I am playing around with conveyor belts this time around, and wondering what other people have experienced using conveyor belts from MFR instead of pipes for your item transport. There are a few cases where I could see them as nice, but do they give any advantage? Are there any issues you have run into that might save me some headache?
Conveyors vs. Pipes
- Thread starter netmc
- Start date
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Conveyors are slow and item collectors don't work even a fraction as well as insertion pipes from TE. Still, I use conveyors a lot because they don't connect to surrounding environments and because Item Routers are so good.
You can see how I used them to simplify a quarry-processing build in my most recent Let's Play. It's in my sig.
Conveyor belts are for entities, pipes are for items.
Conveyor belts can support items but it's somewhat pointless considering you can't boost the movement speed of the items, and you also can't move items vertically without making a staircase. For mobs, however, it's incredibly useful.
Conveyor belts can support items but it's somewhat pointless considering you can't boost the movement speed of the items, and you also can't move items vertically without making a staircase. For mobs, however, it's incredibly useful.
One really nice thing about conveyors is that push-based machines can push directly onto them without worrying about being fed back into. Look at my most recent episode for an example of how this can make builds more compact.
Here is my first attempt at conveyor belts. The item router on the left will have a pipe feeding it fertilizer (not built yet). It will get split equally down the blue and green paths (right and left), then the next item router will take half and deposit it in the fertilizer, and send the rest out the back and on to the next fertilizer. Item routers will pull items off conveyors if it can be routed. The last router (far right under conveyor) will pull out the remaining fertilizer and deposit it in the machine below if there is space. If it is full, It will leave it on the conveyor and the item collector will deposit it in the chest. Eventually, the chest will be attached to the AE network, but I haven't gotten that far yet.
The fertilizer machines have a tin upgrade and can handle the 9x9 farm. The farms themselves will be golem powered. I figured this is a good way to use the extra fertilizer as with my sewer and composter running, I produce more than my tree farm needs.
I can't figure out a good way to do an even split with pipes, but with conveyor belts and item routers, it is easy.
The fertilizer machines have a tin upgrade and can handle the 9x9 farm. The farms themselves will be golem powered. I figured this is a good way to use the extra fertilizer as with my sewer and composter running, I produce more than my tree farm needs.
I can't figure out a good way to do an even split with pipes, but with conveyor belts and item routers, it is easy.
I can't figure out a good way to do an even split with pipes, but with conveyor belts and item routers, it is easy.
Y = Pipe
This is how you do an even split of items, liquids, and energy with pipes.
YYYYYYY
BBBYBBB
BBBYBBB
BBBYBBB
BBBYBBB
So difficult...
Item routers are so much better, right?!
I know I can do a "T" intersection with pipes, but the spit is random. For what I am doing I need 3 "T" intersections (4 destinations), If I place 64 items in the pipe, I could end up with between 1 and 64 in each destination. with item routers, it is 16 exactly for each destination. Pipes have no guarantees that an item will take a particular path. It's ultimately at the whim of the RNG. Hence my previous statement that there is no easy way to spit items evenly with pipes. ABO (additional buildcraft objects) did have a round-robin pipe that would work for this. Unfortunately, I don't have ABO installed.
Well, item routers are awesome because they have hidden inventories that anything can push to, and their unmapped rejection mode can be very useful. They can also do proportional distribution, although that is a bit bugged ATM.
Another small thing is that conveyors reverse direction in response to a redstone signal, which is infinitely better as a respond than the Iron Pipe's near useless cycling behavior.