From 6c6fdf8088d8baa8f38d37e104fbeea78322f4d0 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Zergologist <114537969+Chedd-Error@users.noreply.github.com> Date: Thu, 16 Jul 2026 16:07:32 -0600 Subject: [PATCH 1/2] fuchia reactor --- src/design-proposals/fusion-reactor.md | 84 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 84 insertions(+) create mode 100644 src/design-proposals/fusion-reactor.md diff --git a/src/design-proposals/fusion-reactor.md b/src/design-proposals/fusion-reactor.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..5cc53b20 --- /dev/null +++ b/src/design-proposals/fusion-reactor.md @@ -0,0 +1,84 @@ +# Fusion Reactor Engine + +| Designers | Implemented | GitHub Links | +|---|---|---| +| zergologist | :x: No | TBD | + +## Overview + +A new engine for engineering to manage in order to produce power for the station, focused around starting and maintaining a fusion reaction and harnessing the excess power that generates. + +## Background + +At the moment, engineering gameplay around power is somewhat lacking. While there are engineering reworks that aim to address some of that, the underlying interactions that engineers have with their engines are more often than not simplistic. The tesla and singulo are both engines with setup and occassional maintenance, with little experimentation to do and a fail condition that results in station destruction. The nuclear reactor, while significantly more involved and having room for experimentation, generally works with experimentation that works on timescales of the entire round assuming an engi isn't flooding it with plasma and just killing the rest of the department. The new supermatter following Dicerson's rework aims to be even deeper and more interesting to work and experiment with than the old supermatter. Engineering's engines should be something they can spend the shift experimenting and discussing with, yet the older ones especially are made with the idea to just be vaguely engaging. + +The HFR, while being more of an atmos transmutation machine as opposed to an actual engine that's intended to power the station, brings up an interesting concept that could be used to power the station in Funky's cassette futurism setting: a fusion reactor. + +## Features to be added + +### Fusion Reactor + +A large structure that uses the fusion of magnetically-constricted gasses colliding at high speeds in order to generate power. Regular use generates a variety of exotic waste gasses alongside enough energy to power a station consistently, while requiring maintenance on the reactor to ensure that the fusion reaction can continue. The reactor itself generates energy by maintaining a magnetic field, with fusion reactions strengthening the field and the reactor capturing the energy to keep it at a constant level. + +#### Pipe Connections + +Three pipe connections, two separate inputs and one cycled fuel output will need to exist on the engine. While it could function with only one input, the second input is there to simplify issues with trying to mix the already reacted fuel mix with the input mix in the cases where they differ. The input temperatures of the fuel mix would directly influence the temperature of the fusion reaction occurring within. + +#### Fusion Reactions + +The fusion reactor works from fusing various gasses together, only holding so much gas in magnetic confinement at one time. Those reactions would have a necessary minimum energy and perhaps even maximum energy alongside molar requirements for gas. This energy should be split between magnetic flux and temperature, with the general goal being to manage both of those for fusion. The general goal for these fusion reactions is both to ensure that engineers have enough options to choose from when deciding what to fuel the reactor with, what reaction they may use to moderate that reaction with, and in general allow for some atmos shenanigans to be facilitated by a sufficiently savvy engineer. + +Issues to contemplate: real nuclear physics, the various limitations of in-game gases, the space magic of phoron and our TG gasses (if we plan to keep them) + +General ideas: +- process that turns phoron + hydrogen into trit, merges trit + hydrogen/phoron into helium and lots of power +- loop that takes an injection of hydrogen or phoron at high temperatures to generate power and a waste gas +- mess of a reaction chamber that produces a lot of gases as well as a lot of power + - Multiple steps that self sustain would be ideal, where the energy generated by the keystone reaction is both enough to both power the station and fuel the fusion of its constituent parts +- fairly simple fusion reaction to jumpstart things +- gas transformation reactions that may or may not be used in more advanced fusion webs + +The amount of gas consumed should be enough that, in for a full shift running the standard reaction, a single canister each of phoron and hydrogen would be inadequate. + +#### Failure States + +Messing around with the reactor will have three general "failure states" of increasing severity: +- Fusion Failure; The conditions within the reactor are insufficient for fusion, where either the parameters of the chamber or the fuel mix need to be changed +- Shielding Failure; The reactor's shielding becomes inadequate for the amount of radiation being emitted, try to reduce the energy that comes out of the reactor +- Magnetic Failure; Congratulations, you won fusion. You produced far too much energy for the reactor