It's nice till you have to run around the room looking for 'that one barrel' or have to fiddle with upgrades for stuff you're not actually sure you want, in my case lol.
Best lagfree sorting system? Pipes vs Tubes
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It's nice till you have to run around the room looking for 'that one barrel' or have to fiddle with upgrades for stuff you're not actually sure you want, in my case lol.
I have barrels at the moment since they're cheap and easy to add but I'll move to using Applied Energistics for most of my storage once I set up a "proper" base (I'm still living in the first cave I hid in) since it looks pretty awesome.
I've used both pipes and tubes in the past and I'm not really sure which I liked best, but I've never really set up much of a serious sorting system. (I did have a BC automatic crafting system to make PlasticCraft stuff way back in the day. Everything ran off timers which were the precursor to those in RP. AFAIR Eloraam had the gates in a separate mod before they became RedPower Logic, but that was a long time ago and is completely off topic and I'm rambling again.)
I've used both pipes and tubes in the past and I'm not really sure which I liked best, but I've never really set up much of a serious sorting system. (I did have a BC automatic crafting system to make PlasticCraft stuff way back in the day. Everything ran off timers which were the precursor to those in RP. AFAIR Eloraam had the gates in a separate mod before they became RedPower Logic, but that was a long time ago and is completely off topic and I'm rambling again.)
I think I will add AE to my DW20 private server now, after reading so many comments about it and after checking DW20's Mod spotlight on it. Seems quite interesting mod and highly optimized to store huge amounts of stuff.
I just made a list of all the AE blocks im gonna make to start creating a new sorting room, after watching how the mod handles the storage and the auto-crafting it just jumped to the top of my fav mods. About power usage, well for me its not a problem, i started my server with the midcrack pack when it came out and now i migrated to the ultimate and even thou im using gregtech on hard mode, im making around 30 stacks of scrap a day and have aroun 40 ultimate solars. Im guessing that 1 ultimate solar will keep a medium size system (10 or so blocks) working with no problems.
/manu
/manu
I've been working on filling out an AE system on a server for a few days now. It's...fun. Well, that's a good thing I guess since I play to have fun, right? 
Anyway, I've only been able to get 5 drives into the system so far (3 64k and 2 16ks), even though we're quarrying like mad. I've been able to replace some complex barrel/hopper/fermenter stuff for keeping my fermenter stocked without loss with a single export bus. I've played with fabricators to automatically craft things like xycondrite and nikolite into storage blocks. I have some export buses, dark cables, and level emitters setup to purge the system of excess cobble and dirt and saplings (because, really, why do I need 800 stacks of excess saplings?). That's pretty easy to add to and hopefully is a low lag solution (chest, wood pipe/gate, void pipe). Power has not been an issue at all.
It feels like I can do, easily, tasks that I've fought with my sorting machine/router setup since we started.
edit: late notice derp
Anyway, I've only been able to get 5 drives into the system so far (3 64k and 2 16ks), even though we're quarrying like mad. I've been able to replace some complex barrel/hopper/fermenter stuff for keeping my fermenter stocked without loss with a single export bus. I've played with fabricators to automatically craft things like xycondrite and nikolite into storage blocks. I have some export buses, dark cables, and level emitters setup to purge the system of excess cobble and dirt and saplings (because, really, why do I need 800 stacks of excess saplings?). That's pretty easy to add to and hopefully is a low lag solution (chest, wood pipe/gate, void pipe). Power has not been an issue at all.
It feels like I can do, easily, tasks that I've fought with my sorting machine/router setup since we started.
edit: late notice derp
Until you want to pull out items in an automated fashion.
Well I hope I had clarified earlier, but just to be crystal clear, and since I love being on the friggin' defensive with the RP2 haters here; allow me to further clarify:
First off all, I don't claim to be an expert in any particular system.
Secondly, I don't know Eloraam, make any profit from, or have any reason to support RP2
Third, I wouldn't maliciously mislead someone, and I'm pissed off at the implication that I might, or that I'm not playing the same game, since OBVIOUSLY, BC has been 'greatly improved' since version 1.x.x; if I was in error (and for the record, I'm not convinced I was) don't jump to the conclusion that I'm either mean or stupid.
