| commit | author | age | ||
| 488070 | 1 | Minetest technic modpack user manual |
| Z | 2 | ==================================== |
| 3 | ||
| 4 | The technic modpack extends the Minetest game with many new elements, | |
| 5 | mainly constructable machines and tools. It is a large modpack, and | |
| 6 | tends to dominate gameplay when it is used. This manual describes how | |
| 7 | to use the technic modpack, mainly from a player's perspective. | |
| 8 | ||
| 9 | The technic modpack depends on some other modpacks: | |
| 10 | ||
| 11 | * the basic Minetest game | |
| 12 | * mesecons, which supports the construction of logic systems based on | |
| 13 | signalling elements | |
| 14 | * pipeworks, which supports the automation of item transport | |
| 15 | * moreores, which provides some additional ore types | |
| 16 | ||
| 17 | This manual doesn't explain how to use these other modpacks, which ought | |
| 18 | to (but actually don't) have their own manuals. | |
| 19 | ||
| 20 | Recipes for constructable items in technic are generally not guessable, | |
| 21 | and are also not specifically documented here. You should use a | |
| 22 | craft guide mod to look up the recipes in-game. For the best possible | |
| 7112e7 | 23 | guidance, use the unified\_inventory mod, with which technic registers |
| 488070 | 24 | its specialised recipe types. |
| Z | 25 | |
| df7bf8 | 26 | substances |
| Z | 27 | ---------- |
| 28 | ||
| 29 | ### ore ### | |
| 488070 | 30 | |
| Z | 31 | The technic mod makes extensive use of not just the default ores but also |
| 32 | some that are added by mods. You will need to mine for all the ore types | |
| 33 | in the course of the game. Each ore type is found at a specific range of | |
| e3b44b | 34 | elevations, and while the ranges mostly overlap, some have non-overlapping |
| Z | 35 | ranges, so you will ultimately need to mine at more than one elevation |
| 36 | to find all the ores. Also, because one of the best elevations to mine | |
| 488070 | 37 | at is very deep, you will be unable to mine there early in the game. |
| e3b44b | 38 | |
| ddb522 | 39 | Elevation is measured in meters, relative to a reference plane that |
| e3b44b | 40 | is not quite sea level. (The standard sea level is at an elevation |
| Z | 41 | of about +1.4.) Positive elevations are above the reference plane and |
| 42 | negative elevations below. Because elevations are always described this | |
| 43 | way round, greater numbers when higher, we avoid the word "depth". | |
| 488070 | 44 | |
| Z | 45 | The ores that matter in technic are coal, iron, copper, tin, zinc, |
| 46 | chromium, uranium, silver, gold, mithril, mese, and diamond. | |
| 47 | ||
| e3b44b | 48 | Coal is part of the basic Minetest game. It is found from elevation |
| Z | 49 | +64 downwards, so is available right on the surface at the start of |
| 50 | the game, but it is far less abundant above elevation 0 than below. | |
| 51 | It is initially used as a fuel, driving important machines in the early | |
| 52 | part of the game. It becomes less important as a fuel once most of your | |
| 488070 | 53 | machines are electrically powered, but burning fuel remains a way to |
| Z | 54 | generate electrical power. Coal is also used, usually in dust form, as |
| 55 | an ingredient in alloying recipes, wherever elemental carbon is required. | |
| 56 | ||
| e3b44b | 57 | Iron is part of the basic Minetest game. It is found from elevation |
| 488070 | 58 | +2 downwards, and its abundance increases in stages as one descends, |
| e3b44b | 59 | reaching its maximum from elevation -64 downwards. It is a common metal, |
| 488070 | 60 | used frequently as a structural component. In technic, unlike the basic |
| Z | 61 | game, iron is used in multiple forms, mainly alloys based on iron and |
| 62 | including carbon (coal). | |
| 63 | ||
| 64 | Copper is part of the basic Minetest game (having migrated there from | |
| e3b44b | 65 | moreores). It is found from elevation -16 downwards, but is more abundant |
| Z | 66 | from elevation -64 downwards. It is a common metal, used either on its |
| 488070 | 67 | own for its electrical conductivity, or as the base component of alloys. |
| Z | 68 | Although common, it is very heavily used, and most of the time it will |
| 69 | be the material that most limits your activity. | |
| 70 | ||
| e3b44b | 71 | Tin is supplied by the moreores mod. It is found from elevation +8 |
| Z | 72 | downwards, with no elevation-dependent variations in abundance beyond |
| 488070 | 73 | that point. It is a common metal. Its main use in pure form is as a |
| Z | 74 | component of electrical batteries. Apart from that its main purpose is |
| 75 | as the secondary ingredient in bronze (the base being copper), but bronze | |
| 76 | is itself little used. Its abundance is well in excess of its usage, | |
| 77 | so you will usually have a surplus of it. | |
| 78 | ||
| e3b44b | 79 | Zinc is supplied by technic. It is found from elevation +2 downwards, |
| Z | 80 | with no elevation-dependent variations in abundance beyond that point. |
| 81 | It is a common metal. Its main use is as the secondary ingredient | |
| 82 | in brass (the base being copper), but brass is itself little used. | |
| 83 | Its abundance is well in excess of its usage, so you will usually have | |
| 84 | a surplus of it. | |
| 488070 | 85 | |
| e3b44b | 86 | Chromium is supplied by technic. It is found from elevation -100 |
| Z | 87 | downwards, with no elevation-dependent variations in abundance beyond |
| 488070 | 88 | that point. It is a moderately common metal. Its main use is as the |
| Z | 89 | secondary ingredient in stainless steel (the base being iron). |
| 90 | ||
| e3b44b | 91 | Uranium is supplied by technic. It is found only from elevation -80 down |
| Z | 92 | to -300; using it therefore requires one to mine above elevation -300 even |
| 488070 | 93 | though deeper mining is otherwise more productive. It is a moderately |
| Z | 94 | common metal, useful only for reasons related to radioactivity: it forms |
| 95 | the fuel for nuclear reactors, and is also one of the best radiation | |
| 96 | shielding materials available. It is not difficult to find enough uranium | |
| 97 | ore to satisfy these uses. Beware that the ore is slightly radioactive: | |
| 98 | it will slightly harm you if you stand as close as possible to it. | |
| ddb522 | 99 | It is safe when more than a meter away or when mined. |
| 488070 | 100 | |
| e3b44b | 101 | Silver is supplied by the moreores mod. It is found from elevation -2 |
| Z | 102 | downwards, with no elevation-dependent variations in abundance beyond |
| 488070 | 103 | that point. It is a semi-precious metal. It is little used, being most |
| Z | 104 | notably used in electrical items due to its conductivity, being the best |
| 105 | conductor of all the pure elements. | |
| 106 | ||
| 107 | Gold is part of the basic Minetest game (having migrated there from | |
| e3b44b | 108 | moreores). It is found from elevation -64 downwards, but is more |
| Z | 109 | abundant from elevation -256 downwards. It is a precious metal. It is |
| 110 | little used, being most notably used in electrical items due to its | |
| 111 | combination of good conductivity (third best of all the pure elements) | |
| 112 | and corrosion resistance. | |
| 488070 | 113 | |
| e3b44b | 114 | Mithril is supplied by the moreores mod. It is found from elevation |
| Z | 115 | -512 downwards, the deepest ceiling of any minable substance, with |
| 116 | no elevation-dependent variations in abundance beyond that point. | |
| 117 | It is a rare precious metal, and unlike all the other metals described | |
| 118 | here it is entirely fictional, being derived from J. R. R. Tolkien's | |
| 119 | Middle-Earth setting. It is little used. | |
| 488070 | 120 | |
| e3b44b | 121 | Mese is part of the basic Minetest game. It is found from elevation |
| Z | 122 | -64 downwards. The ore is more abundant from elevation -256 downwards, |
| 123 | and from elevation -1024 downwards there are also occasional blocks of | |
| 488070 | 124 | solid mese (each yielding as much mese as nine blocks of ore). It is a |
| Z | 125 | precious gemstone, and unlike diamond it is entirely fictional. It is |
| 126 | used in many recipes, though mainly not in large quantities, wherever | |
| 127 | some magical quality needs to be imparted. | |
| 128 | ||
| 129 | Diamond is part of the basic Minetest game (having migrated there from | |
| e3b44b | 130 | technic). It is found from elevation -128 downwards, but is more abundant |
| Z | 131 | from elevation -256 downwards. It is a precious gemstone. It is used |
| 488070 | 132 | moderately, mainly for reasons connected to its extreme hardness. |
| Z | 133 | |
| df7bf8 | 134 | ### rock ### |
| 488070 | 135 | |
| Z | 136 | In addition to the ores, there are multiple kinds of rock that need to be |
| 137 | mined in their own right, rather than for minerals. The rock types that | |
| 138 | matter in technic are standard stone, desert stone, marble, and granite. | |
| 139 | ||
| 140 | Standard stone is part of the basic Minetest game. It is extremely | |
| 141 | common. As in the basic game, when dug it yields cobblestone, which can | |
| 142 | be cooked to turn it back into standard stone. Cobblestone is used in | |
| 143 | recipes only for some relatively primitive machines. Standard stone is | |
| 144 | used in a couple of machine recipes. These rock types gain additional | |
| 145 | significance with technic because the grinder can be used to turn them | |
| 146 | into dirt and sand. This, especially when combined with an automated | |
| 147 | cobblestone generator, can be an easier way to acquire sand than | |
| 148 | collecting it where it occurs naturally. | |
| 149 | ||
| 150 | Desert stone is part of the basic Minetest game. It is found specifically | |
| e3b44b | 151 | in desert biomes, and only from elevation +2 upwards. Although it is |
| 488070 | 152 | easily accessible, therefore, its quantity is ultimately quite limited. |
| Z | 153 | It is used in a few recipes. |
| 154 | ||
| 155 | Marble is supplied by technic. It is found in dense clusters from | |
| e3b44b | 156 | elevation -50 downwards. It has mainly decorative use, but also appears |
| 488070 | 157 | in one machine recipe. |
| Z | 158 | |
| 159 | Granite is supplied by technic. It is found in dense clusters from | |
| e3b44b | 160 | elevation -150 downwards. It is much harder to dig than standard stone, |
| 488070 | 161 | so impedes mining when it is encountered. It has mainly decorative use, |
| Z | 162 | but also appears in a couple of machine recipes. |
| 163 | ||
| df7bf8 | 164 | ### rubber ### |
| eed803 | 165 | |
| df7bf8 | 166 | Rubber is a biologically-derived material that has industrial uses due |
| Z | 167 | to its electrical resistivity and its impermeability. In technic, it |
| 168 | is used in a few recipes, and it must be acquired by tapping rubber trees. | |
| eed803 | 169 | |
| df7bf8 | 170 | If you have the moretrees mod installed, the rubber trees you need |
| Z | 171 | are those defined by that mod. If not, technic supplies a copy of the |
| 172 | moretrees rubber tree. | |
| eed803 | 173 | |
| df7bf8 | 174 | Extracting rubber requires a specific tool, a tree tap. Using the tree |
| Z | 175 | tap (by left-clicking) on a rubber tree trunk block extracts a lump of |
| 176 | raw latex from the trunk. Each trunk block can be repeatedly tapped for | |
| 177 | latex, at intervals of several minutes; its appearance changes to show | |
| 178 | whether it is currently ripe for tapping. Each tree has several trunk | |
| 179 | blocks, so several latex lumps can be extracted from a tree in one visit. | |
| eed803 | 180 | |
| df7bf8 | 181 | Raw latex isn't used directly. It must be vulcanized to produce finished |
| e08de5 | 182 | rubber. This can be performed by alloying the latex with coal dust. |
| eed803 | 183 | |
| df7bf8 | 184 | ### metal ### |
| eed803 | 185 | |
| Z | 186 | Many of the substances important in technic are metals, and there is |
| 187 | a common pattern in how metals are handled. Generally, each metal can | |
| 188 | exist in five forms: ore, lump, dust, ingot, and block. With a couple of | |
| 189 | tricky exceptions in mods outside technic, metals are only *used* in dust, | |
| 190 | ingot, and block forms. Metals can be readily converted between these | |
| 191 | three forms, but can't be converted from them back to ore or lump forms. | |
| 192 | ||
| 193 | As in the basic Minetest game, a "lump" of metal is acquired directly by | |
| 194 | digging ore, and will then be processed into some other form for use. | |
