Idea: Enriched Uranium and Plutonium Waste
Posted: Sun May 13, 2018 1:41 am
I thought of a way to improve the realism in Factorio without increasing the complexity too much, while also opening up options for new technologies.
When you run uranium ore through the centrifuge, you select either short cycle or long cycle. If you run it through the short cycle, you get an output of mostly depleted uranium with some reactor-grade uranium. If you choose long cycle, it takes several times as long to run through, and the output is almost entirely depleted uranium with a very tiny amount of weapons-grade uranium.
Depleted Uranium: Identical to vanilla Uranium-238, just a name change.
Reactor-Grade Uranium: Used with Depleted Uranium to make Uranium Fuel Rods which you can run in the Fission Reactor to get lots of power. You get Spent Fuel Rods and a small amount of Plutonium as a byproduct of using the fuel rods.
Weapons-Grade Uranium: Can be made into Nukes.
Plutonium: Can be used to make Plutonium Fuel Rods, Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generators, or Salted Nukes.
Plutonium Fuel Rods: Used in the Fission Reactor to get power just like the Uranium Fuel Rods, and they yield a Spent Plutonium Fuel Rod. Useful to get a bit of extra power from your reactor and reduce waste.
Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator: The small version generates a small amount of power indefinitely. The large version of this accepts water and provides steam (165ºC), acting as a boiler that requires no fuel to run.
Nuke: A long-range extremely destructive weapon which clears a large area of ground, many chunks across, and leaves that area uninhabitable for several minutes. The small version is fired from Artillery. The large version is fired from a Nuclear Silo.
Salted Nuke: A Nuke which leaves its area uninhabitable for several hours and causes that land to generate a lot of pollution. (This would go well with any mod(s) that made a high concentration of pollution able to harm biters.)
When you run uranium ore through the centrifuge, you select either short cycle or long cycle. If you run it through the short cycle, you get an output of mostly depleted uranium with some reactor-grade uranium. If you choose long cycle, it takes several times as long to run through, and the output is almost entirely depleted uranium with a very tiny amount of weapons-grade uranium.
Depleted Uranium: Identical to vanilla Uranium-238, just a name change.
Reactor-Grade Uranium: Used with Depleted Uranium to make Uranium Fuel Rods which you can run in the Fission Reactor to get lots of power. You get Spent Fuel Rods and a small amount of Plutonium as a byproduct of using the fuel rods.
Weapons-Grade Uranium: Can be made into Nukes.
Plutonium: Can be used to make Plutonium Fuel Rods, Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generators, or Salted Nukes.
Plutonium Fuel Rods: Used in the Fission Reactor to get power just like the Uranium Fuel Rods, and they yield a Spent Plutonium Fuel Rod. Useful to get a bit of extra power from your reactor and reduce waste.
Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator: The small version generates a small amount of power indefinitely. The large version of this accepts water and provides steam (165ºC), acting as a boiler that requires no fuel to run.
Nuke: A long-range extremely destructive weapon which clears a large area of ground, many chunks across, and leaves that area uninhabitable for several minutes. The small version is fired from Artillery. The large version is fired from a Nuclear Silo.
Salted Nuke: A Nuke which leaves its area uninhabitable for several hours and causes that land to generate a lot of pollution. (This would go well with any mod(s) that made a high concentration of pollution able to harm biters.)