nuclear power, ratio ?

[narf03]

I know about the bonus nuclear reactor gives when they place next to each other, lets say i have 2 reactor place to each other, i get 400% of power. How many heat exchanger and steam turbines do i need ?

And have a look into these 2 images, im not sure why 1 of it has no "steam"
https://s26.postimg.org/5przm5515/20170910200352_1.jpg
https://s26.postimg.org/b2gu09sxl/20170910200353_1.jpg

[teravisor]

It's approximately 1:4:7 reactors:exchangers:turbines (perfect ratio of exchangers to turbines is 291:500 as stated in https://www.reddit.com/r/factorio/comments/67xgge/nuclear_ratios/ but it's hard to reach perfectly)

For 2 adjacent reactors it's approximately 16 exchangers and 28 turbines (afaik, 28th turbine will not be loaded at 100% with steam at full energy consumption, but will still work), assuming you can use all that energy.

Your setup should work(both exchangers have temperature, water and pipe to offload steam to).
Most likely, exchangers have some kind of priority for steam to be taken from them, so one exchanger is always empty because all steam is taken from it first and other is always full because there's not enough turbines (or energy consumption).

Usually nuclear reactors store steam in tanks and only activate when steam in them is low because you're wasting nuclear fuel if not consuming all steam to produce energy right away.

[narf03]

For unknown reason, some of the heat exchanger does NOT work, i tried remove and replacing them, confirm has like 30+ fuel in all of the reactor, temperature 999.

https://s26.postimg.org/lxh44jmif/20170910211207_1.jpg

[Warlord]

Originally posted by teravisor:

Usually nuclear reactors store steam in tanks and only activate when steam in them is low because you're wasting nuclear fuel if not consuming all steam to produce energy right away.

"Usually"? There's nothing "usual" about using storage tanks in nuclear power. It is perfectly viable to not use storage tanks to save a bit of fuel. --- Sorry, just something about that statement ticked a nerve for me.

Originally posted by jkwong01:

For unknown reason, some of the heat exchanger does NOT work, i tried remove and replacing them, confirm has like 30+ fuel in all of the reactor, temperature 999.

https://s26.postimg.org/lxh44jmif/20170910211207_1.jpg

Did you try removing the output pipe to see if steam then backs up inside the boiler itself? Either way, I try to make sure that my boilers output to their own personal turbines so they don't "cross the streams" with other boilers. Liquid flowing gets complicated and strange things happen when two lines combine (let alone multiple times like you have here).

[Killcreek2]

I find this table from the factorio forums easier to read than the reddit one [both are correct ofc]:

https://forums.factorio.com/viewtopic.php?p=269934#p269934

Gotta +1 Warlords advice: don't cross the streams unless absolutely necessary.
[Though pumping from each HX line into a shared steam buffer, then pumping out to each turbine row is not too bad. As the only crossover / lateral fluid flow is inside the buffer tanks, not in the pipes, & can be minimised by good in-out pump placement.]

[Nailfoot]

Originally posted by jkwong01:

For unknown reason, some of the heat exchanger does NOT work, i tried remove and replacing them, confirm has like 30+ fuel in all of the reactor, temperature 999.

https://s26.postimg.org/lxh44jmif/20170910211207_1.jpg

The heat exchangers have a maximum length. If the last few boilers are not making steam, move them to another dedicated line with shorter heat pipes. Also, I personally only ever have two boilers per heat exchanger. I am probably too conservative but it works fine.

[narf03]

Originally posted by Nailfoot:

Originally posted by jkwong01:

For unknown reason, some of the heat exchanger does NOT work, i tried remove and replacing them, confirm has like 30+ fuel in all of the reactor, temperature 999.

https://s26.postimg.org/lxh44jmif/20170910211207_1.jpg

The heat exchangers have a maximum length. If the last few boilers are not making steam, move them to another dedicated line with shorter heat pipes. Also, I personally only ever have two boilers per heat exchanger. I am probably too conservative but it works fine.

figured out whats the problem, the water pipe ran too long and when reach that exchanger, there is no more water.

[Nickjet45]

The longer the heat exchanger line the less productive it is. As you place more heat exchanging pipes they lose heat over distance, so for that reason it's not possible to have a "massive" nuclear to heat exchanger ratio. The largest I've seen was a 3.0 GJ nuclear power but that was only in bursts after that it steady around 2.2 GJ because the exchangers on the end ran out of heat.

[narf03]

Originally posted by Nickjet45:

The longer the heat exchanger line the less productive it is. As you place more heat exchanging pipes they lose heat over distance, so for that reason it's not possible to have a "massive" nuclear to heat exchanger ratio. The largest I've seen was a 3.0 GJ nuclear power but that was only in bursts after that it steady around 2.2 GJ because the exchangers on the end ran out of heat.

nuclear power is almost free power, i dont mind if they are running at 50% efficient.