| 195 | A lump is thus more akin to ore than to refined metal. (In real life, | |
| 196 | metal ore rarely yields lumps ("nuggets") of pure metal directly. | |
| 197 | More often the desired metal is chemically bound into the rock as an | |
| 198 | oxide or some other compound, and the ore must be chemically processed | |
| 199 | to yield pure metal.) | |
| 200 | ||
| 201 | Not all metals occur directly as ore. Generally, elemental metals (those | |
| 202 | consisting of a single chemical element) occur as ore, and alloys (those | |
| 203 | consisting of a mixture of multiple elements) do not. In fact, if the | |
| 204 | fictional mithril is taken to be elemental, this pattern is currently | |
| 205 | followed perfectly. (It is not clear in the Middle-Earth setting whether | |
| 206 | mithril is elemental or an alloy.) This might change in the future: | |
| 207 | in real life some alloys do occur as ore, and some elemental metals | |
| 208 | rarely occur naturally outside such alloys. Metals that do not occur | |
| 209 | as ore also lack the "lump" form. | |
| 210 | ||
| 211 | The basic Minetest game offers a single way to refine metals: cook a lump | |
| 212 | in a furnace to produce an ingot. With technic this refinement method | |
| 213 | still exists, but is rarely used outside the early part of the game, | |
| 214 | because technic offers a more efficient method once some machines have | |
| 215 | been built. The grinder, available only in electrically-powered forms, | |
| 216 | can grind a metal lump into two piles of metal dust. Each dust pile | |
| 217 | can then be cooked into an ingot, yielding two ingots from one lump. | |
| 218 | This doubling of material value means that you should only cook a lump | |
| 219 | directly when you have no choice, mainly early in the game when you | |
| 220 | haven't yet built a grinder. | |
| 221 | ||
| 222 | An ingot can also be ground back to (one pile of) dust. Thus it is always | |
| 223 | possible to convert metal between ingot and dust forms, at the expense | |
| 224 | of some energy consumption. Nine ingots of a metal can be crafted into | |
| 225 | a block, which can be used for building. The block can also be crafted | |
| 226 | back to nine ingots. Thus it is possible to freely convert metal between | |
| 227 | ingot and block forms, which is convenient to store the metal compactly. | |
| 228 | Every metal has dust, ingot, and block forms. | |
| 229 | ||
| 230 | Alloying recipes in which a metal is the base ingredient, to produce a | |
| 231 | metal alloy, always come in two forms, using the metal either as dust | |
| 232 | or as an ingot. If the secondary ingredient is also a metal, it must | |
| 233 | be supplied in the same form as the base ingredient. The output alloy | |
| 234 | is also returned in the same form. For example, brass can be produced | |
| 235 | by alloying two copper ingots with one zinc ingot to make three brass | |
| 236 | ingots, or by alloying two piles of copper dust with one pile of zinc | |
| 237 | dust to make three piles of brass dust. The two ways of alloying produce | |
| 238 | equivalent results. | |
| 239 | ||
| df7bf8 | 240 | ### iron and its alloys ### |
| eed803 | 241 | |
| Z | 242 | Iron forms several important alloys. In real-life history, iron was the |
| 243 | second metal to be used as the base component of deliberately-constructed | |
| 244 | alloys (the first was copper), and it was the first metal whose working | |
| 245 | required processes of any metallurgical sophistication. The game | |
| 246 | mechanics around iron broadly imitate the historical progression of | |
| 247 | processes around it, rather than the less-varied modern processes. | |
| 248 | ||
| 249 | The two-component alloying system of iron with carbon is of huge | |
| 250 | importance, both in the game and in real life. The basic Minetest game | |
| 251 | doesn't distinguish between these pure iron and these alloys at all, | |
| 252 | but technic introduces a distinction based on the carbon content, and | |
| 253 | renames some items of the basic game accordingly. | |
| 254 | ||
| 255 | The iron/carbon spectrum is represented in the game by three metal | |
| 256 | substances: wrought iron, carbon steel, and cast iron. Wrought iron | |
| 257 | has low carbon content (less than 0.25%), resists shattering, and | |
| 258 | is easily welded, but is relatively soft and susceptible to rusting. | |
| 259 | In real-life history it was used for rails, gates, chains, wire, pipes, | |
| 260 | fasteners, and other purposes. Cast iron has high carbon content | |
| 261 | (2.1% to 4%), is especially hard, and resists corrosion, but is | |
| 262 | relatively brittle, and difficult to work. Historically it was used | |
| 263 | to build large structures such as bridges, and for cannons, cookware, | |
| 264 | and engine cylinders. Carbon steel has medium carbon content (0.25% | |
| 265 | to 2.1%), and intermediate properties: moderately hard and also tough, | |
| 266 | somewhat resistant to corrosion. In real life it is now used for most | |
| 267 | of the purposes previously satisfied by wrought iron and many of those | |
| 268 | of cast iron, but has historically been especially important for its | |
| 7112e7 | 269 | use in swords, armor, skyscrapers, large bridges, and machines. |
| eed803 | 270 | |
| Z | 271 | In real-life history, the first form of iron to be refined was |
| 272 | wrought iron, which is nearly pure iron, having low carbon content. | |
| 273 | It was produced from ore by a low-temperature furnace process (the | |
| 274 | "bloomery") in which the ore/iron remains solid and impurities (slag) | |
| 275 | are progressively removed by hammering ("working", hence "wrought"). | |
| 276 | This began in the middle East, around 1800 BCE. | |
| 277 | ||
| 278 | Historically, the next forms of iron to be refined were those of high | |
| 279 | carbon content. This was the result of the development of a more | |
| 280 | sophisticated kind of furnace, the blast furnace, capable of reaching | |
| 281 | higher temperatures. The real advantage of the blast furnace is that it | |
| 282 | melts the metal, allowing it to be cast straight into a shape supplied by | |
| 283 | a mould, rather than having to be gradually beaten into the desired shape. | |
| 284 | A side effect of the blast furnace is that carbon from the furnace's fuel | |
| 285 | is unavoidably incorporated into the metal. Normally iron is processed | |
| 286 | twice through the blast furnace: once producing "pig iron", which has | |
| 287 | very high carbon content and lots of impurities but lower melting point, | |
| 288 | casting it into rough ingots, then remelting the pig iron and casting it | |
| 289 | into the final moulds. The result is called "cast iron". Pig iron was | |
| 290 | first produced in China around 1200 BCE, and cast iron later in the 5th | |
| 291 | century BCE. Incidentally, the Chinese did not have the bloomery process, | |
| 292 | so this was their first iron refining process, and, unlike the rest of | |
| 293 | the world, their first wrought iron was made from pig iron rather than | |
| 294 | directly from ore. | |
| 295 | ||
| 296 | Carbon steel, with intermediate carbon content, was developed much later, | |
| 297 | in Europe in the 17th century CE. It required a more sophisticated | |
| 298 | process, because the blast furnace made it extremely difficult to achieve | |
| 299 | a controlled carbon content. Tweaks of the blast furnace would sometimes | |
| 300 | produce an intermediate carbon content by luck, but the first processes to | |
| 301 | reliably produce steel were based on removing almost all the carbon from | |
| 302 | pig iron and then explicitly mixing a controlled amount of carbon back in. | |
| 303 | ||
| 304 | In the game, the bloomery process is represented by ordinary cooking | |
| 305 | or grinding of an iron lump. The lump represents unprocessed ore, | |
| 306 | and is identified only as "iron", not specifically as wrought iron. | |
| 307 | This standard refining process produces dust or an ingot which is | |
| 308 | specifically identified as wrought iron. Thus the standard refining | |
| 309 | process produces the (nearly) pure metal. | |
| 310 | ||
| 311 | Cast iron is trickier. You might expect from the real-life notes above | |
| 312 | that cooking an iron lump (representing ore) would produce pig iron that | |
| 313 | can then be cooked again to produce cast iron. This is kind of the case, | |
| 314 | but not exactly, because as already noted cooking an iron lump produces | |
| 315 | wrought iron. The game doesn't distinguish between low-temperature | |
| 316 | and high-temperature cooking processes: the same furnace is used not | |
| 317 | just to cast all kinds of metal but also to cook food. So there is no | |
| 318 | distinction between cooking processes to produce distinct wrought iron | |
| 319 | and pig iron. But repeated cooking *is* available as a game mechanic, | |
| 320 | and is indeed used to produce cast iron: re-cooking a wrought iron ingot | |
| 321 | produces a cast iron ingot. So pig iron isn't represented in the game as | |
| 322 | a distinct item; instead wrought iron stands in for pig iron in addition | |
| 323 | to its realistic uses as wrought iron. | |
| 324 | ||
| 325 | Carbon steel is produced by a more regular in-game process: alloying | |
| 326 | wrought iron with coal dust (which is essentially carbon). This bears | |
| 327 | a fair resemblance to the historical development of carbon steel. | |
| 328 | This alloying recipe is relatively time-consuming for the amount of | |
| 329 | material processed, when compared against other alloying recipes, and | |
| 330 | carbon steel is heavily used, so it is wise to alloy it in advance, | |
| 331 | when you're not waiting for it. | |
| 332 | ||
| 333 | There are additional recipes that permit all three of these types of iron | |
| 334 | to be converted into each other. Alloying carbon steel again with coal | |
| 335 | dust produces cast iron, with its higher carbon content. Cooking carbon | |
| 336 | steel or cast iron produces wrought iron, in an abbreviated form of the | |
| 337 | bloomery process. | |
| 338 | ||
| 339 | There's one more iron alloy in the game: stainless steel. It is managed | |
| 340 | in a completely regular manner, created by alloying carbon steel with | |
| 341 | chromium. | |
| 342 | ||
| 38e85e | 343 | ### uranium enrichment ### |
| Z | 344 | |
| 345 | When uranium is to be used to fuel a nuclear reactor, it is not | |
| 346 | sufficient to merely isolate and refine uranium metal. It is necessary | |
| 347 | to control its isotopic composition, because the different isotopes | |
| 348 | behave differently in nuclear processes. | |
| 349 | ||
| 350 | The main isotopes of interest are U-235 and U-238. U-235 is good at | |
| 351 | sustaining a nuclear chain reaction, because when a U-235 nucleus is | |
| 352 | bombarded with a neutron it will usually fission (split) into fragments. | |
| 353 | It is therefore described as "fissile". U-238, on the other hand, | |
| 354 | is not fissile: if bombarded with a neutron it will usually capture it, | |
| 355 | becoming U-239, which is very unstable and quickly decays into semi-stable | |
| 356 | (and fissile) plutonium-239. | |
| 357 | ||
| 358 | Inconveniently, the fissile U-235 makes up only about 0.7% of natural | |
| 359 | uranium, almost all of the other 99.3% being U-238. Natural uranium | |
| 360 | therefore doesn't make a great nuclear fuel. (In real life there are | |
| 361 | a small number of reactor types that can use it, but technic doesn't | |
| 362 | have such a reactor.) Better nuclear fuel needs to contain a higher | |
| 363 | proportion of U-235. | |
| 364 | ||
| 365 | Achieving a higher U-235 content isn't as simple as separating the U-235 | |
| 366 | from the U-238 and just using the required amount of U-235. Because | |
| 367 | U-235 and U-238 are both uranium, and therefore chemically identical, | |
| 368 | they cannot be chemically separated, in the way that different elements | |
| 369 | are separated from each other when refining metal. They do differ | |
| 370 | in atomic mass, so they can be separated by centrifuging, but because | |
| 371 | their atomic masses are very close, centrifuging doesn't separate them | |
| 372 | very well. They cannot be separated completely, but it is possible to | |
| 373 | produce uranium that has the isotopes mixed in different proportions. | |
| 374 | Uranium with a significantly larger fissile U-235 fraction than natural | |
| 375 | uranium is called "enriched", and that with a significantly lower fissile | |
