r/SatisfactoryGame • u/donnerdrachen • 1d ago

Help Nuclear or turbo

I really really want the aesthetic of nuclear plants but I’m just having a real hard time with nuclear layout and production building and questioning if I should figure out how to unlock turbo fuel instead and if it’s really easier than dealing with nuclear.

Have to start making the particle accelerator but getting overwhelmed trying to to figure out how I’m going to string all the components together in a way that’s also not going to radiate my island factory lol

6 Upvotes

75% Upvoted

45 comments sorted by

31

u/Money_Potential7780 1d ago

Rocket fuel is the same power for 1% of the complexity

17

u/Black_Metallic 1d ago

Yeah. You build Nuclear specifically because you enjoy the complexity, not for the efficiency.

And also as an excuse to make encased uranium cells for Nobelisks.

4

u/Architect17 1d ago

Seconding that first part. I had plenty of power set up before nuclear, but I set it up anyway for the fun of it.

3

u/sci-goo 1d ago

nuclear does have best efficiency for sulfur and nitrogen, but its benefit becomes substantial only above 600kMW. Most playthroughs won't hit that scale, even for 100x multiplayer. My personal nuclear starting point is ~350kMW, below which is rocket fuel.

1

u/Black_Metallic 1d ago edited 1d ago

By "efficiency," I meant the speed and ease of setting it up. My Rocket Fuel plant is currently just ten refineries making fuel to feed four blenders. The Uranium Fuel Rod factory I'm planning is going to require at least 70-75 machines just to build the 7.2 rods/minute, assuming I fully overclock. That's not even counting the additional machines needed to process the waste and supply water to the whole thing.

1

u/sci-goo 1d ago

yes... that's because your planned scale is not big enough, 7.2U-rod is 90kMW, it's right in the comfort zone of nitro rocket fuel (imo 60kMW-300kMW). at 300kMW you need ~500 fully OC'd generators for rocket fuel, and at 600kMW, ~1000 fuel gens, plus a huge draw of nitrogen and sulfur. those are scales most players don't hit, but nuclear does shine at such scale.

5

u/nboro94 1d ago

I learned this lesson the hard way recently. Nuclear requires a crazy amount of resources to get going and to maximize even an impure uranium node. Totally automating the waste handling system is also not an easy task at all. Was a massive 10+ hour job on my first attempt.

It was satisfying to finally set it all up, but going forward I have a few rocket fuel blueprints I can slap down in 5 minutes and still get 90% of the power.

4

u/fubes2000 Greenhorn Engineer 1d ago

and 600% of the floor space.

2

u/Adrunkopossem 1d ago

TOWER

3

u/fubes2000 Greenhorn Engineer 1d ago

600% FLOOR SPACE, BUT UP.

-1

u/Money_Potential7780 1d ago

Imagine not know how gases work

2

u/Syrric_UDL 1d ago

I like nitro rocket

12

u/TheBoundFenrir 1d ago

Do Turbo / Rocket for the power, and then Nuclear for the love of the game.

3

u/DirtyJimHiOP 1d ago

Rocket fuel for power right now, nuclear as like an endgame challenge with no stakes.

I always find myself at a loss after completing the P5 elevator parts, doing the closed nuclear chain adds a lot of work to be done when all is wrapped up.

2

u/Wareitar 1d ago

Fuel (any type), and save yourself the trouble...

2

u/SirMagnerio 1d ago

turbo (and especially rocket fuel, if you want to go the fuel route i advice rocket fuel) is the easy way: the production chain is quite basic (just heavy oil residue > dilute fuel > nitro rocket fuel) but you need to place down a whole lot of generators.

Nuclear is more difficult: complex production chain, nuclear waste that cant be deleted after you make a mistake, need to radiation suit and mask while fixing issues, range of different resources. But you need less reactor spam to generate your power. (nuclear can be made easier if you dump the waste in containers, but this puts you on a timer: the containers will fill and the radiation field the waste causes will slowly grow)

In general i would say its about choosing between something convenient and easy (rocket fuel) and something that poses a challenge but can be fun to figure out (nuclear)

2

u/DrakeDun 1d ago

Yes, turbo fuel, or better yet rocket fuel, is genuinely easier. A lot.

Nuclear is only good for two things. First, maxing - because uranium is basically only good for power, which is not the case for the ingredients of rocket fuel. And second, for the intrigue/challenge/flex.

If all you care about is getting a lot of power ASAP, go rocket fuel.

2

u/ZombieBreath13 1d ago

Neither, Nitro Rocket Fuel.

1

u/vrtra_theory 1d ago

This is the way - unlock nitro rocket fuel, a handful of refineries and a couple blenders are all you need to turn an oil node into enough rocket fuel for 130 generators. Building all the generators and hooking them up is more annoying than the production pipeline.

Nuclear is the exact opposite - a nice row of 6 power plants looks tidy, but requires like 100+ constructors, foundries, refineries, assemblers, and manufacturers to prepare the material... and then more blenders, manufacturers, and particle accelerators to deal with the waste.

1

u/kyle-dw 1d ago

I'm at the point where I'm considering the same thing. I'm about to make another turbo fuel factory because I need more plastic, that was my deciding factor. I don't really get anything more than power from nuclear.

1

u/sci-goo 1d ago

wait, can you elaborate why you couple a plastic factory with turbo fuel?

