I was analyzing the options for cooling/moderation in a big reactor in an unusual pack that does not include TE, and found that, surprisingly, water is a really really rubbish interior block, that is beaten, in every way, by (For example) Iron.

I appreciate that Big Reactors are not "real" but I was expecting that, in the absence of TE's "exotic" materials, that water and graphite would be good choices, given that they are typically used, rather than solid iron blocks, in rl reactors.

Can I propose then a native liquid coolant. "Distilled Water" or something. That is costly to produce, but is native to Big Reactors and so does not depend on Thermal Expansion being installed by side? More mod packs are going with EnderIO as the RF framework provider and all the efficient coolant blocks currently depend on Thermal.

Also, while effortdynamics is important to balance. And no one can argue that minecraft is "realistic": However, Minecraft does implement a simulation of the real world that a 7 year old might understand.

I do not accept that effortdynamics means iron should beat water: Even a 7 year old would expect a reactor to use a liquid coolant.

Except that the reactor interior isn't meant to model coolant. Active coolant is "coolant". The stuff inside the reactor core is intended to conduct heat. Iron conducts heat better than water.

That said, I'll look at adding some sort of manufactured block that works as a good/efficient core block without relying on external mods for 0.4.

I guess a "water filled" reactor conforms to my expectation of what a (simulation of a) reactor should look like. I want the balance of the effortdynamics, but I want the visual appeal of a glowing reactor core suspended in transparent to translucent liquid.

The values for the blocks permitted in reactor interiors do need rebalancing, but Big Reactors works on "effortdynamics" - a block of iron costs more effort to make than water, so it generally will operate better.

Yeah, I agree that liquids look coolest inside the reactor. How about a set of craftable gel blocks which are translucent and can be used for different purposes - a gel that works best as a moderator, a gel that works best for radiation absorption, a gel that works best for heat transfer?

That would preserve the aesthetics, be easier to build with (and code for) than a liquid, and could even be used in future BR recipes.

I was preferring the idea of a Reactor Drain, placed on the lower surface, that would allow liquids to be pumped in and out. bottom up. But gels would work too. And support the multiple liquids case better.

Would you use some kind of generic gel block that would be combined with specific coolant blocks (iron, etc) and store them as nbt data? Creating "lots" of gels seems a waste, and a small set of gels that works alongside normal materials but are better will just make all the normal material as coolant support ... useless.

In Minecraft design, I've found that having more than one or two tiers of materials is "useless" anyway. The player community generally only cares about what's "best", in the sense of most optimal for some given criterion.

Anyway, this is at the level of implementation details, which I'll work out when I actually get around to doing it.

Most people does 3 tiers.
I think the reason why peolple not making low tier things, because once you have it, you might have to throw it out once you have the higher tier.(Like tinker's construct)
Could try 2 recipes for each tier, one is to upgrade the existing lower tier, and one to craft it directly.

I have found I am far more likely to follow a progression if it is logical, and non-wasteful - i.e. the low tier items are the necessary (NOT optional) components for the next tier.

For some reason I am inordinatly fond of the AE approach where each tier required multiple units of the lower tier, making a geometrically more difficult progression.