4x Tree farms or 4-6x Reed/Cactai?

[NateSci]

So after many an hour, I set up a quad tree farm that supplies 3 Fermenters with extra saplings for Bio.

After sitting back now and looking at the whole thing, I have come to the conclusion that its a large and bulky system.

I also need a carpenter to pump out humus, a moistner to pump out mulch (both of which I gave up trying to automate with the tree farm)

If I stack a tower of Cactai or reed farms would I still get an ok amount of Bio from it? Or are they to slow and not worth it.

I know for sure I could free up a huge amount of space having a reed or cactai tower.

 

[Zivel]

Steves carts with a solar engine, coal engine, side chest and a forestry module. Link it up with a cart unloader (4 saplings, 3 stacks of charcoal in the excess setting) from railcraft, throw 3 stacks of charcoal in there and watch it go.... much more effective than the forestry and requires nothing.

 

[NateSci]

Do you have any pictures or guides or anything? I am trying to visualize this and am drawing a blank on how I would set that up.

 

[zilvarwolf]

Well, it's difficult to answer your question, I think, without more information. What are you planning to do with the biomass?

I agree that what you've got is a large and bulky system, and I do prefer the cactus farms for simplicity (and they do work well for my purposes thus far). For example, on the server I'm on currently I have a 720 bucket tank full of biomass, a 2000 bucket tank full of biofuel, and a 568 bucket tank full of lava. I have a 2 layer cactus farm supplying biomass to 11 biogas engines and 2 stills (which will become 3 or 4 very soon). Three times in the last week I've had some kind of issue that has allowed my biomass tank to drain to the ground, and 3 times it has filled to capacity within hours of me fixing the issue.

I FINALLY found slimes last night and made a blast furnace, so tonight project is to build and heat up a 36HP bioler. 2000 buckets is WAY more than enough to light it, and unless I did my math wrong, all I have to do is put back one bucket of biofuel every 80 seconds or so to keep it running forever...so, barring stupid mistakes on my part, it should work (and if it doesn't, well, I can always make it BIGGER )

So...what are you trying to do?

As for the steve's carts thing, what did you need further information on? The rails, the cart, the cargo manager? I built one SSP, but then I joined this server and never finished the automation. It was exactly as awesome as Zivel suggests, imo. I'll never make another forestry tree farm again if I can help it (the diamond cost is a bit high for the woodcutter, but it's worth it).

 

[Evil Hamster]

Depends how much biomass you need.

I have stacked- 2 cactus farms and 2 reed farms, they power a 36 HP liquid boiler with a little extra biomass and biofuel generated.

 

[zilvarwolf]

Depends how much biomass you need.

I have stacked- 2 cactus farms and 2 reed farms, they power a 36 HP liquid boiler with a little extra biomass and biofuel generated.

Each or together?

If I'm going to need to extend my cactus farms, I need to get on that soon!

 

[Evil Hamster]

Combined. Technically- spaced out so that one harvester covers the 2 cactus and one harvester covers the 2 reed. I'll post a ss when I get home.

 

[NateSci]

I just watched a quick random video on the logger cart and they seem pretty simple. I can also set up some loaders to refuel the carts with bones as with the soul shard mod it should be hard to full an upgraded barrel with 1000 stacks of the stuff.

Let me take some screenshots of my current setup and show you how "Bulky" the little sucker is.

 

[zilvarwolf]

Combined. Technically- spaced out so that one harvester covers the 2 cactus and one harvester covers the 2 reed. I'll post a ss when I get home.

Hmm. That's depressing. Thanks. Guess I need to start stacking cacti again. Thank goodness for jetpacks.

On a related note, I'm totally unable to figure out how to get my jetpack into hover mode. Anyone care to share?

 

[NateSci]

Hmm. That's depressing. Thanks. Guess I need to start stacking cacti again. Thank goodness for jetpacks.

On a related note, I'm totally unable to figure out how to get my jetpack into hover mode. Anyone care to share?

Hold spacebar and press M[DOUBLEPOST=1358458718][/DOUBLEPOST]Ok heres my Forestry Bio Setup, bulky and big but its my child I guess....I will tear it all down and replace it with steves carts in a heart beat if its more space friendly (or even just a 4-5 high cactai farm)

http://imgur.com/E57gI,nksO3,zRUnQ,j3D8F

 

[Mero]

Fill 1 chunk with reeds, there is a pattern out there. Cover the water blocks with slabs. Place a chest in the middle somewhere. Attach a brainy straw golem and a perceptive wood golem to the chest. Use RP or BC to suck the reeds out of the chest.