| 376 | fraction is called "depleted". | |
| 377 | ||
| 378 | A single pass through a centrifuge produces two output streams, one with | |
| 379 | a fractionally higher fissile proportion than the input, and one with a | |
| 380 | fractionally lower fissile proportion. To alter the fissile proportion | |
| 381 | by a significant amount, these output streams must be centrifuged again, | |
| 382 | repeatedly. The usual arrangement is a "cascade", a linear arrangement | |
| 383 | of many centrifuges. Each centrifuge takes as input uranium with some | |
| 384 | specific fissile proportion, and passes its two output streams to the | |
| 385 | two adjacent centrifuges. Natural uranium is input somewhere in the | |
| 386 | middle of the cascade, and the two ends of the cascade produce properly | |
| 387 | enriched and depleted uranium. | |
| 388 | ||
| 389 | Fuel for technic's nuclear reactor consists of enriched uranium of which | |
| 390 | 3.5% is fissile. (This is a typical value for a real-life light water | |
| 391 | reactor, a common type for power generation.) To enrich uranium in the | |
| 392 | game, it must first be in dust form: the centrifuge will not operate | |
| 393 | on ingots. (In real life uranium enrichment is done with the uranium | |
| 394 | in the form of a gas.) It is best to grind uranium lumps directly to | |
| 395 | dust, rather than cook them to ingots first, because this yields twice | |
| 396 | as much metal dust. When uranium is in refined form (dust, ingot, or | |
| 397 | block), the name of the inventory item indicates its fissile proportion. | |
| 398 | Uranium of any available fissile proportion can be put through all the | |
| 399 | usual processes for metal. | |
| 400 | ||
| 401 | A single centrifuge operation takes two uranium dust piles, and produces | |
| 402 | as output one dust pile with a fissile proportion 0.1% higher and one with | |
| 403 | a fissile proportion 0.1% lower. Uranium can be enriched up to the 3.5% | |
| 404 | required for nuclear fuel, and depleted down to 0.0%. Thus a cascade | |
| 405 | covering the full range of fissile fractions requires 34 cascade stages. | |
| 406 | (In real life, enriching to 3.5% uses thousands of cascade stages. | |
| 407 | Also, centrifuging is less effective when the input isotope ratio | |
| 408 | is more skewed, so the steps in fissile proportion are smaller for | |
| 409 | relatively depleted uranium. Zero fissile content is only asymptotically | |
| 410 | approachable, and natural uranium relatively cheap, so uranium is normally | |
| 411 | only depleted to around 0.3%. On the other hand, much higher enrichment | |
| 412 | than 3.5% isn't much more difficult than enriching that far.) | |
| 413 | ||
| 414 | Although centrifuges can be used manually, it is not feasible to perform | |
| 415 | uranium enrichment by hand. It is a practical necessity to set up | |
| 416 | an automated cascade, using pneumatic tubes to transfer uranium dust | |
| 417 | piles between centrifuges. Because both outputs from a centrifuge are | |
| 418 | ejected into the same tube, sorting tubes are needed to send the outputs | |
| 419 | in different directions along the cascade. It is possible to send items | |
| 420 | into the centrifuges through the same tubes that take the outputs, so the | |
| 421 | simplest version of the cascade structure has a line of 34 centrifuges | |
| 422 | linked by a line of 34 sorting tube segments. | |
| 423 | ||
| 424 | Assuming that the cascade depletes uranium all the way to 0.0%, | |
| 425 | producing one unit of 3.5%-fissile uranium requires the input of five | |
| 426 | units of 0.7%-fissile (natural) uranium, takes 490 centrifuge operations, | |
| 427 | and produces four units of 0.0%-fissile (fully depleted) uranium as a | |
| 428 | byproduct. It is possible to reduce the number of required centrifuge | |
| 429 | operations by using more natural uranium input and outputting only | |
| 430 | partially depleted uranium, but (unlike in real life) this isn't usually | |
| 431 | an economical approach. The 490 operations are not spread equally over | |
| 432 | the cascade stages: the busiest stage is the one taking 0.7%-fissile | |
| 433 | uranium, which performs 28 of the 490 operations. The least busy is the | |
| 434 | one taking 3.4%-fissile uranium, which performs 1 of the 490 operations. | |
| 435 | ||
| 436 | A centrifuge cascade will consume quite a lot of energy. It is | |
| 437 | worth putting a battery upgrade in each centrifuge. (Only one can be | |
| 438 | accommodated, because a control logic unit upgrade is also required for | |
| 439 | tube operation.) An MV centrifuge, the only type presently available, | |
| 440 | draws 7 kEU/s in this state, and takes 5 s for each uranium centrifuging | |
| 441 | operation. It thus takes 35 kEU per operation, and the cascade requires | |
| 442 | 17.15 MEU to produce each unit of enriched uranium. It takes five units | |
| 443 | of enriched uranium to make each fuel rod, and six rods to fuel a reactor, | |
| 444 | so the enrichment cascade requires 514.5 MEU to process a full set of | |
| 445 | reactor fuel. This is about 0.85% of the 6.048 GEU that the reactor | |
| 446 | will generate from that fuel. | |
| 447 | ||
| 448 | If there is enough power available, and enough natural uranium input, | |
| 449 | to keep the cascade running continuously, and exactly one centrifuge | |
| 450 | at each stage, then the overall speed of the cascade is determined by | |
| 451 | the busiest stage, the 0.7% stage. It can perform its 28 operations | |
| 452 | towards the enrichment of a single uranium unit in 140 s, so that is | |
| 453 | the overall cycle time of the cascade. It thus takes 70 min to enrich | |
| 454 | a full set of reactor fuel. While the cascade is running at this full | |
| 455 | speed, its average power consumption is 122.5 kEU/s. The instantaneous | |
| 456 | power consumption varies from second to second over the 140 s cycle, | |
| 457 | and the maximum possible instantaneous power consumption (with all 34 | |
| 458 | centrifuges active simultaneously) is 238 kEU/s. It is recommended to | |
| 459 | have some battery boxes to smooth out these variations. | |
| 460 | ||
| 461 | If the power supplied to the centrifuge cascade averages less than | |
| 462 | 122.5 kEU/s, then the cascade can't run continuously. (Also, if the | |
| 463 | power supply is intermittent, such as solar, then continuous operation | |
| 464 | requires more battery boxes to smooth out the supply variations, even if | |
| 465 | the average power is high enough.) Because it's automated and doesn't | |
| 466 | require continuous player attention, having the cascade run at less | |
| 467 | than full speed shouldn't be a major problem. The enrichment work will | |
| 468 | consume the same energy overall regardless of how quickly it's performed, | |
| 469 | and the speed will vary in direct proportion to the average power supply | |
| 470 | (minus any supply lost because battery boxes filled completely). | |
| 471 | ||
| 472 | If there is insufficient power to run both the centrifuge cascade at | |
| 473 | full speed and whatever other machines require power, all machines on | |
| 474 | the same power network as the centrifuge will be forced to run at the | |
| 475 | same fractional speed. This can be inconvenient, especially if use | |
| 476 | of the other machines is less automated than the centrifuge cascade. | |
| 477 | It can be avoided by putting the centrifuge cascade on a separate power | |
| 478 | network from other machines, and limiting the proportion of the generated | |
| 479 | power that goes to it. | |
| 480 | ||
| 481 | If there is sufficient power and it is desired to enrich uranium faster | |
| 482 | than a single cascade can, the process can be speeded up more economically | |
| 483 | than by building an entire second cascade. Because the stages of the | |
| 484 | cascade do different proportions of the work, it is possible to add a | |
| 485 | second and subsequent centrifuges to only the busiest stages, and have | |
| 486 | the less busy stages still keep up with only a single centrifuge each. | |
| 487 | ||
| 488 | Another possible approach to uranium enrichment is to have no fixed | |
| 489 | assignment of fissile proportions to centrifuges, dynamically putting | |
| 490 | whatever uranium is available into whichever centrifuges are available. | |
| 491 | Theoretically all of the centrifuges can be kept almost totally busy all | |
| 492 | the time, making more efficient use of capital resources, and the number | |
| 493 | of centrifuges used can be as little (down to one) or as large as desired. | |
| 494 | The difficult part is that it is not sufficient to put each uranium dust | |
| 495 | pile individually into whatever centrifuge is available: they must be | |
| 496 | input in matched pairs. Any odd dust pile in a centrifuge will not be | |
| 497 | processed and will prevent that centrifuge from accepting any other input. | |
| 498 | ||
| 3b1aba | 499 | ### concrete ### |
| Z | 500 | |
| 501 | Concrete is a synthetic building material. The technic modpack implements | |
| 502 | it in the game. | |
| 503 | ||
| 504 | Two forms of concrete are available as building blocks: ordinary | |
| 505 | "concrete" and more advanced "blast-resistant concrete". Despite its | |
| 506 | name, the latter has no special resistance to explosions or to any other | |
| 507 | means of destruction. | |
| 508 | ||
| 509 | Concrete can also be used to make fences. They act just like wooden | |
| 510 | fences, but aren't flammable. Confusingly, the item that corresponds | |
| 511 | to a wooden "fence" is called "concrete post". Posts placed adjacently | |
| 512 | will implicitly create fence between them. Fencing also appears between | |
| 513 | a post and adjacent concrete block. | |
| 514 | ||
| df7bf8 | 515 | industrial processes |
| Z | 516 | -------------------- |
| 5692c2 | 517 | |
| df7bf8 | 518 | ### alloying ### |
| 5692c2 | 519 | |
| df7bf8 | 520 | In technic, alloying is a way of combining items to create other items, |
| Z | 521 | distinct from standard crafting. Alloying always uses inputs of exactly |
| 522 | two distinct types, and produces a single output. Like cooking, which | |
| 523 | takes a single input, it is performed using a powered machine, known | |
| 524 | generically as an "alloy furnace". An alloy furnace always has two | |
| 525 | input slots, and it doesn't matter which way round the two ingredients | |
| 526 | are placed in the slots. Many alloying recipes require one or both | |
| 527 | slots to contain a stack of more than one of the ingredient item: the | |
| 528 | quantity required of each ingredient is part of the recipe. | |
| 5692c2 | 529 | |
| df7bf8 | 530 | As with the furnaces used for cooking, there are multiple kinds of alloy |
| Z | 531 | furnace, powered in different ways. The most-used alloy furnaces are |
| 532 | electrically powered. There is also an alloy furnace that is powered | |
| 533 | by directly burning fuel, just like the basic cooking furnace. Building | |
| 534 | almost any electrical machine, including the electrically-powered alloy | |
| 535 | furnaces, requires a machine casing component, one ingredient of which | |
| 536 | is brass, an alloy. It is therefore necessary to use the fuel-fired | |
| 537 | alloy furnace in the early part of the game, on the way to building | |
| 538 | electrical machinery. | |
| 5692c2 | 539 | |
| df7bf8 | 540 | Alloying recipes are mainly concerned with metals. These recipes |
| Z | 541 | combine a base metal with some other element, most often another metal, |
| 542 | to produce a new metal. This is discussed in the section on metal. | |
| 543 | There are also a few alloying recipes in which the base ingredient is | |
| 544 | non-metallic, such as the recipe for the silicon wafer. | |
| 545 | ||
| 546 | ### grinding, extracting, and compressing ### | |
| 547 | ||
| 548 | Grinding, extracting, and compressing are three distinct, but very | |
| 549 | similar, ways of converting one item into another. They are all quite | |
| 550 | similar to the cooking found in the basic Minetest game. Each uses | |
| 551 | an input consisting of a single item type, and produces a single | |
| 552 | output. They are all performed using powered machines, respectively | |
| 553 | known generically as a "grinder", "extractor", and "compressor". | |
| 554 | Some compressing recipes require the input to be a stack of more than | |
| 555 | one of the input item: the quantity required is part of the recipe. | |
