Uranium Power

[Fatmice]

Just a status update, I've rewritten my code to use subscription based ticking and this fixed an outstanding bug for the recipe heat exchange. Work is 99% done for 0.6.6. I just need to write a little more code for entity table management and bug testing. Release is imminent.

[Fatmice]

This is a pre-release! There is still an outstanding bug that I can not figure out why it is happening...However, it is in a state that you all can play test.

DO NOT use this on your normal game! At the very least if you want to upgrade, make a new save from your normal game. Please report back all bugs in the support thread.

UraniumPower-0.6.6. Requires Factorio 0.14.x

[Speadge]

thank you
can u tell us about this bug so we can have an eye on it and try to avoid it or help u figure out its cause?

[Fatmice]

The bug should not stop your game...If it does, it is another bug that I do not know about...

The bug is very obvious and will cause a message to appear in the console. It happens randomly and so far I have no idea why... Essentially, a wrong task is assigned to be ticked for an entity. When it happens, some of your entities will stop ticking and will need to be rebuilt.

[Fatmice]

More fixes. See thread
viewtopic.php?f=64&t=9503&p=226068#p226068

[Fatmice]

Added logging. See thread
viewtopic.php?f=64&t=9503&p=226084#p226084

[Fatmice]

Good news and bad news...I think I found what is causing this WTF bug. However, it seems to necessitate a rewrite of my ticker, again...Maybe a third rewrite is the charm that it needs.

[Fatmice]

I have very good news. The WTF bug is solved all without rewriting my ticker. Phew!

[Fatmice]

Something for 0.6.7?

Hm

If only it was so easy to do. Alas a boiler can only have 4 connections, so I have another plan.

[Fatmice]

This is a second pre-release! I hope there are no more bugs...at least none that I can find. I will add compat next if no major bugs are found and push for an official release in a day.

DO NOT use this on your normal game! At the very least if you want to upgrade, make a new save from your normal game. Please report back all bugs in the support thread.

UraniumPower_0.6.6. Requires Factorio 0.14.x

[Fatmice]

It's official, 0.6.6 is now released. I'm writing up a short patch note.

[Fatmice]

Found a very small bug in data-updates.lua. Pushing an update to mod portal. Same version. If you are using mod portal and it doesn't show, unsub and resub to the mod.

[Fatmice]

I've created an example build for version 0.6.6. It has two reactors, a 500 MWh and a 250 MWh. The former was built for 172 MWe and the later 93 MWe. The entire fuel reprocessing line and coal-ash -> uranium utilization are there to serve as reference if you need them. Suffice to it say, 265 MWe is a lot of power and should be sufficient for most bases! If you need more power, just build more reactors.

You can find the download at their usual places, in my signature or in the first post.

[DantHimself]

Oh god, the nerf hammer was heavy

[Fatmice]

Oh god, the nerf hammer was heavy

What? Care to elaborate?

[slaxer]

To Fatmice:

What is your and your friends degree? or, how can you make this in so deep detail, eg. with what background-knowledge?

Finding this mod extremely interesting, especially the reprocessing part.
I do not doubt that this mod is The best demonstration of this technology.


My instinct dies over and over again over all the steps that are used here, even if it may not be the whole 100% image, I still believe this is very close to fully accurate.

(makes me see what steps I shouldn't do and pushes me towards something else that isn't this evil)

[Fatmice]

My background is in biochemistry. I'll soon have a PhD in it. I had to read a lot of materials on fuel reprocessing and distilled it. I chose a reduction of the PUREX process and only highlight the main steps that could be easily done with the chemical plant prototype, which has maximum of 2 inputs and 2 outputs. It looked complicated, really it is, but it's blue-printable so you only have to figure it out once.

Oh god, the nerf hammer was heavy

I don't think I nerfed anything. In fact I increased the power output of the 3x3 and 5x5 reactor. Ore -> fuel ratio remains the same, for now... If anything the nerf hammer will hit when I add breeding. Ore -> fuel will be decreased...drastically. You will need to breed your own fuel from the initial ore inventory to make it last. People who used depleted uranium for ammo will find that they suddenly have a huge problem. Also the plutonium -> MOX conversion will also be tweaked to be below unity, currently it is 1.14x. which means once you use MOX fuel, you will make even more MOX fuel. This will not stay that way.

