Botania: giving runic altar bonemeal with dispenser?

[desht]

OK, so I'm looking at at least semi-automating the Botania runic altar with a couple of dispensers, a dropper and a ComputerCraft computer. Got it nearly all working, with one little problem: bone meal (needed for runes of water).

With most items, the dispenser will place the item on the altar when given a redstone signal, but it looks like it attempts to use bone meal as fertiliser - so I can't use the dispenser here. The autonomous activator might work, but it doesn't appear to work with comparators, which I want to use to signal the computer that there are items in the dispenser.

So... any alternative methods for deploying bonemeal to the runic altar?

This world is in the DW20 1.4.1 pack.

 

[jordsta95]

You could use the Open Crate from Botania, or the dropper (basically a dispenser, which doesn't right click certain items).
Runic altars will pick up anything that drops on them, so it's better to use that mechanic, in my opinion

 

[desht]

You could use the Open Crate from Botania, or the dropper (basically a dispenser, which doesn't right click certain items).
Runic altars will pick up anything that drops on them, so it's better to use that mechanic, in my opinion

Aha! I didn't realise you could just drop stuff on an altar, I thought it needed to be right-clicked with the item.

I agree, that's definitely the way to go.

 

[jordsta95]

Aha! I didn't realise you could just drop stuff on an altar, I thought it needed to be right-clicked with the item.

I agree, that's definitely the way to go.

you can put a wand of the forest in a dispenser, next to the altar, and when it gets a redstone it will work just like you right-clicking it

 

[SoraZodia]

Alternatively, you can swap the dispensers out for droppers.
Sent from my phone using Tapatalk

 

[desht]

you can put a wand of the forest in a dispenser, next to the altar, and when it gets a redstone it will work just like you right-clicking it

Yep, I'm already doing that. Like I said, I have the whole setup nicely sorted out other than bonemeal in dispensers. But I think I can work around that now, thanks

 

[desht]

Just for completeness, here's a quick shot of the build:

Spoiler

And the computer's program can be found at http://pastebin.com/C0dMph4V

• The vanilla dropper signals that it has items via comparator to computer's left (as you face the screen - image is from behind computer)
• The altar signals that crafting is done via comparator to computer's back (power 2 redstone signal)
• I'm using EnderIO redstone conduit with 3 channels (white, orange, magenta), and the CC bundled redstone API to control each device.

It's not 100% complete - eventually the ingredients will be fed to the dropper via an AE interface with patterns, and a hopperhock or similar will collect finished runes and re-insert them into my AE network. But this is a good start

 

[jordsta95]

That's pretty nifty!
You get the coveted Jordan's Thumbs Up!

 

[desht]

That's pretty nifty!
You get the coveted Jordan's Thumbs Up!

Thanks

I should also point out one drawback with this approach: it can only be used to craft one set of runes at a time, since the computer will just pump the dropper's entire contents into the altar, then drop the livingrock, then activate the wand. So if you (or an AE interface) were to dump the ingredients for multiple sets of runes into the dropper, confusion would likely ensue...

Not sure there's a simple way around this. I can think of some fairly complex ways, though (e.g. a turtle with knowledge of all the rune recipes beside a chest pre-stocked with all the rune ingredients).

 

[YX33A]

Thanks

I should also point out one drawback with this approach: it can only be used to craft one set of runes at a time, since the computer will just pump the dropper's entire contents into the altar, then drop the livingrock, then activate the wand. So if you (or an AE interface) were to dump the ingredients for multiple sets of runes into the dropper, confusion would likely ensue...

Not sure there's a simple way around this. I can think of some fairly complex ways, though (e.g. a turtle with knowledge of all the rune recipes beside a chest pre-stocked with all the rune ingredients).

It's also worth noting that this is a fairly cheap and easily expanded set up. Dare I say the most expensive part for all of this is a ender pearl or two.

 

[desht]

I thought I'd just add an update to this, since I've been playing around with it a bit:

Spoiler

It works pretty much the same as before (i.e. comparators, redstone etc. are the same), with the following changes:

• Using a vanilla dropper just isn't reliable enough so I ditched that. Too many ingredients were flying off at random. Vanilla droppers really really suck.
• All ingredients (including the livingrock) are now pumped from the wooden chest into the open crate above the altar. The EnderIO conduit is set to extract on a high signal, so extraction is controlled by the computer (when it gets a signal from the chest's comparator). Having the livingrock include with the other ingredients simplifies things a little.
• Computer then signals the dispenser to activate the altar as before, and waits for a level 2 signal from the altar before activating the dispenser a second time to finish crafting the runes.
• It's now AE-enabled: you'll notice the block under the wood chest is an AE interface with patterns for the 4 basic elemental and 4 seasonal runes. I haven't added any more patterns as yet - I need to plan where a second AE interface might go.
• Runes are collected by a hopperhock and put back in the interface. Note that the hopperhock is in blacklist mode so it doesn't grab the livingrock from the altar (see the item frame on the interface), and also that it floats over an empty mana pool, to which it's bound - I wanted to keep it empty of mana and limit its grab radius.
• The lever on the block under the computer can be used to pause the extraction of items from the chest - mainly useful when testing stuff. If the lever is on, the computer will wait and check every 2 seconds before extracting items from the chest and starting the crafting process.

Updated ComputerCraft code is here: http://pastebin.com/FFVzquDJ

Still doesn't handle multiple crafts at once, though - requesting more than one crafting operation via AE at a time will just confuse everything...