I'm Obviously Doing BC Power Wrong. How can I improve?

[KirinDave]

I was hoping to get advice on buildcraft power grid building. I'm playing on a small population server and we're trying to upgrade our power infrastructure without NEI to bootstrap things in. Fuel is plentiful, but resources are a bit tight.

In that light, I built a pair of Hobbyist Steam Engines, some gold conductive pipe, and a line of Thermal Expansion machines. I'm trying to get this hooked up to some rudimentary auto-sorters down at the mineshaft, but I keep having problems where the first segment of conductive pipe explodes when the system doesn't have any work to do. It's obvious why that's happening, but I see lots of other videos of people evidently not having this problem.

How do you avoid this problem in the mid-to-early game level? I'm so frustrated with having to stand around doing almost nothing in my workshop while I manage the power on the ore processing that I'm almost ready to give up on all the benefits that the Pulverizer gives and go back to an IC2 macerator setup. While way less efficient in the early game, at least the power storage stuff is cheap and power is "pulled" rather than "pushed" with

I've searched the forum a bit for solutions to this problem (It has to be common!) but I must be missing the threads answering the question. Any advice?

 

[OmegaPython]

You turn the engines off when they are not in use.

 

[GreenWolf13]

Ue redstone energy conduits. They are much better than energy pipes.

 

[ShneekeyTheLost]

First off, an explaination of why this is happening:

With the latest edition of Buildcraft, pipes will hold energy that isn't going anywhere until it exceeds safe limits and explodes. Once your machines get up to full energy buffers, the energy has nowhere to go.

Solution 1: Low tech method

Have your engines set up to a lever and simply turn them off when not in use

Solution 2: Much more expensive

Iron Gates with 'has work' -> 'red pipe signal', red pipe wire running down to the pipes attached to the engines with Iron Gates 'red pipe signal' -> 'redstone signal' to turn them on when they have work. This requires several gates, which requires an Assembly Table and Lasers, so YMMV.

Solution 3: Conduits

Redstone Energy Conduits don't have this problem. They require Electrum and Reinforced Glass. This means you'll need a Magma Crucible, Liquid Transposer, and Induction Smelter. Don't forget an Energy Cell to store excess energy.

 

[KirinDave]

You turn the engines off when they are not in use.

Yes, but with multiple people mining unpredictably and the warm up time of engines, this can be a big slowdown. We're trying desperately to get our insanely rare diamonds so there is a lot of unpredictable time downstairs. I'm starting to think that the temperate rainforest biome has poor diamond spawn rates for some reason, because another group on my small server has had similar problems finding diamonds in their temperate rainforest.

And it isn't so much turning them on that's the problem, it's turning them off. We have limited time to play and the mining is starting to get tedious. Standing around watching the engines is really boring.

I had a thought though. i wonder if I could somehow use a redpower state cell to hold the engines on, and then use some sort of detection method to see if stuff is flowing through the system to reset that state cell. Of course, without more diamonds I don't have enough to make the darn saw I need to make wafers. So this approach is currently out of reach. I only need 1 more diamond for a saw... then maybe an Item Detector and state cells could make this approach workable.

I wish there was a lower-tech way to detect items moving through pipes or tubes.

Ue redstone energy conduits. They are much better than energy pipes.

As I said, we're fairly early game and very strict about NEI. That represents a huge expense early on. I could do it, but it seems like mad overkill for a 4 machine shop. Certainly later on when resources are more plentiful and we begin our bulk mining operations, I'll use this.

 

[OmegaPython]

You don't really have any options unfortunately. At your stage in the tech tree you need to be switching off the engines manually. Or, you could switch to IC2 and not have to worry

 

[Abdiel]

To be honest, that's the thing about advanced technology - you won't get access to it early on. Where would the fun in gathering resources and going through the tech tree be if you could make everything out of some sticks and cobblestone? Any automation of BC stuff will probably have to wait until you get assembly table and gates.

For now I recommend just using a lever system. You should look into getting a redstone cell - that can store energy for later use, so your engines don't have to heat up every time you need to process something.

 

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Actually... I do have a fairly low-tech solution for you. It isn't ideal, but it doesn't require anything expensive or high-tech.

