Factorio Forums

TL;DR

Rename the nuclear fuel item (to something else more unique, I would suggest Kovarex fuel) to reduce ambiguity with the nuclear fuel category of items.

What ?

The term "nuclear fuel" currently refers to 2 things in Factorio:
1) A category of items that can be burned in a nuclear reactor to produce heat
2) Rocket fuel enriched with U235 for use in entities that accept burnable fuel
Somewhat confusingly at first glance, an entity that consumes nuclear fuel (1) cannot consume nuclear fuel (2). I would suggest renaming nuclear fuel (2) to Kovarex fuel, since it is unlocked by the Kovarex enrichment process research, and the name would be unique both within Factorio and probably the rest of the world outside of the game. I think something like "enriched rocket fuel" could also work.

Why ?

This would be a simple change to increase the clarity of fuel terminology, and would likely help avoid confusion for newer players.

The slot inside the reactor will, if hovered over, specify that it can only take "Uranium fuel cell", but this discrepancy is a little odd. What's extra weird is the capitalization (or lack of its consistency). I checked in another language, and the same issue is present. It's as if it's indeed displaying the text "consumes [item:the nuclear vehicle/burnable fuel]" rather than referring to the correct item name or just saying "consumes nuclear fuel [as a general terminology for fuel type]". All it really takes is referencing the right item name.

I've always felt like the burnable nuclear rocket fuel was kind of magicy, and thus have never liked its inclusion into the game, but yeah, I agree that it should be named something different. My vote would be for something like "enriched rocket fuel". I always have a hard time remembering the name "Kovarex".

MEOWMI wrote: Tue Mar 12, 2024 9:53 am [...] rather than [...] just saying "consumes nuclear fuel [as a general terminology for fuel type]"...

That is actually what it's doing. Uranium fuel cells are classified as Nuclear fuel (1).
Compare to coal, which is a Burnable fuel.
Or nuclear fuel (2), which is also a burnable fuel
Looking into item.lua and entities.lua, the nitty-gritty of this is that "burnable" items have a fuel_category associated with them, which is "nuclear" for the uranium fuel cell, and "chemical" for all other fuel items (wood, coal, solid fuel, etc. including nuclear fuel (2)). Entities which consume fuel have a corresponding fuel_category, which is "nuclear" for the reactor, and "chemical" for the others. Of course, it sounds a bit odd to say "uranium fuel cells are a type of nuclear fuel", because they're the only type of nuclear fuel in vanilla Factorio. Mods do add others, though, like Nullius.

MEOWMI wrote: Tue Mar 12, 2024 9:53 am The slot inside the reactor will, if hovered over, specify that it can only take "Uranium fuel cell", but this discrepancy is a little odd.

Yes, you're correct there. Just to further highlight the silliness of the situation, here's what happens if you do try to put nuclear fuel (2) in the fuel slot of a reactor

FuryoftheStars wrote: Tue Mar 12, 2024 10:51 am I've always felt like the burnable nuclear rocket fuel was kind of magicy

Oh it definitely is. Best not to think too hard about it, just like the perpetual motion belts, turrets with advanced target identification built using only iron and copper plates and gears, and others

Since they swapped names to stop "stack inserters do bulk transfers, bulk inserters do stack transfers" maybe a couple renames here aren't completely out of the question to stop "you can't put nuclear fuel in your nuclear reactor, you need nuclear fuel for that."