Efficient IC2 power set-up

[PhilHibbs]

What's the best way to arrange generation, storage, and wiring? Is there any advantage to putting Transformers in between my MFSU and my machines, would that breaking up the energy packets into smaller ones to reduce loss? If a machine uses a bit of power and gets some more from the network, might it eat a 512-EU packet when a 32-EU packet would have been enough, or is it smart enough to pick up and store the entire 512-EU packet?

I currently have three generators, two of them feed Batboxes which in turn feed an MFSU, and the third feeds the MFSU directly, and the MFSU powers all my machines via Glass Fibre. All my machines have 2xTransformer Upgrades apart from the Canning Machine which runs off its own Batbox. All the machines are close together, I think the furthest from the MFSU is about 10 wires away.

 

[Hydra]

Breaking up packets into smaller one increases loss, not reduce it.

If you have a cable that removes 1 EU from a packet every 5 blocks, sending two packets of 256 EU each instead of one of 512 EU gives you a loss of 2EU / 5 blocks. It's pretty simple.

So either read up on how the energy system works or if you can't be arsed to play around with a system that's cumbersome just use glass fibre cables or just ditch IC2 completely and go for Thermal Expansion.

 

[PhilHibbs]

I know about cable losses and I'm not worried about that because my machines are all close enough together that there would be no loss. If I added a couple of transformers to step it down to 32EU, then there would probably only be 5 copper cables between the LV Transformer and the furthest machine. I understand wire behaviour. I've tried to find a guide that goes into more detail about machine behaviour, i.e. how machines request energy when needed and how the packets make their way to the machine, but I can't find one that goes into that level of detail.

 

[Golrith]

Thing is, once you've got some form of renewable power source (like a Solar Panel), energy loss doesn't matter. Since you've got an MFSU, you shouldn't really be worried about energy loss.

Honestly, I feel people worry too much about power generation. If your system is "leaking" power, just chuck in another source of power to counter the "leak". As long as your storage boxes are stable/increasing while all your machines are running, that's good enough.

 

[Hydra]

Honestly, I feel people worry too much about power generation. If your system is "leaking" power, just chuck in another source of power to counter the "leak". As long as your storage boxes are stable/increasing while all your machines are running, that's good enough.

That's just silly. If someone doesn't understand the (rather annoying) IC power system they might connect a bunch of solar panels to a MFSU through gold wire and not get any power at all. If you work with IC you need to know how the system works or else you might be throwing away half your power. I'm not bothered with some power loss either but why waste resources when you don't have to?[DOUBLEPOST=1362400823][/DOUBLEPOST]

I know about cable losses and I'm not worried about that because my machines are all close enough together that there would be no loss. If I added a couple of transformers to step it down to 32EU, then there would probably only be 5 copper cables between the LV Transformer and the furthest machine. I understand wire behaviour. I've tried to find a guide that goes into more detail about machine behaviour, i.e. how machines request energy when needed and how the packets make their way to the machine, but I can't find one that goes into that level of detail.

THat's the point: copper cable is NOT more efficient over long distances! The losses of higher cables might be higher, but because the packages are bigger you're actually losing a lower percentage.

Glass fibre is the only exception. It can carry packages the size of gold but with the loss of tin cable. IMHO the whole notion of glass fibre is rediculous. I guess the original author found out that his whole system was rather annoying so he just got rid of it and created new very expensive cables instead.

 

[Golrith]

That's just silly. If someone doesn't understand the (rather annoying) IC power system they might connect a bunch of solar panels to a MFSU through gold wire and not get any power at all. If you work with IC you need to know how the system works or else you might be throwing away half your power. I'm not bothered with some power loss either but why waste resources when you don't have to?[DOUBLEPOST=1362400823][/DOUBLEPOST]

Ah, true. I've only ever used Glass Fibre (apart from copper when starting out).

 

[PhilHibbs]

Thing is, once you've got some form of renewable power source (like a Solar Panel), energy loss doesn't matter. Since you've got an MFSU, you shouldn't really be worried about energy loss.

I'm not really worried about losing a little bit of energy. I do want to understand how it works, though. I'm also as much concerned about CPU efficiency as about IC2 power efficiency - if one set up creates more packets and thus more calculations for the game than another, then understanding that is important to me as well. I'm hoping that only having 512-EU packets in the wires, and handling them inside the machine with Transformer Upgrades, will lead to fewer packets and less lag.

 

[OmegaJasam]

Machines all have an internal buffer, and request what they need up to the point of filling it.

There is no advantage of smaller packets unless the machines blow up on more.

 

[PhilHibbs]

So if a machine needs 53 EU, then the MFSU will just send it a 53 EU packet? At what point will the machine request energy - does it wait until it needs a certain amount? If it requested 32 EU every time the internal buffer had space for 32, then there would be no advantage in glass fibre and 512 EU packets, as all the packets would be 32 EU anyway and would all suffer the increased loss of small packets. So there must be something going on to keep the packet size as large as it can be. Is the amount requested dependent on what kind of cable is connected, or on what transformer upgrades are fitted?

 

[Hydra]

No, the MFSU will only send a 512-size packet. And a machine with transformer upgrades (without it would blow up) will only request a 512-size packet. You don't have arbitrary sized 'packets' flying around.

Also, there isn't any real 'packets' travelling through or anything. The requests are instant.

 

[PhilHibbs]

Ok thanks. That puts my mind at rest that I have the most appropriate set up. If my machines are requesting one 512-EU packet rather than sixteen 32-EU packets then that's got to be better.

 

[Guswut]

Ok thanks. That puts my mind at rest that I have the most appropriate set up. If my machines are requesting one 512-EU packet rather than sixteen 32-EU packets then that's got to be better.

"Better" being a subjective term in that regard, sure. You can just have an MFSU output into an MV transformer, which then outputs into four LV transformers, and get roughly the same input power to your machines. I have not found that it is more lossy, but it does allow you to (with GregTech enabled) run twelve overclockers and one energy storage upgrade (two in the compressor, for some reason) and not empty the energy buffer on the device for a full stack. It also then refills in about a second, which is faster than you'll be able to click to grab the finished stack and put a new stack into the system. If you automate the system, you may want to add more energy storage upgrades (cheap and easy to make, even with GregTech enabled), or make sure your system will never try and dump a bunch of stacks into your system otherwise you go back to around overclocker x4 speed (at overclocker x12 power cost, ouch).

If you need more data on this, I can post screenshots, or the like.

 

[Spachi1281]

As other posters have mentioned, packet size is important to pay attention to as machines can only handle x sized packets (without transformer upgrades) before blowing up. If you have multiple machines running at the same time, I've heard that it's more efficient to use a transformer to split the packets evenly to each machine per packet/tick.

Also note that if you have GT, an exploding machine has the potential of cascading backwards and blowing up everything it's connected to. In such a scenario it might be worth while to use the lower efficient cables so that those cables break instead of allowing the other machines/storage units from being destroyed.

 

[PhilHibbs]

I don't have Gregtech, but whenever I open up a machine especially to add or remove Overclockers I'm terribly paranoid about accidentally picking up the Transformer Upgrades instead... I wish there was a delay and a warning sound before the explosion...