suggestions - reactor cooloff, minimal treashold, and few on about rimatomics HOT 11 OPEN

ok most of those are things i thought about doing or prototyped and just made it too fiddly and complicated for people so i simplified it, especially an iodine pit that was major hassle with solar flares and so on and it just makes reactors even more of a pita to use compared to just whacking some geothermals and wind turbines up, its still a game not a simulator so it needs to be easy enough for normal people to be able to use, and fun to play, else people will just play with super basic nuclear mods where you shove a green rod into a box and it makes power.

i can't really make a version of the research now that lets you just build everything at once, would take a lot of work now, basically just turn on god mode and hit the finish button on all the reactor projects if you just want to skip them all.

from rimatomics.

Please don't give this mod any more required lead time. It already has significant lead times, and costs, in research and construction before you can get any actual power out of it.

Also please keep in mind most people who play rimworld and use this mod are not nuclear engineers it shouldn't require a 2 week crash course in nuclear physics to be able to use a mod.

Edit---

Essentially, I think there needs to be a compromise between playability, usability, and realism in any game or mod. And i think playability, and usability need to trump realism to a degree.

from rimatomics.

I do disagree with you.

If people who use this mod expect simplicity, IMO they can use other mods that are still realistic and simple. And what I found from Dub's mods they are modular and not simple (they ad multiple research, each of it is usable by its own, multiple buildings and requirement for infrastructure - all good, like this).

You did mention that that it's already taking too long to get any power. Vanilla game + this mod, one pawn, naked, no passions, medium climate, takes about 1-1.5 in-game year to get your 1st reactor loop working. This is very quick.
My current play is 10% research speed, permanent ice and 150% difficulty - took 3.5y to get it done, another 1.5y to get advanced reactor and reprocessing (same scenario in 1.1 took under 1y).
And what's more, my suggestions do not change that - they are enhancing game play after wards. You will still get your first reactor loop in same time and in same way. It add more content after (like using cooling loop to hat up water for BadHygene mod).

And no, no one needs to become any expert in anything, as majority of above is high-school physics and/or just 1-2 line note in-game for user. Telling them that re-stating restarting reactor too early (or running it too low, and marking minimal operation with arrow/red zone on a slider where you control rods) is quite enough. Game already does not have concept of overloading power lines (not talking about ZZZ event as this is totally different), so if you like You could leave your reactor on 100% and be done with it.

Currently when you're done with you loop, You turn on rector, hit auto-control and do not touch it until it will auto-scram or you need to refuel. This is actually already very close to reality.
Why not enhance this which does not mean more difficulty - more possibility.

For once, I never had meltdown, and that's with disabled auto-scram as I do think those should not be there (or should be researched). Why? Because this mod is still easy. Or I should say, you get there too quick IMO - there should be more steps from getting your first reactor to fully autonomous power plant.

And to your last sentence - depends what you expect from a mod/game, you can have all 3 in same time.
If I would ask for realism about this, I would ask to include contamination of hot/cold loop, need for robotics for fueling advanced reactors, uranium ore to be yellow, not grey, and so on. In fact i do ask for more game play and usability withing this mod, by adding some of key missing concepts of realism.

from rimatomics.

As to your comment on robotic reloading, i kind of agree. the largest reactor can hold 89 fuel rods. it can take pawns over an entire in game day to load them all one at a time.

As to the rest, the thing is. Length isn;t so much the issue this mod already has a frustrating number of hoops to jump through in order to be able to actually use it. And that's my one and only real issue with it.

Here's my experience with the mod. it's my second game on a mid difficulty for pheobe chillax and i have a large colony of 20+ people and i use rim factory revived, which is why i needed more power anyway. and my base is in a tropical mountain biome.

step one, research rimatomics in the normal research screen.
step one, alright so you have to build rim atomics own research tables. not terrible, even if i am kind of loathe to use more space at the moment.
step three. Buy into and research the research reactor
step 4. Build the research reactor and discover that it eats power and then you have to research some more at that reactor. It explicitly states that you want the strongest possible walls around these reactors and a little space between them. so i make the walls out of uranium.
step 5. buy into and research nuclear reactors.
step 6. do more research at the research reactor.
step 7. build your second reactor, i count that research one as a reactor honestly why doesn't this thing generate some power. Chicago pile-1 built at the university of Chicago didn't generate any real power, it was run at .5 watts since it didn't have shielding but it did at one point generate 200 watts but at least it didn't use any external power either.
step 8. build your reactor again, technically phase 2 of construction. during this time it will also be eating power as well as time.
steps 9 through 12, build ONE of each of the following turbine, cooling system, power transformer and reactor control panel.
no we won;t give you access to all of these things ahead of time so you can plan out a base and pick a spot with enough room. nor are we going to tell you the exact numbers of the cooling systems so you can know how much cooling you need for each type. Nor are we going to tell you that a thor turbine uses 250 turbine blades or that a zues uses 1000 turbine blades so you can build them in advance while you are researching. You are just going to have to find out when we let you build it and then stop building and wait for your pawns to make what you need.
once done and everything is connected load your reactor core and finally get power.

