Best setup for a solar powered GT Matterfab?

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Dragonfel

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Jul 29, 2019
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I've been feeding my matterfab off my machine room power supply for a while now (feeding it manually with stacks of scrap/scrapboxes) and I've got enough UU to make a Ultimate solar. I'd like to set up my matter fabricator on my roof, ideally in a tightly packed and space efficient way. Problem is, it requires a ton of scrap so I'll need to automate the recyclers feeding it and I'll want to pump the finished UU matter out of it. Does anyone have any experience setting up a matter fab this way? Maybe a screenshot of it in action?

Which sides do you pump in scrap and pump out the UU?
 

Evil Hamster

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Jul 29, 2019
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My setup, maybe not the "best" but it works:

2013-01-21_14.51.03.png


Cobble from my quarry feeds into the gold chest, filter pulls out and feeds into 3 recyclers. The top barrel is for overflow. There is a retriever behind the recyclers to pull scrap and feed it into another barrel, and a second filter pulls from the barrel and feeds into the bottom of the mass fab. The filter on the side pulls out uu matter and feeds it into my inventory system where it currently gets stuffed into a factorization packager to slowly make me diamonds.

The system can definitely use more recyclers, but as my quantum suit armor is done, I don't really "need" it any more and it's just running off extra power. When I get into building some of the more advanced gregtech stuff and need the iridium again, I'll turn my 24 GT thermal generators back on and possibly add another recycler or 3.
 

Dragonfel

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Jul 29, 2019
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Thanks Evil, that helps somewhat. Btw, which side of the Matter Fab do you pump in the scrap and which side do you pull UU out?
 

MrZwij

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Jul 29, 2019
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The Matterfab will take scrap boxes as well, which basically means you can stuff 9X as much scrap in there. The packager Evil Hamster is using is an easy way to make the scrap boxes.
 

MavericK96

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Jul 29, 2019
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IIRC, Scrap gives you a 5000 amplification whereas a scrap box gives you 40000, which means raw scrap is actually more efficient than using scrapboxes...

(Please correct me if I'm wrong on my numbers, but that's what I've observed and there's not a lot of wiki data about it out there)
 

Dragonfel

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Jul 29, 2019
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IIRC, Scrap gives you a 5000 amplification whereas a scrap box gives you 40000, which means raw scrap is actually more efficient than using scrapboxes...

(Please correct me if I'm wrong on my numbers, but that's what I've observed and there's not a lot of wiki data about it out there)

How does the amplification factor in? Does 5000 vs 40000 make it more effiecient for EU usage or just last longer?
 

Dragonfel

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Jul 29, 2019
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Yeah, I get what amplification does. I'm just not sure what the difference is between the values of different amplification. Does more amplification mean you use less EU than something with less? Or does it simply just last longer?

If it simply means scrapboxes last longer than scrap, but convert EU to UU at the same rate/speed then I may just pump scrap instead of the boxes and cut out the packager step.
 

MavericK96

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Jul 29, 2019
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It just lasts longer. Which, if the 5000 vs 40000 numbers are accurate (I think so but not 100% sure), then you're only getting 8 scrap worth of amplification for 9 scrap used to make the scrap box.

Maybe it's 45000, though, I don't really know for sure.
 

Dragonfel

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Jul 29, 2019
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That makes sense then, I'll just automate scrap into it then. 1 or 2 recyclers should be able to keep up with a matter fabricator being fed from a single Ultimate solar.
 

ATJ

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Jul 29, 2019
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The MATTER fabricator does not take scrap boxes so there seems to be some confusion in this thread with MASS fabricators - 2 completely different machines.

