Is there a Logistics Pipe/Module that I can use to keep items stocked and pull out anything else?

[Nathan2055]

I'm trying to take the contents of an Ender Chest and pull it into a sorting network but to keep certain items stocked at all times for my tree farm to access. Is there a way to do this?

 

[casilleroatr]

There is an advanced extractor module (mark 1,2 and 3). They all allow you to configure exactly what or what not you want to be extracted. In your case I assume you want to keep saplings in the chest. In that case you can put a sapling in the filter of the advanced extractor module and click the button until it says excluded. That way, everything that is not saplings will be kept out of the chest. The mark one version is really slow though, but the higher tiers are fast enough I would say.

Eventually though the saplings will build up in the ender chest and I can't think of anything inside logistics pipes that will only pull from an inventory when there is x amount of an item inside there. It is possible to keep an inventory stocked with an item by using either a supplier pipe or a passive supplier module. (Supplier pipes can actively request items from providers, while passive supplier modules can only pull an item that is already in transit in the network). But suppliers require the item being supplied to come from the network to keep it stocked to a certain amount. You would be best placed to use a separate inventory to store stuff for use by the tree farm to avoid conflicts between supplier and extractor and to prevent overflow.

 

[steve g]

perhaps you need the reverse of what your trying to do. something i do to control overflow of saplings in an MFR tree farm:

1) hook up diamond pipe to output of MFR harvester, run a pipe from that to the planter for saplings, add pipes for other output items.
2) place a router next to planter, place chest/tesseract/whatever with inventory (cant do directly to pipe, block must be an inventory) to catch ejected items from router. use machine filter and auto eject upgrades. set it to pull from slot 11 of planter (the second slot in the planters inventory). have it auto eject to the inventory block.

what this does is it will always maintain 1 full stack of saplings in the planter, and send any overflow away into where ever you need it. this works well with the mfr fertilizer as well, just have it pull from slot 1 instead.

something else routers can do: if you have more items than an inventory can hold, routers act like buffers...they only feed a machine when space becomes available. and they wont eject items if they become full, unless you are using pipes. what i normally do in that situation:

1) use a deep storage unitl to hold items you need to feed machine(s) with.
2) use a router to pull items from dsu, use auto eject upgrade into a tesseract
3) on machine end, use a tesseract (same frequency as the one on the dsu) to feed another router attached to machine(s) expecting said item

this will ensure machines stay stocked, and will not overflow and spill items all over the map