The Hypertorus Fusion Reactor is a complex machine ported from tg station.
I recommend reading this guide before continuing, since its mostly still accurate with a few caveats (and also not very helpful for people trying to actually operate one, as it fails to really explain much if any of the actual procedure).
Now, I will provide a very brief summary of the HFR's mechanisms
The Hypertorus has a few important statistics:
Integrity - Its a health bar, 0 - 100%, plain and simple
Iron Content - A rate of damage, effectively. More iron = more integrity lost per second. Can become VERY fast very quickly as its a non-linear deal.
Temperature - Split into Fusion, Moderator, Coolant, and Output. Unlike TG, the max temperature not 20 million K, but the actual hardcoded game temp limit (which is a ridiculously high number you probably can't reach even with this thing)
Power Level - Based on the Fusion temperature
--0-500K = PL 0
--500K+ = PL1
--1000K+ = PL2
--10,000K+ = PL3
--100,000K+ = PL4
--1,000,000K+ = PL5
--10,000,000K+ = PL6
Each tick, 10% of the Moderator will heat exchange with the entire Fusion mix. Then, a fixed volume of coolant will be pulled from the coolant pipe and interact with the Moderator mix, directly equal to the Coolant Volume setting on the console UI in Liters.
Heat Conductor controls how quickly the Fusion mix temperature may change each tick, setting minimum and maximums and affecting the heat/cool rate. The math is weird and obtuse and not worth knowing - just know that it goes 50-500 and is a somewhat "fine" control on heat delta. Note that it is heat delta, not heat gain; if the reaction is exothermic higher conductor will make it cool faster.
Magnetic Constrictor controls the strength of the field that contains the reaction. Lower constrictor = weaker field = more fusion. Higher constrictor = stronger field = weaker fusion. Leave at 50 unless you really need to kill the reaction and get the reactor cooling down. Extremely strong effect on heat delta (again, endothermic fusion will cool faster/slower respectively)
Current Damper affects reaction "stability", altering how endo or exothermic it is. For any given reaction there is some amount of damper that will flip it between the two (which can be a value exceeding the maximum or minimum damper levels, which are 0 - 1000). The math is obtuse and weird, just know that you can find that point relatively easily experimentally as you run the HFR and that it will change even for the same recipe depending on other circumstances. It'll be different almost every time.
The HFR has a large number of recipes with various characteristics. The "Cheap" recipes that involve only oxygen and one of the three main combustibles are natively endothermic and very difficult to get running, but CAN run exothermically if you have the time to slowly wait for them to heat up (or the ability to pre-heat the fuel). Very difficult to get to high power levels with them, and their gas production multipliers are very low.
The "middle" recipe consuming Hydrogen and Tritium with all 1x values in its characteristics is by far the most effective while still being reasonably easy to get to. Just hydrogen and tritium, and as long as you are careful in how you run it you'll only need oxygen as a moderator to keep iron content down. If you are able or willing to also get BZ and Healium production going, you can run this recipe even harder and do some real saucy shenanigans - but otherwise you really only need trit/hydro and oxy.
The last three recipes are all Hypernoblium recipes, again with combustibles except for the final recipe which is Hyper-Anti. These recipes are the opposite of the cheap ones; extremely exothermic and ludicrously difficult to control without a massive heat sink of some sort. These recipes can also produce disgusting amounts of money gases owing to their higher gas production multipliers, and are worth going for IF you have a way to produce sufficient hypernob for them.
But how do you actually run the damn thing?
Well there are about 3 main ways (technically four but two are the 'same') to make money with the HFR.
The first and most obvious is Power generation - the thing makes a fuckload of heat. If you got a TEG and you got an HFR, you have an easy road to ungodly amounts of power gen and thus ungodly money in the PTP sale point.
The second is Antinob production - which can be done in two ways. The first way is to just use a hyper recipe to slap make antinob, which can be done en masse even at low power levels assuming you have sufficient hypernob and trit production to sustain it. Each power level has a specific FIR value that maximizes gas production, check the TG guide for those values as they are accurate for us as well.
The second way to print antinob, which any recipe can do, is called H-Factor production. At Power Levels 5 and 6, the presence of byproduct in the Fusion mix will natively produce antinob for all recipes. The speed of this depends on some factors, but largely depends on the amount of byproduct and the Fuel Injection Rate - the LOWER the FIR, the better the production. This is where the SS14 HFR differs greatly from TG. On TG, the minimum FIR value is 5, which throttles anti production via this method quite harshly. But here on SS14, our HFR can go as low as .01; which can produce ungodly amounts of antinob if there is enough byproduct present in the mix. This is my preferred method, as the hydro-trit recipe can shit out helium pretty easily and without much fuss and antinob is very easy to cool down to safe and storage-friendly levels. Again the math is obtuse, but the TG guide at least has a discreet formula if you are interested in that.
The third way to make money with the HFR is what I like to call Moderator Soup. Certain gases in the HFR's moderator will result in the production of secondary byproducts (on top of the specific recipe's secondary byproducts). The values are weirdly specific and all over the place - check the TG guide again for those values if you care.
But for this method, the key is BZ and Plasma. These gases, at PL3 and 4, will produce several other high value gases in not-insignificant amounts (especially at PL4). Plasma will make Freon and Nitrium; BZ will make Proto-Nitrate and Healium. The latter is by far the most important, the Healium can of course be stored and used later to heal damage to the Reactor. Proto-Nitrate, consequently, makes more Nitrium and Halon. But more importantly, if you siphon it and store it for later- you can make a FUCKload of Zauker while running the HFR at pl6. This method also produces exorbitant heat and radiation, making the HFR a Terawatts capable generator as a bonus. Start at PL4, build up a stock of Proto-Nitrate and Healium; then heat up to PL6 and reinject your stores to shit out a buttload of Zauker and Nitrium.
