Forestry & RP 101

[b0bst3r]

Here's my guide to "best practices" in automating Forestry farms and machines using RP/tubing.

Before anyone says "it's easier with BC pipes" that's not the intention of this post, if you want BC pipe in/outs go visit the forestry wiki. RP tubing and interfacing is vastly different from that which is on the wiki simply because the wiki contains BC piping methods.

Texturepack is Sphax 64x

Tree Farm

Arboretum - Humus Input = bottom - Sapling input = top - Sand output =any side
Logger - Output (all items) any side

b0bst3rs best method, this doesn't mean it's the ONLY method

Stage 1 - Initial placement

Place Arboretum and Logger so the corners touch, attach power on one side and place a Relay on the other, because Forestry machines output to any connected storage, placing a Relay like this gets output from both Logger and Arboretum. It does not matter which direction the Relay faces, it can be any way you like so the only preference here is which way you want the output of the Relay to face.

You can place the power connection underneath if you do not plan on automating Humus to the Arboretum, you can place the Logger power underneath if you wish, but there's no point doing it like this.

Using a Relay is the best RP machine in my opinion, this is not the only way this can be done but is the most efficient way. You can if you wish use a buffer/chest in the Relay position and pull the items out with a Filter, this isn't very efficient, I'm just pointing out there are other ways to do this.

Stage 2 - looping saplings back in

Now, wow did I have fun trying to figure this out you cannot simply connect the RP tube after the Relay back into the top of the Arboretum. Why I hear you ask, well that's because the inventories on the Arboretum accept any item you can put in them so the sand, logs, sticky resin (if you use rubber trees), apples and saplings will end up back in the Arboretum clogging it up.

I have tried various methods of doing this but have found the Regulator to be the best and most efficient way. So place the Regulator on top of the Arboretum making sure it's facing the correct way up and then connect it to the tubing after the relay.

Regulator GUI - simply set so that you have 1 sapling in the left most grid and set the mode so the 3 dots are not aligned. This allows a sapling to go straight through the Regulator back into the Arboretum after being picked up by the Logger and sent through the relay.

Now what you have here is an auto loop of the saplings, any excess saplings will not go to the Regulator and will go down the RP tubing straight from the relay to whatever storage area you have.

Note of caution: If you placed the Relay so the output if facing upwards you will need to place a cover over the side of the Regulator because the tubes will connect to the side of the Regulator. If you don't cover the side of the Regulator all the items from both the Logger and Arboretum will end up mixed in the saplings inventory of the Arboretum. This will clog up both the Arboretum and Regulator so cover the side of the Regulator.

Stage 3 - Input of Humus

This part is pretty straight forward, make humus in a Carpenter by whatever means necessary and tube to the underneath of the Arboretum.

Now the forum may get derpy here with a double post and join this next part with the first one, I have no idea of the length of a single post and no idea whether I'm going to get the next part chopped in two or simply trying to post too much, the excess may be deleted. Or someone may post before I finish it which in either case ignore this .

My next logical step after a tree farm is a

Wheat Farm

Farm - Seed input = top - Dirt = NA (see below)
Combine - Output (all items) = side

Stage 1 - Initial Placement

Now that I have explained how to create a tree farm the wheat farm set up will be very similar in layout. Place a Farm and Combine so the corners touch each other, place power in one corner (or underneath) and the Relay in the other corner exactly how the tree farm pictures above show you.

Stage 2 - looping seeds back in

Exactly the same method as the tree farm, place a Regulator on top of the Farm with a single seed in the left side of the GUI. Connect the tubing in the same way as the tree farm shows, so it should look similar to the one below.

There is no need to input dirt automatically because dirt is not consumed by a farm once it's initial layout has been laid out.

Bog Farm

Peat Bog - Bog Earth input = bottom - Output dirt = any side
Turbary - Output (all items) = any side

Stage 1 Initial placement

Same as above with Peat Bog and Turbary corners facing each other, Relay at one side and power at the other, don't connect power underneath if you plan to automate Bog Earth production and connectivity to the Peat Bog machine.

Stage 2 is not applicable to the Bog Farm as there's nothing to re-use immediately in the farm.

Stage 3 - Input of Bog Earth

This part is pretty straight forward, make Bog Earth in a Carpenter by whatever means necessary and tube to the underneath of the Peat Bog.

What next .....

You may be thinking what about all the other farms, well we'll get to those later, once you have your tree, wheat and bog farm up and running you can begin to automate 2 processes. The process of producing Mulch in a moistener and the process of automating Humus and Bog Earth in Carpenters.

Wheat farm makes the wheat and seeds needed for the moistener to produce mulch for the carpenter to make bog earth and humus from that mulch, from the dirt output from the bog farm and the sand from the tree farm.

Before we go any further it's worth pointing out how to make Humus and Bog Earth in a Carpenter.

Humus is mulch in the middle with dirt all the way around. Bog Earth is mulch in the middle with dirt and sand staggered all the way around it. You will also need water to make the Carpenter run. but before we get into that let me show you how to make the moistener work.

