How to distribute items evenly in AE

[gusmahler]

I have a cow pen over sewers to make industrial fertilizer and send it to AE. I have 2 MFR farms next to each other each with a fertilizer, each set up to automatically receive industrial fertilizer.

Problem is, my first MFR farm (the one closest to the main AE controller) receives all the industrial fertilizer. How do i get it so that the fertilizer is evenly distributed among the MFR fertilizers?

 

[namiasdf]

My solution would include BC pipes or a router.

Put the fertilizer into a storage container and split it from there using BC pipes. That or you can fill each fertilizer with 8 useless items, leaving one space for fertilizer. That way you can keep the extras in a storage bus or in your AE system.

Two solutions.

 

[Celestialphoenix]

Export bus into relay (redpower) into tesseract, then each fertalizer machine has a tesseract under it.

(AE doesn't connect to well to tesseracts)​

​

I use the same method to send wood to my boilers.

 

[danidas]

I have a cow pen over sewers to make industrial fertilizer and send it to AE. I have 2 MFR farms next to each other each with a fertilizer, each set up to automatically receive industrial fertilizer.

Problem is, my first MFR farm (the one closest to the main AE controller) receives all the industrial fertilizer. How do i get it so that the fertilizer is evenly distributed among the MFR fertilizers?

Simple, don't connect the export buses directly to the farms.

 

[ratchet freak]

use the mfr conveyors to do the distribution there is a item router that will act like a bc pipe for even split

 

[Netherus]

Or set the export busses to export 1 item each pulse
Hook up a buildcraft gate to the farm and set it to pulse when its empty then connect that signal up to the export busses now every time the first farm is empty it will export 1 fertilizer to every farm just make sure u have enough fertilizer

Holland says hi!

 

[Netherus]

You could also make a timer to pulse and set it to pulse at double the time it takes to make one fertilizer

Holland says hi!

 

[danidas]

AE is amazing but it is not a swiss army knife, as its strengths rest in compact item storage and auto crafting but it comes up lacking in the item management department. As it currently lacks a good deal of control over exporting and importing items a long with a good system for item routing.

 

[namiasdf]

AE is only as good as the user. It's a good system, but it requires a lot of creativity in terms of using it. It isn't very flexible. All it can do is hold large amounts of stuff in small spaces, allow for autocrafting and item transport in large volumes. I find myself trying to find additional solutions just to use the AE system, as convenient as it is.

But that added challenge makes it worth it =).

 

[ratchet freak]

you can also use a interface set to keep a stack or two and a pair of wooden pipes and autoarchic gates (or ejectors) and a timer, set it to deactivate on no more space in inventory from a BC gate and you have a winner

 

[gusmahler]

Thanks for the replies. Looks like I'll be trying the export bus into a chest, with BC pipes going into the fertilizers.

I just want to clarify the problem I'm having here, because people are talking about keeping a stack of fertilizer or having "enough" fertilizer. I don't keep fertilizer. A composter makes one industrial fertilizer at a time. Even though I have 10 of them, they each make them one at a time and go into AE individually. The export bus immediately exports each ind. fertilizer. Really have no idea if the the BC pipes will help in this situation, but I guess I'll find out soon enough.

AE works fine when you have stacks and stacks of items in AE. E.g., I realized I had a bunch of tungsten dust I forgot to put in a blast furnace. So I set the export bus to put in every tungsten dust in my system to my 4 industrial blast furnaces. Since I had much more than 4 stacks, each furnace filled up and got approximately the same amount of tungsten to process.

That situation is not applicable here because I never have more than 1 industrial fertilizer in my system.

 

[Netherus]

How about a level emitter set to pulse at 128 fertilizers then set the export to do one action (move 1 stack) per pulse
Little different then my last contraption but it should work out nicely I picked 128 so it wouldn't go off all the time making setups as laggless as possible is always good

Holland says hi!

 

[namiasdf]

Hmm, a storage bus set on full would do the same.

In this situation I don't know if there is much of a different between using a storage bus and an export bus. Storage bus might be a bit more versatile. Connected to an ender chest, you can feed fertilizer anywhere, without expanding your AE system as well, as another idea for expansion purposes.

 

[Dackstrus]

If your moving stacks, try not moving stacks. Seems to help out the evening.

 

[tindin]

My solution would include BC pipes or a router.

Put the fertilizer into a storage container and split it from there using BC pipes. That or you can fill each fertilizer with 8 useless items, leaving one space for fertilizer. That way you can keep the extras in a storage bus or in your AE system.

Two solutions.

this is what i do just use diamond pipes to spilt the ferilzer down other pipe to the other macines

 

[namiasdf]

You don't even need the diamond pipe, unless you have different items flowing through those pipes.

 

[tindin]

You don't even need the diamond pipe, unless you have different items flowing through those pipes.

just makes sending to 3+ machines more even

 

[namiasdf]

Nope, it's the same. Probability of an item flowing to one way is 1/# of pipes at the junction.

Unless you are doing some specific sorting, diamond pipes and all other pipes carry the same properties in terms of probability. Three pipes is 1/3 chance for each pipe, regardless of type.

 

[ratchet freak]

Nope, it's the same. Probability of an item flowing to one way is 1/# of pipes at the junction.

Unless you are doing some specific sorting, diamond pipes and all other pipes carry the same properties in terms of probability. Three pipes is 1/3 chance for each pipe, regardless of type.

number of connecting pipes minus 1. Items normally never go back the way they came

 

[namiasdf]

number of connecting pipes minus 1. Items normally never go back the way they came

Yes.