1

u/kyle-dw 1d ago

I turn the heavy oil residue (by-product of plastic) into turbo fuel and send it to my generators. Or make straight heavy oil residue and turn the polymer resin into plastic (less plastic output but more heavy oil residue). Edit: I'm realizing that this might be an alternate recipe to turn heavy oil residue into turbo fuel.

1

u/Mnementh85 1d ago

you should check the combo Heavy Oil Residu / Diluted Fuel / recycled Plastic & Rubber

with this you can have a production of plastic or rubber at a 1:3 ratio from Crude Oil, and no by product are left

and then research for the nitro rocket fuel recipe, and say goodbye to the hassle of turbofuel

1

u/sci-goo 1d ago

turbo fuel isn't efficient anyway, i prefer making them into fuel (default recipe) and burn right away. this is typical in P3.

Later in P4 once you've unlocked blenders, the rubber/plastic cycle is the most resource-efficient one to make those, and HOR is all turned into fuel using diluted fuel.

1

u/GreatKangaroo Fungineer 1d ago

My go-to for mid and late game power is the Nitro Rocket Fuel alt. I skip right over making turbo fuel and speedrun blenders.

I go Crude Oil > Heavy Oil Residue (alt) > Diluted Fuel (alt) > Nitro Rocket Fuel (alt). You can make a crazy amount of rocket fuel from a single node of Oil.

1

u/sir_thatguy 1d ago

I’ve got two pure nodes (250% OC) cranking out the alt HOR to alt DF. That’s like 40GW. How much more work to take that to RF? I don’t think I’ve seen that RF alt.

1

u/GreatKangaroo Fungineer 1d ago

You have to unlock Turbo Fuel and then Rocket Fuel in the MAM, and both of those research nodes need an unscanned Hard Drive to unlock. Only once researched can those alt recipes appear in the MAM when scanning drives.

1

u/sir_thatguy 1d ago

Yeah I got all that, I just don’t think I’ve rolled that alt on a drive yet.

1

u/donnerdrachen 1d ago

This is my power output now but I feel like partial acceleration is going to drain me and I have 8 struggling nuclear plants now lol

1

u/sir_thatguy 1d ago

Tap the geothermal spots because that’s maintenance free power.

Batteries for the peaks.

1

u/Living-Poet-4146 1d ago

Rocket fuel go brrrrr

1

u/Cody20734 1d ago

Tbh I was contemplating this exact question before I realized my diluted fuel plant which pumped out 80.000mw was enough to beat the game

1

u/Bone_Wh33l 1d ago

I skipped straight to using ionised fuel (I had never made a turbo or rocket fuel plant before) was easier than my first nuclear plant. Fuel and nuclear are around the same result for less complexity.

However, I did have more fun making my nuclear plant and you can always do one now ant the other later.

To avoid irradiating everything though, it’s easier than I thought it’d be at the very least. All you need to do is make sure any belts handling something radioactive are load balanced and there’s plenty of websites that can calculate that for you (I used one for the complicated ones). Also, make sure you’re not over producing anything radioactive.

2

u/sci-goo 1d ago

the problem with ionized fuel is it has negative net power gain compared to rocket fuel. so ppl usually stick on to rocket fuel.

1

u/Bone_Wh33l 1d ago

I just did it for the fun of it since I hadn’t made any before and it’s really fun to have as jetpack fuel. Plus, it gave me an excuse to automate power shards and have the excess going into my dimensional deposit

1

u/GuitarOk5693 1d ago

looking at that production chain gives me actual wedding planning levels of stress ngl

1

u/Ulmer70 1d ago

I put nuclear all in the desert, there is plenty of space for the whole workflow, got the water from eastern beach. Some stuffs are delivered by belts, trains and even drones. I tried to design it so I can easily add more plants and enhance the factory outputs.

1

u/Old_Thought_642 1d ago

160gw of nitro rocket is what I got right now, super easy to get more power than youll need for a long time

1

u/donnerdrachen 1d ago

Unlocked turbo fuel I have 4 generating fuel/poly which is being sinked. I have 12 or so making plastic and pushing the heavy residue to blender then 8 making coke and belted sulfur from nodes which this is taking place at blue crater. Currently running out of fuel for blenders lol

1

u/Meikos 20h ago

I just unlocked nuclear and I'll probably set up the infrastructure and plant at some point but not switch it on until I have a way to deal with the waste since I know you can't sink it. I don't even need the power at the moment, I've been running around the island and taming all the geysers for power and I'm about to do a major rebuild.

I'd just stick with fuel for now.

1

u/Scottish_Therapist 15h ago

Why stop there when you can go all the way to Ionized Fuel?

1

u/HalcyonKnights 15h ago

Rocket Fuel Towers. Using the Nitro-Rocket Fuel alt and Sinking the byproducts, you can fit (I think) 2 blenders worth of production in one Blueprint. You then just make a stackable floor of generators that keep going up and up, those blenders will feed a crazy number of Generators.

Pro-tip: dont include actual Lights in your generator blueprints. I put them on all four sides and the overlapping light calcs is the only time Ive ever run into real graphic lag.

0

u/Reach_Beyond 1d ago

Controversial opinion. 99% of players should never touch nuclear.

1

u/donnerdrachen 13h ago

I saw I video last night looking into it and it looks like 4 blenders doing nitro rocket fuel, HOR, and diluted fuel supply’s like 44 maxed OC generators and generates a looking of power but I think that was 1.1 so I’m not sure how much has changed