines are under pressure so they produce 100% power to the last moment, up to the last unit of steam. There is no fade out, fade in time because of low steam level i.e. helps suppressing brownout when restarting power-plant.
2. pump allows fluid flow in one way, but no back. It means, production is separated from consumption, so no back waves and reverse waves in tubes to count i.e. UPS friendly.
3. pumps are controlled by the same signal as power-plant main switch, so they are pumping only when plant is ON i.e. UPS friendly.

Two power grids feature
when you get out of power (for some reason), you can chicken out and eventually re-start a power plant manually feeding fuel cells by hand. However, when design requires electric powered pumps to start the electric power-plant, it turns into classic Catch-22 situation.

Details

So here comes the smart design which ensures, the mission critical systems are in the separated power grid, with independent power source. Result is, the power plant is always able to auto-start up itself, without player's hand touching it.
There is also a subtlety, when combinator uses pulse read mode and is underpowered (brownout) then miscalculates. It is a intended feature by The Factorio game designer. Therefore, player receives a challenge :" make sure the combinators counting fuel don't miscalculate, ever. "

The purple highlighted is the independent internal only grid.

I used three solar panels and two accumulators (upper left corner) which is enough. If you are heading for an achievement "No_solar", feel free to replace it with a burner boiler and one steam engine.

Combinators
There are three circuitry

1. Fuel Cell Loading with Zero_cold_interval

It is located in the upper right corner.
For loading fresh fuel cells, three checks are required from top to bottom :
1. Steam level is under 20k
2. Fresh Cell is ready (at least one)
3. At least 200seconds passed since last insertion ( Factorio wiki: one time clock )
when a check is valid, then green lamp is ON.
When all three checks are valid (all three lamps are green) then each sends Check=1, then the left low decider gets signal on Input :Check=3. This value trigger the decider to send signal Output: =1 which activates all the filter inserters to feed reactors, and also it is signal to re-start one time-clock (so fuel cycle countdown is restarted).
Cycle of Fuel_cell burn is 200 seconds which translates into 12 000 ticks. There are few ticks offset on One_Time_Clock which makes all the magic for reach ZERO Cold_interval. It means, the loading inserters start inserting few ticks in advance. The inserters start moving few ticks before the old Fuel_cell is actually burned out. The loading system is timed so precise that, the new Fuel_cell is inserted to the core exactly one tick after the old one is consumed. >>> When needed, cores are ALWAYS ON, not a single tick of downtime. Note : All other feed systems suffer at least 27 ticks cold interval because they react to the status of burned Fuel_cell going out. i.e. Cold_interval do not produce heat for delay of processing logic and the fast inserter arm swing.

Modification Tip: The second check_combinator has Condition :

• > 0

It means, that plant starts with at least one cell. It is useful in case of fuel shortage or a plant first start, so it kicks start production ASAP to generate at least some power. In case your goal is pursue the total fuel efficiency, you might want change condition to

• > 3

Such setting make sure, the plant will always start all 4 cores at once.

2. Connecting power plant to grid and Wasteless

It is located in the down right corner.
The SR latch is:

• ON (Output: ) when Energy E< 40%

• OFF (Output: ) when Energy E> 80%

Power-plant can cooperate with other sources of power, like other plants or Solar&Battery fields. It uses one accumulator as sensor. It works very well in case your other power sources (include accumulator fields) can produce at least similar output to your factory consumption. Otherwise, accumulators will fluctuate quickly up&down with possible brownouts.
So,make sure :
- your accumulator fields are large enough
OR
- set the upper limit combinator of SR latch OFF (Output: ) from E> 80% to E> 100%. This makes power plant to be online always.

for further explanation of SR latch trick see Factorio Wiki - SR latch



Showcase of cooperation, with solar field. Nuclear is in ON only when needed, no waste of fuel.

3. Control amount of fuel cells inside the plant

to prevent precious U-235 sitting on your belt and doing nothing, here is nice tool which pass fresh cell for each used cell going out. In case of 1 cores It keeps 2 fresh cells inside the plant. In case of 4 cores It keeps 8 fresh cells inside the plant. It autostarts of course. Also it is properly updated when bigger version is built over smaller blueprint with click+shift.

For full advantage, check the bonus build - Fuel cell (re)processing section.

