[MOD 0.14] Nucular 1.0.4 - Nuclear Reactors and Weapons

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siggboy
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Re: Design for 250 MW with correct ratios and breeders

Post by siggboy »

vanatteveldt wrote:I keep having problems getting my nuke plant to run raliably. I use red belts instead of yellow, but that shouldn't matter right?
I've used blue belts to have the fuel rods cycle as quickly as possible, I don't think it really makes sense to use slower belts.
My current problem is that there is simply too much fuel on the inner loop, causing MOX production to stop, causing a plutonium overdose, causing reprocessing to stop.
Well, if there's a lot of fuel on the inner belt, then you don't really need reprocessing anyway. Any consumed fuel rod will make space and create a spent fuel rod which will be reprocessed and replaced by a MOX assembler. So this part will balance out.

Any Plutonium on the outer belt is ready to be made into a MOX fuel rod as long as there is Uranium available. The Depleted Uranium will be turned into Plutonium. This should all balance out eventually, don't worry about it.

So as long as you don't have death spirals or your plant is not able to output maximum load, I don't see a problem.

I've tested the belt-based setup quite extensively with Creative Mode (max. simulated load), and the only issue I've found was the clogging with Uranium. Excess Plutonium never caused an issue.
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Re: [MOD 0.13] Nucular 1.0.3 - Nuclear Reactors and Weapons

Post by iceman_1212 »

siggboy wrote:Maybe you can go back to my post and see if what I've come up with matches with your spreadsheet's outputs (I'm pretty sure it's correct, but either of us could have made a mistake).
Our numbers are very close and the small difference is accounted for by the following:
siggboy wrote:In my game I've made a separate facility that produced fuel rods and weapons, and then used the fuel rods to make more reactors for expansions. It was separate from the power plant and not connected to it.
It looks like you calc-ed the numbers assuming that your nuclear power production setup (as distinct from your expansion fuel rod and weapons setup) is net balanced on nuclear fuel production (and, as a result, slightly positive on plutonium). Which makes perfect sense given the design choice to separate out fuel rods for new reactors. My slightly different approach was to have the entire apparatus connected and that's why the only difference in our numbers is the number of chemical plants processing uranium ore (1.67 vs. 2.00) and MOXX Fuel (15 vs. 16).

Glad to see neither of us screwed up the math :D

As reference, here are our two sets of numbers on an apples-to-apples basis, i.e., 25 breeders and 25 fission:

Image
siggboy wrote:
The exact ratios for 25 pairs of fission/breeder reactors are (machines are Assembler 3, and a Chemical Plant for Uranium extraction):

1 machine for Nuclear Fuel
~5.33 machines for Reprocessing
4 machines for Uranium Enrichment
15 machines for MOX Fuel
~1.67 machines for Uranium
vanatteveldt wrote: I have already rate-limited spent fuel and uranium, I guess I can also rate-limit plutonium, but I'm starting to feel that a bot or circuit based system will perform better
Both approaches work fine. I have taken the circuit approach. I just use a simple mechanism of checking whether certain key sections of belts are backed-up and then I adjust flows of nuclear fuel rods, uranium and plutonium accordingly. Note, I also adjust flows of depleted uranium but that's only because I want my uranium rounds magazines. Here's a snapshot of the circuit wires in my current bob's/angel's base - the circuit control uses vanilla features only. (Please pardon the general mess. Also, you probably already know but it's 2 offshore pumps for every 3 fission reactors - I'm just being lazy in my current base with the groundwater pumps.)

Image

I am appalled by the thought of using bots for power production but I suppose that would work too :lol:

P.S. The number of assemblers converting plutonium into nuclear weapons is clearly overkill - those are a vestige from my start-up phase where I always go for 10 breeders first followed by 10 fission. In the breeder only phase, a lot of extra plutonium is generated.
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Re: [MOD 0.13] Nucular 1.0.3 - Nuclear Reactors and Weapons

Post by siggboy »

iceman_1212 wrote:My slightly different approach was to have the entire apparatus connected and that's why the only difference in our numbers is the number of chemical plants processing uranium ore (1.67 vs. 2.00) and MOXX Fuel (15 vs. 16).
I'm glad my numbers were correct (although it would have been stunning to find them wildly off). Your spreadsheet has the advantage of producing valid numbers for any number of reactor pairs. The main reason I did the numbers for 25/25 reactors is that then most of the ratios are even numbers, so not much assembler capacity is wasted.

With regards to the MOX fuel and extra plutonium, I'm actually using 16 MOX assemblers (one extra over the theoretical 15), in order to get rid of the extra plutonium.

The "1.67" for the Uranium production is a theoretical value in any case (can be approximated with speed modules in the chem plant). I've ended up using +100% speed for a faster bootstrapping phase and then limiting the Uranium output as described, to avoid clogging the belt with Uranium, which triggers a ripple effect into a blackout.

