Goonhub
06-14-2017, 10:42 AM
The current heat exchange engine is boring! The singularity engine is fun but can be disastrous if done wrong. I suggest a third option: Goonstation's very own nuclear reactor! It would add an interesting amount of complexity to engineering and also integrate well with the current engine design. As a bonus (I think) we could have the fun possibility of nuclear meltdowns! Which, while hilariously destructive, would be less round-ruining than a loose singularity.
The code already has a wide range of radioactive and other materials that could be used to construct nuclear reactors of many kinds. For the more conventional and based-on-reality we could have fission reactors or the new experimental molten salt reactors, or for the more sci-fi kind we could have plasma fusion reactors (these would be pretty safe and thus boring though). What's nicest is that nuclear reactors produce electricity through simple heat exchange, so it could be easily integrated by replacing the hot loop with a nuclear reactor, or hooking a nuclear reactor up to the hot loop even. So instead of using the burn chamber or burners to heat gas, a nuclear reactor would be used! Of course this is just an easy option, I think the best bet would be to replace the entire engine with a nuclear reactor.
Nuclear reactors have lots of fun things to do too! It would add a lot more experimentation and variability in engine setup. Nuclear reactors use different fuels (commonly uranium-235 and 233 and plutonium-239). These fuels can be of various enrichment levels, which could be a feature as well. There are also different kinds of fuel cycles most commonly breeder (which doesn't produce much electricity but produces more fissile material than it consumes) and burner (which can fission heavier, transuranic elements that would otherwise become nuclear waste). Aside from starting them up, nuclear reactors also require maintenance. They must be refueled and depending on the reactor design this can be done while the reactor is still running (online fueling) or it might require the reactor to be shutdown and restarted which is very complicated and dangerous and is what caused the Chernobyl disaster. Fun! Speaking of Chernobyl, I think one of the great features of this would be the potential for catastrophic failure! Reactions must be carefully monitored and control rods manipulated to ensure the reaction stays within that very small sweet spot of perfect delayed criticality (this is mostly done by computers now but could be implemented in lots of ways). Of course there's always the possibility for a traitor to pull the control rods right out and watch the pretty fireworks of a radioactive steam explosion as hot, molten, radioactive slag melts a hole in the hull!
I think this idea could be integrated well into the code and has a lot of potential for complexity and fun!
The code already has a wide range of radioactive and other materials that could be used to construct nuclear reactors of many kinds. For the more conventional and based-on-reality we could have fission reactors or the new experimental molten salt reactors, or for the more sci-fi kind we could have plasma fusion reactors (these would be pretty safe and thus boring though). What's nicest is that nuclear reactors produce electricity through simple heat exchange, so it could be easily integrated by replacing the hot loop with a nuclear reactor, or hooking a nuclear reactor up to the hot loop even. So instead of using the burn chamber or burners to heat gas, a nuclear reactor would be used! Of course this is just an easy option, I think the best bet would be to replace the entire engine with a nuclear reactor.
Nuclear reactors have lots of fun things to do too! It would add a lot more experimentation and variability in engine setup. Nuclear reactors use different fuels (commonly uranium-235 and 233 and plutonium-239). These fuels can be of various enrichment levels, which could be a feature as well. There are also different kinds of fuel cycles most commonly breeder (which doesn't produce much electricity but produces more fissile material than it consumes) and burner (which can fission heavier, transuranic elements that would otherwise become nuclear waste). Aside from starting them up, nuclear reactors also require maintenance. They must be refueled and depending on the reactor design this can be done while the reactor is still running (online fueling) or it might require the reactor to be shutdown and restarted which is very complicated and dangerous and is what caused the Chernobyl disaster. Fun! Speaking of Chernobyl, I think one of the great features of this would be the potential for catastrophic failure! Reactions must be carefully monitored and control rods manipulated to ensure the reaction stays within that very small sweet spot of perfect delayed criticality (this is mostly done by computers now but could be implemented in lots of ways). Of course there's always the possibility for a traitor to pull the control rods right out and watch the pretty fireworks of a radioactive steam explosion as hot, molten, radioactive slag melts a hole in the hull!
I think this idea could be integrated well into the code and has a lot of potential for complexity and fun!