Fusion Reactor (GregTech)
| Fusion Reactor (GregTech) | |
|---|---|
| Type | Block |
| Stackable | Yes (64) |
| Mod Included | GregTech |
The Fusion Reactor, regardless of the version of GregTech used, is the most powerful single way to legitimately generate EU power in the game. The reactor is part of the GregTech mod, an extension to IndustrialCraft 2. The Reactor has undergone multiple changes in its lifetime, trending towards providing more and more power at greater and greater cost.
In the version of GregTech included in Feed The Beast Beta Pack A, the reactor generates 4,096 EU/t. In GregTech 2.06, (included in FTB Ultimate 1.0.1), the reactor outputs 32,768 EU/t in 1,000,000 EU packets. Now, with the advent of GregTech 2.82c, the reactor no longer outputs EU directly, instead outputting Helium Plasma, which must be used as fuel in Plasma Generators. A Fusion Reactor running continuously while using either energy-producing recipe, should be capable of providing up to 67,584 EU/t, not including energy costs incurred.
From GregTech 2.06 onward, all varieties of Fusion Reactor can also be used to produce Iridium Ore (IndustrialCraft 2) and Platinum Dust, although this requires both fuel to be provided and energy from an external source, providing items as output instead of power.
Contents
- 1 Planning for a Fusion Reactor, No Matter the Version
- 2 Fusion Reactor Mark 2 Concepts
- 3 Processing Fuel for the Mark 2
- 4 Building the Fusion Reactor Mark 2
- 5 Fusion Reactor Mark 2: Get That Reaction Into Action
- 6 Setting up a Fusion Reactor Prior to GregTech 2.82c
- 7 Crafting Reactor Prior to GregTech 2.82c
- 8 Crafting Reactor in GregTech 2.82c and later
- 9 Video
Planning for a Fusion Reactor, No Matter the Version
Before setting up whichever Fusion Reactor your GregTech version contains, it is highly recommended that prior to creating the first block, the player first focuses on preparing for the large task ahead. Simply to make the blocks, a player needs both considerable raw materials and well-developed infrastructure of GregTech machines for refining and process the necessary ingredients. It is also necessary that the player have a significant power supply external to fusion (this can later be removed), and the technical know-how to automate the process of making fuel for the reactor.
Automation is especially important because a sustained fusion reaction is nearly impossible to sustain with just a single Steve running around and changing out machines. With the Fusion Reactor Mark 2 this is even more vitally important, as fuel lasts for a far shorter amount of time, and automation becomes even more important order to maintain a continual fusion reaction. Without automation, a reactor will likely run for a very small time and provide more frustration and disappointment than reward.
With both types of reactors, but the Mark 2 especially, it is recommended that the player use faster methods of automation that directly access inventories, such as Factorization Routers or Applied Energistics Import Buses and Export Buses.
It is also worth noting that a lot of the recipes involved in making the various pieces of the reactor are extremely complicated and somewhat repetitive. Optionally, one may choose to make an Applied Energistics ME Network with an ME Molecular Assembler Chamber, and then provide the Assembler Machine with ME Blank Pattern disks that have been encoded with all the necessary recipes starting from raw resources and ending with the blocks necessary. After adding the necessary raw materials to the ME Network, one can simply create all the necessary components on demand.
An important decision one needs to make from the beginning is to decide what their fusion recipe is going to be. There are two energy-producing recipes which you can use. The basic recipes are the same, regardless of version, but there are some minor variations in the way the recipes work depending on the reactor version.
One recipe is Deuterium fused with Tritium. The advantage of using this recipe is that everything can be produced from a starting point of water. The main disadvantage is that processing time for making them is dismally slow. In order to compensate for this, people have been known to create settups including over a hundred centrifuges running simultaneously in order to maintain this recipe. In the Mark 1, these two need to be replaced in the reactor quicker than the other recipe. For the Mark 2, rather than being used up more quickly, this recipe takes a relatively minor hit in net energy gain; it's so small most people would notice.
The second recipe is Deuterium fused with Helium-3. This has the advantage of requiring far fewer machines, but does require a constant source of Endstone Dust to provide enough Helium 3. If you can overcome the supply of Endstone Dust, this recipe is generally the better choice, especially on the older Fusion Reactor, where the fuel will last twice as long as the Deuterium/Tritium recipe.
