Particle Accelerator - HBM's Nuclear Tech Wiki (2024)

The particle accelerator is a highly modular multiblock machine that uses high strength superconducting magnets to accelerate particles to relativistic speeds in order to collide them together in an analysis chamber. Unlike the cyclotron which bombards elements into other elements to transmute them into heavier ones, the particle accelerator smashes (or collides) them together to produce exotic particles with various purposes.

A tutorial presentation is available in game by pressing F1 on a particle accelerator core component in your inventory.

Terminology

Hadron: Nickname for the particle accelerator. Named after the Large Hadron Collider near Geneva.

Circular Style: A Hadron in the design of a "circle" (though in Minecraft it is difficult to recreate, so it often just looks like a square or rectangle), the particle must return to the core after the analysis chamber.

Linear Style: A Hadron in the design of a straight line, though it doesn't have to be, the particle just isn't capable of returning to the core.

Coil Segment: A hollow ring of 8 coil blocks. The strength of a segment is determined by the combined strength of the individual coil blocks. For example, a segment of 8 dense neodymium coils will have a strength of 8 x 50 = 400

Particle Momentum: Every coil that the particle passes adds momentum to the particle equal to the coil strength. Different recipes require varying amounts of momentum at a minimum.

Construction

Main Coils

The hadron coils are composed of two major block components, the particle accelerator plating, and the dense coil blocks themselves. The coils is composed of 8 block segments arranged as a 3x3 hollow circle. All 12 exposed sides of the coil segment must be covered with plating in order to be valid. (See image) There are plating blocks provided with varying colors, but it may be expensive to manufacture (in terms of steel) all of them especially if your hadron is very large. At no point can the hollow path be obstructed or lack a coil or plating block.

Core

The core is ideally in the center of one of the coil segments. The particle is ejected from the core from the blue port, which must be facing into the coils, otherwise it will fail to operate. An access terminal is usually required to open the GUI if the block is enclosed, it may be placed on any side as long as it is in the center of the segment. In circular accelerators, the particle must also have a path to return to the core via the purple port. The core must also be provided with power using a Power Plug. Note that any coils wrapped directly around the core will not contribute to particle momentum.

Corners

Corners follow more or less the same principle as the main coils. They must turn the traveling particle at 90 degrees. The outer edge of the corner may be omitted however. (See image)

Analysis Chamber

Unlike most other components of the hadron, the Analysis Chamber is more strict in its construction. It must be a 3x3x3 empty chamber surrounded by Analysis Chamber blocks. Any of the blocks may be replaced by the window variant block. The Analysis Chamber must have coils leading up to it, and in the case of circular accelerators, must have coils leading back to the core. For circular accelerators running in linear mode, the coils on the return path to the core do not contribute to particle momentum.

Power Plugs

Power Plugs provide the core and coils with electricity to work. Coils consume a lot of power, so there are several different tiers to power plugs with different charge rates. They can be upgraded easily by taking one and adding a fuse in your 2x2 crafting grid. Power Plugs are discharged by particles traveling through the coil segment they are attached to, and must be placed such that the power applied to the particle always exceeds the current particle momentum, multiplied by 10kHE per unit of coil strength. Therefore, it is ideal to place your Power Plugs near the start of the accelerator, rather than spreading them out evenly.

Schottky Particle Diode

The Schottky Particle Diode is an obscure component that utilizes the quantum behavior of subatomic particles to reduce the power consumption of your Particle Accelerator and enable more complex accelerator designs. To configure the diode, right click one of the six faces of the block with a screwdriver and it will change to a green input side. Right click it again and it will turn to a red output side. You can place the particle diodes at intersections within your Particle Accelerator to give the particles multiple paths to an Analysis Chamber.

The true power of Schottky Particle Diodes becomes apparent when you provide multiple outputs. In this scenario the diode will create virtual particles for every path, and wait for each virtual particle to successfully reach an Analysis Chamber. Once all the particles have been analyzed, the particle with the lowest momentum that exceeds the minimum required momentum for the current recipe will undergo wavefunction collapse, and be converted into a real particle. This realized particle will consume power from the plugs that it encountered on its path, ensuring that electrical power isn't wasted on coils that did not contribute to the recipe.

Note that a particle that encounters the same diode twice can only exit from faces that it has not previously exited from. If a particle enters a diode that it can't leave, it will "crash" and throw an error. This means you can construct figure 8 style accelerators, but not infinitely looping accelerators.

