simdezimon / nucular

Factorio mod

Nucular

##The Basics

• One nuclear reactor heats enough water for 20 steam engines ore 2 steam turbines (space-saving version of the steam engine)
• Enriched uranium is used as fuel, the spent fuel can be reprocessed
• With enough technologies researched you can start converting your depleted uranium stores into plutonium in breeder reactors
• The plutonium can be used as nuclear fuel, increasing the fuel value of uranium tenfold
• If you don't want to fight spawners, you can now use plutonium to create alien science packs. On the other hand, uranium turned out to be pretty usefull against aliens

##Weapons

• You can use depleted uranium to produce armour-piercing ammunition
• Highly enriched uranium or plutonium is used for an atomic bomb
• Nuclear explosion increases the biter evolution factor, so using them in masse might be a bad idea
• The evolution factor will increase by 0.2%, the same amount as destroying an enemy spawner

##Basic chain 2x Electrical drill (Uranium ore) → 1x Chemical plant (Uranium) → 2x Assembling machine 3 (Enriched Uranium) → 0.1x Assembling machine 3 (Nuclear Fuel) → 1x Nuclear plant → 2x Steam Turbine / 20x Steam engine

One nuclear plant produces 10 steam each second, enough for 2 steam turbines. Nuclear fuel lasts for 100 seconds in a power plant under full load.

##Breeder chain

• 1x Nuclear reactor (plutonium production)
• 1x Nuclear reactor (energy production)
• 0.2x Assembling machine 3 (recycling)
• 0.1x Assembling machine 3 (MOX fuel production)
• 2x Steam turbine

Nuclear fuel lasts for 400 seconds in the breeder reactor and turns 20 depleted uranium into 20 plutonium. In the same time the reactor consumes four fuel assemblies. The five spent assemblies can be recycled (5 plutonium, 40 uranium) and turned into five new MOX fuel assemblies (25 plutonium, 40 uranium, 25 steel plates).

#RSO See https://github.com/simdezimon/Nucular/wiki/Using-Nucular-with-RSO

nucular's Issues

Molten Salt Cooled and dissolved Molten Salt reactors ideas for 0.15

Given that Nuclear power is now in the base game, as of 15, I think there's still value in this mod. One thing that obviously persists in value is plutonium cycle chemistry and the possibility of using it for nuclear weaponry and possibly for science pack creation (depending on the 0.15 update's new science pack distribution).

But the other thing it could do is supply a few reactor alternatives, including molten cooled reactors (for more efficient heat transfer along heat pipes) and molten salt solution reactions, which can consume more of the fuel with less waste (extracting actinides, but using up 90+% of the fuel in solution - just add more). This can make for more interesting resource-management in tight situations.

It could also add a thorium/uranium transmutation cycle, to get uranium out of more plentiful thorium. In order to simulate the way thorium is found in mining waste today, a conversion process (in a chemical plant) could input 50 iron, 50 coal, and get out 49 coal, 49 iron, and 1 thorium. (losing .5 of each to the process in processing and waste). The specific numbers could be tweaked. But it could provide a different path to fissile uranium (U-233).

Proposal: change Reactor fluid boxes to match chemical plants

It's a bit confusing for me to have 2 inputs and 2 outputs only on one side of the Reactor.
Changing the fluid boxes to match chemical plants would make Reactors a lot easier tile-able.
You could expand them to have 8 fluid boxes, 2 in each corner, but that might be overkill.

Also off_when_no_fluid_recipe = true would remove fluid box arrows from the reactor when working on rebreeding.

    fluid_boxes =
    {
      {
        production_type = "input",
        pipe_covers = pipecoverspictures(),
        base_area = 10,
        base_level = -1,
        pipe_connections = {{ type="input", position = {-1, -2} }}
      },
      {
        production_type = "input",
        pipe_covers = pipecoverspictures(),
        base_area = 10,
        base_level = -1,
        pipe_connections = {{ type="input", position = {1, -2} }}
      },
      {
        production_type = "output",
        pipe_covers = pipecoverspictures(),
        base_level = 1,
        pipe_connections = {{ position = {-1, 2} }}
      },
      {
        production_type = "output",
        pipe_covers = pipecoverspictures(),
        base_level = 1,
        pipe_connections = {{ position = {1, 2} }}
      },
    off_when_no_fluid_recipe = true
    }