Friday Facts #164 - Nuclear power

[steinio]

Looking for 3d artist

We are starting the last sprint for finishing factorio 1.0 and this requires support of the graphics department so we are looking for an artist. The work is not simple, so if you are not into complicated 3d stuff, Blender, tilesets, complex pipeline with scripting, postprocessing with After Effects, you wouldn't like this position. Not the mention the understanding of aesthetics and geometrical tricks is also required. If you think your profile is fitting enough don't hesitate to send us your portfolio.

Yuoki? Angel? Anyone?

[Dev-iL]

I'd like to bring up naming conventions. See this discussion I had with Mishka a few months ago about the translations of string #125: "Steam engine":

1. I am happy that you guys are making steps toward using proper terminology
2. I'd like to use this opportunity to reiterate the suggestion of others before me to rename "engine" into "generator".

[Grimakar]

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.

Your comment confuses me. Like a circle: The energy I produced will be used to produce energy.
To me, it only makes sense, if the solars could be used to heat water, that could be stored in tanks as a replacement to accus.
So still wondering, what do you have in mind?

[Jan11]

Like.^^ Big explosion. I like it^^ Everyone likes big explosions ^^

and new ores yessss. The game needs more different types of ore.

[vaderciya]

The amount of excitement I have is almost equal to the amount of need we have for an endgame <3

[halcyonforever]

Big fan of the changes.

On power plant explosions, I would like to see some sort of fail safe for initial setup but once you push it to a certain point it becomes fail-deadly. I think that might be included in the mention of different performance levels. At level 1 it will fail safely, but much lower performance, at level 3 higher performance but fail deadly.

[rbrucemtl]

I bet your not great at where's waldo games.

I'm brainless, can someone sum up the nuclear process for me? And why is this picture

is said to be different from this picture

Isn't it the same way we used to do to get water into steam engine?

[warmadmax]

Regarding punishment for letting a reactor go supercritical,

I'd go with radiation contamination that can make biters stronger, especially if they set up nests in the fallout area round the reactor

From reading so far, reactor explosions seems to be based on the reactor coolant going boom!
When that happens it should generate the long lasting radiation cloud, maybe a much bigger variation on the poison cloud?

[rbrucemtl]

Also with this new layout we can't see the activity in the boilers... the fire... I liked to see it as an indication of the current demand at a glance as I'm passing by.

Explosions are fun... love it... bots will take care of the damage anyway. I also can't wait for HD sprites.

Thanks for this incredible game...

[Evilbee]

What are you planning for the nuclear waste? Put it into the rocket instead of the satellite?

[Rhamphoryncus]

I've asked for the water/steam change so I can't complain that it breaks many (but not all) boiler chaining layouts.

Circuit control on reactors is iffy. Eking out a little more efficiency? Sure. Too much though and it feels necessary to run "right".

The reactors exploding trope is.. ehh. Coal is much more dangerous so can we expect changes to make them explode too? All in all lots of interesting gameplay though.

[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.

Your comment confuses me. Like a circle: The energy I produced will be used to produce energy.
To me, it only makes sense, if the solars could be used to heat water, that could be stored in tanks as a replacement to accus.
So still wondering, what do you have in mind?

Here, I've marked it. But it's not to replace the accus, but to have a backup system in case power lines from the solar fields get destroyed. And to make my sentence easier to understand, I meant that previous electric boiler mod was unstable in terms of heated water temperature and power consumption. Now the amount of steam produced can be tied directly to the power available to electric boilers, which is gonna make electric boilers easier to implement.

[MrGrim]

As others have already pointed out steam and hydrogen explosions are a hazard of nuclear power plants. I love the idea of that kind of risk. I'm also happy to see that the option for circuit controlled plants is available for advanced builds!

I think it's hilarious how people keep trying to compare things in this game to real life systems designed, built, and managed by hundreds if not thousands of people. Nuclear power in Factorio should be barely held together by spit and gum. It reminds me of people that argue about train power consumption and physics in Factorio as if the tiny trains barely big enough to fit the engineer in the game are the same thing as the massive locomotives in real life trains.