So in summary I'm using the exact ratios that your spreadsheet suggests. I think it's always possible to skim off Plutonium and Depleted Uranium for weapons, in the worst case you'll have your plant not reach maximum possible load. If the Chem Plant is running at +100%, there is plenty of extra resource input to cover weapon production. Again, exactly what your spreadsheet suggests.

The reason why I made the weapon/reactor production separate was simply because it was convenient on my map (the factory was very widely distributed, so it would have been very inconvenient to split materials off the power plant).
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Re: [MOD 0.14] Nucular 1.0.4 - Nuclear Reactors and Weapons

Post by vanatteveldt »

(note heavily edited after more experimentation)

I've played around a bit in creative mode. Although siggyboy's original design is very compact and elegant, I feel it is somehow difficult to control / understand what goes wrong because lanes are shared between resources and processes, so it's not really clear where backlogs or shortages come from.

What I wanted to do is have a setup that is more easily expandable and controllable, and have a clear "process flow" in the belts, with belts backing up shutting down the non-essential systems rather than causing a spiral.

This is what I came up with on the first attempt:
zoomed out
Image

Reactors are on the bottom, support plants are at the top, all in tileable rows.
All input is from the left.

Most things should be balanced automatically, but there are two circuit controls: if there is too much fuel, some of it is siphoned off for expansion. If there is too little fuel, uranium from the enrichment plant is added to the system.
For a stable system, it should not output any fuel as the uranium is choked off once there is >10 fuel in the center chest.
If you want to breed more fuel, you can set the refined ore inserter to always put on the belt, in which case the setup produces fuel as long as the load is not maxed out.

You can also breed more plutonium, in that case split the U evenly over enrichment and MOXX and permanently enable the refined U inserter, and siphon off the Pu in the same way as the fuel (because otherwise the Pu overdose will stop MOXX and you get a U overdose, which stops reprocessing, giving a spent rod backlog).

There are separate electric circuits for the plant and the turbines, the plant takes about 10MW to run. Of course you can connect them, you can also create a 10MW solar plant to be sure you always have power for the plant itself.

Explanation going counter-clockwise from bottom left:

1. Breeders and fissions reactors take fuel (and depleted U) and produce spent rods (and Pu)
2. spent rods are reprocessed into Pu and U
3. The enrichment plants add U as needed
4. The MOXX plant converts Pu + U (and iron) into fuel
5. If there is enough U it goes on to the enrichment plant
6. Enriched fuel and MOXX fuel combined and split over the reactors. MOXX fuel is pass through a chest to measure and remove as required.

In general, I like this setup myself because it makes the working of the system very visual, and you can easily see what backs up and what is choked. You can easily expand the system by just adding breeders / fission plants / MOXX etc plants on their lines. I've not tested what happens if you break the ideal ratios, I don't think anything bad will happen as long as you have enough reprocessing and MOXX capacity.

[Edit: for my reference: 24 + 24 reactors -> 6 reprocessing + 2 chemplants + 16 MOXX + 4 enrich + 1 fuel]
blueprint of the whole setup
Last edited by vanatteveldt on Fri Dec 02, 2016 12:28 am, edited 3 times in total.
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Re: [MOD 0.14] Nucular 1.0.4 - Nuclear Reactors and Weapons

Post by vanatteveldt »

Compact design for a plutonium breeder (for warheads or alien science packs). I think the ratios should be about right (too much reprocessing and MOXX fuel capacity but who cares), but the last breeder doesn't seem to do an awful lot.

Image
blueprint
Last edited by vanatteveldt on Fri Sep 30, 2016 8:25 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: [MOD 0.14] Nucular 1.0.4 - Nuclear Reactors and Weapons

Post by siggboy »

vanatteveldt wrote:Compact design for a plutonium breeder (for warheads)
One should mention that Plutonium can also be turned into Alien Science Beakers, which is maybe even more useful than warheads.
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Re: [MOD 0.14] Nucular 1.0.4 - Nuclear Reactors and Weapons

Post by vanatteveldt »

siggboy wrote:
vanatteveldt wrote:Compact design for a plutonium breeder (for warheads)
One should mention that Plutonium can also be turned into Alien Science Beakers, which is maybe even more useful than warheads.
Good point, edited. I like playing with very high biter settings, so I normally have more artifacts than I know what to do with.

Also, warheads can be turned into artifacts quite easily ;-)
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Re: [MOD 0.14] Nucular 1.0.4 - Nuclear Reactors and Weapons

Post by MegaHamster7 »

The pictures I see of this mod are completely different from what I see in the game. What gives?

I can't see any way to get nuclear weapons?

Also there's no infinite uranium when used in conjunction with Angels Ores. I thought the two were compatible.

Great mod though. Nice to have more power options.

