Blood Magic: problem with pumping life essence back into the altar

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Ieldra

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Apr 25, 2014
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...which apparently does not work at all. This is Blood Magic in Agrarian Skies 3.1.2. I was experimenting with liquid management in order to automate some crafting processes in the blood altar. Pumping life essence out works perfectly, if painfully slow, but when I set my tank and duct to get the life essence back into the altar, it does vanish slowly from the tank, but never appears in the altar. Also, if I remove the portable tank I'm left with a fluiduct full of life essence which doesn't go back into the altar.

Is there something I am not understanding about the process? Do assume that I know how to pump fluids with TE fluiducts and portable tanks, and that the altar was not full while I was trying this.
 

ratchet freak

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Nov 11, 2012
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slowness can be upgraded with the correct runes

does the divination sigil see any changes in stored LP of the altar?
 

Ieldra

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does the divination sigil see any changes in stored LP of the altar?
Not when pumping it in. That's why I'm asking in the first place. The level depletes when I pump life essence out, but when pumping it in the tank levels slowly deplete, but the essence in the altar stays the same.
 

RJS

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Jul 29, 2019
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Was it a freshly placed altar? If so, the first bit of life essence drains out of the main altar and into the output buffer. I'm guessing you had the duct that was pumping out removed.
 

Ieldra

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Was it a freshly placed altar? If so, the first bit of life essence drains out of the main altar and into the output buffer. I'm guessing you had the duct that was pumping out removed.
No, this had been existing for quite a while, and was about half filled when I started experimenting, so I could try out both automated input and output. At no point in this experiment was the altar either full or empty.

Also, no I didn't remove the duct pumping things out. I just switched direction on the duct and the tank.

I don't know about this buffering function, though. Can it be that when I pump things in after having pumped things out, the buffer starts empty and the essence level of the altar will only increase once the buffer is full? I did not wait more than the 50 seconds required (assuming the buffer size is 1000) before I concluded that things didn't work. And *then* I removed the duct and tried a few other things. I never waited that long for any experiment since it doesn't make sense until you have inside knowledge of how this works.
 

RJS

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From what I understand of the altar mechanics, there are actually three tanks. There's an input buffer, the main altar store, and the output buffer. Blood you put in through sacrifice enters straight into the main tank, blood you pipe in enters into the input buffer, and blood you pump out leaves from the output buffer. Blood, wherever possible will flow from input to main tank to output, hence why when you first put an altar down the first blood you put in drains away slowly, as it enters the output buffer. The rate at which it flows is very slow initially, but can be increased by using runes of dislocation. If you've been pumping out just before piping in, it is possible that the the output buffer is depleted. You can test this by by putting some blood in via sacrifice and seeing if the amount in the main tank slowly drains. If it does, then you're output buffer is empty. If it doesn't, I have no idea.
 

Ieldra

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Apr 25, 2014
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From what I understand of the altar mechanics, there are actually three tanks. There's an input buffer, the main altar store, and the output buffer. Blood you put in through sacrifice enters straight into the main tank, blood you pipe in enters into the input buffer, and blood you pump out leaves from the output buffer. Blood, wherever possible will flow from input to main tank to output, hence why when you first put an altar down the first blood you put in drains away slowly, as it enters the output buffer. The rate at which it flows is very slow initially, but can be increased by using runes of dislocation. If you've been pumping out just before piping in, it is possible that the the output buffer is depleted. You can test this by by putting some blood in via sacrifice and seeing if the amount in the main tank slowly drains. If it does, then you're output buffer is empty. If it doesn't, I have no idea.
My problem is not with pumping things out, but with pumping things in - as the power level does not increase even while the tank empties out slowly. Does the input buffer need to be full before the main tank fills up? That would be the only possible interpretation of my findings except "it's a bug". It would also be rather unintuitive.
 

RJS

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Jul 29, 2019
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If the output buffer is not full, the blood that you pipe in will flow straight into the output buffer, giving the appearance of disappearing blood. How rapidly is your external tank that you're pumping from draining?
 

ratchet freak

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Nov 11, 2012
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you could try to pump it into a new altar that already has some blood in it, that'll tell if it was the output buffer
 
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Ieldra

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Apr 25, 2014
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If the output buffer is not full, the blood that you pipe in will flow straight into the output buffer, giving the appearance of disappearing blood. How rapidly is your external tank that you're pumping from draining?
Very slowly. About as slow as the altar level depletes while pumping essence out.
 

RJS

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Jul 29, 2019
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In that case, your input buffer is full. So either your output buffer isn't full, or there is a weird glitch going on.

Try what ratchet freak suggested above. Get an altar that you haven't been pumping into or out of and that has a stable blood level in it. (Or craft a new one, put some blood into it with the knife, and wait for the blood to finish draining into the output buffer). Try pumping into that. You should see the amount of blood in the main tank slowly rise
 

Ieldra

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Odd, that. The problem went away in the next game session. Must've been a rare glitch.