Reactor Planner

Nuclear Reactors are the most powerful means of generating EU in IndustrialCraft. They are also the most dangerous; one misplaced component and your power supply is now a rather large bomb. The Reactor Planner is a block that allows a user to safely create and test a Reactor design prior to actually building it.

The Reactor Planner is a MV-tier machine, accepting 128 EU/t input and consuming 100 EU/t while actively simulating a Reactor.

The Reactor Planner has a rather complicated GUI. (The red boxes have been added for explanations.) Reactor Planner GUI

The top two tabs switch the Planner between Nuclear Reactor mode and Steam Reactor mode. The + and - buttons to the sides of the heading bar change the number of columns in the Planner. The bottom row of inventory slots is the player's hotbar. It is not used by the Planner.

Section 1 is the Reactor inventory space. It is filled by selecting items in Section 3, the components list. Click a component in Section 3 to select it, then click on a space in Section 1 to place it. The top + and - buttons in Section 3 scroll through the available components. The mouse wheel can also be used to scroll through this list. The Sorting button allows the user to only see individual types of components (Fuel Rods, Coolant Cells, Condensators, Heat Packs, Vents, Spreading Vents, Heat Switches, Heat Platings, Reflectors, Depleted Isotope Cells). The + and - buttons at the bottom allow the user to adjust the Stack Size of the component placed, if applicable. They can be Shift-clicked to add 10.

Section 2 controls the Planner. The Reactor Planner does a live simulation of the Reactor planned out inside it. The Compile button sets up the planner to simulate the current Reactor design. The Start, Run, and Stop buttons control the active simulation. The Run button toggles between an Active and Inactive Redstone Signal (activating or deactivating the fuel rods, without deactivating the Heat Vents). The Reset button resets a simulation to its pre-Compiled state. The Backup and Restore buttons allow the user to store one Reactor plan, modify it, and then Restore the stored design. The Clear button clears the Reactor inventory. Shift-clicking the Clear button wipes the Backup design. At the bottom of the GUI are the Import and Export buttons. The Import button attempts to read a compiled Reactor design from the user's copy/paste clipboard; the Export button writes a compiled design to the clipboard. This allows users to store successful designs as text strings, and transfer them between each other. Shift-clicking the Export button allows the user to choose how the design is encoded. V1 Encoding is the default; NBT Encoding produces a longer string but is backwards-compatible with the 1.7.10 Reactor Planner; and 'Talon' produces a code that can be loaded in Talonfire's V3 IC2 Reactor Planner. (Note: This encoder produces a URL to http://www.talonfiremage.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/. This website no longer exists, however the code is still usable in an offline copy of the planner.)

Section 6 allows the user to configure a few more aspects of the planner. The Initial Heat value allows the user to start the reactor heated; Custom Timer allows the user to cause the Planner to only run a finite number of ticks (rather than the fuel cells' full run time); Sim Speed causes the Planner to calculate multiple Reactor ticks at a time. Each of these buttons can be Alt-clicked to add 10, Shift-clicked to add 100, Ctrl-clicked to add 1000, or Ctrl-Shift-clicked to add 100,000.

Sections 4 and 5 allow the user to read additional data about the planned reactor. The buttons in Section 4 change the contents of the Section 5 box. The Furnace button (Active Info) monitors the Reactor during an active simulation. The Reactor button (Setup Info) displays statistics on Reactor heating and cooling. The Ender Eye button (Setup Prediction) displays calculated (not simulated) energy output data on the Reactor design. The Book button (Component Stats) displays the current status of the component the user's mouse is hovering over, during an active simulation. The Paper button (Setup Naming) allows the user to assign a name to a given Reactor plan, and store that name in the Export code.

The top Steam Reactor tab switches the entire planner to simulate a Steam Reactor rather than a regular reactor. The Simulator itself works mostly the same, however it allows Steam Reactor components to be placed, and all statistical references to EU production are replaced with Steam Production or Water Consumption.