Fusion Reactor Mark 2 Concepts
One glaring changing in this new reactor design is that it does not output power in EU, instead producing Helium Plasma which must be placed inside a Plasma Generator to provide power. Each bucket's worth of plasma will make 8,192,000 EU. In a Plasma Generator (the only way to use the plasma!) you will receive 2048 EU/t as long as some plasma remains inside of the Generator. The Generator will not use Plasma if power is not being drained. If you kept every Plasma Generator you had using all of its power produced all of the time, you would have enough plasma from one reactor to power 33 Plasma Generators.
The plasma acts like any other registered liquid under Minecraft Forge; usual methods like Liquiducts and Liquid Tesseracts are recommended for moving the liquids around. It is also highly recommended that one sends their reactor output of Helium Plasma into a large Iron Tank or a Multi Tank, and subsequently pumping the plasma out to its destinations from there. In most cases the reactor produces far more plasma than it needs, and will quickly fill up even the biggest of tanks. allowing for the largest of tanks to act in essence as an energy storage unit that makes the Interdimensional Energy Storage Unit's 1,000,000,000 EU look paltry in comparison.
Additionally, the Reactor will need to charge up before it will start fusion. The original reactor and the Mark 2 both have this trait. You will need to have a power supply capable of providing relatively large amounts of power accessible to your reactor for its initial warm-up. For Deuterium/Tritium Fusion, 40,000,000 EU is needed. For Deuterium/Helium-3 Fusion, 60,000,000 EU is needed. Unlike the previous version of the Fusion reactor, the Mark 2 requires a constant source of power to keep in operation, needing at 2048 EU/t to maintain the Deuterium/Helium-3 Reaction and 4096 EU/t to maintain the Deuterium/Tritium Reaction. It is therefore advisable to connect 1 Plasma Generator if using Deuterium/Helium-3 Fusion or 2 Plasma Generators if using Deuterium/Tritium Fusion as soon as the reactor has begun producing Helium Plasma.
Please note that when deciding where to place the reactor, the Tokamak of the the Reactor fits inside of a space that's 15 blocks wide & long and 3 blocks high. That's without things attached to it that make it work or any way for you to enter or exit. So plan accordingly to make the room comfortable for you and the different areas of the reactor easily accessible. There is a small but finite chance of causing decent-sized explosion in a fusion reactor as well, so adding some blast resistant blocks to the outside of the room may be a prudent move
Processing Fuel for the Mark 2
So with your chosen fuel recipe, one can start planning for and making their fuel processing area. This is by far the most important part of setting up your reactor system. Keep this in mind as you continue. The goal here is simple: you need to make fuel at a rate that keeps fusion going. Two kinds, whichever your recipe specifies. You will have achieved success when you are producing at least 1 cell's worth of each type of fuel every 6.4 seconds. Before the Fusion Reactor Mark 2, there used to be only one way of doing this, namely, making a bunch of machines, and adding more and more, potentially creating unnecessarily huge automation complexes. This method still works and has worth. It will always retain the advantage of consuming the least amount of energy.
There does exist a new path for those who prefer to use fewer machines and don't mind sacrificing a smaller chunk of the massive amounts of power they're going to get to do so. People using this path will have to ensure they're providing enough power to the right number of machines and balancing out upgrades properly. Upgrades are now included with the GregTech version that includes the Fusion Reactor Mark 2. It allows IndustrialCraft 2 upgrades and additional GregTech specific upgrades to be applied to nearly any GregTech machine - including the Industrial Centrifuge and Industrial Electrolyzer. One applies them by right clicking them onto the desired machine. Be careful as each upgrade applied in this manner is permanent. Upgrading does however greatly reduce the lag footprint of the machines, as each upgrades halves the number of machines required.
Example for overclocking in a Deuterium-Tritium reaction: When adding one overclocker to Centrifuges, you will only need half of them(72 total, not 144), but each will take 20 EU/t, which will reduce the overall energy yield by 720 EU/t (about 1.4%). Using two overclockers will again half the number to 36, but each centrifuge will take 80 EU/t, thus reduce the yield by 2160EU/t (about 4%). Adding one overclocker to each Electrolyzer(16, 32 without overclockers) will reduce the yield by 3840EU/t (about 7%).
Take note that an Overclocker Upgrade increases a GregTech machine's energy needs by 4 times while only doubles its speed (resulting in twice the EU used per operation). To offset the lack of energy if building of external Transformers is not possible or wanted, one can apply Transformer Upgrades (usually one or two) until the machine is able to handle High Voltage. After applying these, one can apply an HV-Transformer Upgrade; the first application brings the machine's maximum voltage to 2048 EU/t and the second application up to 8192 EU/t. One generally needs to pair an Overclocker Upgrade with a stronger powernet, otherwise the possibility exists of modifying machines that will simply not function unless you provide it with massively larger amounts of power (incase the machine needs constant power, like a Electolyzer or Blast Furnace, other machines will just be slowed down).
