Friday Facts #173 - Nuclear stuff is almost done

[Selvek]

I don't think adding everything once is a good idea as in: add the nuclear power but keep the overheat, the meltdown for the next update (0.15.1...)

I agree. Let everyone build their (potentially unstable) setups, then have them all meltdown immediately after applying the next update

[Eitelkeit]

Meltdowns makes anything NOT FUN at all. Huge complex jumps are not good. If they want to add more complex stuff, they could be in a way that it's incremental.

It's supposed to be end-game content, right? Therefore the more complex it is the more longevity it gives to gameplay. Now it feels like it just way to trivialize power issues, not like something that could add up another ~10 hours to the playthrough as it was before.

[Yoyobuae]

Meltdown could mean:
1 reactor is running
2 someone disconnects power line to factory (=0 load)
...

3. Circuit detects impending meltdown
4. Triggers Power switch to overflow accumulators
5. Reactor power down sequence initiated

Come on, "tickling the dragon's tail" could be loads of fun.

Why must everything be safe? Where's the excitement in that?

[Yehn]

So the emphasis will be on ore processing instead of cyclic system design...

Disappointing for me, honestly... was looking forward to that a lot more than a sprinkling of Angel's-esque flavor.

[IronCartographer]

Meltdown could mean:
1 reactor is running
2 someone disconnects power line to factory (=0 load)
...

3. Circuit detects impending meltdown
4. Triggers Power switch to overflow accumulators
5. Reactor power down sequence initiated

Come on, "tickling the dragon's tail" could be loads of fun.

Why must everything be safe? Where's the excitement in that?

If cooling towers were added, there would be no problem if you built enough cooling capacity. You could even store the steam in tanks, with how fluids in Factorio don't lose heat (unless steam is an exception).

Even more interesting is the possibility of a smooth progression with meltdown being purely optional.

There could be three tiers of research, just like the train research progression:

• Cooling towers improving efficiency of coal power even before nuclear is unlocked
• Nuclear power, without circuit logic or meltdown risks
• Circuit controls for reactors, with all the risk and reward of being able to push the limits

[Proxy]

What about the Waste...?
RTGs? xD
and i got no Problem with No Meltdowns. i mean look at BigReactors. it has no Danger at all and is not that OP.

One thing i could Imagine, is Radiated Pollution. Worse than Normal Pollution and Increases Biter Evolution and Actually Harms the Player, maybe with Shielding for the Module Armor?

and then There are Fusion Reactors. which can't Meltdown, but need a Huge amount of Uncommon Resources and Power... sooo, eh. :T

Man, i freaking Love Nuclear Science.

[Lemlin]

Which part in this chain produce the power?
Reactors? New type of steam engines?

[IronCartographer]

Which part in this chain produce the power?
Reactors? New type of steam engines?

The electricity would come from steam turbines. Reactors and heat pipes simply replace burning inserted fuel as a source of heat for the boilers.

[Deadly-Bagel]

What I dont like is the productivity research for the miners, aside from the point that I personally dont like the concept of productivity modules, it really doesnt add anything to the game, except pressing the research button and the problem with moving your mines is still the same, maybe delayed a bit but that will quickly be consumed when you ramp up your production.

Well if you ramp up your production without this research then you would be replacing outposts even faster.

My concern is with the increased cost of research, will 2% be worth it? Also the FFF was not clear on something...

Its price increases linearly so its rate of return increases as well.

What does this mean? "As well" implies that the bonus will apply linearly with the research (100, 102, 104, 106) however the net percentage increase for a research slowly gets lower while the cost increases. I would call that a decreasing rate of return. But then it depends on what we are talking about a return on. The research or the ore? Every time I reread that section I change my mind on what it means.

Well anyway let's just look at the first level of research. Just the ore requirements for 100 science packs (from FFF159) is 33,150 iron and 23,500 copper, so 56,650 ore. You won't see a positive return on even just the ore until you mine 2,832,500 ore after the research completes... Wait... What?! That's the first level, and doesn't even include the 5,100 Petroleum used! Regardless of if the bonus is additive or multiplicative, the cost per % is going to go up and the time to get a return will be longer.

I accidentally calculated the above for one science pack and the time to get a return was 28,325 ore, which I was prepared to be annoyed with but found it quite reasonable for 2% (as this break-even point is multiplied by the level of research), at least until I noticed my mistake.

[chris13524]

Meltdown could mean:
1 reactor is running
2 someone disconnects power line to factory (=0 load)
...

3. Circuit detects impending meltdown
4. Triggers Power switch to overflow accumulators
5. Reactor power down sequence initiated

Come on, "tickling the dragon's tail" could be loads of fun.

Why must everything be safe? Where's the excitement in that?

If cooling towers were added, there would be no problem if you built enough cooling capacity. You could even store the steam in tanks, with how fluids in Factorio don't lose heat (unless steam is an exception).

Even more interesting is the possibility of a smooth progression with meltdown being purely optional.

There could be three tiers of research, just like the train research progression:

• Cooling towers improving efficiency of coal power even before nuclear is unlocked
• Nuclear power, without circuit logic or meltdown risks
• Circuit controls for reactors, with all the risk and reward of being able to push the limits

I agree, if reactors receive no input to control the production level, they will default to very low production (but more than steam engines), and 0 risk of melt down (so it'd micromanage it's self on a low level similar to steam engines). If you want to ramp up production, you'll need to give it circuit input to control production level. You'd then need to monitor power usage/temperature to determine if there's too much production to prevent a melt down.

