Atomic Science Fuel Life Config?

[TokiWartooth]

Mine is also on demand, though it has a buffer, about 5 stacks worth of cells. sounds like your system wouldnt work for me, again the power from my plant is completely used as it is produced (on the fusion end) eh sounds intricate but if it works it works, just glad mine works in such a compact format. Kinda killed the rest of the day working on my spawners.

[phazeonphoenix]

I wanted to post my now operating Fusion reactor. I adapted Kiwi's steam storage idea. This system is able to keep it's steam buffer filled and there is no interruption in power generation. I used an AE export bus configured in redstone pulse mode injecting a single deuterium cell when the large tanks are empty. It does so once every 20 ~ 30 minutes.

I have no idea how much power I generate with this setup. It seems that Atomic Science is a very complex mod with many facets that need tweaking, tuning and balancing. But when you get it right the power is just ungodly.

[Digdug83]

How exactly do you go about capturing the steam? I know you're using liquiducts but all the pictures I've seen so far don't show the capture point (unless I'm just blind). I'd like to set something like this up using my AE network, probably similar to what phazeon did. It's either that or I keep spamming biofuel generators lol.

[jakalth]

steam capture is done by replacing the steam turbines with steam funnels. On top of each steam funnel you place a liquaduct. Each liquaduct is right clicked to extract mode(orange) and a redstone signal is applied to each and every one, either by redstone blocks or rednet cable. That is the essence of capturing steam from a reactor using steam funnels.

Notes of worth:

• steam funnels can be stacked. there is no noticeable loss in steam output from stacking them.
  
• steam funnels can capture up to 10 times more steam then reactor turbines alone.
  
• through a full cycle of a reactor, on average, it only takes about 3 steam funnels to fully power 1 large turbine.
  
• you gain power from your reactor for a far longer period of time for each cycle of the reactor, using funnels.
  
• allows you to de-centralize your reactor power production by using tesseracts to move steam to where it is needed. at no loss.
  

After some testing and tweaking I was able to turn my reactor design from a 400,000 Mj reactor into a 6,300,000 Mj reactor simply by converting to steam funnels and liquid managers feeding a 5x5 grid of large turbines. 25 large turbines made from 225 reactor turbines. Used 4 independent liquaduct pipes feeding steam into the grid from my single reactor. I only used a single fusion core and the same 4 torus reactor design I have been playing around with.

I'm completely sure that there are far easier to set up designs out there. I just like my design for sheer efficiency. Also, with some testing done, designs that are flood type reactors, with large flat area ideal for placing large turbines, convert far easier to steam funnels. And, I can't quite confirm this yet, flood type reactors might be more effective(powerful) then the design I am using as well.

Flood type reactors are designs like what TokiWartooth is using, and what CharlieChop is using. Both designs being much easier to setup and possibly allowing higher output per fusion core, especially when making a large multi-core reactor.

[phazeonphoenix]

So are we defining two types of fusion reactor setups?

1. Flood type reactors: Where steam is generated and sent directly to turbines via liquiducts in an open flow setup. Fuel injection is on either a timer or uses a gate to detect empty pipes.
   
2. Capture type reactors: Steam is generated and fed into large parallel tanks which are drawn from via liquiducts and fed to turbines. Fuel injection uses a gate to detect empty tanks.
   

At first I thought that steam wasn't being treated like a regular MC liquid. Further observations have proven to me it is but unlike any other liquid in minecraft it's used EXTREMELY quickly. So quickly that the pipes don't get a chance to fill before they are drained. Here's some observations I've found about Liquiducts:

1. Each segment of pipe seems to act as both a pipe and a tank: holding more than it can put through in a single tick.
   
2. There can be more liquid in a network of pipes than can be outputted via a single output connection.
   
3. Each connection can only move 100 mb of a liquid per tick in either direction.
   
4. Connections to a tank/tesserect/liquidmanager can be multiplied to fill/drain it faster.
   

See This image?

Flow goes from right to left. Steam (or any liquid really) comes in and flows into the large tank via 4 connections. I then draw from two connections on the tank leading to two connections on a liquid manager. I then draw from one connection on the liquid manager. That whole arrangement is multiplied 4 times in parallel and feeding turbines not pictured.