The set up for the MATTER fab on our server is as follows :

2x remote mystcraft quarries feeding into a single coloured ender chest >
Matching ender chest in overworld with electric engine pulling out >
BC pipe sorting system taking gravel, dirt and cobble down separate pipe network >
Pipe runs over the top of 3 barrels each with gravel, dirt and cobble in so we always have a full 64 stacks of each if we need any >
Diamond pipe after that splitting the surplus into 3 buffer chests each for gravel, dirt and cobble* >
Electric engines pulling out of those 3 into an iron pipe to a recycler with 8 overclockers and a hopper on top >
BC pipe continues past the top of the hopper and loops back round in case of too much product at one time, although never seen it need it (can never be too careful with BC pipes and overflowing items... ) >
Electric engine on recycler pumping out into a different colour ender chest >
Matching ender chest in mystcraft quarry world (eternal day, no weather) which has railcraft item loader cart** taking out the scrap and unloading it into an upgraded barrel >
Another railcraft item cart set up between scrap barrel and matter fab told to keep 64 scrap in matter fab at all times >
And another railcraft item cart between matter fab and another coloured ender chest which is linked back in the overworld factory where the uu-matter is piped out into the factory storage barrel.

The matter fabricator has a world anchor next to it and runs off 7x ultimate panels which provide it with a constant 3584 EU/t. This means it eats 3 pieces of scrap every 5 seconds and makes 1 uum every 2.5 minutes! You NEED 2 quarries running permanently in order to keep up with it's demand for scrap (or you could make a cobble gen of course).

* the reason for the 3 buffer chests for each item type is because the items flow into a single chest too fast and there's always something in the first slot so it never gets the opportunity to move onto the next slots.

** the railcarts are really an overly complex way of doing it, but even with the world anchor we were having random issues with the engines stopping working for unknown reasons which resulted in thousands of items on the ground. The railcarts work a lot more reliably once you set them up right.

The 7x ultimate panels came from mining in a dense ore world with silk touch picks on iridium ore. Finding 2 to 5 ore in a vein if you dig around it a bit soon gets you enough to make ultimate panels once you macerate it.

Before someone says all the above can be done much easier with RP2, I wholeheartedly agree, however we are running the beta pack here (no RP2) so have to work with BC pipes. ;)
 

MavericK96

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Jul 29, 2019
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Okay, so scrap and scrap boxes are the same amplification ratio. I guess you can store more scrap boxes so it would make sense to use those, though auto-crafting them requires slightly more infrastructure.

(This is, of course, assuming you're using the DW20 pack with the Mass Fabricator)
 

ATJ

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Jul 29, 2019
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You sure? Back in Beta A, I had the MATTER fab running on scrap boxes.

It would seem that I am mistaken! I have just tested them in ours and they do indeed work okay. This has puzzled me actually because I'm sure we tried them when we first made it and it wouldn't accept them (??) - also I thought I read a thread on here about them not being accepted in the matter fab too. Hmm. Well, regardless, as he's running the matter fab and not the mass fab then he'd be better off leaving the scrap as scrap and feeding it straight in as it chews through it very fast once you have it hooked up to a decent amount of power. ;)
 

lolpierandom

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Jul 29, 2019
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My setup, maybe not the "best" but it works:
Cobble from my quarry feeds into the gold chest, filter pulls out and feeds into 3 recyclers. The top barrel is for overflow. There is a retriever behind the recyclers to pull scrap and feed it into another barrel, and a second filter pulls from the barrel and feeds into the bottom of the mass fab. The filter on the side pulls out uu matter and feeds it into my inventory system where it currently gets stuffed into a factorization packager to slowly make me diamonds.

The system can definitely use more recyclers, but as my quantum suit armor is done, I don't really "need" it any more and it's just running off extra power. When I get into building some of the more advanced gregtech stuff and need the iridium again, I'll turn my 24 GT thermal generators back on and possibly add another recycler or 3.

Why not just void pipe (or whatever way you prefer of disposing items) the quarry's cobble and use igneous extruders?

It would be more consistent and you wouldn't need an overflow chest, and you could always have a barrel + extruder seperately for all your cobble needs.
 
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