Replacing Fuel Rods

[rottielover]

I've watched about 10 youtube video's on the Nuclear reactors, everyone does the same thing, rail and then either manually or with gravity let the rods click in or physically push them, or a few folks hook up the rail to power and push them in, but in all cases there is never a mechanism built to replace those fuel rods.

This is understandable as right now there does not appear to be a way to purchase new fuel rods in the game unless you spawn them at a workbench...

Still, there must be some design ideas around how to handle this?? Maybe somehow with the new hardpoints?

In any event given the size, I just don't see this being very practical in the game mechanics, when you could bring the creation back to a workbench in order to "refresh" it.

Would love to see some creations that have fuel rod replacement in mind, whatcha got?

[ElfBossHogg]

I built a reactor where each rod is on the end of a gripper. I just put the corresponding rail on the section that pushes and pulls them in to place and set the brakes to on. If I want to replace the rods I simply pull them out and either remove the brake so they slide off or release them from the rail.

[rottielover]

Interesting, do you have a screenshot or maybe on the workshop? I'm trying to visualize it.

[ElfBossHogg]

Opprinnelig skrevet av rottielover:

Interesting, do you have a screenshot or maybe on the workshop? I'm trying to visualize it.

Unfortunately not yet. It's part of a submarine build that I'm working on. The plan was to have a custom door on the bottom of the sub. In a dry dock scenario you could retract the rods, pump out the water, open a door just large enough for the rods and gripper and then remove the brakes so that they could slide out. You would then slide in new replacement rods, reseal and add water. The issue is that with all the other features I'm adding its pushing the Physics. As a result I've made a decision to not model it but may add it to a reactor mockup when I'm done this project.

[rottielover]

Yea, I think personally for me the Dev's should revisit fuel rods, I think they need to be made into more of a item like the med kits/torches, where a player can pickup and then put them either manually into a reactor chamber or give us some parts to handle them like the coal chutes. But the way they are now its just not going to ever work quite right IMHO

[Shillelagh]

I had a super big 40 rod reactor designed for a long haul cargo ship (that I never ended up building), it was a crane suspended above an open pit of water (still a separate grid, just under a big custom door that was removed immediately) with around 40 rods inside you could just pull out and replace. It sounded better in theory then it worked, the natural swaying motion of a boat does not cope well with the fact that the rods are held by a single connector, and it was impossible to line the rods up at sea. I have toyed with a 9 rod reactor where all the rods were attached together on a single package that I could lift out with a crane, this one had rail connectors so they could be inserted fairly well.

[rottielover]

Opprinnelig skrevet av Shillelagh:

I had a super big 40 rod reactor designed for a long haul cargo ship (that I never ended up building), it was a crane suspended above an open pit of water (still a separate grid, just under a big custom door that was removed immediately) with around 40 rods inside you could just pull out and replace. It sounded better in theory then it worked, the natural swaying motion of a boat does not cope well with the fact that the rods are held by a single connector, and it was impossible to line the rods up at sea. I have toyed with a 9 rod reactor where all the rods were attached together on a single package that I could lift out with a crane, this one had rail connectors so they could be inserted fairly well.

Yea I've heard other's say something like "well when you drydock"... But we don't really have a way to drydock in game unless you count pulling it back into the workshop, which I guess you could pretend to be drydock and then just not worry about the whole replacement of the rods.

I just think the devs need to really think about this mechanic, why make the rods at all and just have the assemblies as a block (if you're not going to let players "buy" more rods) / or why not made the rods a pickupable item like med kits or fire extinguishers / etc There are many ways to handle this, but IMHO this current implementation is not that well thought out to completion...

[Teamkiller]

Rods have some issues. But it defenetivly not a replacement.
" Dry docking" means you have to stop your reactor and remove water from there.
And it is very nice that have to plan all the operation ahead. I already had nuclear fallout when droped my fuel rods assembly.
It is hard and so it should be.

[Arasine]

Do the current rods even decay in their current form ? Ive only made a small nuclear generator and havent noticed any degradation of anything so far.

[DMorlan54]

Think of the rods and track as 1 assembly, and then the actual reactor and "damper?" rods as another. you'll have to use a couple connectors or even a secondary track/rail to connect the rod assembly to the reactor assembly. There's a track connector that allows you to attach 1 vehicle to the rails of another, but I'd recommend using a track+ rod assembly with a couple connectors connecting it to the reactor assembly, opposed to just rods with one of those connectors.

[ShizNator]

Opprinnelig skrevet av DMorlan54:

Think of the rods and track as 1 assembly, and then the actual reactor and "damper?" rods as another. you'll have to use a couple connectors or even a secondary track/rail to connect the rod assembly to the reactor assembly. There's a track connector that allows you to attach 1 vehicle to the rails of another, but I'd recommend using a track+ rod assembly with a couple connectors connecting it to the reactor assembly, opposed to just rods with one of those connectors.

13 Jul, 2021 @ 1:24pm was the last post we are 4 June, 2023