Free Bc Energy Plant

[nicholasiv]

Build a free bc energy plant, the initial cost is high the max output is only limited by what gold conductive pipes can carry (redstone energy conduit works as well)

The build I use is modular but actually comprised of four smaller modules in a compact area,
The small module is simply a ring of conductive wooden pipes around a golden conductive pipe so when you place them in series the gold conductive pipes align, the larger version places four of them against each other in a tiling formation so you could increase the thickness or height to fit the space you're placing the generator.
You attach Autarchic Gates, or any more advanced gate you happen to already have on the wooden conductive pipe with the setting in the picture below.

Per Slice of this build it costs 60 Redstone Dust, 16 Iron Ingots, 8 Ender Pearls, 2.5 Glass, .25 Logs, .25 Gold Ingot
Every 5 Slices outputs roughly the equivalent of 6 Stirling Engines burning with free coal 24/7 no moving parts and no risk of overflow or lag.

Here is an example of how you can tile the modules head on and demonstrates which way they should be placed in series, along with the setting for the Autarchic Gate you should use. This allows you to run the red pipe wire along the center lines to turn off your generator for whatever reason.


Here's an example of one of these builds I helped a friend on Desolation FTB server build.

 

[joseff amador]

I don't understand how it generates energy?

Also, what is that box that the pipe ultimately leads into?

 

[TheMap]

Who doesn't like free energy? Oh no the baby!

Anyways, awsome build, havn't seen anyone with this yet.

 

[blek]

I don't understand how it generates energy?

Also, what is that box that the pipe ultimately leads into?

It generates energy from the energy pulse that autarchic gates can make (one 1MJ pulse per second). The box is a Redstone Energy Cell from Thermal Expansion, which allows for Buildcraft energy storage.

 

[Vegoraptor]

This is... interesting, had some ideas for similar layouts, but this is a lot denser. It actually is much more serverfriendly than the RSE powerplants I find on mine from time to time, however in some way an exploit due to the gates conducting to four pipes with 1 MJ/t, so actually outputting 4 MJ where 1 is meant to be the maximum output. Nice tough.

 

[nicholasiv]

Thanks Vegoraptor, I always aim to build at a maximum level of server friendly, redundant diamond/void pipes to prevent overflow only generating worlds where mobs can't spawn and fires don't start so even that Little extra entity isn't something the server has to think about. This is the product of the login servers being down yesterday.

 

[slay_mithos]

I have just one question with this build:

Are you 100% certain that it doesn't induce lag?

From what I can see, it seems to be nearly the same as the old "redstone engine factory", that made insane lag compared to the energy produced.
Of course, there is no engine, so the lag is lessened, but the fact remains that there is a high number of energy sources, and that should produce lag too, even if it is to a lesser extend than the redstone engines.
(I would like to say that it asks for !!science!! to be done, but most people wouldn't get the reference)

Anyway, it seems to be a good way to produce at least a minimal amount for the constant needs, like the thermionic fabricator and such.

 

[King Lemming]

While this is marginally better than the redstone engine factory, the fact is that you're using BC pipes, which are pretty awful in their own right in terms of lag. There's a reason Redstone Energy Conduit was created after all, and it's not just looks. The computation benefit is massive.

In any case, this is a borderline exploit and I wouldn't rely on it being around for too terribly long.

 

[nicholasiv]

Works with redstone energy conduit in place of gold conductive pipe just as well. (if not better)

 

[b0bst3r]

King Lemming can you increase the cost of netherrack > lava in the Magma crucible too as this promotes free energy.

 

[King Lemming]

Works with redstone energy conduit in place of gold conductive pipe just as well. (if not better)

This shouldn't work with conduit as the wooden pipes are not intended to connect.

King Lemming can you increase the cost of netherrack > lava in the Magma crucible too as this promotes free energy.

There's already a config option to do that. However, this is not a "free" process. Netherrack, despite being incredibly common, is non-renewable. You have to go get it from somewhere, and you are giving something up forever in order to make lava.

Gameplay-wise, once you hit the Nether, you have infinite lava. Let's be real on that. So you drain the lava and create tons of server lag for everyone, or you can now instead "quarry" the lava, take an efficiency hit, and still have infinite lava without the lag. It's ultimately a server-saving measure.

 

[b0bst3r]

Ahh yeah true enough I keep trying to drill into people there's no longer a need to pump lava from the nether keeping more load on the servers but they aint listening

 

[nicholasiv]

Oh I guess it doesn't worth with conduit that's unfortunate I really like the conduit wires haha I use them all over the place in my base. Think the redstone energy conduit is setup to output into wooden pipes.