If an accelerator with diodes has any invalid paths, virtual particles traveling down the invalid path will be collapsed into real particles, consuming power and throwing an error. This will occur even if there is a valid path with enough momentum for the current recipe.

Usage

The hadron core itself has a buffer of 10 MHE, 2 input slots, 2 output slots, and 3 buttons. The first button is the power button, it will not operate if it is off, however, if the hadron is already running and is turned off in the middle, it will still operate fine. The second button is to toggle "hopper mode", which is to improve hopper automation compatibility by only operating if there are more than 1 item in both slots, leaving 1 behind in each slot to not be used. Normal mode uses all inputs if possible. The second button toggles between circular and linear modes. The two modes determine which recipes can be used and may be dependent on your design. A linear style hadron can only use linear recipes, but a circular style one can use both linear and circular recipes. The Hadron Core also has a "STATS" box, when the mouse cursor is hovering over it, it will display the results of the previous operation done in the accelerator. It will display whether the accelerator failed or succeeded and show the particle's momentum which is equivalent to the strength of the coils.

This is the Hadron GUI with labels on each button.

1. Power Button, toggles the Particle Accelerator on/off.
2. Input Slots for capsules and other items.
3. Output Slots for recipes.
4. Previous Operation Statistics.
5. Button for toggling between Normal Mode, Hopper Mode and Single Mode.
6. Button for toggling between Circular Mode and Linear Mode.
7. 10.0 MHE Power Buffer gauge.

Power Consumption and Management

The total power drain of the Particle Accelerator can be calculated by a simple formula: (coil strength)x(number of coils)x(10 kHE). This must be calculated separately for different types of coils.

The Particle Accelerator is a very power hungry machine, often requiring GHEs of power. If you do not have enough power, the operation will fail and your ingredients will be wasted.

For max efficiency, it is always best to have the exact amount of coil strength needed for the most powerful operation you will be using. For example, if the most powerful recipe you will be using is the sparkticle, then it is always best to have coil strength exactly equal to 500,000.

The same applies to power usage. The particle accelerator will ALWAYS consume the full amount of power you give it. If you use 100 GHE plugs, it will consume 100 GHEs per operation! Clearly, this is not ideal (considering that the power cost for the digamma particle is 10 GHE). Don't be afraid to use a combination of different plugs to exactly match the power consumption of your coils.

Coil Types

Dense Superconducting Coil

Constructed from 4 dense advanced alloy wire

Strength per block: 10

Power consumption per block: 100kHE

Dense Gold Coil

Constructed from 2 dense gold wire and 2 dense advanced alloy wire

Strength per block: 25

Power consumption per block: 250kHE

Dense Neodymium Coil

Constructed from 2 dense neodymium wire and 2 dense gold wire

Strength per block: 50

Power consumption per block: 500kHE

Dense 4000K Superconductor Coil

Constructed from 4 dense magnetized tungsten wire

Strength per block: 100

Power consumption per block: 1MHE

Dense Schrabidic Coil

Constructed from 2 dense schrabidium wire and 2 dense magnetized tungsten wire

Strength per block: 250

Power consumption per block: 2.5MHE

Dense Schrabidate Coil

Constructed from 2 dense ferric schrabidate wire and 2 dense schrabidium wire

Strength per block: 500

Power consumption per block: 5MHE

Dense Starmetal Coil

Constructed from 2 dense starmetal wire and 2 dense ferric schrabidate wire

Strength per block: 1,000

Power consumption per block: 10MHE

Dense Chlorophyte Coil

Constructed from 2 chlorophyte powder and 2 dense tungsten wire

Strength per block: 2,500

Power consumption per block: 25MHE

Dense Mese Coil

Forged in the Black Book with 1 dense chlorophyte coil, 1 dense dineutronium wire, 1 dense tungsten wire, and 1 dense gold wire

Strength per block: 10,000

Power consumption per block: 100MHE

Troubleshooting

Due to the complexity of the hadron, issues are a common occurrence to those unfamiliar with how it works. Here is a brief guide on potential causes and fixes:

