[AE] Using Dense Cables

[Zerro]

Greetings,

I am setting up my AE Network and had a question about Dense Cables:

I have 16 high volume barrels (cobble, dirt, gravel, etc) that I plan on connecting to the AE network with storage buses. Do all the cables from the Controller to the Storage Buses have to be Dense Cable or just the first cable coming out of the Controller?

Thanks

 

[Padfoote]

Just the first coming from the controller, but because of the limit of every other cable you'll need to plug two separate lines into the dense cable to connect all of those barrels.

 

[Zerro]

Just the first coming from the controller, but because of the limit of every other cable you'll need to plug two separate lines into the dense cable to connect all of those barrels.

so since the Dense can carry 32 items, I should have 4 low density cables branching off of it?

 

[Pyure]

So long as there's no more than 8 channel-consumers on those low density branches.

 

[trinityamc]

YES technically speaking every one needs to be dense because every cable carry all Data on the line
So if your barrels are far away Use a p2p Tunnel and if you have 16 barrels split them so you have 8 barrels on each p2p
Channel efficient and you only need 1 dense cable

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[Azzanine]

Or you could use a sub network or two. Subnetworks can be used for anything exept you can't really use subnets for autocrafting as it seems to need a controller.

Problem with this solution is for each storage cluster you could only fit 7 barrels. 7 channels for the barrel storage busses and one for the storage bus connected to the interface. It would leave you with a funky number of barrels.

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[ChemE]

EDIT: Link to Imgur album showing what I describe below

To answer your original question each cable needs to be dense since 16 storage buses require 16 data channels and fluix cable can only handle 8. As others have said there are several ways to work around this since long runs of dense cable can be expensive depending on where you are in the world (late game I order 1000 dense cable from my system and it is no problem).

When I'm first setting up my storage room, I like to use subnetworks. I set up 7 deep storage units with 7 storage buses all connected back to an ME interface stacked 2 wide and 4 high. I'll set 7 stacks like this in a row. Then, place a storage bus onto each ME interface and connect those with fluix or smart cable and terminate the run with another ME interface. Connect all the subnetworks to the main network with quartz fibre so they can pass power but not data. Finally, place a storage bus on the final ME interface and connect that back to your main network. You will use one channel on your main network and have connected 49 barrels, caches, DSUs, chests whatever. Very very channel efficient and no need for even one segment of dense cable.

 

[Pyure]

At some point I think the OP mentioned branches. These branches (4 of them) could be fluix cables, with 8 buses each, going back to the dense cables.

That's my recollection anyway: I actually use p2p tunnels instead of dense cables myself.

 

[malicious_bloke]

I didn't think dense cables could connect directly to devices...

In any case, it makes much more sense to branch out (as above) with fluix or smart cables (cheaper, see). Colin abhors waste.

Personally, my legacy barrel wall (that Colin only keeps because it's cheaper than making additional storage disks for several million cobble) has P2P tunnel from a dense cable, I have several branches of different coloured smart cable coming off to cover all the different buses.

 

[Type1Ninja]

This is slightly off-topic, but what makes Smart Cables smart? Is it just the fact that you can see the channel use on them?

 

[Padfoote]

This is slightly off-topic, but what makes Smart Cables smart? Is it just the fact that you can see the channel use on them?

Yep.

 

[Azzanine]

I think op will need at least one dense cable. As you can put the P2P right on the controller. The exit point leading to the storage will as mentioned need to have one dense cable with 4 branched cables (32÷8=4).

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[ChemE]

I think op will need at least one dense cable. As you can put the P2P right on the controller. The exit point leading to the storage will as mentioned need to have one dense cable with 4 branched cables (32÷8=4).

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This would only be true if the OP didn't use a subnetwork though. A 3-level-deep subnetwork could connect 343 barrels up to a single channel. Granted you would craft and power 49 ME interfaces and an extra storage bus for each but you can avoid dense cables if you wish.

 

[Azzanine]

That seems a tad expensive but I'd have to do the math. However it's a good solution for mass storage with fully maxed jabba barrels or DSUs. But still quartz is more precious then channels.

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[ChemE]

Not with RotaryCraft in the pack! Once you can get 51 pure quartz crystals from a single ore its all good.