An Item Detector from RP2 emits a redstone signal when an item goes through it. This pulses to a State Cell which turns on the engines temporarily, long enough for one smelt to get done.

So, assuming you have an energy buffer in your machines, you get this:

Someone puts an item in. It smelts. Resulting ingot goes through the item detector, pulses the state cell and turns on the engines
His next item smelts, goes through the item detector, resetting the timer on the state cell
His last item smelts, goes through the item detector, resetting the timer on the state cell a final time. After that runs down, signal to the engines is cut, and power is turned off automatically.

An Item Detector requires 2x Red-Doped Wafers, so you will need a Diamond Handsaw as your most expensive material component, as well as a good supply of redstone and an Alloy Furnace.

This does mean you will need to use tubes, which means using a Relay to catch the output of the TE machines to send through. Since the easiest method of sorting items is with RP2, using RP2 tubing vs BC piping here will save you steps and replacement costs later on down the line.

 

[Evil Hamster]

Ue redstone energy conduits. They are much better than energy pipes.

^^^^
Seconded!

 

[Peppe]

If you have automated your fuel source and don't mind having the engines always running you can put any machine that always consumes energy on your grid and it act as a release valve and prevent energy buildup.

Better to stop producing the MJ's when they aren't needed.

Thermionic fabricator, rolling machine, forestry farms/harvesters all consume power even if they have no work to perform. You will probably want at least the rolling machine later anyway, so it is a good candidate for an early safety valve. It can only protect against a few MJ/t overload though - under 5.

Thermionic can dump all extra energy it seems... tested with 100 MJ/t surplus. Same for the forestry farms and harvesters.

 

[KirinDave]

You don't really have any options unfortunately. At your stage in the tech tree you need to be switching off the engines manually. Or, you could switch to IC2 and not have to worry

I've also got an _incredibly_ good Aura node nearby (naturally nearly 600), and I'm the group's thaumaturge so I could probably switch us over to smelting via magic until we're further along. Watch as I derail my own thread and ask, is the Infernal Furnace a good replacement? I have never played with one, is it a consistent an ore doubler to use in lieu of a pulverizer?

 

[Evil Hamster]

As I said, we're fairly early game and very strict about NEI. That represents a huge expense early on. I could do it, but it seems like mad overkill for a 4 machine shop. Certainly later on when resources are more plentiful and we begin our bulk mining operations, I'll use this.

3 easy to build machines, some obsidian, lead, redstone, a few pieces of electrum.

It's not nearly as expensive as you're thinking.

 

[KirinDave]

If you have automated your fuel source and don't mind having the engines always running you can put any machine that always consumes energy on your grid and it act as a release valve and prevent energy buildup.

Better to stop producing the MJ's when they aren't needed.

Thermionic fabricator, rolling machine, forestry farms/harvesters all consume power even if they have no work to perform. You will probably want at least the rolling machine later anyway, so it is a good candidate for an early safety valve. It can only protect against a few MJ/t overload though - under 5.

Thermionic can dump all extra energy it seems... tested with 100 MJ/t surplus. Same for the forestry farms and harvesters.

This is really interesting. Some of these machines are cheap and would be useful anyways. If we could get a peat farm going it'd actually be a really nice solution, as we'd dump accidentally excess energy into peat production. Our entire power stack is only producing about 3 MJ/tick at full tilt.[DOUBLEPOST=1359055967][/DOUBLEPOST]

3 easy to build machines, some obsidian, lead, redstone, a few pieces of electrum.

It's not nearly as expensive as you're thinking.

Thanks. I'll check it out.

 

[Evil Hamster]

Thanks. I'll check it out.

You need an induction smelter for the hard glass- made with obsidian & lead dusts.
Magma crucible to melt the redstone, Liquid transposer to fill the conduits. Place your liquid transposer right next to the crucible and configure the outputs correctly and you don't even need any pipes.

The energy cells are a bit expensive needing almost a stack of redstone each. While nice to have they are not necessary at the start.

 

[KirinDave]

Actually... I do have a fairly low-tech solution for you. It isn't ideal, but it doesn't require anything expensive or high-tech.

An Item Detector from RP2 emits a redstone signal when an item goes through it. This pulses to a State Cell which turns on the engines temporarily, long enough for one smelt to get done...

