Are Yellorium Reactors Useful?

[Sir_Obama]

I'm just wondering if there is a way to make reactors from the Big Reactors mod useful. Atomic Science reactors destroy them in power generation, mainly because Yellorium reactors can't seem to be cooled, and become very inefficient at high temperatures. Am I missing something, or are they truly a waste of resources? 

[SemiPr0]

They are ridiculously useful. Comparatively Atomic Science reactors are far more powerful in the end game, but Yellorium Reactors can be started from right at the very beginning of starting to tech up. I have a little Lets Talk on my Youtube about it where I point out how useful they can be for early game power generation.

 

Cooling with Resonant Ender produces amazing results with larger reactor builds, at least from my experimental designs with them, the power generation difference using Resonant Ender is almost 25% more power and as far as cooling goes as long as your reactor build is relatively sane...it will never explode regardless of the heat level, but you are right that the power generation does not increase efficiently beyond 1000C.

 

Overall the best point to be made for Big Reactors is its relatively hazard free, the resources to actually manage it are plentiful and relatively easy to make, and you can literally start off your game using a small 1 rod/no coolant reactor and produce more power, more sustainably, than you can with Dynamo's or Engines, and the design can easily be reconfigured and scaled up to meet your power needs.

 

So overall I consider Yellorium Reactors to be great early to late midrange power solutions...and even adaptable as end game power solutions.

[Sir_Obama]

Thanks for the response, very well said! I did use a 3x3x3 reactor as my starting power supply, and I guess I forgot how substantial the power supply was early in the game. 

 

I think I just got too far into the game for it to be worth using now, and a large build would still be outclassed by my fusion reactor from Atomic Science.

 

You mentioned cooling with Resonant Ender, but I haven't heard about that until now... don't suppose you could provide a link with more on that? I'm sitting on stacks of Yellorium and nothing to do with it =/

[SemiPr0]

Resonant Ender can be made in a Magma Crucible, you smelt Ender Pearls to get it. There are various ways to automate getting the buckets out and into tanks if you want, but for a reactor coolant build, just using buckets is enough to get it into the reactor.

 

The cooling is relatively good, I had a 16 rod (each rod was six blocks high) reactor running using Resonant Ender as the coolant and the difference between using that and water was insanely good. Granted Resonant Ender is far more expensive than water, but the results are worth it.

 

Also keep in mind that coolants in Big Reactors are also based in the idea of conductivity, you can ostensibly "cool" your reactor with just about anything, but the more you cool a reactor, the less heat is conducted and converted to energy, Resonant Ender seems to have the best balance of cooling and conductivity of the available coolants in Tekkit. There are other coolants you could try, Destablized Redstone might also produce fairly good results as well...I haven't tested it myself as yet though.

Edited March 8, 2014 by SemiPr0

[TonyVS]

big reactors are like the large kiddie lego, for people that cant be bothered to figure out atomic science.

[brilliantjoe]

I used Atomic Science reactors previously, but since the big update I've found myself drawn towards the yellorium reactors, They're much more aesthetically pleasing than the  mess of pipes and turbines that come with the AS reactors.

[Curunir]

I think you missed an important mechanic: Control Rods.

 

The blocks that sit atop each fuel column can be accessed to lower the control rod, which will slow down the reaction in that column, reducing heat and power output. Should also be accessible via a rednet or computer port, but manual adjustment works fine.

If you put them reasonably low, your reactor will run quite cool with just water, or even air. Of course this reduces the output, but the thing is called Big Reactors - just build one with more columns.

My setup, built relatively early in game, has nine columns, eight blocks high, and it powers a quarry at full speed even with all rods lowered 90%. I filled the whole thing with water source blocks for cooling.

And I didn't even try Blutonium yet. It just accumulates in my reprocessor's buffer chest for now.

 

I read somewhere that mineral blocks are also an option for cooling, i.e. blocks of iron, gold or diamond. Although resonant ender seems among the best coolants, only beaten by Gelid Cryotheum, the coolant of legends. ;-)

[viesiu]

Although resonant ender seems among the best coolants, only beaten by Gelid Cryotheum, the coolant of legends. ;-)

Actually, I believe resonant ender beats cryotheum. I did some testing with 9x9x7 setup with 5 fuel rods and cooling it with resonant ender gives about 400RF/t more than the cryotheum. Not to mention the cryotheum is a pain in the arse to put inside since the source blocks actually fall down.

