Personally, I don't see SC as so much a 100% auto-mining system, but more of an assistant for semi-manual branch mining. Its ridiculously cheap cost makes it very early-game, and its ability to keep mining as you mine the walls for resources or explore a cave it has uncovered in addition to its larger tunnel size makes for MUCH more effective manual branch mining. Plus, since you're following it all you need is one or two stacks of rails.
Is anyone using Steve's Carts 2 for automatic mining?
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This is a really interesting idea. Do you have any examples of this in action?
I made one as a semi automated mining device and was quite satisfied with it.
Built a cart with hardened drill, railer and all required gizmoz.
Built a cart with de-railer.
Built a chunkloading cart with railcraft (chunkloader in SC didnt seem to work)
Made a single long track with a branch every 10 rails and a toggler bloc next to it with adv detector rail.
A turtle to activate each junction in turn.
6 stacks of 64 rails.
With a little cart changing station and drop off point it went like this:
Mining cart gets attached to chunkloader.
Mining cart goes out.
Finishes its rails.
Get's detected that it's empty.
Drops the chunkloader wich gets attached to the de-railer.
De-railer brings back the rails.
Turle makes the junction go straight and moves forward.
Chunkloader is dropped and reattached to mining cart wich get's its tracks refilled.
In the end I considered this far more effective then any quarries since it didn't destroy the landscape and didn't need to dig 40 layers to get to the good stuff. Much faster too. It would even dig out enough coal to fuel itself.
Built a cart with hardened drill, railer and all required gizmoz.
Built a cart with de-railer.
Built a chunkloading cart with railcraft (chunkloader in SC didnt seem to work)
Made a single long track with a branch every 10 rails and a toggler bloc next to it with adv detector rail.
A turtle to activate each junction in turn.
6 stacks of 64 rails.
With a little cart changing station and drop off point it went like this:
Mining cart gets attached to chunkloader.
Mining cart goes out.
Finishes its rails.
Get's detected that it's empty.
Drops the chunkloader wich gets attached to the de-railer.
De-railer brings back the rails.
Turle makes the junction go straight and moves forward.
Chunkloader is dropped and reattached to mining cart wich get's its tracks refilled.
In the end I considered this far more effective then any quarries since it didn't destroy the landscape and didn't need to dig 40 layers to get to the good stuff. Much faster too. It would even dig out enough coal to fuel itself.
This is the first thing I always do in any game I play. As soon as I have the resources for it, I get a SC with coal engine, bridge builder, railer, torch placer, liquid sensors, (optional but highly reccomended) if I have the extra resources for it a level controller, basic drill, and then top and side chests and as many internal chests as I can fit.
Once this has finished building I take a few stacks of rails, a stack of charcoal or planks, three stacks of smoothstone or stone bricks, and at least three stacks of torches, preferably more, and head down my mineshaft to whatever level I need to mine. Then I just plop down some rails and place it on them, give it all the items it needs, turn it on, and away it goes. All you have to do is mine up the tracks behind it and keep the cart itself stocked with them.
Generally, the first couple of minutes will be rather slow, but once it starts uncovering resources and especially caves you'll start seeing what makes this system so effective.
Oh, and some other little tips; Set the torch placer's threshold to level 6, and also place at least a single piece of coal in its chest inventory to prevent it from eating all of its mined coal. EDIT: Also, do not feed it more then 5 charcoal at a time, otherwise its very easy for it to reach the end of its rail inventory and start wasting all your fuel going back and forth.
Would it be too much trouble to ask for some screenshots (or brief videos) of how this works? I've never seen a real installation of this.
Why caves?
You don't use it to mine, you use it to build the interior of the death star so you can fit your X-wings through the access tunnels...
It really doesn't need any more explanation then I've given you, but I'm uploading some screenshots I made in Creative Mode now for you anyway.
Because it takes a very long time to fully exploit a cave system, especially compared to single veins. This gives your cart much longer to mine out more stuff while you're away, which will inevitably reveal more stuff for you to mine in addition to the cave.
EDIT:
Mining out the shaft downward first:
http://i140.photobucket.com/albums/r31/abculatter_2/2013-02-25_141748_zps20b79164.png
Pretty straight forward, though in-game you'd probably go down to bedrock.
This cart:
http://i140.photobucket.com/albums/r31/abculatter_2/2013-02-25_142055_zps30cd31be.png
Yes, it takes a half-hour to make because of the internal chests, but it'll be worth it. Trust me.
Also, as I said, the height controller is completely optional. The liquid loader is also ultimately optional, but I HIGHLY recommend it, since Steve's Carts are NOT lava-proof!
And then mining out a 3x3x2 tunnel off the side of the shaft, with some tracks and the cart in the center:
http://i140.photobucket.com/albums/r31/abculatter_2/2013-02-25_142304_zps2fb10ee4.png
Again, nice and easy.
And now the inventory;
http://i140.photobucket.com/albums/r31/abculatter_2/2013-02-25_142353_zps6c3e5756.png
Yeah.
Just remember to place the coal there in the chest if you want to keep it, and lowering the light threshold in for the torch placer will decrease the amount of torches it uses considerably.
Now you just chuck in 5 charcoal or planks or whatever, and follow it, mining the tracks behind it and occasionally putting them back into the cart.
