Automated Mining, RP2 vs BC vs Steve's Carts

[Dark0_0firE]

Now that Red Power 2 has released, I'm curious what everyone will be choosing as for automated mining. Or, more specifically, what everyone suggests that I use.. heh. I'm running a small Mindcrack server so I need to consider lag. I'm currently well established mid-game, with rp2 auto-sorting and ic2 processing setup. I've been using turtles to branch-mine by hand so far, and while I love the little guys, I'd like to get a more hands-free setup in place. With the added difficulty of Gregtech, I'm wondering if my usual quarry method might not be the best idea.
So I pose the question: What will get me the best bang for my buck?
Buildcraft Quarries - very comfortable with these.
Steve's Carts Mining Cart - semi-comfortable, never used to great effect.
Red Power Frame Bore - never built one, seems cool but complex.
Other possibilities that I might have never considered - yes please!

 

[HickDead]

I use always quarries. I'm not that good with forth to make a maintenance free frame quarry But from what I've seen the output from a frame quarry CAN be much larger. But I've no complains about my quarries, powered by 5 magmatic engines each (I believe thats the maximum). My sorting system can barely keep up.

 

[jumpfight5]

What if you used the excavate X command on a turtle? It's just like a quarry, just power it with a little fuel. You've used branch mining with them, but with this, and a single obsidian pipe attached to some chests, you can mine pretty quickly. All it is is "excavate (number)" and it'll build a square quarry at any height. Place the turtle, place the pipe behind it, and give it some fuel and type refuel X. Then type excavate X and you're good to go, it'll use the coal it mined (unless it's full and it spits all it's items out), then you'll have to add more.

It's so quick and easy, you don't even need to know how to code. And I think *THINK* a gem pickaxe on a turtle will mine obsidian/iridium. Someone please tell me if I'm wrong about this.
EDIT: Lambert2191 says it does NOT mine Obsidian. It probably doesn't mine Iridium either. I'm not sure what it does to either of these blocks. Does it stop, or does it just skip it?
Also, these quarries can be placed at any height really quickly. No need for any extreme digging to place landmarks down for a BC Quarry, just dig a block and 2 blocks behind for the turtle, pipe, and chest. Just make sure that you don't excavate your pipe/chest. It happens, and you'll have to chase your turtle down.

 

[Unionhawk]

You don't need to be good at forth - you can use Computercraft pretty easily too, since Wireless transmitters can be used as a peripheral. A frame quarry (especially with frubes) is extremely powerful, but it's a lot more work, and more expensive, in some respects. More metals, but less diamonds. It depends on how much work you want to put in. I personally intend to get some sort of frame device going just as soon as I recover from my gambling with Thaumcraft research spree... >.> That gets addictive, man...

 

[Lambert2191]

It's so quick and easy, you don't even need to know how to code. And I think *THINK* a gem pickaxe on a turtle will mine obsidian/iridium. Someone please tell me if I'm wrong about this.

No idea about the iridium because I don't use gregtech at all, but you're wrong about gem turtles mining obby

 

[jumpfight5]

Alright, thank you lambert. What does it do when it attempts to mine obsidian? Does it just skip it and mine around it, or does it just stop altogether?

 

[Peppe]

I gave myself the challenge to not use the typical giant hole quarry methods. Or the super cheap flying turtles.

Got established by hand right around spawn -- just enough to get a blast furnace and make mining drills and OV scanners. Using mindcrack pack, so was a bit of work to just get established. Packed up my temp/starter base and at my new location I have not been below the see floor and have collected all the resources in about a 70x70 area.

I used IC2 miners to get all the ores.

 

[Lambert2191]

Alright, thank you lambert. What does it do when it attempts to mine obsidian? Does it just skip it and mine around it, or does it just stop altogether?

depends on the code

 

[DanteGalileo]

I use always quarries. I'm not that good with forth to make a maintenance free frame quarry But from what I've seen the output from a frame quarry CAN be much larger. But I've no complains about my quarries, powered by 5 magmatic engines each (I believe thats the maximum). My sorting system can barely keep up.

I'm on my phone at work and can't conveniently research it at the moment but isn't 9mj the max that a quarry can utilize? The magmatics supply (pretty sure) 4mj each when warmed up. I've been using Redstone energy cells (te) and one can power it down to bedrock if you start around y level 62, fwiw.

