24 replies to this topic

[Joeztoothbrush]

Hi

I have had the wealth for quite some time to invest into a nuclear reactor but I haven't because I have only ever done a few and this time I would like to step in the big boy pants and not use a mk1 reactor. I have been researching mk2 reactors since they are the easiest to control but im not afraid to use a mk3 with a rp2 timer setup. I will not do a mk5 generator since that is silly but I will do mk4 for seconds if I can control it with small enough time intervals. What I need is suggestions. I am most interested in mk2 and mk3 reactors that produce a 2.5 efficiency with atleast 10 mil eu. I can do all the wiring and everything but I was just wondering if someone could suggest a layout they have either seen or made. This is my small creation which is not that good and you can also use this site to plan your own! http://www.talonfire...j492irsdv2scj5s

Requirements
-MK2-MK4 only
-2.5+ efficiency
-bare minimum 10 eu per cycle or part of cycle (MK3-MK4)
-No parts being melted
-NO EXPLOSIONS!
-As fast cooling time as possible

It would be great help for me and others. I am willing to give someone something (valuable!) if they can show me a machine that will do much higher specs than above.

Thanks!

[AldoronTK]

http://www.talonfire...a17vw5wmunzi8n4

Stats:
MK1
4.33 efficiency
1820 eu/s
364,000,000 eu total per cycle
No melting or explosions
Requires 8 ice per second to prevent melting/explosions

Setup Requirements:
Ice Machinery:
-4 blockbreakers
-4 singularity compressors
-4 transposers
-piping to a storage chest
-redwire attached to a timer running at 0.5 seconds

Ice deployment and safety latch
-1 filter with 4 ice blocks in one stack
-1 item detector
-piping into reactor and a loop back path for overflow ice

[Shadowfoxnick]

I knew this would come up. There are 2 people people always forget to mention in coolant fed reactors.

Risk 1 - If the server glitches (I've seen redstone freeze before), then you're screwed. Byebye.

Risk 2- While the EU reward seems high, you must also calculate and subtract the cost of ice. At its cheapest (normal pump/compressor), ice costs 1400EU. So, using the above example, if it needs 8 ice per second and reactors last roughly 2.5 hrs, that's 9360 seconds, which is 74880 ice, which costs (again at its VERY cheapest and VERY slowest) 104,832,000 EU cost on making the ice.

That said, I just made a mkII with 30min cooldown, can be swapped into a 1 cycle breeder, 140EU/t, 3x efficiency, 24m EU. It's much more humble, but requires no risk.

I hope this helps give you ideas on risks/rewards, as that seems to be what you want to play with.


EDIT: For other readers - Please use that talon link. It's a great reactor planner program I highly recommend. I'll sticky this thread simply for that.

[Johnn27]

Hey,

I'll show you my reactor setup it is MK2, which means its completely safe as it will never blow up in one cycle, it sacrifices cooling down (70 mins) for efficiency (which i highly prefer as you get more what you put in) which is the most efficient and effective mk2 design out there, so in a total cycle it generates 24 million eus with 4 uranium cells.

http://www.talonfire...7ps011111101110

[Shadowfoxnick]

Wow, that's almost a mirror image of the design I made, though I also made an 8 cell version for when I have excess uranium, and a negative breeder of the latter version as well.

[matthew3502]

Btw for anyone planning to use a snowgolem driving ice generator i would recomend either making plenty of excess or to not at all, when the server restarts all entities are destroyed so the golems disappear. this may mess up your reactor if you are not online.

[Shadowfoxnick]

I'm sorry... a what now?

[matthew3502]

A design I used on a single player server had snow golems produce snow on top of block breakers which activated producing snowballs, each snow golem could produce 20 snowballs a second with no lag(on the server it would probably be less) feeding these into compressors(I think, don't rembrer) the snowballs turn into ice which is then used to cool the reactor, the problem is that snow golems disappear sometimes on the server, either when the map restarts or when you stop all intensive server activities. Were you cooling a reactor by this method then that would be a big problem. { fun fact: In previous versions of ic2 those snowballs could then be fed into a recycler for basically free scrap at a fast rate, however they made snowballs not form scrap in recent updates}

[AldoronTK]

True, snow golems may dissappear while on servers. But that might be if you encase them in glass panes only. On this server, I have encased them with an additional layer of blocks around the panes and he hasn't dissappeared yet even with the recent lag spurts. Don't know if it's luck but it didn't fail me yet.

The energy needed to make ice could come from other sources besides the reactor itself. Be it Geothermal MKIIs if you live in the nether/possess a large lava pool or a series Water Strainer set up to run constantly. Or if you have made a compete circuit of forestry factories hooked up to several Coke Ovens to turn wood into Charcoal... >_>

As for redstone failing to update, slap a switch on the reactor itself and only use it when the server is lag-free. The amount of energy produced will mean it doesn't have to run constantly. Making it perfect to plug in a Mass Fabricator fed by 4 MFSUs on 4 different sides of it.

An Ice-Safety Latch will turn it off when it runs out of ice and having the MFSUs set to emit redstone power when they are full will turn it off. That will allow for less monitoring needed while it runs, preventing explosions and waste of energy.

