Keeping something supplied with AE: how?

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Braegh

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Jul 29, 2019
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I'm trying to keep my MFR Planter filled with saplings and seeds of different types. Using a Precision Export Bus ends up in filling the entire Planter with one type of plantable, and using a ME Interface + Supplier Logistics Pipe causes a weird thing in the AE system where it's constantly trying to craft any sapling it's low on. Is there a way to do this without running into any problems?
 

ShneekeyTheLost

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I can think of one way, actually:

What you can do is use a Precision Export Bus, but don't hook it up yet. Manually 'seed' the slots with a full stack of the various crops you want in the thing. Set it up however you like. Then tell it to keep those items supplied, stacks at a time.

I guarantee that you'll be supplied MUCH faster than you will be using them, even with a Fertilizer, so it should maintain itself.
 

Methusalem

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Switch the planter off (with a simple lever) and fill one item each into the input slots. Fill the remaining slots with a stick/stone/whatever so that the planter doesn't store more than one stack of each material.

Put the items into the Precision Export Bus, wait a few seconds until the AE system has put the items into the planter, then switch it on again. After that you can forget about it, unless you run out of one of the items. :)
 

Braegh

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Jul 29, 2019
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I don't have a stockpile of some of the saplings yet, leading to my problem. Anyone got a few good ideas as to what I can put in there that produces fairly well? So far I've got seeds (wheat, pumpkin, melon) and saplings (oak and jungle) and I'm getting more than I use. Other trees seem to be restricted, though, even MFR's own rubber trees. I'm running the DW20 1.5.2 pack, multiplayer.
 

Ember Quill

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Nov 2, 2012
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If you have the OpenPeripheral and MiscPeripherals addons for ComputerCraft, you can manage your planter with a computer. OpenPeripheral turns the planter into a peripheral and lets a computer look at its inventory. Whenever it needs more saplings or seeds, you can use the ME Bridge from MiscPeripherals to request more from your AE system and send them into the planter.
 

Methusalem

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Carrots and potatoes
cocoa
nether wart
ink (super fast to get with a Farmer)
bone meal (for the Bioreactor, not the farm itself :))

Put the melons and pumkins on IC2 crops, that's much more efficient
 

ratchet freak

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Nov 11, 2012
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I believe logistic pipes are in the DW20 pack, connect a provider pipe to a ME interface and a supplier to the planter

a basic pipe to the interface will provide power to the logistics network
 

Braegh

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Jul 29, 2019
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I believe logistic pipes are in the DW20 pack, connect a provider pipe to a ME interface and a supplier to the planter

a basic pipe to the interface will provide power to the logistics network

Oh hey! I already tried that, and that caused my AE crafting system to mess up for no reason.


Can I use all of that in a bio reactor? I wish there was better documentation on that thing :p
 

ShneekeyTheLost

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I don't have a stockpile of some of the saplings yet, leading to my problem. Anyone got a few good ideas as to what I can put in there that produces fairly well? So far I've got seeds (wheat, pumpkin, melon) and saplings (oak and jungle) and I'm getting more than I use. Other trees seem to be restricted, though, even MFR's own rubber trees. I'm running the DW20 1.5.2 pack, multiplayer.
Well, those harvesters are going to be producing quite a surplus of them, in general, assuming you've got it set up properly.

Personally, I like to build multiple small farms. A planter just putting out a single oak, jungle, spruce, or birch sapling in the dead center. That's four farms which are 3 x 3, however at this point, you can much more easily set up a routing system, because they are single-item dependent.

Basically, you take your output pipe from the harvester, and loop it down under the farm to your planter. There, you have an Insertion Pipe. So if there's anything running through the pipe which can go in the planter (like saplings), then it will. Otherwise, it will continue on to the ME Interface that will take all input and put it into storage. If the planter is full, surplus saplings also go into the ME Interface. If the farm is remotely located, use an Item Tesseract instead to transport output to ME Interface.

It requires zero input from your ME Network whatsoever, because it is running on a single resource system. This is what I do for my trees.

For my 'passive' farm, I don't even HAVE a Planter. I've got three melon vines, and three pumpkin vines bracketing the harvestable 3 x 3, so that the gourds end up on the outer lines. The middle line is full of cotton. Output is hooked up directly to ME Interface, possible via Item Tesseract.