Fourth, I play SSP, with the Direwolf20 pack, so I may not be experiencing the same thing as you if you're SMPing it with a different pack for instance.
That all said, I appreciate the opportunity - it made me re-evaluate my opinion, and look at the facts.
My analysis:
The pipes themselves - Storage
There is one kind of RP2 pipe, and several BC pipes; once you add in the paints or covers you'll need to make the pipes tight like you can with alternating materials of BC pipes, it's basically even.
Speed
Once things actually enter the pipe/tube it's variable - RP2 tubes are one speed while BC pipes range from a bit faster (gold) to quite a bit slower (cobble). Magtubes from RP2 are very fast, but require blutricity wiring and a pair of accelerators.
Space
A relay or filter is just as much a pain in the ass as either wiring a gate or fitting a redstone engine/wood pipe combo in, so there is no real space advantage there; slight edge to BC since its easier to pop an autarchic gate or Redstone engine and forget about it.
Sorting
I really like diamond pipes for ease of setup - intuitive, clean, and fits damn near anywhere on the line - paired with iron pipes you can make some efficient set ups.
The filter has been my go-to inventory manipulator for RP2 - without 'programing' it pulls better than the one-item-at-a-time Transposer, and can fit with just it and some sort of redstone pulse - 2 blocks in space if you're willing to use a timer (yes, I've heard the timer causes lag) or some sort of wire. There are progressively more complicated setups you can use with RP2, and they aren't as easy, or compact as chains of diamond (and now emerald) pipes can be.
Lag
Here's the flamebait I unintentionally waved around. I was corrected for stating that RP2 tubes are less laggy than BC pipes.
Fine, IF you can keep everything in the pipe or tube, BC pipes are no more, and may be less laggy than RP2 tubes. I have little evidence one way or the other.
Here is where I get to the point that makes me choose RP2 tubes:
Overflow
In Buildcraft, if you don't build something right, you can have your excess items flying out the pipes, landing all over the place, and creating lag.
In RP2, if you have even just one piece of pipe attached to the machine (filter etc) it will keep it in a buffer rather than spit it out.
I'd rather have to figure out why something is gummed up, than come back later and wonder how many of my bees/diamonds/ore/cobblestone have been spit out on the landscape and for how long.
Now with practice and a bit of knowledge these problems can be avoided.
I avoided talking about the other systems, because the OP had asked about these two specifically.
I use all of it in some form or fashion. My main sorting input is an enderchest, with relay and tesseract attached for any quarry I may have running, with a simple cobblestone BC pipe with an obisidian input that I move anywhere I'm working in the shop. The enderchest then gets handled by a pair of routers feeding the massive barrel wall, which has a couple sorting machines and filters attached at the bottom, feeding RP2 tubes to my steam boiler and fermenters. A small group of stone and clay golems keep my workstations stocked with the essentials, as well as feed my factorization machines.
If AE was in the pack, I'd have found a way to include it by now too.
Upon review, I like the BC pipes overall a little more than the RP2 stuff. I'd definitely miss BC a whole lot more overall if I had to choose one over the other.
Here's the flamebait I unintentionally waved around. I was corrected for stating that RP2 tubes are less laggy than BC pipes.
Fine, IF you can keep everything in the pipe or tube, BC pipes are no more, and may be less laggy than RP2 tubes. I have little evidence one way or the other.
Here is where I get to the point that makes me choose RP2 tubes:
Overflow
In Buildcraft, if you don't build something right, you can have your excess items flying out the pipes, landing all over the place, and creating lag.
In RP2, if you have even just one piece of pipe attached to the machine (filter etc) it will keep it in a buffer rather than spit it out.
I'd rather have to figure out why something is gummed up, than come back later and wonder how many of my bees/diamonds/ore/cobblestone have been spit out on the landscape and for how long.
Now with practice and a bit of knowledge these problems can be avoided.
