AE External Processing Paralellism

[twisto51]

Is this a good way to go with rv.9b?

Interface > relay > router > bank of processing machines > router > chest > import bus

The patterns in the interface increase input resources to match how many machines are in the line. For example, 25 coal = 25 coal dust for a line with 5 macerators. Usually I'm sticking 5 overclockers in each macerator/extractor.

I could probably do without the chest/relay buffers but I'm in the habit of buffering everything just so one tiny hiccup doesn't stop an entire production line.

Oh and I thought this up last night when I noticed that rubber extraction with just one extractor was really holding back my HV Solar production.

Example pic:

Spoiler

 

[KirinDave]

Is this a good way to go with rv.9b?

Interface > relay > router > bank of processing machines > router > chest > import bus

The patterns in the interface increase input resources to match how many machines are in the line. For example, 25 coal = 25 coal dust for a line with 5 macerators. Usually I'm sticking 5 overclockers in each macerator/extractor.

I could probably do without the chest/relay buffers but I'm in the habit of buffering everything just so one tiny hiccup doesn't stop an entire production line.

Oh and I thought this up last night when I noticed that rubber extraction with just one extractor was really holding back my HV Solar production.

Example pic:

Spoiler

If the processing line is dedicated it'll work. The depressing truth of ME Interfaces is that things it'll try and stock the machines greedily. For example, let's say you want to combine 4 tiny piles of dust into a packager for upconversion. Let's say you have 3 tiny iron dust and for tiny copper dust. If the iron dust request comes in first, it'll just stick in the machine until you get a fourth one and not allow the copper dust task to start.

Parallel processing the way you've described will not be quite so bad (and it can be easier than what you described there, you can just eject into a ring buffer pipe around any number of machines), but it still could get weird when the system backs up because you could end up waiting a lot longer than you expect (and possibly time out the crafting job, I think!) if, say, power is lost.

 

[Drkevlar]

An interesting replacement for a relay is the buffer from tube stuff, since I tend to avoid relays.
If you attach a transposer, filter or sorting machine, it will send a redstone pulse to all attached rp2 machines.

 

[CodaPDX]

You actually don't need a relay between the interface and the router - the interface should place materials directly into the adjacent inventory. You also don't need a chest between the output router and the import bus - the bus will suck up any products far faster than you can make them as long as its set to stack mode.

This kind of setup works fairly well for machines that process a single item at a time, like macerators, extractors, and furnaces. Where you can start running into issues is with machines that operate on multiple inputs at once, like industrial centrifuges, industrial electrolyzers, and (to a lesser extent) compressors. For instance, if you have a bank of industrial electrolyzers with a router set up to dump bauxite, cinnabar, and ruby dust into them, you'll find that even with a thoroughness upgrade you'll find that the system will occasionally get clogged up with a stack full of dust in the router but nowhere to put it since the machines all have a few leftover dust in them. Using an interface to dole out exactly as much as you need for each process mitigates this somewhat, but if you ever have a crafting request that you don't have enough materials for, the interface will dump all you have into the router and wait for more to become available. If you send a crafting request for another type of dust in the meantime, the interface will dump it into the router and the router will move on to the next machine in the network. If you then get the remaining materials you need to finish processing the original request, the router is not necessarily going to put them into the original machine.

Personally, I like to dedicate certain machines to specific processes or groups of processes. For instance, I have two electrolyzers dedicated to bauxite, one to ruby dust, another to sodalite, and another one dedicated to bespoke requests. I divide my compressors similarly, with one dedicated to dense copper plates on demand (a very common bottleneck), another to making storage blocks, and another devoted to on-demand crafting requests, like carbon plates and advanced alloys.

 

[twisto51]

Yeah, I mentioned I don't need either of those in the original post. They allow me to do some manual things quickly now and then like dump in 8 stacks of something for a one off job.

These machines are dedicated and what they're being fed is being created from uu-matter in most cases.
That extraction line is just doing resin->rubber
That maceration line is just doing coal->coal dust
I have 3 induction furnaces, one doing iron dust->iron ingot/iron ingot->refined iron, one doing copper dust->copper, and the last doing sand->glass.
Cobble for the generators is just 4 igneous extruders ,a chest, an import bus, and a level emitter set to 8000 cobble.