MJ Transportation, No Tesseracts

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BlackFire

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Jul 29, 2019
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I'm looking for a way to power my city (planing to be 500x500 at least) from a single location to the rest of the city. My own personal rules to this project are no tesserracts, no lava generation, no enderchests.

The problem is that I'm about 70% sure that if I run conduits all over in the sewers this will cause the entire city to remain chunk loaded which I'm trying to avoid.

The only think I can think of is using trains to drop off REC and have a turtle place and remove them for pick up. I'm trying to avoid this because of the tediousness and power loss the process would take.

Any ideas?
 

Hydra

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Jul 29, 2019
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Conduits don't keep stuff chunk loaded, but you will run into issues where parts are not chunkloaded if you don't use chunkloaders (always an option ofcourse).

I have no idea why you would not want to use tesseracts but without them conduits + chunk loaders are probably your best bet.
 

BlackFire

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Conduits don't keep stuff chunk loaded, but you will run into issues where parts are not chunkloaded if you don't use chunkloaders (always an option ofcourse).

I have no idea why you would not want to use tesseracts but without them conduits + chunk loaders are probably your best bet.
That is somewhat of a relief about the conduits, like you said, always an option.

The community of games that I play with have become convinced that everything is too easy and end up relying on lava and tesserracts for all transportation. Don't get me wrong, I think they work great, but accomplishing this city without them would be awesome.
 

Runo

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interesting idea. Are you planning on having residents who use the power or is the power going to be used for decorations/etc? If its the former, with some proper planning, you could use conduits but only load the main pipes, and have the players act as 'block' chunkloaders. For example, in a grid layout you would have a 32x32 chunk grid at 512x512. You could have a conduit line every 4 chunks and only load the conduit line with spot loaders/traintrack loaders. It still means way too many chunks loaded (256), but its better than the whole thing.

A better method would be a similar power network but with distributed power, so small power plants all over the city. This way they get loaded when a city section is in use.

On-demand power could be
 

vScourge

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Jul 29, 2019
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Our recent server had similar rules laid down. No player, item, or energy teleportation of any kind. This was a lot of fun, encouraging people to build closer together and take part of a community power source/item infrastructure, or to build further away but connect themselves to the main "base" with automated rail systems. We still had lots of MJ flowing around, even a large ME network, but you had to run conduits/cables to hook into those. One very remote location used fuel sent from the main base via steam engine/rail, then burned on-site.
 
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casilleroatr

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Maybe you could have smaller generator stations perhaps on a (city) block by block basis. Then you still have to supply public power to individual buildings but you don't have to worry about sprawling networks that are being partially loaded and unloaded a lot of the time. Alternatively, railcraft has MFSU carts that you you could distribute around town. If you want to use MJ then you could use power converters or electrical engines. This could work nicely with substations. Having the power converters will make it possible to generate in MJ too. I wish there was a redstone energy cell cart.
 

Zealstarwind

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I made me a small factory city, nothing too big, couple houses and a big factory. I would suggest making smaller power stations for each area if you're truly opposed to chunkloading. If not I'd go with a theme for power gen. My dwarves will only use lava, my elves only use solar/biofuels my humans only use steam/combustion. I'd personally suggest the smaller power stations for each chunk/grid tho honestly I dont have much of a problem chunkloading and just do it all with a chunkloader.
 

angelnc

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You could produce steam in a central location and transport it via Liquiducts or Tank Carts to other locations where you have Steam Engines.
 

BlackFire

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interesting idea. Are you planning on having residents who use the power or is the power going to be used for decorations/etc? If its the former, with some proper planning, you could use conduits but only load the main pipes, and have the players act as 'block' chunkloaders. For example, in a grid layout you would have a 32x32 chunk grid at 512x512. You could have a conduit line every 4 chunks and only load the conduit line with spot loaders/traintrack loaders. It still means way too many chunks loaded (256), but its better than the whole thing.

That's not a bad alternative. Have is to that smaller storage areas of 10 RECs would be loaded in the section a player would be in.

The smaller plower plants everyone has sugessted seems to be the main theme. It just seems like an extra step to move the fuel to the smaller power plant for it to run, but if its that or loading the whole world at once...




If you want to use MJ then you could use power converters or electrical engines. This could work nicely with substations...I wish there was a redstone energy cell cart.

*Face-palm* This might be what I was looking for. Transferring raw EU and using electrical engines to convert it. Little loss of power but won't be a problem. Thank you everyone.
 

Fuzzzie

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I wonder if you could use RC world anchors with fuel options and have a system to deposit fuel when you want to use a particular power line. It could be a lot of fun to set things to chunk load at the push of a button.

Also, take a look at Ender IO. It's available for 1.6.2 and 1.5.2 and can be picked up and placed like Cells. The Conduits are genius too.
http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic...many-pipes-in-one-block-is-this-better-empty/
 

Runo

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Jul 29, 2019
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That's not a bad alternative. Have is to that smaller storage areas of 10 RECs would be loaded in the section a player would be in.

The smaller plower plants everyone has sugessted seems to be the main theme. It just seems like an extra step to move the fuel to the smaller power plant for it to run, but if its that or loading the whole world at once...






*Face-palm* This might be what I was looking for. Transferring raw EU and using electrical engines to convert it. Little loss of power but won't be a problem. Thank you everyone.

You'll have to show it to us when you've made good progress, sounds interesting. I guess you're gonna make a long track through the city with an anchor, and power certain stops? That is by far the best power usage, in my opinion.
 

