Petroleum Generator (A Forestry-esque BC/IC crossover mod)

[ctate]

I'm sad about the lack of support for Forestry biofuel, mostly because Forestry's EU-generation machine, the Bio Generator, is badly broken. I commented on this briefly here: http://forum.feed-the-beast.com/thr...nerators-are-terrible.3616/page-2#post-211378 . It almost looks to me like SirSengir accidentally dropped a zero or something in the math; you get something like 15x less power when using a bio generator than you'd expect nominally from the same/similar fuel capacities in all other power regimes.

I don't suppose you'd reconsider supporting biofuel? Just put it in at 33% of the Fuel total capacity, which is what you get using it versus Fuel in a BC combustion engine....

 

[Summit]

I'm sad about the lack of support for Forestry biofuel, mostly because Forestry's EU-generation machine, the Bio Generator, is badly broken. I commented on this briefly here: http://forum.feed-the-beast.com/thr...nerators-are-terrible.3616/page-2#post-211378 . It almost looks to me like SirSengir accidentally dropped a zero or something in the math; you get something like 15x less power when using a bio generator than you'd expect nominally from the same/similar fuel capacities in all other power regimes.

I don't suppose you'd reconsider supporting biofuel? Just put it in at 33% of the Fuel total capacity, which is what you get using it versus Fuel in a BC combustion engine....

Both DrCeph and SirSengir did what they did on purpose because the limitless free energy you can get from biofuel is seriously OP. Even as it is currently in RailCraft it could use a Nerf.

 

[ctate]

Both DrCeph and SirSengir did what they did on purpose because the limitless free energy you can get from biofuel is seriously OP. Even as it is currently in RailCraft it could use a Nerf.

I'd hardly call it "free" -- the infrastructure to produce it consistently is fairly elaborate, and IMO an automated biofuel plant is a respectable achievement of Minecraft engineering. Crop sources, catalyst sources, overflow handling, several machines just to process the ingredients without even considering multifarms, etc... it adds up and it all needs power. Remember that biofuel is essentially a solar power battery, both in the real world and in Minecraft. Forestry's biofuel generation chain isn't nearly as expensive as, say, GregTech solar power... but it's more expensive than IC2 basic solar. IMO it's pretty well balanced.

... except for the Bio Generator, which I still say is just a mistake; and worse, since it was used as the benchmark for the Petroleum Generator, that machine is broken as well. A bucket of Fuel produces 600k MJ in a combustion engine. A bucket of biofuel produces 200k MJ in that same engine; 33% of the energy capacity of Fuel. So far, so good, except that the Bio Generator then breaks the nominal 2.5:1 EU:MJ conversion ratio by having that bucket of biofuel produce not the 500k EU that the ratio suggests, but a paltry 32k EU, only about 1/15 what it should be.

The Petroleum Generator was nominally designed around the Bio Generator's tradeoffs, but it looks like it avoided this problem. The PetroGen gives you 300k EU from a bucket of Fuel -- that's a 3:1 conversion from the 600k MJ that it produces in Buildcraft power, which is at least in the ballpark. If they'd actually used the Bio Generator as the benchmark, that bucket of Fuel in the PetroGen would produce less than 40k EU.

The Bio Generator is so inefficient that it's literally useless.

 

[Summit]

It seems to be keeping my MFSU full easily enough.

 

[Dravarden]

I'd hardly call it "free" -- the infrastructure to produce it consistently is fairly elaborate, and IMO an automated biofuel plant is a respectable achievement of Minecraft engineering. Crop sources, catalyst sources, overflow handling, several machines just to process the ingredients without even considering multifarms, etc... it adds up and it all needs power. Remember that biofuel is essentially a solar power battery, both in the real world and in Minecraft. Forestry's biofuel generation chain isn't nearly as expensive as, say, GregTech solar power... but it's more expensive than IC2 basic solar. IMO it's pretty well balanced.