And in order to Breed on the Edge to regain those 42 depleted asap. May I suggest my bucket fed Neutral Breeder that outputs 60eu/t and is capable of recharging 24 Cells at once? http://www.talonfire...tu4ym96tkyk1lvl
Start with empty buckets and insert 4 buckets of lava, turn on the reactor and cooling system at the same time and your set. Two breeding cycles and you're ready for more 1820 eu/t from your main reactor.

Another is a 4 Chamber Design for when you don't have access to a Retriever. http://www.talonfire...c0b9o5hog89bjlt 50eu/t with 20 recharging. This design is the only Nether Breeder you can make at this extreme power until Thermopiles can be made/bought. And to complement the Nether surroundings, this one needs to be doused with lava to maintain heat levels.

Best wishes in your endeavors.

[WND_Newbe_21]

I could lend you a good tip. If you are worried about the reactor going sky ward then just but it far away from your base. And if you are conserved about energy loss then I can set up a teleport for ic2 energy over long distances with little energy loss.
Good day Minecrafting

[matthew3502]

Also one note to add, if you make the reactor inside of a town then if explosions are off you will only lose the reactor and chambers if it overheats

[Joeztoothbrush]

http://www.talonfire...a17vw5wmunzi8n4

Stats:
MK1
4.33 efficiency
1820 eu/s
364,000,000 eu total per cycle
No melting or explosions
Requires 8 ice per second to prevent melting/explosions

Setup Requirements:
Ice Machinery:
-4 blockbreakers
-4 singularity compressors
-4 transposers
-piping to a storage chest
-redwire attached to a timer running at 0.5 seconds

Ice deployment and safety latch
-1 filter with 4 ice blocks in one stack
-1 item detector
-piping into reactor and a loop back path for overflow ice

I have a few questions to ask you about yours, do you mind private messaging me on the forums

[Shadowfoxnick]

Spear... that isn't "always" the case. Large explosions, even from a combustion engine can do one of the following, basically at random. This is written from experience...

1 - Nothing. As you said.

2 - Normal giant hole.

3 - Constant "damage radius" like the engine is constantly exploding. All items, even those dropped by dieing players, will be evaporated. In addition, after the next server restart, #1 or #2 may occur.

So, just be careful and don't overestimate towny.

[matthew3502]

Hmm I did not realize that, most of my experience with tekkit comes from me messing around in single player, I misunderstood how towny and the mods would effect each other. I guess the only safe way is still a lot of reinforced stone and/or make it deep below buildings. However the 3rd option would really suck.

[Shadowfoxnick]

7 layers of reinforced stone = safe. IC wiki shows the blast defence of R stone, R glass, and construction foam (which is quite strong when dried).

Hopefully this helps.

[AldoronTK]

I approve Yuki. Our reactors have the same efficiency ratings and I have yet to see one that goes higher for a full cycle run.

It is highly recommended to go overboard with the shielding if you are the least bit unsure of the design. On the InductrialCraft forums, I think, I saw it mentioned that a single layer of Reinforced Stone would contain a nuclear explosion but I have had explosions where this was not the case. It tore through the R.Stone and six levels of my underground tower. Doubling is the way to be 100% sure.

Another note on shielding, watch the edges of the R.Stone encasement. As in, square everything off. The explosion mechanics goes out in every angle and it checks to see if it hits a block every 0.3 blocks. So if you shortcut the edges to save material, the explosion WILL continue in that direction as if there was nothing there. So yea, double layer, squared off R.Stone encasements a plus.

As for BuildCraft Piping vs. RedPower Piping? I would recommend RedPower. I find it alot easier to manage how I want the system to work with it. It comes down to two facts:
BC piping distributes items randomly at an intersection and if the items try to go into a full inventory, the items fall out of the pipe system.
RP piping sends items to the closest available inventory and if the items try to go into a full inventory, the items go to the next closest inventory with where they started on the pipe system being the last place it will go.

To edit 1: SUC Information in the drop down menu of the planner. It is listed as total stacks. The design you posted uses 864.58 stacks, my design uses 937.50 stacks. I'm too tired right now to run the math to see which of our designs is the least energy hungry design.
To edit 2: 1/4th the size is still a huge area imo. Will test it later to see the difference.

[fabricator77]

Last time I checked RP2 pipes did not feed into reactors. Though I do not remember if I had it touching a chamber or the core its self, which would have been the actual problem.

Redpower pipes do indeed feed into the reactor core itself perfectly, tried a design out in single player.

One thing to watch out for, the server lag slows ice production, which means you need more machines to keep up.

As 1820eu/t needs a minimum of 4 MFSUs to draw the power created, you'll find 2-3 double chests of ice should operate the reactor long enough to fill all 4 to 10M EU. Hence simply do not operate it if the MFSU's aren't empty or you don't have enough stored ice.

[AldoronTK]

Server lag also lags the Reactor speed so more machines are not a necessity to counteract the lag.

MFSUs can take an unlimited number of 512eu/t packets so multiple MFSUs are not a necessity. Less than 4 MSFUs will fill up faster than they can output the energy so you can potentially lose energy unless you have them set up to emit a redstone signal when they are full and have it hooked up to the Reactor controls.

It's alot of work to setup the logic behind it, but once you do it, you will never need energy again.