| 556 | Grinding and extracting recipes never require such a stacked input. | |
| 557 | ||
| 558 | There are multiple kinds of grinder, extractor, and compressor. Unlike | |
| 559 | cooking furnaces and alloy furnaces, there are none that directly burn | |
| 560 | fuel; they are all electrically powered. | |
| 561 | ||
| 562 | Grinding recipes always produce some kind of dust, loosely speaking, | |
| 563 | as output. The most important grinding recipes are concerned with metals: | |
| 564 | every metal lump or ingot can be ground into metal dust. Coal can also | |
| 565 | be ground into dust, and burning the dust as fuel produces much more | |
| 566 | energy than burning the original coal lump. There are a few other | |
| 567 | grinding recipes that make block types from the basic Minetest game | |
| 568 | more interconvertible: standard stone can be ground to standard sand, | |
| 569 | desert stone to desert sand, cobblestone to gravel, and gravel to dirt. | |
| 570 | ||
| 571 | Extracting is a miscellaneous category, used for a small group | |
| 572 | of processes that just don't fit nicely anywhere else. (Its name is | |
| 573 | notably vaguer than those of the other kinds of processing.) It is used | |
| 574 | for recipes that produce dye, mainly from flowers. (However, for those | |
| 575 | recipes using flowers, the basic Minetest game provides parallel crafting | |
| 576 | recipes that are easier to use and produce more dye, and those recipes | |
| 577 | are not suppressed by technic.) Its main use is to generate rubber from | |
| 578 | raw latex, which it does three times as efficiently as merely cooking | |
| 579 | the latex. Extracting was also formerly used for uranium enrichment for | |
| 580 | use as nuclear fuel, but this use has been superseded by a new enrichment | |
| 581 | system using the centrifuge. | |
| 582 | ||
| 583 | Compressing recipes are mainly used to produce a few relatively advanced | |
| 584 | artificial item types, such as the copper and carbon plates used in | |
| 585 | advanced machine recipes. There are also a couple of compressing recipes | |
| 586 | making natural block types more interconvertible. | |
| 587 | ||
| 588 | ### centrifuging ### | |
| 589 | ||
| 590 | Centrifuging is another way of using a machine to convert items. | |
| 591 | Centrifuging takes an input of a single item type, and produces outputs | |
| 592 | of two distinct types. The input may be required to be a stack of | |
| 593 | more than one of the input item: the quantity required is part of | |
| 594 | the recipe. Centrifuging is only performed by a single machine type, | |
| 595 | the MV (electrically-powered) centrifuge. | |
| 596 | ||
| 597 | Currently, centrifuging recipes don't appear in the unified\_inventory | |
| 598 | craft guide, because unified\_inventory can't yet handle recipes with | |
| 599 | multiple outputs. | |
| 600 | ||
| 601 | Generally, centrifuging separates the input item into constituent | |
| 602 | substances, but it can only work when the input is reasonably fluid, | |
| 603 | and in marginal cases it is quite destructive to item structure. | |
| 604 | (In real life, centrifuges require their input to be mainly fluid, that | |
| 605 | is either liquid or gas. Few items in the game are described as liquid | |
| 606 | or gas, so the concept of the centrifuge is stretched a bit to apply to | |
| 607 | finely-divided solids.) | |
| 608 | ||
| 609 | The main use of centrifuging is in uranium enrichment, where it | |
| 610 | separates the isotopes of uranium dust that otherwise appears uniform. | |
| 611 | Enrichment is a necessary process before uranium can be used as nuclear | |
| 612 | fuel, and the radioactivity of uranium blocks is also affected by its | |
| 613 | isotopic composition. | |
| 614 | ||
| 615 | A secondary use of centrifuging is to separate the components of | |
| 616 | metal alloys. This can only be done using the dust form of the alloy. | |
| 617 | It recovers both components of binary metal/metal alloys. It can't | |
| 618 | recover the carbon from steel or cast iron. | |
| 5692c2 | 619 | |
| 7112e7 | 620 | chests |
| Z | 621 | ------ |
| 622 | ||
| 623 | The technic mod replaces the basic Minetest game's single type of | |
| 624 | chest with a range of chests that have different sizes and features. | |
| 625 | The chest types are identified by the materials from which they are made; | |
| 626 | the better chests are made from more exotic materials. The chest types | |
| 627 | form a linear sequence, each being (with one exception noted below) | |
| 628 | strictly more powerful than the preceding one. The sequence begins with | |
| 629 | the wooden chest from the basic game, and each later chest type is built | |
| 630 | by upgrading a chest of the preceding type. The chest types are: | |
| 631 | ||
| 632 | 1. wooden chest: 8×4 (32) slots | |
| 633 | 2. iron chest: 9×5 (45) slots | |
| 634 | 3. copper chest: 12×5 (60) slots | |
| 635 | 4. silver chest: 12×6 (72) slots | |
| 636 | 5. gold chest: 15×6 (90) slots | |
| 637 | 6. mithril chest: 15×6 (90) slots | |
| 638 | ||
| 639 | The iron and later chests have the ability to sort their contents, | |
| 640 | when commanded by a button in their interaction forms. Item types are | |
| 641 | sorted in the same order used in the unified\_inventory craft guide. | |
| 642 | The copper and later chests also have an auto-sorting facility that can | |
| 643 | be enabled from the interaction form. An auto-sorting chest automatically | |
| 644 | sorts its contents whenever a player closes the chest. The contents will | |
| 645 | then usually be in a sorted state when the chest is opened, but may not | |
| 646 | be if pneumatic tubes have operated on the chest while it was closed, | |
| 647 | or if two players have the chest open simultaneously. | |
| 648 | ||
| 649 | The silver and gold chests, but not the mithril chest, have a built-in | |
| 650 | sign-like capability. They can be given a textual label, which will | |
| 651 | be visible when hovering over the chest. The gold chest, but again not | |
| 652 | the mithril chest, can be further labelled with a colored patch that is | |
| 653 | visible from a moderate distance. | |
| 654 | ||
| 655 | The mithril chest is currently an exception to the upgrading system. | |
| 656 | It has only as many inventory slots as the preceding (gold) type, and has | |
| 657 | fewer of the features. It has no feature that other chests don't have: | |
| 658 | it is strictly weaker than the gold chest. It is planned that in the | |
| 659 | future it will acquire some unique features, but for now the only reason | |
| 660 | to use it is aesthetic. | |
| 661 | ||
| 662 | The size of the largest chests is dictated by the maximum size | |
| 663 | of interaction form that the game engine can successfully display. | |
| 664 | If in the future the engine becomes capable of handling larger forms, | |
| 665 | by scaling them to fit the screen, the sequence of chest sizes will | |
| 666 | likely be revised. | |
| 667 | ||
| 668 | As with the chest of the basic Minetest game, each chest type comes | |
| 669 | in both locked and unlocked flavors. All of the chests work with the | |
| 670 | pneumatic tubes of the pipeworks mod. | |
| 671 | ||
| aef07e | 672 | radioactivity |
| Z | 673 | ------------- |
| 674 | ||
| 675 | The technic mod adds radioactivity to the game, as a hazard that can | |
| 676 | harm player characters. Certain substances in the game are radioactive, | |
| 677 | and when placed as blocks in the game world will damage nearby players. | |
| 678 | Conversely, some substances attenuate radiation, and so can be used | |
| 679 | for shielding. The radioactivity system is based on reality, but is | |
| 680 | not an attempt at serious simulation: like the rest of the game, it has | |
| 681 | many simplifications and deliberate deviations from reality in the name | |
| 682 | of game balance. | |
| 683 | ||
| 684 | In real life radiological hazards can be roughly divided into three | |
| 685 | categories based on the time scale over which they act: prompt radiation | |
| 686 | damage (such as radiation burns) that takes effect immediately; radiation | |
| 687 | poisoning that becomes visible in hours and lasts weeks; and cumulative | |
| 688 | effects such as increased cancer risk that operate over decades. | |
| 689 | The game's version of radioactivity causes only prompt damage, not | |
| 690 | any delayed effects. Damage comes in the abstracted form of removing | |
| 691 | the player's hit points, and is immediately visible to the player. | |
| 692 | As with all other kinds of damage in the game, the player can restore | |
| 693 | the hit points by eating food items. High-nutrition foods, such as the | |
| 694 | pie baskets supplied by the bushes\_classic mod, are a useful tool in | |
| 695 | dealing with radiological hazards. | |
| 696 | ||
| 697 | Only a small range of items in the game are radioactive. From the technic | |
| 698 | mod, the only radioactive items are uranium ore, refined uranium blocks, | |
| 699 | nuclear reactor cores (when operating), and the materials released when | |
| 700 | a nuclear reactor melts down. Other mods can plug into the technic | |
| 701 | system to make their own block types radioactive. Radioactive items | |
| 702 | are harmless when held in inventories. They only cause radiation damage | |
| 703 | when placed as blocks in the game world. | |
| 704 | ||
| 705 | The rate at which damage is caused by a radioactive block depends on the | |
| 706 | distance between the source and the player. Distance matters because the | |
| 707 | damaging radiation is emitted equally in all directions by the source, | |
| 708 | so with distance it spreads out, so less of it will strike a target | |
| 709 | of any specific size. The amount of radiation absorbed by a target | |
| 710 | thus varies in proportion to the inverse square of the distance from | |
| 711 | the source. The game imitates this aspect of real-life radioactivity, | |
| 712 | but with some simplifications. While in real life the inverse square law | |
| 713 | is only really valid for sources and targets that are small relative to | |
| 714 | the distance between them, in the game it is applied even when the source | |
| 715 | and target are large and close together. Specifically, the distance is | |
| 716 | measured from the center of the radioactive block to the abdomen of the | |
| 717 | player character. For extremely close encounters, such as where the | |
| 718 | player swims in a radioactive liquid, there is an enforced lower limit | |
| 719 | on the effective distance. | |
| 720 | ||
| 721 | Different types of radioactive block emit different amounts of radiation. | |
| 722 | The least radioactive of the radioactive block types is uranium ore, | |
| 723 | which causes 0.25 HP/s damage to a player 1 m away. A block of refined | |
| 724 | but unenriched uranium, as an example, is nine times as radioactive, | |
| 725 | and so will cause 2.25 HP/s damage to a player 1 m away. By the inverse | |
| 726 | square law, the damage caused by that uranium block reduces by a factor | |
| 727 | of four at twice the distance, that is to 0.5625 HP/s at a distance of 2 | |
| 728 | m, or by a factor of nine at three times the distance, that is to 0.25 | |
| 729 | HP/s at a distance of 3 m. Other radioactive block types are far more | |
| 730 | radioactive than these: the most radioactive of all, the result of a | |
| 731 | nuclear reactor melting down, is 1024 times as radioactive as uranium ore. | |
| 732 | ||
| 733 | Uranium blocks are radioactive to varying degrees depending on their | |
| 734 | isotopic composition. An isotope being fissile, and thus good as | |
| 735 | reactor fuel, is essentially uncorrelated with it being radioactive. | |
| 736 | The fissile U-235 is about six times as radioactive than the non-fissile | |
| 737 | U-238 that makes up the bulk of natural uranium, so one might expect that | |
| 738 | enriching from 0.7% fissile to 3.5% fissile (or depleting to 0.0%) would | |
| 739 | only change the radioactivity of uranium by a few percent. But actually | |
| 740 | the radioactivity of enriched uranium is dominated by the non-fissile | |
| 741 | U-234, which makes up only about 50 parts per million of natural uranium | |
| 742 | but is about 19000 times more radioactive than U-238. The radioactivity | |
| 743 | of natural uranium comes just about half from U-238 and half from U-234, | |
| 744 | and the uranium gets enriched in U-234 along with the U-235. This makes | |
| 745 | 3.5%-fissile uranium about three times as radioactive as natural uranium, | |