Once you're producing liquids at the right rate, you may want to consider adding one Liquid Transposer per fuel type, set it to extracting mode, and from here directly pumping your fuels into the Reactor. Generally the Transposer and destination points on the reactor would be connected by Liquiducts or Liquid Tesseracts. One transposer will need to be used per variety of liquid. This has the added benefit of quickly reclaiming a cell and making it available for reuse in the creation of more fuel.
Building the Fusion Reactor Mark 2
Finally, you've made it through the grueling preparation. That, or you skipped down to this section to peek. Hopefully you can and do make fuel with the best of them and you've got a good grasp on the concepts behind operating this baby. Now you're ready to make the beast of a reactor itself.
The Reactor is a variable multiblock, similar to Alvearys, so the required blocks may change depending on your desired reaction:
- 1 Fusion Control Computer
- 2 Fusion Material Injectors, one in the top layer, one in the bottom layer
- 1 Fusion Material Extractors
- 4-10 Fusion Energy Injectors, depending on the reaction used
- 32 Fusion Coils
- 114-120 Advanced Machine Casings, depening on setup
The amount of Energy Injectors is dependant from the starting cost of the used recipe, each one has a storage of 10 million EU, so Deuterium-Tritium needs just 4, while the Lithium+Tungsten->Iridium needs 10.
The Reactor is built like the following image shows, the colored wool is to be replaced by the special blocks accoring to this list or just Advanced Casings.
- Blue: Fusion Material Injector
- Red: Fusion Material Extractor
- Yellow: Fusion Energy Injector
Here is a example setup that uses more then the required Material Injectors and Extractors for symmetry reasons as well as 8 Energy Injectors (colored differently):
Fusion Reactor Mark 2: Get That Reaction Into Action
Marvel at your handiwork, and then it's on to business. The first thing to do is attach power to each of the Fusion Energy Injectors at a voltage of up to 2048 EU/p. Then right click the Fusion Control Computer and verify that the green power bar at the very bottom has begun to grow. This both confirms that you are receiving power and is a way of verifying that the multiblock was put together properly and formed correctly. It the bar does not grow within a minute or two, ensure that everything was placed properly, the power properly connected, and then, if the power bar still hasn't grown, the multiblock hasn't formed properly. It's just a minor bug; wrench remove a couple of blocks and replace them, and recheck the Fusion Control Computer. Charging should begin then.
Your two fuels need to be routed in to the Fusion Material Injectors at this time. While using liquids piped in directly from a Liquid Transposer emptying the cells it receives is recommended, one may also provide cells, but one will also need to ensure those cells are removed, or else the reaction will halt upon having 64 cells in the output slot. Adequate and responsive automation is key if using cells inside the reactor.
It is important when routing fuel into the Fusion Material Injectors that one type of fuel occupies a Material Injectors in the top and the other one bottom.
From here, you're going to need to set-up your Helium Plasma Output. Liquiducts are highly appropriate for this as you need a liquid pipe with an extraction feature. Attach them to your Fusion Material Extractor and route them according to your design. After doing this, if using Liquiducts, wrench them to Extraction mode and provide a redstone signal, making sure you do not apply a redstone signal to the Fusion Control Computer - this will shut the reactor down. From here, once fusion begins, Helium Plasma will begin to be extracted. All of the circles on the reactor will also glow yellow while the reaction is ongoing.
Once this has begun, take advantage of it and wire a one or two plasma generators to your Fusion Energy Injectors using either 4x Insulated HV Cable or Superconductor Wire. You can use Glass Fibre Cable, but that requires a dedicated HV Transformer at each Generator. Do the same to your fuel processing system, making it self-sufficient. In this case HV-Transformers are recommended, one at each Generator. From there on you might place more MV and LV Transformers or use Transformer Upgrades in all of your machines (Centrifuges would need 2, Electorlyzers 1)
If you planned properly, at this point all you should need to do is watch your reactor and make sure it continues to operate normally. Monitor the amounts of fuels kept on hand over the first few days so you can ensure that your automation is working as planned.Take the time now to pat yourself on the back. You have made one of the hardest multiblock machines in any of the FTB ModPacks, and if you've followed this articles advice in planning. You've done it amazingly well.
If you want to go further with the Mark 2, the only road less traveled is the matter-producing recipes, though these require a significant amount of material, cells, and energy to sustain, making Iridium this way is significantly more efficent than straight from UU. Furthermore, it is possible that there are (as of yet) unknown uses for further adding hardware to the Reactor as shown in the (somewhat hard to read) reactor planner available in the Fusion Control Computer interface.
