How we should do power generation.

I had a idea for how to appeal to everyone as far as power generation goes:

WTL,DR(WAY too long, didn't read):

There are 3 types of energy generators, solar, quantum, and fusion.


Solars generate a constant, medium-small stream of energy. Theres different sizes for different uses, and it doesn't work out of sunlight. It's cheap, easy, free, and self explanatory.


Quantum generators are somewhat expensive and generate energy for absolutely free, anywhere. They can be programmed to output a lot in a short moment or over time, but they have one universal flaw. After being turned on, they can't be turned completely off; and they completely fry their internal mechanism's after a semi-random amount of energy(up to 25% less or more than a set amount that depends on the model). They are mainly designed for tasks that only need energy once, like starting Fusions.


Fusion generators are the uni-generators, they are used everywhere where a Qgen, Sgen, or plain old power crystal(aka battery) doesn't work. There are 3 different sizes of them; tiny, large, and military-grade.

Tinys hardly larger than a torch, they are un-customizable (other then being able to use a few different fuel types) and have to have energy supplied in order to start. I'll try to expand on the fuel types and such later. Their mostly harmless, but standing next to one

Large Fusions are the middleman, you can either craft the premade version, or take the empty shell and add onto it(like the IC2 nuclear reactor, but with different physics). The premade is easy to use, you can use a few different fuel types and you can choose to either supply it with energy or throw in a little antimatter to start it for free. The output varies depending on the fuel, as does the starting energy. The empty shell version needs parts to be added in a grid(almost exactly like IC2 reactors) but it requires a indepth knowledge of the physics of fusion reactors. And let me tell you, those physics are really, really complex. The grids are 20x20. This however allows for a great deal of customization, and can be optimized for certain tasks and fuel types. These would be moderately deadly when destroyed.

Military grade reactors are for ships that need a LOT of power. They are made from premade blocks, which I will list once I research the subject more. They can be as big as wanted, and are the only reactors that can possibly undergo P-P-P-P(proton-proton-proton-proton) fusion, which is what the sun uses. The reason that only military grade reactors can undergo this type of fusion is that it usually requires a, yknow, star to start. It has the advantage of requiring only the most common resource in the universe to start, outputting huge amounts of energy, and actually spiting out pure iron once it runs long enough. Military grade reactors can ofc use other fuel types, and only the most advanced reactors could undergo P-P-P-P fusion. Do not stand anywhere near a breach in the external hull of a running military grade reactors if you like being composed of atoms in a solid state.


Yes, that was the TL:DR, strap yourselves in people, this is going to be complex.


First of all, why, you might ask, is fusion the main power source? Simple, because the benefits over other methods(fission, combustion, ambient(solar)) are huge. You get more energy from a gram of fuel then fission, there is no chance of a runaway reaction , no chance of large-scale releases of radioactivity, little or no atmospheric pollution, the fuel is mostly harmless light elements in small quantities, waste has only short-lived radioactivity, and it does not produce weapons grade plutonium as a by-product(like fission does).

Alright, so what IS fusion?

Well, there are two basic operations possible in the universe, analysis and synthesis. That is, breaking one large object into smaller parts, or assembly smaller parts into one larger object. The ancients called this "solve et coagula." With fission, you take one large unstable atom and break it apart into fission fragments (aka "split the atom"). With fusion, you take two or more small atoms and fuse them into one larger atom.

In both cases, when you weigh the things you start with and weigh the result, you will find the result weighs less. This is know as the binding energy mass defect. It represents the amount of matter that is turned into energy. Everybody knows that e = mc2, but unless you've had a physics class you may not know that c (the speed of light in a vacuum) is a mind-boggling huge number, and squaring a mind-boggling huge number makes it astronomically huger. Bottom line is that microscopic amounts of matter create titanic amounts of energy.

The conversion is 1 atomic mass unit = 931.494028(±0.000023) MeV.

