Reactor Programmable Circuit Automation

This guide features working circuit system that would make sure that your reactor will never meltdown or output low.

1. Preamble

I enjoy playing Campaign mode by myself, but sadly AI really doesn't like it when reactor is being shut down and if I put too much fuel into it, then right after docking with a colony it's always a gamble, will my reactor go up in flames or will it stay turned off...
Also if you leave a reactor in automatic mode, during powerful power drops your junction boxes will get overloaded and damaged, which will in turn consume your time on repairs.
Thus I decided to "crack the code" and implement automatic circuit for a reactor, that would make sure that I will never run into risk of melting my reactor or my junction boxes.

2. Reactor work principle

Reactors generate power from consuming heat using turbine and they create heat using thermo-nuclear controlled fission.

Amount of heat that reactor generates is equal to the fuel rod heating power sum, multiplied by 2, multiplied by reactor fusion rate. for example a reactor with 2 uranium rods (each has fuel strength of 80) at 20 fusion rate will overall generate 6400 heat (which is above safe threshold if turbines are turned off).

Amount of heat that turbine will consume is equal to 100, multiplied by rate of turbine. so turbine can consume maximum of 10000 heat units at full throttle.

Amount of power that turbine generates at any moment is equal to maximum power output of a reactor multiplied by % equal to turbine setting, for example reactor of Humpback submarine has maximum output of 2800 kW, and at 30 turbine rate will generate 840 kW

Safe operating temperature of reactor is between 4000 and 6000, by default internal automatic mode will set temperature at 5000.

3. Automatic reactor venting

First circuit I have implemented was a simple 3 component circuit that would make sure that reactor would be instantly vented of any excess heat in case of overheating.

This is circuit A in the picture above, let's look at it abit closer:


In this simple circuit we
1) send memory settings of 100 to a turbine.
2) set Fission rate to 0.
3) we do it when our reactor starts melting down

This circuit requires only 5 wires and 3 components, so you can build it during public match and prevent any meltdowns from traitors and trolls, at least until they realize that reactor is being regulated by outside circuit and shut control off.

There will be likely an over-voltage of power boxes, but it shouldn't last long enough to deal significant damage.

4. Automatic temperature and output balancing circuit.

Let's get to it as there's alot to cover, in screenshot above this circuit is tagged as "C"

• First we determine at what level turbine has to work to generate target power load of a ship. (My memory has a value of 35 because I run Orca sub. if you use other sub, you will have to check the appendix and divide provided value by 100 and input result in that memory.)
  
• Then we find out how much heat turbine will consume working at that level.
  
• Then we add target temperature at which we want our reactor to "rest". in the diagram it's 5000 heat, but I personally prefer to run it slightly colder at 4500
  
• Once we figured out how much heat we need, we calculate how much heat will generate rods, inserted into reactor, per unit of Fission rate.
  
• And then we calculate target Fission rate by dividing target temperature by heat power of rods.
  
• Relay and Not components are here to prevent any possible meltdown situations and stop the circuit.

You can add And component with a lever connected to it between not and relay to add ability to stop circuit from controlling reactor manually, in case of reactor submerging in water for example

5. Bonus

In the first picture above 2 components (relay and a memory) tagged as "B" circuit.

This is handmade, unbreakable Junction Box. it is not afraid of water, or over-voltage.
BUT! it can provide maximum of 1000 kW. (I discovered it later after I tried running sub.)

Memory has value of 1 and is connected to relay's Set State.
While relay_power_in connects to reactor_power_out. and relay_power_out to other junction boxes on the ship. if you have many such relay components nearby, you can use one memory component to "power up" 5 of them.

You can replace memory component with a lever to be able to turn off majority of unneeded items such as lamps and engines while keeping pumps and coilgun capacitors online while you are away.
You can also connect oxygen generator to such a relay and timer that would turn on and off it a periods to save on power.

You can connect power out of relay directly to engines, nav terminals, pumps and any other machinery that requires power. And best part is - they are also not taking damage from over-voltage.


Also feel free to reconfigure any lights on sub to be more bright (personaly I prefer r:255 g:255 b:150 a:255. gives lamps that nice warm soothing glow). That includes Emergency Lights that don't consume any of reactor power what so ever. (handmade light components also don't require power, but do require state to enable them)

6. Appendix. Fuel Values. Default Sub max power.

Fuel rods:

Fuel rod type	Durability	Heating Power
Uranium Fuel Rod	100	80
Thorium Fuel Rod	200	100
Fulgurium Fuel Rod	150	150

Default Submarine Reactor Max Power

Submarine name	Reactor max power output
Dugong	2700
Humpback	2800
Orca	3500
Azimuth	10000
Typhon	5000
R-29	5200
Berilia	6500
Remora	5000
Typhon 2	5000
Kastrull	10000

[Осеменитель]

Excuse me dude, can u do the same guide but in Russian? Опираясь на твой ник и аву, я подумал, что ты русскоговорящий)

[Smetanol]

@3eyc it's still quite old and I need to redo it.
A group of friends decided to go back to Barotrauma, so I will likely too return to it and fix up the Guide.
I am sure I saw somewhere much more optimized version of auto control, but it was poorly explained and they used non intuitive equation calculation. They also had reactor running underpowered (game allows you to have ~20% less power required for most of stuff to actually function, which they abused), which saves on some fuel.

[3eyc]

thank you for fixing guide!

[Khakii]

I smell an electrical engineer.

[ГЛЕБ]

Works great, but somehow venting scheme was taking over control and reactor went crazy

[Groulbands]

I don't understand C. Out of ignorance. But the guide is great.

[Jawnycat]

Some of the images in the guide seem broken now

[Noseman]

Great guide. I was considering writing up a similar one because at the time, reactor automation wasn't well-documented. Admittedly, it's been a long time since I checked.

For anyone unsure about their reactor's max output e.g. on a custom sub: You can easily check its max output by going to the submarine editor, loading your sub of choice, and selecting the reactor. Under the "Reactor" settings(NOT "Nuclear Reactor") the first line should be "Max Power Output" with the value you're looking for.

[Smetanol]

@SuperSackBoy200
Hmmm... maybe update changed the way reactors work. I will need to come back to barotrauma and check if it still works.
Also check if you have circuits configured right. I'd like to see your setup to make sure nothing is wrong.

[SuperSackBoy200]

So i built this today in a game with some friends, then this happened

-friends start yelling at me saying the power is low
-i think *hey i'll just put in a second rod, what could go wrong*
-reactor starts smoking so i go to take out the second rod
-before i can do so it sets on fire
-i put the fire out and call for help
-me and another guy go to take out the other rod
-reactor then goes nuclear killing us all