Biomass: how do YOU do it?

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Okay, so it seems the 'generally accepted' method of generating Stuff(tm) for making biomass is as follows:

1. Tree Farm (steve's carts is generally suggested)
2. Saplings into fermenter
3. If enough apples drop, then use apple juice for the 1.5x modifier. Use resultant mulch for fuel for fermenter

However, I'm somewhat known for thinking well outside 'generally accepted'. In fact, I'm wanting to explore other options for biomass.

One options I've heard about involves a reed farm and straw/wood golem pairing. Basically the Forestry 1.0 version of the Reed Farm, but without spending multiple diamonds in the process. However, you need a rather large reed farm for this, and it doesn't have the secondary output of apples.

I've also heard rumors about Forestry2 hybrid trees, and that one of the trees you get by 'cross-pollination' is particularly useful for making biomass. I know you can run an oak sapling through a treealyzer to get an apple tree sapling to put in an orchard to get apples. This seems to me to be a very effective method of obtaining apples for squeezing into apple juice. I also know Chestnuts are a good source of seed oil.

Ideally, I'm wanting a setup which produces a high sapling to wood ratio. If there is a fruit which can produce biomass, that would be ideal. I simply have no use for stacks and stacks of logs cluttering everything up. I'm not really using IC2, and definitely not going to install a MassFab, so I have no need for Scrap, so it would all just go down the Void Pipe anyways.

So, if you have a method of producing biomass that doesn't involve Steve's Carts or a reed farm, share! I always love to see what kind of 'out of the box' ideas other people come up with.

 

[MilConDoin]

Go all out bees?
This is just an idea, I don't have tested it:

Spoiled Bee for the Spoiled Comb for the Mulch. (Or Decomposed Bee for the Decomposed Comb for the Compost.)
Fruity Bee for the Fruity Comb for the Apple Juice.
Farmed Bee for the Wheaten Comb for the Wheat (this can be fermented, correct?). As a bonus have Seed Combs for Seed Oil.

Optimize them for fastest speed, maximum pollination, all tolerances, a nice effect (e.g. Explorer for XP) and the flower of your choice. Put them each in an Alvery with a few frame holder blocks for Impregnated Frames. The Seed Oil for this comes from the Seed Combs. Only thing missing for automated frame production are the logs, since they cannot be produced by bees.

 

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Go all out bees?
This is just an idea, I don't have tested it:

Spoiled Bee for the Spoiled Comb for the Mulch. (Or Decomposed Bee for the Decomposed Comb for the Compost.)
Fruity Bee for the Fruity Comb for the Apple Juice.
Farmed Bee for the Wheaten Comb for the Wheat (this can be fermented, correct?). As a bonus have Seed Combs for Seed Oil.

Optimize them for fastest speed, maximum pollination, all tolerances, a nice effect (e.g. Explorer for XP) and the flower of your choice. Put them each in an Alvery with a few frame holder blocks for Impregnated Frames. The Seed Oil for this comes from the Seed Combs. Only thing missing for automated frame production are the logs, since they cannot be produced by bees.

Ooohhhh... now THAT is an interesting idea...

Unfortunately, it isn't very effective at what it does. You'd need multiple aviaries, even with the frame holder blocks, to keep a 36 HP boiler going. Also, to get most of these bee species with the right attributes, you'd already need to have a boiler or two going to power the Extra Bees machines, which probably means you've already got your biomass production already up and running.

But hey, it's a really cute idea.

 

[Skirty_007]

I have a couple of small Steve's carts farms, an apple orchard, and a couple of industrial centrifuges making plantballs out of dirt as a backup (this doesn't get used just now, but might if I add in more boilers/fermenters, and ae is set up to use them if I run out of saplings). My orchard isn't producing enough for the fermenter to have juice full time, as I haven't mastered tree breeding yet, so the trees are just normal treealyzed oaks.

 

[MilConDoin]

Ah, you want to power a boiler.
Then shorten it to directly use a refined bee for biofuel + oil. If we assume 4 production frames with a fastest bee:
2 oily combs per 27.5 seconds and 1 petroleum comb per 27.5 seconds. Each comb will produce its propolis with a 60% chance per comb and each propolis will squeeze to 500mB of liquid. This will average to 600 mB of oil (which will then be refined to fuel) and 300 mB of biofuel per 27.5 seconds. 600mB fuel/27.5 seconds ~ 104.7 heat units per tick and 300mB biofuel/27.5 seconds ~ 17.5 heat units per tick.
One 36 HP boiler eats 15.84 heat units per tick (when fully heated).

The production numbers will in reality be a little lower because of the time it takes to reinsert a princess + drone and to breed a new queen, after the old one died. If you breed the bee to longest life, the influence of this will be reduced, but not vanish. This should still be enough to fuel 6 boilers with fuel and 1 with biofuel.

