The point of Ficsonium Rods is so you can stop sinking Plutonium Rods...

[Honorable_D]

Saw a big discussion on Reddit about how Ficsonium consumes as much power to make them as you get out of burning them, and that is true, Ficsonium is basically power neutral which would suck if that is all there was...

But. Now you get to burn all your Plutonium Rods instead of sinking them. That is the point of Ficsonium Rods. All those Plutonium reactors can now come online while you still end up producing zero nuclear waste.

Is that still underwhelming? I sure as heck ain't opposed to them buffing Ficsonium Rods but to all those who want ZERO waste while still being able to use all their Plutonium reactors, well, there it is.

[Sasheria]

You could go that route to "reach the height of nuclear energy" but I think that is a lot of work with little show for. Nuclear power does give you a nice boost in power and I sink plutonium for the points, but to use plutonium and make it to ficsonium and sink it for net zero (power usage) would be counter productive for me.

but that is the beauty of this game. you can do that while I can skip it and still have fun :)

[Huren Ogeko]

You could make burning them net positive if you under clocked your machines
Given the amount of extra work needed to make these one might just sink the plutonium rods just to avoid all the hassle of processing the waste just to get break even or minor gains with under clocking though.
I guess it comes down to how much the plutonium add to the power grid that is the deciding factory if you sink the plutonium rods vs burn it and process it into Ficsonium to burn again.

[Honorable_D]

I mean the Ficsonium Rods pay for themselves power-wise by burning them in Reactors—what you gain is a huge amount of power overall from now burning your Plutonium Rods all while ultimately making zero waste. That is what I am trying to say, I thought I was pretty clear.

[Sasheria]

Originally posted by Honorable_D:

I mean the Ficsonium Rods pay for themselves power-wise by burning them in Reactors—what you gain is a huge amount of power overall from now burning your Plutonium Rods all while ultimately making zero waste. That is what I am trying to say, I thought I was pretty clear.

But if you spend as much power to make them as you burn them then you net zero.

It is like you working a job that earn $100,000 a year, but the Taxes and fee takes out $100,000 thus you net zero to earn money to pay bills, buy more stuff, utilities or investment then why work at that place. You need a 2nd job (in this case, plutonium rod, to make power to have a net benefit)

That is what I am saying..... but you are right, to spend that much energy to get rid of nuclear waste might be worth it IF your gain is worth it.

Rocket fuel (per my post on slooping) generate more power with less work and have net positive (profit in power) and no nuclear waste ;)

while I do generate nuclear power via Uranium, I only do it to generate plutonium rod to sink to get more points (which still net positive overall)

[Honorable_D]

You are still gaining more power overall. A LOT MORE. Ficsonium is basically a fancy sink for waste that only costs time to build. Resources are infinite and there is no power cost because it pays for itself by being burned in reactors.

Say you have 40 uranium reactors, assuming no alt recipes that is 20 plutonium reactors. Those 20 plutonium reactors are 50,000 MW. 50,000 MW you are just flushing down the sink because you don't want waste.

By building a DIFFERENT sink that consumes the plutonium waste, you now get your 50,000 MW with zero waste. That is what you are gaining.

[Kage Goomba]

No different than people saying don't do nuclear as rocket fuel is better.

We do it for the experience - doesn't have to make sense.

Frankly I don't see much stock in calling anyone whose not touched nuclear power in some significance a worthy "Satisfactory Finisher" in my eyes.

Why? Because its the most complex aspect of the game.

Not impressed by anyone who stops at Rocket Fuel.

Oh so you "Finished the game" - no - you really didn't.

[Honorable_D]

Yes, I was initially put off by how complex nuclear was, but using drones to bring in a lot of the random stuff it turned out to be tons more fun an satisfying to build than a bunch of rocket fuel blenders and placing endless rows of fuel generators...

I HAVE tons of rocket fuel generators, but when it finally came time that I needed MORE power, the thought of doing the same thing all over again...hell no. HELL NO.

[Sasheria]

Originally posted by Kage Goomba:

No different than people saying don't do nuclear as rocket fuel is better.

We do it for the experience - doesn't have to make sense.

Frankly I don't see much stock in calling anyone whose not touched nuclear power in some significance a worthy "Satisfactory Finisher" in my eyes.

Why? Because its the most complex aspect of the game.

Not impressed by anyone who stops at Rocket Fuel.

Oh so you "Finished the game" - no - you really didn't.

Heh, games like this you "never really finish" cause there is always something you can do cause it is more like "make your own goal"

You could "max out production with every resource node" or "max our nuclear power" or build into the terrain, use only trucks (I think someone did that) use only belts, use only train (I am working on that as movement of stuff but it is hard hehehe)

you never really "finish the game" cause there are always a variant on what you can do if that is what you find fun to do. that is what I love about this game.

You make your own fun

[Kage Goomba]

Originally posted by Sasheria:

Originally posted by Kage Goomba:

No different than people saying don't do nuclear as rocket fuel is better.

We do it for the experience - doesn't have to make sense.

Frankly I don't see much stock in calling anyone whose not touched nuclear power in some significance a worthy "Satisfactory Finisher" in my eyes.

Why? Because its the most complex aspect of the game.

Not impressed by anyone who stops at Rocket Fuel.

Oh so you "Finished the game" - no - you really didn't.

