Mod Feedback [By Request] RotaryCraft Suggestions

[fredfredburger]

One possibility would be a lubricant supplier block and a corresponding lubricant supply line. The line would be a dual tube (8 shaped?) and would connect several lubricated devices to a supplier block. The supplier block would take in fresh lubricant and output used lubricant keeping the connected devices full. It would essentially be 2 tanks and a pump. If the used tank filled, it would no longer be able to extract lubricant, thus incurring losses. If the fresh tank ran dry, the devices would begin to drain at a normal rate. Throughput could be determined by power applied.

Without using this block and pipes, lubricant would function as normal. Using it however, would allow you to reclaim lubricant to be reprocessed (possibly with a 10-20% loss). I don't think you would need to give each pipe segment a fluid level since lubricant lines in real life typically have a small diameter. It would be essentially an instant transfer from the supplier to the devices and back which handily saves on computation cycles. My only concern would be this being somewhat of a difficult mechanic to describe.

 

[DC2008]

With regard to the discussion of lubricant recycling ideas...

From a mechanics perspective, the basic concept appears to be that there would be a way to create additional infrastructure which would have the effect of reducing the lubricant consumption rate of affected machines.

In thinking of how this might be implemented, I see two possible approaches:

1) A piping based approach, in which "dirty" lubricant is produced as machines consume lubricant. This dirty lubricant would need to be piped to a new machine for cleaning. This new machine would take as inputs (x) power and (y) dirty lubricant, and produce as an output "clean" lubricant.

For reasons discussed above, this appears unworkable if you have to have dedicated separate piping for dirty and clean lubricant, as there is a shortage of unused I/O sides from which dirty lubricant could be removed from machines. If you allow the lubricant pipes to work two ways, it might work. Not sure what this would do to calculation loads or machine layouts. I think in practice you would just stick the machine in-line with your existing lubricant line.

2) Allow some (or all) machines which use lubricant to be "upgraded" so as to reduce lubricant consumption. Presumably, this would be done via an invisible inventory slot, similar to how upgrades are currently managed for, e.g., the Extractor.

In skimming the thread, this approach does not appear to have been fleshed out much, and I can see several possible varients.

This approach appears to be one that could actually be implemented. However, it is not immediately clear to me whether the work involved is worthwhile--I'll leave that to folks with more coding knowledge, and @Reika obviously is the ultimate authority.

And to be clear, the work would not be limited to coding; it would also be necessary to take a look at balance issues (i.e., I can see possible issues in reducing Hydrokinetic bedrock consumption, although those would be mitigated if reduction required bedrock). In addition, depending on how exactly implementation was handled, GUI revisions might be desirable.

Exaples of varients:
(A) Multiple tiers of these filters (this very much begs for GUI revisions so as to make clear what tier (if any) is currently in use; I'm not sure it's worth the work)
(B) Filter degredation (I think this would be profoundly unfun and if implemented, I would like a config to disable it, but I could see some people enjoying it)

 

[fredfredburger]

And to be clear, the work would not be limited to coding; it would also be necessary to take a look at balance issues (i.e., I can see possible issues in reducing Hydrokinetic bedrock consumption, although those would be mitigated if reduction required bedrock)

2 tiers of filters, one made from sticks which breaks when full of dirt, and one made of bedrock shafts which needs to be centrifuged to clean. The filtering machine could just have a slot for the active filter and would move used filters to an output slot. Cap it so you can only have a single filter in at any given time (input/active slot only valid when output slot is empty). If Reika wants to gate reprocessing behind bedrock, just omit the stick filter.

 

[Reika]

These are far too much effort to implement.

 

[fredfredburger]

Yeah, I think the only major issue is the turbine consumption. The current lubricant production is sufficient to generous for Rotarycraft itself. A relatively small automated farm can supply plenty of machinery, especially if you use Electricraft as much as I do. However, my 8x72 Botania-boosted canola farm couldn't keep up with two HP turbines. I'm not entirely sure I can build a large enough farm to supply a fusion reactor's turbines without lagging my poor server to death. Haven't played around with the 256x TE accelerators though but I feel that's more of a space saver than a CPU saver.

 

[RavynousHunter]

I've finally hit the point in my LP where I'm beginning to work on ReactorCraft. Any suggestions on entry-level fission reactor designs? All the info I can find is around a year old...

 

[Pyure]

I've finally hit the point in my LP where I'm beginning to work on ReactorCraft. Any suggestions on entry-level fission reactor designs? All the info I can find is around a year old...