I also like the idea of electric boilers as an alternative to accumulators. That or accumulators consuming batteries as a sort of fuel when charging/discharging. Something to make them more dynamic and interesting.

[Suitcase08]

I like the idea of pushing reactor's too hard backfiring with an explosion, we don't have that elsewhere in the game and it would require a different solution than just 'make biters stronger' or 'produce a ton of pollution'. The only difference here is that the punishment of damage is more instantaneous than biters throwing themselves against your defenses/buildings. On the other hand, covering the area with robo ports that can rebuild themselves may not be the most inventive solution (if that would work) but would start draining resources depending on the lost investment, and encourage players to isolate Nuclear power further from factories, or build dense if they feel daring!

Radiated areas requiring a suit or module in power armor could be neat too, but I don't think it's necessary. I'm excited for the new boiler system setups that will spring out of this change. Also excited to see how we can use circuit conditions to maximize our power plant efficiency!

I agree with what Fact_3011 said, Nuclear shouldn't be free lunch- for me it is about managing risk and balancing that against rewards while learning complexity. I think this will strike a chord with a lot of players and be a really fun mechanic to toy with.

[Mella]

We are waiting about news for circuit optimizations in 0.15

[DrCryllus]

My 2 Bits:
I really like the idea of a nuclear planet failing safe at lower efficiency, and fail deadly at high efficiency. otherwise, what if as a first time setup you make a mistake? Alternatively make its fail safe-ness just a matter of how many reactors joined together.
I am really not a fan of the change to early boilers. Just like rolfl's picture, something like the setup he depicted is the most effective for the early game that I have found. his is mid late version, but 1:14:10 ratio allows for 2 rows of 7 boilers with inserters in between as he depicted. Maybe just output steam opposite water imput and optionally hot water out the perpendicular side?

[Twinsen]

We are waiting about news for circuit optimizations in 0.15

We already wrote about it here https://www.factorio.com/blog/post/fff-155

[DeathMers]

....
In that example, you've got 24 boilers outputting into a single pipe, I assume feeding 20 steam engines. This is actually far less space efficient and only saves a few iron on pipes, plus you lose a lot of heat in the pipes between the boilers and steam engines.

If you use the traditional 1-14-10 setup it should be fine. LIne the steam engines up directly next to each other and use long handled inserters......

Well.... Im fucked.... I use traditional mass layout 10-150-100 in a very thin layout - like layout divided to half, where 75 boilers supply each other, its easy as fuck and provide shitload of energy. I dont care about coal consumption, cause there is so much unused petroleum products, i create enough rocket fuel to supply all boilers, cars, trains on map. But this shit??? That doesn't make a sense.... Even boiled water produce pressure...

[aober93]

Interesting, in one paragraph i am thinking to myself why dont they allow buildings to connect to one bigger version. And in the next they propose it with nuclear plants.

Weird that you change boilers into output steam and "less water". I figured the original way is already very intuitive. It doesnt make sense, except if you planned to change the boilers into not accepting steam. But why. To warrant cooling towers? This can be done otherwise. Especially now while you focus efficiency.

You cool the steam to keep the flow going by raising the pressure over the turbine as high as possible. Cooling the circuit makes the turbine more powerful and effective. Not cooling it may stop the flow entirely. This controls the efficiency in a gameplay friendly manner. In game you regulate the flow by "consumption". Ditch the idea that an offshore pump drives the turbine entirely. Have turbines require a closed circuit, or one with a backfeed offshore pump, but no pump can drive a turbine alone. That is ditch the idea that you put a steam engine after a turbine after a single offshort pump to void the leftover steam. This turbine would have like 0,01% efficiency.

The steam engine method of an open circuit was well designed. The archaic method like on steam trains.

[aober93]

Oh and as a sidenote to my last post. If the cooling is stopped and the steam doesnt flow, the whole thing overheats. And you have Chernobyl. Explosions you try to implement so i thought i meantion it.