| 746 | and 0.0%-fissile uranium about half as radioactive as natural uranium. | |
| 747 | ||
| 748 | Radiation is attenuated by the shielding effect of material along the | |
| 749 | path between the radioactive block and the player. In general, only | |
| 750 | blocks of homogeneous material contribute to the shielding effect: for | |
| 751 | example, a block of solid metal has a shielding effect, but a machine | |
| 752 | does not, even though the machine's ingredients include a metal case. | |
| 753 | The shielding effect of each block type is based on the real-life | |
| 754 | resistance of the material to ionising radiation, but for game balance | |
| 755 | the effectiveness of shielding is scaled down from real life, more so | |
| 756 | for stronger shield materials than for weaker ones. Also, whereas in | |
| 757 | real life materials have different shielding effects against different | |
| 758 | types of radiation, the game only has one type of damaging radiation, | |
| 759 | and so only one set of shielding values. | |
| 760 | ||
| 761 | Almost any solid or liquid homogeneous material has some shielding value. | |
| 762 | At the low end of the scale, 5 meters of wooden planks nearly halves | |
| 763 | radiation, though in that case the planks probably contribute more | |
| 764 | to safety by forcing the player to stay 5 m further away from the | |
| 765 | source than by actual attenuation. Dirt halves radiation in 2.4 m, | |
| 766 | and stone in 1.7 m. When a shield must be deliberately constructed, | |
| 767 | the preferred materials are metals, the denser the better. Iron and | |
| 768 | steel halve radiation in 1.1 m, copper in 1.0 m, and silver in 0.95 m. | |
| f420aa | 769 | Lead would halve in 0.69 m (its in-game shielding value is 80). Gold halves radiation |
| aef07e | 770 | in 0.53 m (factor of 3.7 per meter), but is a bit scarce to use for |
| Z | 771 | this purpose. Uranium halves radiation in 0.31 m (factor of 9.4 per |
| 772 | meter), but is itself radioactive. The very best shielding in the game | |
| 773 | is nyancat material (nyancats and their rainbow blocks), which halves | |
| f420aa | 774 | radiation in 0.22 m (factor of 24 per meter), but is extremely scarce. See [technic/technic/radiation.lua](https://github.com/minetest-technic/technic/blob/master/technic/radiation.lua) for the in-game shielding values, which are different from real-life values. |
| aef07e | 775 | |
| Z | 776 | If the theoretical radiation damage from a particular source is |
| 777 | sufficiently small, due to distance and shielding, then no damage at all | |
| 778 | will actually occur. This means that for any particular radiation source | |
| 779 | and shielding arrangement there is a safe distance to which a player can | |
| 780 | approach without harm. The safe distance is where the radiation damage | |
| 781 | would theoretically be 0.25 HP/s. This damage threshold is applied | |
| 782 | separately for each radiation source, so to be safe in a multi-source | |
| 783 | situation it is only necessary to be safe from each source individually. | |
| 784 | ||
| 785 | The best way to use uranium as shielding is in a two-layer structure, | |
| 786 | of uranium and some non-radioactive material. The uranium layer should | |
| 787 | be nearer to the primary radiation source and the non-radioactive layer | |
| 788 | nearer to the player. The uranium provides a great deal of shielding | |
| 789 | against the primary source, and the other material shields against | |
| 790 | the uranium layer. Due to the damage threshold mechanism, a meter of | |
| 791 | dirt is sufficient to shield fully against a layer of fully-depleted | |
| 792 | (0.0%-fissile) uranium. Obviously this is only worthwhile when the | |
| 793 | primary radiation source is more radioactive than a uranium block. | |
| 794 | ||
| 795 | When constructing permanent radiation shielding, it is necessary to | |
| 796 | pay attention to the geometry of the structure, and particularly to any | |
| 797 | holes that have to be made in the shielding, for example to accommodate | |
| 798 | power cables. Any hole that is aligned with the radiation source makes a | |
| 799 | "shine path" through which a player may be irradiated when also aligned. | |
| 800 | Shine paths can be avoided by using bent paths for cables, passing | |
| 801 | through unaligned holes in multiple shield layers. If the desired | |
| 802 | shielding effect depends on multiple layers, a hole in one layer still | |
| 803 | produces a partial shine path, along which the shielding is reduced, | |
| 804 | so the positioning of holes in each layer must still be considered. | |
| 805 | Tricky shine paths can also be addressed by just keeping players out of | |
| 806 | the dangerous area. | |
| 807 | ||
| 5692c2 | 808 | electrical power |
| Z | 809 | ---------------- |
| 810 | ||
| 811 | Most machines in technic are electrically powered. To operate them it is | |
| 812 | necessary to construct an electrical power network. The network links | |
| 813 | together power generators and power-consuming machines, connecting them | |
| 814 | using power cables. | |
| 815 | ||
| 816 | There are three tiers of electrical networking: low voltage (LV), | |
| 817 | medium voltage (MV), and high voltage (HV). Each network must operate | |
| 818 | at a single voltage, and most electrical items are specific to a single | |
| 819 | voltage. Generally, the machines of higher tiers are more powerful, | |
| 820 | but consume more energy and are more expensive to build, than machines | |
| 821 | of lower tiers. It is normal to build networks of all three tiers, | |
| 822 | in ascending order as one progresses through the game, but it is not | |
| 823 | strictly necessary to do this. Building HV equipment requires some parts | |
| 824 | that can only be manufactured using electrical machines, either LV or MV, | |
| 825 | so it is not possible to build an HV network first, but it is possible | |
| 826 | to skip either LV or MV on the way to HV. | |
| 827 | ||
| 828 | Each voltage has its own cable type, with distinctive insulation. Cable | |
| 829 | segments connect to each other and to compatible machines automatically. | |
| 830 | Incompatible electrical items don't connect. All non-cable electrical | |
| 831 | items must be connected via cable: they don't connect directly to each | |
| 832 | other. Most electrical items can connect to cables in any direction, | |
| 833 | but there are a couple of important exceptions noted below. | |
| 834 | ||
| 835 | To be useful, an electrical network must connect at least one power | |
| 836 | generator to at least one power-consuming machine. In addition to these | |
| 837 | items, the network must have a "switching station" in order to operate: | |
| 838 | no energy will flow without one. Unlike most electrical items, the | |
| 839 | switching station is not voltage-specific: the same item will manage | |
| 840 | a network of any tier. However, also unlike most electrical items, | |
| 841 | it is picky about the direction in which it is connected to the cable: | |
| d0001a | 842 | the cable must be directly below the switching station. |
| 5692c2 | 843 | |
| Z | 844 | Hovering over a network's switching station will show the aggregate energy |
| 845 | supply and demand, which is useful for troubleshooting. Electrical energy | |
| 846 | is measured in "EU", and power (energy flow) in EU per second (EU/s). | |
| 847 | Energy is shifted around a network instantaneously once per second. | |
| 848 | ||
| 849 | In a simple network with only generators and consumers, if total | |
| 850 | demand exceeds total supply then no energy will flow, the machines | |
| 851 | will do nothing, and the generators' output will be lost. To handle | |
| 852 | this situation, it is recommended to add a battery box to the network. | |
| 853 | A battery box will store generated energy, and when enough has been | |
| 854 | stored to run the consumers for one second it will deliver it to the | |
| 855 | consumers, letting them run part-time. It also stores spare energy | |
| 856 | when supply exceeds demand, to let consumers run full-time when their | |
| 857 | demand occasionally peaks above the supply. More battery boxes can | |
| 858 | be added to cope with larger periods of mismatched supply and demand, | |
| 859 | such as those resulting from using solar generators (which only produce | |
| 860 | energy in the daytime). | |
| 861 | ||
| 862 | When there are electrical networks of multiple tiers, it can be appealing | |
| 863 | to generate energy on one tier and transfer it to another. The most | |
| 864 | direct way to do this is with the "supply converter", which can be | |
| 865 | directly wired into two networks. It is another tier-independent item, | |
| 866 | and also particular about the direction of cable connections: it must | |
| 867 | have the cable of one network directly above, and the cable of another | |
| 868 | network directly below. The supply converter demands 10000 EU/s from | |
| 869 | the network above, and when this network gives it power it supplies 9000 | |
| 870 | EU/s to the network below. Thus it is only 90% efficient, unlike most of | |
| 871 | the electrical system which is 100% efficient in moving energy around. | |
| 872 | To transfer more than 10000 EU/s between networks, connect multiple | |
| 873 | supply converters in parallel. | |
| 874 | ||
| 04e911 | 875 | powered machines |
| Z | 876 | ---------------- |
| 877 | ||
| 878 | ### powered machine tiers ### | |
| 879 | ||
| 880 | Each powered machine takes its power in some specific form, being | |
| 881 | either fuel-fired (burning fuel directly) or electrically powered at | |
| 882 | some specific voltage. There is a general progression through the | |
| 883 | game from using fuel-fired machines to electrical machines, and to | |
| 884 | higher electrical voltages. The most important kinds of machine come | |
| 885 | in multiple variants that are powered in different ways, so the earlier | |
| 886 | ones can be superseded. However, some machines are only available for | |
| 887 | a specific power tier, so the tier can't be entirely superseded. | |
| 888 | ||
| 889 | ### powered machine upgrades ### | |
| 890 | ||
| 891 | Some machines have inventory slots that are used to upgrade them in | |
| 892 | some way. Generally, machines of MV and HV tiers have two upgrade slots, | |
| 893 | and machines of lower tiers (fuel-fired and LV) do not. Any item can | |
| 894 | be placed in an upgrade slot, but only specific items will have any | |
| 895 | upgrading effect. It is possible to have multiple upgrades of the same | |
| 896 | type, but this can't be achieved by stacking more than one upgrade item | |
| 897 | in one slot: it is necessary to put the same kind of item in more than one | |
| 898 | upgrade slot. The ability to upgrade machines is therefore very limited. | |
| 899 | Two kinds of upgrade are currently possible: an energy upgrade and a | |
| 900 | tube upgrade. | |
| 901 | ||
| 902 | An energy upgrade consists of a battery item, the same kind of battery | |
| 903 | that serves as a mobile energy store. The effect of an energy upgrade | |
| 904 | is to improve in some way the machine's use of electrical energy, most | |
| 905 | often by making it use less energy. The upgrade effect has no relation | |
| 906 | to energy stored in the battery: the battery's charge level is irrelevant | |
| 907 | and will not be affected. | |
| 908 | ||
| 909 | A tube upgrade consists of a control logic unit item. The effect of a | |
| 910 | tube upgrade is to make the machine able, or more able, to eject items | |
| 911 | it has finished with into pneumatic tubes. The machines that can take | |
| 912 | this kind of upgrade are in any case capable of accepting inputs from | |
| 913 | pneumatic tubes. These upgrades are essential in using powered machines | |
| 914 | as components in larger automated systems. | |
| 915 | ||
| 916 | ### tubes with powered machines ### | |
| 917 | ||
| 918 | Generally, powered machines of MV and HV tiers can work with pneumatic | |
| 919 | tubes, and those of lower tiers cannot. (As an exception, the fuel-fired | |
| 920 | furnace from the basic Minetest game can accept inputs through tubes, | |
| 921 | but can't output into tubes.) | |
| 922 | ||
| 923 | If a machine can accept inputs through tubes at all, then this | |
| 924 | is a capability of the basic machine, not requiring any upgrade. | |
| 925 | Most item-processing machines take only one kind of input, and in that | |
| 926 | case they will accept that input from any direction. This doesn't match | |
