Barrels & RP2

[Beleriond01]

Hi Folks,

This morning I was trying to fully automate my SC tree farm > saplings > fermenters when I ran into a sight problem.

My setup currently is as follows:

Tree farm > saplings to barrels (3 of them). What I'd like to do is pump/pipe the saplings out of the barrels into the hopper I have installed on top of my fermenters.

I've tried a sorting machine but that wouldn't pull saplings out at all. I tried connecting pneumatic tubes to the barrels, as well as golden transport pipes. I've also tried different ways of connecting the sorting machine to the item tesseract (with or without pipes in between).

Also tried using a retriever. That initially worked but after I had broken it to try and place a relay in between it got messed up somehow. I'd dearly love to avoid using an RP timer if at all possible.

I anyone has any ideas then I'd love to hear them.

Cheers,
Bel*.

P.S.: not touched routers at all yet since I haven't got the foggiest how to use them for now...

 

[Abdiel]

Without screenshots, the only thing I can say is pump stuff from the top of a barrel, extract stuff from the bottom.

I am unclear why do you think you need a whole three barrels of saplings as a buffer. I always get by with the space in the hopper alone.

 

[Beleriond01]

Abdiel, I am aware of the in/output sides of the barrels indeed. As such, I have been trying the different extraction methods from the bottom slot.

As for my using barrels...that's mainly because I setup and started my SC tree farm well before I started on liquid boilers so I have a huge backlog of saplings (and indeed apples but not yet sure what I'll do with the latter yet)...

Bel*.

 

[Lambert2191]

instead of 3 barrels, use 1 extra dim barrel

 

[Freakscar]

Either get rid of the relay or place another retriever in between the relay and the barrels. Retrievers pull from inventories connected to them by tubes 'directly' but cannot pull from another tubesystem it is not connected to - meaning the relay - tube - barrels part, as that is considered a different 'network'.

 

[Beleriond01]

Freakscar: did that already but as I stated in my OP, I would prefer to avoid using a timer to pulse the retriever...might just have to look at an alternative I suppose...

 

[Peppe]

Freakscar: did that already but as I stated in my OP, I would prefer to avoid using a timer to pulse the retriever...might just have to look at an alternative I suppose...

First-- i too don't know about factorization's router. It may have an extracting mode that would work well with your setup.

Redpower 2 options:
On the bottom of the barrel place:
transposer -- pulse to pull 1 item out at a time.
filter -- pulse to pull 1 or up to a stack out at a time.
sorting machine -- has self timed mode, pulls stacks out at a time
retriever - put the item type in and stack size. Pulse to retrieve 1-max stack size from closest tube connected inventory with the item.
manager - self timed, will move items between managers in the network. Moves up to a stack and can be set to store 1-stack limit * 9 inventory slots.

So to avoid a timer/pulser, you could put a redpower 2 sorting machine on the bottom of each sapling barrel. Probably cheaper to upgrade the barrel than to put a sorting machine on each barrel. Anyway, the sorting machine can be set to the self timed mode, where it does not need a timer/redstone signal it generates one internally and works basically as fast as it can.

The output of the sorting machine uses tubes to connect over to your hopper and it will keep the hopper full from the contents of the barrel. When the hopper is full it will stop and restart as needed. Overflow items will stay in the tube and bounce back as needed.

You might put a filter on top of the barrel to ensure it is always saplings/something fermentable, so if it ever uses up all the saplings your sorting machine does not start sending wood or something to the fermenter.

Buildcraft option:
wooden pipe on the bottom.
Redstone engine to pull 1 item out at a time.
Autarchic gate -- one at a time, but very fast.
Any other engine -- stacks at a time.

Overflow in the pipe network will fall on the ground. You will probably need gates -- to control when to pump items or a loop to send overflow items back to the barrels.

Thaumcraft:
Clay golem set to keep any number of saplings in the hopper. Marker blocks on the bottom of each sapling barrel. Golem will grab and return saplings to keep the hopper stocked. Strong golem can carry up to 32, 16 for a regular golem. Limited to ~10 block range or 16 block with a perceptive golem.

Stone golem on each barrel, with a marker block on the hopper. Golem will move as much it can out of the barrel dumping it into the hopper. Same carry capacity and range as clay golem.

With barrels clay vs stone are functionally equivalent golems. Stone might be a little better if they are like the tallow golems and hold a stack of the item at the marker waiting for enough room to dump their item.

Compared to a clay, which i think might wait at the hopper empty handed and go get items when it is low.

