Does anyone else build multiple quad Nuclear Reactors rather than one big one?

[azesmbog]

I use 8 core (2x4) reactors. I have an ordinary world, with a respawn of living creatures, so I have to fight a lot and for a long time. Such compact reactors I have working 22 pieces + 2 in the process of construction.
626k laser turrets currently consume 15 GW.
And this is not the limit, I plan to build another 70-80 thousand turrets if my computer has enough performance

[nctdev]

I usually use 2x2 reactors (the 480 ones), just cause they look nice to me. Then I like to create separate 480MW sections of my factory. Don't know why, but I prefer having a few small "towns" than one really big, laggy etc.
I know thats less efficient, but the fuel isn't really a problem in this game, so... aesthetics win for me.

[gGeorg]

626k laser turrets currently consume 15 GW.

Why you let all the turrets drain? You could rather use a power on demand setup.

[movax20h]

I use 8 core (2x4) reactors. I have an ordinary world, with a respawn of living creatures, so I have to fight a lot and for a long time. Such compact reactors I have working 22 pieces + 2 in the process of construction.
626k laser turrets currently consume 15 GW.
And this is not the limit, I plan to build another 70-80 thousand turrets if my computer has enough performance

626k laser turrets? That is crazy. I do have about 15k turrets and I think it is kind of overkill already. I use solar and accumulators for it tho, very easy to setup, as I do have all turrets on the permieters, or around outposts, I can setup it to be easy to blueprint (wall + turrets + accumulators + substations + solar panels) to arbitrary length and shape, with sufficient power and redundancy of power (power coming from both sides). This way I can keep it independent from the factory, and mining operations, and if I plan to run the game for weeks it costs me no extra resources beyond initial investment.

You should share your setup maybe somewhere. I am curious.

[eradicator]

Octuples are my favourite compromise. Without waterfill linear scalable designs have too many problems unless you want to fill an ocean.


(From this old thread)

[azesmbog]

626k laser turrets? That is crazy. I do have about 15k turrets and I think it is kind of overkill already.
You should share your setup maybe somewhere. I am curious.

Already 631k

core.jpg (85.62 KiB) Viewed 4948 times

Here are 14 nuclear stations. still not two, but added three more).
For each station, 14 pumps without pumps. Therefore, I had to choose HUGE! pond and fill it with soil)
The rest are on two other bases.
On the left are my usual 7 pieces, and on the right are mirrored, turned upside down by 180 degrees. Why am I telling this ??
I noticed an interesting phenomenon - the stations are all the same, except for the location, and so, on the right there are less steam reserves in the tanks than on the left, I have control of the steam. Either steam production is less, or more consumption. But there is a difference, small - but noticeable. For everything else, the same, except for the position in space Maybe the developers will be interested.
Why do I have so many laser turrets ?? Well, how do you think to protect the railway with a length of 875,000 cells?)))) With a constant respawn of the beast ?!) Who constantly strive to eat and gnaw everything!

[Dixi]

I build 2xN "in line" with any mod for ground water, so it can be build endlessly until you have space, using simple copy-paste.
I tried to use different builds before, but they are more complicated to copy when you need more power.

Building some structure and installing it in a big lake, on a filled terrain. This method let you avoid using mods, but in the end lakes appear not big enough, and it requires a lot of ground filling.

[mrvn]

I usually use 2x2 reactors (the 480 ones), just cause they look nice to me. Then I like to create separate 480MW sections of my factory. Don't know why, but I prefer having a few small "towns" than one really big, laggy etc.
I know thats less efficient, but the fuel isn't really a problem in this game, so... aesthetics win for me.

But building larger reactors is more efficient, meaning you need less of them. That should be less laggy. On the other hand the reactors and fuel production aren't what's eating all the UPS. It's the heat exchangers and turbines (heat pipes and steam updates) and those are independent of how you split the reactors.

