Nuclear Reactor Classification

All Nuclear Reactor designs fall into a set of pre-defined categories. These allow the characteristics of a particular design to be determined at a glance.

Heat Management

The "Mark" statement of a reactor classification describes the work cycle of the reactor.

Mark I

Mark I reactors generate no excess heat, operating at a stable hull temperature. Mark I reactors are typically the least efficient of all reactors, but are completely safe to use indefinitely without monitoring.

Mark III

Mark III reactors comprise the first classification of reactors that cannot complete a full cycle before overheating. Mark III reactors must be shut down mid-cycle for a cool-down period. This can be achieved manually or through the use of Redstone.

Mark III reactors have the additional condition that they must run at least 10% of a cycle (16 mins 40 secs) before reaching critical heat or losing any components.

Mark IV

Mark IV reactors are identical to Mark III reactors, except that they may lose components due to overheating, which must be replaced to avoid the reactor having a total meltdown.

Mark V

Mark V reactors have no minimum run-time before requiring cool-down and can lose any number of components; this classification is reserved for reactors designed to extract every last EU from their Uranium Cells. Mark V reactors require exceptionally precise Redstone monitoring systems to avoid overheating. Note that while these reactors can generate a lot of EU per cell, their EU output per hour can be much lower than less efficient reactors due to cooldown periods.

Reactor Classification Table

Classification	Requires Cool-Down	Minimum Cycle	Can Lose Components
Mark I	Never	∞	No
Mark II	Between Cycles	100%	No
Mark III	Mid-Cycle	10%	No
Mark IV	Mid-Cycle	10%	Yes
Mark V	Mid-Cycle	None	Yes

Reactor Efficiency

A Uranium Cell can generate from one pulse per reactor tick (5 EU/t, 1M EU total) to seven (35 EU/t, 7M EU total). The reactor efficiency measures the average number of pulses per cell.

The efficiency of a Nuclear Reactor is equal to the number of pulses per tick produced by its Uranium Cells divided by the number of cells in the reactor. This number corresponds to an efficiency rating that is appended to the Reactor Classification.

Efficency	Rating
1	EE
1 < E < 2	ED
2 ≤ E < 3	EC
3 ≤ E < 4	EB
4 ≤ E < 5	EA
5 ≤ E < 6	EA+
6 ≤ E < 7	EA++
7+	EA*