| 927 | how tubes visually connect to the machines: generally tubes will visually | |
| 928 | connect to any face except the front, but an item passing through a tube | |
| 929 | in front of the machine will actually be accepted into the machine. | |
| 930 | ||
| 931 | A minority of machines take more than one kind of input, and in that | |
| 932 | case the input slot into which an arriving item goes is determined by the | |
| 933 | direction from which it arrives. In this case the machine may be picky | |
| 934 | about the direction of arriving items, associating each input type with | |
| 935 | a single face of the machine and not accepting inputs at all through the | |
| 936 | remaining faces. Again, the visual connection of tubes doesn't match: | |
| 937 | generally tubes will still visually connect to any face except the front, | |
| 938 | thus connecting to faces that neither accept inputs nor emit outputs. | |
| 939 | ||
| 940 | Machines do not accept items from tubes into non-input inventory slots: | |
| 941 | the output slots or upgrade slots. Output slots are normally filled | |
| 942 | only by the processing operation of the machine, and upgrade slots must | |
| 943 | be filled manually. | |
| 944 | ||
| 945 | Powered machines generally do not eject outputs into tubes without | |
| 946 | an upgrade. One tube upgrade will make them eject outputs at a slow | |
| 947 | rate; a second tube upgrade will increase the rate. Whether the slower | |
| 948 | rate is adequate depends on how it compares to the rate at which the | |
| 949 | machine produces outputs, and on how the machine is being used as part | |
| 950 | of a larger construct. The machine always ejects its outputs through a | |
| 951 | particular face, usually a side. Due to a bug, the side through which | |
| 952 | outputs are ejected is not consistent: when the machine is rotated one | |
| 953 | way, the direction of ejection is rotated the other way. This will | |
| 954 | probably be fixed some day, but because a straightforward fix would | |
| 955 | break half the machines already in use, the fix may be tied to some | |
| 956 | larger change such as free selection of the direction of ejection. | |
| 957 | ||
| 958 | ### battery boxes ### | |
| 959 | ||
| 960 | The primary purpose of battery boxes is to temporarily store electrical | |
| 961 | energy to let an electrical network cope with mismatched supply and | |
| 962 | demand. They have a secondary purpose of charging and discharging | |
| 963 | powered tools. They are thus a mixture of electrical infrastructure, | |
| 42efc7 | 964 | powered machine, and generator. Battery boxes connect to cables only |
| VE | 965 | from the bottom. |
| 04e911 | 966 | |
| Z | 967 | MV and HV battery boxes have upgrade slots. Energy upgrades increase |
| 968 | the capacity of a battery box, each by 10% of the un-upgraded capacity. | |
| 969 | This increase is far in excess of the capacity of the battery that forms | |
| 970 | the upgrade. | |
| 971 | ||
| 972 | For charging and discharging of power tools, rather than having input and | |
| 973 | output slots, each battery box has a charging slot and a discharging slot. | |
| 974 | A fully charged/discharged item stays in its slot. The rates at which a | |
| 975 | battery box can charge and discharge increase with voltage, so it can | |
| 976 | be worth building a battery box of higher tier before one has other | |
| 977 | infrastructure of that tier, just to get access to faster charging. | |
| 978 | ||
| 979 | MV and HV battery boxes work with pneumatic tubes. An item can be input | |
| 42efc7 | 980 | to the charging slot through the sides or back of the battery box, or |
| VE | 981 | to the discharging slot through the top. With a tube upgrade, fully |
| 982 | charged/discharged tools (as appropriate for their slot) will be ejected | |
| 983 | through a side. | |
| 04e911 | 984 | |
| 8cec41 | 985 | ### processing machines ### |
| Z | 986 | |
| 987 | The furnace, alloy furnace, grinder, extractor, compressor, and centrifuge | |
| 988 | have much in common. Each implements some industrial process that | |
| 989 | transforms items into other items, and they manner in which they present | |
| 990 | these processes as powered machines is essentially identical. | |
| 991 | ||
| 992 | Most of the processing machines operate on inputs of only a single type | |
| 993 | at a time, and correspondingly have only a single input slot. The alloy | |
| 994 | furnace is an exception: it operates on inputs of two distinct types at | |
| 995 | once, and correspondingly has two input slots. It doesn't matter which | |
| 996 | way round the alloy furnace's inputs are placed in the two slots. | |
| 997 | ||
| 998 | The processing machines are mostly available in variants for multiple | |
| 999 | tiers. The furnace and alloy furnace are each available in fuel-fired, | |
| 1000 | LV, and MV forms. The grinder, extractor, and compressor are each | |
| 1001 | available in LV and MV forms. The centrifuge is the only single-tier | |
| 1002 | processing machine, being only available in MV form. The higher-tier | |
| 1003 | machines process items faster than the lower-tier ones, but also have | |
| 1004 | higher power consumption, usually taking more energy overall to perform | |
| 1005 | the same amount of processing. The MV machines have upgrade slots, | |
| 1006 | and energy upgrades reduce their energy consumption. | |
| 1007 | ||
| 1008 | The MV machines can work with pneumatic tubes. They accept inputs via | |
| 1009 | tubes from any direction. For most of the machines, having only a single | |
| 1010 | input slot, this is perfectly simple behavior. The alloy furnace is more | |
| 1011 | complex: it will put an arriving item in either input slot, preferring to | |
| 1012 | stack it with existing items of the same type. It doesn't matter which | |
| 1013 | slot each of the alloy furnace's inputs is in, so it doesn't matter that | |
| 1014 | there's no direct control ovar that, but there is a risk that supplying | |
| 1015 | a lot of one item type through tubes will result in both slots containing | |
| 1016 | the same type of item, leaving no room for the second input. | |
| 1017 | ||
| 1018 | The MV machines can be given a tube upgrade to make them automatically | |
| 1019 | eject output items into pneumatic tubes. The items are always ejected | |
| 1020 | through a side, though which side it is depends on the machine's | |
| 1021 | orientation, due to a bug. Output items are always ejected singly. | |
| 1022 | For some machines, such as the grinder, the ejection rate with a | |
| 1023 | single tube upgrade doesn't keep up with the rate at which items can | |
| 1024 | be processed. A second tube upgrade increases the ejection rate. | |
| 1025 | ||
| 1026 | The LV and fuel-fired machines do not work with pneumatic tubes, except | |
| 1027 | that the fuel-fired furnace (actually part of the basic Minetest game) | |
| 1028 | can accept inputs from tubes. Items arriving through the bottom of | |
| 1029 | the furnace go into the fuel slot, and items arriving from all other | |
| 1030 | directions go into the input slot. | |
| 1031 | ||
| 706e88 | 1032 | ### music player ### |
| Z | 1033 | |
| 1034 | The music player is an LV powered machine that plays audio recordings. | |
| 1035 | It offers a selection of up to nine tracks. The technic modpack doesn't | |
| 1036 | include specific music tracks for this purpose; they have to be installed | |
| 1037 | separately. | |
| 1038 | ||
| 1039 | The music player gives the impression that the music is being played in | |
| 1040 | the Minetest world. The music only plays as long as the music player | |
| 1041 | is in place and is receiving electrical power, and the choice of music | |
| 1042 | is controlled by interaction with the machine. The sound also appears | |
| 1043 | to emanate specifically from the music player: the ability to hear it | |
| 1044 | depends on the player's distance from the music player. However, the | |
| 1045 | game engine doesn't currently support any other positional cues for | |
| 1046 | sound, such as attenuation, panning, or HRTF. The impression of the | |
| 1047 | sound being located in the Minetest world is also compromised by the | |
| 1048 | subjective nature of track choice: the specific music that is played to | |
| 1049 | a player depends on what media the player has installed. | |
| 1050 | ||
| 1051 | ### CNC machine ### | |
| 1052 | ||
| 1053 | The CNC machine is an LV powered machine that cuts building blocks into a | |
| 1054 | variety of sub-block shapes that are not covered by the crafting recipes | |
| 1055 | of the stairs mod and its variants. Most of the target shapes are not | |
| 1056 | rectilinear, involving diagonal or curved surfaces. | |
| 1057 | ||
| 1058 | Only certain kinds of building material can be processed in the CNC | |
| 1059 | machine. | |
| 1060 | ||
| 1061 | ### tool workshop ### | |
| 1062 | ||
| 1063 | The tool workshop is an MV powered machine that repairs mechanically-worn | |
| 1064 | tools, such as pickaxes and the other ordinary digging tools. It has | |
| 1065 | a single slot for a tool to be repaired, and gradually repairs the | |
| 1066 | tool while it is powered. For any single tool, equal amounts of tool | |
| 1067 | wear, resulting from equal amounts of tool use, take equal amounts of | |
| 1068 | repair effort. Also, all repairable tools currently take equal effort | |
| 1069 | to repair equal percentages of wear. The amount of tool use enabled by | |
| 1070 | equal amounts of repair therefore depends on the tool type. | |
| 1071 | ||
| 1072 | The mechanical wear that the tool workshop repairs is always indicated in | |
| 1073 | inventory displays by a colored bar overlaid on the tool image. The bar | |
| 1074 | can be seen to fill and change color as the tool workshop operates, | |
| 1075 | eventually disappearing when the repair is complete. However, not every | |
| 1076 | item that shows such a wear bar is using it to show mechanical wear. | |
| 1077 | A wear bar can also be used to indicate charging of a power tool with | |
| 1078 | stored electrical energy, or filling of a container, or potentially for | |
| 1079 | all sorts of other uses. The tool workshop won't affect items that use | |
| 1080 | wear bars to indicate anything other than mechanical wear. | |
| 1081 | ||
| 1082 | The tool workshop has upgrade slots. Energy upgrades reduce its power | |
| 1083 | consumption. | |
| 1084 | ||
| 1085 | It can work with pneumatic tubes. Tools to be repaired are accepted | |
| 1086 | via tubes from any direction. With a tube upgrade, the tool workshop | |
| 1087 | will also eject fully-repaired tools via one side, the choice of side | |
| 1088 | depending on the machine's orientation, as for processing machines. It is | |
| 1089 | safe to put into the tool workshop a tool that is already fully repaired: | |
| 1090 | assuming the presence of a tube upgrade, the tool will be quickly ejected. | |
| 1091 | Furthermore, any item of unrepairable type will also be ejected as if | |
| 1092 | fully repaired. (Due to a historical limitation of the basic Minetest | |
| 1093 | game, it is impossible for the tool workshop to distinguish between a | |
| 1094 | fully-repaired tool and any item type that never displays a wear bar.) | |
| 1095 | ||
| 1096 | ### quarry ### | |
| 1097 | ||
| 1098 | The quarry is an HV powered machine that automatically digs out a | |
| 1099 | large area. The region that it digs out is a cuboid with a square | |
| 1100 | horizontal cross section, located immediately behind the quarry machine. | |
| 1101 | The quarry's action is slow and energy-intensive, but requires little | |
| 1102 | player effort. | |
| 1103 | ||
| 1104 | The size of the quarry's horizontal cross section is configurable through | |
| 1105 | the machine's interaction form. A setting referred to as "radius" | |
| 1106 | is an integer number of meters which can vary from 2 to 8 inclusive. | |
| 1107 | The horizontal cross section is a square with side length of twice the | |
| 1108 | radius plus one meter, thus varying from 5 to 17 inclusive. Vertically, | |
| 1109 | the quarry always digs from 3 m above the machine to 100 m below it, | |
| 1110 | inclusive, a total vertical height of 104 m. | |
| 1111 | ||
| 1112 | Whatever the quarry digs up is ejected through the top of the machine, | |
| 1113 | as if from a pneumatic tube. Normally a tube should be placed there | |
| 1114 | to convey the material into a sorting system, processing machines, or | |
| 1115 | at least chests. A chest may be placed directly above the machine to | |