advanced nuclear power follows the exact same pattern.
I will say i am otherwise enjoying the mod, once you have jumped through all the hoops setting things up can actually be a fun and interesting thing to do. But the number of hoops you have to jump through to be able to use any piece of the mod is something i find frustrating.

it even goes like this for the weapons. I don't see adding more research to gain auto throttle as adding more content it is another set of hoops to jump through. especially since there is already an actuator research line and it goes. Buy in, do some research, scram your reactors twice, then do more research. And the thing is, during most of this you aren't actually doing anything with the mod. You are waiting, waitinng for your pawns to finish researching not once but two or more times, waiting on construction, or crafting. Since you can't plan ahead when you start you get ambushed by this mod. And the waiting isn't all that much fun. it ate up most of an irl day of mine getting to use the basic reactor. Another day for advanced reactor. And i tend to keep my game on the fastest possible speed. Two days or waiting a while waiting and then being presented with another hoop to jump through.

And you want to add more hoops with the additional requirement of having to babysit the reactor. This might be more realistic but also means that you have to keep the reactor control screen up at all times while doing the research required to automate it. Even minimized this would turn a mechanic i currently love the shit out of into a nightmare. And although a lot of this game is waiting your research proposals sound like it would subtract more fun then it would add.

I can understand there being time required to get to the awesome power supply of nuclear power. I mean 100k out of your second reactor right off the bat it freaking amazing. and the fuel rods last for sodding ever, like the centre one would last over a year if i ran it at full power. But then why the things like not being able to plan your reactor out. I by complete and utter accident happened to leave 4 empty blocks of space between the endge of my reactor type A and it's uranium containment wall.

Which meant that i had by complete accident made my area big enough that i didn't need to construct a second room or deconstruct one wall and expand the area out because the thor turbine would fit perfectly. I could easily have chosen three spaces between the reactor and wall like i did with the research reactor and then i would have been annoyed because i didn't know ahead of time i needed 4 spaces or that the turbine had to be built indoors. I still don't know by how much i am overcooling the reactor type A nor the reactor type V. Only that i am probably overcooling it but i could be wrong and i could be undercooling one or both of them i won't know until i finally use enough power and one or both redlines. Even looking at the wiki ahead of time doesn't help you any.

from rimatomics.

step 4. Build the research reactor and discover that it eats power and then you have to research some more at that reactor.
step 7. build your second reactor, i count that research one as a reactor honestly why doesn't this thing generate some power.

You can turn off research reactor, and they not always generate power. Many R&D reactors (or non power purpose reactors) do not generate power - only do controlled fission and consume electricity.
Just quickly read about CP-1 and they did run it at +0.5W and latter at +200W but they still needed power to operate it. Yes, i'll say that this reactor could have some power generation (or reduced power consumption while in use) but this might get more complex in a code. What I do is cable up my input (wind, solar) to reactor room (future one) and to R&D room, and then switch to rest of base - i simply turn of power to base when doing Rimatonics R&D, and when I'm done, route power back o base and turn off research reactor.
If i do not have batteries, it's bit more problematic, but manageable.

It explicitly states that you want the strongest possible walls around these reactors and a little space between them. so i make the walls out of uranium.

Not exactly - it states that wall HP and distance isolate - You can do multiple wal layers of stone or even wood if you like - i always have excess of stone walls, so put 1 around my reactors, 2 layers around corridor to reactors, whole reactor chamber and fuel facility (separate double layers) and 3 layers around waste material storage. In early game You will need only around reactors, latter you can add. No need to use steel or uranium for this.

steps 9 through 12, build ONE of each of the following turbine, cooling system, power transformer and reactor control panel.

yeah - I wish this could be done on one step (or disabled in settings if you play game a bit)
But you know You can turn off all of those when they are build. And when you're building reactor you can build it un-powered AFAIK - leave it on in settings but cut power cable. Also up to 3 pawns can build them - you can force them into labor by getting them into reactor room, and forbid doors for day.

advanced nuclear power follows the exact same pattern.
Yes, but you're already have power, now you can relax and do rest.