For my more active farm, I have Carrots, Potatoes, and Wheat. Meaning I have three stacks of Carrots, three stacks of Potatoes, and three stacks of Wheat in my planter. Each one planted in its own little line. Then it connects to ME Interface, possibly via Item Tesseract.

In all of these cases, the Planter is directly fed from the Harvester, with the surplus going to the ME Network, not the other way around. It's all self-contained locally.
 

Braegh

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Jul 29, 2019
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I'm actually re-building up the farm a little. I kind of wanted to phase out the trees in the first place - too many byproducts that currently aren't being used. Methusalem's list iswhat I'm basically transforming the farm to now - carrots, potatoes, nether wart, cocoa beans, four types of seeds (Natura's barley works, too) is eight things I can turn to biofuel. For the last one, I'll be using oak saplings, I suppose, but then again, a ME Precision Export Bus only has 8 slots to output things :p
 

Methusalem

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I'm actually re-building up the farm a little. I kind of wanted to phase out the trees in the first place - too many byproducts that currently aren't being used. Methusalem's list iswhat I'm basically transforming the farm to now - carrots, potatoes, nether wart, cocoa beans, four types of seeds (Natura's barley works, too) is eight things I can turn to biofuel. For the last one, I'll be using oak saplings, I suppose, but then again, a ME Precision Export Bus only has 8 slots to output things :p


You don't need to feed melon and pumpkin seeds into the planter, it only harvests the fruit and not the complete plant. And as mentioned above, I would use IC2 crops to plant them. This way you don't have to leave any space between them.

Also, check Barley seed again please. I didn't add it to the list, because it didn't work. Same way as Forestry's Apple Oak saplings didn't work. But then again, I could be wrong. :)

Here the setup of the MFR Farm. A Squid farm and the Tree farm in the background.

MFRFarmSetup_zps3ce7b9b5.png



And the setup of the planter for the farm, supplied by an Export Bus. (Only the items with x64 quantity actually need to be restocked.)

MFRPlanterSetup_zps8834117e.png


[\SPOILER]
 

ShneekeyTheLost

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You don't need to feed melon and pumpkin seeds into the planter, it only harvests the fruit and not the complete plant. And as mentioned above, I would use IC2 crops to plant them. This way you don't have to leave any space between them.

Also, check Barley seed again please. I didn't add it to the list, because it didn't work. Same way as Forestry's Apple Oak saplings didn't work. But then again, I could be wrong. :)
When I tested, Barley Seeds worked just fine, both in planter and Bio Reactor.

The Bio-Reactor will accept anything the Planter will.
I'm actually re-building up the farm a little. I kind of wanted to phase out the trees in the first place - too many byproducts that currently aren't being used. Methusalem's list iswhat I'm basically transforming the farm to now - carrots, potatoes, nether wart, cocoa beans, four types of seeds (Natura's barley works, too) is eight things I can turn to biofuel. For the last one, I'll be using oak saplings, I suppose, but then again, a ME Precision Export Bus only has 8 slots to output things :p

Okay, here's how I would set this up.

One 'passive' farm. It has the following: Pumpkin and Melon vines planted just outside the 3 x 3, and a jungle log with one cocoa planted on either side in the middle. Output as previously mentioned, with planter underneath being loaded with cocoa. Make sure the Harvester is set to NOT harvest jungle wood (the default setting).

One 'active' farm. It has carrots, potatoes, wheat, barley, and Nether Wart. Two slots dedicated to each resource. See previous entry on how to hook it up. As long as you don't run OUT of any one resource, you're good.

One tree farm. I happen to like oak because of the apples, but birch or pine work just as well. Single sapling in the center block of the planter interface. See previous entry on how to automate.

With these three farms, you have all nine resources you need to keep your bio reactor running at maximum efficiency.
 
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Braegh

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Jul 29, 2019
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You don't need to feed melon and pumpkin seeds into the planter, it only harvests the fruit and not the complete plant. And as mentioned above, I would use IC2 crops to plant them. This way you don't have to leave any space between them.

Also, check Barley seed again please. I didn't add it to the list, because it didn't work. Same way as Forestry's Apple Oak saplings didn't work. But then again, I could be wrong. :)


Natura's barley is working fine for me. BOP's barley, not so much. :p I was actually running a test on those IC2 crops right now to see if the Harvester works with them. Does it not support cocoa, though?
 
