Sources of Power

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Jul 29, 2019
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Using the Monster v1.1.1 pack, what options are there for sustainable early-mid game power generation?
Currently I have an MFR tree farm that turns wood into charcoal which is then burnt in a steam dynamo. However, wood doesn't get harvest in large quantities quickly without using a ridiculous amount of space. Previously I have used lava from the nether and magmatic dynamos, but I feel that using lava is a bit too easy and cheaty. What other options are there? (Note I am looking for RF power)
 

ljfa

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Jul 29, 2019
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Wood is kinda the easiest option for renewable power. How large is your tree farm? A 9x9 farm should be plenty for a few steam dynamos and there's also ways to speed up the tree growth.
 

Mysticmage11

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Jul 29, 2019
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Never played Monster, but if it has Big Reactors or Advanced Generators either one is a good option. Advanced Generators uses alot of iron I think and uses liquid fuel, like ethanol or BC fuel to generate RF or EU.
 

Inaeo

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Jul 29, 2019
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This play through of Monster on a server with some friends, I used Redstone generators for a good long while. Early on, I fed it Redstone dust and buckets of lava for power when I needed it, then as my tech grew, I used a magma crucible to make destabilized Redstone. After a bit of setup, I had a dedicated 3x3 magic crops Redstone essence farm (MFR planter/harvester) that could easily keep up with 6 generators producing 320rf/t each. I love that is easy to expand, and it is completely self-sustaining.

If you want to be quite cheaty, all you need is two TE energy cells and a drawbridge. If you set the drawbridge up next to an Expanded Redstone clock, you never have to think about power again (except maybe upgrading the cells to resonant as your tech grows).
 
Jul 29, 2019
309
0
0
This play through of Monster on a server with some friends, I used Redstone generators for a good long while. Early on, I fed it Redstone dust and buckets of lava for power when I needed it, then as my tech grew, I used a magma crucible to make destabilized Redstone. After a bit of setup, I had a dedicated 3x3 magic crops Redstone essence farm (MFR planter/harvester) that could easily keep up with 6 generators producing 320rf/t each. I love that is easy to expand, and it is completely self-sustaining.

If you want to be quite cheaty, all you need is two TE energy cells and a drawbridge. If you set the drawbridge up next to an Expanded Redstone clock, you never have to think about power again (except maybe upgrading the cells to resonant as your tech grows).
1) What mod is that redstone generator from?
2) Can you explain that cheaty bit in a little more detail? How does the drawbridge (what mod is that from) and an expanded redstone clock help? Does it somehow get you infinite power?
 

Inaeo

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Jul 29, 2019
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1) What mod is that redstone generator from?
2) Can you explain that cheaty bit in a little more detail? How does the drawbridge (what mod is that from) and an expanded redstone clock help? Does it somehow get you infinite power?

1.) Heated Redstone Generator is from Extra Utilities.

2.) The drawbridge from Tinker's Construct is IMO the single most overpowered and broken block in accepted nodded MC. It allows for item duplication, infinite rf, infinite liquid, and more to the clever user. It can be made early game for next to nothing.

Basically, charge one of your cells. Place your drawbridge, and place the charged cell inside (right slot). Keep one space between the drawbridge, then place your empty cell. Place your clock behind the drawbridge and adjust the timing as needed.

Simply, this forces the drawbridge to extend the charged cell for x ticks (adjusted by the clock) then retract for x number of ticks. While extended, the charged cell moves rf to the empty cell. When it retracts, the charged cell reverts to the state it was in when it was placed inside (read: full). Infinite rf. Upgrading the cells means faster throughput and larger storage buffers.

Edit: I feel I should note that most server admins do not appreciate this sort of thing, and use at your own risk. In a SSP environment, you're only cheating yourself.
 
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Jakalth

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Jul 29, 2019
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MFR tree farm ---> charcoal ---> max sized high pressure boiler ---> either industrial steam engines or TE steam dynamos.

Too start, you'll need plenty of power to run the planter, harvester, and furnace until the boiler is up too temperature. As well as enough saplings to get the farm going. As for the setup:

1: The planter and harvester should be set to farm a 7x7 area, but not all of the area needs to have saplings. You will not need fertilizer at all for this farm. You'll only need a min of 11 spots for saplings to grow because....(see: #2)

2: Look for and gather a good half or full stack of either Pink or White Cherry Blossom saplings, from biomes o plenty. I know, they are a bit flowery and all, but one tree can net you over half a stack of wood, and nearly half a stack of saplings. And they grow quite quickly, much faster then vanilla trees. There are other trees in the mod pack that grow as quickly, but few, if any, produce as much wood per minute as these silly trees do. If you can't get past the flowery nature of these trees, there are many others that will work, but you'll need a bigger tree farm. Do note though, these trees grow pretty big, matching the size of large oak trees.

3: You'll need some type of powered furnace to turn the wood into charcoal. Preferably one that uses either MJ or RF power since that is the type of power the farm will most easily produce. Two TE Redstone Furnaces should be able to keep up with the boilers demand once it is up too temperature, but a third might be needed initially. As for your MJ powered option, not sure how they compare in terms of speed to the redstone furnace.

4: You'll need something to store the extra saplings, which there will be a bunch of. You'll also want another storage to act as a buffer for both the wood and charcoal.

