On Reactors

[RPC]

Ok, I know I've been asking lots of questions lately (and should probably save them for upcoming weeks), but here's another one:
How can I calculate the amount of fuel being drained by a 10MW weapon, and consequently, for an XMW weapon? (this is for an omnidirectional slot mod- I have an item that fires mounted weapons omnidirectionally, but I just realized that it does not reflect the reactor drain of the weapon mounted.)

[shanejfilomena]

1 rod every " 2 seconds " : the fuel consumption of devices is about equal to a Pteravore :
which I believe was the easiest way to do it because the creatures can drain a reactor as fast as an under-powered ship firing a high MW weapon : eg 15MW weapon on a 20MW ship + shields and coffee pot going full tilt.

*** I was NOT that far off. I just did not understand it in the terms of fuel units that George described.
I thought it was taking the entire rod, not parts of it

[george moromisato]

1. Each fuel item has a certain number of "fuel units". For example, a Helium fuel rod has 2500 fuel units. [Look at the data= attribute on an item type to determine the number of fuel units.]

2. A reactor with 100% efficiency consumes 1 fuel unit to generate 1.5 MW of power for 1 tick. Example: A weapon is firing and drawing 15 MW. Every tick it will consume 10 fuel units (15 / 1.5 = 10). Enhanced reactors have greater than 100% efficiency and can generate more power on 1 fuel unit. Damaged reactors are the opposite.

3. A weapon rated at 10 MW draws 10 MW only while firing. If the weapon is not firing, it draws 1/10 that amount (unless otherwise specified in idlePowerUse).

Hope that helps!

As an aside, this whole design has helped me learn about power a little more. Now I know the difference between a space heater that draws 1 kilowatt vs. a bill in the mail that shows I've used 10 kilowatt-hours. A kilowatt is a measure of the rate at which power flows; a kilowatt-hour is a measure of the quantity of power that I've consumed.

In the same way, power draw of devices is measured in watts (megawatts) while consumption, which is expressed in fuel units, can be converted to megawatt-hours with a simple formula:

megawatt-hours = (1.5 * fuel-units) / (ticks-per-hour)

Since there are 1800 ticks per hour (in game time), and since a single Helium fuel rod has 2500 fuel units, we can convert as follows:

megawatt-hours = 1.5 * 2500 / 1800 = ~2.08

That is, a Helium fuel rod has 2.08 megawatt-hours of power.

And at the risk of going even further astray, note that these numbers wildly undervalue to power of nuclear energy. For example, a barrel of oil masses 139 kg and has about 1.6 megawatt-hours of power--about the same energy density as a Helium fuel rod. In contrast, 100 kg of uranium used in a fission reactor yields about 2.2 million megawatt-hours of power.

Guess I should have done these calculations when I first came up with the values.

To be fair, a Helium fuel rod contains all of the shielding and structure designed to contain the fuel--the fuel itself is probably much less than 100 kgs. To reach the same energy density as uranium, the actual fuel in a Helium fuel rod should mass no more than 0.1 grams.

p.s.: Let me know if I screwed-up the arithmetic.

[giantcabbage]

Or you can measure the fuel by its energy content (joules). As power is defined as energy-per-second:
one megawatt-hour = 1,000,000 (joule / second) * hour = 3.6 GJ
one fuel unit = 3 MJ
one Helium fuel rod = 7.5 GJ

[RPC]

Ok thanks George and giantcabbage. I'll start making a formula to draw more fuel using an <OnUpdate> event and I'll tell you guys how it goes.

[Star Weaver]

1. Each fuel item has a certain number of "fuel units". For example, a Helium fuel rod has 2500 fuel units. [Look at the data= attribute on an item type to determine the number of fuel units.]

I just wanted to note, when I did my in-depth reactor info panel for Detailed Ship Info (A long-neglected broken mod that's finally getting updated and also integrated with the next generation of TransGeek's inventory control mod! Woo!), which lists all the fuel types that a reactor will take and how many of each you'd need to fill it up and that sort of thing, I decided to call these "Standard Terran Fuel Units" when presenting them to the player. Mainly because I like the acronym .

[RPC]

I forgot what mod I was doing this for O.o
That being said, I think it might be for a "fuel time left" mod. I'll leave the idea out here in case somebody wants to do it