Bonus build Fuel cell (re)processing
a compact fuel cell (re)processing facility. It turns on itself only when needed and (re)produce as much fuel cells as needed. Fun to watch.

Picture+ BluePrint

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Copy blueprint

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******************************************************************************************
The Perfect Clover Leaf book
Because of size, blueprint is added as attachment

The_Perfect_Clover_Leaf_v3.txt

(81.73 KiB) Downloaded 917 times

1. download the text file
2. open in notepad, ctrl+A, ctrl+C
3. switch to game, press import blueprint button, ctrl+V, press OK
4. the power plant book is available in your library
You found an issue, improvement or just want say it works for you, let me know.
******************************************************************************************
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Archived old versions

First release

The_Perfect_Clover_Leaf.txt

(81.98 KiB) Downloaded 294 times

Version 2 released.
- cold interval reduced to zero (all other designs suffer at least 17 ticks of delay)
- it autostarts
- it is even more compact 56x57 (previously 58x58) which means power density per tile is now : 151,3 kW/tile
- it has slightly improved fluids flow so it can really peak at 488,88 as long as steam reserve allows
- better internal power grid for improved safety

Perfect_CloverLeaf_v2.txt

(82.56 KiB) Downloaded 188 times

Edit: 2.12.2021
Latest Update: Version 3 released.
- better understanding of liquid flows allowed me reduce number of Steam storage tanks from 8 to 4, ( while all the features are unharmed)
- added a lamp to each tank showing low steam status
- one turbine removed (84 to 83) to reduce overspend steam. This reduce chance of core overheating paradox from highly unlikely to impossible

[ptx0]

too many pipes.

[Zool]

I like the general idea, but 2N-designs provide much better efficiency.

[gGeorg]

I like the general idea, but 2N-designs provide much better efficiency.

Lets assume you build quite large 20cores plant for 3GW
2N design
- you need a massive lake which is very hard to find on the default maps, or you need mods to dig up terrain
- you will need tons of landfill
- you create one large fluid system in one processor thread
- wide design with lots of gaps means the power efficiency per tile is lower
- due to neighbour bonus you get 380% bonus which is only 27% higher than CloverLeaf.
CloverLeaf
- you can build nearly anywhere
- you need no landfill
- you can build it very cheap due to one core start up
- it fits to city block design
- each power plant can run in own processor thread

Althous its possible to build endless powerplant, it has many drawbacks.

[gGeorg]

too many pipes.

Thank you for response. I find a way how to save 80 pipes and make design even smaller. I hope I can handle update the first post.

[JayS]

- each power plant can run in own processor thread

Is this true? Does the game run power production in parallel? Or the fluid pipes in parallel, specifically? I thought it didn't. I suppose the updates might be simpler due to less combined pipes, but that is not an issue that is inherent to 2N designs, you could probably design a 2N so the fluids are made of smaller, separate sections that still stack.

[gGeorg]

- each power plant can run in own processor thread

Is this true? Does the game run power production in parallel? Or the fluid pipes in parallel, specifically? I thought it didn't. I suppose the updates might be simpler due to less combined pipes, but that is not an issue that is inherent to 2N designs, you could probably design a 2N so the fluids are made of smaller, separate sections that still stack.

viewtopic.php?p=535971#p535971
Thing is, heat consumes almost as much as steam. 2N design is massive system.

[JayS]

Thing is, heat consumes almost as much as steam. 2N design is massive system.

Ah, because all the reactors are connected in a 2N, does that mean they all share the same heat network? I didn't know that. I thought the heat network starts at the heat pipes, but they also connect through the reactors?

[gGeorg]

Thing is, heat consumes almost as much as steam. 2N design is massive system.

Ah, because all the reactors are connected in a 2N, does that mean they all share the same heat network? I didn't know that. I thought the heat network starts at the heat pipes, but they also connect through the reactors?

Sure. You dont need to connect every core by a heat pipe to get heat out. Check the graphics, the core is built on the grid of heatpipes.

[foamy]

I like the general idea, but 2N-designs provide much better efficiency.

