Need a Round Robin Solution in Unleashed

[scienceguy8]

So, I'm building a Factorization-based ore-processing setup (it may not be efficient, but it has great yield and is fun). My hangup is trying to split up the reduced chunks amongst 5 routers to feed 21 crystalizers. I can't seem to find a round robin pipe for Buildcraft in this pack, so I'm wondering if you guys have any other suggestions. My backup plan is to put hoppers on the routers, then use a router to feed the hoppers, which would evenly split up the chunks, but would cost 7 diamonds and 14 silver in machine filters. Not ideal in my current position. Standard Unleashed 1.1.3 pack with BoP and Reliquary activated.

 

[netmc]

the mfr item router can mostly do it. It will derp a bit if you feed it one at a time, but if you feed multiple items at once, it will split them up between all outputs.

 

[DZCreeper]

BTW, I think you mean Unleashed, not Unlimited unless they added a new pack in the last half an hour that I missed.

 

[FivEven]

Item tesseracts was what I used last time on a friends server. Even distribution, if a bit expensive.

 

[isnowcrash]

Thoroughness upgrade for a router should evenly distribute the items.

 

[FivEven]

Thoroughness upgrade for a router should evenly distribute the items.

Hmm, that is supposed to finish filling whatever block it's looking at before moving on right?

That wouldn't work well if you want to spread it out over many crystallizers.

 

[namiasdf]

A more definitive solution could be logpipes. Determine your estimated total yield/time unit (whatever seems most appropriate) then format storage pipes to that number divided by the number of machines you require distribution to.

 

[FivEven]

A 6th router set to only unload its contents into an "Ejector" style block, which would then be on the sides of the 5 other routers for use in your crystallizer tower.

If you meant the unhinged mod pack, GT has some blocks that act like that.

Here is a picture of Abdiel's work. Uses some GT.
http://i.imgur.com/elsum.png

Wish I understood what namiasdf is saying about logistic pipes.

 

[casilleroatr]

Are translocators in your pack? They are pretty good at dividing stacks up into up to 4 different outputs at once (you may need to chain them). And when Routers are involved, translocators have a special advantage over hoppers because they are not an inventory.

 

[KingTriaxx]

Diamond pipe with one of the item in each slot. So one iron in each pipe going out. It will evenly divide the output.

 

[Siro]

So, I'm building a Factorization-based ore-processing setup (it may not be efficient, but it has great yield and is fun). My hangup is trying to split up the reduced chunks amongst 5 routers to feed 21 crystalizers. I can't seem to find a round robin pipe for Buildcraft in this pack, so I'm wondering if you guys have any other suggestions. My backup plan is to put hoppers on the routers, then use a router to feed the hoppers, which would evenly split up the chunks, but would cost 7 diamonds and 14 silver in machine filters. Not ideal in my current position. Standard Unleashed 1.1.3 pack with BoP and Reliquary activated.

Router 1: Machine filtered to routers. Insert.
Routers 2-6: Machine filtered to crystalizers. Insert.
Router 7: Machine filtered to Slag furnaces. Bandwidth upgraded. Extract. Eject into Router 1.

As long as you don't upgrade Router #1 with bandwidth, it will only place one of the items in it's slot in a machine before moving onto the next machine. Router 1 will occasionally dump 1 reduced chunk back into Router 7, but Router 7 will be placing everything it has into Router 1 so no big deal. This is more of a problem if you are also using routers with grinders and mixers in connected inventories. This can be alleviated by separating processing arrays with ender chests (extract material to be processed from ender chest on one end and insert processed material into a different colored one on the other end).

 

[whythisname]

Diamond pipe with one of the item in each slot. So one iron in each pipe going out. It will evenly divide the output.

That's the same as a regular piece of pipe. Only if you want an asymmetric distribution a Diamond pipe could help, but for even/symmetrical distribution you might as well take a regular cobble pipe because it's exactly the same.

And the problem with all vanilla pipes is that the distribution is random, but most of all it means hooking machines up serially won't create an even load distribution (the first machines will get most of the stuff while the rest is sitting idle). A way to do even load distribution with vanilla pipes is by hooking up machines in parallel, but that becomes very big and complicated very quickly (because things like runoff are much harder to deal with and you need way more piping).

Diamond pipes can help create even distribution on a serial machine array, but it will cost you a lot of Diamond pipes and then still it's pretty uneven.

