Best way to learn about pipings?(And other stuff)

[unspunreality]

And everything else? Im dipping my foot into more advance machines. The water mill has to go. The array of 7 solar panels needs to get upgraded. And my turtles are demolishing my first mountain as a home for my 3rd base and with 4 ender chests I need to figure out how to link it all up. What I want is basically this.


Turtles return to ender chests, deposit stuff. One ender chest is at base and has a long pipeline of some piping that extends to many barrels. The items would enter their respective barrel or head to the next open slot and empty there.

Granted if there is an easier way to make this happen, Id go with that. But Ive never used redstone(Electricty is so much easier), havent needed to use much piping outside of some insulated/uninsulated stuff and one block long piping from my coke coal machine to some tanks. I tried a proof of concept with a small trial where I had an ender chest linked to a wooden transport hoked up to stone over 3 barrels. I promptly got dinged in the face by many angry red rocks. I doubt Im anywhere near ME systems and barrels are classic too. So Im wondering where could I learn how to slowly build my way up the tech tree.

I want my new base already so I can set up a magma crucible and liquid thingy and make more stuff. ;;

 

[Neirin]

You were actually pretty close on getting the system to work. In 1.5 you'll be able to use the insertion pipes from Thermal Expansion to force the stone into barrels if there's room, but for now you need to use diamond pipes. Barrels can only be filled from the top, so place a diamond pipe on top of each barrel. Then, in the GUI of the diamond pipe, place the item you want to store in the barrel in the row that corresponds to the down direction on the pipe. Unless you're using an odd texture pack, that color should be black. at the end of your line of barrels you should also place a relatively large chest (i.e. gold/diamond) to catch overflow incase something not designated for the barrels comes through or one of the barrels fills up.

You could also use Red Power tubes. They don't require diamonds to achieve a similar result, however RP's means of pulling things out of a chest aren't quite as simple as Buildcraft's (imo). If you want to go that way, the easiest setup is a transposer that receives a redstone pulse periodically from a timer. Timers are a bit of a pain to make and if you have too many of them running too quickly you can create a lot of lag, but for a simple situation like this, they're a pretty good solution.

As for learning all the stuff there is to learn about tech mods: you're doing it right. See something you want to do, then figure out how to do it step by step. If you want to figure it out for yourself there are a few good resources out there to help. First, the official FTB wiki is a good place to go, though it's still slightly under construction. For things that haven't been added to the official wiki yet, the unofficial wiki is pretty decent. However, most of the information there is taken from the wikis of individual mods, so if you want to be sure the info is accurate, I'd recommend going to each mod's own wiki (links are provided by the unofficial wiki). Finally, if your problem isn't something easily answered by wikis, this forum thread is a great place to get your questions answered by the lovely people of these forums.

 

[unspunreality]

You were actually pretty close on getting the system to work. In 1.5 you'll be able to use the insertion pipes from Thermal Expansion to force the stone into barrels if there's room, but for now you need to use diamond pipes. Barrels can only be filled from the top, so place a diamond pipe on top of each barrel. Then, in the GUI of the diamond pipe, place the item you want to store in the barrel in the row that corresponds to the down direction on the pipe. Unless you're using an odd texture pack, that color should be black. at the end of your line of barrels you should also place a relatively large chest (i.e. gold/diamond) to catch overflow incase something not designated for the barrels comes through or one of the barrels fills up.

You could also use Red Power tubes. They don't require diamonds to achieve a similar result, however RP's means of pulling things out of a chest aren't quite as simple as Buildcraft's (imo). If you want to go that way, the easiest setup is a transposer that receives a redstone pulse periodically from a timer. Timers are a bit of a pain to make and if you have too many of them running too quickly you can create a lot of lag, but for a simple situation like this, they're a pretty good solution.

As for learning all the stuff there is to learn about tech mods: you're doing it right. See something you want to do, then figure out how to do it step by step. If you want to figure it out for yourself there are a few good resources out there to help. First, the official FTB wiki is a good place to go, though it's still slightly under construction. For things that haven't been added to the official wiki yet, the unofficial wiki is pretty decent. However, most of the information there is taken from the wikis of individual mods, so if you want to be sure the info is accurate, I'd recommend going to each mod's own wiki (links are provided by the unofficial wiki). Finally, if your problem isn't something easily answered by wikis, this forum thread is a great place to get your questions answered by the lovely people of these forums.