Lets assume you build quite large 20cores plant for 3GW
2N design
- you need a massive lake which is very hard to find on the default maps, or you need mods to dig up terrain
- you will need tons of landfill
- you create one large fluid system in one processor thread
- wide design with lots of gaps means the power efficiency per tile is lower
- due to neighbour bonus you get 380% bonus which is only 27% higher than CloverLeaf.
CloverLeaf
- you can build nearly anywhere
- you need no landfill
- you can build it very cheap due to one core start up
- it fits to city block design
- each power plant can run in own processor thread

Althous its possible to build endless powerplant, it has many drawbacks.

Hang on, what gaps are you talking about in a 2N design? For that matter, how big a lake do you think you need? Sure, you need lots of landfill if you're doing it in a big lake, but all you really need is a lake that's twelve-to-fourteen tiles or so wide. That's pretty narrow.

[SoShootMe]

2N design
- you need a massive lake which is very hard to find on the default maps, or you need mods to dig up terrain
- you will need tons of landfill
- you create one large fluid system in one processor thread
- wide design with lots of gaps means the power efficiency per tile is lower
- due to neighbour bonus you get 380% bonus which is only 27% higher than CloverLeaf.
CloverLeaf
- you can build nearly anywhere
- you need no landfill
- you can build it very cheap due to one core start up
- it fits to city block design
- each power plant can run in own processor thread

Hang on, what gaps are you talking about in a 2N design?

I think significant gaps are unavoidable with 2N designs where each tile contains two reactors. But more reactors per tile can reduce this.

For that matter, how big a lake do you think you need? Sure, you need lots of landfill if you're doing it in a big lake, but all you really need is a lake that's twelve-to-fourteen tiles or so wide. That's pretty narrow.

I assume you're thinking of 2N designs with embedded offshore pumps near the reactors. Assuming no mod to dig up terrain, to be more accurate, what you are saying is that you need a lake that can contain a rectangle of size 5Nx12 or 5Nx14.

A 2N design only makes sense if N is large, and while I don't think it is particularly hard to find a suitable lake for a 2N design generating a few tens of GW with default map settings, such a lake will typically be much wider and you must landfill not only almost all the rectangle (leaving holes for the offshore pumps) but also a significant amount on one or both sides.

Personally (each to their own as always), I like to broadly fit the terrain, so I see "build nearly anywhere" and "no landfill" as significant benefits, and designs like this are of interest (thanks for sharing, gGeorg).

[gGeorg]

2N design
- wide design with lots of gaps means the power efficiency per tile is lower

Hang on, what gaps are you talking about in a 2N design?

My design is:
x(58) * y(58) = z(3364) tiles taken
2N design uses:
x(10) * y() = z() tiles taken
10 is size of two cores. Input y compute z then you will see what I mean gaps. Space per power output.

[gGeorg]

2N design
- you need a massive lake which is very hard to find on the default maps, or you need mods to dig up terrain

For that matter, how big a lake do you think you need? Sure, you need lots of landfill if you're doing it in a big lake, but all you really need is a lake that's twelve-to-fourteen tiles or so wide. That's pretty narrow.

I assume you're thinking of 2N designs with embedded offshore pumps near the reactors. Assuming no mod to dig up terrain, to be more accurate, what you are saying is that you need a lake that can contain a rectangle of size 5Nx12 or 5Nx14.

A 2N design only makes sense if N is large, and while I don't think it is particularly hard to find a suitable lake for a 2N design generating a few tens of GW with default map settings, such a lake will typically be much wider and you must landfill not only almost all the rectangle (leaving holes for the offshore pumps) but also a significant amount on one or both sides.

Right, I forgot the narrow design. Anyway as SoShootMe say it is still a hassle.

[foamy]

2N design
- wide design with lots of gaps means the power efficiency per tile is lower

Hang on, what gaps are you talking about in a 2N design?

My design is:
x(58) * y(58) = z(3364) tiles taken
2N design uses:
x(10) * y() = z() tiles taken
10 is size of two cores. Input y compute z then you will see what I mean gaps. Space per power output.

I'm afraid I still don't understand what you're meaning. A 2N design should beat out your cloverleaf significantly on a power-per-tile basis; there's a lot of dead space in the corners of your layout, for example.

My 2N layout is 302 tiles wide; at the tileable length of 14 reactors, it occupies 71 tiles in the other dimension (the 1 excess is shared when tiled). That gives a total area of 21,442 tiles. 28 reactors in a 2N layout is 4320MW, so that's a power density of ~200kW/tile. Yours is ~142kW/tile.