I avoided talking about the other systems, because the OP had asked about these two specifically.
I use all of it in some form or fashion. My main sorting input is an enderchest, with relay and tesseract attached for any quarry I may have running, with a simple cobblestone BC pipe with an obisidian input that I move anywhere I'm working in the shop. The enderchest then gets handled by a pair of routers feeding the massive barrel wall, which has a couple sorting machines and filters attached at the bottom, feeding RP2 tubes to my steam boiler and fermenters. A small group of stone and clay golems keep my workstations stocked with the essentials, as well as feed my factorization machines.
If AE was in the pack, I'd have found a way to include it by now too.
Upon review, I like the BC pipes overall a little more than the RP2 stuff. I'd definitely miss BC a whole lot more overall if I had to choose one over the other.
Well, why just one? I tend to carry three ender pouches - one is white/white/white and that's the sorter input - it in turn feeds a diamond chest that is the 'buffer' that actually gets visited by the routers or sorting machines or golems depending on
I only toss stuff in there I don't intend to grab back out until back at base.
blue/blue/white is my toolbag. This is the stuff I need, but don't want loose in my inventory for lava whoopses and such. It also has a canvas bag with all my tools for around the base that I don't -need- on expiditions, but don't want to hunt for all the time (sonic screwdriver, prototype omni tool,
blue/red/white is my well, junk bag really, but in theory its the other toolbag. Anything I'd like to have starts in there, but if the main sort bag is lagging, or I might want some of the stuff back out, it goes in there.
Since the pouches are reasonably cheap, compared to the chests, for a long time, I had one ender chest and the three colored pouches - I just re-dyed as needed (after taking it out of the sorting loop).
Pipes vs Tubes seems to be the wrong question...
I have under an hour tinkering with applied energistics and I would say it is the superior system to RP2 and buildcraft storage and item transport.
So far only downside in game is it takes low but consistent energy to run. Transit is instant, so no items are displayed. Has barrel type display monitors -- havn't stress tested them to see if they lag, but change log shows some focus toward performance, so hopefully it runs well.
Once it hits all/more of the packs it will be probably be the goto system.
Oh and it has a robust auto crafting system that stays relatively compact.
I have under an hour tinkering with applied energistics and I would say it is the superior system to RP2 and buildcraft storage and item transport.
So far only downside in game is it takes low but consistent energy to run. Transit is instant, so no items are displayed. Has barrel type display monitors -- havn't stress tested them to see if they lag, but change log shows some focus toward performance, so hopefully it runs well.
Once it hits all/more of the packs it will be probably be the goto system.
Oh and it has a robust auto crafting system that stays relatively compact.
To address the lag issue, it is good to consider this early and either do testing or be prepared to move sections of your processing system to other chunks / dimensions / etc.. when it becomes an issue.
Apparently on decently fast machines lag from sorting isn't much of an issue but if you have the privilege of having Greg-teched your own processor to be less efficient and more costly.... well then, it can become a bear.
I can confirm that having many tubes, many barrels, a few sorting machines, managers, and to some extent routers (in combination with the above) all cause lag. So do timers, relays, filters, etc.. I'm not convinced that Gregtech "lag free multiblock" machines are lag free either, but that is another question.
When I first ran into the lag wall after having gotten a quite nice ender-->sorting machines--> tubes--> router(s)--> barrels (storage) or from the tubes to managed chests for processing / project tables / fuel / autocrafting, I pretty much abandoned that game because I was flabergasted at how quickly the lag built up and didn't want to consider tearing it all down again. Also I couldn't be certain that other elements weren't causing the lag at that time.
Since then I've taken to installing Mystcraft into Mindcrack so that I can separate the phases of operation and gate between them easily. The 4 modules are:
1. Base: Crafting and building go on here. There are lots of machines for processing "by hand", but almost no automation. Ender chests are stocked with most commonly used items and these are themselves supplied by managers located at the...