 

[Zjarek_S]

I distributed cleaned chunks using just normal BC pipes (5 outputs from one pipe, but diamond pipe would be more compact). In this kind of system you have very huge buffer (stack per crystalizer for each slot) so small fluctuations in distributions aren't really big problem. I used this setup a lot and I never had a situation where this would be a cause of some failure, sometimes all slots were overfilled, so I had to add more crystalizers for a given ore.

 

[scienceguy8]

Router 1: Machine filtered to routers. Insert.
Routers 2-6: Machine filtered to crystalizers. Insert.
Router 7: Machine filtered to Slag furnaces. Bandwidth upgraded. Extract. Eject into Router 1.

As long as you don't upgrade Router #1 with bandwidth, it will only place one of the items in it's slot in a machine before moving onto the next machine. Router 1 will occasionally dump 1 reduced chunk back into Router 7, but Router 7 will be placing everything it has into Router 1 so no big deal. This is more of a problem if you are also using routers with grinders and mixers in connected inventories. This can be alleviated by separating processing arrays with ender chests (extract material to be processed from ender chest on one end and insert processed material into a different colored one on the other end).

Ultimately went with something similar to this. I could have sworn that a Router could not feed another Router, but it seems to work. My version consists of 7 routers but only one machine filter. Router 1 has a machine filter. It is told to insert into slot 0 all nearby Routers. I'm currently manually feeding in reduced chunks, but will automate this step later. Routers 2 through 6 have no upgrades and are merely told to insert into slots 1-5. Slot 0 of the crystalizers, the top box, is loaded with aqua regia. Router 7 is also upgradeless, and is set to extract from the bottom. It has a wooden pipe and autaric gate on it to automatically send crystals into the AE network. It is important to note that Router 7 is not adjacent to any of the other Routers. Because Router 1 has been told to only insert into nearby Routers 2-6, Router 7 on the other end of the crystalizer line will never be filled by Router 1.

 

[netmc]

Ultimately went with something similar to this. I could have sworn that a Router could not feed another Router, but it seems to work. My version consists of 7 routers but only one machine filter. Router 1 has a machine filter. It is told to insert into slot 0 all nearby Routers. I'm currently manually feeding in reduced chunks, but will automate this step later. Routers 2 through 6 have no upgrades and are merely told to insert into slots 1-5. Slot 0 of the crystalizers, the top box, is loaded with aqua regia. Router 7 is also upgradeless, and is set to extract from the bottom. It has a wooden pipe and autaric gate on it to automatically send crystals into the AE network. It is important to note that Router 7 is not adjacent to any of the other Routers. Because Router 1 has been told to only insert into nearby Routers 2-6, Router 7 on the other end of the crystalizer line will never be filled by Router 1.

That's pretty slick.

 

[KingTriaxx]

Unless something's been changed, I've always found diamond pipes to split in ratio to how the slots are filled.

 

[SmokeLuvr1971]

How's about an idea(s) to round-robin an Induction Smelter producing hardened glass [1 lead + 2 pulversized obsidian]?

I currently have some on-demand, off-site crafting using a mixture of AE/Factorization/Tesseracts/BC pipes...but I can only reliably get this to work for a single smelter [I'd like to use 3]. What's throwing everything off [as far as the above ideas go] is the uneven distribution of items in the recipe. If it were 1 lead and 1 pulverized obsidian, I could get a BC pipe solution to work [I'm not sure how reliable it would be with on-demand though]. But since the recipe requires 2 pulverized obsidian, this will not work reliably.

Actually, here's a thought I'll work on after posting. Have one router keep one side/slot of the smelter filled with pulverized obsidian. Then change the recipe for hardened glass in AE so only the lead gets exported. Through experimentation, it seems that if the router is set to input into a side of a TE machine [versus a specific slot] where the TE machine has multiple item input slots, then a single item will be placed in each TE machine [irregardless if the router has the bandwidth upgrade or not] [this is what I've been experiencing today anyway].

So this should distribute the lead amongst the 3 induction smelters I have setup. [fingers x'd]

Edit: it's not round-robin every time, but it works faster than a single machine so I'm happy enough.

FYI: while pipe plugs will visually disable a BC-pipe connection with a tesseract, they will not prevent the tesseract from placing items into the blocked pipe Haven't tested if a blocked-pipe will input into a tesseract, but I suspect it would.