The key is parallel connections to a single storage tank. Because I have more input connections than output connections on the tanks/managers they will retain an amount of liquid as long as there is a source feed. Interestingly enough it doesn't seem to matter if the multiple connections to a single tank are themselves separate pipes or not. The four connections in a row fed by a single pipe on the right of the tank feed it just as effectively as the two completely separate pipe lines feeding the liquid managers.

This whole setup moves a huge amount of liquid around that just vaporizes the moment it reaches it's destination. No other use of a minecraft liquid will draw this much liquid at a time. You have to design your pipes accordingly.

[jakalth]

well basicly there are two major types of fusion reactors, flood and ring. This is the difference I am talking about

Ring type:

1. The plasma flows through a 1x1 channel that forms a ring(minecraft style, so square basicly)
   
2. The reactor can have a single ring, or several rings each fed from one side of the reactor core.
   
3. They are not always the most space efficient and do not scale well.
   
4. They are usually a little more efficient in terms of steam usage. But not always as powerful.
   

Flood type:

1. The plasma flows out over a large flat open area that is usually up to 6 blocks out from the reactor core and only 1 block high.
   
2. The design varies greatly from just an open circle to a semi ring shape.
   
3. They are much more space efficient and scale up extremely well.
   
4. They are a little less steam efficient. But can be more powerful.
   

Whether or not you have storage for your steam depends on your reactor.

If your reactor only runs in short pulses then sits idle and/or you have a small reactor, having storage for your steam means you can use less turbines and more efficiently use your steam output. Also a burst running reactor works fine being fed by a gate since it might be sitting idle for long periods of time.

If your reactor runs nearly continuously and/or you have a large reactor, like a multiple core reactor, having steam storage becomes redundant. In fact steam storage on a large continuous run reactor is more of a handicap then a help. You'll want more turbines instead of storage even if it's a little less efficient. Also for continuous run reactors, you probably can't afford to have it run out of power, so using a timer means it will always have power available for use. but using a gate is also doable, if you have two storage banks that feed off each other, and use the first to fill the second and trigger the gate when empty.

[Digdug83]

So I set up a single reactor design that expands out 6M in every direction from NSEW. Am I treating water placement the same as I would with a 1x1 ring design with water just above the magnets or do I put water and funnels elsewhere? I plan on this being continuously run as I've set up the chemical extractor to make cells whenever AE detects less than 5 in storage and then feeds them to the reactor. Any idea how many turbines I'll need for this design would also be appreciated.

[CharlieChop]

So I set up a single reactor design that expands out 6M in every direction from NSEW. Am I treating water placement the same as I would with a 1x1 ring design with water just above the magnets or do I put water and funnels elsewhere? I plan on this being continuously run as I've set up the chemical extractor to make cells whenever AE detects less than 5 in storage and then feeds them to the reactor. Any idea how many turbines I'll need for this design would also be appreciated.

never seen a reactor like that, but yes you should make sure that every magnet that is touched by the plasma has water on every side it possibly can. one example of this is that the end magnets can heat 2 or sometimes even 3 completely different water source blocks.

as for the amount of turbines it depends. if you want to take the steam somewhere else you might need at least 3 times as many turbines as you could fit ontop of the reactor. just to give you an idea, when i made a single reactor the same size as yours i needed around 190 ish turbines. double (at least) that number if you want to take the steam out

[jakalth]

well, my reactor can have 154 small turbines on top of it taking advantage of every possible location where steam can be generated. But using steam funnels to collect the steam first, then piping it out, I can run the array of 25 large turbines, or 225 small turbines. That's about the jump in the number of turbines you can use.

figure about 5 turbines for every 3 funnels and increase it from that until you find the balance point for your reactor. It's hard to call how many your reactor will need before you try it out. Start with that, run 1 cell through it and watch your steam buffer, if you have it. If you have no buffer, watch your liquaducts. Once the reactor stops producing plasma, see if your liquaducts are no longer completely full of steam. How much steam is in the liquaducts more then 10 seconds after the fusion reactor finishes using up the deuterium, will give you a good idea if you need to increase the number of outputs from the reactor. The ducts should be about 1/2 full, after the initial pulse of steam from the plasma has passed.

