Farming Invar, need help with the math.

[John Freeman]

So I was planning on farming Invar, so I could make my magmatic engines mostly renewable, aside from lava. I believe magmatic engines are more efficient than electrical, as an electrical engine with an iron tube does about 5 EU for 2 MJ, and using a thermal generator it's about 12,000 MJ per bucket (I think, maybe screwed that up) and a magmatic engine is 18,000 MJ per bucket.

Iron is easily renewable with golem farms, so the question is should I pulverize iron bars with magmatic engines, or should I macerate it? I was planning on running the iron dust or pulverized iron through an industrial centrifuge to get tin and nickle. However, the main point is to get nickle dust, which I can combine with iron to get invar blend. Also I believe overclockers on the macerators will just make them less efficient, thus ruining this process of automation entirely.



Also I am currently trying to convert my power from large iron tanks and thermal generators into hybrid solar panels. My base mate got pretty much all the sheldonite he could from the end and I think we have enough to convert our power source. The whole problem there was, after converting some lava into copper/tin/electrium, we were using more lava than 3 advanced pumps in the nether could give us (or at least to 2 iron tanks, not sure if iron tanks have a limit to how fast they can fill up).

 

[Bomb Bloke]

The Geothermal Generator gives 20k EU per bucket, Thermals give 30k. Using a single iron-tubed Electrical Engine that's 8k and 12k MJ respectively, compared to the 18k MJ a full speed Magmatic Engine would give.

It's indeed more efficient to have multiple macerators then it is to have one overclocked macerator. The only benefit to overclockers is that you don't have to have as many machines around to get up to the same processing speed (though that can potentially be a pretty big benefit).

Beats me whether macerators beat pulverisors in this regard; I get my invar from bees (and my lava, and well... most things actually). I'm assuming pulverisors are the better bet, given that they can get you more stuff out of your ores.

 

[John Freeman]

Also small question about magmatic engines. Can I run them 24/7 on pulverizes that are not active? If not I may have to do some redstone magic. Basically we have our quarries filtered into some various machines. Eventually planning to hook it all into Applied Energistics machines for simplicity, but I'm still not sure how to interface them with machines.

 

[Bomb Bloke]

To my understanding, the latest BuildCraft will prevent BC pipes from exploding when you cram them full of energy that isn't being used, but your engines will still overheat and stop due to the energy surplus (no big deal if you're not using them anyways).

Redstone energy conduits certainly shouldn't explode but it seems to me that their energy loss is rather high when dealing with very short cable runs.

 

[Jess887cp]

Also small question about magmatic engines. Can I run them 24/7 on pulverizes that are not active? If not I may have to do some redstone magic. Basically we have our quarries filtered into some various machines. Eventually planning to hook it all into Applied Energistics machines for simplicity, but I'm still not sure how to interface them with machines.

Magmatic engines shut off when there is no work and require maintenance (a tap with a wrench.)

 

[John Freeman]

To my understanding, the latest BuildCraft will prevent BC pipes from exploding when you cram them full of energy that isn't being used, but your engines will still overheat and stop due to the energy surplus (no big deal if you're not using them anyways).

Redstone energy conduits certainly shouldn't explode but it seems to me that their energy loss is rather high when dealing with very short cable runs.

Yea, I tried replacing my gold conductive piping with redstone conducts on my assembly table to evenly distribute power, but they just plain didn't seem to work then. Not sure what the problem was there, but just went back to BC pipes.[DOUBLEPOST=1369544558][/DOUBLEPOST]

Magmatic engines shut off when there is no work and require maintenance (a tap with a wrench.)

Sounds annoying, but not too bad. I suppose I could do something with an autarchic gate or whatever on the energy input to detect if there's items in the machine. if no items, I could emit a redstone signal that would power down the engines. But question is, is the cool down worth it? Maybe I could fix with a delay circuit?

 

[MilConDoin]

Yea, I tried replacing my gold conductive piping with redstone conducts on my assembly table to evenly distribute power, but they just plain didn't seem to work then. Not sure what the problem was there, but just went back to BC pipes.

Just remember that conduits are either input only or output only. For input from your engines/RECell into the conduits you need to hit them once with a wrench (so that the little arrow symbol on the connection becomes orange instead of blue).

Edit: Combustion Engines are 20k MJ/bucket of lava.

 

[Pokefenn]

Just to give out a idea, induction smelt the invar?

 

[Celestialphoenix]

If you're looking for crushing/grinding efficiency- make a rotary macerator, and leave it running with a redstone signal.

