Nuclear Reactor

Nuclear Reactor
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Power Consumption	N/A kW
Technical Identifier {{{identifier}}} Categories Misc

The nuclear reactor is the most crucial installation found in Barotrauma. It acts as the submarine's sole power source for all installations.

Function

The nuclear reactor's only function is to generate power for every other electronic on the submarine. So long as the reactor is active, every other device on the ship will remain active as well. Power generated by the reactor is sent to other installations via wiring. This is often used in association with junction boxes to transfer power to the rest of the sub. Because of this, maintaining the reactor is arguably the game's primary objective, as without it the ship is incapable of functioning and traversing the ocean.

The nuclear reactor undergoes a process called nuclear fission, in which atoms are split apart, cause large amounts of energy to be released. The rate at which these reactions take place is measure by the fission rate. The resulting reaction also causes heat to be release that will raise the overall temperature of the reactor. If the temperature ever raises past 10,000 centigrade, the reactor will explode, causing a meltdown that will destroy nearby structures, kill any personnel who are close by and effectively destroy the submarine. Because of this, the cooling and fission rates must be adjusted to keep the temperature at a desired level - which is usually the same as the amount of power consumed by the electrical grid of the submarine.

A fuel rod is required for the nuclear reactor to function since, as its name suggests, supplies the reactor with fuel. Heat absorbers can also be attached to the reactor to increase its cooling rate. The reactor can hold a combine total of five of these items, but placing more than one fuel road into the reactor at a time will cause the reactor to explode.

Usage

The nuclear reactor's control panel.

When the nuclear reactor is selected, a control panel opens up. The panel displays three line graphs: each representing the temperature, fission rate and cooling rate respectively. A message is also displayed showing the current amount of power being consumed by the electrical grid.

In this control panel, the player can manually set the fission rate and cooling rate of the nuclear reactor. Caution is advised when doing this because if the fission rate is set to a number higher than the amount of power the electrical grid is consuming, the voltage of the grid will be raised causing damage to any electrical device connected to the reactor.

Enabling the "Autotemp" mode causes reactor to automatically adjust its fission and cooling rates to maintain them at the same level as the power consumption. This mode can prove useful to determine how much power is being consumed by the electrical grid. The "Max Temperature" field allows the player to input a hard limit as to how high the temperature can raise to; if the temperature surpasses the given limit then the reactor automatically shuts itself down.

I/O Interface

Connection Panel for Nuclear Reactor Hover over pins to see their descriptions.
power_out Any devices that are wired to this output will draw their power from the reactor.
Requires: Screwdriver