The Best Power Source
- Thread starter Ddogclaw
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For those that are wondering, the way energy consumption is rounded a recycler or electric furnace with one OC is actually more efficient than one without an OC. (Actually, with recyclers 2 OCs are about equivalent to 0 OCs in terms of power consumption, but due to the cost of OCs, you might as well go with 2 recyclers in that case.)
And for people wondering about power production - with a single overclocker a recycler takes 32 eu / ticks to do one operation - at a 1/8 chance of producing scrap, that's 256 eu / ticks per recycler. It burns in a generator for 870EU @ 10eu/t. This means that 4 recyclers can power a generator (well, 3.4). If you work it out, 17 generators with 58 recyclers can produce 112 eu/t, at a total cost of 832 iron (7.42 iron/eu/t), 417 copper (3.72 copper/eu/t), 112 tin (1 tin/eu/t), 58 glowstone dust, and assorted other resources. So not the most efficient (still better than solars!), but it allows you to switch modes from EU generation to scrap production when you have other sources of EU.
I'm still working out what number of OCs are the best value, if any. (EDIT: No OCs is best for Tin and Copper/eu/t, 1 for overall, and 2 for iron/eu/t)
My current world has scrap for the bulk of my IC2 power production for everything besides Matter production.
Another thing why I use only 1 OC: The igneous extruders produce 1 cobble/40 ticks, so faster recyclers would cost more EU for exactly nil gain. More OCs is only feasible, if you have a different cobble source.
I really built my auto-recycler just to do something with all the cobblestone I'm getting from my mining turtles. It seemed wasteful just to delete it.
Is there a better way to trigger the Deployer other than just a timed pulse? Initially I used an old-fashioned Redstone block-torch-repeater-loop, now I'm using a Timer, but that's a lot of material investment. Is there any way of generating a redstone pulse when a Scrapbox is a) produced, b) loaded into a chest, or c) extracted from a chest? Are there any "item detector" pipes that take up less resources than a redstone pulse generator? I wouldn't mind if there is a Scrapbox sitting in the Deployer that gets deployed when another one is on the way. I have plenty of Redstone so it's not really a problem.
Can an extruder output into another extruder?
Also, you should be using pipes anyway - it's cheaper as you don't have to make 1 in 9 of the extruders.
This could get messy, if it works at all. The middle one would need to set both top and bottom side to orange, since orange is the cobble-slot. Orange is used for output of the cobble. When two slots are marked as an active output, they both get half of the output (I think). So the central one would output to top and bottom, resulting in cobble happily dancing up and down between the two.
This sentence only makes sense, if you use 0 OC. 40 ticks/production, 45 ticks/consumption. With 1 OC you would need to use 5 extruders for every 4 recyclers to reach balance.
Surprisingly it can. If you have two stacked extruders on for example recycler, you can setup bottom side of both extruders to orange and top side of bottom extruder to gray. Gray just gives access to output inventory, so another extruder can insert there and the cobble won't "dance".
"This sentence only makes sense, if you use 0 OC. 40 ticks/production, 45 ticks/consumption. With 1 OC you would need to use 5 extruders for every 4 recyclers to reach balance."
I prefer to place the igneous extruder on top of the recycler with the output facing downwards. Pipes can be messy because the extruder makes more cobble than a non overclocked recycler can handle. This has the benefit of also being very compact and allowing more recyclers to be placed in a smaller area.
Back on the topic of best power sources, I notice no one has mentioned the GT fusion reactor or lightning rods. Has anyone had a chance to try these out and see how practical they are?
I prefer to place the igneous extruder on top of the recycler with the output facing downwards. Pipes can be messy because the extruder makes more cobble than a non overclocked recycler can handle. This has the benefit of also being very compact and allowing more recyclers to be placed in a smaller area.
Back on the topic of best power sources, I notice no one has mentioned the GT fusion reactor or lightning rods. Has anyone had a chance to try these out and see how practical they are?
Yeah, while this isn't strictly an intended feature, it's just a side effect of how the colorless sides work - it's open access, so it's valid for input. You can stack up to 4 extruders this way and the last one will still expel the material without issue.
Well you could build extruder-flowers. 5 Extruders around a redpower relay with tubes leading to the recyclers. That way you can speed up the process a bit more.
My personal energy-production varies greatly. I realy like the blulectric engine and although you need 6 Solars for 1 MJ (or 12 Thermopiles) the Solars are really cheap and thermopiles also do not cost that much. Building "Energy-Towers and surrounding them with Glass-Covers so that you can see the Lava and Water inside also looks very cool.
Compared to IC2 a RP-Solar is 1/2 IC2-Solar, but their cost is considerably lower and since they act as wires it is easy to connect them. If you support them with a windmill you also compensate for rain, since the windmill will see a massive increase it it's efficiency during rain. Although the windmills run out they last almost forever it seems as if a 9 flax-plants can produce enough string to replace them if they run out (if you harvest them often enough).