I don't see adding more research to gain auto throttle as adding more content it is another set of hoops to jump through. especially since there is already an actuator research line and it goes

actuator research is to speed up responsiveness of rods, manual and automatic. A/T is software to control it. Also A/T research could add layer of improvement (eg "scale based on power demand AND battery capacity" so You are more efficient with power generation)

And the thing is, during most of this you aren't actually doing anything with the mod. You are waiting, waitinng for your pawns to finish researching not once but two or more times, waiting on construction, or crafting. Since you can't plan ahead when you start you get ambushed by this mod. And the waiting isn't all that much fun. it ate up most of an irl day of mine getting to use the basic reactor.

In meanwhile i do build rest of my base - housing, AG, throne, defenses. And you can plan - not on first play but latter you can. same goes to every element of game. Eg, i do know that geothermal takes 6x6 so I will not place walls too close to it - i do know there is need of roof support every 8ish tile so i do plane them before making any big hall.
Same goes with this. Now I do know that big reactor is 9x9, Thor is 12x6 IIRC, 5x5 or 6x6 is cooling tower - i can (and i do) plan my layout before even i do have 'knowledge' of them.
It takes time because when you're done you do not ever need to think about energy of your base, so gain is huge.
Look at this, mid game (30+ pawns, 12y, rimmfeler, rimfactory, 4x 23x23 indoors farms) do use 300K energy. If getting it would be easy, this mod would be too big of cheat. And also, like i mentioned, if you do look for easy, there are mods that give you nuclear power, based on concept of RTG - you plop it and feed uranium every year or so :)

And you want to add more hoops with the additional requirement of having to babysit the reactor. This might be more realistic but also means that you have to keep the reactor control screen up at all times while doing the research required to automate it. Even minimized this would turn a mechanic i currently love the shit out of into a nightmare. And although a lot of this game is waiting your research proposals sound like it would subtract more fun then it would add.

No, you do not - you accept waste of fuel burnout, or do some micromanagement. You do not need to have it open all time.
Also, look on transformers, if you go with more than one network domain (as is advised by docs, to have separate for defenses) then depends how you set up power on them they do not work efficiently (lines will be under powered or over powered, as A/T regulate base on power need on line where console is attached). My one of proposal was to have automatic transformers to optimize them even more and to remove micromanagement of them.

Which meant that i had by complete accident made my area big enough that i didn't need to construct a second room or deconstruct one wall and expand the area out because the thor turbine would fit perfectly. I could easily have chosen three spaces between the reactor and wall like i did with the research reactor and then i would have been annoyed because i didn't know ahead of time i needed 4 spaces or that the turbine had to be built indoors. I still don't know by how much i am overcooling the reactor type A nor the reactor type V. Only that i am probably overcooling it but i could be wrong and i could be undercooling one or both of them i won't know until i finally use enough power and one or both redlines. Even looking at the wiki ahead of time doesn't help you any.

Err, What?
Stats of coiling are shown in console and you no need to have window open to see them (clock on console and see on bottom left window, or on console itself - left bar is reactor temp, right is rod utilization) - if you're lacking capacity, you expand.
And here is ratio I've discovered: 1 biggest reactor, 1 big turbine (thor?), 4 cooling towers - 1MWe (and funny, also 1MWt which is biggest pain of this mod - no losses on heat to electricity).

You can build turbine elsewhere (i made mistake and build too small room. I made new room, pull pipes there and that's it.
And Again, you will make this mistake on first play, latter on you will remember this. Also, it says it needs to be indoors. In game and on wiki :)

from rimatomics.

i did later think that if you start this mod on a fresh map then the waiting probably isn't so much. my first play on this mod was with a fully established base with growing power needs and this probably compounded my frustration with all the hurry up and wait steps.

as for the cooling calcs, well it gives you percentages but no hard numbers which you can easily math out to know how many of what you needs. for example i can't look at all the things and then plan out a new type V breeder reactor for even more power and math out in advance how many radiators i need at 100% power because i am not given the data i would need to do that. figuring it out means really over building and doing trial and error to find out exactly how many radiators i need, this number will change if i ever get my hands on enough plutonium to start getting seriously into MOX fuel cells and this method also risks over heating a reactor which could doom the entire colony.

as for why i would need another one? well i may not play hard core randy artic enviro i do set myself lengthly goals. like conquering the planet instead of escaping. which means killing everyone else and building as many settlements as the game will allow. Each new settlement is going to need it's own reactor so i am going to be building more in the future.

and it begs the question about what about other people who don't play ultra hard difficulties but who would like to use a power mod that has some depth to it? Though i don't disagree with you on the heat thing, except that if i remember my skimming through contemporary reactor designs properly, don't they generally keep the reactor water, or liquid of choice, which is heated by the nuclear reactor separate from the water which is boiled to spin the turbine? and that water should lose much of it's heat in spinning that turbine.

