Nuclear ideas (Thorium and others)

[loganb]

I think a more interesting breeder-reactor chain would be interesting. In addition to being unrealistic, I found the Kovarex Enrichment Process to be somewhat disappointing because instead of building a reactor, I just waited an extra two hours until I built up 40 U-235, could start one enrichment machine, then 2, etc until I had 10 running and knew I was producing U-235 at a fast enough rate for nukes and reactors (10 enrichment centrifuges was probably overkill, but i had no idea how much I'd need).

A breeder-reactor process where you feed a reactor U-235 & Thorium and get out U-233 with ~102-108% yield (or even just U-235 even though it's slightly unrealistic) would encourage the user to setup operational reactors as quickly as possible, which I think would make for more interesting gameplay. Then, the user would need to balance breeder reactors with normal reactors to ensure they make enough U-233 for all the normal reactors.

[iamwyza]

I think a more interesting breeder-reactor chain would be interesting. In addition to being unrealistic, I found the Kovarex Enrichment Process to be somewhat disappointing because instead of building a reactor, I just waited an extra two hours until I built up 40 U-235, could start one enrichment machine, then 2, etc until I had 10 running and knew I was producing U-235 at a fast enough rate for nukes and reactors (10 enrichment centrifuges was probably overkill, but i had no idea how much I'd need).

A breeder-reactor process where you feed a reactor U-235 & Thorium and get out U-233 with ~102-108% yield (or even just U-235 even though it's slightly unrealistic) would encourage the user to setup operational reactors as quickly as possible, which I think would make for more interesting gameplay. Then, the user would need to balance breeder reactors with normal reactors to ensure they make enough U-233 for all the normal reactors.

Something along these lines is much better imo. Basically, remove the Kovarex process entirely, and replace it with something like this that encourages early use of nuclear power instead of hoarding u-235 for several hours.

[bobingabout]

Yeah, looking at how the current stuff works, I was like.... okay, so I just have to get 40 of the good uranium, then run kovarex a few times, and once kovarex is up and running, use that for my good uranium.

I'd rather have it the other way around, shove in lots of bad shit, and maybe you'll get a good one now and then.

[T2k3]

I think a more interesting breeder-reactor chain would be interesting. In addition to being unrealistic, I found the Kovarex Enrichment Process to be somewhat disappointing because instead of building a reactor, I just waited an extra two hours until I built up 40 U-235, could start one enrichment machine, then 2, etc until I had 10 running and knew I was producing U-235 at a fast enough rate for nukes and reactors (10 enrichment centrifuges was probably overkill, but i had no idea how much I'd need).

A breeder-reactor process where you feed a reactor U-235 & Thorium and get out U-233 with ~102-108% yield (or even just U-235 even though it's slightly unrealistic) would encourage the user to setup operational reactors as quickly as possible, which I think would make for more interesting gameplay. Then, the user would need to balance breeder reactors with normal reactors to ensure they make enough U-233 for all the normal reactors.

Now that you mention it, it's really not interesting to just wait till your u-235 is pilled up. The Idea with Thorium as a means to increase your amount of nuclear fuel is good in my opinion. Maybe Bob's could get rid of the Kovarex Process and replace it with a "Bob's Enrichment Process" that turns U-233 to U-235 and lead. Then your mentioned Thorium Process could yield more U-233 that in turn can be reprocessed to U-235.

As an Example:

59x Thorium + 1x U-235 -> 25x thorium fuel cells (4GJ fuel value)
1x spent thorium fuel cell -> 2x U-233
40x U-233 -> 1x U-235 + 20x lead + 19x U-233

that would in cooperate Thorium very elegant without any new resource and in turn even balance the whole nukleare cycle.

Glad you mention Nukes. It would be more interesting if they would need plutonium. So you could get the material for nukes only from spent fuel. So the whole "let's produce nukes like popcorn" would go as well. Maybe as a "either get the U-233 or invest 20 spent cells for one plutonium" so it's a hard choice to produce a nuke.

[orzelek]

RSO has thorium added - since it's disabbled by default you won't get it for now.
You would need to enable it by hand or wait for it to be used and enabled by default.

do you currently look for my mods enabling the ores?

I'm checking if autoplace is present before using any of the ores so it should work correctly. If someone enables thorium by hand it shows up (thats how I was testing) but by default it's not present.

