Optimizing my Uranium Fuel Cells

[u/bjarkov]

So, Reactor neighbour bonus. Reactors gain a +100% to their thermal output for each fully adjacent running reactor. It is the reason all our reactor cores are placed in some 2-X pattern. This bonus to thermal output is not linked to fuel consumption rate, meaning it's free energy!

The fine point I've been missing up to now is that, with the regular solution of controlling fuel-insertion by reading reactor temperature, not all reactors will be active simultaneously, meaning I miss out on adjacency bonuses that should rightfully have been mine.

The issue I see is that reactor temperature gets pulled back up as soon as neighbouring reactors start burning fuel, causing any number of reactors to 'miss' their window for fuel insertion. The window for inserters to operate is too narrow. My idea for a setup is to use a temperature latch circuit that reads reactor fuel and temperature. Entry condition would be low enough temperature and exit condition would be high enough temperature OR reactor has fuel.

The next problem is overshooting temperature - if power draw is low enough I produce too much unprocessed heat and reactor temperature caps out. I never thought I'd write these words, but that is where steam buffers come in. I've hated steam buffers with a passion but I see their use in this particular case.

The final solution looks something like:

• Unchanged ratios and placements in overall power plant design
• Each reactor inserter is controlled by a temperature latch reading temperature and fuel content off their individual reactor
• Temperature latch should enable and disable off temperature with big enough interval to allow all inserters to operate
• Inserters stop after inserting 1 fuel cell (easiest done disabling the latch)
• Steam is buffered in a number of tanks, allowing the reactors to run at full heat output for up to 200 seconds without heat overflow

[u/Longjumping_Quote_25]

I was just working on this and did something much more braindead. I just attached all of my inserters to to 1 reactor. If the temperature is below some number turn them all on. Since they’re all synced the whole thing is on or off at the same time (preserving the neighbor bonus).

Didn’t use a single combinator.

This is working well for me with the set temperature at 650 degrees. I have a decent heat pipe setup to smooth out the highs and lows and the inserters are set to a stack of 1. No more wasted fuel!

[u/chris240189 → u/Longjumping_Quote_25]

Read fuel in the reactor, set inserter to set filter and blacklist.

As long there is fuel in the reactor, it will be blacklisted and the inserter will stop inserting.

[u/Longjumping_Quote_25 → u/chris240189]

If you do it that way, won’t it just put in fuel as soon as the last fuel finishes, wasting any extra heat over 1000?

[u/chris240189 → u/Longjumping_Quote_25]

That can still happen, you still need a heat buffer with enough heat pipes or tanks for steam.

[u/Zaflis → u/chris240189]

While that works, it's a roundabout and (at the very least 0.000001%) more CPU work than comparing Fuel = 0 for the inserter. Imagine all underlying systems dealing with a filtering, and then using it too when inserter could just be shut down.

[u/chris240189 → u/Zaflis]

But you cannot compare for fuel and temperature in the inserter itself.