[The Phoenixian]

Good to see that nuclear power is progressing, but I'll admit it's sad to see the close water cycle go.

I hope it's eventually able to make it in in some form.

[IronCartographer]

Good to see that nuclear power is progressing, but I'll admit it's sad to see the close water cycle go.

I hope it's eventually able to make it in in some form.

Agreed. We need to find them another artist...

[Vxsote]

I have to admit I'm a little disappointed that the nuclear stuff seems to be a bit easy now, but as a programmer myself, one of the things I constantly try to drive home with my colleagues is the value of simplicity. And I'm excited about the rest of the improvements for .15, so I think a simpler implementation is the right call, at least for now.

What I would like to suggest, though, is that the entire treatment of heated fluids be reconsidered at some point in the future, with an eye toward more realistic thermodynamics. For now, I think the separation of liquid water and steam is a simplification that will benefit gameplay. But it would be really cool if you could model (at least to some extent) the relationship between temperature, pressure, and phase transitions (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase_diagram), and then maybe get into stuff like enthalpy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enthalpy) and thermodynamic cycles for calculating heat transfer between boilers and steam turbines. Obviously this might then require you to reintroduce some of the ideas (cooling towers, etc.) that you chose to leave out this time around.

I do realize what a huge undertaking it would be to do this stuff, especially if your developers haven't studied these topics previously. But I do think a little more realism in this area could significantly add to gameplay. On the other hand, if you went completely nuts with the realism, you could probably release a nuclear plant simulator as an entire standalone game (I would buy it).

Down the road, you might also expand these ideas to include environmental effects - what happens if you have a small lake for cooling water supply, and you dump too much warm water back into it? (Angry mutant fish biters, perhaps? Maybe efficiency and losses depending on ambient temperature could be calculated with different temperatures in different biomes. Maybe add insulated pipes as a new, expensive to build item.

The last thing I wanted to suggest is that the electrical grid could also be enhanced to be more realistic. You might consider capacity and transmission losses, for example, with different poles/towers having different capabilities. Perhaps you could consider heavier wire as a more expensive option for existing poles. Effective transmission over long distance could require high-voltage towers, and substations could be used to down-convert to usable voltage for a local grid. This could be geared to have little impact in early game, but make expansion a little more difficult later. This could also make it a little harder to do effective turret-creep, which I know is something you've been wanting to address.

This turned more into a suggestion post that I've been meaning to write for a while rather than the feedback on FFF (thumbs up) that I intended when I started out, but I hope you like some of these ideas and will consider them for future versions.

[sevs44936]

Some parts of the planned stuff like cooling towers and closed water cycle were dropped.

I'm kinda disappointed to see the closed water loop being dropped, was very much looking forward to using that with the old boiler/steam engine setup.
Those I still find a pain in the ass to setup since the water pumps have to either be placed manually (haven't seen any coast straight enough for more than a couple lines) or require filling half a see to create a long, straight coast. Would have been nice to blueprint a closed system I could put anywhere, fill with water, done.

[kanvil]

a couple questions:

1) How is "adjacent" defined for the reactor bonus? Does diagonal count? Do you only need to be touching along one tile?
2) What happens with the extra U238? Is it consumed in the refinement process, or do you have to dispose of it? What if there was a "breeder" component that had to be build adjacent to a reactor and would transmute U238 into U235? That would add some optional complexity to get better efficiency.

[chris13524]

What would be neat would be actual offshore pumps, floating on a barge with above-water pipes to cover more surface area. Along with that, I'd like larger pipes to pump more water to your power plants. Also support side-by-side pipes to prevent merging.

[fregate84]

What I dont like is the productivity research for the miners, aside from the point that I personally dont like the concept of productivity modules, it really doesnt add anything to the game, except pressing the research button and the problem with moving your mines is still the same, maybe delayed a bit but that will quickly be consumed when you ramp up your production.

Agree. but perhaps this research can be transform to a research who add, for each level, 1 ore/mn on each field. so we move, tier to tier, to unlimited field.

[Speadge]

Hi,

as said before i think Nuclear became way to simplistic. THere is no challenge in using it - nor some eyecandy like cooling-towers.

I played some games with the reactors mod- where u have to automate cooling with the cooling tower once the core reaces critical level - but not to long to keep the reactor efficient.
If u dont do so, the reactor shuts down to cool itself, resulting in a total energy failure from this source.

I found this to be very challenging to master and to optimize - and got used to its complexity on enrichment as well.

Now the Devs are saying, that the vanilla will be way more easy than this - and thats disappointing.

nuclear power is an endgame-option and HAS to be challenging, not just with place-adjustments, but even with wiring and circuit controls.

I think a player should have to use every skill he can obtain in the game to use it and to get the best out of it.


Making it so simplistic lets almost every 10h+ gamer use it - so there is no challenge at all. But challenges are what makes the long-term-motivvation for this game.. and the satisfaction that one could master even this challenge with the perfection of the needed skills.



---
TL;DR: please make nuclear Power more of a challenge than an "easy-to-play" mechanism.
And not just by increasing complexity of the arrangement, but the NEED to use ech skill learnt in factorio

[matjojo]

are those the new HD steam engines? they look a lot blue-er than the old ones to me?

[Proxy]

are those the new HD steam engines? they look a lot blue-er than the old ones to me?

were they the HD ones? i doubt it.
but they are Blue.