Nuclear power fix and fluid system expansion.

[Implicit]

Nuclear power fix and fluid system expansion.

Hello! I wonder, is it possible to change the nuclear energy in the game, bringing it closer to reality and correcting too obvious mistakes?
(These are precisely misunderstanding of NPP operation).

What exactly is a misunderstanding?

In particular, I am confused by the following:

• The reactor itself (as it is named in the game) does not require so much energy. Approximately 8~14% of the generated electricity is spent on “house loads” (the output of 1 reactor may be from 300 up to 1400 MW)

• A huge number of turbines ... All stations known to me, as a rule, have only one turbine per reactor. BIG turbine.

• If you consider that the reactor is water-cooled and water-moderated, than there should be a closed circuit with radioactive water and another circuit, so called secondary circuit, water of which cools the pipes with radioactive one. Or sometimes three circuits, which prevents propagation of radiation into environment. This is really no less important than uranium-containing fuel rods. If necessary, I can describe in more detail, but this is VERY long. It's easier to go straight to the proposals.

This, of course, is not a comprehensive list of inaccuracies, but having corrected something I have mentioned, it will seem more realistic.

Proposals

I’m a bad programmer and an even worse artist and can’t offer any ready-made corrections, but I can advise you to do the following:

• Change the icon of the reactor, making it ... for example, four times more (or leave it as it is and add walls, equipment, stairs, etc.) and recalculate the power output and consumption to make it balanced. The nuclear power plants are usually located on a territory of a few square kilometers (for example, 4 km ^ 2, which is much more than any "Rocket silo" and is comparable to a full-fledged launch site of space centers, together with the adjacent territories).

• Make the icon of the turbine at least 12 times larger and completely revise the energy generation.

• Add an evaporative cooling tower in addition to the heat exchanger (by the way, it is strange that it is still not in the game. They could be inserted into everything related to steam and water heating / cooling, besides they are HUGE and could be seen fr)m far away)

• It is useful to locate the NPP somewhere near a water reservoir to be used as the ultimate heat sink. The prerequisites for NPP siting may be implemented in the game mechanics similar to those used for pumps. Moreover, it would be nice to add the process of properly cooled water discharge back into the reservoir after its)condensing.

• It would be cool to connect technologies "nuclear energy" with "Construction robotics" and, if desired, with "Landfill".

Why is it better than "leave it as is"?

I think if we implement it in a similar way, then in the future it will be possible to use the same mechanics and constructions to put the hydroelectric power station into play and perhaps thermonuclear stations like that being designed within ITER project, as the game action takes place in the future ... Anyway, the only thing that will be needed for them in addition to the above, are dams for hydroelectric power stations and another reactor model for thermonuclear stations.
That's all I wanted to offer. Thanks.

P.S. I am amused by the Kovareks process, but still note that there are several ways to get weapons-grade PLUTONIUM (not uranium-235, this is important!), In addition to chemical plants, these are the so-called Breeder reactors. It seems there is even a modification on this topic, perhaps it would be interesting to add something of the kind to the game.
As for the "qualifications"... This message has just been checked by a project management specialist of Atomstroyexport. What projects I think is clear.

[Ultros]

I always assumed the reactor was more of a self contained gas cooled "pebble bed" reactor, considering the fuel cells resemble fuel pebbles with a cut-through visualisation (with some artistic leeway) as opposed to the standard light water reactor's fuel rods. The temperatures it operates at (1000°C, versus ~320°C for LWRs), as well as the way it operates (heat-pipe into heat exchanger) are also more characteristic of pebble-bed reactors.

In any case, I think we need a good dose of https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/ ... fDisbelief here, considering that the reactor, heat pipes, and steam containers/pipes are all adiabatic, and you can carry an entire fleet of trains inside your inventory. The modded nuclear reactors do in fact produce more realism, though I have not tested them myself. It's important to remember that this is a nuclear reactor design from a space-faring civilization, so there's no reason it cannot operate a reactor type that we cannot even envision with our current technology.

I do agree that cooling towers are a great addition to the game and they should implement proper steam condensation cycles to allow operation some distance from water sources (currently the steam is consumed by the turbines while producing power).

[bobucles]

If you consider that the reactor is water-cooled and water-moderated, than there should be a closed circuit with radioactive water and another circuit, so called secondary circuit, water of which cools the pipes with radioactive one.

Isn't that what heat pipes do? They are a self contained system that takes heat from the reactor core and transfers it to external fresh water.

. The nuclear power plants are usually located on a territory of a few square kilometers (

That accounts for the core, the steam network, the generation, security boundaries, cafeteria and all the substantial support equipment/shielding/casing/deliberate spacing that goes into a nuke plant. Factorio nuke designs don't get THAT big but they still can still fill up a zoomed out screen. A lot of those nuke plant essentials get abstracted out because nuclear power serves to build a factory, not the other way around.

There is enough complexity in a nuke plant to build an entire game around it. But that would be a game all its own.