Moistener

This is a beast to get automated using RedPower alone and whilst 90% of you will probably say forget that I'm using BC pipes I will tell you how it's possible to do with RedPower alone.

Using Wheat and seeds as "fuel" for the moistener the following ins and outs apply:

Mycelium - output from bottom
Seeds - Input from top
Wheat - Input from left side
Mulch - Output from same side as wheat (will explain below)
Water - Input from any side
Power - not required

Now I know what you're thinking after reading that, two things I bet, firstly how can you input the wheat and output the mulch from the same side ... aha well you can and I will show you how later secondly you'd be right in thinking that this input/output above covers just about every side of the moistener, so suspended in air the moistener does need to be.

Side note: I don't know if Sengir changed the mechanics or what of the moistener, it used to only function in the darkness but the one in my test world (SMP) functions at full speed in full daylight. This may be because I placed it in creative mode, I dunno, but intentional or a bug it may get fixed at a later stage.

So lets cover each side starting with the easiest to the most complex.....

Water - I used a Aqueous Accumulator connecting to the Moistener to the back using Liquiducts, I placed a water hole at 2 sides of the AA to give bigger water input.

Seeds - I used a Manager to control seed input into the top of the Moistener or alternatively look to the end of the next post and there's a cheaper way using a Regulator for seed input.

Mycelium - Attached a filter to the bottom of the Moistener to pull out the Mycelium.

That leaves the Wheat and Mulch which are input and output from the left side by the same machine which is ....

Damn I hit the limit and lost the rest going to third post

 

[JuliCash]

nice

 

[b0bst3r]

That leaves the Wheat and Mulch which are input and output from the left side by the same machine which is a Manager... in fact you need 4 Managers and that makes this REALLY expensive.

There are several ways in which you can do this and barrels is probably not the best way but for this guides sake it most definitely is the best way as you can see what happens and how it all works.

Let me show you the storage area before I break it down (again this is for the sake of ease to show you using barrels):

This is the storage area part of it where you have 2 managers controlling the flow of wheat and seeds and one manager controlling the Moistener side (also a Manager on top of the moistener for seed input). Because we have input and output of the barrels connected, any other machine would simply output from the barrel bottom and send it around the loop back into the top of the barrel and never stop. It's also not easy to change this set up without adding a few extra steps in the process because the Manager attached to the Moistener inputs and outputs and you need somewhere for the mulch to go and the wheat to come in on the same tubing. If I find a more cost effective way of doing this I will alter this guide.

Lets get on with it, change the Manager GUIs (BELOW THE BARRELS) to look like the one below, obviously changing the wheat for seeds in the Manager controlling the seeds.

The Manager next to the Moistener is the key to getting all this working and you must set the GUI of that Manager as per below, note the priority change too as well as having 64 wheat in it.

Change the Manager on top of the Moistener to the same setup with 64 seeds in it.

All 4 of the Managers must be powered by Blulectric power.

Now lets look at all of it:

Edit - I just noticed I put Relay for Mycelium output on the image, it's not a Relay it's a Filter.

The one thing you cannot see in the picture is the water input which is in the back of the Moistener, so here's a closer view from that side

So now you know how to set it up you may be wondering how that elusive mulch ends up coming out the wheat incoming tube.

Well it's not so hard to understand one you realise what's going on, your Manager attached to the Moistener lets 64 wheat into the Moistener input area (shown below as 1). When the Moistener starts working it grabs that first stack of wheat and drags it into area 2. That then allows the Manager to pull in another stack of 64 into area 1 again and that is always maintained. Lets see how the moistener works:

The left input face of the Moistener puts items in the area marked above as 1 (blue square) the moistener then moves a complete stack (or however many you put in) down into area 2 and processes that wheat into moldy wheat. So as you can see there the stack of wheat is being turned into the stack of moldy wheat, it processes all the normal wheat in that stack into the moldy wheat stack until there's none left from that stack. Then it takes that moldy wheat still in area 2 and processes it 1 by 1 into Decaying wheat as shown below:

Notice whilst I've been showing you the process how there's a stack of 64 normal wheat waiting to be processed? Well that's what the Manager is watching, anyway on we go with the next step. When the moldy wheat has all been processed into decaying wheat it turns that into mulch, as shown below:

Now all that decaying wheat will process into mulch and that mulch stack will stay in that bottom area and will not get moved until all the decaying wheat is turned into mulch. At that point the mulch is moved into the top area (area 1) and the Manager says "hey wtf you shouldn't be in here I only allow 64 wheat in here" and ejects it out and that is how the incoming wheat and outgoing mulch share the same side of the Moistener.

I worked out a slightly cheaper method replacing 2 of the 4 Managers with Filters, changing the loop and using a Regulator for seed input losing a 3rd Manager.

Next up... soon..... turning that mulch with the other farm waste (dirt and sand) into Bog Earth and Humus using a Carpenter.