I use the Galagorian Drill for mining. It's not as late-game as everyone puts it out to be, I had it very early, soon after "Vanilla" ended. As long as you put ALL your resources into it, you'll do fine with mid game for it.
A problem I've had with it is it's chunk loading. I had the add on, but it doesn't work every so often (why? Good question). What I have decided to do is put a world anchor and a sentinel so i can load a long string of chunks. But it is extremely fast and useful, though I didn't add the correct mods. I took out Extracting chests for the advanced control module... Not a good idea. I may make another one, I have all the stuff I need on hand except the spider eyes. And yes, it is extremely fast and useful, much more portable than frame quarries, and it'll mine enough coal to get you started and finished. Rails? Put a track remover down after a certain "branch" is done. Light? I just lazily close it off. Only with Rubies will I go mine off the tunnel it made, and once I get a fancy-schmancy fusion reactor, then I won't even care about them.
A problem I've had with it is it's chunk loading. I had the add on, but it doesn't work every so often (why? Good question). What I have decided to do is put a world anchor and a sentinel so i can load a long string of chunks. But it is extremely fast and useful, though I didn't add the correct mods. I took out Extracting chests for the advanced control module... Not a good idea. I may make another one, I have all the stuff I need on hand except the spider eyes. And yes, it is extremely fast and useful, much more portable than frame quarries, and it'll mine enough coal to get you started and finished. Rails? Put a track remover down after a certain "branch" is done. Light? I just lazily close it off. Only with Rubies will I go mine off the tunnel it made, and once I get a fancy-schmancy fusion reactor, then I won't even care about them.
The problem with that is that eventually, your cart will have to travel half a world just to be able to drop its stuff off. Unless you move the manager every now and then, which is a pretty good idea actually.
Speaking of good ideas, that thing about the seat seems amazing. I need to try that out.
Not worth it. Don't *don't* make the seat. At least, don't put it in a mining cart. It's not worth it at all. Maybe a hardened drill, but the advanced one removes options for side and top storage. Which are HUGE. If you really want to do so, test something on creative and see how much stuff you can mine with a little internal storage on a galagorian drill. I've gotten 4-5 layers max, and that's with all cobblestone, which I have gotten a few times in the upper levels of an extreme hills biome. Anyways, if you have the seat, you'll just sit in it until you turn around (and ruin your home/get turned back around and bounce off the walls since you can't mine them). Just put it on a hardened drill, they're cheap.
What i really want to see in SC is some kind of module remover/adder. Maybe take apart the cart and put it back together, so I won't have to make another drill or fix mistakes that you've made on it.
What i really want to see in SC is some kind of module remover/adder. Maybe take apart the cart and put it back together, so I won't have to make another drill or fix mistakes that you've made on it.
Yes, assuming you don't have some kind of obscenely OP end-game tech, such as an enchanted Efficiency V drill or Vajra or something like that. It also reveals a larger area, allowing you to find more veins then you normally would.
It's especially effective if it takes you awhile to mine veins, or if you go caving nearby.
I'd recommend just trying it out in-game, that's the best way to describe how it is effective.
The next version will have not only this, but the ability to automat the process. A cart can dive itself back in, switch to a derailer, then redeploy, and on the return trip it can wait in a holding bay. VSWE has demo'd it on his channel recently.
Oh boy, this'll make everything easier! I hope it works with my current cart 
, this was really necessary.
, this was really necessary.This is already implemented in the current version of FTB.
Look up 'upgrade' in NEI, and you'll get a list of the current upgrades. To actually use them, simply Shift-Right click on any block face on the assembly table, just like a Computer Craft peripheral.
If you get the right upgrade, yes you can.
Never actually tried it in-game, though.
The only use I ever had for a mining cart was to lay track for my inter-base rail system. Granted, I would have to go back in behind and lay some powered rails, but it saved me from having to mine out the tunnel itself. This ran at level y10, since both of the bases I wanted to connect were on that level.
But as for actually harvesting resources? No. RP2 Frame Tunnel Bores are faster, more efficient, cheaper, and all around better. Manual mining with fortune pick for diamonds, everything else can be automated with quarries.
This was in a world I built without Mystcraft or ComputerCraft. If the former was involved, the rail line would have been unnecessary, and with the latter, it is too easy to create a Von Neumann Machine. Crafty + Mining and some basic code that any script kiddie can hack out in a half hour is all you really need to create a self perpetuating and expanding system which will continue to grow until your CPU melts.
But as for actually harvesting resources? No. RP2 Frame Tunnel Bores are faster, more efficient, cheaper, and all around better. Manual mining with fortune pick for diamonds, everything else can be automated with quarries.
This was in a world I built without Mystcraft or ComputerCraft. If the former was involved, the rail line would have been unnecessary, and with the latter, it is too easy to create a Von Neumann Machine. Crafty + Mining and some basic code that any script kiddie can hack out in a half hour is all you really need to create a self perpetuating and expanding system which will continue to grow until your CPU melts.
Unfortunately the tunnel bores are not nearly as portable as SC2. Unless I'm mistaken, you can't make one in the overworld and move it to the End (For Soladite).
Fortunately, they are cheap and easy to make, so instead of disabling one in the Overworld to mine sodalite, you just build one in the End to mine sodalite.