 

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Ah, you want to power a boiler.
Then shorten it to directly use a refined bee for biofuel + oil. If we assume 4 production frames with a fastest bee:
2 oily combs per 27.5 seconds and 1 petroleum comb per 27.5 seconds. Each comb will produce its propolis with a 60% chance per comb and each propolis will squeeze to 500mB of liquid. This will average to 600 mB of oil (which will then be refined to fuel) and 300 mB of biofuel per 27.5 seconds. 600mB fuel/27.5 seconds ~ 104.7 heat units per tick and 300mB biofuel/27.5 seconds ~ 17.5 heat units per tick.
One 36 HP boiler eats 15.84 heat units per tick (when fully heated).

The production numbers will in reality be a little lower because of the time it takes to reinsert a princess + drone and to breed a new queen, after the old one died. If you breed the bee to longest life, the influence of this will be reduced, but not vanish. This should still be enough to fuel 6 boilers with fuel and 1 with biofuel.

Well, this is all well and good, and definitely a good way to run boilers, however there's just one little problem...

You're again assuming alviaries, and Extra Bees species with excellent traits. Which means needing a boiler to power the Extra Bees machines (or set up a whole 'nother setup providing at least 150 MJ/t to keep the machines running).

While it is an excellent method of tremendously expanding an already existing setup, and probably one I will use once I get to that point, I'm looking more to 'how to get your first boiler going' using biomass. Yes, I know, you can go charcoal or blaze rods, but again the charcoal needs a tree farm and I disabled Soul Shards and Portal Gun for a reason.

 

[MilConDoin]

Well, this is all well and good, and definitely a good way to run boilers, however there's just one little problem...

You're again assuming alviaries, and Extra Bees species with excellent traits. Which means needing a boiler to power the Extra Bees machines (or set up a whole 'nother setup providing at least 150 MJ/t to keep the machines running).

While it is an excellent method of tremendously expanding an already existing setup, and probably one I will use once I get to that point, I'm looking more to 'how to get your first boiler going' using biomass. Yes, I know, you can go charcoal or blaze rods, but again the charcoal needs a tree farm and I disabled Soul Shards and Portal Gun for a reason.

When you're using apiaries with 3 frames and the refined bee crossbred to fast speed (from cultivated) you'll produce on average of ~7,5 heat ticks per second (via oil->fuel, I ignored the biofuel here). This means that you'll need a little more than 2 apiaries. Crossbreeding can be done without extra bees machines, it is enough if you do it the original forestry way.

 

[ShneekeyTheLost]

When you're using apiaries with 3 frames and the refined bee crossbred to fast speed (from cultivated) you'll produce on average of ~7,5 heat ticks per second (via oil->fuel, I ignored the biofuel here). This means that you'll need a little more than 2 apiaries. Crossbreeding can be done without extra bees machines, it is enough if you do it the original forestry way.

Hmmm... interesting. Getting the fast speed from Cultivated has always been a bit challenging because it tends to push you further down the 'line' you are working on, but certainly doable. Maybe even start the whole process going on a Combustion engine for the Centrifuge, since you are producing oil anyways.

Is there any wiki or guide for the Extra Bees species?

 

[MilConDoin]

http://mc.nessirojgaming.eu/bees/index.php?title=Main_Page is my Bee Breeding Wiki. http://wiki.feed-the-beast.com/index.php?title=Category:BeeKeeping is more or less the starting point on the official FTB wiki, I didn't have a good idea for a starting page there yet.
Are your questions answered by the wiki? Or are there others?

 

[ShneekeyTheLost]

http://mc.nessirojgaming.eu/bees/index.php?title=Main_Page is my Bee Breeding Wiki. http://wiki.feed-the-beast.com/index.php?title=Category:BeeKeeping is more or less the starting point on the official FTB wiki, I didn't have a good idea for a starting page there yet.
Are your questions answered by the wiki? Or are there others?

Hmm... looked up the resources... looks like I'm in for quite a bit of bee breeding. Let's see if I have this down correctly...

To get an Oily bee, I need to breed Primeval + Modest (which you get from desert hives)

To get Primeval, I need Ancient + Noble

To get Ancient, I need Noble + Diligent.

Then to get Distilled, I'll need to breed Oily with Industrious.Which is the end result of that line.

That's quite a bit of breeding, but at least it all seems to be able to be done within the same biome.

 

[Talencourt]

Not sure which modpack you're using, but if it's Ultimate then you can combine the Lilypad of Fertility from Xeno's Reliquary with Xychorium Soil from Xycraft and a harvest-buddy golem setup from Thaumcraft 3.

Supercharges sugarcane. Haven't tried boosting it to its absolute maximum capability, but have managed to get sugarcane to grow every 5-7 seconds with relative ease and with a zero-resource upkeep.

Does wheat even faster, and it's a better solution imo as you can use the wheat/seeds for compost as well as in the fermenter.

 

[Harros]

In the past I used the old forestry tree farm and harvester I used the apples gotten from planting oak trees to squeeze and use the mulch and juice to double my biomass output although these days I use the new multi farm and apatite with apple juice when its available but it mostly just runs on water to produce my biomass which I keep in its form and use in my biogas engines to run my TE production line.