The badness of nuclear power plants?

[3Ddeath]

Am I doing something wrong or is nuclear power the worst idea ever?

I can build 3 level 1 green sludge power plants to get 1500 power for all of life.

Or setup an offshore mining base to get uranium that needs turrets for defense, needs AI cores and power of its own, harvesters to get the raw uranium then use these crazy power hungry centrifugal to spin it into useable material just to get a joke of 1500 power back.

Nuclear burns 3 uranium a sec, which is also needed to craft things, why would anyone want to spend 3 per sec after all that work setting it up, it should just use 50 uranium and last 50 years instead.

Is this right, or am I nuts?

[Devil Dog]

Originally posted by 3Ddeath:

Nuclear burns 3 uranium a sec, which is also needed to craft things, why would anyone want to spend 3 per sec after all that work setting it up, it should just use 50 uranium and last 50 years instead.

Is this right, or am I nuts?

I haven't tried nuclear, but that's kinda funny for sure. Maybe gaming years is far shorter.

[--Maya--]

You can use your Flora Cultivator to farm Uranium too. I dont remember the plant name seed for that, but it will help you a lot ^^

[Bobucles]

Upkeep structures may work in a quick survival match, but they are definitely too expensive for the long lasting campaign. The only way to keep up with resources is to use mass cultivators. A 3/sec drain with a 12 minute cycle is over 2000 uranium per day. That's a hell of a halflife!

The plasma producer is equally wild with titanium demand. It's just not possible to keep up with the demand for the tiniest of projects, especially since super arty always demands plasma.

[3Ddeath]

Originally posted by --Maya--:

You can use your Flora Cultivator to farm Uranium too. I dont remember the plant name seed for that, but it will help you a lot ^^

I'll have to try that, thank you!

[3Ddeath]

Originally posted by Bobucles:

Upkeep structures may work in a quick survival match, but they are definitely too expensive for the long lasting campaign....

Ya, my thoughts also!

[Panterich]

Originally posted by 3Ddeath:

why would anyone want to spend 3 per sec after all that work setting it up,

Short answer - it has smaller footprint.

Sludge is not always available. One of the alternatives is Bio Composter. It is efficient enough, but it is not upgradable. And so it takes a lot of space to set up. Mining is not the only source of uranium. You can also grow it. Another alternative is Plant Biomass Powerplant, but its output is low. So both alternatives take more space.

There is a thing some players fail to grasp. You are not supposed to tie whole map in pipes and energy connectors. You make an oupost somewhere to collect uranium, and then you make nuclear powerplants in another place to produce power. You can teleport uranium, but you can`t teleport power or sludge.

That being said, you probably should not build many of those. And switch to fusion once it is available. But it can power defensive outpost by itself.

[3Ddeath]

Originally posted by Panterich:

You can teleport uranium, but you can`t teleport power or sludge.

However you can teleport AI cores, which is basically as good as raw power.
In campaign the sludge planet has way more sludge then uranium on the uranium planet.

I do understand what you are saying though, I just wish It did burn thru your resources as fast!

[Panterich]

Originally posted by 3Ddeath:

However you can teleport AI cores, which is basically as good as raw power.

AI cores don`t make turrets shoot you still need to power those.

Originally posted by 3Ddeath:

In campaign the sludge planet has way more sludge then uranium on the uranium planet.

Exactly. You can use that sludge to grow uranium. Then you can use uranium to power turrets on HQ map. Otherwise all of that sludge is useless.

Btw all of those locations are on the same planet.

Originally posted by 3Ddeath:

I do understand what you are saying though, I just wish It did burn thru your resources as fast!

I actually spent a few minutes myself to find reasons for building it, the first time i got it. It is borderline bad.

[Lost]

Originally posted by 3Ddeath:

Am I doing something wrong or is nuclear power the worst idea ever?

I can build 3 level 1 green sludge power plants to get 1500 power for all of life.

Or setup an offshore mining base to get uranium that needs turrets for defense, needs AI cores and power of its own, harvesters to get the raw uranium then use these crazy power hungry centrifugal to spin it into useable material just to get a joke of 1500 power back.

Nuclear burns 3 uranium a sec, which is also needed to craft things, why would anyone want to spend 3 per sec after all that work setting it up, it should just use 50 uranium and last 50 years instead.

Is this right, or am I nuts?

Yes, it's undertuned by a mile. You've also missed out on the big issue - they require cooling, which is an enormous space hog.

Bio, Sludge, even pure T3 basic spamming feels better.

[RaptorSolutions]

I thought they were pretty good early on before cultivators but after the uranium outpost.
When you need a whole lot of power for those laboratories.

[Cactus-Cat]

Nuclear power becomes extremely efficient if you have T3 buildings.

1 T3 miner and 4 T3 centrifuges will turn 1 ore into 16 refined uranium.

And you definitely get a lot more power if you use the sludge to cool nuclear reactors instead of making gas.

[Ozbald]

Even T3 Nuclear plants seem horribly inefficient for the amount of power they produce. I'll have to try cultivators, and see if that helps.

[3Ddeath]

I was missing cultivators for sure, I'm surprised how quick they can grow giant crystals, its actually quite a painless wait to plant resources.
If I played again Id just make a cultivator outpost

[Quait]

check your plant collector building, dont remember the exact name xD.
They display a average resource/sec when you select them in build mode.

One growth buildiung with 2 gather buildings seems to be the limit, adding a third lowers the resource/sec on each building, they dont grow fast enough for 3.

[Wilhelm]

Originally posted by --Maya--:

You can use your Flora Cultivator to farm Uranium too. I dont remember the plant name seed for that, but it will help you a lot ^^

oh my i hope they fix that. it´s like cheating.... endless refined uranium +100 a minute by just planting a few plants.