Friday Facts #164 - Nuclear power

[Mylon]

If these changes are going through to make boilers more efficient, will 0.14 setups be nerfed slightly to compensate? Coal doesn't feel like it's heavily used, especially in end-game.

[Deadly-Bagel]

pollution circle in the mid game (before you can use efficiency modules) can get pretty huge

In late game with beacons and lvl 3 modules it's actually gets even more huge. Also setting up thousands of solars is just tedious and building huge reactor with it's complex systems can be quite more interesting.

Depends on your factory, I tend to expand the number of furnaces and use efficiency modules as it's more cost and energy efficient than using speed modules. So in the late game my pollution is practically nonexistent.

[HeadsUpHigh]

I don't like the forced use of circuits. Also the reactor should not explode, just go offline for some time or take a long time to ramp up again, maybe pollution around too. Circuits could be a cool idea in order to get maximum efficiency late game, but in no way they should be required to operate the reactor safely. Also I didn't understand the part about having heat on a small space when multiple reactors are combined. Isn't that a good thing since you lose heat the further you move ? Or is that going to make the reactors explode ? Besides if the reactors just have inputs for fuel and outputs for steam all around what more is needed other than a couple of pumps to take the steam out and then encyrcle the reactor with engines/turbines to produce the electricity. Then recycle the steam through the cooling tower to the reactor. I don't understand how the heat is going to be managed or what factor will make the reactor explode. Is heat going to be passively dissipated around the area ? If so we need a new overlay indicator of that "cloud". All of this sounds way too complicated for no reason. Circuitry can already be used on oil refineries in order to balance outputs and keep it running non-stop, but it is in no means necessary to run a refinery. I think it should be something similar for the reactor.

[Deadly-Bagel]

Probably you will be able to set up something safe and simple without circuits but that is inefficient compared to circuit based designs, this is how the rest of the game works too.

[bobingabout]

oh noes, another thing I need to rewrite in my mods.

[MeduSalem]

Sounds like a pretty solid concept for the Nuclear power... I like it so far.


That said the piping will probably become quite complex, won't it? Maybe even some circulating stuff or at least complex branching as has been mentioned... that means that the fluid mechanics will have to be improved greatly because currently a lot of awkward things happen in systems with circulation and/or complex branching, especially on the pressure part requiring pumps and all sorts of additional tricks that become awkward quite fast.

Also if I understand correctly the boilers aren't able to produce steam with a lot more than 100°C, are they? Getting up to the mentioned 500°C a Steam Turbine can handle will probably be something only a Nuclear Reactor can do instead?


At this point I would also like to suggest that the Boilers should have a second pipe-input as well (on the opposite site of the Steam Output)... which can be used to insert Crude Oil/Heavy/Light Oil or Petroleum gas to burn the stuff directly instead of having to use solid fuel:

steam power1.png (549.14 KiB) Viewed 8710 times

[guzwaatensen]

I was even considering adding option that is not realistic (at least with the current technology), but it could add a lot of interesting gameplay possibilities. Imagine that you could store the heat in some kind of item. Maybe some kind of special metal with huge heat capacity. That would mean, that you could use the logistics to transfer the heat from the central reactor place even faster using our logistics possibilities.

What do you mean, no technology? There's PCMs (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase-change_material) and there's Molten Salt Storage. Either of these would do!

[ChurchOrganist]

Getting up to the mentioned 500°C a Steam Turbine can handle will probably be something only a Nuclear Reactor can do instead?

Heat is not the only factor in producing superheated steam, as any conventional power station worker or ship's engineer will tell you.

The most significant factor in efficient superheating of steam is pressure.

It occurs to me that the new changes in boilers will require two new pieces of kit - the non-return valve so flows can be regulated before access to small pump technology is researched, and the ball valve so water tank levels can be automated before access to the circuit network is available.

[Impatient]

why did you implement it the way that boilers can not heat steam even more?

i like the whole temperature and heated fluids in pipes thingy. ->oh i guess i know now why one can not heat steam . will there be steam of different temperature? or just water and steam?

i like the whole temperateure thing, because it works differently than producing or consuming X pieces of type A.

[OkariDraconis]

@kovarex

I was even considering adding option that is not realistic (at least with the current technology), but it could add a lot of interesting gameplay possibilities. Imagine that you could store the heat in some kind of item. Maybe some kind of special metal with huge heat capacity. That would mean, that you could use the logistics to transfer the heat from the central reactor place even faster using our logistics possibilities.

We have technology Already...except its liquid heat...as molten salt
http://www.solarreserve.com/en/technolo ... gy-storage

Video explaining (I think)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UgsMFPE6Fno

Essentially you would transport this molten salt liquid around, and turn it into steam power were ever you need it.
Possibly you can barrel it, but I would imagine you need specialized barrels.. But a Specialized Train tanker would work well I bet.

[mirhagk]

Please use molten salts (despite the high temp really being impractical), and allow it for earlier generation of power too. It'd be cool if you had an alternate to accumulators for storing solar power that was just more complex to setup

[electricmonk2k]

About the nuclear reactor having a big explosion when there's no water to cool it: one thing you could do is build one near some biters' nests and not cool it with water ... and BOOM! Reactor-based nuclear weapons.

Hello !
So impatient for the update 0.15
A little disappointed that it's only in 3 months: '(

No worries. Transport Fever's just come out \o/

About the boilers though, will they now have a "direction" and in you example nothing is attached to "heated water" end, will this block steam production like in chemical plants where when a fluid can not be output the proces stops?
It all feels a little convoluted for the sake of itself.

