Nuclear Power - Worth it?

[Wolfgang]

So I am at the stage in which I could do nuclear power. But since Uranium is hard to get (only a few nodes on the map far apart from each other) and using it creates nuclear waste (which I should/have to/will refine into plutonium and sink it), the whole thing of using nuclear power doesn't sound really worth it to me.
So my question: Is using nuclear power actually worth it or is it just a giant pain to do with little payout? Or is there some sort of "breakeven point" after which using it is worth it and below that it isn't?

[LostME]

It's a pain in the ass for me to build 50 fuel or coal generators. And the nuclear plant is an easy walk.

Requirements

Due to the late tier nature of this build you will need to have unlocked partical enrichment.
We will also require the following resources:

4 - 22 Power Shards120 Uranium per minute.72 Concrete90 Sulfuric Acid3.6 Encased Industrial Beams7.8 Electromagnetic Control Rods30 Silica18 Nitric acid5.4 Steel beamsand 3 Heat sinks per minute

As well as resources for:

6 Nuclear Power Plants1 Particle Accelorator4 Manufacturers4 Blenders1 Assembler1 Awesome sinkA minimum of 6 Water Extractors.

This build will generate 15,000MW of power per minute with 0 waste.

https://www.satisfactorytips.com/layouts/no-nuclear-waste-nuclear-layout


But you can reduce your uranium consumption by using alternative recipes. That's the great part of the game, choosing your play style.

[LazerRay]

You can go a long time with out nuclear power, or avoid it all together.

The main issue is building the related systems in areas that you won't frequently go back to and get everything set up right in the first place to keep the machines running with out jamming (quite a few items in the nuclear production produce radiation, and even the hazmat suit with iodine filters may not be enough)

[Wasur]

As of now in the game you don't need nuclear power if you have all the alternate recipes for fuel. I have massive oil fuel depots that take care of that.

However, that being said, after you are sipping on your final prize it may come to you that hmm I haven't tackled Nuclear yet and you will set up a huge plant in the swap and use some surrounding areas for manufacturing said parts for this endeavor, one which will consume a great deal of your time. At least that is how it went for me.

No you do NOT need to bother with the hassle of nuclear wait until you actually want to it is a massive undertaking when done right. You can generate over 100 gigs of power with just oil, what you NEED is the alt recipes.

[Faustus]

Do you NEED nuclear to complete the game?
No, a big Turbo Fuel plant will likely meet all power needs.

But it is a rewarding thing to build and very much in keeping with the theme of this game.

[Wolfgang]

Thank you all for the input. I am currently rebuilding my factory a bit (cleaning things up) and am going to tackle my fuel power rebuild (since I recently got the Heavy Oil Residue alternative and the Diluted Fuel alternative) so I was wondering if doing this directly after the rework would be good/needed/worth it but I think I will do Nuclear Power once I finished everything else.

[The Big Brzezinski]

The amount of power you can generate from uranium fuel is insane. One manufacturer will feed six reactors. It's the last power plant you'll ever need to build.

By the time you're considering nuclear power, you should already have a well developed rail network. Nuclear waste can be made into plutonium fuel rods and sunk. If you've got the alternate recipe for polyester fabric, you can even automate iodine-infused mask filters so you can take your time setting things up.

The only real caveat is that your power plant needs to be a finely tuned Swiss watch. If you don't balance things perfectly, everything will eventually clog up, shut down, and leave you a radioactive mess to sort out. This is especially true of your waste recycling.

The feeling when you get it right is worth it, though.

[nfgman]

For recycling waste, groups of 5 reactors work out. 10 is better. That's using the "Fertile uranium" alternate. As said, if you get it wrong, it's a radioactive mess to repair and, as we know, pipes and pumps can be finicky.

Until recently, I've had nuclear reactors on standby, because I had plenty of power without them. Then I decided to do the plutonium rod sinking and get them working for something to do.

One tip would be plan to sink, or overflow the water byproduct from the blender somehow (wet concrete, pure caterium,,,,) rather than depending on recycling into production. Any lockup and the nuclear waste builds up quickly.

I wouldn't recommend going to extreme, trying to max out with nuclear. Just too many resources dedicated unnecessarily and large radioactive areas. Ten reactors for each of the 3 normal uranium deposits is 75,000 MW.

[Tenebris]

Originally posted by Wolfgang:

So I am at the stage in which I could do nuclear power. But since Uranium is hard to get (only a few nodes on the map far apart from each other) and using it creates nuclear waste (which I should/have to/will refine into plutonium and sink it), the whole thing of using nuclear power doesn't sound really worth it to me.
So my question: Is using nuclear power actually worth it or is it just a giant pain to do with little payout? Or is there some sort of "breakeven point" after which using it is worth it and below that it isn't?

It's worth doing at least once, if only for the experience of doing it.

[K'senia]

You never NEED to do it, but it certainly produces a LOT more power. It is nice that once it is setup you never really have to worry about power crisis anymore as you expand. My one run that got that far I realized my mistake too late in bringing the uranium to my base. Made life unhappy. If you do set on up, build it far away from your bases. Going to just build it right at the uranium source anymore. Transporting that radiation everywhere was a nightmare.

[Oddball]

Originally posted by K'senia:

You never NEED to do it, but it certainly produces a LOT more power. It is nice that once it is setup you never really have to worry about power crisis anymore as you expand. My one run that got that far I realized my mistake too late in bringing the uranium to my base. Made life unhappy. If you do set on up, build it far away from your bases. Going to just build it right at the uranium source anymore. Transporting that radiation everywhere was a nightmare.

lol yeah that happened to me too the first time through. Got the radiation "bug" on my character, and didn't want to go to prior save to redo it... just restarted with a better approach and world map. The desert map is wide open with high plateaus that have a huge amount of empty/flat space up top. I built a nuclear site up there with drones to fly all the nasty radiation stuff and other mats up to it. It's safely well away from my main complex. Waste is stored up there as well.

I was also "saved" early on in this world by an alternative coal recipe that allowed my coal plants to only need half the usual amount, doubling how many coal plants I could use vs. coal sources. So I had a huge line of coal plants near open water, then did similar for oil....nuclear was just something fun to add but not needed.

[Namaride]

Encased uranium pellets costs 50 raw uranium per min. If your max rate is 600 uranium p/m from 1 vein with a mk3 miner and using 12 blenders to use all this uranium you have pretty much unlimited power to work with. This gives 6 rods p/m for 30 power plants.
About the plutonium rods from the waste, i would sink all of them since thats the only item after nuclear waste to able to get rid of.

The factory of this size quickly becomes a small town all working together.. i love this game.

[Hovercraft]

Totally worth it and easy to scale, especially once you get to plutonium fuel and shove it into the awesome sink (means no waste).

[Wolfgang]

Again, thank you everyone fot the valuable input. My current plan is to build Nuclear Power (as far as the stuff in the current update goes) as the very last thing. Which is because it will require a lot of thinking and maths and I do it generally without any tuturial (with all the shortcomings and risks of it).