[Light]

The greatest flaw of the vanilla reactor is that you need around 70k uranium ore and then enrichment is all you need. The ore is irrelevant, despite many patches of it giving millions of ore.

One of the great things about the Uranium Power mod, aside from the very realistic process; Is that fuel rods must always be created from new uranium ores, with no enrichment possible. The uranium ore was rare, low quantity and the only way to get the most out of your rods were to recycle them in a complex process to create a MOX fuel rod. This process would take many used up rods just to create a single MOX, preventing it from being overpowered. (3-4 used rods for 1 recycled rod)

If there's anything I'd love to see done with the vanilla reactor, it's that the enrichment is removed and fuel recycling take center stage for getting a little bit more out of what you're using, exactly as Fatmice did with his process. This would give people a good reason to keep mining uranium ore rather than ignore them, plus remove the overpowered unlimited fuel system currently in place.

[Distelzombie]

Nah, you should have enrichment because otherwise you dont have enough U235. You need that for fission. But the approach from the devs to this is bad and weird. You shouldnt get a U235 with a chance of 0.7 or something. Its should be called Processed uranium ore or something and then you put that into the enrichment center to get Enriched uranium - put that in a machine to make fuelcells. But you should need like a 1000 processed uranium for the enrichment recipe.

[Light]

Nah, you should have enrichment because otherwise you dont have enough U235. You need that for fission. But the approach from the devs to this is bad and weird. You shouldnt get a U235 with a chance of 0.7 or something. Its should be called Processed uranium ore or something and then you put that into the enrichment center to get Enriched uranium - put that in a machine to make fuelcells. But you should need like a 1000 processed uranium for the enrichment recipe.

Moving the goal line doesn't negate the issue, just wastes more time.

The system right now is very simple:
- Mine ores until obtaining 40 U235
- Enrich them for 1-2 hours
- Fuel 10GW+ worth of reactors for all eternity with 2-3 centrifuges.

There's no effort required, so a lack of enrichment would at least require a setup to constantly sort uranium ores for that one you need. As it also creates ten fuel cells as opposed to one, there's time to sort another U235 in that window if you mine a nice bit and sort regularly. Upkeep would make sense, as nothing should truly last forever, unlimited power least of all.

The reactors created by Fatmice were a farcry from being as strong as the vanilla reactor, yet despite the rarity of uranium/fluorite ore and the fact no enrichment existed to create unlimited fuel, the mod was very well received for how well handled and balanced it was.

So no, I don't agree that enrichment has to exist for vanilla reactors to be useful. They're strong enough due to the neighbor bonus as it is. Enrichment just turns it into a cheat for unlimited power and should be revised or removed to make use of the many ore patches to upkeep over time, rather than mining 70-80k then ignoring them since it runs itself forever.

[ukezi]

it is even worse than 2-3 centrifuges. a centrifuge 50s@0.75 speed is-> 1 U235/66.6s->10 fuel rods@200s burntime each->30 reactors runing. and even the real big ones on reddit with hundreds of MW only use 10 or so.

[bobingabout]

I have to agree with that point on recycling. koverax process is just, wrong. and what do I get out of my spent fuel? effective garbage, you don't even get the iron back.
So one of the changes I would make to that is you need to make a fuel canister or something, which you get back when recycling.

[Crixomix]

I think if something like kovarex is to exist, it needs to cost you something. Currently it turns 3 238 into 1 235 and only costs power.... Wut? I have no idea what is "realistic" in terms of actual nuclear power, but it could cost one or more of these types of things to make it somewhat less broken in the meantime:

-A LOT of power (enough to be a substantial % of the fuel value you gain)
-Other resources (ore, iron, acid, something)
-A TON of time. Like recipe time increased to 400,800, even 2000.

[loganb]

I have to agree with that point on recycling. koverax process is just, wrong. and what do I get out of my spent fuel? effective garbage, you don't even get the iron back.
So one of the changes I would make to that is you need to make a fuel canister or something, which you get back when recycling.

One thing I like about using a Breeder Reactor to make more fissile material (instead of Kovarex Enrichment) is that the rate of production is going to be proportionate to base size (unless the player wants to over-provision nuclear production). It creates a natural dynamic where nuclear supplies for, say, atomic rockets will always be relatively scarce.