If you have a buffer, the amount of steam in storage should level off or start to slowly drop once the reactor finishes the deuterium. If it continues to increase, and the liquaducts you have outputting steam from your buffer is full, then you definitely need more turbines. If the liquaducts outputting from your buffer are not full, you might need another set of liquaducts outputting from the buffer along with the set you already have.

Lastly, the liquaducts hooked up to your turbines should not be full of steam. If they are, and you have them set correctly, you need more turbines added to your array to use all the steam available.

Note: Always try to use large turbines. Not only are they nicer looking, but they are easier to hook up liquaducts and conduits to. In fact, you only need to pipe steam into the center of the large turbine, not too all 9 locations where the small turbines used to be. Doing this also makes it a bit easier to plan out your turbine setup.

[TokiWartooth]

. In fact, you only need to pipe steam into the center of the large turbine,

Are you serious? there's no power loss or gain pumping to all 9 vs the center? none at all, godamn it i am gonna have to go collect some liquiduct tomorrow.

[jakalth]

No gain and no loss either way. You just use more liquaducts if you pipe to all 9 points.

[Digdug83]

Is there a hardcoded output on the turbines? It seems like each large turbine generates around 20 MJ/t which means that with 25 larges I'm generating 500 MJ/t.

[jakalth]

output from the turbines can be altered actually. It's in the atomic science config file. There is a turbine coefficient option that increases their output. Kind of cheaty doing this though. ;)

[TokiWartooth]

you have insufficent steam me thinks or at least insufficent throughput, My turbines run about 50-60 I think. with about 30 larges im near 1600 or so.

EDIT damn forgot im running slightly higher output than default, default didn't feel like nuclear energy, felt like thawing ice with a magnifying glass.

[Digdug83]

We're reconfiguring it now so it'll be piping steam up to 64 larges directly above the reactor feeding 4 tesseracts from all 6 faces. I adjusted output to 10 from 4.5 because I feel the same way you do Toki lol. With an output multiplier of 10 I get 44 MJ/t per large so that will be 2816 MJ/t once we actually get it all done. Right now though we only have about 40. Blasted bronze recipe is so damn inefficient though we actually ran out of copper, which hasn't happened to me in ages :(

[KiwiUSA]

We're reconfiguring it now so it'll be piping steam up to 64 larges directly above the reactor feeding 4 tesseracts from all 6 faces. I adjusted output to 10 from 4.5 because I feel the same way you do Toki lol. With an output multiplier of 10 I get 44 MJ/t per large so that will be 2816 MJ/t once we actually get it all done. Right now though we only have about 40. Blasted bronze recipe is so damn inefficient though we actually ran out of copper, which hasn't happened to me in ages

Lol - I'm with you, Digdug on the copper issue. My 4 core reactor now feeds 68 Liquid Managers and then through 8 Liquid Tesseracts to my Turbine Room.

I've now got 144 Large Turbines and still have an excess of steam. I'm waiting for my 2 64x64 Quarries to produce enough Copper so I can add some more turbines.

BTW - Still only consuming 10 cells per hour.

[Gorian]

ONLY? The cost of consuming tin to power a reactor is what is stopping me from using is as a source of energy when biofuel is completely renewable. I want to setup a fusion reactor, but the cost of consuming all my tin is kind of a big con if I end up having to spend my time renewing it instead of working on projects. Particle Accelerators cause a crash last I tried, so making new cells with an Atomic Assembler is not an option, and last I checked, we don't get empty cells back from the reactor.

[Digdug83]

I need to figure out a way to reduce my cell production. I tried using AE buses and emitters to regulate it but it doesn't really help.

[phazeonphoenix]

ONLY? The cost of consuming tin to power a reactor is what is stopping me from using is as a source of energy when biofuel is completely renewable. I want to setup a fusion reactor, but the cost of consuming all my tin is kind of a big con if I end up having to spend my time renewing it instead of working on projects. Particle Accelerators cause a crash last I tried, so making new cells with an Atomic Assembler is not an option, and last I checked, we don't get empty cells back from the reactor.

