Automating the Forestry Moistener

[netmc]

Anyone have a good way to automate the moistener? I want to use it for mulch production, but can't think of a good way to do that with just buildcraft. I tried just piping the output from a farm directly into it using an insertion pipe, but the moistener stops working if you fill up every input slot with wheat.

I need a way to keep some wheat in the moistener, but not fill it up entirely. I can't think of how to do this without RP or logistic pipes. Any thoughts or ideas? What am I overlooking?

 

[FMAylward]

Use the buildcraft pipe gates, you can use the less then 10%-25% fuel/resources check for each and then have a chest for each and turn the redstone engine on via pipewire and gate.

edit: ok, seeds are resources and wheat is fuel on the pipe gates

 

[netmc]

will have to check into that. the last times I really used gates, they didn't have a fuel/resources setting.

 

[FMAylward]

Might depend on what gates you use, just now playing around with them I found that for some reason I couldn't get pipe wire signal until I upgraded it. I can tell you diamond gates are working fine with my creative test.

 

[Vovk]

Railcraft takes wheat from farms and cobble from extruder. Distributes to moisteners by unloaders on top supplying 64 cobblestone, unloaders on the sides supplying 64 wheat. Pipes out the back pump mossy cobblestone and mulch out the back into an output pipe. No gates required.

Can provide screenshots if required.

 

[Evil Hamster]

My suggestion- only hook up one farm to a moistener. I've never even come close to fill mine up, not even when my farm was completely grown before hooking power to the harvester.

Oh, and I just do the cobble manually, it's used up so slowly after approx 10 minecraft days, I still have half a stack.

 

[Hoff]

Best reason to install Logistics pipes c: (And additional BC pipes for teleport pipes)

 

[b0bst3r]

I use

Water in left side
Wheat in front
Seeds in bottom
Output to right

On seeds I use Wooden pipe > gold pipe > stone pipes > moistener - Autarchic Iron gates on each end - red pipe wire connecting them together

Set Seed container gate to "Red pipe Signal On" ~ "Energy Pulser"
Set Seed pipe, Moistener side gate to "Resources <10%" ~ "Red Pipe Signal"

You can if you wish set Resources <25% it's entirely your choice, but seed input = Resources on moistener gate. The gates will maintain approx 7 seeds at 10%.

On wheat pipe it's a similar setup wooden pipe from container > gold pipe > stone pipes > moistener - Autarchic Iron gates on each end connected by red pipe wire.

Set Wheat container gate to "Red pipe Signal On" ~ "Energy Pulser"
Set Wheat pipe Moistener side gate to "Fuel < 25%" ~ "Red Pipe Signal"

This will maintain quite a lot of wheat in the moistener - approx 3 1/2 stacks.

Both will be topped up as required.

 

[Vovk]

Sorry for the delay, I just realized I can run the moisteners on seeds and mycelium instead of cobble, and so I've rebuilt and simplified my original design. All it would take to switch to a mossy cobblegen instead of mycelium gen from this is to add in an extruder, chest and loader at some point on the track.

so - a wheat + seeds -> mycelium and mulch generator. Externally powered (I do believe you could make an exorbitant amount of farms and run the thing off it's own biomass for an internally powered system). Uses 3 moisteners and is supplied from an excess of wheat and seeds - I didn't do the experimentation for how many farms can fill 1 moistener with seeds and wheat, but i'm going to guess that number is 1 or 2.

The images are big and I don't wanna bog this forum down, so i'll be providing links instead of embedded images

Here's the system. The power supply is arbitrary, as long as it supplies 1MJ/t for each of the farm/combine layers. In the bottom left you see the actual railcraft sorting and moistening system. 3 loaders on top supply seeds to the moisteners, 3 loaders 1 layer underground and to the side provide wheat to the moistener's storage bank (wheat can't be input from the top and seeds are useless input from the side). Out the back of these moisteners which are 2 layers underground come buildcraft pipes which output to a crystal chest visible above the ground.
http://imageshack.us/a/img13/4867/overviewr.jpg

closer view of the farm tower
http://imageshack.us/a/img69/4185/farmtower.jpg
http://imageshack.us/a/img707/3678/farmtowertop.jpg

a single layer of the tower and the configuration of the diamond pipe. you can arbitrarily add layers on to this by copying this 1 slice over and over.
http://imageshack.us/a/img4/7298/farmlayer.jpg
http://imageshack.us/a/img211/4112/diamondconfig.jpg

Those farms fill this double chest, visible in the overview
http://imageshack.us/a/img833/7092/chestcontents.jpg

to avoid the cart backing up with too much wheat or too many seeds, i've put a limit on how much the loader can put into it at any time.
http://imageshack.us/a/img687/926/inputloader.jpg

the seed and wheat unloaders are set to supply with 64 each. this is enough to keep the system running all the time.remember, the top 3 are seeds and the side 3 are wheat.
http://img189.imageshack.us/img189/7789/seedunloader.jpg
http://imageshack.us/a/img853/8049/wheatunloader.jpg

removing some of the sandstone reveals the piping system and the moisteners. remember, moisteners work better in the dark.
http://imageshack.us/a/img600/4461/backendmoisteners.jpg
http://imageshack.us/a/img547/149/moistenerinsides.jpg

directly underneath the moisteners is a water supply. accumulators need 2 source blocks beside each of them. accumulators don't work with source blocks underneath them
http://imageshack.us/a/img846/7330/accumulations.jpg

please let me know if anything is confusing

 

