This mod is an attempt to make the fuel cycle more interesting by changing several recipes and replacing the Kovarex Enrichment Process. It is still experimental and I expect recipes will need some adjustment. All feedback is welcomed.
Summary
Reprocessing spent fuel yields plutonium, which can be used to create nuclear weapons or breeder fuel cells. Breeder cells burn up U-238 faster than standard uranium fuel, but when spent breeder cells are reprocessed, they yield much larger quantities of plutonium.
Kovarex Enrichment has been replaced by MOX fuel - I have simply renamed the technology and disabled the original recipe, so that if you have researched it your time and materials have not gone to waste. MOX fuel is simply an alternative recipe for uranium fuel cells, but it uses plutonium instead of U-235, and only 9 U-238 instead of 19.
Using only uranium fuel will lead to a surplus of U-238 (which you might want for making turret ammo), using only breeder fuel will lead to a surplus of plutonium (which you might want for making nuclear weapons), using breeder and MOX cells will get about 50% more energy from your U-238.
Changes & Additions
- Nuclear Power
Uranium mining and enrichment is unchanged from vanilla: 1 U-235 combined with 19 U-238 yields 10 uranium fuel cells. - Nuclear Fuel Reprocessing
Reprocessing 5 spent uranium fuel cells now has a chance (currently 25%) of producing 1 plutonium, in addition to the normal U-238.
1 plutonium + 19 U-238 produces 10 breeder fuel cells - these only provide half as much energy as uranium cells.
Reprocessing 5 spent breeder cells produces 2 plutonium and a 50% chance of 1 U-235. - MOX Fuel
(Replaces Kovarex Enrichment Process technology)
1 plutonium + 9 U-238 produces 10 uranium fuel cells. - Atomic Bomb
Atomic rockets now require 5 plutonium instead of 30 U-235. The purpose of this change is to force nuclear weapons production to require an operating reactor, rather than simply mining and processing uranium. The precise recipe is subject to change.
- Exciting plutonium-based armour power source to complement or replace boring fusion reactor equipment
- Move breeder cells and reprocessing to new technology
- 0.1.3 - 2017/12/24 - Tooltips no longer show spent fuel as an ingredient for fuel cells (thanks to chlue for the fix)
- 0.1.2 - 2017/12/18 - Moved new "nuclear fuel" item from Kovarex to Rocket Silo tech and fixed migration
- 0.1.1 - 2017/12/16 - Update to Factorio 0.16
- 0.1.0 - 2017/04/30 - Initial test release for 0.15