Computercraft:
Turtle custom script to pull items from one inventory and output to another. Turtle output command fails on full inventory, so no overflow, but you have to handle full inventory in your script. Could output to a relay and take advantage of tubes and relay's auto output ability.

Edit:
forgot redpower managers.
You could use 0 priority ones on your barrels and a 1+ priority on on your hopper looking for saplings and it will pull all the saplings it can from other managers in the network (closest ones pulled first).

Edit:
And forgot thaumcraft

Edit:
And turtles...

 

[Beleriond01]

Peppe: thank you very much for the elaborate response. I think I might try either the sorting machines (must have missed something somewhere earlier...) or the pipes with gates.

Not advanced far enough in TC to be able to use golems yet...close but not quite lol.

Thanks once again.

Bel*.

 

[b0bst3r]

You know there's an alternative to using timers to generate a pulse?

From the RP machine put 1 piece of red alloy wire then put a piece of BC pipe (so it does not attach to anything) attach an iron autarchic gate to the pipe and immediately you'll see the red alloy wire connect to it. Set the autarchic gate to redstone signal off > redstone signal on, you've then got an equivalent of a 1 sec pulse which will run any RP machine requiring such.

Only downside is you can't control the pulse rate.

 

[Peppe]

You know there's an alternative to using timers to generate a pulse?

From the RP machine put 1 piece of red alloy wire then put a piece of BC pipe (so it does not attach to anything) attach an iron autarchic gate to the pipe and immediately you'll see the red alloy wire connect to it. Set the autarchic gate to redstone signal off > redstone signal on, you've then got an equivalent of a 1 sec pulse which will run any RP machine requiring such.

Only downside is you can't control the pulse rate.

Another alternative to timers is a CC script. RichargG said it might have a downside on servers since redpower timers sync to world tick rate while CC syncs to realtime.

CC compound timer:
Sample script with 16 timer intervals, use any interval by using that cable color. Initially designed to put the outputs onto wireless channels, so i could have a worldwide 5 second clock to pickup on.
http://pastebin.com/2ZSxH131

Spoiler

local tick = 0
local backOutputColor = 0
local firstTime = true
 
while true do
    if not rs.getInput("front") then 
        if firstTime then
            print("------------")
            print("Timer Active")
            print("------------")
            firstTime = false
        end
 
        -- Timers for back output.
        backOutputColor = 0
 
        if tick ~= 0 then
            -- Pulse every: 
            -- 1/10 Second
            if math.fmod(tick, 2) == 0 then
                backOutputColor = backOutputColor + colors.white
            end
         
            -- 1/2 Second
            if math.fmod(tick, 5) == 0 then
                backOutputColor = backOutputColor + colors.orange
            end
         
            -- 1 Second
            if math.fmod(tick, 10) == 0 then
                backOutputColor = backOutputColor + colors.magenta
            end
 
            -- 2 Second         
            if math.fmod(tick, 20) == 0 then
                backOutputColor = backOutputColor + colors.lightBlue
            end
 
            -- 3 Second         
            if math.fmod(tick, 30) == 0 then
                backOutputColor = backOutputColor + colors.yellow
            end
 
            -- 4 Second         
            if math.fmod(tick, 40) == 0 then
                backOutputColor = backOutputColor + colors.lime
            end         
 
            -- 5 Second         
            if math.fmod(tick, 50) == 0 then
                backOutputColor = backOutputColor + colors.pink
            end 
 
            -- 10 Second         
            if math.fmod(tick, 100) == 0 then
                backOutputColor = backOutputColor + colors.gray
            end 
 
            -- 20 Second         
            if math.fmod(tick, 200) == 0 then
                backOutputColor = backOutputColor + colors.lightGray
            end 
         
            -- 30 Second         
            if math.fmod(tick, 300) == 0 then
                backOutputColor = backOutputColor + colors.cyan
            end
 
            -- 1 Minute
            if math.fmod(tick, 600) == 0 then
                backOutputColor = backOutputColor + colors.purple
            end
 
            -- 5 Minute
            if math.fmod(tick, 3000) == 0 then
                backOutputColor = backOutputColor + colors.blue
            end
 
            -- 10 Minute
            if math.fmod(tick, 6000) == 0 then
                print("10 Minutes Complete.")
                backOutputColor = backOutputColor + colors.brown
            end
 
            -- 20 Minute
            if math.fmod(tick, 12000) == 0 then
                backOutputColor = backOutputColor + colors.green
            end         
 
            -- 30 Minute
            if math.fmod(tick, 18000) == 0 then
                backOutputColor = backOutputColor + colors.red
            end 
 
            -- 1 Hour
            if math.fmod(tick, 36000) == 0 then
                print("1 Hour Complete")
                backOutputColor = backOutputColor + colors.black
            end 
        end
     
        -- Set Bundled Cable backoutput
        redstone.setBundledOutput("back", backOutputColor)
     
        -- Add timers for bundled output to any other side.
     