Setting up a Fusion Reactor Prior to GregTech 2.82c
To set up a Fusion Reactor, a Fusion Reactor block is required as well as 24 Fusion Coils, 2 HV-Transformers, cables to provide input and output energy, and a method of getting enough energy to trigger the fusion. Even reactions which are exergonic (energy-outputting) require a specific amount of energy stored before fusion can begin, usually several million. Thus, a stable power supply is necessary before a Fusion Reactor is set up to multiply this power.
The two photographs here show an example Fusion Reactor setup; if the Fusion Coils are laid out in a different manner than shown, the Fusion Reactor will refuse to function. The Fusion Reactor's GUI will say whether or not the coils are positioned properly. Note that the coils must also be positioned horizontally, not vertically.
The reactors emits 32,768 EU/t in 1,000,000 EU packets, to step this down to a usable voltage you need 16 HV transformers. The only cable capable of handling 1,000,000 EU packets is the Superconductor Wire, but due to the extreme cost of that cable it generally makes sense to step down to HV very close to the reactor and use glass fibre cables to distribute the power. Note that due to the immense EU/t output, wire loops (such as a wall of HV Transformers) can cause extreme lag.
Each fusion operation has a required operation energy to trigger the fusion, a specific EU output, two input materials and one output material. If any of these are wrong, the Fusion Reactor will not function. All recipes with their necessary factors can be found in the database of a GregTech Computer Cube.
While each fusion returns an Empty Cell with an end product, they currently have the same output slot with empty cells appearing one by one after the main end product is taken out.
Energy can be inserted via the two sides with the larger circles.
Energy output is the two smaller circles. The top face can be used for filling the top slot of the reactor with pipes and the bottom face can be used for filling the bottom slot of the reactor with pipes. Any remaining sides not used for energy input or output can be used for piping out the product cells.
The Reactor has an internal storage of 100 million EU.
Crafting Reactor Prior to GregTech 2.82c
Short overview for the materials needed:
24 Fusion Coils
96 Highly Advanced Machine Blocks
384 Titanium Ingots
384 Chrome Ingots
96 Steel Machine Hulls or Advanced Machine Blocks
48 Tesla Coils
240 Redstone Dust
48 MV-Transformers
48 Electronic Circuits
96 Refined Iron
24 Energy Flow Circuits
24 Lapotron Crystals
24 Platinum Ingots
24 Advanced Circuits
24 Superconductors
8 Gold Ingots
16 Glass Fibre Cables
48 Superconductor Covers
32 Iridium Plates
64 Advanced Alloys
48 Carbon Plates
24 Iridium Neutron Reflectors
192 Thick Neutron Reflectors
768 Neutron Reflectors
3072 Tin Dust
3072 Coal Dust
768 Dense Copper Plates
6144 Copper
192 Beryllium Cells
24 Iridium Plates
Fusion Reactor
4 Energy Flow Circuits
4 Lapotron Crystals
4 Platinum Ingots
4 Advanced Circuits
2 Supercondensators
8 Energy Flow Circuits
8 Lapotron Crystals
8 Platinum Ingots
8 Advanced Circuits
4 Laptronic Energy orb
32 Lapotron Crystals
4 Iridium Plates
4 Superconductor
12 Superconductor Cover
12 Carbon Plates
16 Advanced Alloys
8 Iridium Plates
4 Glass Fibre Cables
2 Gold Ingots
2 Highly Advanced Machine Block
8 Titanium Ingots
8 Chrome Ingots
2 Steel Machine Hulls or 2 Advanced Machine Blocks
2 Laptronic Energy Orbs
16 Lapotron Crystals
2 Iridium Plates
GregTech Computer
2 Energy Flow Circuits
2 Lapotron Crystals
2 Platinum Ingots