Lets look at a example shall we?

"D-T fusion starts with deuterium and tritium and has a result of one helium-4 atom and a neutron. The starting mass is 2.013553 + 3.015500 = 5.029053. The ending mass is 4.001506 + 1.008665 = 5.010171. Subtracting the two, we find a mass defect of 0.018882. Multiply by 931.494028 to find an energy release of 17.58847 MeV. This is rounded up to 17.6 MeV." This is quoted, so some of the math may not make sense.

So, with just 1 atom of Deuterium and 1 atom of Tritium we can make about 18 Mega electron Volts. This means that per 1 kg of D and T fused we end up with about 0.41 Peta Joules. This is equivalent to 100 Kilotons of TNT, or about 7 of the bombs that were dropped over Hiroshima. Thats from just one kg.


Alright, alright you've convinced me, how do you suggest we use fusion.

Well, I'm just going to save you the 50 page article and coding nightmare that we would be facing if I suggested perfectly accurate physics, so lets just say that this IS the future, and because of that we can assume some things.

First of all, lets talk about the Tiny reactor.

The Tiny reactor is a small, self contained reactor unit that holds everything required to maintain a small fusion reaction. This includes a magnetic containment bubble, a computer for calculating fuel injection times and energy-absorber absorbing rates, a small battery to hold startup energy, 2 small tanks for individually containing fusion reactants and 1 for reaction-results, and a Energy Injector for starting the reaction.

The magnetic bubble is lined with a innovative new material called Absorva, Absorva can absorb any form of small particle that could result from a fusion reaction(photon, electron, you name it) and convert it into energy. They can also vary their reflectivity, which means they can control how many particles on average they reflect instead of absorbing. This means a computer can easily control a fusion reaction by varying the amount of energy absorbed. If it starts getting out of hand, it can increase the absorption rate, if it starts dieing off then it can increase the reflectivity.

Using this material, the Tiny reactor can easily maintain small fusion reactions for power generation, and it can accept Deuterium, Tritium, and He3. You can see the multipliers for these fuels at the bottom of the page. The waste materials are not, for safety reasons, fused further. They are instead extracted and compressed for removal, and you can do with them whatever you want. If you don't extract the waste materials, then it just vents them harmlessly into the air. Startup power can only be directly started from some sort of handheld power device or storage. Oh, and please note that Tiny reactors automatically repair any internal damage caused by reactions.



Large reactors are the middleman, and can either be crafted in a default configuration, or as an empty shell.

Large reactors can accept Deuterium, Tritium, He3, Boron-11, P(ionic hydrogen), and Condensed Neutrons. The default configuration has large 2 storage tanks for waste products, and 4 large tanks for reactants. The default configuration will automatically store waste-products and vent them when full. Startup power can be supplied from both handheld sources and a grid source.

The empty shell version is a lot like IC2 nuclear reactors in that you can open a grid up and place elements inside of it, but the similarities end there. The grid is 20x20, and can use the following parts:


Absorva/Magnetic Containment Device Hybrid(AMCD): Can safely contain, manage, and draw power from fusion reactions. These will decay with use with some reactions, but a upgraded version can be made that does not decay.

Tank Walls: Specially made walls for containing reactants and reaction-results.

Reaction extractor and Injector: Two separate elements, the extractor removes unwanted reactants automatically, the injector automatically injects fuel to keep the reaction going until the tanks are empty

Pressurized Tank Walls: Like tank walls, but can hold pressurized reactants and reaction-results. Twice the storage capacity, but quite a bit more expensive.

Uni-pipe/Pump/Power Conduit: A all in one element, this can move both reactants and reactor-results between the reaction area and storage tanks, and can also move energy around.

Internal Battery: Will feed off of Power Conduits and also external power, The Computer will use Internal Batteries to supply power to start reactions when other sources are unavailable.

