Factorio Forums

Right now the most efficient way to use fuel cells is to read the temperature of the reactor and only insert one when below your preferred threshold. However this causes the reactors to constantly show the no fuel warnings unless they are actively burning a cell. Changing that to some kind of low temp icon, say when they reach 500 degrees or below, would alleviate this.

Please consider deleting the second suggestion and putting it into a separate post. It gets really messy when people are talking about different things in the same thread!

Regarding your "low temperature" suggestion, I love it. I made a suggestion before about heating towers not showing the warning if they're at max temp. But that wouldn't work for nuclear reactors. Your idea works for both, and makes more sense, too.

DeathSlice wrote: Thu Dec 05, 2024 5:32 pm Right now the most efficient way to use fuel cells is to read the temperature of the reactor and only insert one when below your preferred threshold. However this causes the reactors to constantly show the no fuel warnings unless they are actively burning a cell. Changing that to some kind of low temp icon instead would alleviate this.

Unfortunately, if you do this you will loose the adjacency bonus (it only counts adjacent reactors that are still burning fuel).

IsaacOscar wrote: Fri Dec 06, 2024 12:53 am

DeathSlice wrote: Thu Dec 05, 2024 5:32 pm Right now the most efficient way to use fuel cells is to read the temperature of the reactor and only insert one when below your preferred threshold. However this causes the reactors to constantly show the no fuel warnings unless they are actively burning a cell. Changing that to some kind of low temp icon instead would alleviate this.

Unfortunately, if you do this you will loose the adjacency bonus (it only counts adjacent reactors that are still burning fuel).

I hadn't realized this! Gonna have to change my refuling conditions I guess. Still would be nice for like a single reactor on a space platform though.

DeathSlice wrote: Fri Dec 06, 2024 12:59 am

IsaacOscar wrote: Fri Dec 06, 2024 12:53 am

DeathSlice wrote: Thu Dec 05, 2024 5:32 pm Right now the most efficient way to use fuel cells is to read the temperature of the reactor and only insert one when below your preferred threshold. However this causes the reactors to constantly show the no fuel warnings unless they are actively burning a cell. Changing that to some kind of low temp icon instead would alleviate this.

Unfortunately, if you do this you will loose the adjacency bonus (it only counts adjacent reactors that are still burning fuel).

I hadn't realized this! Gonna have to change my refuling conditions I guess. Still would be nice for like a single reactor on a space platform though.

What I do is have them refuel if the power or temperature is low, as I usually am not using the full power of the reactor anyway. But when the factory is doing extra work, the adjacency bonus is really helpful (e.g. I have 4 reactors, with the adjacency bonus thdy give the power equivalent of 12, whilst still only consuming 4 reactors worth of fuel).