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As the title imples, I think a portable Radioisotope thermoelectric generator would make more sense than a "Portable fusion reactor".
In real life, RTGs are used to power spacecraft or low-power, low-maintenance machines.
Since there is already uranium in the game, it would be easy to change the name and tweak the crafting a bit.

Seconded. I want to feel like Mark Watney.

They're too low power to make a lot of sense.

Xeorm wrote:They're too low power to make a lot of sense.

This.

Now, if RTG cells were a replacement for portable solar panels (same size, somewhat more powerful and not light-dependent), that would be fine IMHO. And they would be manufactured from U-238, thus fitting nicely into the time period when portable solars are already not enough, but portable fusion is not yet available.

Actually, why not make them modules too? Insert one into a machine, and it receives some free kilowatts irrespective of outside power supply?

a module that powers the machine is a nice idea, but unfortunately requires new logic, so, out of the question for modders.

but I have been considering the RTG route for my mods.

It would be good for things like... logistic robots that never need to charge. I guess you just have to make them relatively expensive, because powering a robot network is half the challenge, and if bots don't need to charge, that's easy mode.

You should also be able to craft an electric train powered by a few rtg's which doesn't need any fuel.
"There is a mod for that" I know.

Why not plop RTGs between solar and portable fusion or RTGs replace portable solar and solar gets a small boost and recipe change since a lot of people complain portable solar is worthless and it'd provide a reason to invest in mining some uranium earlier in the game than nukes and nuclear power

bobingabout wrote:a module that powers the machine is a nice idea, but unfortunately requires new logic, so, out of the question for modders.

but I have been considering the RTG route for my mods.

It would be good for things like... logistic robots that never need to charge. I guess you just have to make them relatively expensive, because powering a robot network is half the challenge, and if bots don't need to charge, that's easy mode.

While they do last a long time (usually they give a low steady amount of power) they do decrease with time.

Why not make a burner bot? Except for using burnable fuel you use uranium. And burn it real slow.

I often play with Peppe's bot start mod. (I also play sometimes with some of the other bot start mods, or nanobots, so unless I'm playing vanilla, I'll typically have some mod that aids early construction).

Peppe's bot start means I start the game with a set of 6x4 modular armour, 2 personal roboports, 1 battery, 14 solar panels and 20 bots. So I have played quite a few games with personal solar panels from the start. But if I'm playing vanilla I never build any personal solar, because I think they cost too many resources for the short period of time I would use them.

Consider the cost of the personal solar panels. If I have basic modular armour with 2 personal roboports, I can fit 17 personal solar panels. Assuming I choose to build all 17, that will cost me 85 regular solar panels, and 17 red circuits, and produce 170 kw of power. Each personal solar panel costs almost as much as a personal roboport. They aren't cheap, and you need a lot of them to actually power anything worthwhile. Thats a fairly significant resource cost for something that I'm going to discard as junk in probably less than an hour. especially since I know I'll want more power than they can provide asap anyway. I'm at that point in the game where, unless I'm rushing to finish the rocket (in which case I'm not going to research personal solar panels anyway), I'm going to be rushing towards blue circuits, hi-tech science and personal fusion reactors.

Why will I rush fusion power anyway you ask ? Because I know from experience with Peppe's bot start that 14 personal solar panels just don't provide enough power to keep the bots working anytime I'm actually using them. I regularly need to mine bots for the free recharge. Also I now want to be add other things to my armour that are also going to need power and space. Hence I'll want to ditch any personal solar panels asap to free up space anyway. As such, I never build any personal solar panels, and either just mine my initial set of personal construction bots and/or use a couple of regular (non-personal) roboports for construction and head straight to hi-tech science, blue circuits and fusion reactors.

If the developers want personal solar panels to be worth building in vanilla, then they need to either reduce their cost (eg make them cost 1 regular solar panel + 1 red circuit) and/or increase their power output and/or make fusion power a much more expensive tech that isn't available till later in the tech tree (eg require 1000 space science). Personally I'd suggest something like 1 regular solar panel + 1 red circuit with the personal solar panel producing 15 kw output. (You could also make then 2x2 and produce 60 kw each).

Also I'm pretty ambivalent on the whole RTG thing. If fusion stays the same, then I'd probably skip RTGs as well, because I'll typically be ready to research personal fusion before I'd want to start mining uranium. (You can't mine uranium until after you have sulphuric acid setup, at which point I'd just push straight for blue circuits + hi-tech science. So mining uranium would just delay me getting fusion power, which from the tone of the discussion in this thread would still be the better long term choice, assuming they don't move fusion power later in the tech tree).

Zavian wrote:I often play with Peppe's bot start mod. (I also play sometimes with some of the other bot start mods, or nanobots, so unless I'm playing vanilla, I'll typically have some mod that aids early construction).

Peppe's bot start means I start the game with a set of 6x4 modular armour, 2 personal roboports, 1 battery, 14 solar panels and 20 bots. So I have played quite a few games with personal solar panels from the start. But if I'm playing vanilla I never build any personal solar, because I think they cost too many resources for the short period of time I would use them.