The Computer: This element automatically manages everything in the reactor wirelessly, but it requires a miniscule amount of power. It doesn't require much, you won't ever notice a lower output rate from whatever you connect it to, but it still needs to be connected to a power source. The Computer tries to fill all reaction-result tanks before venting, and also tries to empty all reactant tanks before ceasing the reaction. It also attempts to undergo the easiest to start and most power-generating reactions first. If there is more than 1 reactant area, then it tries to use all of them at once.

Ok, so first of all the edge of the grid acts as inputs/outputs/power in and out. Uni-pipes have to connect to the edge to vent reaction-results or intake reactants, power conduits have to connect to the edge to output power, and The Computer has to either be connected to the edge or a power conduit to work(and therefor allow the reactor to work)

The Computer manages everything, and it automatically detects any problems and solves them however possible(IE, if there's a critical flaw in the reactor it won't start it, if the reaction-result starts overflowing it vents it and so on)

Both kinds of tanks have a storage amount based on the amount of space inside them, and in order to use them you must border a closed shape(like, for example, a square) out of tank elements. It can be in any shape you want, so long as there isn't a open hole anywhere, diagonals, and all other elements are counted as a hole. Pipes are the one exception to that rule though, and in order to move reactants or reaction-results they must be connected to the internal space of tanks. The tanks are automatically managed by The Computer.

The AMCD must be placed like tanks are, however diagonals are fine, and the reaction occurring is more efficient the larger the reaction area and more grouped together it is. Spaces directly touching(aka not diagonals) AMCD elements do not count as reaction area. The injectors and extractors can take the place of a single AMCD, but no more than that. If, for example, the injector and extractor were placed so that they were touching each other(diagonally) instead of at least 2 AMCD, the magnetic field from the AMCD would be insufficient to cover both of them and The Computer would therefor refuse to start the reactor. Injectors and extractors are ofc, also auto-controlled by The Computer.



Military Grade reactors.

These reactors are like Large reactors, except instead of a grid they are built out of whole blocks. Otherwise the rules and components are pretty much the same. This reactor, however, is the only reactor capable of undergoing Quadruple P(aka ionic hydrogen) fusion. It is also the only reactor able to fuse reaction-results, as well as produce Iron as a byproduct. It can also carry out several different reactions at once.






Reaction and reactant table:

Reactants:
Ionic Hydrogen(P)
Deuterium
Tritium
Helium-3
Lithium
Boron-11
Condensed Neutrons(CN)

For balancing reasons, I won't describe how you actually make any of these, save for Tritium. Also, Tritium decays into He3 after about a hour.

Reaction Waste:
Primary
Secondary
tertiary
Breeded
Secondary Breeded
Final

Each type of RW can be reacted with any kind of RW. Tritium, He3, CN, and FW can be extracted from Primary Waste. P can be extracted from Secondary Waste, and CN from Tritary waste. Tritium and CN can be extracted from Breeded Waste, and CN and P from Secondary Breeded Waste. All forms of Waste produce FW when the useful elements are extracted from them.


The base reaction is D + T, which has a base energy output(BEO) of 1 and a base energy starting requirement(BESR) of 1, and produces TW. It should be noted that all reactions except for indicated ones produce Final Reaction-Waste. Any reactions that produce Primary, Tritary, Breeded, or Secondary Breeded Waste can cause decay.

D + D: BEO of 0.25, BESR of 30, produces TW

P + B-11: BEO of 0.21, BESR of 500

D + He3: BEO of 1.03, BESR of 16, produces SW

He3 + He3: BEO of 0.61, random BESR

CN + L: BEO of 0, no BESR, produces BW

P+P+P+P: BEO of 1.9, reaaaaaaallllly high BESR

AW + AW: random BEO, random BESR

You'll notice that I never actually gave any exact figures or recipes, this is so that it is easy to balance.

You want to simplify that a little buggy?

We're making a game mod, not calculating how to get to the moon

ectrimble20 wrote:

You want to simplify that a little buggy?

