Control Rod question:

[AdmiralTigerclaw]

For those of you who've been working with Nuclear Reactors a bit now, let me pick your brain.

I'm building a reactor, and I'm aware of the offset for the control rods in relation to fuel assembly alignment, however, I cannot seem to get them to move in or out.

Are there any specific conditions that are unspoken that I need to follow to make them actuate properly?

Right now, my control rods are tied to a throttle (which is appropriately powered and moves as commanded), but I get no response from the control rods. According to the description, the control rods insert to a set point between 0 and 1. With 0 being full out, and 1 being full in. In theory, I should be able to tie the throttle to the 'insertion target' node of the control rods, and they should insert to the appropriate set point as designated by a manual throttle setting. In fact, for all the automated reactors and videos people have made,, that's effectively what they do.

Do the control rods follow any kind of odd placement and connection rules?

I was originally building a three-by-eleven staggered reactor based on my comprehension of a real nuclear reactor, and how control rods are spaced BETWEEN fuel rods so as to catch the free neutrons as they are emitted... see below basic 'chart'...

CFCFCFCFCFC
FCFCFCFCFCF
CFCFCFCFCFC

Though after learning that the adjacency rules require fuel rods to be at least 'touching' (And that I wasn't getting any thermal power), I converted to:

CFC-CFC-CFC
FFF -FFF -FFF
CFC-CFC-CFC

Which gets plenty of power, but I still have no operational control... Because the control rods don't move.



The reactor WILL become automated by the time I'm done, but I want to establish my fuel geometry and output power first so I can dial in the math. But I can't do anything if I can't get control rods to actuate.

[Teamkiller]

Control rods need electricity to move. But they do not move physicly - only "logicly"

For your second reactor - there is not enough control rods. You need at least 1 control rod per 1 fuel one. Add some more.
Smth like this:

CCC
FFF
CCC

works well enough.

Do not use "common logic" in this game. Take it as a parallel universe with it's own laws which you need to explore by experiments!

[AdmiralTigerclaw]

Originally posted by Teamkiller:

Control rods need electricity to move. But they do not move physicly - only "logicly"

For your second reactor - there is not enough control rods. You need at least 1 control rod per 1 fuel one. Add some more.
Smth like this:

CCC
FFF
CCC

works well enough.

Do not use "common logic" in this game. Take it as a parallel universe with it's own laws which you need to explore by experiments!

Thanks, but I solved it. Also, I thought this never posted because Steam puked up an error.