| 1116 | capture the output without sorting, but is liable to overflow. | |
| 1117 | ||
| 1118 | If the quarry encounters something that cannot be dug, such as a liquid, | |
| 1119 | a locked chest, or a protected area, it will skip past that and attempt | |
| 1120 | to continue digging. However, anything remaining in the quarry area | |
| 1121 | after the machine has attempted to dig there will prevent the machine | |
| 1122 | from digging anything directly below it, all the way to the bottom | |
| 1123 | of the quarry. An undiggable block therefore casts a shadow of undug | |
| 1124 | blocks below it. If liquid is encountered, it is quite likely to flow | |
| 1125 | across the entire cross section of the quarry, preventing all digging. | |
| 1126 | The depth at which the quarry is currently attempting to dig is reported | |
| 1127 | in its interaction form, and can be manually reset to the top of the | |
| 1128 | quarry, which is useful to do if an undiggable obstruction has been | |
| 1129 | manually removed. | |
| 1130 | ||
| 1131 | The quarry consumes 10 kEU per block dug, which is quite a lot of energy. | |
| 1132 | With most of what is dug being mere stone, it is usually not economically | |
| 1133 | favorable to power a quarry from anything other than solar power. | |
| 1134 | In particular, one cannot expect to power a quarry by burning the coal | |
| 1135 | that it digs up. | |
| 1136 | ||
| 1137 | Given sufficient power, the quarry digs at a rate of one block per second. | |
| 1138 | This is rather tedious to wait for. Unfortunately, leaving the quarry | |
| 1139 | unattended normally means that the Minetest server won't keep the machine | |
| 1140 | running: it needs a player nearby. This can be resolved by using a world | |
| 1141 | anchor. The digging is still quite slow, and independently of whether a | |
| 1142 | world anchor is used the digging can be speeded up by placing multiple | |
| 1143 | quarry machines with overlapping digging areas. Four can be placed to | |
| 1144 | dig identical areas, one on each side of the square cross section. | |
| 1145 | ||
| 1146 | ### forcefield emitter ### | |
| 1147 | ||
| 1148 | The forcefield emitter is an HV powered machine that generates a | |
| 1149 | forcefield remeniscent of those seen in many science-fiction stories. | |
| 1150 | ||
| 1151 | The emitter can be configured to generate a forcefield of either | |
| 1152 | spherical or cubical shape, in either case centered on the emitter. | |
| 1153 | The size of the forcefield is configured using a radius parameter that | |
| 1154 | is an integer number of meters which can vary from 5 to 20 inclusive. | |
| 1155 | For a spherical forcefield this is simply the radius of the forcefield; | |
| 1156 | for a cubical forcefield it is the distance from the emitter to the | |
| 1157 | center of each square face. | |
| 1158 | ||
| 1159 | The power drawn by the emitter is proportional to the surface area of | |
| 1160 | the forcefield being generated. A spherical forcefield is therefore the | |
| 1161 | cheapest way to enclose a specified volume of space with a forcefield, | |
| 1162 | if the shape of the space doesn't matter. A cubical forcefield is less | |
| 1163 | efficient at enclosing volume, but is cheaper than the larger spherical | |
| 1164 | forcefield that would be required if it is necessary to enclose a | |
| 1165 | cubical space. | |
| 1166 | ||
| 1167 | The emitter is normally controlled merely through its interaction form, | |
| 1168 | which has an enable/disable toggle. However, it can also (via the form) | |
| 1169 | be placed in a mesecon-controlled mode. If mesecon control is enabled, | |
| 1170 | the emitter must be receiving a mesecon signal in addition to being | |
| 1171 | manually enabled, in order for it to generate the forcefield. | |
| 1172 | ||
| 1173 | The forcefield itself behaves largely as if solid, despite being | |
| 45919b | 1174 | immaterial: it cannot be traversed, and prevents access to blocks behind |
| Z | 1175 | it. It is transparent, but not totally invisible. It cannot be dug. |
| 1176 | Some effects can pass through it, however, such as the beam of a mining | |
| 1177 | laser, and explosions. In fact, explosions as currently implemented by | |
| 1178 | the tnt mod actually temporarily destroy the forcefield itself; the tnt | |
| 1179 | mod assumes too much about the regularity of node types. | |
| 706e88 | 1180 | |
| Z | 1181 | The forcefield occupies space that would otherwise have been air, but does |
| 1182 | not replace or otherwise interfere with materials that are solid, liquid, | |
| 1183 | or otherwise not just air. If such an object blocking the forcefield is | |
| 1184 | removed, the forcefield will quickly extend into the now-available space, | |
| 1185 | but it does not do so instantly: there is a brief moment when the space | |
| 1186 | is air and can be traversed. | |
| 1187 | ||
| 1188 | It is possible to have a doorway in a forcefield, by placing in advance, | |
| 1189 | in space that the forcefield would otherwise occupy, some non-air blocks | |
| 1190 | that can be walked through. For example, a door suffices, and can be | |
| 1191 | opened and closed while the forcefield is in place. | |
| 1192 | ||
| 1d46d7 | 1193 | power generators |
| Z | 1194 | ---------------- |
| 1195 | ||
| 1196 | ### fuel-fired generators ### | |
| 1197 | ||
| 23423a | 1198 | The fiel-fired generators are electrical power generators that generate |
| Z | 1199 | power by the combustion of fuel. Versions of them are available for |
| 1200 | all three voltages (LV, MV, and HV). These are all capable of burning | |
| 1201 | any type of combustible fuel, such as coal. They are relatively easy | |
| 1202 | to build, and so tend to be the first kind of generator used to power | |
| 1203 | electrical machines. In this role they form an intermediate step between | |
| 1204 | the directly fuel-fired machines and a more mature electrical network | |
| 1d46d7 | 1205 | powered by means other than fuel combustion. They are also, by virtue of |
| Z | 1206 | simplicity and controllability, a useful fallback or peak load generator |
| 1207 | for electrical networks that normally use more sophisticated generators. | |
| 1208 | ||
| 1209 | The MV and HV fuel-fired generators can accept fuel via pneumatic tube, | |
| 1210 | from any direction. | |
| 1211 | ||
| 1212 | Keeping a fuel-fired generator fully fuelled is usually wasteful, because | |
| 1213 | it will burn fuel as long as it has any, even if there is no demand for | |
| 1214 | the electrical power that it generates. This is unlike the directly | |
| 1215 | fuel-fired machines, which only burn fuel when they have work to do. | |
| 1216 | To satisfy intermittent demand without waste, a fuel-fired generator must | |
| 1217 | only be given fuel when there is either demand for the energy or at least | |
| 1218 | sufficient battery capacity on the network to soak up the excess energy. | |
| 1219 | ||
| 1220 | The higher-tier fuel-fired generators get much more energy out of a | |
| 1221 | fuel item than the lower-tier ones. The difference is much more than | |
| 1222 | is needed to overcome the inefficiency of supply converters, so it is | |
| 1223 | worth operating fuel-fired generators at a higher tier than the machines | |
| 1224 | being powered. | |
| 23423a | 1225 | |
| Z | 1226 | ### solar generators ### |
| 1227 | ||
| 1228 | The solar generators are electrical power generators that generate power | |
| 1229 | from sunlight. Versions of them are available for all three voltages | |
| 1230 | (LV, MV, and HV). There are four types in total, two LV and one each | |
| 1231 | of MV and HV, forming a sequence of four tiers. The higher-tier ones | |
| 1232 | are each built mainly from three solar generators of the next tier down, | |
| 1233 | and their outputs scale in rough accordance, tripling at each tier. | |
| 1234 | ||
| 1235 | To operate, an arrayed solar generator must be at elevation +1 or above | |
| 1236 | and have a transparent block (typically air) immediately above it. | |
| 1237 | It will generate power only when the block above is well lit during | |
| 1238 | daylight hours. It will generate more power at higher elevation, | |
| 1239 | reaching maximum output at elevation +36 or higher when sunlit. The small | |
| 1240 | solar generator has similar rules with slightly different thresholds. | |
| 1241 | These rules are an attempt to ensure that the generator will only operate | |
| 1242 | from sunlight, but it is actually possible to fool them to some extent | |
| 1243 | with light sources such as meselamps. | |
| 1d46d7 | 1244 | |
| Z | 1245 | ### hydro generator ### |
| 1246 | ||
| adc638 | 1247 | The hydro generator is an LV power generator that generates a respectable |
| VE | 1248 | amount of power from the natural motion of water. To operate, the |
| 1249 | generator must be horizontally adjacent to flowing water. The power | |
| 1250 | produced is dependent on how much flow there is across any or all four | |
| 1251 | sides, the most flow of course coming from water that's flowing straight | |
| 1252 | down. | |
| 1d46d7 | 1253 | |
| Z | 1254 | ### geothermal generator ### |
| 1255 | ||
| 1256 | The geothermal generator is an LV power generator that generates a small | |
| 1257 | amount of power from the temperature difference between lava and water. | |
| 1258 | To operate, the generator must be horizontally adjacent to both lava | |
| 1259 | and water. It doesn't matter whether the liquids consist of source | |
| 1260 | blocks or flowing blocks. | |
| 1261 | ||
| 1262 | Beware that if lava and water blocks are adjacent to each other then the | |
| 1263 | lava will be solidified into stone or obsidian. If the lava adjacent to | |
| 1264 | the generator is thus destroyed, the generator will stop producing power. | |
| 1265 | Currently, in the default Minetest game, lava is destroyed even if | |
| 1266 | it is only diagonally adjacent to water. Under these circumstances, | |
| 1267 | the only way to operate the geothermal generator is with it adjacent | |
| 1268 | to one lava block and one water block, which are on opposite sides of | |
| 1269 | the generator. If diagonal adjacency doesn't destroy lava, such as with | |
| 1270 | the gloopblocks mod, then it is possible to have more than one lava or | |
| 1271 | water block adjacent to the geothermal generator. This increases the | |
| 1272 | generator's output, with the maximum output achieved with two adjacent | |
| 1273 | blocks of each liquid. | |
| 23423a | 1274 | |
| Z | 1275 | ### wind generator ### |
| 1276 | ||
| 1277 | The wind generator is an MV power generator that generates a moderate | |
| 1278 | amount of energy from wind. To operate, the generator must be placed | |
| 1279 | atop a column of at least 20 wind mill frame blocks, and must be at | |
| 1280 | an elevation of +30 or higher. It generates more at higher elevation, | |
| 1281 | reaching maximum output at elevation +50 or higher. Its surroundings | |
| 1282 | don't otherwise matter; it doesn't actually need to be in open air. | |
| 1d46d7 | 1283 | |
| fd527c | 1284 | ### nuclear generator ### |
| Z | 1285 | |
| 1286 | The nuclear generator (nuclear reactor) is an HV power generator that | |
| 1287 | generates a large amount of energy from the controlled fission of | |
| 1288 | uranium-235. It must be fuelled, with uranium fuel rods, but consumes | |
| 1289 | the fuel quite slowly in relation to the rate at which it is likely to | |
| 1290 | be mined. The operation of a nuclear reactor poses radiological hazards | |
| 1291 | to which some thought must be given. Economically, the use of nuclear | |
| 1292 | power requires a high capital investment, and a secure infrastructure, | |
| 1293 | but rewards the investment well. | |
| 1294 | ||
| 1295 | Nuclear fuel is made from uranium. Natural uranium doesn't have a | |
| 1296 | sufficiently high proportion of U-235, so it must first be enriched | |
| 1297 | via centrifuge. Producing one unit of 3.5%-fissile uranium requires | |
| 1298 | the input of five units of 0.7%-fissile (natural) uranium, and produces | |
| 1299 | four units of 0.0%-fissile (fully depleted) uranium as a byproduct. | |
| 1300 | It takes five ingots of 3.5%-fissile uranium to make each fuel rod, and | |
| 1301 | six rods to fuel a reactor. It thus takes the input of the equivalent | |
| 1302 | of 150 ingots of natural uranium, which can be obtained from the mining | |
| 1303 | of 75 blocks of uranium ore, to make a full set of reactor fuel. | |
| 1304 | ||