Thanks for the info. Ugh. More diamonds. Why is it always diamonds? I like the second idea. But I have no idea about transposer, or timers or... anything about redstone. Guess I should probably try and get acclimiated with that. Thanks for the other info too. Im working though this game in stages and it seems my home is too. Started with a treehouse. Then I did something dumb. Tried thaumcraft, decided it was a good idea to put lava on a wood floor if it was surrounded by dirt... >.>;

Enter second base which is just a cheesy stone fortress. But I wanna expand now. Which means new machines, better machines, no more crappy setups, and the huge task of hollowing out a mountain. Sigh. Learning about these advanced mechanics is so much work. I just learned about MVs and conversions and stuff! X.X

Edit: Since the red power seems cheaper, is there a place to learn about it? Or trial and error. Build everything, throw it on the ground and bruteforce till it works. <<;

 

[Enigmius1]

Easiest option is to take a cruise through the wiki, ask around about things you're not certain with, and then make a small amount of each item and set up something on a small scale and mess around with it. It's not at all uncommon for people to create a separate Creative world just to mess around with new machines and get a feel for how they work.

 

[Neirin]

Thanks for the info. Ugh. More diamonds. Why is it always diamonds? I like the second idea. But I have no idea about transposer, or timers or... anything about redstone. Guess I should probably try and get acclimiated with that. Thanks for the other info too. Im working though this game in stages and it seems my home is too. Started with a treehouse. Then I did something dumb. Tried thaumcraft, decided it was a good idea to put lava on a wood floor if it was surrounded by dirt... >.>;

Enter second base which is just a cheesy stone fortress. But I wanna expand now. Which means new machines, better machines, no more crappy setups, and the huge task of hollowing out a mountain. Sigh. Learning about these advanced mechanics is so much work. I just learned about MVs and conversions and stuff! X.X

Edit: Since the red power seems cheaper, is there a place to learn about it? Or trial and error. Build everything, throw it on the ground and bruteforce till it works. <<;

I've done the ol' lava in a treehouse bit more than once, so I can sympathize.

The Red Power wiki's page on its machines covers everything from tube mechanics to the different modes of a sorting machine. I'm afraid it hasn't been updated in quite some time, so not all RP machines are covered, but everything there is still accurate. This is perhaps a circumstance where the unofficial wiki's RP page might be more useful. All the tubes and stuff to use with tubes are in the "utilities" category and most of the individual pages have a short video explaining what each piece does.

If you're looking for less of an info dump and more of a tutorial I'm sure there's a youtube LP series out there that covers the basics of Red Power, but I honestly can't think of one off the top of my head. I think Duncan (from the Yogscast) covered it a bit in his Tekkit series, but it's been so long now I can't really remember. I'd probably look into some of the FTB videos made by VintageBeef or Pakratt on the Mindcrack server. I haven't watched them myself, but I've heard they use a lot of RP.

EDIT: oh, just thought of a good one. Direwolf20 does a lot of RP-based sorting systems in his various series and he frequently treats his LP like an extended tutorial. If you go back to some of his earlier seasons in particular I think he goes fairly in-depth with things. If you're not interested in watching a whole LP series, might I suggest combing through his mod spotlights - there are quite a few in there for various versions of Red Power.

 

[unspunreality]

I've done the ol' lava in a treehouse bit more than once, so I can sympathize.

The Red Power wiki's page on its machines covers everything from tube mechanics to the different modes of a sorting machine. I'm afraid it hasn't been updated in quite some time, so not all RP machines are covered, but everything there is still accurate. This is perhaps a circumstance where the unofficial wiki's RP page might be more useful. All the tubes and stuff to use with tubes are in the "utilities" category and most of the individual pages have a short video explaining what each piece does.

If you're looking for less of an info dump and more of a tutorial I'm sure there's a youtube LP series out there that covers the basics of Red Power, but I honestly can't think of one off the top of my head. I think Duncan (from the Yogscast) covered it a bit in his Tekkit series, but it's been so long now I can't really remember. I'd probably look into some of the FTB videos made by VintageBeef or Pakratt on the Mindcrack server. I haven't watched them myself, but I've heard they use a lot of RP.