Thanks!
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Re: [MOD 0.14] Nucular 1.0.4 - Nuclear Reactors and Weapons

Post by vanatteveldt »

Suggestion / feature request:

I am playing a peaceful game* and particle physics is a nice and plausible replacement for purple science. However, not having artifacts also affects power armor, fusion power, and lvl 3 modules. Would it be a good idea to add the ability to create artifacts as well as or instead of purple science? Or add a recipe to create a "synthetic artifact" from (10?) purple science plus e.g. a blue circuit?

Also, a visual indicator of reactors being active would be great, some sort of glowing lighting would be appropriate :) (but not very realistic...)

*) got tired of killing biters... shields + flamethrower + cluster grenade + bots is fun the first couple hundred times, but now I just want to concentrate on building a no-bots megabase :)
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Re: [MOD 0.14] Nucular 1.0.4 - Nuclear Reactors and Weapons

Post by dentommes »

It seems that I can't load your blueprint string. I suppose that is because i'm using angels mods and bobmods. do you know if theres an easy way around that?
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Re: [MOD 0.14] Nucular 1.0.4 - Nuclear Reactors and Weapons

Post by vanatteveldt »

I made a new design that's easier to expand: it is a 500MW plant (48 + 48 reactors) that takes input from the left (1 belt iron, 1 belt sulphur+U ore, water) and for the rest is completely closed.

Like my design above, it uses priority merging/splitting to control production:
- U from reprocessing has priority over U from processing (with side merging)
- Pu from reprocessing has priority over Pu from breeding (with side merging)
- U to MOXX has priority over U to refining (with a priority splitter)

The priority splitter is the only circuit logic. It is fairly compact but still understandable, there's a bit of spaghetti in the middle but it makes sense if you look at it :)

On 100% load for 10 minutes it achieves 470MW (445MW net) consuming around 400 iron/m, 125 U ore/m, and 25 sulfur/m, so a single express belt of iron can feed 5 6 plants.

(edit: made two small improvements: a small fuel buffer that is filled when fuel backs up to help (re)start the reactor, and a pump added to supply the chemplant, a bit stupid to get external water when one side needs water anyway.
Note that the coast is not quite straight in the updated blueprint and that the screenshot is still of the 'old' version, since I made the changes in production rather than in creative mode)
screenshot
blueprint
Updated blueprint
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Re: [MOD 0.14] Nucular 1.0.4 - Nuclear Reactors and Weapons

Post by Nukerman9 »

I look through all these posts and shrivel up inside knowing i'll never reach this level of spaghet not even close... not to mention this mod is confusing as fuck to understand when first starting off and so far seen nothing giving a step by step of what to do...

EDIT: Ive still yet to see the purpose of the cooling tower as well.... so far no ones used it...
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Re: [MOD 0.14] Nucular 1.0.4 - Nuclear Reactors and Weapons

Post by Aadkins13 »

Having trouble with getting fuel to the reactor. I have a simple setup of a fast inserter trying to move the enriched fuel to a reactor, but nothing will happen. It will, however, take the the spent fuel out. I've tried all types of inserters with no change. Anyone else having the same problem? Any fixes?
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Re: [MOD 0.14] Nucular 1.0.4 - Nuclear Reactors and Weapons

Post by KrzysD »

Nukerman9 wrote:I look through all these posts and shrivel up inside knowing i'll never reach this level of spaghet not even close... not to mention this mod is confusing as fuck to understand when first starting off and so far seen nothing giving a step by step of what to do...

EDIT: Ive still yet to see the purpose of the cooling tower as well.... so far no ones used it...
Same here, this is to way to complex to even be feasible, looking at the blueprint above your post, all the material, I'd just rather do solar then to have to be worried if i have enough raw material coming in to be used for the power plants.
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Re: [MOD 0.14] Nucular 1.0.4 - Nuclear Reactors and Weapons

Post by pezzawinkle »

Stupid Question (please forgive in advance)...
Apart from using them for advanced cracking, are the steam boilers viable for power generation? And what ratio would be recommended?

Off the top of my head:
1 pump generates 60 water/s
each boiler uses 4 water/s generating 4 Steam/s (at the cost of 1MJ)
-->15 boilers/pump capacity
Steam Engines (ill get to turbines in a tick) use 1 fluid/s (unless this has been changed for steam... i hope it has)
you can theoretically run 4 vanilla steam engines per boiler?
Turbines (these replace 10 vanilla engines) should be run by 3 boilers

ON testing these...
6 Steam Boilers can feed 1 Turbine + 1 Engine with a stable output with a generation capacity of 5,940 kW (both above listed max output by 5.9%ish)
Fuel usage is 6MW so you have a total efficiency of 99%.

Now, not really worth replacing the old set-up's but useful if you are short on space (another downside if you want to have a compact build is burner inserters are not easy to fit for a belt build).

Clearly this becomes moot once you transfer to uranium, but i was thinking a compact (non-solar) back-up generator...
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