2. Processing Center: 500 blocks away in the high desert is a basalt structure of several floors that processes ores and sends the products to the
3. Storage Bunker: Deep in the mountainside of a Glacier, within the hollowed walls of a quarry is a typical barrel / tube storage area. While the walls are made from a 2-high barrel arrangement, the floor is inlaid with filters and metal chests. The chests act as buffers for materials that need processing or sending to base. By using gates on the chests signals can be sent to base to indicate that we're low on particular supplies or to the processing center to turn on the flow of necessary items. Managers here are used to keep a small number of enderchests stocked.
4. Quarry / Turtle Army / Farms / Grinders: The outlying bits where items are produced. These may or may not get a gate, depending on permanence / distance.
5. With tesseracts I'll probably further separate the power room from the processing center / base as well.
The storage area and main base both act as hubs for Mystcraft portals to the other areas. Each area is carefully chunkloaded with the minimum number of chunks possible (and by this I don't mean "Oh, that should cover it...well maybe one click more...", but actually placing individual CL's to cover odd shapes if needed). I gift myself infinite chunkloaders, a link modifier, and crystals as a sort of "lag tax" break. The portals can't be used for other purposes unless I discover crystals the normal way.
So far this is much much better than any effect from streamlining operations at a single central area. Keeping the storage area away from the processing area is the biggest boost.
Apparently on decently fast machines lag from sorting isn't much of an issue but if you have the privilege of having Greg-teched your own processor to be less efficient and more costly.... well then, it can become a bear.
I can confirm that having many tubes, many barrels, a few sorting machines, managers, and to some extent routers (in combination with the above) all cause lag. So do timers, relays, filters, etc.. I'm not convinced that Gregtech "lag free multiblock" machines are lag free either, but that is another question.
When I first ran into the lag wall after having gotten a quite nice ender-->sorting machines--> tubes--> router(s)--> barrels (storage) or from the tubes to managed chests for processing / project tables / fuel / autocrafting, I pretty much abandoned that game because I was flabergasted at how quickly the lag built up and didn't want to consider tearing it all down again. Also I couldn't be certain that other elements weren't causing the lag at that time.
Since then I've taken to installing Mystcraft into Mindcrack so that I can separate the phases of operation and gate between them easily. The 4 modules are:
1. Base: Crafting and building go on here. There are lots of machines for processing "by hand", but almost no automation. Ender chests are stocked with most commonly used items and these are themselves supplied by managers located at the...
2. Processing Center: 500 blocks away in the high desert is a basalt structure of several floors that processes ores and sends the products to the
3. Storage Bunker: Deep in the mountainside of a Glacier, within the hollowed walls of a quarry is a typical barrel / tube storage area. While the walls are made from a 2-high barrel arrangement, the floor is inlaid with filters and metal chests. The chests act as buffers for materials that need processing or sending to base. By using gates on the chests signals can be sent to base to indicate that we're low on particular supplies or to the processing center to turn on the flow of necessary items. Managers here are used to keep a small number of enderchests stocked.
4. Quarry / Turtle Army / Farms / Grinders: The outlying bits where items are produced. These may or may not get a gate, depending on permanence / distance.
5. With tesseracts I'll probably further separate the power room from the processing center / base as well.
The storage area and main base both act as hubs for Mystcraft portals to the other areas. Each area is carefully chunkloaded with the minimum number of chunks possible (and by this I don't mean "Oh, that should cover it...well maybe one click more...", but actually placing individual CL's to cover odd shapes if needed). I gift myself infinite chunkloaders, a link modifier, and crystals as a sort of "lag tax" break. The portals can't be used for other purposes unless I discover crystals the normal way.
So far this is much much better than any effect from streamlining operations at a single central area. Keeping the storage area away from the processing area is the biggest boost.
Yup. I just recently ripped out my entire RP bases storage / processing system in favor of AE. Aside from the fact that AE is totally frikkin awesome my FPS also went up by a rather large amount.
I suspect RP is using custom renderers for the tubes and some other stuff that isn't all that well optimized and causes FPS drops. And relays are very well know for causing a LOT of chunk updates which put a strain on the server.
