Ore processing

[BlinkY87]

I should imagine this has been answered many times, a search resulted in no posts regarding this question.

Which is your preferred way of processing ores? These include all of the usual ones - iron, tin and gold etc.
At the moment I have saved as many ores as I can, putting them in the iron furnace as needed. Now I have an auto-macerater and auto electric furnace and can achieve a good amount. Now, before I use this as my main method, I'd like to know which machine would yield other items. I know some machines do but what to aim for?

Thanks

 

[NTaylor]

In terms of actual flat out yield as far as I know factorization offers the best, you can get up to 5 ingots out of one ore with it but it is a bit of a pain to set up.

Personally I normally use a pulverizer next to electric furnace for early game then switch up to a macerator and electric furnace that are over-clocked later on this gives fairly quick production.
The only one that springs to mind that yields other items is the pulverizer as sometimes when you pulverize the ores you get an extra dust of another type of metal.

Recently however I have quite taken to using a tinkers construct smeltery for large scale ore processing. Get a fairly tall smeltery and hook up like 4 drains draining into casting basins and set up some kind of redstone timer to pulse them (personally im suing a computer with a basic redstone program). This doubles your ores and works fairly quickly for processing them if your smeltery is big enough.

 

[Runo]

The pulverizer yields some bonus dust on a low percent chance, so is better than the macerator for ore processing . This is a low to mid-game item and is contingent on your ability to produce MJ or a bridge.

The one you should aim for is the industrial grinder. It has the highest yield for almost all ores but requires a power system, water, steel, diamond or tungston, and somewhat of an automation system to prevent insanity.

 

[Bickers]

depends on pack used if you have access to AE its worth useing that as its the easiest way to do it

 

[BlinkY87]

Thank you, guys.
I also add that I'm consuming EU, currently (pun), so the pulverizer is somewhat out of the question. (Is there a EU to MJ conversion?)
The factorization method looks good.

depends on pack used if you have access to AE its worth useing that as its the easiest way to do it

Dammit, I was supposed to add that I am playing the 1.5.2wgt (0.8)

 

[NTaylor]

AE only adds one way of processing ores and that is the grindstone but that is completely manual so I dont know how that is the easiest way to do it, however AE will let you automate it decently.
As for EU to MJ there is the electrical engine from forestry.

 

[GPuzzle]

Thank you, guys.
I also add that I'm consuming EU, currently (pun), so the pulverizer is somewhat out of the question. (Is there a EU to MJ conversion?)
The factorization method looks good.

Dammit, I was supposed to add that I am playing the 1.5.2wgt (0.8)

Forestry adds the Electrical Engine. It makes 2 MJ at the cost of 6 EU per tick.
BUT!
You can use circuit boards to make it go at 6 MJ at the cost of 4 EU per tick!
Preety impressive, huh?
Also, AE isn't really cool...

 

[Runo]

Seeing as you're using 152wgt, I'd definitely aim for the industrial grinder. Factorization, while yields are nice, is limited in the ore types it can handle. The industrial grinder can take everything but cinnabar. Note that you should save the ferrous ore for later as you will need it to be processed specially.

 

[Bigglesworth]

Best method.

 

[BlinkY87]

Seeing as you're using 152wgt, I'd definitely aim for the industrial grinder. Factorization, while yields are nice, is limited in the ore types it can handle. The industrial grinder can take everything but cinnabar. Note that you should save the ferrous ore for later as you will need it to be processed specially.

This does look like my eventual destination! Though considerably expensive.

I have chosen my route guys so no need to reply to this thread any longer, though feel free to throw in suggestions.

 

[Chocorate]

I use Factorization, every time after smelting the lead and silver with Mortars.

Factorization kind of sucks but I like it. Looks cool.

 

[Enigmius1]

Thank you, guys.
I also add that I'm consuming EU, currently (pun), so the pulverizer is somewhat out of the question. (Is there a EU to MJ conversion?)
The factorization method looks good.

The factorization method looked good in theory when it first came out but turned out to be poorly implemented. It's hard to quantify where the line exists between "incentive to use this system" and "nothing is worth this amount of garbage" but my personal opinion is that Factorization is too far on the garbage side of that line in terms of power generation and system setup, speed, and limitations vs yield. There are just too many things about Factorization that require babysitting for me to be interested in using it as an alternative to other methods. I don't need so many ingots so badly that the hassle is worth the reward.

 

[Marshbaboon]

Thermal expansion was my favourite for a while after being a long time IC2 user, lottery mechanics are fun!

Now it's tinkers construct. The smelteries are just brilliant.

 

[rymmie1981]

Smeltery by a long shot. You can build one before smelting a single piece of ore. To get one started, you only need 3 iron for your lava bucket. Every single other way requires dozens of smelted ores and some form of power generation before you start doubling. After you get going for a bit, you can start getting into the bonus dusts from TE and other mods.

 

[WaterTipper]

For most ores, I industrially grind it and then smelt the dust in an electric furnace.
For iron, I smelt it in an Industrial Blast Furnace with CaCO3 cells for Refined Iron. If I need regular iron, then I can always macerate it into dust and smelt it.

 

[Ryiah]

Every single other way requires dozens of smelted ores and some form of power generation before you start doubling.

AE's quartz grind stone is even easier to build.

http://ae-mod.info/Quartz-Grind-Stone/

 

[rymmie1981]

AE's quartz grind stone is even easier to build.

http://ae-mod.info/Quartz-Grind-Stone/

True, but there's no way to automate it, and any way people figure out gets patched out as quickly as possible.

The smeltery is specifically designed to be automated with redstone, which you can do within an hour of producing your first iron.

 

[BlinkY87]

Just a quick question, I read on one of the compressor wikis that a pump over water and placed next to a compressor creates snowballs. I have tried this but it doesn't work. (I want ice, by the way)

 

[goreae]

I like using turtles to transfer ores from macerators and furnaces, just because of how cool it is to watch the turtles zooming around, processing my metals. It may be slow and inefficient, but is is way too cool.

 

[Runo]

Just a quick question, I read on one of the compressor wikis that a pump over water and placed next to a compressor creates snowballs. I have tried this but it doesn't work. (I want ice, by the way)

From what I see on the wiki, you need to pipe it into the top of the compressor, can't be on the side as the compressor only takes input from the top. I didn't even know you could do this, nice.

EDIT: no bueno, it doesn't seem to work with any compressor type, at least in 1.47. You'd need to send the cells to a tank, extract the cells, then import them into the top slot of a compressor.