Just to give out a idea, induction smelt the invar?

That would be less efficient; the nickel needed for invar is in dust form, so its easier to cook the alloy blend in a normal furnace

 

[ThemsAllTook]

Redstone energy conduits certainly shouldn't explode but it seems to me that their energy loss is rather high when dealing with very short cable runs.

I tested this a while back, and found that it's only true for extremely short cable runs (like, 2 blocks). You'll be hard pressed to get better efficiency out of a conductive pipe network than a redstone energy conduit network. At more than a couple of blocks, redstone energy conduits are superior to all types of conductive pipe. Only reason not to use them would be if you don't have the resources to build them yet.

 

[Zjarek_S]

I tested this a while back, and found that it's only true for extremely short cable runs (like, 2 blocks). You'll be hard pressed to get better efficiency out of a conductive pipe network than a redstone energy conduit network. At more than a couple of blocks, redstone energy conduits are superior to all types of conductive pipe. Only reason not to use them would be if you don't have the resources to build them yet.

There are also gates: http://i.imgur.com/DVyFYyg.png (these are OP DartCraft engines, haven't tried it before so they provide my main power). When you are powering a lot of machines which may need power or not, it is a lot better to run engines only when needed (magmatic and biogenerator are exceptions). You can get a lot more compact using conductive pipes with gates than energy conduits than separate redstone control, specially when there is no RP2. However you could just put gates on fuel pipes, a little bit more expensive, but could save you a couple of MJs.

 

[ThemsAllTook]

Ah true, forgot about gates! OK, two reasons.

 

[Bomb Bloke]

I tested this a while back, and found that it's only true for extremely short cable runs (like, 2 blocks).

In that case, the wiki might need updating. It states conduits lose 5% power full stop, whereas gold BC pipes lose 0.5% per block. Hence BC pipes should be the better choice for runs up to eleven blocks (including the wooden pipe).

 

[ThemsAllTook]

In that case, the wiki might need updating. It states conduits lose 5% power full stop, whereas gold BC pipes lose 0.5% per block. Hence BC pipes should be the better choice for runs up to eleven blocks (including the wooden pipe).

Hmm! Something may have changed since I last tested. I just ran the same test again, and got rather different results, which are much more favorable toward gold conductive pipes. After draining a fully charged redstone energy cell into another over various lengths of pipe, here are the results:

Redstone Energy Conduit (any length): 569998 / 600000 MJ (0.949996 efficiency)
1 wood, 1 golden conductive pipe: 596728 / 600000 MJ (0.994546 efficiency)
1 wood, 2 golden conductive pipes: 593545 / 600000 MJ (0.989241 efficiency)
1 wood, 3 golden conductive pipes: 590790 / 600000 MJ (0.98465 efficiency)
1 wood, 4 golden conductive pipes: 587948 / 600000 MJ (0.979913 efficiency)
1 wood, 5 golden conductive pipes: 584897 / 600000 MJ (0.974828 efficiency)
1 wood, 6 golden conductive pipes: 582070 / 600000 MJ (0.970116 efficiency)
1 wood, 7 golden conductive pipes: 579159 / 600000 MJ (0.965265 efficiency)
1 wood, 8 golden conductive pipes: 576259 / 600000 MJ (0.960431 efficiency)
1 wood, 9 golden conductive pipes: 573338 / 600000 MJ (0.955563 efficiency)

Looks like the break even point is right around 10 gold pipes, not counting the wooden one. Maybe wooden pipes used to be lossy?

 

[Zelfana]

Pipe efficiency depends largely on how much MJ's are being transferred per engine pulse versus how much the target machine(s) can accept per tick. Using normal conductive pipes if one pulse has more energy than the machine can accept you will have the extra energy bouncing in the pipe for an extra tick or more and take the penalty for each one or it can even vanish if it doesn't have anywhere else to go.

Conduits overcome this limitation by always taking the 5% toll but keeping the energy stored until it can enter a machine without any additional costs.

The exact numbers for how much each machine can accept or how much energy one pulse from an engine outputs are not exactly known by too many. Generally TE machines accept more than vanilla BC.

But it still makes sense to turn engines off when your machines are not in use. You can use structure pipes for gates granted you can fit an extra pipe next to your machines or if you're using item pipes anyway just use gates on those and use "has work - redstone signal" and configure the engines to "signal required - low" and use either normal redstone logic (gates power blocks next to them) or RP2 wires.

