Since I didn't see a thread on this after a cursory search, I figured I'd fire one up. What's it about? Well, showing off your smallest automated builds, of course! Everyone seems to gloss over the small designs, the little cogs in our designs that really pull things together and help make our bases the well-oiled (literally and metaphorically) machines they inevitably become.
Here's my submission, a totally automated canola farm I built in creative mode using only 3 autonomous activators, an item vacuum, a source of endless bonemeal (which one can easily get with magical crops, something I plan on building and showing off eventually), and a few lengths of Ender IO item transport cables.
Yep, its only one block of actual farmland, but that's all it needs. The creative industrial coil is outputting the equivalent power of a RotaryCraft steam engine. Why would I build such a thing? Well, ya see, I noticed in my tinkerings with automating canola that canola has a few...bothersome properties. They don't like fertilized soil from Random things and they seem resistant to the effects of RotaryCraft's fertilizer machine. However, they grow like weeds when given bonemeal, which with either a skeleton farm or Magical Crops, is trivially easy to get in large quantities.
So, I setup an activator to feed the little bugger bonemeal whenever possible. One activator (the one at the back, with the lever) actually breaks the crop. The item vacuum collects the dropped seeds, which are then either piped to the third autonomous activator in charge of replanting the crop or to a Deep Storage Unit, since these crops give a pretty high yield per block.
The advantages of this design? Well, for one, its obscenely tiny. Its something you could fit in a corner of your base with absolutely zero problems. Two, it is incredibly fast. In less than a minute, I had nearly a thousand canola seeds in my DSU. Three, it takes next to no power whatsoever, it runs on the equivalent of 3 RF/t. Four, it could easily work for any crop that accepts bonemeal...or magical fertilizer...hrm... Finally, its resource cost is more or less negligible; the only potential problem is not having a good enough bonemeal supply.
With this, you could get more canola than the South has kudzu and be able to lubricate ALL THE THINGS!
Here's my submission, a totally automated canola farm I built in creative mode using only 3 autonomous activators, an item vacuum, a source of endless bonemeal (which one can easily get with magical crops, something I plan on building and showing off eventually), and a few lengths of Ender IO item transport cables.
Yep, its only one block of actual farmland, but that's all it needs. The creative industrial coil is outputting the equivalent power of a RotaryCraft steam engine. Why would I build such a thing? Well, ya see, I noticed in my tinkerings with automating canola that canola has a few...bothersome properties. They don't like fertilized soil from Random things and they seem resistant to the effects of RotaryCraft's fertilizer machine. However, they grow like weeds when given bonemeal, which with either a skeleton farm or Magical Crops, is trivially easy to get in large quantities.
So, I setup an activator to feed the little bugger bonemeal whenever possible. One activator (the one at the back, with the lever) actually breaks the crop. The item vacuum collects the dropped seeds, which are then either piped to the third autonomous activator in charge of replanting the crop or to a Deep Storage Unit, since these crops give a pretty high yield per block.
The advantages of this design? Well, for one, its obscenely tiny. Its something you could fit in a corner of your base with absolutely zero problems. Two, it is incredibly fast. In less than a minute, I had nearly a thousand canola seeds in my DSU. Three, it takes next to no power whatsoever, it runs on the equivalent of 3 RF/t. Four, it could easily work for any crop that accepts bonemeal...or magical fertilizer...hrm... Finally, its resource cost is more or less negligible; the only potential problem is not having a good enough bonemeal supply.
With this, you could get more canola than the South has kudzu and be able to lubricate ALL THE THINGS!
