Fair enough. AE's also pretty amazing for that, and in that case starting with the network is definitely the better way to go, since you can then shove it all onto some drives when you've got them, while still being able to access the stuff via the terminal in the mean time. It's just a great mod, really.
Best lagfree sorting system? Pipes vs Tubes
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Fair enough. AE's also pretty amazing for that, and in that case starting with the network is definitely the better way to go, since you can then shove it all onto some drives when you've got them, while still being able to access the stuff via the terminal in the mean time. It's just a great mod, really.
Just as a note, it's very hard for people who haven't used it to understand how expensive AE gets. Its idling costs aren't so bad but its I/O costs can get insane. Do NOT try to use it for quarries or frame bores or any sort of auto-mining as an input funnel unless you're the sort of person who is so far ahead on the power game that you forgot how many IDSUs you have.
What sorts of problems have you run into?
I'm curious, because I have just started a system. It's got 5 dedicated industrial steam engines from one of my boilers set aside to power (you know...growth potential). Last night one of our folks fired up three quarries to rip apart a couple of hollow hills. I assume, for the sake of overkill, that the 200 units of power that I've got allocated was WAY more than sufficient for our purposes (since the idle power is around 20 units for the system right now), but what sort of problems could I expect? Chests overflowing? Lost items? Ocelots and Wolves cross-breeding?
It just uses a lot more power than you think it does. And the MJ side of the equation is slightly less favorable than the EU side depending on your power generation needs.
Just process first with conventional methods then input the processed outputs into AE.
I'm not sure AE energy usage is quite as bad as you are thinking. According to the AE wiki (http://ae-mod.info/Energy-Usage-Information) the main Controller block uses 6 units of energy per tick (1 unit = 1/2 EU or 1/5 MJ). With 20 ticks per second, this is 120 units used at idle per second. Also noted on the wiki is the cost of moving a single item into the system, at 1 unit of energy (so one stack is 64 units).
So this means, the idle energy usage of the single controller block about equal to moving two stacks of items into your system per second.
Right, but multiple quarries will move in a LOT more than just one stack. And if you move things around via AE, your processing starts causing multiples of that function per unit input. Imagine your smelting input inputs it, then immediately outputs it elsewhere into ore processing lines. You might then use AE again to autocraft dusts and then sink those back into the ore chain. It adds up really fast unless you're judicious in your use. And if you do exceed your power capacity then your system behaves in the worst possible way.
It's not impossible, but it's linear to your input. Just be aware of that.
The fastest I've ever seen a quarry move is about 1 item every .5 seconds. That's only 1 unit of extra power every 10 ticks. If you already have a pulverized set up it will skip storage and go right to the export bus and only use extra power when pulling the 2 generated dusts (or three if you get lucky) back from the import.
AE really does not use a lot of power if you carefully set it up.
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AE really does not use a lot of power if you carefully set it up.
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Thinking about it, if you're feeding, say, a quarry into an enderchest, then you'd be looking at 1 energy to pull an ore out of the chest and into the network, 1 to pull it from the network and put it in an induction smelter, and then a maximum of 3 energy to pull the two ingots and one potential rich slag from the smelter and back into the network, for a total maximum of 5 energy per processing operation (but only 4 90-95% of the time). If you've got a quarry running at 5 blocks per second (which I believe is about where it ends up with 50 MJ/t behind it), you're still only looking at a maximum of 25 units per second, or 1.2 per tick. That's like 0.25 MJ/t, when you're already going to be using 8 for a smelter and a pulverizer feeding it sand. If you use macerators and electric furnaces instead, then you'd be looking at 8 per ore (one less because no rich slag, four more for pulling two items out of the macerator and putting two into the furnace), but that's still not all that much. With a TE system, you'd have to get past 160 blocks per second to have the I/O cost equal the amount of MJ you're already feeding into your machines, and even then that's just one industrial steam engine, and pretending that 99% of those blocks aren't just cobblestone (which will only cost 1 energy to pull in, since they don't need processing). Plus that MJ can always be converted into EU for a further boost in efficiency.
Really, unless the numbers the wiki gives are wrong, or there's a whole lot of power leakage going on somewhere in the process that my experience-less theorycrafting doesn't account for, I don't think it's that big of a deal.
Really, unless the numbers the wiki gives are wrong, or there's a whole lot of power leakage going on somewhere in the process that my experience-less theorycrafting doesn't account for, I don't think it's that big of a deal.
Wow; I had to edit myself a bit there. I'm not maliciously lying, or indeed lying at all.
RP2 Tubes don't spit crap on the ground when the destination is full or because I made a sloppy corner.
I use both BC and RP2 and have a preference for the RP2 tubes over longer distances.
I think what people get confused about is that a "stack" is not necessarily 64 objects. It's what's in the slot. But my power usage was based off doing a bit more. In a complex processing loop for lots of things with implicit autocrafting requests via export buses, the costs rise quickly. My testworld stuff exceeded an LV EU power supply during peak quarry runs, which surprised me. I had to give it MV.
I think what ppl are getting confused about is regardless of the size of the stack its 1 power per item, not per stack. a full stack of 64 takes 64 power to move if you move it all at once. want to decrease the power usage of your quarries? use a storage buss on your ender set to hold dirt, cobble and gravel. then use an emerald pipe set to a void pipe on it to pull those three out.
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I'm trying to buffer my sorting system. My quarry is outputting items at about 3 items per second, into a black Enderchest. I have a Filter attached that sucks items into my white Enderchest that is the input to my sorting system. I trigger the Filter with a 60 second Timer through a 5s State Cell and a Not Gate, then another Timer set to 0.2s. So every minute, the fast timer pulses the Filter 25 times. But the Filter has a speed limit on it, it can only pulse about 3 or 4 times a second, about the same speed as the Quarry, so it always leaves a few items in the black Enderchest.
Any ideas how I can fix this, other than maybe having two Filters triggered by the same timing rig? Or, is there a much simpler way of flushing the entire contents of one chest into another?
Eventually I'll replace it with a Sortron, but I've got two Sortrons connected up to 2 CPUs at the moment and I don't want to build a third CPU. I'll rationalise it when the Bus ID bug is fixed and I can run them all on the same CPU.
Hm, it seems to be catching up occasionally anyway.
Any ideas how I can fix this, other than maybe having two Filters triggered by the same timing rig? Or, is there a much simpler way of flushing the entire contents of one chest into another?
Eventually I'll replace it with a Sortron, but I've got two Sortrons connected up to 2 CPUs at the moment and I don't want to build a third CPU. I'll rationalise it when the Bus ID bug is fixed and I can run them all on the same CPU.
Hm, it seems to be catching up occasionally anyway.
The entire point of ender chests/item tesseracts is that you are able to move items around without having to store them all right there on hand.
It has to be Enderchests. I need pouch access to one, and transdimensional access to the other.
The question, and your answer, referred to lag not dropping items on the ground. Which is a completely avoidable situation with buildcraft as well.
Fine.
I've experienced no noticeable lag with RP2 pipes, and find them easier to avoid spillage.
Edited.
Yeah I use to be a RP2 tube guy but after seeing how Easy it is to use a router for a sorting system I will never look back Plus with a router you have a giant wall instead of pipes/tubes going everywhere.