 

[Bomb Bloke]

The highest output engine I'm aware of is a double tin/bronze tubed electrical engine, which'll give 14MJ/t (though it's certainly not the most efficient way of getting that output, by any means). Dunno how much MJ each machine requires per job but I know my Carpenter uses more then that per tick.

Yes, there's a little bit of waste energy dwindling in the pipes once it's done its work, so the amount of time you're running your engines for is still a factor.

@ThemsAllTook: Is it possible you were using stone pipes first time around? A single one of those is about equal to a conduit run, so they're only "better" for tiny distances where you want to use gates.

Though if you can make gates, odds are you can afford the gold pipes.

 

[John Freeman]

Pipe efficiency depends largely on how much MJ's are being transferred per engine pulse versus how much the target machine(s) can accept per tick. Using normal conductive pipes if one pulse has more energy than the machine can accept you will have the extra energy bouncing in the pipe for an extra tick or more and take the penalty for each one or it can even vanish if it doesn't have anywhere else to go.

Conduits overcome this limitation by always taking the 5% toll but keeping the energy stored until it can enter a machine without any additional costs.

The exact numbers for how much each machine can accept or how much energy one pulse from an engine outputs are not exactly known by too many. Generally TE machines accept more than vanilla BC.

But it still makes sense to turn engines off when your machines are not in use. You can use structure pipes for gates granted you can fit an extra pipe next to your machines or if you're using item pipes anyway just use gates on those and use "has work - redstone signal" and configure the engines to "signal required - low" and use either normal redstone logic (gates power blocks next to them) or RP2 wires.

So is that 5% per machine it connects to in the system, or 5% overall? Finding a clear answer on the wiki is a little confusing, but I'm trying to figure out where the energy loss is going to go. Say I have a few magmatic engines connected to a line of redstone conduits on 16 machines, will I lose 5% energy for every machine? Also, are the engines included in the machine count?

Wondering if this applies to assembly table too, as in per laser. Been trying to find a way to automatically shut off when it can't make chips, but I've yet to find a way. I have, however, found a way to shut off my machines that require engines, such as pulverizers or sawmills by putting an autarchic gate on the input pipe, reading if there is items in inventory to output a redstone signal, that would trigger the engines with a red alloy wire line. Works fairly well since it activates all the engines in the line, and will store a bit of energy too, so warmup time is negligible.

 

[MilConDoin]

So is that 5% per machine it connects to in the system, or 5% overall? Finding a clear answer on the wiki is a little confusing, but I'm trying to figure out where the energy loss is going to go. Say I have a few magmatic engines connected to a line of redstone conduits on 16 machines, will I lose 5% energy for every machine? Also, are the engines included in the machine count?

Wondering if this applies to assembly table too, as in per laser. Been trying to find a way to automatically shut off when it can't make chips, but I've yet to find a way. I have, however, found a way to shut off my machines that require engines, such as pulverizers or sawmills by putting an autarchic gate on the input pipe, reading if there is items in inventory to output a redstone signal, that would trigger the engines with a red alloy wire line. Works fairly well since it activates all the engines in the line, and will store a bit of energy too, so warmup time is negligible.

The moment MJ enters a conduit system, 5% of this MJ are lost. In the 1.4.7 versions, having energy cells inline will incur a 5% loss each time your energy goes cell->conduit. With 1.5.x versions this particular loss will go away.

 

[Bomb Bloke]

So you're saying this setup:

Engine => conduit => cell => conduit => cell => conduit => machine

... would net a 10% loss?

I believe you will indeed lose 5% per transmission to each machine, but each transmission should only be for the amount that machine needs. Which means that the amount of energy transmitted from your cell will only ever be sapped 5% no matter how much it all adds up to.

With conductive pipes the exact loss is a lot harder to calculate as more machines go on to the line, but so long as any given machine is less then about ten blocks away from the cell and you're not performing frequent, very short jobs (eg processing one single bit of ore, then a few seconds later processing another single bit of ore, etc), the pipes should be the better deal.

Regarding the laser shutdown system, read the status of the assembly table, and use pipewire or redwire from there to get that message to the engines. If you go with pipewire, you'll need to use more gates to at the engine side to convert that back to the redstone signals they need, but it'll be more compact.

 

[MilConDoin]

So you're saying this setup:

Engine => conduit => cell => conduit => cell => conduit => machine

... would net a 10% loss?

engine->conduit
cell->conduit
cell->conduit
Net energy at the machine=0.95^3~85.7%
So almost 15% of the initial energy from the engine doesn't reach the machine.
(with the 1.5.x versions only 5% would be lost, since the switching between cells and conduits doesn't incur any losses)