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Criticality

Build reactors, advance technology, power a nation · By EmptyStudios

Supplying Water

A topic by summercat created Oct 06, 2021 Views: 634 Replies: 5
Viewing posts 1 to 3

How do you ensure water supply for the higher tier reactors? With like 30+ water pumps, I was only able to get a Plutonium to a max of 55%, and without that level or higher, it wouldn't generate enough steam for the third tier cooling towers to work. 

Developer

Sounds like you have an issue with throughput, try using additional pipes to get more water flowing.

yeah I had 3 row thick pipes and was feeding the reactor from three sides

Unless I should do three entirely separate supply systems and don't let the pipes intersect.

Developer

are you using heating tanks? they can get you more surface area for pipe input.

pumps that are too close may get heated and generate steam, which you can vent to prevent pump damage, but this phenomenon will lower the amount of water that actually ends up in the core, maybe a screenshot can help

I was not using heating tanks. Doing some experiments with them (and unlocking Heat Sinks) managed to get a design for a Plutonium reactor that was stable and fluctuating between 60 and 80% water.

That said... I would suggest, if you're going to continue working on this in hte future, to switch Water to something akin to the Steam Pressure system. Telling me what % of water is in my network at any given point doesn't really help me figure out how to best improve my water networks - whereas knowing how much pressure is in a pipe section will tell me where a chokepoint for that is. 

For example, I was rapidly able to figure out that turbines have a maximum amount of steam they let through, so putting a turbine at the first junction of my reactor is not a good idea and will cause it to explode.

Developer

you may also simply be generating as much steam as a plutonium reactor can make, the systems are a little fuzzy at times so things can be misleading, water percentage in the core itself might not be super important, I actually don't know what percentage is optimal for each reactor myself, or even if it matters at all (asside from obviously 0% water being bad(tm))