Mekanism power in ATM10 vs ATM10: Aeronautics, setting by setting
Two packs with almost the same name tune Mekanism in opposite directions. ATM10 makes passive generators stronger and fission weaker. ATM10: Aeronautics makes fission and fusion much weaker and machines cheaper to run. If you follow a guide written for the other pack, or for default Mekanism, your numbers will be off by up to 125×.
The short version
- Fission: each mB of fuel is worth ¼ of the default in ATM10 and 1/125 in Aeronautics.
- Fusion: fuel energy is default in ATM10 and 1/100 in Aeronautics, with the thermocouple share cut from 0.05 to 0.04 (ATM10) and 0.02 (Aeronautics).
- Solar, wind, heat: ATM10 boosts them 2–4×. Aeronautics leaves most near default, trims wind and bio, and doubles the Nether bonus for heat generators.
- Turbines: both packs give coils 8 blades each and shrink the steam tank to a tenth, which makes small turbines tank-limited.
One reactor: 7×7×7, nine separated 4-high fuel columns (36 assemblies), water-cooled, burning 36 mB/t, feeding a full 17×17×18 turbine. It's safe (below 1,200 K) in all three.
Fission: what a mB of fuel is worth
A fission reactor turns every mB of fuel it burns into energyPerFissionFuel of heat. Water carries that heat away as steam at about 50 heat per mB, and a full turbine turns each mB of steam into 10 J (4 FE).
| Per 1 mB of fuel | Mod default | ATM10 | ATM10: Aeronautics |
|---|---|---|---|
energyPerFissionFuel | 1,000,000 | 250,000 | 8,000 |
| Steam made | 20,000 mB | 5,000 mB | 160 mB |
| Power through a full turbine | 80,000 FE | 20,000 FE | 640 FE |
| Reactor above at 36 mB/t | 703 K · 2.88M FE/t | 456 K · 720k FE/t | 376 K · 23.0k FE/t |
The low heat per fuel has a side effect: an Aeronautics reactor barely warms up, so heat is almost never what stops you. The limit is how many fuel assemblies you build (each allows 1 mB/t of burn) and how much fuel you can supply. The example reactor would stay below the 1,200 K damage point up to about 11,000 mB/t if it had the assemblies for it. Aeronautics also raises the default burn rate a new reactor starts at from 0.1 to 0.15 mB/t.
To put 23,000 FE/t in perspective: in Aeronautics an Advanced Solar Generator peaks at 160 FE/t, so that whole reactor and 17×17×18 turbine equal about 144 advanced solar panels. In ATM10 the same reactor equals about 1,500 of that pack's much stronger panels.
Industrial turbines: the same change in both packs
| Setting | Mod default | Both ATM10 packs | What it does |
|---|---|---|---|
bladesPerCoil | 4 | 8 | Half as many coils for the same blades. |
ventChemicalFlow | 32,000 | 43,478 | Each vent passes 36% more steam. |
condenserRate | 64,000 | 128,000 | Each condenser returns twice the water. |
chemicalPerTank | 64,000 | 6,400 | Steam storage per block is a tenth. |
That last one matters more than it looks. A turbine can't push more steam per tick than its tank holds, and the tank is rotor height × width × depth × chemicalPerTank. A 7×7×10 turbine with a 6-block rotor shows a max flow of 2.83M mB/t in both packs, but its tank only holds 1.88M, so 1.88M mB/t is its real limit. The in-game "max flow" doesn't show this. Big turbines are fine: a 17×17×18 holds 25.9M against 15M flow.
Fusion
| Setting | Mod default | ATM10 | ATM10: Aeronautics |
|---|---|---|---|
fuelEnergy | 10,000,000 | 10,000,000 | 100,000 |
thermocoupleEfficiency | 0.05 | 0.04 | 0.02 |
The config describes fuelEnergy as affecting injection rate, max temperature and ignition temperature, and thermocoupleEfficiency as the fraction of casing heat turned into energy. We haven't traced the fusion reactor's code yet, so we won't put an exact output ratio on it, but in Aeronautics both settings point the same way: a lot less power.
Passive generators
| Generator (FE/t) | Mod default | ATM10 | ATM10: Aeronautics |
|---|---|---|---|
| Solar (peak) | 20 | 60 | 20 |
| Advanced Solar (peak) | 120 | 480 | 160 |
| Wind (min – max) | 24 – 192 | 60 – 360 | 16 – 120 |
| Heat generator (base) | 80 | 320 | 80 |
| Heat generator Nether bonus | +40 | +40 | +80 |
| Bio generator | 140 | 140 | 72 |
Config values are in Joules; these are divided by 2.5 (the feConversionRate in all three) to give FE. Aeronautics also starts wind scaling at Y 30 instead of 24, and gives Gas-Burning Generators a 10,000 mB tank instead of 18,000.
Machine energy costs
| Joules per operation | Mod default | ATM10 | ATM10: Aeronautics |
|---|---|---|---|
| Digital Miner | 1,000 | 1,000 | 500 |
| Electric Pump | 100 | 100 | 50 |
| Laser | 10,000 | 50,000 | 10,000 |
| Antiprotonic Nucleosynthesizer | 100,000 | 100,000 | 20,000 |
Green means cheaper to run. Aeronautics pairs its weaker power with cheaper machines; ATM10 makes the laser five times as expensive.
Check your own pack
These all live in config/Mekanism/generators.toml, general.toml and machine-usage.toml in your instance folder. On a server, the server's copy is what counts. Each setting's mod default is written right above it in a # Default: comment, so you can spot a pack's changes by comparing the two.