Taiine

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Jul 29, 2019
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The issue you're going to face from my experience is keeping chunks loaded so power keeps flowing. If the power chunks unloaded, and your at the edge of town, that edge wont get any power at all. You may at least need one chunk loader at the power chunk to ensure it';s always flowing. Having some sort of strage along the way, like power stations to hold extra power here and there will also help. You can have the power all from one place, but have power relays/storage here or there like you see irl.
 

Hydra

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I doubt that moving steam about would be worth the effort (the engines would eat the steam FAST) but moving fuel about it definitely an option. You could even have a main powerplant that feeds oil fabricators. That way you can unify all power generation into a single liquid fuel and then move that to wherever you need it. You could have local combustion plants that take in the fuel from the carts.
 

KingTriaxx

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Jul 27, 2013
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I don't think you're losing energy moving REC's with turtles. The only power cost would be for the turtles, which you could provide with charge stations.

However, if you want to go the steam route, use small in building boilers fed charcoal from a tree farm. Run the locomotives themselves on steam. That way, they leave from the central hub, filled with steam from a liquid loader, and charcoal filled from item loaders, arrive at the site and take on steam from the local power supply while dropping off fuel to keep the building going.
 

namiasdf

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A couple things:

I will avoid discussion about energy loss, assuming that you are playing 1.5.2;

If you are trying to transport steam, remember that the volume of steam you generate is quite high. I am not exactly sure what the maximum throughput on a liquiduct is, but consider that an output is only 80 mB/t. Though liquiducts function very much the same as EU-cables, in how the throughput is handled, eventually you will reach the limit. Using steam will cause you to have to calculate exactly how much power you are needing at the source and then to realize that you have a maximum limit that can only be expanded by adding another parallel liquiduct. This might be something to plan ahead for and to implement early.

In my base, a for my convenient I transport biofuel around. Biofuel/fuel is the most energy dense fuel in the game. When run off of combustion engines you can generate 5-6 MJ/t each. Though this cannot compare to industrial steam engines (8 MJ/t), realize that the infrastructure required for steam boilers, the throughput of steam, etc. is expensive. These systems are also continuous, i.e. you cannot turn them off.

For now, I bottle up my excess biofuel into cans. I keep them in my AE system which is accessible throughout my base. I build localized, modulated engine setups that run off biofuel. I simply feed the cans into a liquid transposer and voila you have energy. This has major drawback. Unless you are actually producing an excess of biofuel, or can correctly gauge how much of your reservoir to be canned, you can quickly throw off the balance. Right now, in addition to requiring canned biofuel, I am running 160 combustion engines continuously /w 12x36 HP steam boilers. I am approaching the limit of how much my biofuel system can generate before it requires expansion.

The best, most involved way might be to use a central REC charging room run by turtles. If you are using AE, you could precisely-format a storage bus to accept empty/not-full RECs, have turtles take them out, mount them onto a conduit line and then throw them back into your AE system. What this would allow you to do, is that at every location where you require energy, you could also have another turtle programmed to take RECs out of your AE system (whatever strategy you choose) and then to throw them back into the system when they require charging. Consider having two turtles running simultaneously as to prevent the down time for when the turtle is exchanging the REC.

This also means that you have full RECs on hand and that the system is pretty expandable. I like the last option best, tbh.
 
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Tylor

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Transport fuel or batteries and generate on site.

If you have Thermal Expansion, you can convert MJ to lava, fill lava into buckets with liquid transposer, convert lava back to MJ on site with Magmatic Engine (10% loss, though) and send empty bucket back.
 

PeggleFrank

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Fill up engines at your base.

Force wrench them.

Ship them away to your city.

Have a turtle place them in a position that makes them run automatically as soon as they're placed.

After about 30 minutes or so, have a turtle come and break all the engines.

Send the engines back to your base.

Repeat.


This could be automated with ease if there were force wrench turtles, although I'm not sure if they even exist.
 

Hoff

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Oct 30, 2012
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Fill up engines at your base.

Force wrench them.

Ship them away to your city.

Have a turtle place them in a position that makes them run automatically as soon as they're placed.

After about 30 minutes or so, have a turtle come and break all the engines.

Send the engines back to your base.

Repeat.


This could be automated with ease if there were force wrench turtles, although I'm not sure if they even exist.

If he went with magmatics he wouldn't need the force wrench as they could just place a bucket or can/cell on the engines. Force engines could probably do this as well. Maybe a few others. Not entirely sure.
 

netmc

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Liquiducts are actually infinite. You don't need more than one liquiduct running to any location. It is the connections to/from machines that are limited. The actual throughput for a liquiduct connection appears to be 100mB/tick for steam. Lava has a much lower throughput. Most other liquids are around that of water, which I believe is actually 80mB.

The last information I saw on conduits (pre 1.5) was that they would automatically load themselves and any connected machines if any chunk containing them were loaded. It would not however load the entire chunk. So you would have machines operate and deplete any stored fuel in engines, but since the chunk was not loaded, new fuel would not be created as plants and trees do not grow in unloaded chunks. As long as your farms and power generation areas were chunk loaded, you should be ok, even if the rest of the city isn't chunk loaded.

I am running my current base on steam (GT) or MJ, with very limited EU generation. My base area only comprises 49 chunks though, so it is quite a bit smaller than what you are planning.
 

namiasdf

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http://forum.feed-the-beast.com/threads/steam-limitations-in-liquiducts.16101/

The second post in that thread said something interesting regarding liquiduct limits. There does seem to be an upper limit, but it's (apparently) at 52 steam engines worth (something like 2k mB/t). Though this may be quite a high number, it is still a limit to be aware of. A 36HP boiler is already 720 steam/t, so according to this information you will surpass the max of a liquiduct at 3 boilers.