An idea struck me for automating coal production,after seeing Purple Mentat try to do so with Buildcraft technology.
1) A Straw Golem,placed at the centre of a 9*9 plot,harvests the coal essence. A nearby Hopperhock (Does it need mana to reach in a 9*9 square?) pulls the coal essence into a B-Space Barrel.
2) The B-Space Barrel connects to a remote location with more space. The B-Space Barrel feeds,via hopper,directly into a Crafty Crate with a Doughnut Pattern,making coal lumps. The produced coal is spat out onto the ground,to be collected by a nearby hopperhock,placed into a,you guessed it,B-Space Barrel.
3) The coal lumps are fed into an unaltered Crafty Crate nearby,out of range of the coal lump Hopperhock. The Crafty Crate spits the coal blocks out onto the ground to be picked up by the final Hopperhock,and placed into the final B-Space Barrel,which is connected to my Mana Shaft.
All of the barrels will have Void Upgrades,to vouchsafe against overflow.
I've yet to actually put this into practice; If I do this,it'll be my first real large scale system to accomplish some sort of complex goal. I also need to research me some golems,but I'm a hop,skip,and jump away from that. I don't do much automation myself; I consider it to be fun,in a way,to input something to kick it all off,but I need to automate my mana,and,eventually,my Life Essence.
So,to the more experienced automators in the house,would the above work? Would I need mana for the Hopperhock to reach in a 9*9 area? How much of a dramatic effect will Agricarnations and sprinklers have on the regrowth of 10^3 coal seeds?
EDIT: I've decided to get my Essentia system done,and followed
this guide on producing a system that will take your liquid Essentia,and stick it in your Thaumatorium for you,without a middleman. However,I have come upon a
serious problem; I can't figure out a way to make it
work. To be precise,no matter where in the system I stick the Arcane Furnace and its alembics,there are jars that are simply too far away for the Essentia to reach. In the middlepoint of the system,the Essentia couldn't travel any further than Volatus/Tenabrae,which're opposite eachother on the system. The Volatus jars are visible in the screenshot below; They're full. When I tried to make the system linear,I stuck the furnace to the Terra end of the system,and found that this didn't help,after correcting the throttles on the Essentia Buffers.
I've also tried both configurations (Linear and central) with Arcane Bellows on either end of the line,to no effect.
How can I make this system work? The system's as compact,as far as tube length is concerned,as it's going to get. I don't want to use golems for this,because it will both inflate the footprint of the entire system,and the number of golems needed to make this work will just be silly. Besides,golems have a nasty habit of walking off on their own,or getting stuck. Tubes suffer no such issue,once you figure out the suction.