We're making a game mod, not calculating how to get to the moon

Oh please....


They got to the moon on way less processing power then that would take.






Anyway, yeah, it is kinda complex.

Well basically what I have to do is:

A) make power generators

B) tie power into things

C) have an effective way of monitoring power

D) ????

E) profit.

I'm sure there's more stuff to it, but I couldn't resist the ??? profit part

.................................
.................................


.....Nice.

ectrimble20 wrote:

Well basically what I have to do is:

A) make power generators

B) tie power into things

C) have an effective way of monitoring power

D) ????

E) profit.

I'm sure there's more stuff to it, but I couldn't resist the ??? profit part

I don't understand. The ???? is the "more stuff to it", and the profit is the reward of your efforts. You make it sound as though your referencing some kind of a television program.

Spoiler:

Buggy, are you planning to be an electrical engineer in Real life or something?!!???

*facedesk multiple times*

My brain is fried, shouldn't read things like this at two in the morning.
On topic: I vote for just having to shovel radioactive waste into a large metal thing. Occasionally throw a laptop or something in, maybe some ice cubes... But seriously, this seems way too complex for average people who aren't fully literate. End result will probably be flame war about simplified reactors.

On an unrelated note, how much did your fingers hurt after typing the whole thing?

I don't think he HAS fingers anymore. There just little stubby things.

Fingers? He uploaded his consciousness into a computer and merely thought this out and it was done... seems like a lot of developers are doing that now days, but eh, 'tis the way of the future.

On a more serious note, I apologize in advance for raining on this idea (if it can be considered raining, just a little heads up) but I had been designing a power generation concept much like yourself, working with Danice's power grid portion and had sent Doc off a PM about the layout of the power concepts (*shakes fist at sky* and yet he hasn't answered).

I think your ideas are very well explained and you even have ideas that I had never considered,
(I have modern to theoretical energy possibilities :

- nuclear reactor (think CANDU reactors / reactors humans use today)

- fusion / fission reactors (energy release of fusing/ splitting of atoms)

- naquada / naquadria reactor (Upwards from 10 to 1000 times more powerful than base nuclear reactors)

- plasma reactor (storage of energy in heavily excited atoms, also is very useful if using the ion thrusters as they use plasma as their source of ions)

- antimatter reactor ( highest energy output to atom ratio)

- Dark Energy reactor (Energy present in the universe, consisting of about 70% of the universe, just waiting to be harnessed)

- Sub-space Energy (the pinnacle of technological prowess, the ability to harness the energy from the 10th dimension, from the strings of reality... ok, not that far, but you get the point)

and other intertwining ideas for that.

As I think both of our ideas are good, may I suggest that we merge the two components to ultimately produce an effective and expansive generator system.

How big will these generators be? I have a spaceship 23 by 20 blocks, what could i fit in there?

https://servimg.com/view/17217267/13

Well, personally I was thinking of each generator having a model (similar to an entity) so that it isn't just one block but fair bit larger. I had thought that the plasma generator ( above) would be similar to the star trek core so about 10x5x5 structure (HxWxL), but that may be destined to change as this is in the early stages of thought/ collaboration.

GroundBurg_Coder13 wrote:

Well, personally I was thinking of each generator having a model (similar to an entity) so that it isn't just one block but fair bit larger. I had thought that the plasma generator ( above) would be similar to the star trek core so about 10x5x5 structure (HxWxL), but that may be destined to change as this is in the early stages of thought/ collaboration.

The problem with this is that the power system is set up to handle blocks, not entities. But maybe a generator could check for a certain configuration of blocks in a space...

Danice123 wrote:

GroundBurg_Coder13 wrote:

Well, personally I was thinking of each generator having a model (similar to an entity) so that it isn't just one block but fair bit larger. I had thought that the plasma generator ( above) would be similar to the star trek core so about 10x5x5 structure (HxWxL), but that may be destined to change as this is in the early stages of thought/ collaboration.

