At this time, my base is running 100% on tree farm power:
A 21x21 Steve's Carts tree farm with growth speeded up with an Ars Magica 2 Sigil of Nature's Bounty with gold inlay (range 10) produces enough wood to run a maximum-size Railcraft HP steam boiler with the charcoal produced from the wood by its satellite steam oven. The steam powers 16 TE steam dynamos. The saplings go into a Fermenter and four stills to make Ethanol which I'm using in 10 compression engines. I'm not utilizing the apples yet, but Fertilizer is used at such a slow rate that this doesn't matter yet.
(If you go that way: with a farm this size, the SC woodcutter cart has to pass the cargo manager twice per round, else the internal storage will get filled and about 40% of the production will be lost).
I'm producing a significant surplus of wood even with the steam boiler eating up one charcoal every three seconds, but while I'm producing saplings at a significant rate, the fermenter uses them up fast with enough power and I don't think I'm producing enough saplings for it continuous operation. Since the steam boiler is my base power and I only switch on the compression engines when I run a mining operation, I don't really know. However, even should the fermenter not run continuously, I think I'm making enough Ethanol for continuous operation of the compression engines. When I run a mining operation, it usually only takes a tenth of the time to replace the Ethanol used up by the mining machines, compared with the time the mining machines had been running.
Anyway, what I'm considering is routing a part of my cane production to the fermenter. That's two thirds of a 15x15 (or was it 13x13) MFR farm with growth speeded up by a Thaumcraft Lamp of growth. The cane provides the Herba essence to maintain this lamp and three others (Ender Pearl farm, Mana bean farm) and I still have a significant surplus. If you need plant material fast, cane is a very good choice. WIth the lamp of growth I'm producing an estimated one per second. Maybe one per two seconds.
A 21x21 Steve's Carts tree farm with growth speeded up with an Ars Magica 2 Sigil of Nature's Bounty with gold inlay (range 10) produces enough wood to run a maximum-size Railcraft HP steam boiler with the charcoal produced from the wood by its satellite steam oven. The steam powers 16 TE steam dynamos. The saplings go into a Fermenter and four stills to make Ethanol which I'm using in 10 compression engines. I'm not utilizing the apples yet, but Fertilizer is used at such a slow rate that this doesn't matter yet.
(If you go that way: with a farm this size, the SC woodcutter cart has to pass the cargo manager twice per round, else the internal storage will get filled and about 40% of the production will be lost).
I'm producing a significant surplus of wood even with the steam boiler eating up one charcoal every three seconds, but while I'm producing saplings at a significant rate, the fermenter uses them up fast with enough power and I don't think I'm producing enough saplings for it continuous operation. Since the steam boiler is my base power and I only switch on the compression engines when I run a mining operation, I don't really know. However, even should the fermenter not run continuously, I think I'm making enough Ethanol for continuous operation of the compression engines. When I run a mining operation, it usually only takes a tenth of the time to replace the Ethanol used up by the mining machines, compared with the time the mining machines had been running.
Anyway, what I'm considering is routing a part of my cane production to the fermenter. That's two thirds of a 15x15 (or was it 13x13) MFR farm with growth speeded up by a Thaumcraft Lamp of growth. The cane provides the Herba essence to maintain this lamp and three others (Ender Pearl farm, Mana bean farm) and I still have a significant surplus. If you need plant material fast, cane is a very good choice. WIth the lamp of growth I'm producing an estimated one per second. Maybe one per two seconds.