So now that 0.6.6 has been out for nearly a week, it's time that I think about the next update and what it should have. Clearly, 0.6.7 needs a steam generator befitting the 5x5 reactor. I looked at all of the options and the easiest is to render a larger version of the steam-generator and the re-circulation pump. So I think I will do that and release a 0.6.7. The step after this is to add a breeder, so that will be 0.6.8. I've been doing more reading on liquid-fuel reactor for ideas. I think though I will settle on a MSFR, molten-salt fast reactor. This will be a chloride salt reactor with driver and blanket areas. You can use U-235, U-233, or Pu-239/240 in the driver area and U-238 or Th-232 in the blanket area. This type of reactor will need a bunch of chemical plants to support the on-line fuel-salt reprocessing in addition to the fuel-reprocessing for the conventional fuel. An added benefit is extra Pu from this reactor can be used in conventional fuel. The wastes from conventional fuel-reprocessing can be further reduced by some additional steps to remove minor actinides (MAs) and burn in the MSFR...So don't shoot your wastes... I plan to make this reactor responsive to circuit control, read *simple* circuit control. I will not require you to build a large and complex array of combinators to operate the reactor...I mean you can but it will be unnecessary. This version will also have the beginning of reactor upkeep. This will be retro-active, so all reactors from the previous versions will need upkeep. It won't be onerous but it will be something that you need to take care of otherwise you might find your base out of power. Lastly, I will introduce another chemical cycle to use the heat from the MSFR. This will allow you to centrally generate heat to make fuel that you can ship out to remote bases to power them. Clearly, this is superior to running power poles everywhere and far cheaper in resources and upkeeps.

I do not know of the balance in 0.6.8 but likely you will need 2-4 of the MSFR to run one of the large one that I've outlined in this other post. The smaller scale reactors, 3x3 or 5x5, will probably just need one of the MSFR. Power-wise, 2-4 of these MSFR might equal to one of the big PWR. The big PWR will need circuit to run and will have complicated fuel decay simulation. That is the reason why I went at lengths to do all of the previous simulations and calculations. So 0.7.0 will be for the big PWR. This will give you the power you need for most things in factorio. I think 0.7.1 will be the transmuter or ADS where you can use excess power to drive accelerators to transmute your vitrified-glass-waste or some form of "wastes" after the version 0.6.8 to accelerate the decay and transform the waste into some useful metals. Or, you can bury it in underground vault, which is a different surface than "nauvis." That will be new territory for me. Planning ahead, I'd say 0.7.2 will be some type of tier-4 military for uranium power. I always wanted to do some nuclear bomb or metal rods, perhaps made from tungsten from the ADS, that you can fire from the satellite that you launched from the silo. Just another way to terrorize the biters or perhaps your fellow players if you play on a PVP server. Don't know what sort of counter to have for the former...the latter, not so much...maybe a ground->space laser defense?

Anyways, I'm most excited to work on 0.6.8, I don't know how it will pan out. The coding for the blanket area will be difficult since I want to allow you to make whatever 2D-array that you want...Obviously some designs will be better than others. Raw-resource wise, I think I will allow conversion of stone->thorium at some TBD ratio. This will negate the need to introduce yet another auto-gen. I think this is logical since I just allowed coal->uranium, which I think is a good decision. When 0.7.1 comes around, the underground vault will generate generous amounts of stone that you can turn into fuel.

[slaxer]

My background is in biochemistry.

i wish i could steal your knowledge

[Light]

Oh god, the nerf hammer was heavy

Because now you can't just build and forget it while it forever makes free power from just a couple ores?

Additional power from each reactor at a rate of losing a rod or two per hour isn't exactly a heavy nerf by any means. Especially given you're likely to always build more rods than the reactors will ever burn up in your entire playthrough. I've personally tried to burn rods at a rapid pace yet by the time 15 rods died, I've made over 40 new ones. Not including the MOX recycling method which prolongs fuel even further.

It may be annoying to upkeep in the early game if you set ore patches to rare and low richness, or using angels which has the same effect in a way, but uranium power isn't exactly an early game tech either. Steam will suffice until you get a good rod production going, then it's smooth sailing from then onward.

My background is in biochemistry.

i wish i could steal your knowledge

Technically you are just by playing it. Learning all this stuff just from using the mod has been enlightening.
I can't remember any of the names very well, but the processes and interactions between them is there.

Just kind of makes me wish chemistry class was more engaging like this, might have actually stayed in it rather than the cute nerdy girl being the only incentive.

[slaxer]

Technically you are just by playing it.

true!

Just kind of makes me wish chemistry class was more engaging like this, might have actually stayed in it rather than the cute nerdy girl being the only incentive.

girls = chemistry
I don't see a loss here