Also a nice energy-production is charcoal. The first thing is that you can use a powered furnace to power itself (by outputting into the sterling-engine powering the furnace, not sure if it works for other engines, like steam). Second is that most tree farms produce enough wood to make charcoal a rather abundant ressource.
My personal energy-production varies greatly. I realy like the blulectric engine and although you need 6 Solars for 1 MJ (or 12 Thermopiles) the Solars are really cheap and thermopiles also do not cost that much. Building "Energy-Towers and surrounding them with Glass-Covers so that you can see the Lava and Water inside also looks very cool.
Compared to IC2 a RP-Solar is 1/2 IC2-Solar, but their cost is considerably lower and since they act as wires it is easy to connect them. If you support them with a windmill you also compensate for rain, since the windmill will see a massive increase it it's efficiency during rain. Although the windmills run out they last almost forever it seems as if a 9 flax-plants can produce enough string to replace them if they run out (if you harvest them often enough).
Also a nice energy-production is charcoal. The first thing is that you can use a powered furnace to power itself (by outputting into the sterling-engine powering the furnace, not sure if it works for other engines, like steam). Second is that most tree farms produce enough wood to make charcoal a rather abundant ressource.
Would just like to mention, since this discussion is going on, that scrap can power a fully-heated High-pressure Steam Boiler for 21.875 ticks, which is just about 1.1 seconds.
During this time, it would provide 3150 MJ, which can be converted at a 1:1 ratio into EU through the crucible > geothermal method.
And a low-pressure boiler would have the same efficiency, but would provide the energy at a slower rate.
During this time, it would provide 3150 MJ, which can be converted at a 1:1 ratio into EU through the crucible > geothermal method.
And a low-pressure boiler would have the same efficiency, but would provide the energy at a slower rate.
Not worth it considering the cost of the boiler, except if you're way low on everything except iron. If you have 1 OC/recycler, consider the case where you have 4 boilers, 47 recyclers, 54 industrial steam engines, 4 aqueous accumulators, 22 magma crucibles, and 22 geothermal generators. This produces 403 eu/t, at a cost of (288 boiler + 444 recycler + 702 engine + 32 accums + 88 crucibles + 220 geos) = 1774 iron. That's 4.4 iron/eu/t. For comparison an ordinary rec/gen with 2 OCs (best for iron usage) is: 5.75 eu/t. ...I was never here.
Be ready to make a lot of them. I've done a lot with them and you can have a compact build that is so so or a large build that is about half as good as solar. But it is totaly doable. I Even have a post somewhere about he silly ways to get BT to MJ to EU.
Or maybe i won't be trying this. e.e It appears with the other mods i've installed, my Blultric engie does'nt work. Bah.
I tend to not think about things very much in terms of resources used any more, but rather in terms of overall efficiency and usefulness. But you're right that resources is something which some would value more then I.
Also, some of your numbers are wrong, and kinda weird...
1 high-pressure steam boiler would require approximately 1 scrap per second, as I calculated earlier, which would be supplied almost exactly by 18 recyclers running full-time. (I prefer not using Overclocked machines since they're less efficient in terms of EU, but the total iron cost can be reduced considerably if you don't mind that) (That's 96 steel for the boiler, plus 189 refined iron for the recyclers, totaling 285 so far)
This boiler will provide enough steam for exactly 18 industrial steam engines, which produce 8MJ/t each, and cost 11 steel each, plus one iron for the piston, totaling 12 iron each. That's 216 iron, and it should be noted that these will produce 144MJ/t in total. (501 iron so far)
That's enough for 7.2 magma crucibles. I'll keep the decimal there so that the numbers scale up properly. (Yes, I know, you CAN use netherrack, but there's no way to really infinitely generate netherrack without devouring the nether.)
7.2 magma crucibles cost 5 iron each (36 iron) and each one will produce 1 lava every 1000 ticks, which would basically be 0.001 lava/t, totaling .0072 lava/t for them all. (537 total)
You'll also need 0.288 igneous extruders to keep those crucibles running, which is roundabout 2 iron. (539 total)
Now, the cool thing about lava is that, you don't HAVE to convert it into EU. Instead, you can centrifuge it into copper, tin, electrum, and tungsten at an industrial centrifuge, or you can turn it into obsidian at an igneous extruder, pulverize it at a pulverizer, then electrolyse it at an industrial electrolyzer into iron, (!!!) manganese, and silicon.
However, I'll assume you just wanna convert it all into EU.