        -- Base time interval (1/10 second) == 1 Redstone tick == 2 Game Ticks
        sleep(.1)
     
        -- Reset tick count in case there is a max int size
        if tick == 36000 then
            tick = 0         
        end
        tick = tick + 1 
    else
        term.clear()
        term.setCursorPos(1,1)
        timerOutput("back", 0)
        print("Timer Disabled, Redstone Low in front to enable.")
        os.pullEvent("redstone")
        if not rs.getInput("front") then 
            firstTime = true
            tick = 0
        end
    end
end
 
-- Colors API Cheat Sheet
--[[
colors.white
colors.orange
colors.magenta
colors.lightBlue
colors.yellow
colors.lime
colors.pink
colors.gray
colors.lightGray
colors.cyan
colors.purple
colors.blue
colors.brown
colors.green
colors.red
colors.black
]]--

Should work fine in single player. A guess a server with tick rates not in sync with real time might have different behavior than a timer. I couldn't confirm a different to a redpower timer in my SSP tests.

My test in single player had it tick for tick matching a RP2 timer. CC based timer vs redpower should save on timer animation and lighting.
Test rig:

Spoiler

 

[Beleriond01]

@b0bst3r: yes, I know of the autarchic gate, in fact, I use them quite a bit. Reason I didn't try this as an option is that 1) pipes drop items on the ground when the adjacent inventory is full and 2) the distance between the barrel and the fermenters is quite big...

@peppe: I'll try the CC scripts there. Reason for not using those is I truly cannot code even if my life depended on it. As such, I'm reliant on stuff I see/get from the internet which I can then try to understand and adapt...

Sidenote: anyone know if Tesseracts will eventually connect up to pneumatic tubes or not?

Bel*.

 

[Ako_the_Builder]

Option 1: From bottom of barrel: wooden pipe with autarchic iron and gate set to red pipe signal on = energy pulsar, gold pipes to the top of fermenter with red pipe wire on each gold pipe, iron and gate on final gold pipe connecting to fermenter set to resources <10% = red pipe signal. Ideally you want your barrel only 2 blocks away from your fermenter, this can overflow if too many saplings get into the pipes before the pipe signal gets turned off.

Option 2: Bottom of barrel to transposer to item tesseract, timer on tranposer, tesseract set to send. Second tesseract directly above fermenter set to same frequency and recieve. This will keep fermenter 100% full of saplings.

edit: This isn't all options of course, just a couple of possibilities.

 

[Beleriond01]

Finally managed to get it more or less the way I want. Will try and post some pics later today.

What I've basically done is put a sorting machine under the first barrel and have that automatically pull items out. 2 blocks below I've set up an item tesseract and connected the 2 with a pneumatic tube.

On the receiving end I've got again an item tesseract and put a relay below that. Then some tubes to the backs of the fermenters to input the saplings into them. Found out that inserting into fermenters from the top will put the saplings into the byproduct slot (at least when using pneumatic tubes, might be different with BC pipes).

Once my backlog of saplings has been turned into biomass (and that convert into biofuel) I'll probably simply remove this from my logistics chain and direct the saplings into the fermenters as they are made in my tree farm.

Thanks for all your ideas btw, will definitely use some of them in the vey near future.

Bel*.

 

[kilteroff]

I had this exact same problem (literally; tree farm -> tesseract --> barrel -> rp shenanigans) just a few days ago, then ultimate dropped and I learned about Applied Energistics at the same time and got really really happy Can't wait to drop RP forevz. Finicky twitchy always-something-wrong RP, I'm done with it.

 

[b0bst3r]

@b0bst3r: yes, I know of the autarchic gate, in fact, I use them quite a bit. Reason I didn't try this as an option is that 1) pipes drop items on the ground when the adjacent inventory is full and 2) the distance between the barrel and the fermenters is quite big...

I think you may have missed the point, you're not using BC pipes at all other than to host a single autarchic gate connected to red alloy wire and to the RP machine, set like it is this single pipe with a single gate operates as a functioning timer without causing the associated lag.