Nuclear Rebalance Patch

This mod is intended to be paired with Rocket Fuel Rebalance Patch

They are separated just in case you would rather have one and not the other.

What are the point of these mods?

The goal is to make the jump from Fuel to Nuclear be as important, impactful, and needed as the jump from Coal to Fuel. Currently, Rocket Fuel steps on the toes of Nuclear so much, that the only reason you really have to make Nuclear power is simply for the fact of doing it, not for efficiency.

• The production line of Rocket Fuel, especially with Nitro Rocket Fuel, is so simple and so efficient, that you can easily set up a factory that generates 57.6 Nuclear Power Plants worth of power with only 3 steps (see below). And Blueprints make placing down hundreds of Generators a breeze, especially considering Rocket Fuel is a gas and you don't have to worry about head lift. The only limiting factor is Sulfur, which becomes much less of a problem once you get Mk6 Belts (and Converters). In short, its too easy to make as much as it makes.
• Uranium is much more scarce compared to Oil, harder to reach, radioactive, has waste, uses far more parts requiring far more logistics, and with the inclusion of the Rocket/Ionized Fuel, yields a lower net MW potential (adding up all available nodes). This is not the way it should be.
• Ficsonium is bad. With the exception of wanting to make it just because you can, it is always more worth your time to just sink the Plutonium instead. There are numerous in-depth reasons for this I wont go into it now, but you can read about them further down, in the details.

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Balance Changes

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Nuclear Power Plant: Increase power production by 40%, from 2500MW to 3500MW. Increase each fuel's energy value equally (so it doesn't burn through rods 40% faster.)

• Thoughts: The jump from Fuel to Nuclear should feel as significant as Coal to Fuel. With how much work it takes to make fuel rods compared to rocket fuel, it needs to be extremely rewarding to finally get that running.

In addition to that, the total power consumption to produce the rods greatly reduces the net gain, vs fuel.

Lastly, Fuel Generators can be mass produced with blueprints very easily (especially considering Rocket Fuel is a gas, so no pumps), whereas you can't fit 2 Nuclear Power Plants in any Blueprint at all. 3500MW is a conservative number, and I want to increase it even more, but for now, combined with all the other changes I'm making (including nerfing Rocket Fuel), it's safer to go with a lower value and see if it feels good.

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Uranium:

Uranium Fuel Rod/Uranium Fuel Unit: Reduce Encased Uranium Cells cost required by 20%, from 20/min to 16min. (For both recipes).

Uranium Fuel Rod Recipe Screenshots

Uranium Fuel Unit Recipe Screenshots

• Thoughts: This is to make raw Uranium go a little further. Currently, there is more potential net power from all Oil nodes vs all Uranium nodes, in addition to the fact it's easier to produce (albeit more repetitive), and that should not be the case. This tweak is not game changing, but it's a nudge in the right direction.

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Plutonium:

Plutonium Fuel Rod: Reduce Heat Sink cost by 40% from 2.5/min to 1.5/min.

Plutonium Fuel Rod Recipe Screenshots

• Thoughts: The amount of Heat Sinks consumed ends up requiring a disproportionately large aluminum factory just to support this one part requirement. This is a large part of the “feels bad” element of getting Plutonium up and running versus just sinking it, or versus just making more Rocket Fuel instead (which is a similar amount of work to making just these Heat Sinks…)

Alternate: Plutonium Fuel Unit Increase encased cell consumption by 50% from 10/min to 15/min, but Increase fuel Rod production by 100% from 0.5/min to 1/min.

Plutonium Fuel Unit Recipe Screenshots

• Thoughts: The original version of this recipe is a bad deal. Pressure conversion cubes are one of the most complex/valuable parts in the game, especially with the inclusion of Singularity Cells also requiring them. You'll rarely want to use them on this, so we need to sweeten the deal. (15/min Cells used to make .75/min Rods, now it makes 1/min Rods). This makes the alt recipe make slightly more Rods per Cells than the non-alternate recipe, instead of nearly the same.

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Ficsonium:

• Thoughts: Overall it's actually very tough to balance Ficsonium because there's an inherent value in the fact that it's removing all waste. There's a built-in cost to that, so to speak. That being said, there should still be some incentive to doing it versus just sinking the Plutonium Rods. The following changes are trying to tackle this in a couple different ways.

Ficsonium: Increased Cycle time from 6 seconds to 12 seconds, as well as the following changes:

• Plutonium Waste: Increase cost from 10/min to 20/min