Infinite Radbolts

[ghkbrew]

There have been some recent posts on reddit showing this off, but I thought I'd bring it up over here.

This machine will create infinite radbolts:

 

This is possible because when radbolts collide with something they give off huge amounts of radiation:

At it's peak there is 56,000 rads/cycle in the center tile and 47,000 and 37,000 rads/cycle at the next to tiles out from the center respectively.  A single radbolt exploding in the center tile will cause the inner generators to produce ~16 radbolts and the outer generators to produce ~11 radbolts each.  This means that each explosion produces just over the 50 radbolts needed to created a new shot.

 

The mesh tile isn't even strictly necessary, since radbolts will collide with each other:

The bolts can easily be synchronized with automation.  Toggle all the generators on at once and they will fire together (if they've collected >50 radbolts).

 

This machine is in vacuum because a) oxygen will absorb some of the radiation and require more generators to sustain itself and b) working in a vacuum prevents the spawning of radioactive contaminates:

 

Lastly, I want to note that while the power requirements of this machine are high (1920W) it is vastly more efficient power-wise to produce radbolts from high radiation sources.  Also, you can disable the radbolt generators with automation and they will store the radbolts without lose, allowing you to throttle production to whatever radbolt rate or power draw you desire.

[Yunru]

Okay, but how to get the generated radbolts out in a usable fashion? 

[sakura_sk]

You can also build a generator below to collect some ridiculous rads in seconds  Nice~

Spoiler

 

[Pyrex042]

It would cost more power, but you should be able to put a 2nd row of collectors just above the mesh tile and harvest those radbolts while the first row provides perpetual rads.

[ghkbrew]

21 minutes ago, sakura_sk said:

You can also build a generator below to collect some ridiculous rads in seconds  Nice~

 

20 minutes ago, Pyrex042 said:

It would cost more power, but you should be able to put a 2nd row of collectors just above the mesh tile and harvest those radbolts while the first row provides perpetual rads.

My plan is to selectively disable/enable reflectors to redirect some of the radbolts to the research station as needed.

 

I really want some sort of radbolt sensor so I don't have to do this manually.

[sakura_sk]

Are you sure @ghkbrew you want a dupe to stand a tile away from a 56.000 rad pulse..? You know that dupes loiter a lot when idle, right?  (It's probably not deadly instantly... but still..)

[Pyrex042]

Looking at the 2nd image in his first post, with the hard-edge to the radiation fall-off, I don't think the dupe will actually take any rads while researching.

Still, for safety it might be worth moving the station two tiles to the right and put a wall with a one-tile gap for the bolt to the left of the station to keep dupes out of the 'reactor'.

[ghkbrew]

@sakura_sk , luckily there's no rad pulse when a bolt get absorbed by the research station or a reflector... I'm more worried about the death ray aimed at my researcher's head  If the station is full the bolt will continue past the absorbtion tile with however many radbolts weren't absorbed.  I think a motion sensor based safety cutoff is probably a good idea.

8 minutes ago, Pyrex042 said:

Looking at the 2nd image in his first post, with the hard-edge to the radiation fall-off, I don't think the dupe will actually take any rads while researching.

Still, for safety it might be worth moving the station two tiles to the right put a wall with a gap to the left of the station to keep dupes out of the 'reactor'.

Yup.  A locked pneumatic door would work too.

Update: this arrangement allows you to selectively drain radbolts out of any of the generators

[MoMuffins]

Personally, I think this is less fiddly...

 

 

[ghkbrew]

5 hours ago, MoMuffins said:

Personally, I think this is less fiddly...

Sure, just let me go melt down a nuclear reactor first

Would you mind explaining exactly how this build works? Is the escher waterfall really necessarily?

[MoMuffins]

37 minutes ago, ghkbrew said:

Sure, just let me go melt down a nuclear reactor first

Would you mind explaining exactly how this build works? Is the escher waterfall really necessarily?

Why would you need to melt down a nuclear reactor?  You just store up the nuclear waste as you run the reactor.  It produces a prodigious amount of it.  Nobody in their right mind would want to cleanup the fallout when this is supposed to be a lazy man's way of getting rad for free, courtesy of game mechanic...