• Explosion at the core
  • Incorrect Core Component orientation, ensure that the blue output side of the core is facing into the coils
• Explosion at the Analysis Chamber
  • Invalid Analysis Chamber, ensure that the 3x3x3 space in the middle contains no blocks, and that all the blocks surrounding the empty space are valid Analysis Chamber blocks
• Explosion elsewhere
  • Invalid hadron construction, ensure that the middle of the segment is empty, all that surrounds the middle are coils, and that all that surrounds those coils is plating. If you have diodes, make sure they're correctly configured
  • Coils not charged enough, ensure that the particle has power in excess of the momentum it had at the point of failure. Using the coordinates provided in the accelerator error message is invaluable here.
• "No result."
  • Incorrect recipe mode selected, always ensure that the accelerator is correctly configured for circular and linear recipes, or it will eat your inputs and your electricity.
  • Coil strength insufficient, ensure that the coils provide enough momentum to the particle to fulfill the current recipe
  • The items input into the accelerator must have an associated recipe, make sure you're using capsules and not cells for certain ingredients

Recipes

There are a few select recipes that can be used in the hadron. Most require the use of capsules as opposed to cells as input, but sometimes regular items may be used. The recipes for the capsules themselves can be found using NEI. Most capsules are not dangerous drops. Input order does not matter. For a chart based list - look into gallery.

Note: To utilize some of these particles for creating euphemium, dineutronium or schrabidium, they have to be used inside of an exposure chamber.

Particle Type	Recipe + Costs	Notes	Copper Coils	Schrabidium Coils	Mese Coils
Antimatter	900 9MHE	Actually produces a positron and a antiproton capsule instead of antimatter directly, must be crafted into a capsule or cell.	90.0	3.6	0.1
Antischrabidium	900 9MHE	Less efficient than the cyclotron recipe technically.	90.0	3.6	0.1
Dark Matter	100,000 1GHE	Used to make euphemium from plutonium with the exposure chamber.	10,000.0	400.0	10.0
Muon	2,000 20MHE	No direct uses, but can be used in further particle accelerator recipes	200.0	8.0	0.2
Higgs Boson	5,000 50MHE	Used to make schrabidium from uranium-238 with the exposure chamber	500.0	20.0	0.5
Tachyon	2,000 20MHE	Used to make murky wings	200.0	8.0	0.2
Strange Quark	100,000 1GHE	Used to make the Dark Crystal.	10,000.0	400.0	10.0
Sparkticle	500,000 5GHE	Used to make DNT armor plating and dineutronium from ferric schrabidate, also outputs dust as waste.	50,000.0	2,000.0	50.0
Digamma	1,000,000 10GHE	Used to make Digamma Fuel for the RBMK.	100,000.0	4,000.0	100.0
Chicken Nugget	100 1MHE	Completely fills hunger	10.0	0.4	0.0

Trivia

• There are various coil setups that benefit different survival play styles, it is common for players to build weaker accelerators with cheaper components in order to produce large amounts of expensive materials necessary for more powerful accelerators:
  • 4000K superconducting coils are the cheapest method for a lower tier Particle Accelerator. These coils use heavy amounts of magnetized tungsten.
  • Neodymium coils can be ideal for those that do not have the capability to produce the required amount of schrabidium for magnetized tungsten. Neodymium is available as a bedrock ore, which means that neodymium coil production can be automated.
  • Starmetal coils are an ideal next step, since schrabidium (to produce ferric schrabidate) is considerably easier to produce en masse once an accelerator capable of producing Higgs-Bosons has been constructed, ferric schrabidate coils are a reasonable alternative for those without the required amounts of Meteorite Powder.
  • Mese coils are the best option for conserving space if you possess the Book of Boxcars. They are VERY expensive. Note that the actual minimum amount of coils needed to make a particle accelerator is actually more than the amount of mese coils needed to make the Digamma particle. In this case, your best bet is using 100 mese coils and filling in the remaining space with whatever coil is cheapest for you.
  • Without the Book of Boxcars, chlorophyte coils are a good alternative for more compact accelerators
• The high modularity means that technically any shape can be used to make a functional hadron.
  • Flex on your friends by making a giant phallic hadron.
• Various tutorial videos exist on how to construct a particle accelerator, note that some use an older version of the mod that required power plugs to be placed on every coil segment rather than only where power is required.
• The chicken nugget texture looks the way it does because there was a contest for the texture and two tied, so both were used.

Gallery

• Visible particle collision seen through window portion of analysis chamber

• Particle accelerator recipe flowchart