@Demosthenex don't you still have a fairly-recent thread on ReC fission?

The year-old designs should still more or less work, although ones that strongly feature neutron reflection may have to be beefed up a tiny bit since the reflectors are no longer 100% reliable.

 

[RavynousHunter]

I thought they might, but I'm always leery of going by old information. Don't need to do that too many times before you get royally hosed.

 

[Reika]

I thought they might, but I'm always leery of going by old information. Don't need to do that too many times before you get royally hosed.

Fission reactors have changed rather little; it is HTGRs that were repeatedly changed.

 

[Demosthenex]

@Demosthenex don't you still have a fairly-recent thread on ReC fission?

The year-old designs should still more or less work, although ones that strongly feature neutron reflection may have to be beefed up a tiny bit since the reflectors are no longer 100% reliable.

We just restarted our server on 1.7.10, so I won't be playing with them against for a bit.

 

[Demosthenex]

Two recent crashes that point to Rotarycraft or DragonAPI. Any ideas?

http://pastebin.com/famVcFTJ

http://pastebin.com/358VsHzG

 

[Reika]

Two recent crashes that point to Rotarycraft or DragonAPI. Any ideas?

http://pastebin.com/famVcFTJ

http://pastebin.com/358VsHzG

Update OpenComputers.

 

[Demosthenex]

Update OpenComputers.

Did you have a specific version in mind?

 

[Reika]

Did you have a specific version in mind?

Build 39.

 

[Demosthenex]

R

Build 39.

Ok, I just upgraded to 38 which I thought said fixed that. I'll have to go to 1.5.1 then I suppose. Thanks!

 

[abculatter_2]

These are far too much effort to implement.

What about efficiency enchants reduce lube consumption?

EDIT: or, what about adding another form of "upgraded" lube, which requires some form of additional input but is consumed at a significantly slower rate?

 

[lucariomaster2]

Hey Reika,

I've found a minor annoyance with fuel-powered engines. I have hooked up a comparator to a Performance engine so that once the fuel level gets low an item pump automatically refills it with ethanol, but the comparator only updates when you open and close the GUI. (Also, cooling fins seem to work just as well as water for cooling the engine... at least it's been running for a few hours without exploding or heating up at all). Here's a screenshot of my setup to make things clearer:

 

[Reika]

Hey Reika,

I've found a minor annoyance with fuel-powered engines. I have hooked up a comparator to a Performance engine so that once the fuel level gets low an item pump automatically refills it with ethanol, but the comparator only updates when you open and close the GUI. (Also, cooling fins seem to work just as well as water for cooling the engine... at least it's been running for a few hours without exploding or heating up at all). Here's a screenshot of my setup to make things clearer:

I do not see a good way around this without causing unneeded overhead.

What about efficiency enchants reduce lube consumption?

EDIT: or, what about adding another form of "upgraded" lube, which requires some form of additional input but is consumed at a significantly slower rate?

Still too much work.

 

[abculatter_2]

EDIT: or, what about adding another form of "upgraded" lube, which requires some form of additional input but is consumed at a significantly slower rate?

Thought of an elaboration for this mechanic: according to wikipedia, in real life vegetable oil is usually first hydrolized into its base acids, then selectively recombined into synthetic lubricant. Im not 100% sure what the actual process they use is, but it does seem like its not totally unrealistic to simplify it to a high pressure and temperature fracking reaction, with both fracking and recombination happening in a single machine.
This would basically just require a Hydrolysis machine, which would require temperatures above a certain point, as well as inputs of water above a certain pressure. (Or, the water could be pressurized in-machine, in which case it would require power, water, lube, and temperature.)
For balance purposes, this machine would have some form of gating mechanic, likely in the form of power requirements. Additionally, the "upgraded" lube (not sure what to call it, maybe synthetic lubricant?) could have a reduction in consumption based on current consumption, so that applicatons which use little lube would have negligible or small reductions in consumption (on the order of 1-5%) while applications which use huge amounts of lube, like HP turbines, would have huge reductions in lube use. (90+%)

Dunno if this would be difficult to implement, but it would be a very interesting mechanic.

Also, while researching for the above, i discovered that sheep have a secretion in their wool, which can be used as a water-repelling agent as well as a water-repelling lubricant:
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lanolin

 

[RavynousHunter]

Say, will the cross-dimensional transfer of shaft power work with Mekanism's teleporters? They create their own little portal blocks inside their frames, and it'd be cool if they worked for transporting shaft power. I ask instead of testing because I'm at school and don't have enough time to test it for the next several hours.