[gGeorg]

My design is:
x(58) * y(58) = z(3364) tiles taken

My 2N layout is 302 tiles wide; at the tileable length of 14 reactors, it occupies 71 tiles in the other dimension (the 1 excess is shared when tiled). That gives a total area of 21,442 tiles. 28 reactors in a 2N layout is 4320MW, so that's a power density of ~200kW/tile. Yours is ~142kW/tile.

mine is 483,06/3364=143,6kW/tile of sustainable output
so it is your 2N is 302 * 10 = 3020 tiles vs mine 3364
hmm. I could remove the fence and make one side more compressed so I get 57 * 55 = 3135 which gives 154kW/tile
Beauty of design would suffer, thou.

Well are yo sure the planed and real output of your design is the same?
I have watched Nilaus recently, he made an impressive 2N design but failed to deliver 100% efficiency because of fluid flow.
Is your design losseless, can switch off the grid and start up without outside power?
Can you post the B-print ?

[foamy]

My design is:
x(58) * y(58) = z(3364) tiles taken

My 2N layout is 302 tiles wide; at the tileable length of 14 reactors, it occupies 71 tiles in the other dimension (the 1 excess is shared when tiled). That gives a total area of 21,442 tiles. 28 reactors in a 2N layout is 4320MW, so that's a power density of ~200kW/tile. Yours is ~142kW/tile.

mine is 483,06/3364=143,6kW/tile of sustainable output
so it is your 2N is 302 * 10 = 3020 tiles vs mine 3364
hmm. I could remove the fence and make one side more compressed so I get 57 * 55 = 3135 which gives 154kW/tile
Beauty of design would suffer, thou.

Well are yo sure the planed and real output of your design is the same?
I have watched Nilaus recently, he made an impressive 2N design but failed to deliver 100% efficiency because of fluid flow.
Is your design losseless, can switch off the grid and start up without outside power?
Can you post the B-print ?

It's actually on this very forum, and yes, I'm quite confident it can run at 100% (well -- nearly. There's a few ticks of delay potentially caused by circuit lag) output because I've tested it to do so. Like any nuclear reactor it needs some external power to boot up the inserters, but beyond that, no; it uses no pumps, so it only requires power to actually add and remove the fuel cells themselves. The inserters are wired to a separate power grid which you can render uninterruptible using the method of your choice -- solar, reserving some of the nuclear output, whatever.

Grant you, it's also not bot-friendly; belt-fed only.


(Note: Since I posted the print I came up with a much cleaner and more reliable way to time the fuel insertion for the reactors, but it reduces uptime marginally, by the time of one fast-inserter swing per fuel-cell cycle. I consider this acceptable)

As for losslessness, it can be made to be lossless if you really want; I explicitly included enough buffer capacity in the heat pipes to allow for it. My approach to that was to build a pilot reactor to measure steam throughput, and from there work out how hard the main reactor was working, and consequently when it needed to have fuel inserted. It's only worth it if you're building large, though.

[gGeorg]

It's actually on this very forum, and yes, I'm quite confident it can run at 100% (well -- nearly. There's a few ticks of delay potentially caused by circuit lag) output because I've tested it to do so.

800turbines times 5,82MW gives 4654MW but your output is 4,3GW. e.g. 300MW about 6% of capacity surplus for spikes. it s ok. Capacity for 28 cores is reached pumpless, it is a good achievement.

Like any nuclear reactor it needs some external power to boot up the inserters, but beyond that, no; it uses no pumps, so it only requires power to actually add and remove the fuel cells themselves. The inserters are wired to a separate power grid which you can render uninterruptible using the method of your choice -- solar, reserving some of the nuclear output, whatever.

so dual griid safety feature it is not included in blueprint.

As for losslessness, it can be made to be lossless if you really want; I explicitly included enough buffer capacity in the heat pipes to allow for it.

so losseless is not included in blueprint. As you ususaly set power plant with at least 20% surplus power for spikes, means you are losing at least this amount of efficiency.
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Summary, your blueprint in real usage loosing at least 20% off its paper efficiency. Also, when you count power per tile density, you forgot to add tiles with logic & feeding. I think, for tile per watt efficiency fair metric should be used number of landfills used in blueprint. Assume flat terrain optimised for walking.
I can admit, usage of heat-pipes as storage for energy is smart. It is a seriously more expensive than steam tanks but for UPS it could be better. Dont know for sure thou.

