Getting Started (NuclearCraft)

This is a community-written guide. It was written to help players to get accustomed to NuclearCraft.

Introduction
NuclearCraft is a tech mod that focuses on generating power using nuclear reactors. It is intended to be used in mod packs to provide power for your activities. Unlike Extreme Reactors, NuclearCraft takes a semi-realistic view, introducing radioactive isotopes, multi-step chemical processes for crafting and realistic nuclear fission and fusion byproducts. The consequences of mistakes are less cinematic than in other reactor mods.

About this Guide
This guide is not an exhaustive description of items, nor a tutorial on using each item. It is a helping hand to get you started with NuclearCraft. Throughout this guide you'll find links to various blocks and items. Be sure to explore these links for full details, descriptions and illustrations.

The foundation

 * 1) Start by stockpiling all the NuclearCraft ores that you find. You'll need a lot. You'll also need quite a lot of and, some , , and
 * 2) Your first step is to create a Decay Generator to power your early machinery. Decay Generators are very inefficient so you'll want to upgrade pretty quickly.
 * 3) Now craft your first NuclearCraft utility machine, the Manufactory. With it, you will create Coal Dust and Quartz Dust, and can double your ores. You'll need: 4 Iron Ingots, 4 Lead Ingots, 8 Copper Ingots, and a Piston. Use the Iron and Copper to make 4 Copper Solenoids then craft with the Piston and Lead Ingots to make a Manufactory.
 * 4) At this point, consider replacing your Decay Generators with Basic Solar Panels (5 RF/t during daylight) or Uranium RTGs (4 RF/t constantly)
 * 5) Now your power is a little more stable, make an Alloy Furnace. Once you have your Manufactory powered, make another one! Grind 4 pieces of Coal to make Graphite Dust. Combine with Lead to make Basic Plating pieces. 4 Basic Plating pieces and 4 Iron Ingots around a Manufactory make an Alloy Furnace. You'll be using this machine a lot, so you might want to make one or three extra. If you already have a good RF power generation setup, you might want to add some Speed Upgrades.
 * 6) The Isotope Separator is your next step and probably the most important part of the nuclear power process. It separates materials into their constituent Isotopes. You'll need: 10 Iron Ingots, 14 Coal, 6 Boron Ingots, 4 Lead Ingots, 4 Lithium Ingots 16 Redstone and an Alloy Furnace.
 * 7) Now make 12 piles of Coal Dust, and craft 4 of them with 4 Lead Ingots to make 4 Basic Plating. Smelt the remaining 10 graphite dust into ingots and smelt them with 6 Iron Ingots in the Alloy Furnace to make Steel Alloy.
 * 8) Combine the 6 pieces of Steel Alloy with 6 Boron to make Ferroboron Alloy, and then smelt the 4 pieces of Ferroboron Alloy with Lithium to make Tough Alloy. With the Tough Alloy, Redstone and Basic Plating, make 4 pieces of Advanced Plating. Wrap the Alloy Furnace in Ferroboron Alloy and Advanced Plating to make an Isotope Separator.
 * 9) Put 16 Rhodochrosite gems (which can be acquired by mining Redstone Ore) into the Manufactory to make Crushed Rhodochrosite. You'll need it soon and it will take some time to grind.
 * 10) Put 8 Uranium Ingots into the Isotope Separator to extract the Uranium-238 isotope.
 * 11) Make 4 pieces of Advanced Plating. You should already have plenty of Sulfur from mining Coal. Craft the Advanced Plating with Sulfur and Uranium-238 to make DU Plating.
 * 12) Craft each piece of DU Plating with 4 Boron ingots and 4 pieces of Crushed Rhodochrosite to make Elite Plating.
 * 13) Make 4 more pieces of Tough Alloy and 4 pieces of Basic Plating. Craft with a Furnace to make a Nuclear Furnace.
 * 14) The Fission Controller is the heart of a Fission Reactor. It is made using a Nuclear Furnace and some Elite Plating. In the Alloy Furnace, craft 4 Magnesium ingots and 8 Boron ingots to make 12 pieces of Magnesium Diboride. Combine with 4 pieces of Tough Alloy to make 4 Magnesium Diboride Solenoids. Now craft the Nuclear Furnace with the Solenoids and the Elite Plating to make your Fission Controller.
 * 1) The Fission Controller is the heart of a Fission Reactor. It is made using a Nuclear Furnace and some Elite Plating. In the Alloy Furnace, craft 4 Magnesium ingots and 8 Boron ingots to make 12 pieces of Magnesium Diboride. Combine with 4 pieces of Tough Alloy to make 4 Magnesium Diboride Solenoids. Now craft the Nuclear Furnace with the Solenoids and the Elite Plating to make your Fission Controller.

Building a Reactor
At this point, you should check your stock of Iron, Coal, Boron and Lithium. We're almost ready to make our first, very basic Fission Reactor but we're going to need a lot of Basic Plating and Tough Alloy to make one. The main article on Fission Reactors describes how to build a Fission Reactor. You'll need to decide how big a reactor to make. Due to the complex nature of how Fission Reactors work, it's not possible to recommend a size, you're going to have to experiment. As a demonstration, we will construct a very small, simple, water-cooled Fission Reactor.

Note: The following reactor design is rather inefficient in later versions of NuclearCraft (v2.9a and above) due to the changes made to the fission reactor rules.


 * 1) Make 20 Tough Alloy and 20 Steel Alloy. Using these, craft 10 Empty Coolers.
 * 2) Craft each Empty Cooler with a Water Bucket to make Water Coolers.
 * 3) Make 8 Tough Alloy and 32 Basic Plating and craft them together to make 32 Reactor Casing blocks.
 * 4) Craft 8 Tough Alloy and 8 Glass together to make 2 Reactor Cells.
 * 5) Grind 9 pieces of Coal in the Manufactory to make Graphite Dust then re-grind to make Graphite Ingots. Craft the 9 ingots into a Graphite Block.


 * 1) Place 6 Reactor Casings on the ground in a 2x3 shape. NUCC-TutorialReactor-Step1.jpg
 * 2) On top of the Reactor casings, Place 3 Water Coolers in one row and then the two Reactor Cells with a Graphite Block between them. NUCC-TutorialReactor-Step2.jpg
 * 3) Place 6 Water Coolers on top of the second layer. You should have one left over. NUCC-TutorialReactor-Step3.jpg
 * 4) Cover all exposed surfaces with Reactor Casings. NUCC-TutorialReactor-Step4.jpg
 * 5) Place the Fission Controller on one of the edges. NUCC-TutorialReactor-Step5.jpg
 * 6) Open the Fission Controller GUI with a right-click. Insert your TBU fuel rod into the inventory slot on the left. NUCC-TutorialReactor-Step6.jpg

If you've done everything correctly, it should report a 2x2x3 Fission Reactor that generates 255 RF/t, with a heat of -64 H/t and an efficiency of 212%. If not, check the steps and images above to find where you went astray. If it all looks good, apply a redstone signal with a Lever and it will start generating power!

A note about Heat: Following the exact steps above will result in a safe reactor that will not overheat and melt down. Using a different fuel with a different heat number may damage your reactor. Such details are outside the scope of this Getting Started guide. Please see the article on Fission Reactors for a more in-depth discussion about heat, fuels and coolers.

Afterword
Hopefully this guide has been useful in getting you up and running with your first reactor. Your next step is to explore the various links in this wiki, learn about the other parts and see what amazing reactors you can make! Separate articles on Fission Reactors and Fusion Reactors will go into more detail on advanced reactor design.