ReactorCraft: Depleted Uranium should filter to waste inventory

[Fatmice]

1.7.0-V13b Stacking fission cores has a nasty problem. The middle cores tend to starve on fuel because depleted uranium would occupy fuel slots until the very bottom core consumes a fuel pellet. Being that there are only four fuel slots, when a stack of fission core is more than 3 high, the middle cores will usually sit idle after having consumed all of its fuel. Please allow depleted uranium to have secondary access to the internal waste inventories if they are not occupied with waste. This will allow free flowing of fresh fuel to all cores in a stack regardless of height.

[ReikaKalseki]

Though this is a real issue - with TRISO as well - I cannot do this without breaking multiple blocks' logic.

[Fatmice]

Couldn't you simply remove the depleted uranium or used TRISO pellet and save it into the buffer of the bottom most block? This way you don't have to break current logic for multi-block structure.

The bottom most block, if broken will spill whatever is currently in it's inventory + its buffer. So there is no cheating going on. The buffer has priority access to the waste inventory, in the case of fission cores, or the bottom most slot of the HTGR core.

[ReikaKalseki]

There is dedicated, specialized, and shared feeding logic to pass fuel and waste between cores. It is not a simple "if inventory slot empty, push" behavior. And cores have no "buffer", only an inventory.

[TomeWyrm]

Not knowing a damn thing about ReactorCraft... would having a dedicated waste slot be a good/bad thing, or is there already one? That would theoretically allow (depending on logic used) the waste a "priority" channel to be drained through.

[ReikaKalseki]

There are already eight.

[Fatmice]

If there is "dedicated, specialized, and shared feeding logic to pass fuel and waste between cores," then why isn't depleted uranium considered a "waste"? The waste always filter down to the bottom core so what would break your logic if depleted uranium is considered a waste?

[ReikaKalseki]

The feed system is designed entirely in abstraction; it cannot make special accommodations for a special type of core.

[TomeWyrm]

Is depleted uranium a fuel in any core type?

[ReikaKalseki]

No.

[Fatmice]

Well, then I'm confused. If depleted uranium is not a fuel in any core type, then why does it occupy a fuel slot? Couldn't you make the conversion from fuel -> spent fuel a step where depleted uranium will spawn in one of the 8 waste inventory? You do track the NBT of a fuel, so you do know when when a fuel is replaced with a spent fuel. Instead of in situ replacement, what is the difficulty in adding to the waste inventory?

[ReikaKalseki]

That solves the feedable issue, but if the spent fuel started to accumulate, it would begin behaving like nuclear waste - poisoning the reaction - and could be abused as an easy way to prevent nuclear waste generation.

[Fatmice]

If that is the angle you are coming from, I do not see how that is beneficial or even exploitable by would be exploiter. If the reaction is poisoned, neutron economy is in the dumps so there is no heat. How would that be useful for a bunch of cores sitting around at room temperature? I do not see how people would build such a thing just to have it sitting around doing absolutely nothing, even if it doesn't generate waste. So I do not follow your logic.

Besides, this is easily punishable. If there is more than one depleted uranium in the waste slot, prevent the affected core from emitting neutron. The reactor is now as good as a bunch of bricks.

[ReikaKalseki]

I am not sure depleted uranium acts as a reaction poison.

[TomeWyrm]

It should. It's dense enough to intercept neutrons reasonably well, and doesn't contribute to sustainable fission. It might not be a good material for something like a control rod, but I seem to recall depleted uranium being used as radiation shielding.

Note: not a nuclear scientist, layman's understanding of the process.

[Fatmice]

Depleted uranium is a neutron absorber as U-238 loves thermal neutron. The reactor type in question is of thermal neutron spectrum so having lots of depleted uranium around is not good for criticality.

[ReikaKalseki]

In that case, yes, I can add pushing the depleted fuel to the waste slots. I will also add a singular "waste slot" to HTGR cores.

EDIT: Actually, I have a better idea for HTGRs. But spent-fuel-to-waste push has been implemented.

[Fatmice]

Can't wait to see it in action.

[ReikaKalseki]

I suspect some people will complain, because HTGRs just got more complicated. :P