So, run the reactor the right way.  Collect the nuclear waste into this contraption. If the liquid is without germ, then you innoculate the loop with a fresh batch of radioactive contaminant ladden nuclear waste into this setup.  The constant liquid falling will multiply the germs to great numbers.  Approximately 1000 germ = 1 rad.

No, the falls is strictly not necessary but I wanted one with minimal power usage.  Thus the waterfall.  You can reproduce one with two doors, at different heights, opening and closing in succession, letting liquid fall into the same liquid.  Pump it up and repeat.

Edit: I forgot to add, the rate of liquid falling matters...What I showed is what's needed to exceed the natural decay rate of the germs so that the process is germ positive.  When the bolt explodes near the collector, it actually gives it a nice germ juice to speed up the germ multiplication.  Indeed, any time the bolt explodes, it will literally spray the surrounding tiles with germs.

[ghkbrew]

1 hour ago, MoMuffins said:

The constant liquid falling will multiply the germs to great numbers.  Approximately 1000 germ = 1 rad.

Neat.

I think I've seen this germ duplication before in accidental escher waterfalls in pwater.  Do you have any more info on how exactly it works? My only complaint is that it looks to be an actual bug rather than an intended mechanic.

 

Edit: Or you can just use water

[MoMuffins]

46 minutes ago, ghkbrew said:

I think I've seen this germ duplication before in accidental escher waterfalls in pwater.  Do you have any more info on how exactly it works? My only complaint is that it looks to be an actual bug rather than an intended mechanic.

 

Edit: Or you can just use water

Yes, you can use any liquid.  I choose nuclear waste because that contraption can be hooked straight into the reactor nuclear waste output and be bootstrapped by just running the reactor long enough to get the falls running. Thereafter it will stay as a self-renewal rad source whether the reactor is on or not.  Water would boil away at reactor temperature.

The germ multiplication phenomenon has been around for quite some time now.  I don't know how it works exactly but likely due to doubling in number of germ when the liquid transition from falling state into a tile state.  Some funky math is happening.

The side effect of some random germ multiplication was mostly ignored until now where a some what accurate accounting of germs matter.  I also don't think rad multiplication via bolt detonation is an intended mechanic either.  But have fun while it lasts eh?

[ghkbrew]

18 minutes ago, MoMuffins said:

Yes, you can use any liquid.  I choose nuclear waste because that contraption can be hooked straight into the reactor nuclear waste output and be bootstrapped by just running the reactor long enough to get the falls running. Thereafter it will stay as a self-renewal rad source whether the reactor is on or not.  Water would boil away at reactor temperature.

I see.  For the record my water loop was booted up by firing a single radbolt at the diamond tile through the upper left corner.  The germ duplication is strong enough that you only need tiny amounts to start with.

21 minutes ago, MoMuffins said:

The side effect of some random germ multiplication was mostly ignored until now where a some what accurate accounting of germs matter.  I also don't think rad multiplication via bolt detonation is an intended mechanic either.  But have fun while it lasts eh?

Yeah, it's too bad none of the other germs are useful.  Maybe to make massive amounts of floral scent? Can you even get that into a liquid?

[MoMuffins]

9 minutes ago, ghkbrew said:

Yeah, it's too bad none of the other germs are useful.  Maybe to make massive amounts of floral scent? Can you even get that into a liquid?

Not outside of sandbox.  Also each germ has their preferred medium and temperature.  Floral scent, even if you could get it into liquid, will die very rapidly.

[sakura_sk]

2 hours ago, ghkbrew said:

Can you even get that into a liquid?

 

2 hours ago, MoMuffins said:

Not outside of sandbox. 

Well... 

Spoiler

But it was before recent updates and.. I have no idea how to replicate that 

[ghkbrew]

8 hours ago, sakura_sk said:

I have no idea how to replicate that 

Quite easily, it turns out:

Looks like the buddy bud will add germs to it's current tile, even if it's in a small amount of water.  From there you can use the drop duplication of germs.

[MoMuffins]

Well, that's nice =).  Use germ to combat germs....

[sakura_sk]

On 3/8/2021 at 9:03 PM, babba said:

  Particle Generator Build - Max RAD

That made a great self-rad-powered generator reactor! Sparkles and fireworks of radbolts 

Spoiler

 

Rads and radbolt count of central generator after one collision: