Working around multiple redpower retrievers

[fyj]

I'm currently trying to set up a pile of machines to automagically process different materials out of my storage system. I've gone and hooked up all the pipes & I started setting up retrievers to pull the items down for processing. I have a single timer set up pulsing all the retrievers with and-gates set up so I can have off-switches per machine.

All was grand until I set up 2 expecting the same item (2 different processes both needing tin) and it all went to the first retriever even when I wasn't pulsing that one. I've done some reading and mostly it says "Working as intended" which sorta says that retrievers can't do what I want. Which really sucks because trying to get the exact right qty's of the items using buildcraft piping & ripping out everything I've done doesn't sound like fun.

Does anyone know a way to achieve what I'm after here with redpower? Perhaps even just a way to close off the pipe to a turned off retriever using a redstone signal - I'm ok with having to choose between machines that process the same materials if I have to, but having to break & reattach pipes to do so isn't exactly optimal...

PS: To pre-empt, unless I can turn off halves of the machine, a sorting machine won't really do it cause I want to be able to turn on 1 machine processing tin & turn off the other. Best-case would be being able to have both-on both-off or 1-on, but I'd settle for just 1-on or both-off. Both-on or both-off isn't really viable cause I plan to scale up significantly (Perhaps 10 machines all using 1 material) once I work around this

 

[Evil Hamster]

Only thing I can think of is set up a "buffer" chest for tin with it's inventory maintained by a manager and have your retrievers pull from it. Might be clunky, but should work.

I'm sure somebody else can come up with a better idea.

 

[budge]

If you apply a continuous redstone signal to the retriever you DON'T want receiving the item, will it reject it and pass it on to the next one? The same way a transposer with a continuous signal rejects items? If this works then maybe you could set up a circuit that pulses one and "locks" the other long enough for the item(s) to complete their trip.

Thinking about it more, I believe the initial "locking" signal would pull the desired item into the network, and then reroute it to the non-locked one. So you would need to account for receiving that extra one.

 

[fyj]

Just checked, retrievers still receive the item even if they have a constant redstone signal sent to them.

That said, you did give me an idea with the mention of transposers... it seems that if I put a powered transposer after the retriever so that it has nowhere to send the item it will choke the retriever because it can't output it's item and the others bypass it. I'm going to see if I can find a way to set that up in such a way as to not end up causing myself problems. At the moment my issue is that it'll leave me 1 stack imbalanced on both machines though every time I switch it over (Cause the buffered one will eventually come out) & they'll eventually choke up cause they need the right ratios of items coming in for it to work... (And "averages out with a bigger buffer" logic won't work cause the closer on the network will always take the shared item & the other will always be starved - considering using a regulator & some sort of "overflow pipe"... may work...).

Evil: That may sorta work... it'd still leave me limited to 5 outputs per buffer chest right? (As each retriever would need a separate pipe or I'd be back in the same problem & a chest only has 6 sides). I've also got the issue that my stuff is in barrels & that doesn't play nicely with managers (Since output has to be on bottom & input on top)... that said if I find something with a suitably small inventory (like a hopper) I can just use a retriever and not a manager to fill my buffer... only drawback is I'm stuck at 5 outputs & if I want to increase I'd have to use 4 outputs and the 5th to another buffer... would end up with quite a rats nest of piping to make that work large-scale.

 

[budge]

This is getting complicated. Why not have one retriever pull the item to a regular chest, with two filters pulling from it, or one sorting machine in the default mode with two columns? Would that work for your situation?

 

[Abdiel]

I don't think a retriever can pull "through" a transposer/filter. The only solution I can come up with (and I admit it's an overengineered one) is to have a frame pull out one section of the tube, so that items can only reach one retriever.

 

[budge]

You misunderstand. I mean keep the original setup (minus one retriever), and have it deposit to a temporary chest. Then hook filters or a sorting machine to that chest, and have that/those handle the distribution of the item.

 

[Antice]

I have an idea for you.
it uses only a single retriever on the inventory you want to pull from. it is pulsed regardless of what machine wants the item, then use transposers as blockers on the recieving end on all but the one machine that you want the item put into. that way you wont choke any of your machines with items that don't have anywhere to go.

Another option is to use the choking to your advantage, and use buffer chests managed by managers that only accept the correct ratio and amount of items into the buffer for that machine, that way you can keep them stocked at all times, but only have items sent whenever your machines are consuming items from it's buffer. if you do this everywhere, then a simpler circuit can be employed at the storage system end.

 

[Celestialphoenix]

Items go to the nearest target- so move a few tubes to make both retrievers the same distance from the chest.

 

[fyj]

Thanks for the ideas, but I'm not sure any of those will work...

1) Using 1 retriever for all - The problem is I'm pulling items in ratio. If I get 30 tin for example, i want exactly 24 iron and 18 copper cause I'll be crafting 6 of that into bronze, smelting the iron, rolling machining it all, then compressing it into alloys. Whereas the other machine might just be crafting empty cells and just want multiples of 4 tin, and a 3rd machine I might be making neutron deflector plates and need 4 tin to 4 coal to 8 copper. If it's all coming in via 1 retriever it can't all be in the right ratios.

2) Buffer chest - The problem is then pulling the right amount from the buffer chests and maintaining the ratios, and then the problem that if I use a retriever to pull the right quantities out I won't be able to connect 2 machines because they'll both want the same other items & then I'll end up joining the pipes again and it'll just take the shortest path. I'd end up having to buffer everything & have separate pipe networks for every machine... I'm really hoping to be more extendable than that

3) Equidistant - That'd work great if I wanted 50% of the tin to each machine, but I really don't want that. Even if every machine was turned on, they'll all be wanting different quantities of inputs

4) Managers - Unfortunately my storage room runs off barrels not chests, and barrels don't play nice with managers given you have to fill them from the top & empty them from the bottom. I suppose I could put a retriever to a chest which is then ran by a manager, but then I'd essentially have to do this for every single material (No way I can balance the input qty's between half-managed and half-retriever'd items) which for some rarer items filling an entire buffer chest really isn't something I can afford the items to do (I don't really have a few thousand iridium laying around to fill a chest for example, but some of my plans include a machine making iridium plates) & I can't see a good way to cut off the refill coming from the barrel at a fixed quantity if it's cut off from the machines using it)... This is probably the most viable of the lot currently, and I might fall back to having essentially a secondary in-the-floor storage network of chests & managers if I can't make the other stuff work.

Unless anyone has a great idea in the next day I'll likely give a shot at implementing the idea above w/ transposers & regulators & overflows tomorrow - I think I realistically can manage that & it'll only cost me an extra 2 transposer's, 1 regulator, 1 restriction pipe, a few pneumatic tubes & a couple of redpower gates per machine... worst part will be ripping them out to space them out again and rebuilding the machines cause I doubt I can fit the machine into the space I left myself when I thought the retrievers did it all... d'oh

 

[trunksbomb]

You're all overthinking this, but budge came the closest.

In my Redpower sorting system I made a while back I had multiple places for some things to go. For example, cobblestone could go to either storage, furnaces to be smelted, or macerators to be crushed to sand. I did this with ONE retriever on the input chest and a filter after that per destination. I held the two filters I didn't want it to go to ON with a redstone signal, and the destination I wanted was left untouched. Each filter had a piece of cobblestone in it and some paint to designate the right tube for it to go to. Never had any problems with it.

Skip to about 3 minutes.

 

[fyj]

That only really works if you assume only 1 input per system & doesn't allow for ensuring a specific ratio between multiple inputs. In short, your system's not what I'm trying to build. I've already got all that kind of stuff going on with sorting machines as-is, I'm trying to do something beyond that. "Overthinking" is not the right term. "Overdesigning" is clearly arguable, and I'd happily accept it may not be the world's most practical objective, but I take the view that overkill is underrated

 

[budge]

I've created an album to demonstrate my suggestion.

http://imgur.com/a/eVmAL/embed

 

[fyj]

Yeah budge, I get what you're saying, but the problems I have with that setup is:
1) It's all or nothing - I have to turn on or off every single machine using tin, else the sorting machine will clog when it can't send out the items to that color. Given you have it on allstack sequential it won't be able to handle it if it doesn't have somewhere to send all the inputs or if I run out of inputs for 1 machine (Even on Random Allstack I'm pretty sure it'll queue up the items to send to the color then block itself until it can do it - I had a similar issue on another sorting machine setup but I solved that one just by upping the throughput of the machine it was going to until it could process the input fast enough to not clog).

An example of this would be that if I had to keep my Ultimate Hybrid Solar Panel machine (Doesn't exist yet, but I'm going for expandable ) running to be able to have my Carbon Plate machine running since they both want coal there's going to be a point where I run out of glowstone and my carbon plate manufacturing stops working - not to mention I probably don't want a 1:1 ratio of carbon plates to ultimate hybrid solar panels

2) If I want other items they'll all have to be pulled by the retriever into the chest so the sorting machine can do the right ratios. Then I have multiple items in the chest & a chance that it will "clog" at the chest by filling every slot & running out of a material I want (e.g. It's all full of tin, but I can't use that tin without iron). I won't be able to get the input ratios correct cause I can't change the regulator based on which machines are on (I'd prefer not to have to reconfigure to turn one off - just a redstone signal).