Well I made a crucibal thingy for Thaumcraft and saw it needed lava. >.> Long story short. House fall down go boom.

Ill read over these links now though. Thanks for the help. Hopefully as I get a hang of this and mineout atleast a floor in my mountain I can start building my ind.centrifuge, magma crucible and liquid transposer, I can make my redstone cell, build my very first xycraft tank, fill it with lava, feel awesome.

I eventually want to build the biggest solar panel. The extremesuperdeluxultrayummy solar panel but god that feels so far away. Its my ultimate goal atm though.

 

[Neirin]

Well I made a crucibal thingy for Thaumcraft and saw it needed lava. >.> Long story short. House fall down go boom.

Ill read over these links now though. Thanks for the help. Hopefully as I get a hang of this and mineout atleast a floor in my mountain I can start building my ind.centrifuge, magma crucible and liquid transposer, I can make my redstone cell, build my very first xycraft tank, fill it with lava, feel awesome.

I eventually want to build the biggest solar panel. The extremesuperdeluxultrayummy solar panel but god that feels so far away. Its my ultimate goal atm though.

Frankly, it sounds to me like you have things well in hand. You've got goals and a pretty good idea of how to reach them. That probably puts you ahead of most people.

BTW: the super solar panel thing is a daunting prospect for pretty much everyone. My advice: start small. Just do a bunch of normal solar panels. Then upgrade those to advanced solar panels, then into hybrid panels. Finally, once you have 8 hybrids you can combine them together to get an Ultimate Hybrid. I think Ako (another member of these forums) did a pretty good job discussing the process of building up solar power in his recent FTB Ultimate LP. Now that I think about it, he has another series that's called "The FTB Beginner's Guide." I've haven't watched it (I don't really consider myself a beginner), but I liked his LP enough that'd I'd wager it's worth a view.

Geez... how did I accrue so much knowledge about people who do FTB LPs on youtube?

 

[unspunreality]

Frankly, it sounds to me like you have things well in hand. You've got goals and a pretty good idea of how to reach them. That probably puts you ahead of most people.

BTW: the super solar panel thing is a daunting prospect for pretty much everyone. My advice: start small. Just do a bunch of normal solar panels. Then upgrade those to advanced solar panels, then into hybrid panels. Finally, once you have 8 hybrids you can combine them together to get an Ultimate Hybrid. I think Ako (another member of these forums) did a pretty good job discussing the process of building up solar power in his recent FTB Ultimate LP. Now that I think about it, he has another series that's called "The FTB Beginner's Guide." I've haven't watched it (I don't really consider myself a beginner), but I liked his LP enough that'd I'd wager it's worth a view.

Geez... how did I accrue so much knowledge about people who do FTB LPs on youtube?

Upgrading slow is what Im doing. But I want something to work towards, and thats it. Im about to build my T2 solar panels. But alas, I still need this new base to atleast set up a room inside. Which leads back to this whole ender storage system. Barrels, maybe something else. I dunno. But I refuse to let those cobble and what not go to waste. I need to figure out where to put everything. Im sitting on some 10 gold chests, 1 diamond, 4 silver and a bunch of double normal chests. Need.. something. Argh. Must read more. And build more machines to make a billion brass.

 

[Neirin]

Upgrading slow is what Im doing. But I want something to work towards, and thats it. Im about to build my T2 solar panels. But alas, I still need this new base to atleast set up a room inside. Which leads back to this whole ender storage system. Barrels, maybe something else. I dunno. But I refuse to let those cobble and what not go to waste. I need to figure out where to put everything. Im sitting on some 10 gold chests, 1 diamond, 4 silver and a bunch of double normal chests. Need.. something. Argh. Must read more. And build more machines to make a billion brass.

Oh god, you're just like me. I ran the whole setup for my current world off 4 TE Steam Engines and an IC2 Generator all hand-fed coal/charcoal for like 2 months while I actually built the base where I was going to put my real machines. Granted, I can only play about once a week, but it was still pretty funny. I've also only recently managed to kick my cobble-hoarding habit. Rather than keeping all the mined up cobble, I now just destroy it and instead have it crafted as-needed by an Igneous Extruder. I realized I rarely need more than 1-2 stacks of cobble at a time, so I really didn't need to be hoarding it.