5: Max sized high pressure boiler from Railcraft. Takes a while to get up to temp, and reach full efficiency. But once it does, you'll have a large supply of steam available. You can also choose to hold off on the high pressure boiler and go for two low pressure boilers instead. Takes more resources to make, but takes less time to heat up and burns less fuel initially. Your choice, both ways you'll have about the same amount of steam and burn through about the same amount of charcoal.

6: Pipe this steam to either industrial steam engines if you favor MJ power, or pipe it into steam dynamos to get yourself some RF. Either way, you'll be able to run about 16 engines off the steam produced by the 1 boiler(HP), or 2 boilers(LP). But note here, until the boiler is at full temp, the number of engines it will run will be dramatically reduced. Your power from this setup will be around 128MJ/tick or 1,280RF/tick when at full temp.

And there you go. Self sustained, once up to temperature, power from a tree farm. Whether this is more effective then just burning the charcoal in steam dynamos is debatable. But the setup is a bit more interesting at least.
 

namiasdf

New Member
Jul 29, 2019
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Collect purple geostrata crystals.
Turn into potion crystals.
Xp drain on tank, draining into shower, over MFR sewer.
Use mob essence to spawn in blaze.

Blaze powder + mob essence -> reactant dynamo. All you have to do is afk.
 
Jul 29, 2019
309
0
0
Collect purple geostrata crystals.
Turn into potion crystals.
Xp drain on tank, draining into shower, over MFR sewer.
Use mob essence to spawn in blaze.

Blaze powder + mob essence -> reactant dynamo. All you have to do is afk.
Uh... Don't you have to collect the mob essence?
 
Jul 29, 2019
309
0
0
MFR tree farm ---> charcoal ---> max sized high pressure boiler ---> either industrial steam engines or TE steam dynamos.

Too start, you'll need plenty of power to run the planter, harvester, and furnace until the boiler is up too temperature. As well as enough saplings to get the farm going. As for the setup:

1: The planter and harvester should be set to farm a 7x7 area, but not all of the area needs to have saplings. You will not need fertilizer at all for this farm. You'll only need a min of 11 spots for saplings to grow because....(see: #2)

2: Look for and gather a good half or full stack of either Pink or White Cherry Blossom saplings, from biomes o plenty. I know, they are a bit flowery and all, but one tree can net you over half a stack of wood, and nearly half a stack of saplings. And they grow quite quickly, much faster then vanilla trees. There are other trees in the mod pack that grow as quickly, but few, if any, produce as much wood per minute as these silly trees do. If you can't get past the flowery nature of these trees, there are many others that will work, but you'll need a bigger tree farm. Do note though, these trees grow pretty big, matching the size of large oak trees.

3: You'll need some type of powered furnace to turn the wood into charcoal. Preferably one that uses either MJ or RF power since that is the type of power the farm will most easily produce. Two TE Redstone Furnaces should be able to keep up with the boilers demand once it is up too temperature, but a third might be needed initially. As for your MJ powered option, not sure how they compare in terms of speed to the redstone furnace.

4: You'll need something to store the extra saplings, which there will be a bunch of. You'll also want another storage to act as a buffer for both the wood and charcoal.

5: Max sized high pressure boiler from Railcraft. Takes a while to get up to temp, and reach full efficiency. But once it does, you'll have a large supply of steam available. You can also choose to hold off on the high pressure boiler and go for two low pressure boilers instead. Takes more resources to make, but takes less time to heat up and burns less fuel initially. Your choice, both ways you'll have about the same amount of steam and burn through about the same amount of charcoal.

6: Pipe this steam to either industrial steam engines if you favor MJ power, or pipe it into steam dynamos to get yourself some RF. Either way, you'll be able to run about 16 engines off the steam produced by the 1 boiler(HP), or 2 boilers(LP). But note here, until the boiler is at full temp, the number of engines it will run will be dramatically reduced. Your power from this setup will be around 128MJ/tick or 1,280RF/tick when at full temp.

And there you go. Self sustained, once up to temperature, power from a tree farm. Whether this is more effective then just burning the charcoal in steam dynamos is debatable. But the setup is a bit more interesting at least.

Sounds good :) Thanks for this, I appreciate you writing a little more detailed guide, it really helps, especially since I haven't used pressure boilers before. I might try this just cause I've never done it before.
I'll also look into the efficiency of steam engine vs steam dynamos. I could also just pump the steam into the dynamos, that works too :)
Just gotta go look for those saplings, didn't know they grow bigger and faster (MFR is bad for oak tree farms in my opinion, too slow -> I set up a multifarm instead, but am annoyed since fertilizer is not sustainable).
 

netmc

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Jul 29, 2019
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If you use fertilizer, a 3x3 tree farm will be more than enough to supply plenty of wood. If you are using natural growth, a 9x9 should be plenty. What types of trees are you growing though? The large spruce or jungle are the best for producing large amounts of wood. If you have done a bit in thaumcraft, you can convert the charcoal over to alumentum which gives a large energy boost.

Edit: It really is hard to beat a tree farm for easy power.
 

Inaeo

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Jul 29, 2019
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Berry bushes being harvested by autonomous activators being placed into a culinary generator is easy and provides decent early game power. Later, you can automate cake production for a good deal of power as well. Even a simple wheat farm into bread works pretty well and is self sustaining with MFR and cyclic assemblers.