Can someone recommend me a good BuildCraft energy setup?

[Phantomizer]

Right now i have a set of 9 Electrical Engines, but unfortunately they use quite a lot of energy, so until i upgrade to the Advanced or maybe even the Hybrid Solar Panels, they suck up a lot of the EU from my MFSUs and i can't have them running 24/7 like i would like to, so that i can have a more efficient Forestry setup.

Can anyone recommend me some setups? I'm currently trying to get a Steam Engine setup going, but i'm having trouble generating fuel/water fast enough to keep everything running constantly.

Thanks!

 

[b0bst3r]

Which mod pack are you playing?

 

[Dackstrus]

I'd also like to see a good first build BC power system, Ultimate pack.
I've never done real BC power before, I always built up in IC's EU and converted back in the day. I hav'nt worked long enough on a world to really get any sort of power system going since FTB became a widly known thing.
My join date is my join date on FTB in general so. been that long at least.

 

[Phantomizer]

Which mod pack are you playing?

Ultimate

 

[DoctorOr]

Electrical engines suck, without a doubt. Since you're using Ultimate, you can use a bridge to convert EU to MJ at a better ratio.

However, the best direct MJ production, in order of preference
1) Boilers burning Fuel
2) Boilers burning charcoal or planks cut with a sawmill (6:1 output)
3) Boilers burning biofuel
4) Biogas burning biomass
5) Hobbyist or TE steam engine burning charcoal or planks.

Note you need 29 biogas, or 36 hobbyist steam or 72 TE steam engines to match a single 36HP boiler with 18 attached engines.

 

[Phantomizer]

How do you convert EU to MJ? I wasn't aware of that being possible...

 

[Neoxon]

Power Converters

 

[Phantomizer]

What's the exact name of them? I can't find anything by that name...

 

[Neoxon]

Energy bridge, Producer,Consumer -search these up in NEI

 

[Peppe]

Electrical engines suck, without a doubt. Since you're using Ultimate, you can use a bridge to convert EU to MJ at a better ratio.

However, the best direct MJ production, in order of preference
1) Boilers burning Fuel
2) Boilers burning charcoal or planks cut with a sawmill (6:1 output)
3) Boilers burning biofuel
4) Biogas burning biomass
5) Hobbyist or TE steam engine burning charcoal or planks.

Note you need 29 biogas, or 36 hobbyist steam or 72 TE steam engines to match a single 36HP boiler with 18 attached engines.

Power converters EU to mj is about 1% better than an electrical engine, so don't expect a boost here.

Boilers and combustion engines are efficient mj producers.

 

[Kik]

look for consumer, energy bridge and producer in NEI
those are the three blocks you'll need for the conversion

 

[reverandraptor]

Could always go the lava route.

 

[Phantomizer]

Thanks Still working out to see what's best.

 

[Phantomizer]

I just finished setting up the Energy Converter system and i'm loving it, thanks a lot for the replies

 

[b0bst3r]

One of the best and most easiest ways to get BC power is via Forestry (biomass). Either create a Steve Carts tree farm or a forestry tree farm and ferment the saplings into biomass. Then use the biomass to power biogas engines (5MJ/t).

I have 1 Steve Carts farm with 20m+ (and queuing up) biomass powering over 20 biogas engines.

The reason I asked which mod was to see if you were using a mod pack with power converters (which you are) and has already been mentioned that you can then convert this MJ power into IC2 or Factorization power.

Once you've got established you can then see about moving to Railcraft Steam boilers which are basically the best MJ method.

Be wary though once packs update to MC 1.5+ the Forestry biomass production hits a big change and ordinary saplings will no longer make oodles of free power. I haven't tried it yet to work out How big a SC farm you would need to engine ratio but going on the figures vanilla saplings make 1/3 of the biomass they do now (at least I think that's right).

 

[whythisname]

For starting power I don't think there is much that can beat a Combustion engine running on Oil. It only costs some Iron (in my experience cheaper than Bronze) and will produce plenty of power from 1 bucket of Oil.

If you plan on using renewable fuel in the long run Combustion engines can also burn Biofuel, which makes the transfer process from early to mid game a lot smoother and easier. After that it's just a matter of building more Combustion engines if you need more power.

Boilers look cool, but in terms of cost, ease, time and effort I think Combustion engines win. At least I've done a Peat farm + Boiler in the past and now I've done Combustion engines with Oil and Biofuel and I've got so much more power so much earlier in the game I just wonder what I ever saw in Boilers (or Biogas engines for that matter).

For tree farms also look at MFR. It's really easy to set up (2 blocks, a Planter and a Harvester) and will produce plenty of saplings and wood. I'm not sure if it's on par with a Steve's carts farm, but I can't imagine it to be far off.

 

[biomirth]

For the very beginning hobbyist steam engines are great. You can handle all your smelting with a pair of hobbyists and a couple hoppers. Note you'll need to feed water into these as well: Aqueous Accumulator with a couple water source blocks to feed it. Pulverizer feeds into hopper of Powered Furnace and there is hands free ore processing. If you build a coke oven as well you won't even need to worry about making charcoal as coal will be 4x as effective. A handful every mining run will suffice.

Lava is cheap and easy but a bit addictive and gross. Nonetheless it's perfectly viable, especially if using TE machines (easy ferrous metals as byproduct (not the ore)).

Agree though that biomass will be the overall best early sustainable solution and one that extends nicely into boilers later. Oil is amazing but you set yourself up to have to switch away from it eventually meaning leftover infrastructure. Not a big deal but something to consider.