Consider the cost of the personal solar panels. If I have basic modular armour with 2 personal roboports, I can fit 17 personal solar panels. Assuming I choose to build all 17, that will cost me 85 regular solar panels, and 17 red circuits, and produce 170 kw of power. Each personal solar panel costs almost as much as a personal roboport. They aren't cheap, and you need a lot of them to actually power anything worthwhile. Thats a fairly significant resource cost for something that I'm going to discard as junk in probably less than an hour. especially since I know I'll want more power than they can provide asap anyway. I'm at that point in the game where, unless I'm rushing to finish the rocket (in which case I'm not going to research personal solar panels anyway), I'm going to be rushing towards blue circuits, hi-tech science and personal fusion reactors.

Why will I rush fusion power anyway you ask ? Because I know from experience with Peppe's bot start that 14 personal solar panels just don't provide enough power to keep the bots working anytime I'm actually using them. I regularly need to mine bots for the free recharge. Also I now want to be add other things to my armour that are also going to need power and space. Hence I'll want to ditch any personal solar panels asap to free up space anyway. As such, I never build any personal solar panels, and either just mine my initial set of personal construction bots and/or use a couple of regular (non-personal) roboports for construction and head straight to hi-tech science, blue circuits and fusion reactors.

If the developers want personal solar panels to be worth building in vanilla, then they need to either reduce their cost (eg make them cost 1 regular solar panel + 1 red circuit) and/or increase their power output and/or make fusion power a much more expensive tech that isn't available till later in the tech tree (eg require 1000 space science). Personally I'd suggest something like 1 regular solar panel + 1 red circuit with the personal solar panel producing 15 kw output. (You could also make then 2x2 and produce 60 kw each).

Also I'm pretty ambivalent on the whole RTG thing. If fusion stays the same, then I'd probably skip RTGs as well, because I'll typically be ready to research personal fusion before I'd want to start mining uranium. (You can't mine uranium until after you have sulphuric acid setup, at which point I'd just push straight for blue circuits + hi-tech science. So mining uranium would just delay me getting fusion power, which from the tone of the discussion in this thread would still be the better long term choice, assuming they don't move fusion power later in the tech tree).

I think personal solar panels are a waste, too. You simply do not need them and even if you build the they are insufficient. Too little power for personal robo ports so you just mine bots. Not enough for exosceleton. Enough for night vision but then you can't have something else stealing the power, like a personal roboport.

A personal RTG that is somewhere between solar panels and fusion reactor would be nice. Something that can run a personal roboport even if it takes a few of them.
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It's probably also worthwhile mentioning that in real life typical RTGs have a power output of 300 watts, or less. Not 300kW, but 300 watts. So they should be less powerful than a personal solar panel. You really shouldn't be able to power much more than an inserter or two, or some combinators. (Obviously Factorio is a game, so the developers could ignore this, or just assume that one in game RTG is really a collection of many low power RTGs).

Russia's BES-5 is an u235 Fast Fission Reactor capable of producing 28kW thermal energy (2kW electric) for 250years.
It's very likely space traveling civs have improved on thermal to electric conversation.

RTG's are what power belts.

Cribbit wrote:RTG's are what power belts.

No, that's hampsters. In 0.16 you're going to need to feed the hampsters.

mrvn wrote:

Zavian wrote:I often play with Peppe's bot start mod. (I also play sometimes with some of the other bot start mods, or nanobots, so unless I'm playing vanilla, I'll typically have some mod that aids early construction).

Peppe's bot start means I start the game with a set of 6x4 modular armour, 2 personal roboports, 1 battery, 14 solar panels and 20 bots. So I have played quite a few games with personal solar panels from the start. But if I'm playing vanilla I never build any personal solar, because I think they cost too many resources for the short period of time I would use them.

Consider the cost of the personal solar panels. If I have basic modular armour with 2 personal roboports, I can fit 17 personal solar panels. Assuming I choose to build all 17, that will cost me 85 regular solar panels, and 17 red circuits, and produce 170 kw of power. Each personal solar panel costs almost as much as a personal roboport. They aren't cheap, and you need a lot of them to actually power anything worthwhile. Thats a fairly significant resource cost for something that I'm going to discard as junk in probably less than an hour. especially since I know I'll want more power than they can provide asap anyway. I'm at that point in the game where, unless I'm rushing to finish the rocket (in which case I'm not going to research personal solar panels anyway), I'm going to be rushing towards blue circuits, hi-tech science and personal fusion reactors.

Why will I rush fusion power anyway you ask ? Because I know from experience with Peppe's bot start that 14 personal solar panels just don't provide enough power to keep the bots working anytime I'm actually using them. I regularly need to mine bots for the free recharge. Also I now want to be add other things to my armour that are also going to need power and space. Hence I'll want to ditch any personal solar panels asap to free up space anyway. As such, I never build any personal solar panels, and either just mine my initial set of personal construction bots and/or use a couple of regular (non-personal) roboports for construction and head straight to hi-tech science, blue circuits and fusion reactors.