[foamy]

It's actually on this very forum, and yes, I'm quite confident it can run at 100% (well -- nearly. There's a few ticks of delay potentially caused by circuit lag) output because I've tested it to do so.

800turbines times 5,82MW gives 4654MW but your output is 4,3GW. e.g. 300MW about 6% of capacity surplus for spikes. it s ok. Capacity for 28 cores is reached pumpless, it is a good achievement.

Like any nuclear reactor it needs some external power to boot up the inserters, but beyond that, no; it uses no pumps, so it only requires power to actually add and remove the fuel cells themselves. The inserters are wired to a separate power grid which you can render uninterruptible using the method of your choice -- solar, reserving some of the nuclear output, whatever.

so dual griid safety feature it is not included in blueprint.

It is -- the grids are explicitly separated. I left it up to the implementer to decide how to provide the boot power. My own practice was to hook into one of the turbines of the main reactor and use some circuitry to mode-switch whether that contributed to the main grid (normal operation) or was reserved for the reactor itself. Works fine if you have a reasonable capacitor bank on the main grid, say from a supplemental solar installation or something. Or, for powering from a dedicated solar array, an accumulator for every six and a half fast inserters (to cover the peak load of everything swinging at once), or roughly one per two reactors.

That's an additional four tiles for the accumulator added to the 302*5 of a reactor column, which is pretty trivial -- about 0.2% of the footprint of the reactor itself.

The actual energy used by a fast inserter swing, however, is around 20kJ. Consequently, each inserter, over a reactor cycle, has an average power drain of 500W (constant) + 20kJ/200s (swing), which is 600W on average. That means a single solar panel, which averages 42kW over a day, can drive ~70 fast inserters, or (since I use three inserters per reactor), approximately 23 reactors. 9/302*5*23/2= 0.05% of the reactor footprint.

These are trivial numbers that won't materially affect the efficiency figure, even if included.

As for losslessness, it can be made to be lossless if you really want; I explicitly included enough buffer capacity in the heat pipes to allow for it.

so losseless is not included in blueprint. As you ususaly set power plant with at least 20% surplus power for spikes, means you are losing at least this amount of efficiency.
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Summary, your blueprint in real usage loosing at least 20% off its paper efficiency. Also, when you count power per tile density, you forgot to add tiles with logic & feeding. I think, for tile per watt efficiency fair metric should be used number of landfills used in blueprint. Assume flat terrain optimised for walking.
I can admit, usage of heat-pipes as storage for energy is smart. It is a seriously more expensive than steam tanks but for UPS it could be better. Dont know for sure thou.

I mean, if you're not running it to full utilization, obviously you don't get full power out of it, but the figure I quoted is for the maximum sustained power output -- from the reactors, the 4.3MW you can see in the power graph (it's actually 4340MW, mathematically, but the ingame display isn't precise enough to show that). But that's true of any power source and is irrelevant.

What I think you're saying, though, is that without additional stuff, the reactor will throw away energy by maxing out the cores before the fuel cells are fully consumed. And that's certainly a possibility, if no additional circuitry or controls are added. The reactor is built to allow those to be added, though. I have the bits for it posted in various places on the forum, but the fundamental piece is that they're fixed footprint costs -- and fairly small ones -- that are then amortized over the whole reactor array.

For example, the simple timing restriction can be done in a single combinator (more efficient and robust than the clocked version circuit-wise, although slightly laggier input wise; you lose one inserter swing's worth of reactor time in between each reactor cycle). Obviously, two tiles isn't a large price to pay for that.

Monitoring the buffer is a bit trickier, but can again be done in constant-space, and has some benefits over using tanks to do so to boot. It keys on the fact that all turbines on the same grid will experience the same proportional draw, so if you can measure the flow rate into one you know exactly what the loading is on all of them. And from there you can work out how much of a fuel cell's worth of energy has been consumed since the last one was inserted, and whether a new one needs to be added.

