Big Reactors Mod

Reactors and turbines are multi-block structures made up of individual blocks arranged according to specific rules, which together create a large functional machine. Both reactors and turbines must be built as a closed, mostly hollow box with no holes and complete edges, including corners. The edges of this box must be built from Reactor Casing or Turbine Housing blocks, and the faces of Reactor Glass or Turbine Glass blocks, respectively.

In addition to these containment blocks, a number of other blocks are necessary to make a functioning reactor or turbine. None of these blocks can be placed on the edge or corner; they must be somewhere in the faces of the reactor, sometimes in very specific places. Right clicking on the reactor casing or turbine housing will display a message of what is missing.

Important: Ensure that there aren’t any metallic blocks within a 1 block radius of the turbine! Doing so results in unpredictable behavior with the turbine.

Download this spreadsheet to calculate the required materials and their cost for any size Reactor structure.

Use this Big Reactor Simulator to test the efficiency of different Reactor designs.

Reactor Temperature

The fuel inside the fuel rods generates power, radiation and heat. Heat is transferred to the adjacent 4 blocks from the fuel rods into a coolant or fuel rod block, and likewise radiation is transferred up to 4 blocks (dependant on adjacent block absorption) in the cardinal directions (North,South,East,West).

Excess radiation and heat could cause the temperature in the reactor to rise above efficient levels and consume more fuel, since there is a penalty to fuel consumption at too high an operating temperature.

Reactor Coolant

A coolant reduces the temperature of a reactor, and moves heat from the reactor core to the reactor casing. The higher the casing heat, the higher the energy output and heat transfer rate of coolants.

Any fluid used as coolant must be manually added to the reactor during construction, exactly as you would with solid coolant materials. Those looking to fill large reactors with fluids that fall, such as Gelid Cryotheum, may want to consider using a Flood Gate.

Each coolant material has various parameters that govern how it affects the reactor:

• Absorption: How much radiation this material absorbs to convert to heat. Ranges from 0 (none) to 1 (all).
• Heat Efficiency: How efficiently absorbed radiation is converted to heat. Ranges from 0 (none) to 1 (all).
• Moderation: How well this material moderates radiation. This is a divisor, and greater than or equal to 1.
• Conductivity: Amount of heat transfered on each exposed face.

A Turbine produces energy from Steam generated by an active cooling Reactor or generated using one of 6 other mods methods. Steam is converted back into water, which may be recycled into a Reactor to produce more steam.

Rotor Material

For each rotor block in the turbine made of either a Turbine Rotor Shaft and a Turbine Rotor Blade, a mass of 10 is added.

Turbine Coil Material

The three values are always averaged together to give the resulting values for the entire turbine coil. A higher efficiency will always produce more power. A higher drag will produce more power, but will slow down the rotor more when induction is enabled. A higher bonus will also always produce more power.

Turbine Optimization

Optimized turbine designs for various coil materials

• Turbines convert steam into water at an even ratio, and produce a certain amount of RF per tick depending on the coil material and turbine design.
• Steam intake is always between 0 and 2,000 mB per tick.
• The rotor speed gauge only shows between 0 and 2,200 RPM, but the actual rotor speed can be higher.
• Generated energy is always positive or 0.
• The width of the turbine frame is not a factor of energy output.
• The number of rotor shafts isn’t a very large factor of energy output. Dimensions used are at the Player’s discretion.
• If maximum rotor speed is unlimited and 2,000 mB per tick of steam is available, it is most efficient to use 80 rotor blades. If the rotor speed is limited to 2,000 RPM, perhaps more rotor shafts and fewer rotor blades would be preferable in order to keep the rotor speed above 1,796.27 but below 2,000 RPM while optimizing energy output.
• All blocks of the coil do not need to be made of the same material, but are averaged together to determine the turbine’s score in each of the three coil traits. This makes it possible to make composite coils that use cheap filler metals in balance with high end metals to maximize limited resources. It also means, however, that adding a ring of a low performing metal to a turbine with several rings of a high-perfomance metal may actually reduce the output.

Turbine Equation