Hmm, OK, I'll take a look at it. Thanks. I made this blueprint on version 0.16, so it's possible things have changed slightly. I know it worked fine enough when I made it. We also use several of them on our server network, sometimes at max capacity, and they work fine. I see in your picture you had some extra heat pipes along your rows of heat exchangers. Under vanilla physics, I'm not sure that will work: I probably used the maximum length of heat pipes we can get away with at maximum output. So if it's off by a tiny bit of temperature at the end, that might be why. I think this should be less problematic under physics mod as the heat pipes can transfer heat at a higher rate. I'll set a new test world to see what I can come up with, and based on that I might start changing some values. Feel free to send me any more findings of yours, they can be useful.
Regarding the throughput, I don't think I made myself clear: larger pipes result in less throughput in many cases, I agree with you there. The case I mentioned is only if the player can maintain full pressure on the pipe. IF they can maintain full pressure on a larger pipe, THEN the larger pipe will have more throughput. I know this is a true statement because it is a critical requirement to use my reactor blueprint under physics mod, but it is a very difficult condition to maintain, so for most practical purposes for most people, it does not appear to work this way. For practical purposes, it works the way you have described, which is that the throughput goes down due to the difficulty of filling the larger pipe. Edit: I've just realized another thing I can try, so I'm going to test that.
Update:
I tested the reactor. Here is a picture of the reactor, running at full steam, under physics mod.
- full_on_vanilla.png (3.79 MiB) Viewed 7634 times
So we can see that under the physics mods, at least, the reactor works as expected. The 4 steam engines that don't quite receive enough steam are expected: there is an overbalance of steam engines to work back down the steam storage when needed, and to make the design symmetric. If anyone is having trouble getting the reactor to work at full capacity under physics mod, then there's some sort of input issue. Happy to help if I can. Testing without physics mod, next.
Here is a picture of the reactor running with full steam under vanilla physics, also working as expected (note approximately 4 steam engines not at full steam, again expected).
- full_capacity.png (3.87 MiB) Viewed 7634 times
So, if your reactor is having trouble keeping up, I think there's an input issue. Happy to help you troubleshoot it. Whether using physics mod or vanilla physics, getting enough water into this reactor is a challenge. It fully-utilizes every input line of water, so the water pipes must be kept at very high pressure, or the reactor will not run optimally. That's typically the first issue people have.
Update:
With my new pipe idea, I was able to improve the throughput of the reactor beyond the throughput under vanilla settings! I have it down to fewer than two steam turbines inoperable in each block. The tradeoff right now is that a direct pump connection is needed to feed water into the heat exchanger. I'm going to overhaul all of my pipes with this new method once I make a few decisions.
Update:
Yes, I've been able to further improve the throughput of mega-reactors by changing the way I'm altering plumbing. My new method should increase rather than decrease potential throughput in the other cases we've discussed, and I've already confirmed this is the case through the mega-reactor steam network. Let me know whether your results agree. I'll be updating the physics mod shortly, along with a few others.
The kettle is another story. I've tried almost every configuration I can, and if I want to allow pass-through between the inputs, it will cause sloshing. I've set the area, level, and height values of the kettle to default, which are the same values as the vanilla pipe. I think what I'll do is leave these settings as default settings forever, and then we're just dealing directly with the simulation the devs have setup as-is. Under these settings, the kettle will still work to pass fluids across, and they will force oscillation into any system they're connected to. This can be controlled by using pumps or one of the valves from the pipe control mods (I use Advanced Underground Piping) to isolate part of the system. I'll update this mod shortly.
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. Anywas i did the same for the same reason. I read somewhere that pass-through is like a pump to enable entity to entity flow. Maybe each "pump" pumps from one to each other, back and forth?
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I would like to know the magic you did there. Have you altert the water viscosity?