Nuclear Power and the bad things that can happen. A list

[meganothing]

I'm of the opinion that as a late game power source nuclear power should be rewarding but difficult to handle. One solution to this problem is that building and starting the reactor is difficult or just needs a lot of resources (the later being the most boring alternative available, I wouldn't even call it a solution).

The other possibility is that the operation is difficult. As a result there need to be "bad things" to happen if you don't operate the reactor correctly. I'm trying to compile a list of possibilities:

1) The reactor stops producing energy. This is somewhat boring unless starting the reactor is more difficult than just providing the operating materials (water, uranium, thoruim, whatever) again
2) The reactor could even suck energy instead of providing it. If the logistics network can be used with the power switch to detect this, not providing this power to the reactor should trigger a worse bad thing
3) The reactor uses up its operating materials at a higher rate. Only effective if operating materials are scarce or difficult to get. Works great if one of the materials is a (difficult to produce) catalyst which normally isn't used up at all.
4) The reactor could be providing energy only a limited time and afterwards stay on as a constantly polluting ruin or a big pollution spike in case of teardown. In this case reducing the operating time would be a bad thing
5) If the reactor produces waste materials (which has to have some bad thing built in), it could just produce more of that waste material.
6) The reactor could be damaged. This is actually a little boring because the obvious countermeasure is a roboport nearby
7) The reactor could produce radiation. Radiation would need to be supported with its own "damage model", for example mutation (some critters would spontaneously mutate to one size bigger) or damage to other structures around it.
8) The reactor could become unusable, you would have to build and start a new one. This is a relatively boring "resource" bad thing again, but because it is such a big amount of resources wasted in a single moment (assuming a reactor is costly to build), it might at least suffice to drive the fear into any factorio owner.
9) If the scarce resource needed for operation works similar to an oil patch (a thorium patch for example), a variant to 8 would be that that patch simply gets depleted instantly, so that the reactor and possible support buildings have to be moved to somewhere else.


One counter-argument to "bad things" is that they might be annoying (some like option 8 and 9 have the potential to be annoying). But: Reactors are a very late-game tech and not needed for completing the game at all. My first two play-throughs I had a top energy consumption of less than 30MW, which is easily achievable with steam/solar. The users of nuclear power should be power users (pun intended) able to make sure that bad things don't happen and happy about the challenge of making sure.

Are there any ideas for bad things i have forgotten to list? Please reply if you can think of one.

[Deadly-Bagel]

It entirely depends on if they want to make a new form of pollution for radiation, and if they want to have things like mining or destroying an item or building can cause pollution.

Regardless, I would like to see a modular approach. That way you can't just remove a module because it could cause the other modules to go critical and explode.

[ssilk]

My opinion: It is difficult enough to make the game easier.
Not that I'm against making nucelar more difficult, but - as always - it will be easy to make that more difficult.
And we don't want to copy SimCity. But I would like to see some kind of Godzilla-Biter climing the rocket and will be rocketed out into space where he spreads his eggs and ...

Added to viewtopic.php?f=80&t=31440 Ideas Around Energy Production: Solar, Wind, Water, Nuclear, Fusion ...

[js1]

I would like if there was another form of pollution in Factorio, something more annoying from gameplay perspective (and potentially interesting for PvP). I would suggest radiation waste pollution, which would go nicely with processing of uranium and possibly nuclear reactor meltdown and nuclear weapons.

Compared to normal pollution, radiation waste would:

• Not dissipate naturally in the world (or extremely slowly).
• Be harmful to player(s) without some sort of protection (that could get depleted), and at high levels maybe even harmful to structures (alternatively, it could interfere with wires).
• Cause more mutation/anger in aliens.
• Have to be cleaned up explicitly through some technological process that would cost resources.
• Maybe occur naturally in low concentrations at uranium ore deposits.

[Jonathan88]

Sounds good! I agree that nuclear should come with some risks - it is a bit too good to come "free".
My favourite suggestion, and I think one of the easiest to implement, is 4.

When the nuclear power station is operated wrong (ie. the reaction becomes out of control), it could produce much less energy and far more pollution, more pollution than you can normally produce (think solid block of speed module 3 filled furnaces ). Perhaps during this massive overdose of pollution, large/behemoth biters/spitters could spawn as one offs from lower tier bases.

Why this approach is good:
1) It doesn't require any extra mechanics programmed in, which is more efficient for development and also the developers seem to be more towards the "do more with less" approach to Factorio (every new feature must be necessary).
2) The real threat comes from the increased attacks, which are already implemented - no new special penalty has to be introduced.
3) The pollution takes a while to fade away so the attacks last a while after the reactor's been fixed.
4) The level of penalty is relative to the current evolution level and biter base expansion - a lower level player receives smaller, but relatively large, attacks whereas an end-game player receives massive, and still relatively large, attacks.

I think reason 4 is what makes this approach suitable, as well as the fact that pollution and attacks are already a thing. The downside is it's nothing new - no fancy explosion and no threatening radiation (although now I think about it, chemical weapons are already implemented). I would definitely still be up for massive explosive meltdowns though!

[Aeternus]

The radiation damage model that a damaged reactor could do is already in the game - it's an area effect centered on self, much like fire. After all, fire is really just infrared radiation that causes things to combust and spread more of it. That AOE could even affect the repair bots that come to repair the damn thing... But that requires a seperate "on damage" and "on death" event handler and I'm not sure the game engine supports that.