[bobucles]

But building larger reactors is more efficient, meaning you need less of them. That should be less laggy.

You're talking about a difference of like 20 reactor cores in a gigantic base. The number of heat pipes and turbines don't really change, so you can probably count the difference in CPU cycles on your hand. There are FAR better places to spend time optimizing a base, and the final solution for UPS power is always going to be solar spam.

Super long reactors also require a very convenient large source of water. You generally want pumps directly next to their consumers, and huge chains of reactors require huge rivers to match. If you're piping water in from far away, any UPS gains on the dozen or so reactors will get buried by the cost of extra water flow, plus the extra biter pathing that goes into such a map layout, and things like that.

[foamy]

But building larger reactors is more efficient, meaning you need less of them. That should be less laggy.

You're talking about a difference of like 20 reactor cores in a gigantic base. The number of heat pipes and turbines don't really change, so you can probably count the difference in CPU cycles on your hand. There are FAR better places to spend time optimizing a base, and the final solution for UPS power is always going to be solar spam.

Super long reactors also require a very convenient large source of water. You generally want pumps directly next to their consumers, and huge chains of reactors require huge rivers to match. If you're piping water in from far away, any UPS gains on the dozen or so reactors will get buried by the cost of extra water flow, plus the extra biter pathing that goes into such a map layout, and things like that.

Doesn't have to be that long. Every 10 tiles you're adding 640 MW, so even a 200 tile lake can drive a pretty substantial base.

[mrvn]

But building larger reactors is more efficient, meaning you need less of them. That should be less laggy.

You're talking about a difference of like 20 reactor cores in a gigantic base. The number of heat pipes and turbines don't really change, so you can probably count the difference in CPU cycles on your hand. There are FAR better places to spend time optimizing a base, and the final solution for UPS power is always going to be solar spam.

Super long reactors also require a very convenient large source of water. You generally want pumps directly next to their consumers, and huge chains of reactors require huge rivers to match. If you're piping water in from far away, any UPS gains on the dozen or so reactors will get buried by the cost of extra water flow, plus the extra biter pathing that goes into such a map layout, and things like that.

Did you even read the next sentence?

And nobody is talking about super long reactors. Building 2x4 instead of two 2x2 already gains you 160MW and doesn't require an ocean.

[Ringkeeper]

if you want to talk about lag.... remove all the heat pipe and check this crazy design someone did:

https://www.reddit.com/r/factorio/comme ... d_reactor/



yeah, it's a nightmare to place more then one of these so they align. Where would be the fun in easy.

Atm i use 3 of these.

[astroshak]

Unless I’m not understanding the picture, you are simply using Reactors as a heat pipe. Does that make a difference?

[foamy]

Unless I’m not understanding the picture, you are simply using Reactors as a heat pipe. Does that make a difference?

Fewer entities, basically.

[Koub]

Unless I’m not understanding the picture, you are simply using Reactors as a heat pipe. Does that make a difference?

Fewer entities, basically.

And I would say fewer pipe intersections, where a lot of CPU usually goes (heatpipe transmits heat as a fluid).

[Krazykrl]

Unless I’m not understanding the picture, you are simply using Reactors as a heat pipe. Does that make a difference?

Fewer entities, basically.

And I would say fewer pipe intersections, where a lot of CPU usually goes (heatpipe transmits heat as a fluid).

In addition, the thermal mass of the nuclear reactor allows you to transfer 10GWT(Gigawatt-Thermal) of power in a 5x5 square, instead of 1GWT in a 1x1 tile. The thermal mass of the nuclear reactor is literally 10x the energy of a heatpipe, and may flow a proportional amount of power.

It was pretty funny to see this effect in practice, from my abomination of a 2x32 nuclear reactor... It was a few degrees below 500c at the far end, since the heat flow of the nuclear reactors was bottlenecked due to lazy design (all reactors at one end, creating 10,080MWT; but at least it was closer to fuel I guess?)