For that, your best bet is the Gregtech thermal generator, which costs a geothermal, (10 iron) 5 invar, (2/3 iron each, 3 1/3 total) 2 advanced circuits, (Or was it normal? either way, not a lot to zero iron each) and 1 reinforced glass (something something small-amount-of-iron, or can even be made without any iron)
These produce 30,000 EU per unit of lava, and output at a rate of 25eu/t. This means they end up consuming .0012 lava/t, so you'll need exactly 6 to consume all the lava being produced. (80 iron, for 619 iron total so far)
Now, going back to the recycler array, while you COULD use 16 igneous extruders (112 iron) to fuel them, there are other, better sources of items, and even that cobblestone can be used in a more efficient manner. (cobblestone pipes can be recycled, so rotary macerating then induction furnacing 1/3 of the cobble, then auto-crafting it into pipes is a fast and easy way to use it more effectively) Also, it should be noted that normal cobble generators are capable of producing twice as much cobble per second as an extruder, though also are laggier in large amounts.
I'll just assume you'll use the 16 igneous extruders above, though. (731 iron)
I do believe I covered most of it... Oh! and you'll need anywhere from 1-0.5 aqueous accumulators, which is an additional 9-4.5 iron (740 total)
So, all in all, it should cost around 740 iron in total (plus a bunch of gold, silver, redstone, etc.) to produce 300 EU/t.
So no, this probably isn't the most efficient way to spend your iron to make EU, but it is reasonably space-efficient, straight-forward, can be done anywhere but the nether, and, if you happen to be acquiring 8 items per second in overflow, it can be a great way to use that for a little extra power. (And you can use it to instead make the infinite metal generation suggestions above)
Although, honestly, there are better ways to produce power from your space, especially when using steam boilers. (Shameless self-plug: http://www.computercraft.info/forum...um-replacement-and-rp2-automated-flax-farmer/ )
Also, going back to the original topic:
Currently, my obsessive idea is the a very interesting power generation scheme I've just recently cooked up, where a large, turtle-and-combine wheat farm (it will also grow potatoes, since wheat grows faster in rows, and ignores other crops planted in those rows) will produce wheat and seeds for mycelium production in moisteners, which can be centrifuged for clay, mushrooms, and sand in an industrial centrifuge. The clay will be auto-crafted into blocks and then macerated, then the dust will be electrolyzed into aluminum, sodium, (which can actually be very effective liquid steam boiler fuel) lithium, (which can be burned or combined with wolframium in a fusion reactor for iridium) and silicon. (probably to be thrown away)
The mushrooms will be centrifuged into methane, which is also an effective boiler fuel, and the sand will finally be sent off to the real powerhouse of the system; turtle-turbary peat bogs.
peat, when cooked in a furnace, can produce 1 ash, 2 of which can be electrolyzed into a carbon cell. However, burning it in a peat engine not only produces MJ, but also produces 1.5 ash instead of 1, increasing the carbon output of the set-up, which is what I really want.
Carbon can be combined with 4 hydrogen in a chemical reactor to produce 5 methane, which is a very effective liquid boiler fuel.
Also, due to some very convenient math, 4 engines provide enough ash for 3 chemical reactors, which is 15 methane every 250 seconds, for every 4 engines.
Unfortunately, I have no idea about how many moisteners I should need, nor their output, which I'll need to be able to determine how much total yield I'll get out of this set-up.
You want a good power source? Go look up how much Scaffolds produce. Now check how many of them you get for three planks and three sticks. Now compare that to an equivalent amount of charcoal...
1) Use 1 OC per recycler. This will reduce the time to 32 ticks, while staying at 1 EU/T (due to float->int conversion). With 2 OC you'll use 44 EU in 22 ticks, so ~same usage for double the speed compared to 0 OC.
2) Peat in a peat engine produces 2/3 ash per peat, not 3/2.
2) Peat in a peat engine produces 2/3 ash per peat, not 3/2.
@MilConDoin;
1) Hehehe, nice trick there, that would definitely help that set up a lot in both space-efficiency and cost...
2) Awww, that makes me sad... I really liked the idea of using a crap-ton of engines for that set-up. :/
Oh well, I suppose induction-furnacing the peat is more efficient, anyway.
Oh, and by the way, I forgot to mention that that above set-up is planned to centrifuge all the excess dirt produced by the peat bog, using half for keeping the thing going and half to be centrifuged into plantballs, more clay, and half as much sand, which is then fed back into the system.
1) Hehehe, nice trick there, that would definitely help that set up a lot in both space-efficiency and cost...
2) Awww, that makes me sad... I really liked the idea of using a crap-ton of engines for that set-up. :/
Oh well, I suppose induction-furnacing the peat is more efficient, anyway.
Oh, and by the way, I forgot to mention that that above set-up is planned to centrifuge all the excess dirt produced by the peat bog, using half for keeping the thing going and half to be centrifuged into plantballs, more clay, and half as much sand, which is then fed back into the system.