Yeah this is what I was considering above. Gonna have to find 1 more diamond, as I said before. I'm glad to know that my though process was correct though. This approach is good in a lot of other situations anyways (for example, automating early fuel refineries).

Gotta grind out just ONE more diamond... somehow!

This does mean you will need to use tubes, which means using a Relay to catch the output of the TE machines to send through. Since the easiest method of sorting items is with RP2, using RP2 tubing vs BC piping here will save you steps and replacement costs later on down the line.

I thought everyone was doing this as much as possible anyways because of how badly BC pipes can fail in backup situations. I crashed my last tekkit classic server a few times with them.

 

[lolpierandom]

You could also use a magma crucible as a low tech energy sink, as well- the lava gives you 20k MJs in a combustion engine, but keep in mind that you'd only get it back at 1 MJ/T.

 

[Golrith]

My setup and situation is similar to yours. Diamonds are very rare to find, and I'm getting fed up with all the branch mining.
My early power system was constantly turning on/off my engines. Warm up time wasn't too bad as the machines hold a power reserve, so once they have drained a bit, the engines should be up to speed again.

I eventually put in conduits, and the engines are still controlled by a lever Now though I just turn the engines on if the cell is getting low, and try to remember to turn them off without wasting too much fuel.
I'm still using 3 hobbyist engines, and am powering 5 powered furnaces, 4 pulverizers, 3 saw mills and various other machines. None are constantly being used yet, everying is in place for automation, if I can get the resources I need (Diamonds and Blaze rods).

Worse part of the redstone conduit systems are the cells. First craft needs a diamond, then a soaking in redstone, then another craft. If diamonds are low, it's a big investment.

Diamond generation definitely seems lower in the DW20 pack. In a vanilla MC world, in the same amount of time, I've got diamond armour and weapons/tools and plenty spare.

 

[DoctorOr]

I've also got an _incredibly_ good Aura node nearby (naturally nearly 600), and I'm the group's thaumaturge so I could probably switch us over to smelting via magic until we're further along. Watch as I derail my own thread and ask, is the Infernal Furnace a good replacement? I have never played with one, is it a consistent an ore doubler to use in lieu of a pulverizer?

The infernal furnace is inferior in bonus to both the macerator and pulverizer (my testing with three bellows was that a stack of ore turns into a stack of ingots plus 84 nuggets, a bonus of 9 ingots where the macerator would give a bonus of 64 and the pulverizer 10% more than that.

It does smelt dusts, so you can use it on that, but provides no bonus. Note it also eats vis and creates flux.

In short: In a mixed mod game, the infernal furnace is worthless.

Diamond generation definitely seems lower in the DW20 pack. In a vanilla MC world, in the same amount of time, I've got diamond armour and weapons/tools and plenty spare.

In a game with IC2, I fail to see how anybody can be low on diamonds once a basic level of technology is reached.

 

[Vovk]

+1 evil hamster.

CPW and the buildcraft guys do NOT want a fire and forget system of buildcraft energy management in the early game. They deliberately balanced the pipes so that you'd have to manually turn the power on and off when you started. Later on when you have the diamonds for an assembly table, you are supposed to build the appropriate gates to automate your power production.

of course right now, golden conductive pipes have a bizarre amount of power loss so that even in short systems, it's almost always better to use redstone conduit.

A note though - the gate system is still the best way to conserve fuel in your bc power network. Engines will stay on when attached to conduits and burn all their fuel away, and gates do not attach to conduit. A good solution is to have short lengths of conductive pipes gated to redstone energy cells so that the engines turn off when the cells are full, then have the cells output the power requirements for the base as needed. This solution will take several diamonds and lots of MJ to implement because of the gate and storage cell cost, so is really only viable for late game buildcraft (or early game gregtech )

 

[KirinDave]

Diamond generation definitely seems lower in the DW20 pack. In a vanilla MC world, in the same amount of time, I've got diamond armour and weapons/tools and plenty spare.

Group 3 found a seam of >30 diamonds in one spot in an autumn forest biome just yesterday. I think they ate our entropy. I am tempted to look at the mod code and try and figure out what's making diamond generation so spotty. I wonder if it comes from the fact that this map is based off a vanilla map I imported. Is that your situation as well?