Factorio Forums

Nuclear Reactor Logic connectivity

Possibility to wire (green/red) and read contens and state of reactor

What ?

Same as for ex. big battery, you can read status of charge or as roboport you can read values of network to variables. That would be nice to control loading of fuel cell "if" reactor is empty, or "if" is not already running. And load fuel "if" for ex. charge is lower &(logic-and) reactor is not already loaded etc..

I only really see this being useful if nuclear reactors had Issues when at max temperatures or to persevere unused power. The devs have decided against nuclear reactor meltdowns and the ladder is already possible using smarts w/ fluid tanks.

As reactor burn everything inserted, that would be nice to load only if needed (this is possible) and not load if one cell is already in (this is not possible yet - my point).

I add a few steam tanks, and set the inserter removing fuel cells to only activate if steam is below 15k per tank. I connect the inserters adding fuel to the inserters removing fuel and set them to only activate when the removing inserter has grabbed an empty fuel cell. (I also override the stack size so they only insert 1 fuel cell) eg Note that the constant combinator is outputting negative -120000 steam (8 tanks times 15k each), that way when I expand the reactor, (at which time I'll also add steam more tanks), I don't need to adjust the steam level for every inserter.

That setup is simple but dumb. Each reactor needs to have one fuel cell be manually inserted to start the reactor. Similarly if fuel cells aren't available when the reactor needs another one, then that reactor will shutdown, and will to be manually fed another fuel cell to restart it. (Both of those could be solved with more sophisticated circuits, but I like to keep everything as simple as practical).

Anthlon wrote: ↑Tue Sep 18, 2018 6:47 am As reactor burn everything inserted, that would be nice to load only if needed (this is possible) and not load if one cell is already in (this is not possible yet - my point).

It is absolutely possible, See the above for one approach. Another approach is to count fuel cells inserted, and removed.

Zavian wrote: ↑Tue Sep 18, 2018 9:46 am I add a few steam tanks, and set the inserter removing fuel cells to only activate if steam is below 15k per tank.
... It is absolutely possible, See the above for one approach. Another approach is to count fuel cells inserted, and removed.

Thanks, this is a way around, probably suitable!

Zavian wrote: ↑Tue Sep 18, 2018 9:46 am

Anthlon wrote: ↑Tue Sep 18, 2018 6:47 am As reactor burn everything inserted, that would be nice to load only if needed (this is possible) and not load if one cell is already in (this is not possible yet - my point).

It is absolutely possible, See the above for one approach. Another approach is to count fuel cells inserted, and removed.

In my opinion it is problem that the game forbids elegant engineering solutions for this kind of problems. There are "solutions", but they are awful hacks from engineering point of view. If I made something like that in my work I would be fired immediately and probably someone would get injured or die or severe material damages would occur sooner or later, when the hacks would not work as intended in some exceptional situation (it is easy in game world in which anything does not break).

Devs have made combinator logics but left it in very unfinished and limited state. I hope that they give proper tools in final version. Full scale information outputs from all manufacturing entities and full controls. I understand that designing crazy hacks may be interesting from gaming point of view, especially for players who does not have engineering background. If someone want to build hacks, he can just decide that do not use straightforward logic. Or full scale logic could need modding or commands to activate.

OP's suggestion has already been suggested in the following threads:
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=47141 [0.15] make temp. av. perf. etc available to circuit net
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=46947 Nuclear Reactor and Heat pipes connectable to circuit network
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=44980 Suggestion: Circuit Connection to Nuclear Reactor

I agree that the nuclear reactor (and possibly also heat exchangers/pipes) should be connectable to the circuit network.

I hope they will add this, it would be very useful to read nuclear reactors for their fuel cells AND temperature.

there's a mod for that: https://mods.factorio.com/mod/Inventory%20Sensor

Optera wrote: ↑Fri Dec 28, 2018 9:31 am there's a mod for that: https://mods.factorio.com/mod/Inventory%20Sensor

I understand you have the best intentions, but this is the Ideas and Suggestions section for the vanilla game. I specifically searched in this section to avoid making a duplicate post, I really think this would be a good addition to the base game without adding a "bloated" modded feel

L0laapk3 wrote: ↑Fri Feb 15, 2019 7:17 pm

Optera wrote: ↑Fri Dec 28, 2018 9:31 am there's a mod for that: https://mods.factorio.com/mod/Inventory%20Sensor

I understand you have the best intentions, but this is the Ideas and Suggestions section for the vanilla game. I specifically searched in this section to avoid making a duplicate post, I really think this would be a good addition to the base game without adding a "bloated" modded feel

In case you skipped the announcement threads, ssilk explains why linking mods doing what you suggest increases the chances of it being implemented here: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=30240

PS:
Reactors have 200s burn time regardless of load.
Reading total fuel value in MJ = fuel value of items in fuel inventory + currently burning from the reactors and boilers makes for a far better control signal than amount of fuel cells.