 

[Evil Hamster]

My setup:

4 layer farm 2 cactus/2reed



1 each harvester


2 fermenters fed mulch auto created from the wheat farm at the bottom of first pic


Edit: 3 stills (runs on 2, 3rd is to help fill my tank faster)


My boiler

 

[MilConDoin]

Just as an info to the footprint vs output of a steve's carts tree farm:
16x16 tracks (look like an E) fuel three 36HP solid boilers (logs via TE sawmill to planks as food for the boilers, sawdust compressed and furnaced for charcoal, powers the cart, the sawmills and furnaces with charcoal to spare, use 11 logs per 62.5 seconds per boiler) and 4 36HP liquid boilers + 1 36LP boilers. The saplings are just enough to keep 4 stills permanently running, if you also use the apples to sometimes change the water in the fermenter to apple juice. Use 7 industrial steam engines to fuel the fermenter, the stills and the extra cobble->sand->sandstone->nitor->saltpeter->fertilizer setup (for the fertilizer used in the fermenter). You'll also get a a good amount of mulch via the squeezer (for the apple juice). Each still can fuel 1.212.. 36 HP boiler, so your 4 HP + 1 LP are running safe with a little bit of biofuel to spare.

All these numbers are true for fully heated boilers. They will gobble up much more fuel during the heatup phase.
Edit: You can use a fertilizer to increase output, if you have a skeleton farm for the bonemeal. RP2 managers on the cargo manager and the charcoal chest (and the bonemeal chest if used) can be used to easily keep the cargo manager stocked for refueling (charcoal, saplings, bonemeal).

 

[Evil Hamster]

I never said I had the most efficient system, just that it works!

If your numbers are correct about the still I can power 2 more liquid HP boilers easily. I just don't have the need for it yet. I'm still waiting for my biofuel large iron tank to fill, then maybe I'll build a second boiler just to have it ready when I need the power.

 

[zilvarwolf]

/sigh

You were right. Time to make a new layer or two of cacti. I fired up my boiler last night, got it heated to 800 degrees or so, but in that period of time I lost 400 or so buckets of biofuel, and well over 400 buckets of biomass, with 1 fermenter running at 17mj and 3 stills running at 4 each, I just couldn't keep my biomass production high enough.

Oh well I'll fire it up again soon...mwaahahah

 

[ShaneS429]

@Evil Hamster - Is there any reason why you chose to go with 2 cacti farms and 2 sugar cane farms? They both have the same output rate in a fermenter don't they? Also any particular reason you only chose to do 2 rows of cacti per level? There is a lot of open area between your last row and where the Harversters are. I ask because I'm looking to do a similar setup and cacti and sugar cane both have a simply sort of set and forget operation to them.

Side Quesiton: The server I play on requires us to power down machine and what not when we aren't online, meaning I can't run a boiler nonstop. Anyone have any tips on what sized boiler would be appropriate given I generally play 3-4hr sessions at a time and have to turn them off when I log off?

 

[MilConDoin]

Side Quesiton: The server I play on requires us to power down machine and what not when we aren't online, meaning I can't run a boiler nonstop. Anyone have any tips on what sized boiler would be appropriate given I generally play 3-4hr sessions at a time and have to turn them off when I log off?

After playing around with Excel (or rather LibreOffice Calc) and the fuel usage program which floated around here in the forums somewhere, I can now say the following with certainty:
The most MJ/fuelunit (-> highest efficiency per consumable ressource) will be gained by a 1LP boiler when it only runs 3 or 4 hours. At 9 hours runtime the first other boiler (36LP) becomes more efficient. At 14,5 hours even the 8LP becomes more efficient than the 1LP. Due to the startup time involved, LP boilers will be always more effective than HP boilers (on max they are equal, but LP reaches max always before HP).

Table used is attached as a file, if anyone else wants to play around with that.

Edit: If you burn biofuel in a combustion engine, it takes a little over 16 hours of continuous runtime for a 36 LP boiler to become more efficient than simply burning the biofuel in a combustion engine.

tl;dr: Don't use boilers for such short uptimes.