The problem with this is that the power system is set up to handle blocks, not entities. But maybe a generator could check for a certain configuration of blocks in a space...

So generators of all kind will be one block? How about the Fission Reactor does it require chambers for more space?

True its meant to handle blocks, but I think (im not 100% sure) that one can make a new render type specific for each generator and that would give more "personality" to the generators rather than them all just being one block with different textures.

Excuse me your not a dev, i would like one of the devs of answer my question. After all your not making games. Danice?

GroundBurg_Coder13 wrote:

True its meant to handle blocks, but I think (im not 100% sure) that one can make a new render type specific for each generator and that would give more "personality" to the generators rather than them all just being one block with different textures.

I thought about the render angle and it sounds like a lot of work for just some visual effects. What I was thinking is making simple generators 1 block and more complex generators a combination of blocks. The main one would be the output and the other blocks would be different parts of the generator. This would also allow for custom generators, different sizes and shapes, and maybe the power level increases depending on how much of one block you have in a configuration. It would be simple to code, the main block would just have to check the adjacent blocks for their type.

Cool. Just leaving the generator as a single block if basic (or more advanced with different configurations, but roughly block modular) does make my work a whole lot easier.
Thanks Danice

xanex21 wrote:

Excuse me your not a dev, i would like one of the devs of answer my question. After all your not making games. Danice?

And 'Ouch', that actually kinda hurts. Though yes I am not shown to be a developer, nor have a dev log thread like those with more programming experience do, I am a part of the coding team, and even though I do not have a dev log does not mean I have done nothing for this project.

xanex, that was uncalled for. There was no reason to snap at GroundBurg like that. Plus he didn't even address your question at all, he was responding to my post.

As long as my (slightly shorter) passage on power generators gets included somewhere, I'm happy. I don't care about the details (well... I do sort of say exactly what I want, how I want, just not with the power generators).

Okay, I'll write some more when I've actually had time to read the WTL;DR of Buggy.

i red tis hole too pages. now ma bwain is brokd.

daman200 wrote:

i red tis hole too pages. now ma bwain is brokd.

I can see that.

Also, I read the entire thing, and Buggy forgot thermal generators, and ZPMs, and fission reactors (for those primitives), and cold fusion reators.

@SilentFall

My fingers didn't hurt at all. No really.

As for figuring it out, thats what tiny and the preset large reactors are for. If they want a lot of power? Then they can either use abuncha large reactors or Deal With It.

Wha... wait, they didn't hurt at all?!?!?! Impossible.

Well, for large amounts, we put a ZPM in a quantum reactor! That way we have loads of energy discharged extremely fast. Although it would probably fry the ship if it wasn't dreadnought sized or above.

EDIT: That actually sounds goodish to me now. Although there should be a deterrent so that people don't just build ZPMs and quantum generators. For example, only large generators could handle them, and even then there is a chance of it exploding or just wiping the ZPM out of existence, and using it in a ship below the required core size would EMP it, maybe.

SilentFall wrote:

Wha... wait, they didn't hurt at all?!?!?! Impossible.

Well, for large amounts, we put a ZPM in a quantum reactor! That way we have loads of energy discharged extremely fast. Although it would probably fry the ship if it wasn't dreadnought sized or above.

But a ZPM- its not- it doesn't-have you even seen any of Stargate?


@GroundBerg I like your ideas too, although I think you were thinking of a vacuum energy harvester(aka the 'inside' of a ZPM) not a 11th dimension thingy. Plus, do you have any what the eleventh dimension would look like? Just look at a 6th dimensional cube! Creepers would probably explode instantly if they entered the 11th dimension because their suddenly inside-out and outside-in and rightside-out and somehow sideways-backwards all at the same time.

Anyway, I'd like to discuss ideas too, we should get all the devs together on irc or steam and figure it all out.