Make the icon of the turbine at least 12 times larger and completely revise the energy generation.

Do turbines really get THAT big? Obviously they can get pretty big, but the most common scales I can find are things you can fit on a highway. Which makes sense because the turbine very likely gets built off site and delivered by highway. Also factorio turbines can be connected into pretty large strings, which is kind of like having a single jumbo turbine.

Heug designs

Nuclear power doesn't really gain much efficiency with scale. It mostly gains a lot of problems. Steam can always go bigger and squeeze out another 0.1% efficiency, but the central nuclear process is pretty well understood and works at a pretty specific scale. A lot of interest is going into smaller, cheaper, more portable(truck) designs rather than investing in big reactors with big problems. It also makes sense for our Factorio engineer to work with smaller, more easily managed units even if they lack some benefit of scale.

[Ultros]

Do turbines really get THAT big? Obviously they can get pretty big, but the most common scales I can find are things you can fit on a highway. Which makes sense because the turbine very likely gets built off site and delivered by highway. Also factorio turbines can be connected into pretty large strings, which is kind of like having a single jumbo turbine.

Yes, absolutely. The bigger the turbine, the lower the relative heat losses to the environment and the higher the efficiency, and therefore there is a very strong impetus to design them as large as possible.

Mitsubishi's 1.57GVA turbine https://www.mhps.com/products/steamturb ... _plant.pdf is much, much bigger than an average highway. You can see a couple of photos with people for scale in the PDF.

GE https://www.ge.com/power/steam/steam-tu ... -d200#spec states that their turbines are 17m wide and 53m long, which are similar to the ones in the photo earlier

I think Factorio's design of multiple small turbines makes more sense than a single large one, since it simplifies the inventory and allows effective scaling of the reactor without having to deal with turbines of various different sizes. And we can always insert the justification that perhaps the advanced space technology designs of the Engineer's civilization allows for turbine miniaturization without affecting performance. After all, they have adiabatic steam tanks

[bobucles]

A 1.57GVA turbine https://www.mhps.com/products/steamturb ... _plant.pdf is much, much bigger than an average highway. You can see a couple of photos with people for scale in the PDF.

The value of a jumbo turbine is that it can squeeze out every last drop of power from steam. In the economic world, an extra fraction of a percent of efficiency multiplied by a LOT of energy equates to a colossal amount of money. In Factorio, that level of machine efficiency doesn't matter. It's like having a turbine productivity module that pumps out another 5%, which in game terms falls under the "who cares" bracket. It's a lot of effort for something that doesn't pay off in game mechanics.

One thing that is neat about high temperature steam is that there is a high pressure turbine for "hot" steam, and a separate low pressure turbine for "cold" steam. That could get very messy for 2D layouts though.

Factorio doesn't do fluid circulation so any mechanic that demands a full fluid loop won't work very well.

[Zavian]

Factorio nuclear power plants aren't meant to simulate reality. They are meant to create interesting gameplay.

In reality I expect the turbine would be designed to the correspond to the designed power output of the reactor. Hence real power plant only need one turbine per reactor. But in Factorio, you can't rescale the turbine, so instead you add multiple smaller turbines.

Factorio is a game, not an documentary or a tutorial on nuclear plant design, and interesting gameplay is more important than exactly matching real nuclear power plant design.

[Hannu]

Make the icon of the turbine at least 12 times larger and completely revise the energy generation.

Do turbines really get THAT big? Obviously they can get pretty big, but the most common scales I can find are things you can fit on a highway. Which makes sense because the turbine very likely gets built off site and delivered by highway. Also factorio turbines can be connected into pretty large strings, which is kind of like having a single jumbo turbine.

Turbines may be huge and their transporting is big issue. I think that in my country nuclear plants have some kind of seaports which can take enormous components straight from the ship.

But in my opinion nuclear power is in line with all other game entities. It is true that real nuclear powerplants need area of several square kilometers and have very complex processes but same is true for oil refineries, large chemical factories, steel smelteries and other high throughput industrial facilities. I live near oil refinery (which is relatively small unit in international level) and have to that it is something else than few tens of 5x5 m^2 and 3x3 m^2 units in straight rows (and strange rotating antennas between them). Those pipes, tanks, reactors and distillation columns are huge and they have also tendency to replace several small units with one very large. It would be strange to put nuclear powerplants to realistic scale and let other production facilities be miniatyre theme park at powerplants backyard.

I personally would like more realistic and complex behavior of game elements, but do not see it very feasible from devs point of view.

It also makes sense for our Factorio engineer to work with smaller, more easily managed units even if they lack some benefit of scale.

Multiple small units fits better to theme of the game. If you are alone normal economic rules do not necessarily work. And also, it gives interest in game to build large production plants from small units instead of just put one huge reactor or furnace and connect simple belts to it.

There was a nice mod which had more realistic nuclear plants and chemical processing chain from ore or used fuel to new fuel. But I do not know if it is maintained after vanilla nuclear power came.