---
title: Introduction
icon: oritech:area/reactor
related_items: [oritech:reactor_controller, oritech:reactor_wall, oritech:reactor_rod]
---

<Callout variant="warning">
    Welcome to the world of nuclear reactors, where harnessing the power of the atom is as thrilling as it is perilous.
    Remember, with great power comes great responsibility—and potentially explosive consequences! Please ensure all safety protocols
     are followed to avoid turning your lab into a glowing crater. Happy tinkering, and may your experiments be
     more "eureka" than "kaboom"!
</Callout>

## Overview

**Oritech reactors** are a great way to generate large amounts of power.
They consume uranium or plutonium pellets and produce RF based on the number of reactor rods and neutron reflectors next to the rods.
However, it is important to keep them sufficiently cooled.

<ModAsset location="oritech:area/reactor" width={1000} />

Burning fuel in the reactor generates heat, and there are multiple components to manage the heat of the reactor:
- **Heat pipes** take heat from the rods and move it along the pipes.
- **Reactor heat vents** take some heat from the hottest neighboring component (e.g., fuel rods or heat pipes) and vent it out of the reactor.
- **Heat absorbers** will absorb a fixed amount of heat from all neighboring components but require a steady supply of coolant items to function.

The reactor allows some heat to build up. Ideally, a properly cooled reactor does not produce any leaking heat. However, some components,
such as the heat vents, are more efficient in hotter environments. If too much heat is created that cannot be removed, the fuel rods may overheat,
resulting in a nuclear meltdown. If a rod contains a temperature of over 2000°C for a sustained amount of time, it will trigger a meltdown.
Warning sirens will engage before the reactor reaches those temperatures. Depending on the size of the reactor and the number of rods,
the meltdown will result in a bigger or smaller explosion.

<Callout variant="info">
    For apprentice scientists of Oritech inc. that want to safely explore new reactor designs and variants, there is a config option available
    called "Safe Reactors" that will make reactors just enter a cooldown period instead of exploding when overheating.
</Callout>

<ModAsset location="oritech:area/reactor_interior_sample" width={500} />

The reactor needs to be made of rectangular walls, where the edges are made of **reactor wall** blocks. The max size of a reactor is **64** blocks per direction.
A **reactor controller** needs to be placed somewhere on the walls. **Energy Ports** may also be placed on the side walls.
All other non-port components must be placed on the inside of the reactor. The reactor can be made from any height, but the interior needs to be identical
in the vertical axis. This means that you can **design your reactor in a 2D-Space, and then scale it up vertically as desired**. Any reactor that works with
an interior height of 1 will also work similar with an interior height of 10. However, the energy production as well as the coolant and fuel consumption
will be scaled accordingly.

This is how a component stack may look:

<ModAsset location="oritech:area/port_show" width={500} />

