Uranium

[GD]

Am I right that currently it's only a good looking ore in the landscape or is there a use for it. I tried to put it in Furnace, Arc Furnace, Recycler and finally the Centrifuge, but it stays as it is.

I really thought for a moment the Centrifuge would maybe seperate the ore into U-238 and U-235 for further use ... like Factorio.

[Arran Chace]

Only thing i had to use it for are Nuclear Battery's that can only be made in the Fabricator.

Guess later on when the game gets more contents, we prolly get more sutff that need exotic resources.

[wetlander]

no, not for nuclear battery. not sure what is it's for

[Seenloitering]

The recipe I have for the nuclear battery requires Uranium. Maybe you're using an older version of the game?

[GD]

Don't have uranium either in those batteries. Updated some hours ago.

[Limmin]

I've seen RTGs in videos of what I took to be test beta versions.

[Myst Leissa]

Originally posted by Wingnut:

I am surprised RTGs arent already in the game. Much more appropriate than a coal powered generator. :/

RTGs are in the game - you can spawn them in creative - but they don't DO anything atm.

[silent1]

RTG output 4kw in creative.

[Limmin]

Well, then, RTG's must make it too easy to survive, in survival mode.

4 kw day and night...that would beat my current 1.5 kw daytime-only power setup.

I've got a mighty big lump of Uranium and no place to use it.

So I wonder...combining this post with other ideas floating around...if the RTG will be available in creative mode eventually, but only if you construct it using special alloys that aren't necessarily easy to make...?

[Myst Leissa]

Originally posted by Limmin:

Well, then, RTG's must make it too easy to survive, in survival mode.

4 kw day and night...that would beat my current 1.5 kw daytime-only power setup.

I've got a mighty big lump of Uranium and no place to use it.

So I wonder...combining this post with other ideas floating around...if the RTG will be available in creative mode eventually, but only if you construct it using special alloys that aren't necessarily easy to make...?

RTGs in game I think are probably going to stay in creative - or if they DO get ported to survival are likely to be toned down quite a bit. Still 4kw isn't really alot when you consider the amount of machinery there is to run in the game.

[silent1]

Yeah they should be endgame stuff and require a lot of radioactive material and some complex setup. (something like a nuclear reactor level installation). But then be reliable, relatively longterm and constant.

[Arran Chace]

The way the Reactor in Interstellar Rift works would be fitting in Stationeers, there you need to mainaint Generator Parts and Heatsinks to run the reactor, fuel you need to enrich again to make it more powerfull, maintain heat vs power, and part wear out, but it produces alot of energy against a high maintance cost.

I think with some even more parts needed to run it, like a full cooling systsem running on Water, and transformers to keep power output in check, on top of high maintance, a powerfull energy source that produces 4KW power or more would be balanced.

It just shoudnt be available right away, and it should require some serious wiring and piping systems, to run it at full capacity, but the power can be regulated and such.
I personally think with Int. Rift in mind how that reactor works, it could be an huge asset endgame wise to keep it running.

[GD]

Please not anything that is not automatable in some way like maintenance. I'm willing to to do it at the beginning once or twice until automation is build, but not in the long run. I can't have it running somewhere to clang with a tool onto a machine several times, just to reset something that is going down over time. It's horrible for single players and noone want to do it in multiplayer as well. So it's always a troublemaker. If it must be, than only if I can build a droid as well doing that for me.

[=7CAV=PVT.Binks.J]

Nuclear Reactor cool with water using a cooling loop that also powers turbines from the steam that is then turn back into water using pipe radiators. That or something similar. Could be something modular like the multiblock reactors in Tekkit or Voltz in Minecraft. Semi simple, but with growing complexity as you scale up.

[FallenSunGaming]

lol 4kw is a lot.... I only just got my filtration system set up, and it's already pulling 3.5kw on its own, let alone any fabricators, or anything of that sort.

[Qybat]

I'd suggest that, in keeping with the general physics of the game, there should be a heat engine which operates off of the temperature difference between two pipes. Then you can use whatever future power sources are introduced to generate heat in a pipe, like a nuclear reactor.

Possible options for power.
- Solar
- Fuel cell (hydrogen and oxygen to water and power, or vice versa, allowing tanks to be used for bulk energy storage)
- RTG - but at much less than 4KW, that's a bloody big RTG. Maybe 20W, just enough to operate a sub-base or maintain a single vital piece of equipment - and which you can't even make until you have a reactor up, as they need reprocessed reactor waste.
- Heat engines, which in turn can operate from:
- Waste heat from machines, though at very low efficiency.
- furnace exhaust heat (You could even burn up excess plant matter)
- The nuclear reactor (A power source for the largest of stations, or simply a source of waste for RTGs)

I'd expect the future to also bring some really power-hungry nonessential equipment to give players a challenge - maybe multi-kilowatt medical equipment, or hundred-watt high-powered grow lights that boost hydroponics output, or an electric pipe heater that lets you pre-heat gas going into the furnace so you don't need to consume hydrogen to run it, or a plasma recycler that reprocesses items back into their raw materials with a near-100% yield but a power consumption so high it needs multiple heavy cable ports. Things to which a player can say 'more solars isn't going to cut it - this thing is going to need its own power network and a cooling system.'