Friday Facts #420 - Fusion Reactor

[Panzerknacker]

semi-cool stuff this fusion reactor, it doesn't make up for fluids 1.1 being removed from the game tho, especially since it apparently affects behaviour of the reactor setup.

[Sliverious]

semi-cool stuff this fusion reactor, it doesn't make up for fluids 1.1 being removed from the game tho, especially since it apparently affects behaviour of the reactor setup.

I don't mean to come across as rude, but you have to let those fluids go. Everybody who read the last few FFF threads knows your opinion about them, and multiple people have told you about the option not to update to 2.0. It is excessively unlikely that Wube is going to revert their fluid changes at this point in time, so please, stay on topic here. This FFF is about the fusion reactors, not fluid mechanics.

[AdamK]

Step #2: fussion trains

[bobucles]

The tokamak is certainly a very recognizable and "sci fi" fusion design, but there was another one in the works that was pretty cool in a brutish way.
It worked by taking small fuel pellets, dropping them, and shooting them mid air with a cannon. Shockwave magic happens, it explodes, and the explosion is captured by a constant rain storm of coolant in the reactor. Doesn't that sound badass? It might fit into the crude scuffness of factorio a bit better, a machine that just blasts out a steady heartbeat of "boom, boom, boom, boom".

[Splitframe]

The tokamak is certainly a very recognizable and "sci fi" fusion design, but there was another one in the works that was pretty cool in a brutish way.
It worked by taking small fuel pellets, dropping them, and shooting them mid air with a cannon. Shockwave magic happens, it explodes, and the explosion is captured by a constant rain storm of coolant in the reactor. Doesn't that sound badass? It might fit into the crude scuffness of factorio a bit better, a machine that just blasts out a steady heartbeat of "boom, boom, boom, boom".

You might be thinking of projectile fusion (https://firstlightfusion.com/) which is still in development.
Also I agree that while less sci-fi and more rustical steam punk-ish a projectile fusion reactor would also have
been a good fit for Factorio. Especially since the long and narrow footprint would have been a more unique footprint
than just another square.

[bobucles]

Yeah, that's the one. Who knows if it'll actually work out, but it does take a very novel approach to the fusion problem. Building the sun is very hard, building a very tiny nuclear bomb is easy by comparison. So just do that.

One of the neat parts is you can justify using a far different range of ingredients for the system. For nuclear power the ingredient chain is just kinda there, tagged on the side, and it doesn't interact too much with other production routes. but with GUN fusion you can justify using all sorts of odd ingredients including weapon production chains, chemistry, and advanced metals. The ultimate energy source can always justify using big complex production chains.

[CyberCider]

Solid fuel feels more like a step child and unnecessary overhead, considering oil can burn by itself. I like the Power generation mechanic in the game "Captains of Industry", where there is a boiler for solid matter (coal, wood, ...) and for fluids (light and heavy oil and hydrogen). Hydrogen, NH3 and Fertilizer production chain is what i would like to see for factorio too (after all, we will be farmers on Gleba soon^^).

Solid fuel is “oil by itself”, there are no additional ingredients in its recipe.
Also, I feel like adding a new building that players would have to
1) Craft
2) Replace their boilers with
3) Hook up with a new fuel pipeline
Would create a lot more unnecessary overhead than we have now. Now, it’s as simple as adding a few chemical plants at your oil processing setup and putting the solid fuel on what used to be your coal belt. Simple, elegant, no bloat.
Captain of Industry is great though, I would be a fool to deny that

[adam_bise]

This is intriguing. But I would be very interested to see the actual components and their recipes and how they relate to the different planets. Hopefully it is not just nuclear 2.0

[GregoriusT]

Can confirm, using Solid Fuel works really well as a Coal replacement. Though with the caveat that you need to use an Oil Deposit that is further away from the starting location so you get enough Oil in the long term. Also I often do the funny of running my Boilers with Rocket Fuel even though it is less efficient, lol.

[Mooninaut]

can we get a line-art mod looks like an old sci-fi film

This! I want to see what this looks like.

100%. The moment I first saw the flat shaded version of the central hub of the space platform I realized I really wanted a full on official flat shaded mod (I would pay for it if it was offered as DLC). Look at how successful CarBot's StarCrafts has been for SC2!

[malecord]

Question for the devs, did you try to figure out a different kind of puzzle instead of the proximity multiplier?

Real fusion will probably be "pulse like" rather than a constant output. That is charge plasma, reaction (energy production), discharge repeat. Maybe an alternative kind of puzzle based on this could be designed?

Like a single reactor will generate a lot of energy but only for 1/3 of the time (not during charging and discharging phases). But 3 reactors together if synched appropriately can give you a constant output. And then on top of that apply proximity bonuses to "fasten up" the three phases (like a discharging reactor close to a charging one will both operate 50% faster).

