Suggestion: Add waste mechanic to non-nuclear power to further incentivize transitioning to nuclear

Question

Currently, I find that the incentives to transition to new energy sources are not very strong for a normal play through of the game. My understanding of the purpose of energy transitions are only to "free up" the fuel resource for other use (i.e. stop burning coal so you can use it for steel production), with the exception of the biomass burners (not automatable). However, one doesn't really need to, especially if you overclock miners. 

I suggest that the incentive to use higher-energy sources be strengthened by adding wastes to coal and fuel generators, identical to nuclear plants. The "lower tier" of energy source, the more waste it should produce per MWh.

• Coal Generators should produce large quantities of "fly ash", a real world consequence of burning coal (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fly_ash).

• Fuel Generators should produce medium quantities of "used motor oil" (or something similar), since the generators are internal combustion style. It wouldn't be a fluid, just an item like 'fuel' or 'crude oil'. 

• Nuclear Plant waste could be renamed to "spent fuel" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spent_nuclear_fuel), and would be produced at the same rate as it is currently - which should be lower than coal and fuel.

• All wastes should be recyclable, but the tech is available 1+ tier above the tier that unlocked the generator.

  • Fly Ash would be recycled into concrete, via an alternate recipe (should be researchable, no hard drive needed).

  • Used motor oil would be recycled into plastic (or 'fuel'), via an alternate recipe (should be researchable, no hard drive needed).

  • Spent nuclear fuel should be burnable in a new reactor, called "Fast Nuclear Plant" which would consume the spent fuel AND generate electricity while doing so. Essentially, a nuclear incinerator. 

    • For the sake of balance, they should be smaller in MWe output in comparison to the current Nuclear Plant.

    • User Lord James has posted a very detailed suggestion on how to implement these - I would see his post for more info. I'd go with his implementation for sure! (https://questions.satisfactorygame.com/30394/fast-neutron-reactor-fnr-or-how-to-use-nuclear-waste-as-power)

Factorio has the pollution/base attack mechanic to drive the player to clean up and upgrade their power production - which is not a mechanic I'd like to see in Satisfactory. So, there should be another way to do so. Otherwise, it seems pointless to non-megabases to have fuel and nuclear generators if you could get away with mainly coal, especially considering the higher construction costs of the fuel generators/nuclear plants.

Comments

I agree. As much as I love this game, one of the biggest gripes I have is that there doesn't seem to be any real drive to actually get stuff done other than the desire to unlock higher tiers. There isn't anything to do with the stuff that you make.

Most of the enjoyment of this game comes from a sort of "make your own fun" point of view, where you come up with a project and spend your time working on that. And don't get me wrong, I've spent tons of hours just doing that and enjoyed it completely. I just wish there was the option to have more of a incentive.

I've stated a while ago that coal power is too OP. And I'd like to extend that to fuel as well (I haven't gotten to nuclear yet, but the waste seems to be a nice counterbalance, on paper) Just the other day I plopped down 5 fuel generators because my truck delivery was bringing in too much fuel and it was clogging up my inputs. I was trying to burn through it faster because there was nothing else to use it on. But even after I built 5 generators and overclocked all of them, I was only burning through fuel at about 2 seconds faster than before. Barely enough to address the issue I was having.

I feel that there should be gameplay incentives, other than the desire to unlock new stuff, that encourage you to keep playing. Some (non-essential) machines that require some upkeep that involves the production of some materials. This would give you something to work on automating and also give you an opportunity to sink the production into.

Answer 1

As the other poster said this is -NOT- factorio. There is already a waste mechanic in-game: You have to store it and deal with the consequences of storing it. There are many people that keep coming to the forums trying to suggest "Something to do with nuclear waste to consume it". You're not supposed to consume it. You're supposed to store it. I don't understand why people can't seem to grasp this. It's not hard. It's super super easy in-game and it doesn't effect anything if you do it correctly. Just store it and move on with life and everything's fine.

Comments

Most of the people trying to find "something to do with nuclear waste" can't seem to cope with the radiation from the nuclear plant, or the radiation from the storage or both because they can't figure out how to build the plant far enough away from their main base where it's a non-issue. And the waste can be stored super high in the sky way above where it will ever be felt on the ground, or cheat and store it underneath the terrain deep down where you can't feel it from the surface.

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Why? Because it would be more real? Really? Do mining operations in real world are done in infinite nod resources in the ground?
Nuclear waste should have a "tech" treatment to deal with it, otherwise, in a long term games, you have half of the map with a factory and the other half with storage waste where you cannot even go there...

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You can easily stack enough storage boxes in a small space in game to store enough nuclear waste to yeild at least 8 years real life time worth of play time before the boxes would fill up, currently, right now. It's no where near "half the map" not even that big. Maybe even a 200 x 200 x 200 yard area in a small corner of the map somewhere. It's not a big deal at all. Just store it and forget it's even there. It's such a trivial thing it doesn't even warrant discussion or suggestion or anything. Just set it and forget it and go on with your life.

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Having something to do with the "Waste" rather then just put it into storage would be super satisfying. If the "Waste" then is turned into a recipe that allow you to build/Progress in terms of building innovative design features, or upgrades would impact the Factory in a really positive way. I guess that's one way to make this SATISFACTORY.

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Did you even read the suggestion that the guy made? He suggested creating MORE waste from OTHER power sources.

Answer 2

Another suggestion from FACTORIO

This is not FACTORIO !! And never will be !!

Answer 3

I agree with the energy transition incentives, but I think nuclear waste should still be nuclear waste, but we could be able to drop it on the lake, river or abyss on the map.

Comments

I could see like a toxic dump facility where it HAS to be built in water and makes the water sources near it toxic to swim in and the plants near it wither away