| 1305 | The nuclear reactor is a large multi-block structure. Only one block in | |
| 1306 | the structure, the reactor core, is of a type that is truly specific to | |
| 1307 | the reactor; the rest of the structure consists of blocks that have mainly | |
| 1308 | non-nuclear uses. The reactor core is where all the generator-specific | |
| 1309 | action happens: it is where the fuel rods are inserted, and where the | |
| 1310 | power cable must connect to draw off the generated power. | |
| 1311 | ||
| 1312 | The reactor structure consists of concentric layers, each a cubical | |
| 1313 | shell, around the core. Immediately around the core is a layer of water, | |
| 1314 | representing the reactor coolant; water blocks may be either source blocks | |
| 1315 | or flowing blocks. Around that is a layer of stainless steel blocks, | |
| 1316 | representing the reactor pressure vessel, and around that a layer of | |
| 1317 | blast-resistant concrete blocks, representing a containment structure. | |
| 1318 | It is customary, though no longer mandatory, to surround this with a | |
| 1319 | layer of ordinary concrete blocks. The mandatory reactor structure | |
| 1320 | makes a 7×7×7 cube, and the full customary structure a | |
| 1321 | 9×9×9 cube. | |
| 1322 | ||
| 1323 | The layers surrounding the core don't have to be absolutely complete. | |
| 1324 | Indeed, if they were complete, it would be impossible to cable the core to | |
| 1325 | a power network. The cable makes it necessary to have at least one block | |
| 1326 | missing from each surrounding layer. The water layer is only permitted | |
| 1327 | to have one water block missing of the 26 possible. The steel layer may | |
| 1328 | have up to two blocks missing of the 98 possible, and the blast-resistant | |
| 1329 | concrete layer may have up to two blocks missing of the 218 possible. | |
| 1330 | Thus it is possible to have not only a cable duct, but also a separate | |
| 1331 | inspection hole through the solid layers. The separate inspection hole | |
| 1332 | is of limited use: the cable duct can serve double duty. | |
| 1333 | ||
| 1334 | Once running, the reactor core is significantly radioactive. The layers | |
| 1335 | of reactor structure provide quite a lot of shielding, but not enough | |
| 1336 | to make the reactor safe to be around, in two respects. Firstly, the | |
| 1337 | shortest possible path from the core to a player outside the reactor | |
| 1338 | is sufficiently short, and has sufficiently little shielding material, | |
| 1339 | that it will damage the player. This only affects a player who is | |
| 1340 | extremely close to the reactor, and close to a face rather than a vertex. | |
| 1341 | The customary additional layer of ordinary concrete around the reactor | |
| 1342 | adds sufficient distance and shielding to negate this risk, but it can | |
| 1343 | also be addressed by just keeping extra distance (a little over two | |
| 1344 | meters of air). | |
| 1345 | ||
| 1346 | The second radiological hazard of a running reactor arises from shine | |
| 1347 | paths; that is, specific paths from the core that lack sufficient | |
| 1348 | shielding. The necessary cable duct, if straight, forms a perfect | |
| 1349 | shine path, because the cable itself has no radiation shielding effect. | |
| 1350 | Any secondary inspection hole also makes a shine path, along which the | |
| 1351 | only shielding material is the water of the reactor coolant. The shine | |
| 1352 | path aspect of the cable duct can be ameliorated by adding a kink in the | |
| 1353 | cable, but this still yields paths with reduced shielding. Ultimately, | |
| 1354 | shine paths must be managed either with specific shielding outside the | |
| 1355 | mandatory structure, or with additional no-go areas. | |
| 1356 | ||
| 1357 | The radioactivity of an operating reactor core makes starting up a reactor | |
| 1358 | hazardous, and can come as a surprise because the non-operating core | |
| 1359 | isn't radioactive at all. The radioactive damage is survivable, but it is | |
| 1360 | normally preferable to avoid it by some care around the startup sequence. | |
| 1361 | To start up, the reactor must have a full set of fuel inserted, have all | |
| 1362 | the mandatory structure around it, and be cabled to a switching station. | |
| 1363 | Only the fuel insertion requires direct access to the core, so irradiation | |
| 1364 | of the player can be avoided by making one of the other two criteria be | |
| 1365 | the last one satisfied. Completing the cabling to a switching station | |
| 1366 | is the easiest to do from a safe distance. | |
| 1367 | ||
| 1368 | Once running, the reactor will generate 100 kEU/s for a week (168 hours, | |
| 1369 | 604800 seconds), a total of 6.048 GEU from one set of fuel. After the | |
| 1370 | week is up, it will stop generating and no longer be radioactive. It can | |
| 1371 | then be refuelled to run for another week. It is not really intended | |
| 1372 | to be possible to pause a running reactor, but actually disconnecting | |
| 1373 | it from a switching station will have the effect of pausing the week. | |
| 1374 | This will probably change in the future. A paused reactor is still | |
| 1375 | radioactive, just not generating electrical power. | |
| 1376 | ||
| 1377 | A running reactor can't be safely dismantled, and not only because | |
| 1378 | dismantling the reactor implies removing the shielding that makes | |
| 1379 | it safe to be close to the core. The mandatory parts of the reactor | |
| 1380 | structure are not just mandatory in order to start the reactor; they're | |
| 1381 | mandatory in order to keep it intact. If the structure around the core | |
| 1382 | gets damaged, and remains damaged, the core will eventually melt down. | |
| 1383 | How long there is before meltdown depends on the extent of the damage; | |
| 1384 | if only one mandatory block is missing, meltdown will follow in 100 | |
| 1385 | seconds. While the structure of a running reactor is in a damaged state, | |
| 1386 | heading towards meltdown, a siren built into the reactor core will sound. | |
| 1387 | If the structure is rectified, the siren will signal all-clear. If the | |
| 1388 | siren stops sounding without signalling all-clear, then it was stopped | |
| 1389 | by meltdown. | |
| 1390 | ||
| 1391 | If meltdown is imminent because of damaged reactor structure, digging the | |
| 1392 | reactor core is not a way to avert it. Digging the core of a running | |
| 1393 | reactor causes instant meltdown. The only way to dismantle a reactor | |
| 1394 | without causing meltdown is to start by waiting for it to finish the | |
| 1395 | week-long burning of its current set of fuel. Once a reactor is no longer | |
| 1396 | operating, it can be dismantled by ordinary means, with no special risks. | |
| 1397 | ||
| 1398 | Meltdown, if it occurs, destroys the reactor and poses a major | |
| 1399 | environmental hazard. The reactor core melts, becoming a hot, highly | |
| 1400 | radioactive liquid known as "corium". A single meltdown yields a single | |
| 1401 | corium source block, where the core used to be. Corium flows, and the | |
| 1402 | flowing corium is very destructive to whatever it comes into contact with. | |
| 1403 | Flowing corium also randomly solidifies into a radioactive solid called | |
| 1404 | "Chernobylite". The random solidification and random destruction of | |
| 1405 | solid blocks means that the flow of corium is constantly changing. | |
| 1406 | This combined with the severe radioactivity makes corium much more | |
| 1407 | challenging to deal with than lava. If a meltdown is left to its own | |
| 1408 | devices, it gets worse over time, as the corium works its way through | |
| 1409 | the reactor structure and starts to flow over a variety of paths. | |
| 1410 | It is best to tackle a meltdown quickly; the priority is to extinguish | |
| 1411 | the corium source block, normally by dropping gravel into it. Only the | |
| 1412 | most motivated should attempt to pick up the corium in a bucket. | |
| 1413 | ||
| b001a6 | 1414 | administrative world anchor |
| Z | 1415 | --------------------------- |
| 1416 | ||
| 1417 | A world anchor is an object in the Minetest world that causes the server | |
| 1418 | to keep surrounding parts of the world running even when no players | |
| 1419 | are nearby. It is mainly used to allow machines to run unattended: | |
| 1420 | normally machines are suspended when not near a player. The technic | |
| 1421 | mod supplies a form of world anchor, as a placable block, but it is not | |
| 1422 | straightforwardly available to players. There is no recipe for it, so it | |
| 1423 | is only available if explicitly spawned into existence by someone with | |
| 1424 | administrative privileges. In a single-player world, the single player | |
| 1425 | normally has administrative privileges, and can obtain a world anchor | |
| 1426 | by entering the chat command "/give singleplayer technic:admin\_anchor". | |
| 1427 | ||
| 7c8572 | 1428 | The world anchor tries to force a cubical area, centered upon the anchor, |
| b001a6 | 1429 | to stay loaded. The distance from the anchor to the most distant map |
| Z | 1430 | nodes that it will keep loaded is referred to as the "radius", and can be |
| 1431 | set in the world anchor's interaction form. The radius can be set as low | |
| 1432 | as 0, meaning that the anchor only tries to keep itself loaded, or as high | |
| 1433 | as 255, meaning that it will operate on a 511×511×511 cube. | |
| 1434 | Larger radii are forbidden, to avoid typos causing the server excessive | |
| 1435 | work; to keep a larger area loaded, use multiple anchors. Also use | |
| 1436 | multiple anchors if the area to be kept loaded is not well approximated | |
| 1437 | by a cube. | |
| 1438 | ||
| 1439 | The world is always kept loaded in units of 16×16×16 cubes, | |
| 1440 | confusingly known as "map blocks". The anchor's configured radius takes | |
| 1441 | no account of map block boundaries, but the anchor's effect is actually to | |
| 1442 | keep loaded each map block that contains any part of the configured cube. | |
| 1443 | The anchor's interaction form includes a status note showing how many map | |
| 1444 | blocks this is, and how many of those it is successfully keeping loaded. | |
| 1445 | When the anchor is disabled, as it is upon placement, it will always | |
| 1446 | show that it is keeping no map blocks loaded; this does not indicate | |
| 1447 | any kind of failure. | |
| 1448 | ||
| 1449 | The world anchor can optionally be locked. When it is locked, only | |
| 1450 | the anchor's owner, the player who placed it, can reconfigure it or | |
| 1451 | remove it. Only the owner can lock it. Locking an anchor is useful | |
| 1452 | if the use of anchors is being tightly controlled by administrators: | |
| 1453 | an administrator can set up a locked anchor and be sure that it will | |
| 1454 | not be set by ordinary players to an unapproved configuration. | |
| 1455 | ||
| 1456 | The server limits the ability of world anchors to keep parts of the world | |
| 1457 | loaded, to avoid overloading the server. The total number of map blocks | |
| 1458 | that can be kept loaded in this way is set by the server configuration | |
| 1459 | item "max\_forceloaded\_blocks" (in minetest.conf), which defaults to | |
| 1460 | only 16. For comparison, each player normally keeps 125 map blocks loaded | |
| 1461 | (a radius of 32). If an enabled world anchor shows that it is failing to | |
| 1462 | keep all the map blocks loaded that it would like to, this can be fixed | |
| 1463 | by increasing max\_forceloaded\_blocks by the amount of the shortfall. | |
| 1464 | ||
| 1465 | The tight limit on force-loading is the reason why the world anchor is | |
| 1466 | not directly available to players. With the limit so low both by default | |
| 1467 | and in common practice, the only feasible way to determine where world | |
| 1468 | anchors should be used is for administrators to decide it directly. | |
| 1469 | ||
| 488070 | 1470 | subjects missing from this manual |
| Z | 1471 | --------------------------------- |
| 1472 | ||
| 1473 | This manual needs to be extended with sections on: | |
| 1474 | ||
| 1d46d7 | 1475 | * powered tools |
| df7bf8 | 1476 | * tool charging |
| Z | 1477 | * battery and energy crystals |
| 1478 | * chainsaw | |
| 1479 | * flashlight | |
| 1480 | * mining lasers | |
| 1481 | * mining drills | |
| 1482 | * prospector | |
| 1483 | * sonic screwdriver | |
| 1d46d7 | 1484 | * liquid cans |
| Z | 1485 | * wrench |
| 488070 | 1486 | * frames |
| Z | 1487 | * templates |