[Warlord]

Originally posted by jkwong01:

Originally posted by Nickjet45:

The longer the heat exchanger line the less productive it is. As you place more heat exchanging pipes they lose heat over distance, so for that reason it's not possible to have a "massive" nuclear to heat exchanger ratio. The largest I've seen was a 3.0 GJ nuclear power but that was only in bursts after that it steady around 2.2 GJ because the exchangers on the end ran out of heat.

nuclear power is almost free power, i dont mind if they are running at 50% efficient.

I can imagine that, if you don't care about space or clean look, you COULD have an infinitely repeatable design. Since reactors are 4x4, you can have - going straight out from the side of your 2xINFINITE reactor design - one heat exchanger which powers 16 heat exchangers. The water comes in from the outside edge, and the steam is also pumped out from there in a straight line away. The only issue is making sure to have water sources in the right spot in order to run a pump individually for each reactor.

This way, each reactor's heat has the barest minimum distance going from the reactor to the exchangers. If these heat pipes don't connect to eachother, they will never be long enough to lose enough heat to matter.

[Nailfoot]

Originally posted by Warlord:

Originally posted by jkwong01:

nuclear power is almost free power, i dont mind if they are running at 50% efficient.

I can imagine that, if you don't care about space or clean look, you COULD have an infinitely repeatable design. Since reactors are 4x4, you can have - going straight out from the side of your 2xINFINITE reactor design - one heat exchanger which powers 16 heat exchangers. The water comes in from the outside edge, and the steam is also pumped out from there in a straight line away. The only issue is making sure to have water sources in the right spot in order to run a pump individually for each reactor.

This way, each reactor's heat has the barest minimum distance going from the reactor to the exchangers. If these heat pipes don't connect to eachother, they will never be long enough to lose enough heat to matter.

And this could be automated in the same way people use roboports to automate solar farms.

Although you'd quickly end up with a ludicrous supply of power!

[narf03]

Originally posted by Nailfoot:

Originally posted by Warlord:

I can imagine that, if you don't care about space or clean look, you COULD have an infinitely repeatable design. Since reactors are 4x4, you can have - going straight out from the side of your 2xINFINITE reactor design - one heat exchanger which powers 16 heat exchangers. The water comes in from the outside edge, and the steam is also pumped out from there in a straight line away. The only issue is making sure to have water sources in the right spot in order to run a pump individually for each reactor.

This way, each reactor's heat has the barest minimum distance going from the reactor to the exchangers. If these heat pipes don't connect to eachother, they will never be long enough to lose enough heat to matter.

And this could be automated in the same way people use roboports to automate solar farms.

Although you'd quickly end up with a ludicrous supply of power!

solar power use up too much space, unless its peaceful mode, else i dont want to use solar panel, they can easily make my base 3-5 times bigger, since with solar ill need to have plenty of storage for the nights.

[Nailfoot]

Originally posted by jkwong01:

solar power use up too much space, unless its peaceful mode, else i dont want to use solar panel, they can easily make my base 3-5 times bigger, since with solar ill need to have plenty of storage for the nights.

If you go strictly solar panels, then you will easily dwarf your base. A solar field is the single largest structure of any mega base, if one is attempting to power the base 100% with solar.

60K, 100K, even 200K solar panels are fairly common.

[narf03]

Originally posted by Nailfoot:

Originally posted by jkwong01:

solar power use up too much space, unless its peaceful mode, else i dont want to use solar panel, they can easily make my base 3-5 times bigger, since with solar ill need to have plenty of storage for the nights.

If you go strictly solar panels, then you will easily dwarf your base. A solar field is the single largest structure of any mega base, if one is attempting to power the base 100% with solar.

60K, 100K, even 200K solar panels are fairly common.

yes, in peaceful mode, else its too troublesome game to defend a hude base

[Nailfoot]

Originally posted by jkwong01:

Originally posted by Nailfoot:

If you go strictly solar panels, then you will easily dwarf your base. A solar field is the single largest structure of any mega base, if one is attempting to power the base 100% with solar.

60K, 100K, even 200K solar panels are fairly common.

yes, in peaceful mode, else its too troublesome game to defend a hude base

Trublesome, perhaps, but totally enjoyable! I don't play on peaceful at all. For a short while I used to turn the biters down to minimum settings but I don't even do that now.

I like the challenge of defending a spawling factory.

4500 laser towers defending this base, and it is not a "mega" base. It'll only consistantly do a rocket every 5 or so minutes.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=852539928

[MisterSpock]

One waterpump can support about 11 Heat exchangers (1200 Water/s). But that is the limit and it will be lower at distances. However you can "overclock" that by putting pumps.

2x1 Reactors = 160MW = 16 Heatexchangers
2x2 Reactors = 480MW = 16+32 Heatexchangers
2x3 Reactors = 800MW = 16+32+32 Heatexchangers
2x4 Reactors = 1120MW = 16+32+32+32 Heatexchangers



Because of the increment of 16/32 i choose the ratio of 1 waterpump, 8 heatexchangers and 14 Turbines. This screenshots shows my modular powerplant.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1129883297

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1129883145