If the developers want personal solar panels to be worth building in vanilla, then they need to either reduce their cost (eg make them cost 1 regular solar panel + 1 red circuit) and/or increase their power output and/or make fusion power a much more expensive tech that isn't available till later in the tech tree (eg require 1000 space science). Personally I'd suggest something like 1 regular solar panel + 1 red circuit with the personal solar panel producing 15 kw output. (You could also make then 2x2 and produce 60 kw each).

Also I'm pretty ambivalent on the whole RTG thing. If fusion stays the same, then I'd probably skip RTGs as well, because I'll typically be ready to research personal fusion before I'd want to start mining uranium. (You can't mine uranium until after you have sulphuric acid setup, at which point I'd just push straight for blue circuits + hi-tech science. So mining uranium would just delay me getting fusion power, which from the tone of the discussion in this thread would still be the better long term choice, assuming they don't move fusion power later in the tech tree).

I think personal solar panels are a waste, too. You simply do not need them and even if you build the they are insufficient. Too little power for personal robo ports so you just mine bots. Not enough for exosceleton. Enough for night vision but then you can't have something else stealing the power, like a personal roboport.

A personal RTG that is somewhere between solar panels and fusion reactor would be nice. Something that can run a personal roboport even if it takes a few of them.
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I agree - I usually go straight to power armor mk.II and portable fusion - simply because I think that if I'm going to make something expensive, I might as well make the most expensive thing that I'll use for the longest. I'm not saying that you're playing the game wrong if you do anything else, I usually think there are better things for me to be doing before that point.

Xeorm wrote:They're too low power to make a lot of sense.

I think that the same can be said about the current "fusion reactors". They're too small to make sense. Fusion needs enormous pressure and temperatures to achieve, I doubt its safety would be approved by the interstellar standards.

If you tell me in the future we have fusion reactors the size of a building (i.e. fits in a spacecraft), I would believe you, but the size of two AA batteries? I doubt it.

bloc97 wrote:

Xeorm wrote:They're too low power to make a lot of sense.

I think that the same can be said about the current "fusion reactors". They're too small to make sense. Fusion needs enormous pressure and temperatures to achieve, I doubt its safety would be approved by the interstellar standards.

If you tell me in the future we have fusion reactors the size of a building (i.e. fits in a spacecraft), I would believe you, but the size of two AA batteries? I doubt it.

Do you have a problem with Ironman's ARC reactor too? cause actually I always pictured the fusion reactors being maybe that big, up to say a litre in volume and the batteries are bigger than AA sizes... infact take one exoskeleton as the scale guy is carrying around more than 2x his volume per reactor, the guy is unfeasibly strong

JohnyDL wrote: Do you have a problem with Ironman's ARC reactor too? cause actually I always pictured the fusion reactors being maybe that big, up to say a litre in volume and the batteries are bigger than AA sizes... infact take one exoskeleton as the scale guy is carrying around more than 2x his volume per reactor, the guy is unfeasibly strong

I have problems with pretty much everything in Iron Man's suit, but comic book movies are fantasy, not science fiction so I let it go.

My problem with Factorio's portable fusion reactor isn't it's size, portability, or power output. It's that you somehow can make it but not a nonportable one.

bloc97 wrote:

Xeorm wrote:They're too low power to make a lot of sense.

I think that the same can be said about the current "fusion reactors". They're too small to make sense. Fusion needs enormous pressure and temperatures to achieve, I doubt its safety would be approved by the interstellar standards.

If you tell me in the future we have fusion reactors the size of a building (i.e. fits in a spacecraft), I would believe you, but the size of two AA batteries? I doubt it.

There's more than one way to get fusion than imitating the sun. Using lasers is also doable, though not one that we've yet mastered in any way. Difference is that I know how RTGs work and I can tell you they wouldn't ever work for a hypothetical power suit. You tell me you've got a portable fusion reactor, and as long as you don't expand on how it works, I can believe that. I don't know how you've managed all the problems, but can accept that just maybe it's possible. Mostly I don't want to think about it. All I care about is maintaining the fiction as much as possible.

My big issue is if we have fusion reactors, why can't we have an in-world plop-able version? wouldn't it be nice to build and power your grid from an infinite energy source?

mrvn wrote:Why not make a burner bot? Except for using burnable fuel you use uranium. And burn it real slow.

Although a good idea in theory... how do you fuel a bot? The game doesn't really have the supporting logic to allow bots to be burner powered, they're pretty much hardcoded to recharge at a roboport.

The difference with an RTG powered bot is that in theory, it's free infinite power in the bot.
In practice, the robot will simply require an RTG in the crafting recipe, then be tweaked to consume zero power, so that when it comes time to dock, the energy reserves are still full and so it doesn't need to charge.