P.S.
the big turbine is ZEUS. also i need 4 cooling towers for it? that's good to know in advance because i only built 2.

from rimatomics.

Right. There could be added values of cooling units (preferably in kWt, so we can calculate it from reactor rods). I usually go "as needed" - If I'm running in 80% range, it time to upgrade.

And Your play-trough is same as mine (total conquer) but will give you side note - doing multiple colonies is headache for game from performance and story teller side. In shot game was not designed for this - if you're interested, start new game with debug enabled, finish all research (w/ debug) and spawn new pawns, resources and build up your base, do this for next 2-3 ones and have a game running for a while. If you will be past the initial events for each of your base (the single rider with knife/bow and so on) it all will start sluggish, and moment you will get multiple colonies raided at a same time you will see how it's become a pain.
3 colonies with 20 pawns each is much slower than 1 colony with 60 pawns, as game needs to track 3 separate maps.
However if you decide to do this way (I do usually have 2 very distant ones, and then do set up camps along a way) I'll recommend you wireless power mod called "Power++" (hope that Dubwise will not be mad for this advert) - among many things it have power transmitters (but far into research tree) to wireless transfer power to different maps. In that way I have one colony with mega power plant (close to 1MW usage) that supplies 2 colonies and roaming camps. Said mod have loads of other features, most of them I do not use or disable. Just a hint that you might like in your game play, but I think Your performance will go way down with multiple colonies due to how game was written (well, unless this got fixed in past 1y or so).

yes Zeus, not Thor. On full power You will need 4 of them - i do have 1 for now as I do not cross over 80% mark (yet).

And IRL, that water is super heated (300+ C but high pressure so it's not turning steam actually) and after leaving turbine it's still have way above 200C (design depended - many of modern turbines have 2 type chambers for high and low pressure - flow is from reactor to high to low to cooling, but usually it does not drop below 150C IIRC).
This then can be routed (partially, lower pressure) to heat exchange thats gonna heat up water for commercial use and then pushed further down to back to main loop and cooling towers. If that target water is at desired temperature, the loop for heat exchange is closed of. It's not common but it used (I think UK, FR).
In rimworld (for Dubs bad hygiene, or other heat-infra mods) this could be done by adding (or reusing already existing radiator) that is doing that heat transfer and reducing need of coiling of main loop. If it's heated enough for it's target system, it's simply does not remove heat and your cooling towers (or whatever you use there) will need to do more work (or i shall say not less work in this situation)

from rimatomics.

All good things to know, thanks, but to bring it back around to the topic of the thread. The point i was making with stating my goal for my current game is that time isn't the reason i think your research proposal would subtract from the fun instead of add to it. The pattern of research for the mod is a sort of hurry up and wait series of steps. Where any other mod might give you the things after a lengthly research period rimatomics has research, do thing research, or research, research then do test thing. those are the "hoops" i was talking about and which i found frustrating. Adding more research to make the reactor fully automatable would not be merely adding more time. If it were i would not have any real objections, or if i did i could easily be called out on hypocrisy there. It's adding more of the other steps as well and that's where my objection lies. And i don't actually see the mod author breaking pattern for such research paths nor could i blame them. It is actually kind of a unique way of doing things from my, admittedly narrow, experience with mods.

from rimatomics.

Right.
To be fair - I see Your point and had a thought about this over weekend.

What I would address at first is that when You do build your reactor to remove build-gate - give user option to do guided build (as it is now) or "I' know what I'm doing" option and all components (reactor A, turbine, pipes, cooling elements) are available, but project completion is not done until you have all elements connected correctly. This should give you more freedom when building your first loop.
Also, yeah, leave A/T as it is - did play w manual operation and ended up with ca 200kWd battery storage and was every 1-2 day switching from 5-6% to 90% and back :-) Pointless :D
This would leave no additional research to get your plant up and running and bit more wiggle room for layout from early stage.

Now, what I would like to see is more content beyond this.
0 - (yes, zero) - IMO pipe loop should be changed, and this is major change from game play (breaking). Loop should be:
reactor -hot loop (300+C)-> Turbine -coold loop (150-200C)-> Cooling -return loop-> reactor.
This looks cosmetic for most, but if we treat them as network that carry heat this would simplify logic (from code and user).
Currently I do see that we're cooling turbine and if we cant cool it, reactor (which is not connected to coiling) is overheating. uhm..
From code perspective, this could apply this logic:
reactor generated X Wt and put it to hot pipe, Turbine use Y of Wt, so cold pipe will get (X-Y) and that's is send to cooling, if cooling capacity is above (X-Y), all good, if not, reminder of that is send back to reactor and it's temperature rise.
End effect is probably the same but combined this with next points and just visual/logical layout it make more sense to me. Yet, all those calculations can happen regardless.

