Friday Facts #167 - Reactors Operational

[Veylon]

Hey just wanted to offer some quick feed back in regards to the broken decorative train tracks.

I am not so worried about the [why are there so many train tracks already here?], but I fee like individually, specifically, the way the metal rails are bent outward make it look like the whole line was carpet bombed, so much of the rails have been blown and bent outward so often. I feel like it should take considerable force to blast the rails bent so far, rather than simple decay. At least for how often in the example it appears.

That's all!

For gameplay reasons, it has to be obvious at a glance that they are broken, similar to how the machines and belts get turned to out-and-out rubble instead of merely non-functioning husks that might not stand out to the player. The bombed-to-hell look may be unrealistic, but it's a necessary abstraction.

[vipm23]

Gertibrumm, would you mind if I made a suggestion thread for the boiler-furnace idea? I have a prompt written up and everything.

[Aardwolf]

Very excited about nuclear power

I wonder one thing: the current boilers, those made bigger here, are those for coal right?

What do they have to do with nuclear power? They're for coal... the nuclear plant should heat up steam right in its reactor, in a closed water circuit (because it's radioactive), which in turn gets cooled down by a second water system. The steam heated up in the reactor should definitely not leave the closed system.

Thanks for explaining

[MalcolmCooks]

I wonder one thing: the current boilers, those made bigger here, are those for coal right?

What do they have to do with nuclear power? They're for coal... the nuclear plant should heat up steam right in its reactor, in a closed water circuit (because it's radioactive), which in turn heats up a second water system.

The new boilers double-up as both fuelled boilers and as the second water system. The reactors and heat pipes make up the primary heat circuit. So the boilers can operate from fuel like they do now, or they can operate by recieving heat from a reactor through the heat pipes.

[Mehve]

Yeah, I had to stare at the pictures for a little bit to get my head around the apparent dual-purpose design of these new boilers. The idea of just "heat" being transferred (rather than referring to a heated medium such as steam) feels odd, but since the reactor seems to input nothing but the nuclear fuel, there's no reason to think a heated medium is outputted, so it winds up feeling like a process step has been left out. The idea of a combustion boiler also acting as a heat exchanger for an external source of heat feels un-intuitive as well. Logically, I realize that's what a boiler IS, but you still expect each type of operation to deserve it's own name?

Intuitively, I guess I would have expected the nuclear reactor to act as a large boiler itself, taking in water, outputting steam. Or at least connecting to something besides the old device which has been taking in combustion fuel until now.

[MalcolmCooks]

I think they are just using the idea of heat pipes in lieu of coming up with an actual heat-exchange fluid, which could be any one of a number of things.

[bk5115545]

I'm really for having the reactor being a 6x6 building. I also like the tmp artwork. Thinking of making a mod that generates artwork like that if it would increase performance of mega bases.

The picture on the first page makes it seem like the designs could quickly become a lot more complex.

[mrblob197]

Please. If you want change the size of boilers then make them a different item/entity and keep existing 1x1 boilers as a legacy item and block its recipe instead of replacing boilers like it was with turrets and breaking existing setups. So the transition within current saves would be smooth since power supply is a critical point of the entire base.

Amen !!

[Mendel]

Is there a reason why I should use nuclear instead of solar?

[malfunctionm1ke]

Is there a reason why I should use nuclear instead of solar?

Less space needed, more puzzling and more explosions.

[Sigma1]

I got a few things to say about 0.15:
1. I hope there will be a cooling tower for the reactors to get that iconic look.
2. Will biomes be moddable in?
3. If you make the reactors heat the boilers then you should not allow us to put coal straight into the boilers, but instead either add a heat connection to furnaces or a coal powered external heater.
4. Please say I can blow up the reactor.

[keb]

The destroyed railroad image made me think that it'd be pretty neat if trains could derail when hitting broken track at high speed. They'd then create a wreck (new sprites for wagon sand locomotive) and spill their contents all over the area they land.

If carrying solids, the player would have to go recover them using bots or the pickup key; liquids like crude oil would create intense pollution in the area, perhaps enough to summon something extra-dangerous like a mega-worm?

[Sigma1]

The destroyed railroad image made me think that it'd be pretty neat if trains could derail when hitting broken track at high speed. They'd then create a wreck (new sprites for wagon sand locomotive) and spill their contents all over the area they land.

If carrying solids, the player would have to go recover them using bots or the pickup key; liquids like crude oil would create intense pollution in the area, perhaps enough to summon something extra-dangerous like a mega-worm?

I like this idea, maybe you could somehow fix the wrecked train too?

[Gertibrumm]

I got a few things to say about 0.15:
1. I hope there will be a cooling tower for the reactors to get that iconic look.
2. Will biomes be moddable in?
3. If you make the reactors heat the boilers then you should not allow us to put coal straight into the boilers, but instead either add a heat connection to furnaces or a coal powered external heater.
4. Please say I can blow up the reactor.

1) There has to be a cooling tower for efficiency and health reasons. I you leave out the cooling tower you would release steam (maybe radioactive) instead of recirculating it int the ->reactor->turbine->coolingtower->reactor->... cycle.
The cooling tower actually further cooles down low pressure steam (condense to liquid form), after the turbine, with seawater in a heatexchange system. The cooling towers exhaust is actually just steamy seawater. If you dont recirculate and simply blow out radioactive steam after the turbines, than turbines work less efficient (in real life) and you have pollution increased by a million percent. An now you have to deal with mutant biters
Powerplants will not be as simple as the current steam engines are. Should they inflict destruction to lazy players with poor layouts?
If devs go the realistic way, then whe have to deal with alot of destructive threats from nuclear energy if in game bad balanced and pooly designed.

3) Totally agree. Doing these heatconnections either by aligning buildings wall to wall or with special heat pipes. Both are fine to me. And furnaces should be connectable to boilers, so that we can make steam with simple coal burning furnaces early on. But I will help Vipm23 to spread this idea.

4) Actually the reactor will have a simple meltdown and turn itself into a radioactive volcano. The steam setup will blow up if it exceeds pressure limits!

Also steam engines should be kept as low power, low efficiency electricity production. Turbines are the upgrade!

[Zaflis]

Will the large desert rocks be breakable? I'm imagining if not digged by hand one would need to bring a mining drill (or some new drill - break front, output back) to bring it down. Or maybe explosive tank shell?

[Proxy]

Is there a reason why I should use nuclear instead of solar?

Less space needed, more puzzling and more explosions.

Reactors don't Explode tho (atleast Modern ones)

[Sigma1]

Reactors don't Explode tho (atleast Modern ones)

But... Explosions are awesome!

[Hertzila]

Reactors don't Explode tho (atleast Modern ones)

But... Explosions are awesome!

I respectfully and highly disagree. I can't think of anything more inconvenient and un-awesome than a massive explosion right at the heart of my energy production.

Also, see the previous reactor friday thread.

[Gertibrumm]

factorio_powerplant_suggestion.pdf

(81.18 KiB) Downloaded 156 times

factorio_powerplant_suggestion.jpg (891.22 KiB) Viewed 6440 times

my suggestion and how the circulating water could make sense.
please correct if I am wrong with anything

[EstebanLB]

factorio_powerplant_suggestion.pdf

my suggestion and how the circulating water could make sense.
please correct if I am wrong with anything

Nice idea, I like most of it.
On the lower left I think you changed the conections on the boiler