Heh, games like this you "never really finish" cause there is always something you can do cause it is more like "make your own goal"

You could "max out production with every resource node" or "max our nuclear power" or build into the terrain, use only trucks (I think someone did that) use only belts, use only train (I am working on that as movement of stuff but it is hard hehehe)

you never really "finish the game" cause there are always a variant on what you can do if that is what you find fun to do. that is what I love about this game.

You make your own fun

True - but generally I don't ever consider anyone "Experienced" in Satisfactory unless they've suffered the joy of Nuclear Power. (That and if they've played less than 3-500 hours :P har har har)

Majority of players don't even touch it - too hard - too complex - too tedious.

It's like a badge of honor (or insanity)

So while there's no true finish to the game - I don't consider it "worthy of consideration" otherwise. :)

[Eiko]

Yeah exactly, it doesn't come across well. It seems like Ficsonium is net neutral, but that's only true of the actual Ficsonium step (and even then, I'm pretty sure it does generate a small amount of net power). But the fact that it also allows you to burn the Plutonium gives you access to a lot of net power.

And if you've already decided to build a nuclear setup, you may as well go all the way. With the exception of someone who just wants enough power to finish the game quickly. (In which case they can just build a bunch of uranium reactors and store the waste).

[Mogges]

Originally posted by Honorable_D:

You are still gaining more power overall. A LOT MORE. Ficsonium is basically a fancy sink for waste that only costs time to build. Resources are infinite and there is no power cost because it pays for itself by being burned in reactors.

Say you have 40 uranium reactors, assuming no alt recipes that is 20 plutonium reactors. Those 20 plutonium reactors are 50,000 MW. 50,000 MW you are just flushing down the sink because you don't want waste.

By building a DIFFERENT sink that consumes the plutonium waste, you now get your 50,000 MW with zero waste. That is what you are gaining.

Correct! And btw: did anybody ever think about the costs of real nuclear power plants in real life, the recycling of waste in special factories or the storage of waste for many, many millions of years? This is also an investment. ;-)
Nuclear power in this game is very demanding, but also very satisfying when having a proper and functional logistics. Honestly you do not need that energy, you can perfectly live with oil related energy, if only reduced to the minimum requirements. But you also do not need any statue from the awesome shop by sinking turbo motors and / or plutonium rods.
Is there anybody using the power production and usage to 100%, I don´t think so. There are always idle machines, doing nothing while the plants produce ( and waste ) energy for nothing. Before update 3 ( ? ) power plants only consumed resources when the energy was used, like bio reactors still do.
Satisfactory is a totally crazy game where you can build the craziest stuff; who thinks about brutto / netto comparison? Most of the buildings are useless anyway; this is at least the way I play it.

[gussmed]

The basic concepts for nuclear power tiers are pretty simple, though for some reason people get hung on the power efficiency of ficsonium and miss the point.

Assuming you start with 240 uranium / minute:

Tier 1: Burn Uranium fuel rods, store the waste. Generates about 72 GW.
Tier 2: Burn Uranium fuel rods, convert the waste to plutonium, sink it.
Tier 3: Burn Uranium and Plutonium, store the waste. Generates about 112 GW.
Tier 4: Burn Uranium and Plutonium, convert the waste to Ficsonium and burn it. Generates about 146 GW, but requires a lot of power to dispose of the plutonium waste.

Basically, you're getting 40 GW more (+55%) by burning plutonium, but it's unstable unless you convert the waste to fisconium.

Tier 1 is *not* complicated, but there's that waste issue if you don't advance to at least tier 2.

You need 12 overclocked power nuclear plants for tier 1, 18 for tier 3, and 24 for tier 4. This beats the heck out of building 180 overclocked fuel generators to make 112 GW.

Of course, most people don't actually need that much power to finish the game, over and above whatever power generation they build to reach fisconium tech.

[SAM I Am]

Not sure who did the math here but making ficsonium nuclear power plants with non-overclocked quantum machines definitely adds to the grid. However when you overclock all quantum machines you start losing. You can still overclock standard machines for making parts and still gain electricity.

One cool thing about the quantum process is that you need dark matter residue to make ficsonium, but you can generate excess dark matter residue by the recipe chain for alien power matrix, so those can be combined to get +30% power for the grid at the same time.

[RadioIesbian Fluid]

Originally posted by Sasheria:

Originally posted by Honorable_D:

I mean the Ficsonium Rods pay for themselves power-wise by burning them in Reactors—what you gain is a huge amount of power overall from now burning your Plutonium Rods all while ultimately making zero waste. That is what I am trying to say, I thought I was pretty clear.

But if you spend as much power to make them as you burn them then you net zero.

you literally dont tho.
Someone did the math wrong if they came to that conculsion.

I turned 1200 uranium into power. Which in the end resulted into 180 nuclear reactors.
60 burning uranium, 60 burning plutonium, 60 burning ficsonium.
100 of them are clocked to 240%, aka 6000MW each, thats 600GW.
80 of them are clocked to 200% aka 5000MW each thats 400GW.
total 1 TW.

MY power consumption for the whole setup is around 250GW. 400GW total. The max is around 700GW, but it never reaches that amount cause they arent hitting the max spike all at ocne on the machines with varying powerdraw.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3376871857

[Huren Ogeko]

if you want to reduce the cost of making them then have more machines but underclock everything in the production chain..