[Cancro_Senzafine]

This is a copy/paste from a thread I wrote in the forums of the server I play on. This is after some extensive testing (every liquid in tekkit 1.2.6b). Gelid Cryotheum being a miracle coolant is a myth (though it should be). Please forgive the messy table format, I couldn't get html table code to work in these forums.

 

________________________________________

 

Alright, here is a comprehensive breakdown for Big Reactors. Tutorials online will show you how to set one up; this is the stuff they do not mention. This is a number-crunch if you want to maximize your efficiency and not waste any time / resources running tests of your own.

For each vertical level of a reactor that contains a fuel rod (that is not the outside casing) your heat will rise by 40° C. This is regardless of cooling. In fact it doesn't matter if you don't have any cooling at all, your temperature per level of reactor will not make any difference. The presence / type / amount of liquid cooling only affects the RF/t output.

Coolant                          °C               RF/t
Nothing                            40               45

Liquid Yellorium               40               60

Resonant Ender              40               80

Energized Glowstone       40               60

Blazing Pyrotheum           40               70

Destabilized Redstone     40               60
Water                               40               60

Milk                                  40               60

Chocolate Milk                 40               60

Liquifacted Coal              40                60

Liquid Cyanite                 40                60

Sewage                           40                60

Gelid Cryotheum             40                60

BioFuel                           40                60

Mob Essence                  40                60

Mushroom Soup             40                60

Oil                                   40                60

Fuel                                40                60

Liquid Meat                     40                60

Sludge                            40                60

Toxic Waste                     40                60

Liquids that will not work:
Lava - Big Reactors does not recognize it as a liquid, and thus will not become a finished multi-block structure once lava is inside of it.
Pink Slime - Keeps turning into little slimes, so you cannot get an accurate readout of how it works within the multi-block structure.

So as you can see, you only really have four options: Nothing / Pyrotheum / Ender / Everything else.

This pattern continues for each level of the reactor with a fuel rod until you exceed 900°C and approach 1000°C, where the numbers start to break down and fuel usage starts climbing at a quick rate. This gives you about 23 levels to work with (25 including the outside casing). With Resonant Ender liquid cooling, that gives you about ~1700 RF/t to work with per reactor with a pretty efficient fuel usage.

I hope that helps clear up some of the fog around this Mod. Enjoy.

Edited March 9, 2014 by Cancro_Senzafine

[Curunir]

I have been followng TE discussion for a while, and got the impression that Gelid Cryotheum was intended as a super coolant. Seems I got the wrong impression.

[Curunir]

I just read this on the Big Reactors changelog for version 0.3.0rc2:

 

 

Balance: Cryotheum's heat transfer, moderation capability and heat efficiency have been significantly boosted.

 

Looking forward to testing this, once 0.3 actually makes it into Tekkit and I can get my hands on some Cryotheum.

[Cancro_Senzafine]

I just read this on the Big Reactors changelog for version 0.3.0rc2:

 

 

Looking forward to testing this, once 0.3 actually makes it into Tekkit and I can get my hands on some Cryotheum.

 

Yes, I am excited to see the new changes to Big Reactors myself. The turbine mechanics will be interesting, I think. Overall, it's nice to see that mod get such frequent and nice updates.

[Skuli]

0.3.0A is in the 1.2.8 beta build, should you want to try it out.

[crusaderkvw]

They are ridiculously useful. Comparatively Atomic Science reactors are far more powerful in the end game, but Yellorium Reactors can be started from right at the very beginning of starting to tech up. I have a little Lets Talk on my Youtube about it where I point out how useful they can be for early game power generation.

 

thanks for that lets talk i'm still using those dammed steam dynamo's(3 to power my quarry) and they are indeed very very coal consuming(or charcoal for that matter). saved the vid on favourites tab and i'm sooo gonna build a reactor tomorrow :D.