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Anecdote: I was just last night trying to debug a relatively complex nuclear power plant blueprint [1]. Nuclear plants can be complicated in the game because t

Anecdote: I was just last night trying to debug a relatively complex nuclear power plant blueprint [1]. Nuclear plants can be complicated in the game because they will consume their (expensive!) fuel even if it's not necessary, so people have constructed sophisticated logic systems to only feed fuel to the power plants when it's actually required. For some reason, the blueprint I copied wouldn't feed new fuel into the power plants, and my factory ground to a halt for lack of power! Not being fluent in Factorio's logic networks, I spent a couple hours trying to understand the logic connections and operations that made this system work. And just as I write this, I find that a modified copy [2] (don't call it a fork :p) of the blueprint calls out my issue explicitly: if there is no fuel available to refuel, the system will wedge itself and effectively need to be rebooted! The whole experience was amusingly similar to my job ^^; [1] https://www.factorio.school/view/-LGzh1rL3S0dU-eJHfcr https://www.factorio.school/view/-LGzh1rL3S0dU-eJHfcr [2] https://www.factorio.school/view/-La0aDEtd6Y4XlrpCfgW https://www.factorio.school/view/-La0aDEtd6Y4XlrpCfgW

wyldfire 6y ago
>if there is no fuel available to refuel, the system will wedge itself and effectively need to be rebooted! Komrade, clearly there is nothing wrong with the design. You just forgot to press the AZ-5 button.
jcranmer 6y ago
There's a pretty simple solution to the power problem: You can measure the flow of steam in the system by dropping two tanks in series in the pipe and finding their difference in level--the difference is proportional to the amount of steam being consumed. After some experimentation in creative mode, I found the difference level that corresponds to the need to enable another reactor. Then I set up the inserters to each plant to only take in new fuel cells when the steam draw exceeds the relevant threshold. This does have some waste in that it doesn't count for hysteresis, and it doesn't try to prevent the reactors from filling up, but at the level of megabase I had, that level of waste wasn't an issue for me.
- AgentME 6y ago
  I set up my steam turbines to only turn on if an accumulator fell below 20% and then stay on until the accumulator is above 90%. Then I set up my nuclear plants to only be fueled if they're not currently fueled and my steam supply is under a certain level and then stay on until it's above a certain amount.
  - AceJohnny2 6y ago
    > and then stay on until [steam is] above a certain amount. I presume that certain amount leaves enough headroom for steam generated by a full fuel cell cycle (ie worst case scenario) ?
    - AgentME 6y ago
      Right, usually the plant keeps running for a while after I decide to stop putting fuel in, and I don't want it to ever be running while my steam tanks are all full because that would be a waste.
nmeofthestate 6y ago
The good news is nuclear fuel isn't expensive, so any complications are only needed if you just personally want to have fun with designing and debugging them, which is of course fine.
- jcranmer 6y ago
  The biggest time where you want to avoid consuming nuclear fuel is likely to be the initial setup of the factory, where Kovarex enrichment hasn't bootstrapped enough U-235 for nuclear fuel. Once you get the bootstrap U-235, then you don't need the throttling as much, unless you have a massively overbuilt nuclear plant. (I designed my system when I moved from 3 separate 2×2 nuclear plants to one large 2×6 system, and, as you say, even then it was mostly because I wanted to design such a system, and I didn't want to worry about power ever again).
nullc 6y ago
I just put enough steam tanks for two fulings worth of production, then setup logic so that an inserter fires once to insert fuel in each reactor when the amount crosses under a bit under half remaining (and becomes retriggerable at a bit over half remaining). In theory, since my turbines are slightly oversized for the reactors, under very high load it could possibly never get back above my reinsert level. But I've never had that happen and I have a siren set to go off if the steam tanks get under 25% and a constant combinator button I can press to insert fuel manually if that ever happens. of course, by the time I got that going, I also had the breeder reactors working fine and with them in place the nuclear cells are really hardly expensive anymore.
deleted 6y ago
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wyldfire 6y ago

>if there is no fuel available to refuel, the system will wedge itself and effectively need to be rebooted! Komrade, clearly there is nothing wrong with the design. You just forgot to press the AZ-5 button.

jcranmer 6y ago

There's a pretty simple solution to the power problem: You can measure the flow of steam in the system by dropping two tanks in series in the pipe and finding their difference in level--the difference is proportional to the amount of steam being consumed. After some experimentation in creative mode, I found the difference level that corresponds to the need to enable another reactor. Then I set up the inserters to each plant to only take in new fuel cells when the steam draw exceeds the relevant threshold. This does have some waste in that it doesn't count for hysteresis, and it doesn't try to prevent the reactors from filling up, but at the level of megabase I had, that level of waste wasn't an issue for me.

AgentME 6y ago
I set up my steam turbines to only turn on if an accumulator fell below 20% and then stay on until the accumulator is above 90%. Then I set up my nuclear plants to only be fueled if they're not currently fueled and my steam supply is under a certain level and then stay on until it's above a certain amount.
- AceJohnny2 6y ago
  > and then stay on until [steam is] above a certain amount. I presume that certain amount leaves enough headroom for steam generated by a full fuel cell cycle (ie worst case scenario) ?
  - AgentME 6y ago
    Right, usually the plant keeps running for a while after I decide to stop putting fuel in, and I don't want it to ever be running while my steam tanks are all full because that would be a waste.

nmeofthestate 6y ago

The good news is nuclear fuel isn't expensive, so any complications are only needed if you just personally want to have fun with designing and debugging them, which is of course fine.

jcranmer 6y ago
The biggest time where you want to avoid consuming nuclear fuel is likely to be the initial setup of the factory, where Kovarex enrichment hasn't bootstrapped enough U-235 for nuclear fuel. Once you get the bootstrap U-235, then you don't need the throttling as much, unless you have a massively overbuilt nuclear plant. (I designed my system when I moved from 3 separate 2×2 nuclear plants to one large 2×6 system, and, as you say, even then it was mostly because I wanted to design such a system, and I didn't want to worry about power ever again).

nullc 6y ago

I just put enough steam tanks for two fulings worth of production, then setup logic so that an inserter fires once to insert fuel in each reactor when the amount crosses under a bit under half remaining (and becomes retriggerable at a bit over half remaining). In theory, since my turbines are slightly oversized for the reactors, under very high load it could possibly never get back above my reinsert level. But I've never had that happen and I have a siren set to go off if the steam tanks get under 25% and a constant combinator button I can press to insert fuel manually if that ever happens. of course, by the time I got that going, I also had the breeder reactors working fine and with them in place the nuclear cells are really hardly expensive anymore.

deleted 6y ago

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