If you also manage to make Hypernob, you can run a Hyper-Trit recipe and produce ungodly Antinob in addition to all this; effectively using all three methods at once. Anti production, Zauker printing, and heat and radiation generation.
But How do you actually RUN the hfr to DO these things?
Here is a step by step
Step 1 - Secure your Inputs
Decide what fuels and moderators you want, and get all your piping set. You will always want some kind of heat sink, whether its a TEG or a plain old cold loop. Radiators are exponentially more effective at higher temperatures, so as long as you prevent clogging (use an inlet regulator and a passive vent) you can get a very effective cold loop with minimal effort.
Step 2 - Boot it Up
Get the HFR built, make sure its 5 key components are where you want them. One is the waste, one is the moderator, one is for fuel, and the console is where you have to route the cooling pipe (which connects directly to the core). Then pop open the UI, select your recipe, and press all the buttons. Turn on cooling, turn on fuel injection, turn on moderator injection, configure your filter if you want/need to, etc. The HFR eats 600kw of power and causes flickering issue when you don't have enough APCs. About 5 APCs is enough to eliminate flickering, assuming you have sufficient power generation on station.
Step 3 - Heating Up
Initially you'll start at PL0 or PL1 (maybe even Pl2 if you're inputs are extremely preheated). Each PL is exponentially more extreme than the last, so while at PL0 you may struggle to get changes of a few degrees, the nanosecond you hit PL1 they'll become 10x more extreme. Then again at pl2, and so on. It can RAPIDLY spiral out of control and snap to PL6 in literally 5 or 6 seconds if you aren't careful.
By default, the Heat Conductor is at 500, Current Damper at 0, and cooling/magnetic at their minimum values. Leave this as is initially and focus on moderator and fuel injection. Get a good stock of your moderators in there, they decay at .05% per tick (.5 seconds) and you usually need some minimum molage of them to get the desired effects. Do a bit of math, figure out your ideal rates, but don't be afraid to shock it up higher or lower to affect your cooling; Room temperature gas can dramatically cool the reactor if injected in large enough quantities.
For fuel injection, you almost always want to start with a high number to get some fuel in there. More fuel = more fusion potential = faster boot up and more production. But don't do too much - excess fuel can reduce fusion scale, or just make it too hard to control. I like to get to about 1000 mols of each; enough for large production but not so much that I can't keep it under control. TO do this I'll set FIR to 25 initially until I get to 1000 mols of each or the Power Level threatens to cross to PL1.
Step 4 - Reign it in
The nanosecond you hit PL1, things are liable to spiral out of control if you aren't ready. Be ready to kill your fuel injection rate (don't turn it OFF, just reduce it to a lower value such as 1 or 5; FIR off can actually make the hfr heat up faster since the FIR affects alot of other weird math going on inside - generally a higher FIR will make the reaction more active). Be ready to set current damper to higher value, such as straight to 1000, turn down heating conductor, etc. You might shoot up to PL5 or 6, this is ohkay as long as you have Oxygen in place to counteract the iron production and your cooling is strong enough to bring it back in once all the dials are turned to maximize cooling (Usually gonna be 1000 damper, 500 conductor, max cooling volume, etc.). But also don't go TOO overboard - it is possible to shock it back down into PL0 or PL1 and kill the reaction, potentially forcing you back to step 3.
Step 5 - Stabilize
Once you have the reactor under some amount of control, it becomes time to fine tune. I usually go to PL4 and try to identify the damper level that flips the reaction between endo/exo. By keeping damper close to that level and minimizing the heat conductor, you can create a very stable fusion mix that doesn't heat or cool by all that much per tick and can even flip entirely on its own between a narrow band of temperatures. Once I find the right damper level, I'll kick up the fuel injection rate a bit to build up some byproduct and then increase heat conductor to the maximum my cold loop can control.
Once I've got about 1000 mols of byproduct, its time for the real money
Step 6 - Unlimited Powah
Once you have all your settings in place and gases ready to go, its time to move on to the real money. Set FIR to a lower/higher value as appropriate to your money strategy, and adjust the damper or conductor accordingly to let it heat back up to PL5 or PL6 (as appropriate for your strategy). Then just let it run, these Power levels will have their own stabilization points for the current damper, so spend some time finding it so you can readily have your finger on the button to kill it and shock the temperature back down. Always have a plan for killing your reactor in case things start to spiral out of your control. Higher heat conductor allows for better heat generation, so if heat is your goal you want that higher - it also helps with gas production as well if you're doing a Soup strategy.
But for the "basic" H-factor anti strat, I like to just set fuel injection to .01 and let it run. It will very slowly build up Iron content at PL5, but it can take awhile before it starts to even damage the integrity of the reactor; and in the meantime it'll shit out ungodly amounts of antinob which I send to a cooling storage for eventual compression and sale.
Step 7 - Calm Down
Once your Iron Content is at untenable levels, it's time to go back down to PL4 and re-stabilize. Give it time to recover, turn on the filter and suck out gases if you need/want to, etc. Reset, then go back at it again once the iron is at 0%. For some PL6 strategies, if you have enough Healium production you can ignore this step and leave it sitting on PL6 forever and let the Healium keep the reactor permanently topped up at 56%. This requires 200 Healium per second. Note that at PL6, antinob will not evict itself from the Fusion mix- so you may eventually have to turn down to PL5 just to flip the filter on and let the mix chamber fix itself.