 

[Vovk]

wouldn't a better and cheaper version of "free energy" be a railcraft steam boiler hooked up to power itself with magma crucibles OR just attached to a farm?

Been working on a vertical stack of wheat farms creating biomass and biofuel for a steam boiler that requires no further input once set up. I assume you could also create this biofuel setup with any type of farm.

Alternately, 3 peat bogs will power a solid boiler forever and generate excess peat. Peat bogs can become completely free/automated by hooking a sand generator up to them and feeding half of their dirt back into bog earth production through moisteners and carpenters, alternately feed almost all the dirt back into an autocrafting table and liquid transposer setup.

alternately, skip the boilers and just run combustion engines cooled by aqueous accumulators off of the produced biofuel.

alternately, once Red Power releases, automatically milk cows and run biogas engines off of them (low output per engine, but for half an hour per bucket) :3

alternately IC2 solar + electric engines

even a forestry arboretum + charcoal cooker + stirling engines can make more energy for less up front cost iirc, though a hobbyist steam engine setup would be much better. TBH, never understood people trying to power their bases from redstone engines. They are no more free than any other renewable energy source. as for cost per energy output, you need 20 iron ingots in order to produce enough to match a peat fired engine hooked up to a bog. With autarchic gates this is even worse, as you need an ender pearl for every 2 gates for a total of 10 ender pearls needed to match a peat fired engine.

A personal goal of mine is to create enough BC power to run enough magma crucibles off cobblegens to create enough obsidian to feed into a builder and create an obsidian mage tower with any sort of timeliness. A reasonable rate seems to be achieved by 3x36H boilers. Hoping to power the boilers off biofuel (want to use the excess biofuel to power independent engines for smaller stuff), but 7-8 peat bogs stacked on each other would also work just fine.

That being said - that array looks amazingly cool. I love how dense it is

 

[Bluehorazon]

wouldn't a better and cheaper version of "free energy" be a railcraft steam boiler hooked up to power itself with magma crucibles OR just attached to a farm?

Magma-Crucibles made CovertJaguar nerfing the HeatOutput of Lava. So a Boiler won't create enough energy to allow Lava-Creation with CobbleStone, since the HeatValue of Lava was halved.

Biomass, Peat and Tree/Charcoal Farms should still be able to sustain themself while producing energy.

The nerf that killed redstone engine grids will likely update to the gates eventually, enjoy this while it lasts, I'm very sure it's an oversight.

Though you can't connect wooden pipes to the powergrid, you should be able to connect gold pipe to conduit for the terminal portion.

You get a like for creativity though, it rates for cool and sneakyness.

Most likely. Although you are still able to power the storage directly with redstone-engines, since even if they can't connect to conductive pipes, they still provide some MJ.

 

[King Lemming]

Most likely. Although you are still able to power the storage directly with redstone-engines, since even if they can't connect to conductive pipes, they still provide some MJ.

Don't tempt me to change this.

 

[Daemonblue]

Magma-Crucibles made CovertJaguar nerfing the HeatOutput of Lava. So a Boiler won't create enough energy to allow Lava-Creation with CobbleStone, since the HeatValue of Lava was halved.

Biomass, Peat and Tree/Charcoal Farms should still be able to sustain themself while producing energy.

I've actually done tests like this myself and as long as you can keep enough materials to keep a Fermenter constantly running you can produce more than enough biofuel to run a liquid boiler with excess biofuel. Heck, just a single water fueled fermenter with a constant supply of mulch and saplings was able to supply about 3 stills with biomass, all running full power. The only setup you need is to get the boiler above 500C to keep up with a single pipe feeding it fuel. Anything above 100C works, but heats up much slower, and you won't start seeing excess fuel build up till after around 650C, but 500C is a good start.

The only problem I've had is getting biomass out of a fermenter that is able to get a constant supply of honey/apple juice. If there's a constant supply it seems redstone engines can't pump the biomass out of it quick enough. Not sure if this is a wooden pipe or engine problem though.

Now to find a use for all of the power.

 

[tedyhere]

The newest BC update has killed the pulsing gate free power bug. Enjoy it in 1.4.2 while it lasts

 

[Vovk]

on your fermenters w/ apple juice, try pumping out of two sides simultaneously

 

[Daemonblue]

True, I could do that, but it kinda screws with the whole compact side of the build : / Hopefully with RP's liquid pipes once it comes out I'll be able to pump the biomasss fast enough without having to increase the amount of piping.