From looking at the picture, I think the 'direction' of the steam is just perpendicular to the flow of water.

[Mooncat]

hm... "nuclear explosion"...
Warning, nuclear missile launched.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MfVsQNVf6Cs&t=36s

About the hot water to steam change, is the "less water" output optional? Just to confirm as I don't see the water output from the image.

Does "heat pipes" mean we will have another type of pipes that can only transfer heat? Is this suggestion possible? viewtopic.php?f=6&t=30868 (This was made very long time ago when I had just started modding )

[Joriom]

2. Why Reactor Explosions?
Reactors in RL are build in a Way that prevents any kind of Explosion in a Critical Situation.
the worse that can happen is that the Rods will Melt together into a Blob and will Destory all Normal Biological Life around it for a Long time.
The Only way a Reactor can Actually Blow up, is when it is Heavly Damaged, so that the Normal Safety Mechanisms can't work... or a Human f**cks it up.

Because a single engineer building nuclear reacotor literally in his pocket would not count as a "human fucking up", right?
Also, you actually bring great argument for circuits. "reactors ... are build in a way that prevents any kind of Explosion". You're the single ingeener working on a project. You are the one implementing the failsafes. If you're crafty enough, you'll be the powermonger. If you can't wrap your head around the idea of circuits, you'll just stick to smaller, safer reactors - still, producting enough if you make few of them.

[Fact_3011]

I like this concept a lot.

I also think that the player should be really punished if he fails to operate the nuclear power plant. Others have argued that a 'huge' explosion is unrealistic, and they are probably right. Still I think temporary polution together with a one time armor upgrade by itself is not a large enough punishment. A 'huge' explosion would hurt more because things have to be restored manually. And even that totally depends on what 'huge' exactly means. It should certainly big enough so players can't easily just reserve some landscape for their power plants and stop caring. Some large random region could additionaly be radiated for a looong time (in this case a realisticly sized region and time span would be too much in Factorio) hurting the player more and more the closer he gets to the leak. Armor updates might be a good idea but they should only reduce the damage somewhat and not totally stop it. Fixing the leaking reactor clould also be extremly expensive and time consuming.

Solar panels should still be a reasonable option for people who want to play save/have lots of space/try not to waste energy.
Nuclear power should not become free lunch.

[Ghoulish]

Interesting as usual

There really should must be a spectacularly bad consequence for letting a reactor overheat.. Perhaps even long term consequences? Or even cleanup technologies? Have you thought about a radiation suit or similar for collecting the ores or being needed whilst installing mining equipment. Modules in the suit perhaps (long past due time for having a mk 3 power armor!).

"I was even considering adding option that is not realistic " Realism be damned, make it huge, and fun. That's what we all want. Besides it seeems with molten salt and the like in solar, which someone mentioned earlier..

Can't wait

[Grimakar]

About the nuclear reactor having a big explosion when there's no water to cool it: one thing you could do is build one near some biters' nests and not cool it with water ... and BOOM! Reactor-based nuclear weapons.

I was thinking exactly the same. Would be so much fun. Then there came some buts (with one T) into my head. The explosion must be quiet big, because if the structure is too close to a hive, the biters would just attack and destroy the plant. That brought me to the next question. What if the nuclear power plant gets destroyed? There definitely should be an explosion, but depending on the stress level of the plant, the higher the level the more devastating the explosion.

Whatever tomorrow brings, I will experiment with this.

[rolfl]

Interesting as usual

There really should must be a spectacularly bad consequence for letting a reactor overheat.. Perhaps even long term consequences?

....

Can't wait

I suggest a fork-bomb, memory grab, or some parallel mandelbrot calculation device on the CPU of the machine - literally melt down the CPU..... cause a system reboot or some such.

Make it really "hurt" to have the meltdown.

I guess it would be too much to have heating pads in the player's chair that melt-down their derriere....?

Something more tangible than virtual pollution in a virtual world would be neat.

[tetryon]

well uuh nuclear reactors (modern ones) don't really do a "big" explosion when stuff goes really wrong (like a meltdown).
maybe do it so that if stuff goes really wrong it will do a medium explosion and make so that the aria can't be accessed without proper equipment (like a powerarmor with some kind of anti-radiatorn thing).

or you can say that it is just a un-optimized "prototype" reactor.

i would also like some other ways that heated water can be used other than just running steam engines.


-The Mighty Spoon

Maybe like a tier of pre-electricity equipment... steam powered miners/etc?

[Bi0nicM4n]

The change made to boilers gives me hope to see an electric boiler one day, since it better suits the latter one's operation terms. Also, if you're going to introduce exploding nuclear reactors, I'd like to have this available aswell:
1. A way to decontaminate the irradiated area (preferably in a semi-auto way);
2. An Anti-Rad treatment for the player, to purge radiation from the body;
3. Maybe passive reactor protection system that prevents fallout in the case of meltdown, so you only have to decontaminate the inner space of the reactor if bad things happen.

The nuclear tech tree could develop like train tech tree does: first you research nuclear reactor, then the reactor control system followed by active/passive protection systems.

Also I'd like to see incremental radiation damage based on the absorbed radiation dose, like in System Shock 2 -- player absorbs radiation and gets damaged each 5 seconds based on how much radiation they absorbed, and with each damaging cycle the absorbed radiation decreases a little. At lower doses rad damage is pretty negligible, but it escalates quickly.

P.S. If centrifuges and breeder reactors are gonna make it into the game one day, that'd also be cool.