"Kovarex Enrichment" needs a rethink -- catalysts!

[Taipion]

I was just curious to see it done without circuits while also not hold any more U235 than strictly necessary.

Here you go:
- holds no more than the required minimum U235
- holds just a little excess U238
- stable, reliable
- no circuits

new.png (917.22 KiB) Viewed 4331 times

The filter inserters that are dedicated to take out the 3 U238 in one go are faster than the yellow inserter (set to stack size 1) which will always take out one and only one U235 as this is the only thing it can get before the stack filter inserters have emptied it out.
Simple, isn't it?!

[edit:] This is also applicable to a single centrifuge setup, or any size setup, and in this 4 centrifuge setup you could just as well start with just 40 U 235 and wait until you have another 40, and just throw it in, it will even self-syncronize ... I think. ^^

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Oh no, no catalysts, please Kovarex process as it working now is very fun to automate. True, it is not looking like anything else in the game, but this is the point. It is boring to automate the same processes with different names. We have regular production cycles, we have liquid production cycles. Now we have uranium production cycles! We need to deliver acid to the miners and this is awesome. We need to deal non-load-follow reactors and this is awesome. We need to deal with Kovarex Enrichment Process and this is awesome too! I think, this is the Game - when we need to automate different processes and to figure it out how to do it better.

Devs, don'n simple it down, please.

This is (at least for me) not about making it simple, but to fix the underlying issue that it messes up the statistic view.

[MeduSalem]

Here you go:
- holds no more than the required minimum U235
- holds just a little excess U238
- stable, reliable
- no circuits

[...]

The filter inserters that are dedicated to take out the 3 U238 in one go are faster than the yellow inserter (set to stack size 1) which will always take out one and only one U235 as this is the only thing it can get before the stack filter inserters have emptied it out.
Simple, isn't it?!

Well, I'll be damned. Didn't think of using the different inserter speed...

[Taipion]

Here you go:
- holds no more than the required minimum U235
- holds just a little excess U238
- stable, reliable
- no circuits

[...]

The filter inserters that are dedicated to take out the 3 U238 in one go are faster than the yellow inserter (set to stack size 1) which will always take out one and only one U235 as this is the only thing it can get before the stack filter inserters have emptied it out.
Simple, isn't it?!

Well, I'll be damned. Didn't think of using the different inserter speed...

I remembered that trick from building my first reactor setup (when reactors instantly outputted a used fuel cell), where a fast inserter for taking out the one used fuel cell was sometimes too fast and the reactor would end up empty, so I used a slow inserter to make sure the inserter that inputs the fresh fuel is ready when the inserter for taking out the fuel took the second used fuel cell. ^^

[AndrewIRL]

Me: Yeah probably not possible without circuits
Taipion: Done!

"Excess" U238 is not a downside to me. I wouldn't be worried if you snaked a whole belt of the stuff around the Taipion Enrichment circle as a pretty frame.

As to

However why do you want exactly 40 U-235 in the Centrifuge? Once you have the Kovarex process it's not exactly a rare resource anymore, a single Centrifuge (no modules) can provide enough U-235 for 30 Reactors indefinitely. At a guess I'd say you don't have 30 reactors, especially if you insist on a circuit-free base, and the cost-per-unit is only 3 U-238 so excess is not a problem.

Good points, all. I don't have 30 reactors and will probably never build a base that big. But Taipion has shown that it can be done relatively easily, even without circuit conditions! So why not?

[mrvn]

Oh no, no catalysts, please Kovarex process as it working now is very fun to automate. True, it is not looking like anything else in the game, but this is the point. It is boring to automate the same processes with different names. We have regular production cycles, we have liquid production cycles. Now we have uranium production cycles! We need to deliver acid to the miners and this is awesome. We need to deal non-load-follow reactors and this is awesome. We need to deal with Kovarex Enrichment Process and this is awesome too! I think, this is the Game - when we need to automate different processes and to figure it out how to do it better.

Devs, don'n simple it down, please.

Coal liquification takes (iirc) 25 heavy oil and produces 35 heavy oil. So there are two things in the game now.


As for catalysts: Aren't modules catalysts? Just add 40 module slots to the centrifuge, make the speed without modules 0 and have each module slot add 1/40 of the old speed.

[Taipion]

Oh no, no catalysts, please Kovarex process as it working now is very fun to automate. True, it is not looking like anything else in the game, but this is the point. It is boring to automate the same processes with different names. We have regular production cycles, we have liquid production cycles. Now we have uranium production cycles! We need to deliver acid to the miners and this is awesome. We need to deal non-load-follow reactors and this is awesome. We need to deal with Kovarex Enrichment Process and this is awesome too! I think, this is the Game - when we need to automate different processes and to figure it out how to do it better.

Devs, don'n simple it down, please.

Coal liquification takes (iirc) 25 heavy oil and produces 35 heavy oil. So there are two things in the game now.


As for catalysts: Aren't modules catalysts? Just add 40 module slots to the centrifuge, make the speed without modules 0 and have each module slot add 1/40 of the old speed.

(25 heavy oil + 10 coal + 50 water => 35 heavy oil + 15 light oil + 20 petro gas)

That does not sound too bad either, and it would allow to start right away, but should still be reaaaally slow with low amounts of U235.
And I'd rather have it as one module slot that takes a stack of U235 (max 40), and the speed should be more like [new speed] = [old speed] * ((U235 / 40)^10)

[mrvn]

As for catalysts: Aren't modules catalysts? Just add 40 module slots to the centrifuge, make the speed without modules 0 and have each module slot add 1/40 of the old speed.

That does not sound too bad either, and it would allow to start right away, but should still be reaaaally slow with low amounts of U235.

That was the idea. Even with only one catalyst you get some reaction and then you can feed the produced U235 back in as more catalyst.

Maybe that would make it to easy to bootstrap. Instead of linear the speed could be quadratic (n/40)^2, cubic or even exponential. Something that means it's faster to mine more U235 than to enrich U238 with only one U235 to start with. But not make it impossible.

[Taipion]

As for catalysts: Aren't modules catalysts? Just add 40 module slots to the centrifuge, make the speed without modules 0 and have each module slot add 1/40 of the old speed.

That does not sound too bad either, and it would allow to start right away, but should still be reaaaally slow with low amounts of U235.

That was the idea. Even with only one catalyst you get some reaction and then you can feed the produced U235 back in as more catalyst.

Maybe that would make it to easy to bootstrap. Instead of linear the speed could be quadratic (n/40)^2, cubic or even exponential. Something that means it's faster to mine more U235 than to enrich U238 with only one U235 to start with. But not make it impossible.

Well, if you can produce 1 U235 by mining/refining, then you can produce 40, it just takes a lot of time.

The actual question is, how much of a barrier the devs want here, and for what reason.

On the one side it may be taken from the real world, on the other side it may just be the intention to slow down progression in this tech by a fixed amount.
It may very well be that the devs, for whatever reason, are already ok with the current time it takes to fully develop the use of uranium.
Is there any word from them on this?

I'd say there could be several steps in the process, from obtaining the tech through research, to some first applications, to having enough to use all applications,
but the exponential nature of Factorio means, that, by the current implementation, once you have 40 of it, which may take hours, you can transmute as much as you want within little time,
so by the basic design of Factorio, there can be only one step at this point, except if you'd do some very heavy changes to everything regarding uranium procession.