I'd suggest a structure like:
- Add a "Breeder Reactor" which is like a normal reactor except that takes U-235 and U-238 and spits out U-235 (maybe using a nuclear reprocessing chain, e.g., the PUREX process)
- Have a ratio of Breeder Reactors to normal reactors, so that one breeder can feed, say, 3 normal reactors
- Make the Breeder Reactor very time consuming to build (maybe 600 or even 1200 seconds), so that it's a pain to have more breeder reactors than you need
- Players can then "divert" U-235 from the power cycle to weapons production, but it will be difficult to produce large numbers of weapons because breeder reactors will always be scarce relative to base size

I think that makes for a more interesting game because then the player has to be choosy in their deployment of nuclear weapons. Playing through 0.15 right now, once I have 20 centrifuges Enrich 2k+ of U-235, I basically get to go around the map nuking absolutely everything.

[British_Petroleum]

Some interesting things from the thorium wikipedia page:

"Many applications of thorium use, rather than the metal, its dioxide, commonly called thoria"

"When added to glass, thoria helps increase refractive index and decrease dispersion. Such glass finds application in high-quality lenses for cameras and scientific instruments"

"Thoria has been used as a chemical catalyst in the conversion of ammonia to nitric acid, in petroleum cracking and in producing sulfuric acid."

Paraphrasing the part on nuclear fission:
Thorium-232 converts to U-233 when bombarded with a neutron. U-233 works much the same as U-235, and the neutrons it emits during fission can be used to convert more thorium to U-233.

[NewSwiss]

Two general thoughts on thorium: I agree with the folks previously that want thorium to be useful in the mid game, before kovarex enrichment gets going. Right now it feels like a terrible waste for me to use any uranium before getting kovarex, and you need speed beacons to reach kovarex before the really late game. You could kill 2 birds with 1 stone, since as per wikipedia, thorium is mostly produced as a bi-product of uranium mining. So while we're stockpiling uranium for kovarex, we could also be getting thorium as a for more mid-game use. This would also have the advantage of not adding more ores to the modpack (there are almost too many as-is). If the balance of this is a concern, then just make it take a bunch of extra processing (but not too much) to get each thorium.

Plasma would rise up into the athmosphere. No use.

Not necessarily. There are two viable approaches to ranged plasma weaponry: First is vortex ring plasma cannons, as described @2:24 in this video. Second, have you ever heard of a plasma rail gun? If you get plasma moving sufficiently close to the speed of light, you can get some decent range out of it (and with devastating effect, I would imagine). It's still a bit on the science-fiction side as far as actually building one for weapons use, but so are bob's laser rifles, so I wouldn't see any problem having it in game.

A directional electric-arc weapon would be possible. Even in real life.
Have a tower (Like the tesla-towers in command and conquer) and a seperate entity that you have to place where biters come from. Basically like a fence of pillars. The seperate pillars/poles would be computer controlled earthed or pulled out to attract that arc. The tower would sense where an enemy is and ground the pole behind him. The arc would search for the path of least resistance and probably go through the enemy.

You wouldn't actually need to build guiding pillars if you used laser plasma to guide the current. See electrolasers:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrolaser

[Degraine]

I think in terms of modifying the fuel cycle the Nuclear Fuel mod has this pretty well covered.

[BlackMoon]

Oh oh. How about as an alternative rocket fuel for launches? NUCLEAR ROCKET FUEL! there are actual nuclear rocket engines proposed, and RTG's (Radiothermal generator) are a thing for satellites/rovers.

[iamwyza]

Oh oh. How about as an alternative rocket fuel for launches? NUCLEAR ROCKET FUEL! there are actual nuclear rocket engines proposed, and RTG's (Radiothermal generator) are a thing for satellites/rovers.

Not so much. RTG's have such abysmal efficiency it'd be basically impossible to launch a rocket with the power they produce. Some of the most powerful only generate a few thousand watts of energy. Rockets (in the broadest sense) are producing the equivalent of gigawatts of energy. That said, using RTGs in Satellites makes perfect sense. Low energy needed over a really, really, really long time.

Not that factorio is a big realism thing, but I don't see the rockets themselves as needing nuclear power to lift off. (if nuclear launches were something reasonable, we'd have done it, they aren't, which is why it's still chemical based).

