Nuclear Power

Gives uranium a purpose: a high-output fission reactor with real operating dynamics, styled to sit alongside the game's furnace-family machines.

WORK IN PROGRESS - balance numbers are moving targets, expect updates. Release notes are in the Change Notes tab.

Requires

This is a plugin (code) mod: install BepInEx with the StationeersLaunchPad plugin first (see https://github.com/StationeersLaunchPad/StationeersLaunchPad ). In multiplayer, the server and every player need this mod installed.

Features

• Fission Reactor (kit prints on the Hydraulic Pipe Bender): fuel rod slot, coolant loop in/out (gas or liquid pipes - you will want liquid), power and data at the front corners. Up to 100 kW from a single rod - heavy cable territory.
• You operate the control rods. Auto mode (default): Setting is a target power percentage and the reactor's governor moves the rods. Manual mode: Setting is the rod withdrawal itself, with a real rod-worth curve and a hot core pushing back. Big changes take minutes to settle, and decay heat keeps coming after shutdown - keep the coolant flowing.
• The loop needs a pump. Coolant moves through the reactor on the pressure difference in your loop, like any other pipe device. No pump, no flow, no cooling.
• No built-in safety. Read Temperature (core kelvin), Stress or EnergyConvected via logic and write your own SCRAM in IC10. Or do not, and find out.
• Consequences. Above 1000K the reactor takes damage and makes less power, and the fuel rod's cladding fails and vents pollutant into your coolant. Past 1200K it melts down catastrophically. Burned rods give off decay heat wherever they lie. Heat damage repairs with Duct Tape.
• Fuel cycle: mine uranium ore, smelt it into Uranium Ingots (Arc Furnace, or Furnace above 1405K), print rods on the Electronics Printer, burn them, then reprocess spent rods in the Centrifuge for partial uranium back.
• Also: the Battery Cell (Nuclear) now costs uranium.

Guide

Open the Stationpedia and press the Nuclear Power button on the home page: fuel, building, cooling, running, manual mode, safety with a sample IC10 SCRAM, and spent fuel.

Building and taking apart

Place the kit and finish the construction stages (the tooltip names the tool for each). The fuel rod slot, readout screen and on/off switch appear once fully built. To deconstruct: switch it off, take the rod out, let the core cool below 350K, then Angle Grinder on the finished reactor, Hand Drill on the frame, and Wrench to pick the kit back up. After a mod update that changes the model, rebuild existing reactors to get the new look.

IC10 interface

Setting / Throttle (rw, rod command or power target), Mode (rw, 0 Auto / 1 Manual), Ratio (rod position 0-1), PowerGeneration (W), PowerPotential (thermal W), Temperature (core kelvin), TemperatureInput / TemperatureOutput and PressureInput / PressureOutput (coolant pipes), EnergyConvected (heat moved into the coolant last tick, J), Stress (0 cold, ~78 at damage onset, 100 at meltdown), Fuel (rod percent), BurnTimeRemaining (seconds of fuel at the current rate).