Because of this, you can insert fuel cells while all your heat exchangers are still producing and cut response lag to demand increases to the absolute minimum. This means that a sudden drop to null draw could result in some waste, since you're not actually fully draining the buffer, so some additional circuitry to catch that event and account for it in the buffer math is a good idea. But that's an unusual event in an actual working reactor; here's a half-hour's worth of tracking in a 1kSPM factory that the array (doubled) is powering. There's some supplemental solar and a lot of power-switching to disable beacons, so it's swingier than some people's just-run-everything-all-the-time approaches would be, even:

[gGeorg]

I left it up to the implementer to decide how to provide the boot power. My own practice was to hook into one of the turbines of the main reactor and use some circuitry to mode-switch whether that contributed to the main grid (normal operation) or was reserved for the reactor itself.

The perfect powerplant is perfect. That is the target. Find the solution and implement it. In the implementation might be errors, or ineficiency and it takes sapece which again change the tile per watt density. BTW your suggestion to hook up a single turbine as source of independent grid means it is not independent. In case of issues it will fail. Yoour sggestion is like make a backup of your data in the same hard drive.

What I think you're saying, though, is that without additional stuff, the reactor will throw away energy by maxing out the cores before the fuel cells are fully consumed. And that's certainly a possibility, if no additional circuitry or controls are added. The reactor is built to allow those to be added, though.

Any build allows to add anything. Design you made waste fuel and is not losseles.

Monitoring the buffer is a bit trickier, And from there you can work out how much of a fuel cell's worth of energy has been consumed since the last one was inserted, and whether a new one needs to be added.

every design detail can be tricky. That is why I am curious when you are saying my design is better because power density, but it is only one parameter of perfect design. You omit safety, you omit efficiency, you omit initial expense, you omit even part of design to get smaller footprint when counting power density. I like theory crafting and design review, I am looking forward to your improved perfect 2N design. BTW I am working on laser defence wall with very low drain. Wen we finish power plant compettion, we can do next

[foamy]

I left it up to the implementer to decide how to provide the boot power. My own practice was to hook into one of the turbines of the main reactor and use some circuitry to mode-switch whether that contributed to the main grid (normal operation) or was reserved for the reactor itself.

The perfect powerplant is perfect. That is the target. Find the solution and implement it. In the implementation might be errors, or ineficiency and it takes sapece which again change the tile per watt density. BTW your suggestion to hook up a single turbine as source of independent grid means it is not independent. In case of issues it will fail. Yoour sggestion is like make a backup of your data in the same hard drive.

What I think you're saying, though, is that without additional stuff, the reactor will throw away energy by maxing out the cores before the fuel cells are fully consumed. And that's certainly a possibility, if no additional circuitry or controls are added. The reactor is built to allow those to be added, though.

Any build allows to add anything. Design you made waste fuel and is not losseles.

Monitoring the buffer is a bit trickier, And from there you can work out how much of a fuel cell's worth of energy has been consumed since the last one was inserted, and whether a new one needs to be added.

every design detail can be tricky. That is why I am curious when you are saying my design is better because power density, but it is only one parameter of perfect design. You omit safety, you omit efficiency, you omit initial expense, you omit even part of design to get smaller footprint when counting power density. I like theory crafting and design review, I am looking forward to your improved perfect 2N design. BTW I am working on laser defence wall with very low drain. Wen we finish power plant compettion, we can do next

I chose not to include unnecessary things, but left open the ability for those things to be trivially added later by making sure the main reactor works. The only circumstance in which the reactor fails, with the correct control circuitry, whose cost is negligible over the size of the array -- and I've checked this by running it at beyond-maximum capacity -- is a complete cessation of fuel cell feed, something any reactor is vulnerable to. It is inherently far less vulnerable to a brownout spiral, because it uses no pumps; only a full blackout could take out the inserters even if they were not on a uninterruptible power source, and if they are then the reactor will always provide uninterrupted power. You can lock the two together with some accumulators and never, ever need to worry about supplying power. Again, the footprint cost of this is 0.25%. That's one part in 400; it is literally a rounding error.

This is the entire steam flow monitoring setup:

viewtopic.php?p=525807#p525807


The footprint of the circuitry to make use of it is negligible. I guess if your objection is that it isn't an all-in-one blueprint, fine, it isn't, but the actual impact on the power density is non-existent.