 

[TiGG]

cant you do this set up for peat also?

 

[SilvasRuin]

I love how elegantly simple that is. I'm eagerly anticipating a segment on a multistory Peat Form.

 

[b0bst3r]

Sorry guys I'm adding to this live but due to this popup thing when you edit posts it's making it not easy and I keep losing it so saving often seems to be the key here, this post is going to get REALLY long, be interesting to see if I hit a limit eventually

 

[5argan]

instead of the regulator you could use a filter or transposer only accepting saplings

 

[AliasXNeo]

So how are you powering your farms?

 

[b0bst3r]

instead of the regulator you could use a filter or transposer only accepting saplings

As I quoted several times throughout the initial post this is just one way of doing it, there are a few alternate methods.[DOUBLEPOST=1357079586][/DOUBLEPOST]

So how are you powering your farms?

I use Biogas engines via Redstone energy conduit, it is my intention (depending on feedback) to expand this into making biomass and using biogas engines to power itself. But I think I will only go so far before I switch to Youtube.

 

[Lakart]

If you want to semi-automate the process of making bog earth you could use this code in a crafting turtle http://pastebin.com/jat3DXns (Source: http://www.computercraft.info/forums2/index.php?/topic/6150-bog-earth-making-turtle/ )

 

[b0bst3r]

Carpenter production is not so bad, will get to that next.

 

[Florastar]

I <3 posts like this.

 

[Lakart]

I just tend to like automating everything as far as I can with golems xD

 

[whythisname]

Great stuff.

I'm not very experienced with RP2 (just getting started and reading up on the ton of cool stuff it adds xD), but I think you can fix the "output from barrels looping back up" with a "restriction" tube between the input and output of the barrels. From what I understand it basically simulates a very long pipe (5000 blocks or something), which in turn will mean it will try to put stuff into other places before looping it back (the RP2 pipes will always try to put stuff in the closest available place).
I don't know if there is anything you can change about the input/output of the Moistener though, but you might be able to shave off a few managers using the Restriction tube.

btw, you can also produce Bog Earth with the GregTech Electric Crafting bench. It's not a cheap machine, but it allows you to use the recipe with Water Buckets and allows you to reuse those. Which basically means that if you include one of the many ways to produce infinite sand (I use an Igneous Extruder + Pulverizer) you can effectively make a self sustaining Peat farm.
Though I'm not sure if the MK2 crafting table from "Tubestuff" can do the same. If it can (which I think is true) it's a lot cheaper and doesn't require power (afaik).
When going with this setup I do recommend an RP buffer + sorter to regulate the flow of items into the crafting table though (to me that looked like the cheapest solution, there might be others though).

 

[b0bst3r]

Great stuff.

I'm not very experienced with RP2 (just getting started and reading up on the ton of cool stuff it adds xD), but I think you can fix the "output from barrels looping back up" with a "restriction" tube between the input and output of the barrels. From what I understand it basically simulates a very long pipe (5000 blocks or something), which in turn will mean it will try to put stuff into other places before looping it back (the RP2 pipes will always try to put stuff in the closest available place).
I don't know if there is anything you can change about the input/output of the Moistener though, but you might be able to shave off a few managers using the Restriction tube.

The looping is intentional in my model as you have to have an input on the same line as an output since the mulch and wheat go up and down the same Tube/Manager. Again in the model above a restriction tube would not stop the looping as the output and input are still connected to each other regardless of how long the pipe was (or virtually was). If you replaced those Managers under the barrels with filters, then every tick of the timer a stack would get sent around the loop and back in the top. Yes it would work eventually and send a stack to the Manager when it needed one but it would still loop the remainder of the time. You need that Manager against the Moistener otherwise it would fill with Wheat and have no room to output the Mulch. You can't put a sorting machine on it because again you have incoming and outgoing items on the same pipe. I'm muddling over other possible methods right now but I can't see any which involve staying on the Forestry/RedPower theme.

 

[whythisname]

Yeah, I guess that's an issue. I'm also not familiar enough with RP to come up with any other machine that can handle both incoming and outgoing stuff. afaik most of the basic/cheaper RP machines only input or output, but not both.

 

[b0bst3r]

Well I thought about it and made it work losing 3 Managers, 2 for filters and using a Regulator for seed input now the Filter pushes the Seeds out (added to the end of the 2nd post) but not sure this would work in my huge farm network.

 

[Chucky5150]

Thank you for this post. I've been wanting to use RP tubes and try something a little different as all my last builds have been using buildcraft and logistic pipes. I just didn't know where to start.

 

[bigtwisty]

I'm curious as to why you use regulators on top of the arboretum and the farm instead of filters, which would be cheaper? Is there something in the Forestry mechanics that require the higher tier device?

 

[b0bst3r]

Nope you can use filters, just a lot of people don't know you can use them like that. I'm going to start a video season on Forestry with RedPower tomorrow hopefully, so will be easier to explain.