Maybe that is going to become to complex? Or can it become a more interesting end game puzzle?



I totally get that this is a game and the aim is to get a balance between complexity and fun. And I know I will enjoy fusion as you described it, I'm just curious if you also considered other kind of puzzles. As of now, absolute power numbers aside, it looks like the main advantage is that it doesn't require water thus it's more space platform friendly than fission. But it's "sort of" the same puzzle as fission (reactor wise at least, then ofc there is the coolant cicle that is totally new).



Another question is on the end game role of Navious. So far I understood that each planet has a unique resource. I guess Aquilos will have a resource that enables fusion, but Navius has Uranium. If fusion "replaces" fission, does it mean that navius can be "forgotten" in the end game?

[gnutrino]

Another question is on the end game role of Navious. So far I understood that each planet has a unique resource. I guess Aquilos will have a resource that enables fusion, but Navius has Uranium. If fusion "replaces" fission, does it mean that navius can be "forgotten" in the end game?

Uranium is also going to be required for the more efficient space science recipe so there will still be a need for Nauvis and uranium mining/processing (unless you want to go hard mode and try to scale up the satellite launching version enough to compensate).

I'd also note that so far none of the screenshots they've released have shown labs on any planet other than Nauvis so I'm still wondering whether you'll have to pull all your science packs back to Nauvis anyway. It was something I started to think when it was revealed that the Gleba science pack spoils as if you could put your labs anywhere it would make no sense to put them anywhere other than Gleba (once you unlocked it) and as time has gone on and no labs have been shown on the other planets I'm starting to get more suspicious that labs may turn out to be a Nauvis only building...

[malecord]

Uranium is also going to be required for the more efficient space science recipe so there will still be a need for Nauvis and uranium mining/processing (unless you want to go hard mode and try to scale up the satellite launching version enough to compensate).

Fair enough. But for instance every planet seems to unlock some kind of building to be used on other planets as well (read: foundry, elecromagnetic plant) and those buildings require the native resource. I sort of understand if glebas biochamber makes an exception here, since managing spoilable science packs seems already quite a challenging puzzle, and maybe to also add on top of that also a spoilable resource to be sent in space to produce certain buildings on other planets may be just a redundant (read: tedious) repetition of the same challenge. Still I expected Navius tech building to be the centrifuge and its products... that is uranium fuel cells.

Well... given that the other useful items involving that resource are nukes, I guess I will await for the FFF with the new enemies.

[bobucles]

There may be some merit in launching your science labs to space and making a roaming platform. That way it can fly around picking up packs from all the other planets as needed.

[bnrom]

Will we get other uses for plasma? I think it'd be awesome to also use plasma for weapons or thrusters!

I imagine they'd use the same mechanic of the plasma for power, where the plasma weapons and plasma thrusters need to connect directly to the reactor (or other building with a plasma pass through connection). It'd be very cool!

[Koub]

Will we get other uses for plasma? I think it'd be awesome to also use plasma for weapons or thrusters!

I imagine they'd use the same mechanic of the plasma for power, where the plasma weapons and plasma thrusters need to connect directly to the reactor (or other building with a plasma pass through connection). It'd be very cool!

Behold the plasma cannon

[adam_bise]

[Neutronium]

...

hey, just what you see pal

[MeduSalem]

Can confirm, using Solid Fuel works really well as a Coal replacement. Though with the caveat that you need to use an Oil Deposit that is further away from the starting location so you get enough Oil in the long term. Also I often do the funny of running my Boilers with Rocket Fuel even though it is less efficient, lol.

I still take it with a little bit of grain of salt that they gradually changed the fuel efficiency & requirements of the solid fuel & rocket fuel recipes in the 0.17.* updates.
I once did the math and using Productivity modules back then it made the Rocket fuel way more efficient. But ever since it also requires 10 light oil I don't know if it still is that efficient because I cannot find the excel sheet anymore where I did that math and I am too lazy to do it all over again. xD

But anyway you can totally go bonkers and use nuclear fuel in them as well. ;p

There may be some merit in launching your science labs to space and making a roaming platform. That way it can fly around picking up packs from all the other planets as needed.

I thought the same. I will at least try doing that for a while. Because it seems more efficient to send the "end product" rather than all individual base materials or components.
But it will also depend on how schedules for rocket platforms can be created. If it is even possible to do something like "round-trips" or if the schedule only allows to go back & forth between the same 2 planets.

[yngndrw]

Ohh I think this is a great change and I really like the new layouts, a prediction jumps out to me - This won't be the only use of fusion. I predict that there might be fusion thrusters in the end game.