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Methusalem

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When I tested, Barley Seeds worked just fine, both in planter and Bio Reactor.
The Bio-Reactor will accept anything the Planter will.

Darn, you are right. Thank you both!

I've attached a screenie to the previous post. Just have to replace the Sugar Canes now with Barley, then that's 9 items for the BioReactor (Seeds, Carrots, Potatoes, Melon, Netherwart, Pumpkin, Cocoa, Barley, Ink Sacks).[DOUBLEPOST=1375396158][/DOUBLEPOST]
Natura's barley is working fine for me. BOP's barley, not so much. :p I was actually running a test on those IC2 crops right now to see if the Harvester works with them. Does it not support cocoa, though?


No, you have to use the actual logs and the planter will add the cocoa. I grows really fast though.
 

Braegh

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Jul 29, 2019
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Ended up with something similar to what you've got, Methusalem ^^ It's currently building up a stockpile of Barley Seeds and burning up the excess jungle saplings I had. Got six Bio Generators hooked up to it, still need to find something that eats energy to see how they hold up under high load :p
 

Methusalem

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I think I can help at least with the math. :)

One BioReactor produces a bucket of MFR Biofuel every 1.000 ticks or 50 seconds, regardless how many different items are in there. At full efficiency (9 items) it takes one set of items every 1.440 ticks or 72 seconds.

MFR Biofuel is worth 160.000 MJ in a Biofuel Generator. At 16 MJ/tick a bucket lasts 500 seconds. This means, one BioReactor can support 10 Biofuel Generators. So if you want to produce 320 MJ, then you need 2 BioReactors, 20 Generators and one carrot, potato, seed, yadda every 36 seconds.

If you run it through an MFR Unifier, then you get Ethanol. Each bucket is worth 32.000 HU. A 36HP (fullsized highpressure) boiler uses 16 HU per tick when fully warmed up, which means a bucket of Ethanol lasts 100 seconds. So one BioReactor can support 2x 36HP boilers with Ethanol. With 2 BioReactors you will get 2.880 Steam/tick from 4 boilers, which can support 72 Industrial Steam Engines for 576 MJ. (Which is quite a bit more than the 320 MJ when using BioFuel Generators directly.)

By the way, these same 2 BioReactors (fueling 4x 36HP boilers) will produce 1.800 EU when using Railcraft Steam Turbines.
 

ShneekeyTheLost

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I think I can help at least with the math. :)

One BioReactor produces a bucket of MFR Biofuel every 1.000 ticks or 50 seconds, regardless how many different items are in there. At full efficiency (9 items) it takes one set of items every 1.440 ticks or 72 seconds.

MFR Biofuel is worth 160.000 MJ in a Biofuel Generator. At 16 MJ/tick a bucket lasts 500 seconds. This means, one BioReactor can support 10 Biofuel Generators. So if you want to produce 320 MJ, then you need 2 BioReactors, 20 Generators and one carrot, potato, seed, yadda every 36 seconds.

If you run it through an MFR Unifier, then you get Ethanol. Each bucket is worth 32.000 HU. A 36HP (fullsized highpressure) boiler uses 16 HU per tick when fully warmed up, which means a bucket of Ethanol lasts 100 seconds. So one BioReactor can support 2x 36HP boilers with Ethanol. With 2 BioReactors you will get 2.880 Steam/tick from 4 boilers, which can support 72 Industrial Steam Engines for 576 MJ. (Which is quite a bit more than the 320 MJ when using BioFuel Generators directly.)

By the way, these same 2 BioReactors (fueling 4x 36HP boilers) will produce 1.800 EU when using Railcraft Steam Turbines.
Did Railcraft change? It used to accept MFR Biofuel directly.
 

namiasdf

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The reason why I don't do this is exactly for the reasons mentioned ITT. If you run out of any of the items, though unlikely, it will screw things up. I don't mind spending a little bit more resources for the insurance, myself. I am just that way with my work.
 

ShneekeyTheLost

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The reason why I don't do this is exactly for the reasons mentioned ITT. If you run out of any of the items, though unlikely, it will screw things up. I don't mind spending a little bit more resources for the insurance, myself. I am just that way with my work.
Since you gain a surplus on every cycle, the odds of running out of any given item is remote, and approaches zero as it continues to go, much like any other exploding algorithm.