Now, we could look at using nuclear stuff to create other things. We use radiation all the time to do fun stuff to elements to make them become other elements or have other behaviors.

[T2k3]

Oh oh. How about as an alternative rocket fuel for launches? NUCLEAR ROCKET FUEL! there are actual nuclear rocket engines proposed, and RTG's (Radiothermal generator) are a thing for satellites/rovers.

Not so much. RTG's have such abysmal efficiency it'd be basically impossible to launch a rocket with the power they produce. Some of the most powerful only generate a few thousand watts of energy. Rockets (in the broadest sense) are producing the equivalent of gigawatts of energy. That said, using RTGs in Satellites makes perfect sense. Low energy needed over a really, really, really long time.

Not that factorio is a big realism thing, but I don't see the rockets themselves as needing nuclear power to lift off. (if nuclear launches were something reasonable, we'd have done it, they aren't, which is why it's still chemical based).

Now, we could look at using nuclear stuff to create other things. We use radiation all the time to do fun stuff to elements to make them become other elements or have other behaviors.

if i may. There are actually "nukleare rocket motors", well just as a concepts to be fair. The most known/popular might be the NERVA concept (see here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NERVA). Since they leave a somewhat unhealthy radioactive aftereffect on ground they are only meant for space.

[iamwyza]

Oh oh. How about as an alternative rocket fuel for launches? NUCLEAR ROCKET FUEL! there are actual nuclear rocket engines proposed, and RTG's (Radiothermal generator) are a thing for satellites/rovers.

Not so much. RTG's have such abysmal efficiency it'd be basically impossible to launch a rocket with the power they produce. Some of the most powerful only generate a few thousand watts of energy. Rockets (in the broadest sense) are producing the equivalent of gigawatts of energy. That said, using RTGs in Satellites makes perfect sense. Low energy needed over a really, really, really long time.

Not that factorio is a big realism thing, but I don't see the rockets themselves as needing nuclear power to lift off. (if nuclear launches were something reasonable, we'd have done it, they aren't, which is why it's still chemical based).

Now, we could look at using nuclear stuff to create other things. We use radiation all the time to do fun stuff to elements to make them become other elements or have other behaviors.

if i may. There are actually "nukleare rocket motors", well just as a concepts to be fair. The most known/popular might be the NERVA concept (see here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NERVA). Since they leave a somewhat unhealthy radioactive aftereffect on ground they are only meant for space.

Interesting, learn something new every day. So it isn't exactly that they are using the nuclear reaction as fuel, but as a method to superheat something else (looks like hydrogen). I knew about space based nuclear engines (both thermal and electric), but didn't know they ever considered them for atmospheric use. In this case, radiation in space, go!

[BlackMoon]

Oh oh. How about as an alternative rocket fuel for launches? NUCLEAR ROCKET FUEL! there are actual nuclear rocket engines proposed, and RTG's (Radiothermal generator) are a thing for satellites/rovers.

Not so much. RTG's have such abysmal efficiency it'd be basically impossible to launch a rocket with the power they produce. Some of the most powerful only generate a few thousand watts of energy. Rockets (in the broadest sense) are producing the equivalent of gigawatts of energy. That said, using RTGs in Satellites makes perfect sense. Low energy needed over a really, really, really long time.

Not that factorio is a big realism thing, but I don't see the rockets themselves as needing nuclear power to lift off. (if nuclear launches were something reasonable, we'd have done it, they aren't, which is why it's still chemical based).

Now, we could look at using nuclear stuff to create other things. We use radiation all the time to do fun stuff to elements to make them become other elements or have other behaviors.

thats what I meant, using a NERVA engine in the sat instead of just shoving more rocket fuel into it.
Also, Check out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_pulse_propulsion
Its basically a serious look at the idea of:
'what would happen if we rode on a nuke and detonated it below us, could we use it to get to orbit?'
'no you would be destroyed'
'ok what if we had like, an armored plate'
'you would get splatted by the sudden shock'
'and a shock absorber'
'still wouldn't get high enough from one nuke and you'd vaporize the armored plate'
'... smaller nukes. thousands of them'
'....... Ok that might work'

Better yet the math says you could lift a small city out to mars pretty easily with it. though you'd likely knock out most of the electronics on the side of the earth you launched from.