[tedyhere]

Sorry for the delay, I just realized I can run the moisteners on seeds and mycelium instead of cobble, and so I've rebuilt and simplified my original design. All it would take to switch to a mossy cobblegen instead of mycelium gen from this is to add in an extruder, chest and loader at some point on the track.

so - a wheat + seeds -> mycelium and mulch generator. Externally powered (I do believe you could make an exorbitant amount of farms and run the thing off it's own biomass for an internally powered system). Uses 3 moisteners and is supplied from an excess of wheat and seeds - I didn't do the experimentation for how many farms can fill 1 moistener with seeds and wheat, but i'm going to guess that number is 1 or 2.

The images are big and I don't wanna bog this forum down, so i'll be providing links instead of embedded images

Here's the system. The power supply is arbitrary, as long as it supplies 1MJ/t for each of the farm/combine layers. In the bottom left you see the actual railcraft sorting and moistening system. 3 loaders on top supply seeds to the moisteners, 3 loaders 1 layer underground and to the side provide wheat to the moistener's storage bank (wheat can't be input from the top and seeds are useless input from the side). Out the back of these moisteners which are 2 layers underground come buildcraft pipes which output to a crystal chest visible above the ground.

please let me know if anything is confusing

You are like the railcraft kind man

 

[Vovk]

You are like the railcraft kind man

lol. Railcraft (for me) is the closest thing to replacing red power's accuracy and control at around the same tech level in the game (routers and such can also work, but those need ender pearls)

also, there is a fair bit of buildcraft piping in that system. I could (i suppose) run advanced loaders and an elevator rail up the side of the wheat farm tower, but that would be unnecessary unless there was a problem with the wheat/seed chest overflowing. If that is ever the case I would suggest routing extra seeds into a squeezer and extra wheat into a fermenter.

 

[tedyhere]

I just love the steampunk feel that railcraft gives. I just need to mess with it more to learn all the ins and outs. Your builds are helping, I take notes

 

[Vovk]

for extra steampunk goodness, instead of placing your industrial steam engines right next to your boiler, route the steam with golden waterproof pipes. Soon you will have pipes EVERYWHERE

messy, but good for a sort of chaotic steampunk aesthetic. I remember my first steam powered factory looked more like http://static.fjcdn.com/gifs/Trollface_05609b_3013225.gif than a proper industrial assembly line

 

[Vovk]

i'll have to experiment with exactly how many industrial steam engines a single liquiduct will supply.

 

[Vovk]

The answer is 2.

3 industrial steam engines equalize around 15MJ/t off 1 liquiduct. 2 run at the max 16 MJ/t

so liquiducts are 2x as good as golden waterproof when dealing with steam.

 

[Hoff]

I think I'd be using 3 engines per duct, 45 off one set of tubes sounds rather nice to me.

Simply efficiency vs. maximum potential. If you have the resources in excess 2 engines would be best.

 

[Peppe]

To run a moistener automatically you just need one buildcraft gate for each input.

If you put an igneous extruder right on top of the moistener you can eliminate one input gate. I was just voiding mycalium before I switched to extruder.

example:
Wheat farm drops wheat in a buffer chest used by the moistener. The gate goes on a pipe connected to any side of the moistenerand sends a signal if fuel < 10% or 25%, either one will work. Fuel is the wheat level. When the gate is on have it activate a redstone engine to send wheat to the moistener. In the shots it is right next to it (left side -- note wood pipe direction), but you can run redstone, pipe wire, or an autarchic gate.

You can do the same thing on top with a chest of seed, cobblestone, or stone brick. The gate would just check for resource level 10% or 25% whatever your preference is. The TE cobble generator won't overfill a machine directly connected to it, so it works here to auto fill cobble.

An always on redstone engine pumping items out the side of the moistener will only pull compost and finished product out, so will never hurt compost production.

Provide water and power any free sides remaining.

Spoiler

 

[Vovk]

I think I'd be using 3 engines per duct, 45 off one set of tubes sounds rather nice to me.

srry count from 0, it's 15 MJ/t total, not 15 MJ/t each. An industrial steam engine supplies between 0 and 8 MJ/t depending on how much steam it has. 3 engines off 1 duct give 5 MJ/t each. 2 engines give 8 each.

 

[Daemonblue]

Sadly, just tried an RP2 setup with the moistener and it doesn't want to play nice. It likes to stick items into any slot no matter what side you're inputting items from. I was hoping the golems from TC3 would be useful but they have the same kinds of problems, so going by that a railcraft setup is probably the most precise you'll get with these things, outside of maybe the factorization routers.

 

[Feydaway]

Golems do not play nice with Forestry machines. They don't work on the moistener well and they won't work at all with multi-farms. You'll get an 'invalid inventory' message off those. Hopefully, Sengir can fix this.