No but you get 16 empty cells when you craft the recipe. It's not as bad as it sounds. Fusion reactors are capable of producing enormous amounts of energy if designed and implemented correctly. It's all about your needs both now and in the future. Charlie's setup generates MASSIVE amounts of energy and (probably) runs continually producing steam and utilizing it without storing it. If you use that much power then his setup would work for you. I don't have that massive of power requirements (yet). My setup captures steam and powers turbines from the storage tanks. My reactor is only active for brief periods every ~ 20 minutes to fill the tanks and the turbines produce enough energy for my current power requirements. Need more power? Add more turbines until I no longer can keep my tanks filled then expand with another reactor chamber.

This is one of those situations that any one design will not be effective for everyone.

[Gorian]

I can use the power, I just wish I wasn't burning so much natural, non-renewable resources with fusion. What SHOULD happen, is you get the empty cells back. Even burning coal/charcoal, you can automate that with tree farms. Lava lasts enough that you only have to switch pumps about once a week if you place them right. But once you run low on tin, burn through whatever stockpile you have, it's not as easy to replenish. But, I'm just upset it doesn't work better for my needs, 'cause Atomic Science is awesome :/

[KiwiUSA]

I can use the power, I just wish I wasn't burning so much natural, non-renewable resources with fusion. What SHOULD happen, is you get the empty cells back. Even burning coal/charcoal, you can automate that with tree farms. Lava lasts enough that you only have to switch pumps about once a week if you place them right. But once you run low on tin, burn through whatever stockpile you have, it's not as easy to replenish. But, I'm just upset it doesn't work better for my needs, 'cause Atomic Science is awesome :/

I tend to agree with you on this, but, if you use a portion of the fusion power to fully power a MFR Laser Drill, I think you will get more Tin than you use, making it semi renewable.

[phazeonphoenix]

Not that this will make any difference to Tekkit in the foreseeable future but talk on the AS forums seems to be pointing to a liquid deuterium source instead of cells.

[TokiWartooth]

Sorry to tell you but tin is renewable. MFR laser drill, also infinite land in mystcraft ages, all ore are as good as infinite, I have something on the order of 20k tin right now not counting my storage of blocks which is probably 2k, why would you ever fear running out using 4 tin an HOUR.

EDIT: liquid deuterium would be cool but way harder to manage, I would have to basically use buckets to manage the input as fluidly(ha ha!) as i do now.

[Gorian]

why sorry? Lol, I'm not trying to convince you "fusion sucks and you can't tell me otherwise LALALALALA!!!". And, I just mean, yeah, you can get some tin, but you still have to mine it, or hope your laser drills get enough. My point is, you can't really automate it like you can most other fuel types ( I don't know about oil/fuel as I don't use it much, but lava lasts a really long time in magmatics). Also, I had 4 or 5 fully charged laser drills running at one point, it felt like it brought in more coal, emeralds, etc. than iron or tin or copper (especially since I BELIEVE tin is added by TE, and according to the tables for the laser drill generating tin, KingLemming made the Laser Drill chance for TE ores a little lower than other ores. I had found numbers on it in a thread that KingLemming commented about it on, but no luck trying to find the source again). Yeah, I I read that too, can't wait for liquid deuterium, seems like it would be a much better mechanic. With liquid deuterium, you could just store it like any other liquid, have chemical extractors running 24/7 to keep it stocked, and keep the generator full with liquiducts. Chances are it would probably be profitable.

On another note, seems that there are differences with the laser foci here:

Tekkit wiki: http://wiki.technicpack.net/Laser_Focus

FTB wiki: http://ftbwiki.org/Laser_Drill

According to the FTB wiki, there is a focus for tin? It says light gray, but the tekkit wiki says light gray is Coal/Redstone

ne

[jakalth]

automating a liquid deuterium reactor. Simple. storage tank full of dueterium. liquaduct, set to pump, pulling the liquid out of the storage. Timer controling a redstone signal to turn on and off the liquaduct. Sounds easier, imo, then current method.