to handle and now you have to deal with an explosion and a hot plasma flood. + +Generally, most messing around with fusion will result in fusion failure; engis who fuck up with the fusion reactor are unlikely to cause damage outside of leaving the station in a blackout while the reactor is set back up. An engineer who not only figures out how to get fusion working well but working too well should be rewarded for their efforts with a significant disaster. + +#### Fusion Reactor Interface + +The fusion reactor would have an interface where one would see stats about the reactor, such as the current fuel mix, current temperature, power used to sustain the reaction and power generated by the reaction. There would be controls for how much, mol-wise, each input contributes to the fuel mix, magnetic constriction and how much of the fuel mix to cycle per second as well as warning lights for the various failure states. + +## Game Design Rationale + +### Maintaining Authenticity + +This involved fusion reactor is intended to give engineering another engine with similar complexity to the nuclear reactor or supermatter, something that they need to put more thought, effort, and maintenance into than just the singularity or tesla. Engi would have to talk specifically about what they would need, how to run an engine like this that isn't just something that anyone would understand walking by. It would fit into a cassette futurism setting to have this big and clunky reactor that uses a real process that, for the better part of a century, has been suggested as one of the options we would use to power our future. + +### Take Things Slow + +A fusion reactor would necessarily take time to start up. The specific mechanical interactions it would facilitate would occur over an extended period of time, being something that engi has to keep an eye on throughout the shift to make sure that the reactor is pumping out enough power or not being choked out by the waste products that accumulate over an extended period of fusion. Failure with this reactor should generally happen over an extended period of time, allowing for individuals to not only see that they made a mistake but also give them time to fix their error. + +## Roundflow & Player interaction + +This would be another round-start engine and, as such, would play into engineering's initial job to make sure that power is up and running. The fusion reactor would take time to heat up and start reacting enough to produce power, but, by the ten to fifteen minute mark if everything's set up correctly, the fusion reactor should be actively fusing and generating power for the rest of the station. Players would be allowed to experiment with the reactor, trying out different fuel mixes and constraints within it, especially given its more forgiving failure states. + +## Administrative & Server Rule Impact (if applicable) + +This would give another engine for engineering to utilize, one that would be markedly hard to grief the station using as a proper fail state comes from the reactor operating too well, something that should only be achievable if an engineer has spent the better part of the round fiddling and experimenting with the reactor to get it to explode. Likely little impact. + +## Mapping Impact + +Fusion reactors would have to be mapped in if they are to be used as roundstart engines, complete with hydrogen and plasmatic phoron gas tanks and the required piping infrastructure to facilitate their use. + +# Technical Considerations + +- The entire fusion reactor + - Needs underlying systems that interface with pipe atmos to both push and pull gas to a specific + - Needs UI that details what failure states are currently active, gasses within the reactor, current temperature and moleage, how strong the set magnetic flux is, and elements that inform how much gas will be pumped into and out of the fuel mix. + - The fusion reactions that actually drive the reactor, built in such a way that they can be self-sustaining under normal reactor conditions and interesting to experiment with otherwise. + - The failure conditions for the reactor, implementing the shutdown, rad leak, and magnet failure explosion. \ No newline at end of file From 843f05c0665bb7bc069a690e169393bfa688b382 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Zergologist <114537969+Chedd-Error@users.noreply.github.com> Date: Thu, 16 Jul 2026 16:29:30 -0600 Subject: [PATCH 2/2] inadequate --- src/design-proposals/fusion-reactor.md | 2 +- 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-) diff --git a/src/design-proposals/fusion-reactor.md b/src/design-proposals/fusion-reactor.md index 5cc53b20..91794505 100644 --- a/src/design-proposals/fusion-reactor.md +++ b/src/design-proposals/fusion-reactor.md @@ -38,7 +38,7 @@ General ideas: - fairly simple fusion reaction to jumpstart things - gas transformation reactions that may or may not be used in more advanced fusion webs -The amount of gas consumed should be enough that, in for a full shift running the standard reaction, a single canister each of phoron and hydrogen would be inadequate. +The amount of gas consumed should be enough that, in for a full shift running the standard reaction, engineering would need to source more than one canister each of hydrogen and phoron, likely upwards of, 120 minutes of uptime, 1870 mols/canister, a total of 60 mols per minute of hydrogen and phoron consumed in order to power the station, or 1 mol of gas per second transformed. #### Failure States