Forestry new farms and power.

[akamanu]

Fist of all let me say that I love the new farms, sengir did an awesome job. Now I made a 100 block mega farm for wood and apples for my biomass>biofuel production and I'm wondering whats the ideal power I should supply the farm? Does it have a max input? Is there a point when more power is just a waste? I have a 36hp boiler so power is not the issue but I can't find any number on power usage in the new wiki.
Thxs in advance

/Manu

 

[b0bst3r]

When I asked about power Sengir told me to "find out", going on his old farms and the peat engine I'd say they would function on very little and max out about biogas size. It's a guess though but you can try that yourself, the peat engine gives out 1-2MJ/t if your farm runs on that then I'd say they are very similar power usage to the old farms.

 

[Sengir]

Does it have a max input? Is there a point when more power is just a waste?

Glad you like them. =) I'll give a hint: you need to rephrase the question: "Does a gearbox have a max input?"

 

[Zjarek_S]

Just test it. The best way would be to connect REC to power network with throttled input and maximum output and see which is the lowest setting when REC will keep charge. Old forestry farms used practically all energy that you could supply, but new ones are very conservative about requesting energy. From my limited testing wheat farm (5x5) seem to run well on 2 MJ/t.

 

[Molten]

"Does a gearbox have a max input?"

Mechanical gearboxes, technically yes. Input too much power and they explode.
Every thread has to have at leat one Pedantic tool post.

 

[IDave_the_Rave]

Mechanical gearboxes, technically yes. Input too much power and they explode.
Every thread has to have at leat one Pedantic tool post.

I think he's suggesting that a gearbox does have a max input, but if you use more gearboxes you can increase that maximum. I haven't tried the new farms yet, but you can use more than one gearbox right?

 

[Celestialphoenix]

Upper limit? From what I've read its something crazy like 75MJ/t.

Though from my limited testing they can run on about 2.​

​

I'll assume [like the old farms] redstone engines wont work (though if you can build it out of gearboxes, you could probably afford actual fuel so stop cheating)

 

[heavy1metal]

I have a standard farm and currently 12mj/t near-instantly tears down trees. I also receive so much wood and apples that the single farm keeps up with three fermenters and 15 biogas engines. I use the wood for charcoal to power a steam boiler.

 

[Antice]

I set up one of the medium farms (4x4 machine in the middle, the farm itself is much larger ofc.). it would not fully deploy when run with only 2 hobbyist steam engines. it only deployed properly on 3 sides with the fourth remaining only partially deployed. so the 4x4 setup requires at least 4mj/t to run at lowest speed.

I'm suspecting that the volume of the farm multiblock machine is one of the factors that decide how much power you need to run the whole thing.

ETA: The 4x4 farm core uses exactly one stack of farming blocks...
We really should change our size naming convention to reflect the core machine rather than the area itself. one would evidently not build a 5x5 core and then only farm an area approximate in size to a 4x4 core.

 

[Molten]

I think he's suggesting that a gearbox does have a max input, but if you use more gearboxes you can increase that maximum. I haven't tried the new farms yet, but you can use more than one gearbox right?

Oh ok that makes sense. kinda.
tbh I wasn't too sure how to take the origional quote about gearboxes or how he meant it.

 

[heavy1metal]

Think he was being technical in how the question was phrased. Since the farm itself will not accept any input without a gearbox.

TE released a tool to measure mj/t like the EU-reader from IC2. Once the update is pushed out you'll be able to see more clearly. I still say boilers are perfect for farms, as they're the only thing in game that truly has a constant draw on power.

 

[akamanu]

Glad you like them. =) I'll give a hint: you need to rephrase the question: "Does a gearbox have a max input?"

ahhhh ic what you did there and yes m8 you did an awesome job with em hehe.
I did test it now a bit, i conected a thermal expac redstone battery to it and gave it 100mj and the farm looked like it was gonna have a heart attack from the speed it went.
As some ppl said here, since you can put more gearboxes in the structure im gonna try conecting more batteries and move gearboxes, i really hope it dont explode or something hehe, ill post when i tryed out.

/manu

 

[Abdiel]

I did some testing using TE redstone cells, conduits, and MJ reader.

- Even completely idle (no resources, nowhere to plant), the farm draws 1 MJ every few (2-3) seconds.
- The farm has an internal storage of unknown size, which it tries to replenish periodically, in batches of at most 75 MJ at a time. (Therefore the maximum possible input is 75 MJ/t.)
- Laying down one block of humus or planting one sapling takes about 155 MJ. At full speed the farm consumes an average of 15 MJ/t in this phase.
- Harvesting one log takes around 200 MJ. The farm harvests in several seconds intervals, and it seems that the more wood it can harvest at once, the more efficient it is. From 320 MJ to harvest a single log, to about 200 per log with 20 logs. Although this could also mean a one-time cost per harvest, and then cumulative cost for each log.
- Size of the farm doesn't seem to have an effect on the numbers.

- It seems that at 10 MJ/t a maximum-size tree farm can keep up with the tree growth, although just barely. I don't know whether this is due to it simply needing more power than the old farms, or because it manages much more trees at the same time. At 11 MJ/t it keeps up easily and the internal buffer is almost always full. Therefore I would allocate about 10-11 MJ/t from your energy production per tree farm. It seems that SirSengir is keeping the "low, but continuous power drain" paradigm.

 

[Celestialphoenix]

I did some testing using TE redstone cells, conduits, and MJ reader.

- Even completely idle (no resources, nowhere to plant), the farm draws 1 MJ every few (2-3) seconds.

I think thats just power loss from the conduits.

- It seems that at 10 MJ/t a maximum-size tree farm can keep up with the tree growth, although just barely. I don't know whether this is due to it simply needing more power than the old farms, or because it manages much more trees at the same time. At 11 MJ/t it keeps up easily and the internal buffer is almost always full. Therefore I would allocate about 10-11 MJ/t from your energy production per tree farm. It seems that SirSengir is keeping the "low, but continuous power drain" paradigm.

The old style tree farm managed 88 blocks (44 saplings)- at 1MJ/t (2MJ/t incl. logger)
Full size, the new farm can manage up to 180 blocks/saplings.

​

Comparing Saplings: Power -- 180/10 : 44/2 = 18 : 22​

So the new farms are about 20% cooler more efficient per sapling. (Obviously I'm ignoring growth rates and materials used ect)​

My question is- do smaller farms (both size of unit, or smaller area farmed) use less overall energy?

 

[Sengir]

- Even completely idle (no resources, nowhere to plant), the farm draws 1 MJ every few (2-3) seconds.

To clear up that one: What you are seeing is the default power loss on a BC powered machine. Stored energy dissipates at a low rate in every gearbox.

 

[Abdiel]

My question is- do smaller farms (both size of unit, or smaller area farmed) use less overall energy?

I am pretty sure they use the same amount of power for every block planted/harvested. But since they manage a smaller area, they will need to harvest less trees in the same time, and so can get by with a proportionally lower power input.

To clear up that one: What you are seeing is the default power loss on a BC powered machine. Stored energy dissipates at a low rate in every gearbox.

Thanks, I didn't know that.

The more I play with the new farms the more I like them. Not only are the saplings planted in a much more efficient pattern, the area managed by a farm is much less awkward and easier to tile than the old ones. Being able to run all the automation underneath and not have to worry about dodging trees and having them eat my pipes is a big plus too. And you can also split the farm up for things you don't really need a lot of - netherwart, carrots, pumpkins, melons, ...

Is there any way to use a catalyst to insta-grow trees with the farms? Or is the Forester staying?