Detecting if there's no dirt in forestry multifarm

[Wekmor]

Hey guys,

today I was playing around with the Forestry Multifarm for my wood production. That thing needs quite some dirt to work so I thought about automating that thing. Now my question is if it is possible to detect if the 6 slots for dirt are empty?

I know you can use AE for automating these farms, but I don't want to use it.

Playing the 1.4.7 Ultimate pack

 

[JPandaGamer]

I used gates to check for soil which activated redstone to turn on an autarchic gate to pull from a dirt barrel

 

[BlackFire]

Depending on what you want to detect, you have to put the buildcraft gate on that specific block. For example, if you want to detect soil, you must put it on a hatch block. If your detecting power, put it on a gearbox block. Water lever? Pump block.

 

[namiasdf]

I used gates to check for soil which activated redstone to turn on an autarchic gate to pull from a dirt barrel

What is an autarchic gate? I am having trouble understanding what differentiates them from regular gates.

 

[BlackFire]

Autarchic gate is placed on a wooden pipe and acts like an engine, it pulls items from the inventory. Whatever gate you use to combine it with, be it diamond iron or just a regular gate, you can set it up so that a condition that can be read by a gate will activate the pulling of items from the inventory. I hope that wasnt too confusing.

 

[Wekmor]

The problem is that the buildcraft gates detect every inventory in the thing. And if there is one empty spot it won't send a redstone signal.

 

[Loufmier]

besides already mentioned gates, you can use separate AE network with storage bus attached to farm, and lever emitter detecting dirt level.

 

[Omicron]

The problem is that the buildcraft gates detect every inventory in the thing. And if there is one empty spot it won't send a redstone signal.

Correct. But you aren't supposed to use the inventory status triggers at all for this case

If you attach a gate to a farm hatch, you can use the "soil < 50%" and "soil < 25%" triggers instead, which only monitor the soil inventory. That's what BlackFire was already saying further up.

 

[Wekmor]

Oh now I get it, gonna try that when I get home thanks

 

[namiasdf]

Autarchic gate is placed on a wooden pipe and acts like an engine, it pulls items from the inventory. Whatever gate you use to combine it with, be it diamond iron or just a regular gate, you can set it up so that a condition that can be read by a gate will activate the pulling of items from the inventory. I hope that wasnt too confusing.

So it only works with inventories?

 

[Wekmor]

You can have the gate send out a redstone signal and activate other things with that too. So you are not limited to adjacent inventorie.


edit: I just checked my game and now I see how stupid it was to use empty inventory :'D Didn't see the soil <32 ^-^

 

[namiasdf]

Well the thing is, all gates can send out redstone signals, I'm trying to discern what the difference is. If they can act like an engine themselves, it saves you from having to put a redstone engine there. I just want to clear up whether it's with inventories only, or if I can replace every single redstone engine in my base with autarchic gates

 

[JPandaGamer]

Yeah, sorry I didnt clarify xD

 

[Wekmor]

What would you use redstone engines use besides pumping stuff out of inventories/tanks?

 

[martyyp]

There's a gate that can say if items in inventory and also allows you to specify the item