(FIXED/REBALANCED NOW)Chemical treatment needs def a rebalance/revisit

[superosh]

I tried many different setups to run the reactor for a long time.
The reactor has to be run at about 300 degrees nominal.
This is not possible when "chemical module" is enabled".

I mean, I can run the reactor for days between 150 and 200 degrees.
Only this exreme low temps are allowing to run the reactor for many days, without running into xenon issues.

However, as the gauge suggested, the reactor's nomal temp should be 306 degrees.
But "nominal" means, the reactor can not sustain for a long time, caused by too much iodine/xenon generation.

This needs to be rebalanced. It's not fun to run the reactor all the time at its minimum temp.

[Marty McFly]

i tried around 5 or 6 times, and i finally got it. you gotta keep the Gamma Iodine under 3 as much as possible, if you start without any, or a very small amount of boron, it makes it very touchy with the rods. if you VERY gradually rise your temp, you can get very hot, but at the same time, i haven't really fluctuated power level drastically, i think this is the idea behind the chemicals/poisons. i've gotten to high 400's on accident without monitoring the rods. it's definitely possible. but it's so touchy it seems like it's impossible.

[superosh]

I don't get the idea behind the boron(..in this game):
-you want less iodine/xenon - so increase boron
-if boron increased, reactivity gows down
-only two ways now to raise reactivity >10 are either:
pull rods, which nullfifies the boron-injection
or
decease primary pumps = lossing heat....still hanging around 200 degress +-50.

I have never seen that the boron decreases the iodine generation.
It seems to be if:
-push rods or
-increase boron
= same effect for reactivity/iodine generation

According to the dev-blog, the boron should help (at least a bit) to reduce the iodine-generation.
But it looks like, that the reduced iodine-generation caused by boron, is just the follow-up of reduced reactivity. (Which...again....can be archived just using rods....carefully).
I know, high magnitudes in nuclear-power generation are a no-go.
I am just talking about minimal changes. No high drops or raises.
In my case the iodne is allways at about 2.8 - 2.99....just to keep the 200 degrees.

[zagan01]

boron doesn't remove iodine it converts xenon to iodine
you need to run the iodine filter to remove iodine

[superosh]

Originally posted by zagan01:

boron doesn't remove iodine it converts xenon to iodine
you need to run the iodine filter to remove iodine

This doesn't make sense at all.
Boron shoukd lower the iodine generation during the fission-process...which later on result in less xenon produced by iodine decay.

There is no iodine-filter. It's an ion-filter to remove the boron-particles fron the reactor-core.
Xenon, btw..will decay into caesium ...so iodine---xenon---caesium

[superosh]

Just seen the latest change-log.
There are some good news about the chemical-module.
Many thanks to the developer.

[rumple foreskin]

I've finally managed to get my core running stable at around 420 degrees (plenty of extra steam). Using 2500 boron. The trick is to anticipate the xenon pit and not touch the rods or boron when it does happen. If you have to stop producing energy, so be it. Just control the temp with the pumps.

I shoot to get my core around 400 degrees prior to the xenon poisoning so that I can maintain power as long as possible. Usually cut it and focus on reheating the core around 300, maybe a little less. Just don't chase the reactivity with the rods. Leave them be.

Electrical output is controlled by the turbine bypass valves and core temp is controlled by the circulation pumps.

[superosh]

Thats' similar how I am managing my reactor:
-Try to avoid using rods
-just use primary pumps (very low RPMs) to adjuts heat/power
-if too much power at night, but want to re-accumulate geat, I use some "bypass".

But, if the city demands: "Hey...I know you are doing 30 MWs...please give us 106 more MWs for about 4 hours. This would ruin the entire plan and I believe this must be a bug.
They asked 2 times within 24 hours for additional 106 MWs (1x 2 hours....1x 4hours).
Ofc, I have ignorred this 100 percent, didn't even try to raise my output a tiny bit.

[rumple foreskin]

Originally posted by superosh:

They asked 2 times within 24 hours for additional 106 MWs (1x 2 hours....1x 4hours).
Ofc, I have ignorred this 100 percent, didn't even try to raise my output a tiny bit.

Same. It's really not worth taking rods out more and losing stability. I'm at 45% rods now with 2500 boron. At this setting, I can make roughly 22,000kw total. I think on the next startup I will probably do something like 40 or 35% rods to get the full 25k out of the transformers.

[superosh]

I believe I have upgraded/maxed out everything now.
So I started the reactor in "hot-mode":
-new fuel
-boron 2200 (just in the very early "green"...red light went to green)
-cranked up the reactor to about 435 degrees
-ignored iodine gamma, which was way in the 4s-4.5s.
-as soon as stabilized,
-reduzed primary pumps to 10
-workd my way to below 3 gamma using only controll-rods
-made sure allways to stay above 430 and below 440 degrees
-ofc later on I was greated with a "xenon horde"....at the very beginnning of the red-mark
-but the red was just temp, it went more down, but still on high level(maybe xenon burnup?)

The virtual reactor-reaction picture was dark-red + plenty of dark blue :-)

-still never went below 420 degrees

Now I am in a phase of less reactivity and more rod-ajustments are needed.
But I believe, I have it stable-hot for now:

-430 degrees
-still 2200 boron
-88 rods
-still 10 percent primary pumps
-31 MWs

All xeneon/iodine stuff in the green.
Not sure if this way was a good idea....will see.

[rumple foreskin]

I wouldn't even mess with the rods now that you got out of that xenon slump. Its worth noting that you produce iodine when coming out of a xenon pit as well, so you pretty much have a never-ending cycle of xenon pits. Just keep the rods where they are and control the temp with the pumps. Remember, you've only gotta make 82% of your energy quota, and you can run the reactor down to 200 degrees before things start to go bad.

[superosh]

No, it seems to be running fine now...after this kind of brutal start-up.
I realy have enough from this cold-during-peak-time-setups.
Sometimes my reactor went down to 180 degrees...even less...that's not fun.
So. this time I am trying the brutal-mode, so I can ..if needed...doing some xenon-burnup.

I did some small adjustemts, and this is how it looks right now:

https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198198503359/screenshot/2521534717698091905/
https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198198503359/screenshot/2521534717698091378/
https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198198503359/screenshot/2521534717698090126/
https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198198503359/screenshot/2521534717698089247/
https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198198503359/screenshot/2521534717698088541/
https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198198503359/screenshot/2521534717698087861/

[rumple foreskin]

Looks good to me

[Marty McFly]

mine runs great now.

[Ancient]

These changes are what helped a LOT:

[Chemical adjustments] Iodine generation per reactor power was reduced by 25%.
[Chemical adjustments] Iodine generation in the presence of boron was reduced by 10%.
[Chemical adjustments] The degradation of iodine in xenon was reduced by between 2% and 25% (depending on temperature).

[BullRot]

Runs perfectly fine on my side. Tried temps between 200 up to 420.