 

[Lambert2191]

I'm on my phone at work and can't conveniently research it at the moment but isn't 9mj the max that a quarry can utilize? The magmatics supply (pretty sure) 4mj each when warmed up. I've been using Redstone energy cells (te) and one can power it down to bedrock if you start around y level 62, fwiw.

used to be. It's 50mj/t now

 

[MilConDoin]

The quarry has been changed. Now it can accept more MJ/t for higher speeds. I think the max was somewhere between 40 and 50 MJ/t, but don't take this value as set in stone, since this is only based off of memory ;-)

 

[DanteGalileo]

Wow... Ok cool. Thanks folks.

 

[jumpfight5]

48 MJ/t max, and it's 8 combustion engines running with fuel.

 

[Dark0_0firE]

Wow lots of replies. Thank you all.
I'm familiar with using turtles with excavate, but Iv'e had trouble with that in the past. Just like the branch mining if one happens to wander into a lava lake/large pool it can be a pain to fish it out.
I didn't know that about the energy adjustment for quarries. That's good to know.
I am a little hesitant to try miners since you would either have to live with missing ores, or play with the config files to add them in.

No advocates for a horizontal frame bore?
What about a Steve's Carts setup?

 

[jumpfight5]

The trick with the excavate turtles is to place a source of water where you mine. Each block it goes down, the area the water is gets a little bigger. By lava levels, all the lava you will touch is obsidian. You can't do that with tunnel turtles because they don't go down. Now, you could program it so that a turtle would stop tunneling when it hits lava, or use a bucket to fill it up and refuel whenever lava's ahead to ensure an empty bucket and a source of fuel, but that could get complex.

And miners? What do you mean by those?

 

[Vovk]

miners are the IC2 automatic mining system. They drill a hole straight down and then branch outwards to collect ores within a certain radius. You don't have to worry about excess cobble and the impact on the landscape is minimal. You will need IC2 pumps if you want it to deal with lava and water as well.

 

[ItharianEngineering]

I am all for RP2 tunnel bores. With a correct setup it can go off into the distance forever with no recharging or coding. Smallest I have gotten with complete automation is a 5x5 bore head that is about 7 blocks long. Getting your sorting system to keep up with it and needing a recharging station just for it's batteries that will come in is the only real issue. I prefer it to quarries and turtles. If you can get a portal spawner on the bore then you can visit it no matter how far off it goes without issue. My plan is to have 3 of them setup going in the same direction at the same time but at different heights. Get copper/tin/diamonds all at once for the cost of 1 chunk loader. With wireless redstone you can turn it off and on at will from any distance, never needs moved since it moves itself, if you automate the battery recharging with filters/retrievers you don't have to ever check on them. The only limit is how large you want the bore to be.

 

[Milaha]

We just got done setting up a frame IC2 Miner on the server I am playing with a friend. It is fully automated, including lowering and raising the drill. From what I can tell the FTB team has already added everything to the config files as well, so we do not seem to be missing anything.

It was actually a really fun project to do, and it allows us to gather lots of materials from every depth without destroying the landscape. Granted, (at least with our setup) it is significantly more expensive to set up than most other options, simply due to the amount of stuff you have to tack on to make an IC2 miner raise and lower it's drill and everything in an automated way.

 

[Dark0_0firE]

Itharian I like that idea. Multiple "smallish" frame bores at different levels. I could use the experience working with bluetricity as well. But as far as portal spawners? Have you checked the recipe lately? Unless you plan on cheating yourself in some, that seems like a very endgame item now.
Also a frame miner.. hadn't thought of that.. I likes.

 

[ItharianEngineering]

Itharian I like that idea. Multiple "smallish" frame bores at different levels. I could use the experience working with bluetricity as well. But as far as portal spawners? Have you checked the recipe lately? Unless you plan on cheating yourself in some, that seems like a very endgame item now.
Also a frame miner.. hadn't thought of that.. I likes.

Haha, yea I know. I think of the portal spawner upgrade as a late addition. They would only really be useful if you needed to get to your bore for something like increasing the size or to disassemble it, or in case of a messed up chunk loader needing reloaded. Having it for the chunk loader might be the most dire need for one I guess.