 

[unspunreality]

Oh god, you're just like me. I ran the whole setup for my current world off 4 TE Steam Engines and an IC2 Generator all hand-fed coal/charcoal for like 2 months while I actually built the base where I was going to put my real machines. Granted, I can only play about once a week, but it was still pretty funny. I've also only recently managed to kick my cobble-hoarding habit. Rather than keeping all the mined up cobble, I now just destroy it and instead have it crafted as-needed by an Igneous Extruder. I realized I rarely need more than 1-2 stacks of cobble at a time, so I really didn't need to be hoarding it.

But cobble turns to sand into glass. =( And holes need to be filled in!

And thats pretty much my set up atm. Some ugly combination of a water mill and 7 solar panels supporting a MSE(Thats the second upgrade I believe), then that powers a LV which supplies 4 electric engines. xD Then I have redstone engines on my coke coal pipes which have like 7 tanks of ... excess greenish gook I have no idea what to do with(Oil).

But I dont want to set up something complex and break it down later.

But I builting those weird redpower pipings. But its late so tomorrow ill try out everything.

 

[Ako_the_Builder]

Upgrading slow is what Im doing. But I want something to work towards, and thats it. Im about to build my T2 solar panels. But alas, I still need this new base to atleast set up a room inside. Which leads back to this whole ender storage system. Barrels, maybe something else. I dunno. But I refuse to let those cobble and what not go to waste. I need to figure out where to put everything. Im sitting on some 10 gold chests, 1 diamond, 4 silver and a bunch of double normal chests. Need.. something. Argh. Must read more. And build more machines to make a billion brass.

Hi, which modpack are you using? Barrels are a good way to go, just got to set things up so stuff goes in and out the right sides (top for in, bottom for out), you mention ME in your first post so I'm guessing you're using a pack that includes it, it seems really daunting at first but really is the superior storage mod (plus it does loads of other cool stuff)

Frankly, it sounds to me like you have things well in hand. You've got goals and a pretty good idea of how to reach them. That probably puts you ahead of most people.

BTW: the super solar panel thing is a daunting prospect for pretty much everyone. My advice: start small. Just do a bunch of normal solar panels. Then upgrade those to advanced solar panels, then into hybrid panels. Finally, once you have 8 hybrids you can combine them together to get an Ultimate Hybrid. I think Ako (another member of these forums) did a pretty good job discussing the process of building up solar power in his recent FTB Ultimate LP. Now that I think about it, he has another series that's called "The FTB Beginner's Guide." I've haven't watched it (I don't really consider myself a beginner), but I liked his LP enough that'd I'd wager it's worth a view.

Geez... how did I accrue so much knowledge about people who do FTB LPs on youtube?

aww, thanks for the plug Neirin

 

[unspunreality]

Hi, which modpack are you using? Barrels are a good way to go, just got to set things up so stuff goes in and out the right sides (top for in, bottom for out), you mention ME in your first post so I'm guessing you're using a pack that includes it, it seems really daunting at first but really is the superior storage mod (plus it does loads of other cool stuff)



aww, thanks for the plug Neirin

Ultimate pack. And computers are something I may do, but as an addon later maybe? I figured barrels would look interesting, decorate a wall or something. I do get how to hook them up however, sorta..

Correct me anywhere Im wrong.

Linked enderchest > Wooden Pipe(Or can I go straight to the Pnuwhatever piping from the start. Does it need power?) > long ass pipeline that feeds over the tops of barrels.

Now this would actually require a lot of barrels however, so Id need to think of some set up that

A) Works
B) Allows me to stack them in some sort of way that allows me to see reach for the tops of them
C) Works

I saw a video doing this to some extent, had a timer built into his system from the start and it was all nice and pretty as it fed into his barrels. I think it was a video about ender chests. Meh, whatever. Ill try tomorrow.

Thanks everyone in this topic for the help provided.

And AE is daunting but also expensive.. I think. Im just a poor minecraftian without a lot of big machines. Im still working towards a redcell powersource thingy so I can build my tank/lava pump later. Dunno if I could even make a computer system yet.