AE all the way for me. For early game storage I would opt for barrels and BC pipes. No big networks of tubes for me anymore, RP2 is currently not in a finished/polished state and it doesn't look like Eloraam has the time or energy to work on it.
You're basically saying RP tubes are better because they're more idiot proof. This is simply not the case. The cause of "overflow" and entities spewing is typically quarries. Stuff like farms don't overflow but they also tend not to produce so many items that it causes issues. And if a quarry can't insert into a (for example) relay, it will start spewing items anyway.
If you play FTB you need to be able to handle overflow situations. It's one of the most important 'skills', even if you use RP2 instead of tubes.
So you're wrong in stating that RP tubes are less 'laggy'. They might even create a false sense of security because people think the system will just 'stop' if it's full when in fact the problems will be happening all the way at the start. That's why our golden rule on the server is to always void your cobble, gravel and dirt right when it's coming out of your quarry.
Last but not least: you talking about RP2 'haters' is completely rediculous. I don't hate RP2, I totally love it. However; currently the tube/sorting systems we all love so much have pretty big issues both client side (FPS drops) and server side (chunk updates). RP2 was simply NOT developed with any performance in mind and the author seems to have gone missing again.
My comment about haters come from the attitude I'm perceiving that I must be a moron or want to mess with people for recommending RP2 tubes. Rather than come in, and tell me hey, you're mistaken because _____, I've had people tell me I'm being malicious, playing an old version of the game or now, questioning my 'skills'.
I posted that wall of text to explain my thought process, and how I came to the conclusions I did. In essence, it comes down to the fact that I have had an easier time grasping RP2's tubes/machine interactions then I have at figuring out why a allegedly solid piece of pipe is shooting things out the side... sometimes.
Right now, I have a hopper and BC pipe setup spewing honeycombs all over the ground, and I am trying to solve it with just buildcraft and I am becoming frustrated with it again.
One question though, if the sorting system locks up at the source, isn't that less lag producing than piles of entities all over the place?
I posted that wall of text to explain my thought process, and how I came to the conclusions I did. In essence, it comes down to the fact that I have had an easier time grasping RP2's tubes/machine interactions then I have at figuring out why a allegedly solid piece of pipe is shooting things out the side... sometimes.
Right now, I have a hopper and BC pipe setup spewing honeycombs all over the ground, and I am trying to solve it with just buildcraft and I am becoming frustrated with it again.
One question though, if the sorting system locks up at the source, isn't that less lag producing than piles of entities all over the place?
Sure, but the output of farms and such is typically not as server breaking as the output of a quarry is, especially early on. Most players tend to get a quarry asap so they can skip the hassle of mining ores themselves. On our server this is were it went wrong most of the time.
Just having a few items on the ground is no issue at all. The problem is having thousands of them.
Anyway, this is just about the part where you said that tubes prevented lag by not letting stuff fall on the ground. There are actual big problems with RP2 that Eloraam doesn't seem to be interested in fixing now and that's why people are moving away from it, even though the sorting system is in theory much better than BC's. The problem is that in practice there are many 'broken' aspects of the mod, the FPS drops and chunk updates first and foremost.
Any thoughts on how to buffer a sorting system so that it doesn't try to sort each individual item as soon as the quarry puts it in? The main problem is that everything pulls from the top left of the chest and also inserts into the top left. So as soon as a stack of cobble is pulled out and the next half-stack of cobble fulls up, a single cobble appears in the top left and gets sucked out and replaced by a single cobble etcetera. I don't really want to set Sorting Machine that pulls Cobblestone to only pull full stacks, but that would help somewhat. If I followed that path to its logical conclusion, I'd have little part-stacks of dozens of item types cluttering up my input enderchest.
I'm tempted to switch over to using turtles, as they buffer the input naturally. That would still leave my macerator and furanace output as individual items though, I'd like some smart stacking applied to that as well.
I'm tempted to switch over to using turtles, as they buffer the input naturally. That would still leave my macerator and furanace output as individual items though, I'd like some smart stacking applied to that as well.