Transplutonic is a mod that comes from a desire to expand the nuclear reprocessing chains in factorio in new and fun ways.
Current features:
- Recursive uranium centrifuging
- A fuel breeding-reprocessing cycle
- (Slightly) Nerfed fusion power
- Breeder reactors
- Radioisotope thermal generators
- (Thermo)nuclear artillery
- Nuclear waste reprocessing
- Late game sci-fi recipes and a new tier of modules inspired by satisfactory's very late game
Feature breakdown:
Recursive uranium centrifuging:
Uranium hexafluoride can be enriched in centrifuges, producing some UF6 solution that has more U-235 and another more depleted fraction, you need to chain centrifuges and manage their outputs all the way to pure U235 or depleted (U-238) gas.
For the ratio-concerned, here's the count of centrifuges beginning from the first to the last recipe chain:
That seems like a lot, but keep in mind centrifuging 1 U-235 in this mod's balance is a lot. Fuels can be recycled over and over again so it doesn't mean you are capped at your U-235 production alone.
I bumped up the speed of some lower tiers or the amount of centrfuges in the lower tiers would be ridiculous.
A fuel breeding-reprocessing cycle:
Current isotopes:
U-238: Baseline, reliable, abundant, can be bred to other fuels.
U-235: High power density, very rare unless manufactured
Pu-239: High power density, breedable, all around nice guy
Pu-238: Very high power density, can be used to make RTGs
Np-237: Terrible power density, almost useless, can be enriched back to U-238.
All that centrifuging will leave you with mountains of U238 for a small ammount of precious U-235
Composite fuel pellets help you go trough cheaper fuels more easily, while the pure fuels pack more punch per unit (hint, better for exporting with rockets for other worlds)
Reprocessing the spent fuel will unlock new isotopes in the loop, so you'll be going trough the fuel loop (uranium->plutonium->neptunium->uranium) a few times
Nerfed fusion power:
Fusion cells now require deuterium which has to be produced from water, and tritium which you only get trough breeding fuels. So a mature fission economy is required for fusion to work. No more unlimited power.
Breeder Reactors:
Breeder reactors let you specifically enrich isotopes by burning nuclear fuel as a neutron source. Graphics by the great Hurricane046.
Radioisotope thermal generators
RTGs can be used to augment your energy budget in outposts, planets and platforms. Graphics by Djohaal
(Thermo)nuclear artillery
A nuclear warhed alongside with some deuterium and tritium can be combined to make a thermonuclear artillery shell. This thing is too dangerous to fire by missiles, so the only acceptable delivery is by artillery.
(its a bigger nuke)
Nuclear waste reprocessing
No nuclear power mod would be complete without nuclear waste. Almost all reprocessing operations will produce waste which needs to be accommodated in dry caskets, which require a lot of storage space (they don't stack). Fortunately for us spoilage is a thing (eugh), and every 2 hours they turn into aged casks which can be reprocessed into less space, over and over again.
Late game sci-fi recipes
Second part of this mod that could've been a separate mod altogether is a humble set of new recipes that lets you use particle accelerators (repurposed from Hurricane's assets again) to make particle streams and use them for chemical alchemy, high tech crafting and producing some super modules.
If people dislike this enough I might break the mod in two and focus more on the radioactive side of things.
Tech Progression
Uranium handling and enrichment are unlocked in Nauvis, while actual breeding is gated by Vulcanus because of tungsten costs. Plutonium handling also gets unlocked in Vulcanus. Closing the nuclear cycle only is possible after Fulgora as the tech for Neptunium processing requires it.
Future Plans
Well this mod will obviously need rebalance as it gets used based on user input. I possibly will also be making a compatibility layer for some big overhaul mods in the scene as they update.
Technical details
No control code, only prototypes, so performance should be good.
Compatibility
This mod will probably display weird behavior if used alongside other uranium power or fuel reprocessing mods, I'd recommend using a single one.
Cerys - Basic support added, should work fine, balance is a bit iffy though.
Extended Vanilla: Personal Equipment - Patched reactors to not cost fuel cells to assemble and require fuel like the base mod.
Support
I'm often on discord on the factorio channel, so you can drop by there for support/feedback.
Acknowledgements:
Penny Jim for their immense patience in walking me trough the ropes of basic factorio modding.
Hurricane046 for the awesome free assets and 3d modelling insight in discord.
Kirazy for the electrolyzer asset that was employed as the particle accelerator target.