2 Advanced Circuits
2 Data Orbs
16 Data Storage Circuits
32 Emeralds (Emerald Dust)
4 Advanced Circuits
4 Computer Monitors
16 Aluminium Ingots
4 Glowstone Dust
4 Sulfur Goos
4 Lapis Lazuli
4 Liquide Lime Green
Steel Machine Hull or Advanced Machine Block
70 Iridium Plates (280 Iridium Ores) overall
It might be possible that some amounts are different
Fusion Reactor
Fusion Coil
Crafting Reactor in GregTech 2.82c and later
Overview of the materials needed (variations possible, check NEI for applicable/alternative recipes):
1 Fusion Control Computer 1 Fusion Coil 4 Energy Flow Circuit 4 Advanced Circuit 4 Elite Circuit Board 4 Advanced Circuit 4 Advanced Circuit Board 2 Silicon Plate 2 Lapotron Crystal 4 Electronic Circuit 24 Copper Cable 24 Rubber 12 Copper 4 Refined Iron 8 Redstone 24 Lapis Lazuli 2 Sapphire 2 Tungsten Plate 1 Iridium Plate 1 Iridium Alloy Ingot 1 Diamond Dust 4 Iridium Ingot 4 Advanced Alloy 4 Mixed Metal Ingot 8 Industrial TNT 6 TNT 30 Gunpowder 24 Sand 12 Flint 6 Energy Flow Circuit 2 GregTech Computer Cube
32 Fusion Coil 64 Nichrome Heating Coil 64 Chrome Ingot 256 Ferrous Ingot / Nickel Ingot 128 Energy Flow Circuit 512 Advanced Circuit 512 Electronic Circuit 3072 Copper Cable 3072 Rubber 1536 Copper 512 Refined Iron 1024 Redstone 1024 Lapis Lazuli 2048 Redstone 1024 Glowstone Dust 256 Lapotron Crystal 512 Electronic Circuit 3072 Copper Cable 3072 Rubber 1536 Copper 512 Refined Iron 1024 Redstone 3072 Lapis Lazuli 256 Sapphire 256 Tungsten Plate 128 Iridium Plate 128 Iridium Alloy Ingot 128 Diamond Dust 512 Iridium Ingot 512 Advanced Alloy 512 Mixed Metal Ingot 1024 Industrial TNT 768 TNT 3840 Gunpowder 3072 Sand 1536 Flint 32 Iridium Neutron Reflector 256 Thick Neutron Reflector 1024 Neutron Reflector 4096 Coal Dust 4096 Tin Dust 1024 Dense Copper Plate 8192 Copper Plate 256 Beryllium Cell 32 Iridium Plate 32 Iridium Alloy Ingot 32 Diamond Dust 128 Iridium Ingot 128 Advanced Alloy 128 Mixed Metal Ingot 256 Industrial TNT 192 TNT 960 Gunpowder 768 Sand 384 Flint 32 Highly Advanced Machineblock 128 Titanium Plate 128 Chrome plate 32 Advanced Machine Block 64 Carbon Plate 64 Raw Carbon Mesh 128 Raw Carbon Fibre 512 Coal Dust 64 Advanced Alloy 64 Mixed Metal Ingot 32 Machine Block 256 Refined Iron 32 Superconductor 24 60k Coolant Cell 24 Energy Flow Circuit 16 Tungsten Plate 8 Iridium Plate 8 Iridium Alloy Ingot 8 Diamond Dust 32 Iridium Ingot 32 Advanced Alloy 32 Mixed Metal Ingot 64 Industrial TNT 48 TNT 240 Gunpowder 192 Sand 96 Flint
1 Fusion Material Extractor 1 Highly Advanced Machineblock 4 Titanium Plate 4 Chrome Plate 1 Advanced Machine Block 2 Carbon Plate 2 Raw Carbon Mesh 4 Raw Carbon Fibre 16 Coal Dust 2 Advanced Alloy 2 Mixed Metal Ingot 1 Machine Block 8 Refined Iron 3 Energy Flow Circuit 4 Pump (IndustrialCraft 2) 1 Chest
2 Fusion Material Injector 2 Highly Advanced Machineblock 8 Titanium Plate 8 Chrome Plate 2 Advanced Machine Block 4 Carbon Plate 4 Raw Carbon Mesh 8 Raw Carbon Fibre 32 Coal Dust 4 Advanced Alloy 4 Mixed Metal Ingot 2 Machine Block 16 Refined Iron 6 Energy Flow Circuit 8 Pump (IndustrialCraft 2) 2 Chest
at minium 4 Fusion Energy Injector 16 Superconductor (GregTech) 12 60k Coolant Cell 12 Energy Flow Circuit 8 Tungsten Plate 4 Iridium Plate 4 Iridium Alloy Ingot 4 Diamond Dust 16 Iridium Ingot 16 Advanced Alloy 16 Mixed Metal Ingot 32 Industrial TNT 24 TNT 120 Gunpowder 96 Sand 48 Flint 4 Supercondensator 16 Energy Flow Circuit 8 Superconductor (GregTech) 4 Highly Advanced Machineblock 8 Lapotronic Energyorb 16 Energy Flow Circuit
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