Turning off the machines independently and relatively painlessly is a pretty important feature & I'm willing to go stupid-complex if I can get that

 

[budge]

How about installing a regulator between the chest and the retriever, telling it to keep a modest supply of all the necessary ingredients, and use a filter on each side of the chest for each crafting table that is independently pulsed when one table is in use?

 

[KirinDave]

The computercraft sorter could also split along ratios, and be programmed to do arbitrarily complex things there. Especially since the computer itself can be wireless.

 

[fyj]

The key problem there budge is that with filters I only have 6 sides on the chest, 1 for input, can't block the top, leaves 4 output filters, and therefore max 4 machines running off each buffer chest. Given the buffer chest has to have all the materials for those 4 machines in it, I'll likely wind up with a lot of items scattered throughout buffer chests by the time I'm done.

I'll also have to deal with the regulator being clogged with the wrong item (Technically it'll send it back to the filter, but still clogging the path) and then the machine will never get the right item to move on because it's coming from the same filter that's clogged with the wrong item.

The only fix for that would be to put some kind of overflow between the retriever and the regulator which sends back any excess items the regulator doesn't actually want currently back to the main storage area (Using perhaps a restriction pipe & a transposer to ensure a 1-way output that'll only go when the regulator refuses the item). At that point, you've built exactly what I'm thinking of & by simply adding 1 more disable-able transposer between the retriever and the regulator/overflow you remove the need for a buffer chest for every 4 machines. Assuming my theory works that is - I'll probably try building it tonight assuming no amazing theory comes in for a simpler approach

KirinDave - coding it just doesn't seem as fun as an overly elaborate network of pipes & machines - I'm sure I could have an army of turtles running around my base and taking items where they belong. The main thing that killed this plan for me is the HTTP protocol is disabled on my server and coding complex LUA scripts via the turtle interface with all the lag included is pretty horrible when you can't type it in a real GUI then pastebin it over. That and turtles seem to have a habit of crashing about yielding issues for no good reason on the server - seems server lag related & computercraft forums weren't much help so I gave up on turtles

 

[budge]

Well, then my last suggestion would be managers. Yeah, you'll need additional buffer chests and managers at each crafting station, but now you only need one manager at the first buffer chest, instead of a filter for every table. Do you have a picture of your setup that could help us get a look at the situation?

 

[Evil Hamster]

Given the buffer chest has to have all the materials for those 4 machines in it

That's not true.

If you have your retrievers connected via 1 tube to the tin buffer chest and that tube connects to your storage system that is farther away when the retriever requests tin it will take from the buffer chest and when it requests copper pr whatever else it will pull from storage.

Granted this will be the most difficult to pipe up and make look neat, but it will work.

 

[fyj]

Hamster: But if I have 2 retrievers both connecting to the main storage network & to the buffer chest then the input to both retrievers has been linked by their connection to the storage room and the items being retrieved from the buffer chest would have a path available to reach the other retriever. I suppose with the right combination of restriction pipes it may be possible to ensure that they do run off the buffer, but I'm still limited to 4 per chest absolute maximum which just isn't good & I wind up with a crazy number of pipes per buffer chest and once I do this... Hypothetically for half a dozen materials each with 2 or so buffer chests each (meaning 6 * 2 * 4 = 48 separate pipes) I doubt there'll be any way to hook up the pipes in a sane way especially when I also have to be very careful about the length of them all... Then you can consider what happens to the piping when you have 2 items from different buffer chests to the same machine & still are pulling other things from the main storage and then you have to worry about short-circuiting between both those buffer chests if another retriever happens to use the same buffers. So yeah... it just isn't an extensible design

Budge: Interesting... I suppose if I had transposers from barrels to a regulator for each 9 materials maintaining a buffer chest with a manager pulling out of it then I can use managers for everything from there. Looking at how awesome managers are with chests I get the distinct feeling I should never have used barrels - but they're so much cooler for getting items out by hand... wish they played nicer with pipes That said, even if I do use managers I'll have to ensure either that I pull the entire content out of the chest in 1 go or that I still have another regulator after the manager chest because otherwise I still won't be able to ensure the right ratio goes out to the machine (Since the manager will start refilling the chest, unless my output is 100% before it starts refilling I won't get the ratio the manager was maintaining). Certainly an option, but probably not much simpler than the transposer/regulator approach I was discussing unless the machine is simple enough to run directly from the managed chest (like an auto-crafting table).


Odds are I'll give this another shot tonight (Australian, so I'm still at work atm ) & I'll post a few pictures of the setup once I get it working, or worse when I give up