Atomic Generation

Updated Description as of 11/7/2026:

Atomic Generation

Realistic nuclear power, built as one long pipeline: the real nuclear fuel cycle, from uranium ore in the ground to a reactor going critical. The reactor physics are real, on a sped-up clock. Radiation is measured in sieverts. Pipes carry fluids at a real temperature and pressure. Power is FE, so it works with any mod's cables and machines.

This is an early beta: version 0.1.0-m4, milestones 1 to 4 of Atomic Generation 1.0, "First Criticality". It has the whole fuel front end, the steam power side, radiation, and the first reactor, the Chicago Pile. It has no power reactor yet. The Chicago Pile makes no power (the real one didn't either), and the turbine plant runs on a creative heat source until the first power reactor, Magnox, comes in the next beta. Expect bugs, and numbers that change before 1.0.

Your worlds carry forward: every new beta opens the worlds of the one before it.

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What's in this beta

Ores and the world

• 20 ores, each in the rock it really comes from: uraninite (the uranium ore), the Oklo vein (the ore of a natural reactor, and very radioactive), monazite and ilmenite black sand on beaches and rivers, cassiterite in river gravel, borax crusts in deserts, bauxite under jungles and savannas, zircon next to uraninite, and more.
• Every deposit can be changed in atomicgen-common.toml.

Radiation

• A real dose: gamma, neutron and beta radiation, in sieverts. It falls off with distance and is cut by the blocks between you and the source.
• Instruments: a Geiger counter, a dosimeter and a radiation monitor block.
• Protection: hazmat and lead-lined armour.
• Contamination on the ground and on items, which decays over time.
• Radioactive items give a dose from chests and machines too.
• No mutations: radiation hurts and can kill, but it never changes players or mobs.

The fuel cycle, from ore to fuel

• Ore to yellowcake: jaw crusher, ball mill, leaching tank, solvent extraction column, precipitator, calciner and tailings pond.
• The chemicals: roaster, acid plant, HF reactor, fluorine cell, electrolyser, evaporation pond and magnesium cell.
• Conversion and enrichment: the conversion plant (a multiblock) makes uranium hexafluoride, and gas centrifuges in a cascade (a multiblock) enrich it to the grade you choose. Every gram of U-235 is accounted for: no machine ever makes U-235.
• Metals and parts: the Acheson furnace (a multiblock) for graphite, the graphite purifier for nuclear-grade graphite, a zirconium plant, arc furnace, tube mill, rolling mill and press.
• Fuel fabrication: slug caster, hydriding furnace, canning line, pellet press, sintering furnace, rod and assembly bench, and neutron source assembler. Together they make the fuel for all four reactors of 1.0.

Pipes, steam and power

• Pipes with a real temperature and pressure: water boils, steam condenses, and a pipe bursts past its rating. Pumps, valves, check valves, relief valves and tanks.
• FE cables: copper, aluminium and a high-voltage line.
• The power side: heat exchangers and boilers, steam drums and separators, a multiblock steam turbine with its generator (its rotor spins up and coasts down, and its blades wear), condensers, a multiblock cooling tower, a water intake, and an emergency diesel generator that runs on vegetable oil from the Oil Press.

The Chicago Pile, the first reactor

• Build it your own way. Stack graphite blocks and graphite blocks loaded with uranium, and the mod finds the pile. Four things decide whether it can go critical:

  • its size;
  • its shape (closer to a ball is better);
  • how the uranium is spread through it;
  • how pure the graphite is.

  A pile about 9 × 9 blocks goes critical at its 7th or 8th layer.

• Approach critical the way Fermi did. Put the radium-beryllium neutron source in an irradiation slot, and watch the boron trifluoride counter climb as each layer goes on.

• Controls:

  • cadmium control rods, by hand or by redstone;
  • a zip rod that drops on a redstone signal, or by itself when the power passes its trip;
  • a SCRAM button on the counter's screen.

• Real reactor physics: delayed neutrons and the reactor period, temperature feedback, xenon and samarium, decay heat, burnup that breeds plutonium, and Wigner energy stored in the graphite.

• No cooling and no shielding. It warms up and levels off by itself, and standing next to a running pile gives you a strong dose.

• Irradiation slots breed plutonium into uranium, and turn cobalt into cobalt-60 and gold into gold-198.

• The advancement First Criticality.

The research tree

• A data recorder against the pile writes an operating log each time it goes critical.
• At the engineering bench, logs become reactor designs: the Chicago Pile's log unlocks the Magnox and research pool reactor designs. Designs are never used up, and you can copy one for a teammate.
• The research handbook shows the same map anywhere.
• For modpacks:
  • a research mode in atomicgen-common.toml: builtin, quests or off;
  • the commands /atomicgen research grant and revoke, for quest rewards.

Everywhere

• JEI pages for every machine and block (JEI is optional).
• An hour of reactor time is a minute of play.

Not in yet

• Power reactors: Magnox (next), the research pool reactor and the RBMK. Until then, FE comes from other mods or the emergency diesel.
• Accidents: meltdowns, graphite fires, fallout and containment.
• CC:Tweaked computer control, FTB Quests support and a guidebook.
• Spent fuel: uranium burned in the pile can't go back into the fuel machines. Reprocessing is planned for 2.0.

Requirements

• Minecraft 1.21.1 and NeoForge 21.1.200 or newer.
• On both the client and the server.
• Optional: JEI, for the recipe and information pages.

Credits

Made by DecayPlay for ManyQuills. The mod's own code and art are original.

This mod, along with all my other mods, is created using AI tools. I develop the ideas, make the design decisions—including what the mod does, how it functions, and how it is balanced—and test every version in-game before release. The code, textures, and art are all generated with AI tools. I carefully review every bug report and suggestion, which directly influence future updates. Due to time constraints, I rely on AI tools to assist in development. If you are opposed to AI-generated mods, this mod may not be suitable for you. I hold the copyright for all images and artwork used in my mods. At this time I also have enabled comments on all of Mod pages If you want to leave any feedback or any ideas you can use this GitHub repository to make a issue slash idea, It will be used for bugs features from you And feedback https://github.com/tyler919/mods/issues