Ok, now, my ideas (revised):
1 - Turbine efficiency - now they are 100% which is not only impossible, it would negate need for cooling. IRL turbines are 30-40% effective, and this is where we can enhance.
Lets start that your first turbine still does 100kWe but it's 20% efficient, so for each 1We, you need 5Wt from your reactor. You get some research (high pressure blades, Stirling thermal module, etc) that efficiency of your turbine can be increased to 40%, and since this is game, we can do some spacey tech to get it up to 80%.
For simplicity, lets just ignore heat waste and say that cooling loop will need to take care of rest. So upgrading your turbines will be very beneficial as they will reduce stress on cooling and get you more juice.

2 - More advanced A/T (additional research) - currently it's based only to keep power at +5kWe on console readout... Can we add option to monitor batteries -> this would for eg, see if batteries are above 80% and if so, keep A/T at around delta 0 kWe, if below, throttle reactor to maximum allowed capacity (keeping in mind turbine and cooling capacity), until they will reach 80%.

3 - smart transformers - power flow from turbine via transformers is based on ratio of it's settings to all others. If you have 3 transformers, two set on 200kW and one on 50kW, their ratio is 0.44, 0.44, 0.12. Lets say those are 2 different power network (2x200 and 1x50) and console is connected to the one with 50kW capacity. Power excess is monitored only on this, and reactor levels are set based on this, while other power networks are at mercy and depends on transformer setup (settings and numbers) those networks will be under powered or over powered).
So here is idea, additional research to add 'smart transformers' - you do not have manual control of those, but you connect them also to console network, and they do report to reactor console their power levels (and with above idea, they can do battery level monitoring). Then reactor console can control them and scale power generation to keep all levels satisfied. It also could alert if line is at maximum capacity but still starving (so more transformers are needed)

4 - multiple reactors cross link/priority. So AFAIK if you have 2+ reactors they work independently and in effect they do fight a bit with each other. What could be done, is that we could have leader-follower set up, and one console does do all calculations and then sends signals to other ones to set proper levels. This would give possibility for reactor priority set up. Eg, I want my Alpha to be operational for all demand, but use Beta only if Alpha is out of capacity. This way, You will achieve uneven fuel consumption (if you want) and then, refuel of reactors would not happen in same time-frame

5 - neutron poison (as mentioned in 1st post) but since some ppl do not want to think about this, perhaps to be enable in mod options

6 - water heater for Dubs BadHygiene mod - simple heat exchange that, skipping all physics now here, let's say it will be 20% efficient (heat transfer) and output capped on 10kWt, placable on coiling loop.
To generate those 10kWt on output it will require that cooling loop will be feed with 50kWt (see point 1 and 0 above).
If feed less, output is reduced by linear ratio, if more, nothing happens.
From cooling loop, we do remove amount Wt of whatever we generate in output, while rest needs to be cooled by cooling objects.

7 - active spent fuel storage, passive unspent fuel (mentioned in OP)

And again - only my ideas, and Dubs, You can tell me "nah, not happening" to any of those :-)

from rimatomics.

er can i get a tldr on this

from rimatomics.

My last post is summary of all it, but even shorter:
0 - Loop should be: reactor -hot loop (300+C)-> Turbine -cold loop (150-200C)-> Cooling -return loop-> reactor. This is mostly visual but might help with coding when it goes to heat calculation (kind goes with point 1 and 6) - game breaking proposal.
1 - Turbine efficiency (loss of kWt to kWe conversion, upgradable)
2 - Advanced A/T based on battery status (rapid charge)
3 - smart transformers - those will report power usage/battery status to console and scale output and turbine load based on that
4 - primary/support setup of multiple reactors (so support only scale up when primary is at full power but demand is needed)
5 - neuron poison - so we can't shut down as restart reactors at will, we will need to make few days break or risk of meltdown/damage to core.
6 - heat exchange for Your hygiene mod so excess heat from turbine (cooling loop) can be used for it.
7 - more advanced fuel storage (two separate types or at least, spent fuel when stored needs active cooling and will lead to radiation leak if fuel storage is w/o power or cooling)

1-4 are additional research to have more efficient setups.

And can we get the initial reactor build not guided (as option) - we will get all components like turbine, reactor A, coling, etc at a same time?

If you would have time to read my previous post, will give you bit more idea. Also, those are only suggestions and not bugs.

from rimatomics.