Nuclear Reactor Cooling

[HawkeyeXXVII]

Hey guys,
My suggestion is to add a cooling system to the nuclear reactor to help make it more real world accurate. Based on that, I think you should continue on your original idea which involved a large explosion if you do not set up and cool that reactor correctly/efficiently. With this I think the game would be a lot more fun as it would add an element of danger to the reactor if you do not respect it, just as it does in the real world.

Have a great day!

[Tekky]

Yes, that would be nice.

However I think there should also be a safe mode of operation, which generates less power, but has no danger of anything going wrong. That way, it is the player's decision whether he wants to play it safe or whether he wants to get maximum power output.

[uliks]

Are you talking about nuclear meltdown, there was a plenty discussion's about, I guess it was to complicated to implant.

[diederTheBeater]

you could simply increase the "power" of the reactor linear or quadratic to its current temperature -> higher temperature , higher power. but with a maximum cap on which it explodes.

So you would like to get it really hot, but not too hot

save mode of operation would be -> keep it cool, low production but no danger.

When in corporating efficiency it would be even better.


This idea is not ready to implement, but i think its something one can base on and it is really not hard to implement.

[Deadly-Bagel]

I think it's already a challenge. Sure it's not Mt Everest but you have to consider the barrier to entry, you don't want these mega-complex systems that need the circuit network just to operate, and if you say "sure, your way will work but if you have a degree in logic it will output 4x as much power for the same cost" then people are only going to grab blueprints off the net and we might as well not have bothered.

This is what mods are for.

[OdinYggd]

I think it's already a challenge. Sure it's not Mt Everest but you have to consider the barrier to entry, you don't want these mega-complex systems that need the circuit network just to operate, and if you say "sure, your way will work but if you have a degree in logic it will output 4x as much power for the same cost" then people are only going to grab blueprints off the net and we might as well not have bothered.

This is what mods are for.

Circuit networks are very underused though, with a lot of players never really exploring their potential or taking the time to experiment with them. Being able to properly minmax a nuclear reactor would be a good incentive to get people using the combinators and circuits.

I get the impression though that the reactor is comparable to a Westinghouse Gen3+ PWR, which has passive cooling and safety features built in. It is able to self-cool well enough to survive out of envelope operating conditions such as those produced by players just experimenting with the system.

Currently I've already figured out a control strategy that makes the reactor fuel efficient at the cost of a rather unrealistic behavior. The reactor operates in pulsed mode, inserting 1 fuel rod in each of the 4 cores whenever the turbines have slowed enough to not keep up with the factory's demand.

You would never ever do this to a real world power reactor- thermal cycling would destroy the hardware on short order. But Factorio doesn't consider that kind of damage, so I can get away with it even if it is inaccurate.

I just wish the reactor would output its core temperature and either auto-throttle from around 20%-100% or accept an external throttle input with a similar range. that way I can give it a proper closed loop temperature control to make it behave properly, while a player who doesn't want to bother can simply let it burn all it wants to with nothing bad happening.