... except for the Bio Generator, which I still say is just a mistake; and worse, since it was used as the benchmark for the Petroleum Generator, that machine is broken as well. A bucket of Fuel produces 600k MJ in a combustion engine. A bucket of biofuel produces 200k MJ in that same engine; 33% of the energy capacity of Fuel. So far, so good, except that the Bio Generator then breaks the nominal 2.5:1 EU:MJ conversion ratio by having that bucket of biofuel produce not the 500k EU that the ratio suggests, but a paltry 32k EU, only about 1/15 what it should be.

The Petroleum Generator was nominally designed around the Bio Generator's tradeoffs, but it looks like it avoided this problem. The PetroGen gives you 300k EU from a bucket of Fuel -- that's a 3:1 conversion from the 600k MJ that it produces in Buildcraft power, which is at least in the ballpark. If they'd actually used the Bio Generator as the benchmark, that bucket of Fuel in the PetroGen would produce less than 40k EU.

The Bio Generator is so inefficient that it's literally useless.

Set up a steve carts birch tree farm, a golem powered wheat farm for mulch = infinite biomass + bonus infinite charcoal if you power powered furnaces with the biomass.

 

[ctate]

It seems to be keeping my MFSU full easily enough.

Of course it produces some power. The problem is that it produces an order of magnitude less power (and worse) than any other power-generation application of the same raw ingredients. There's literally no reason to use it because it's so vastly inferior to every other EU-generation approach.

 

[Summit]

But, but, it's what I have...

 

[ctate]

But, but, it's what I have...

See, I definitely feel your pain. I was really hoping that biofuel would be my midgame power source on the EU side as well as the MJ side! I'm playing modpacks where GregTech makes solar and the more advanced power sources hellaciously expensive. Alas, the math just doesn't work out -- you can't even run an arboretum and its biofuel plant on the output of the Bio Generator from the biofuel produced by the arboretum! In fact, in my experience you can't even manage to run the biofuel plant even if the arboretum itself is powered separately. If you run it the whole shebang on combustion engines, though, you'll get plenty of spare fuel produced by the plant.

(While I'm wishing out loud, what I'd like to see is not just having the Bio Generator's output brought into line with the rest of the Forestry mod's energy production efficiencies (by e.g. kicking up the resultant EU per bucket of biofuel by 12x or so), but then also having GregTech make the manufacture of the Bio Generator considerably more expensive by way of balancing it against the GregTech energy production scale.)

 

[Summit]

I've actually got most of my GT machines running off of creosote (had to do something with it) and lava. I just have one MFSU that is being filled by the biogenerator, it runs the cheap machines, macerator, compressor, and extractor. As such, the draw on it is quite limited. Most of the biofuel is being used in a liquid boiler which produces MJ to make more biofuel and to run my quarry mining machine. I've just expanded my mining machine and now I need to increase my energy output. I'm on the MindCrack 8.2 so I have GT and solars are totally out of the question. I'm on the hunt for some oil to refine. Also considering breeding up some oil bees, ick.

 

[ctate]

Oh yeah, I also ran some numbers on the IC2 biofuel setup directly, and it's even more dire. It takes more power to make a Bio Fuel Can than you get out of it in the end. It's hilariously bad.

Put it this way: with Forestry biofuel and the Bio Generator, you (currently) get 7680 EU out of each sapling you turn into biofuel, not counting processing cost. With IC2 biofuel cans, you wind up getting only 1083 EU out of each sapling (or, if you're using wheat/cane for your bio source, 541 EU per cane or wheat).

 

[ILoveGregTech]

I believe spoilers in the OP would be nice

 

[felinoel]

Just a quick note to say that Petrogen will be updated to 1.5 in the near future. Watch this space.

Too bad "near" is a relative statement...

 

[xaniox]

I updated this mod to Minecraft 1.7.10.

Even though IC2 Exp now has a semifluid generator the petroleum generator still generates 300k EU for one bucket of fuel. This is due to the fact that one bucket of fuel can theoratically generate 800k EU by using a Combustion Engine and the PowerConverters mod.

Also I added creosote oil from Railcraft as a fuel (1 bucket = 5000 EU at 5 EU/t).
I changed the GUI a bit so the generator has an input and an output slot (similar to those found in IC2 machines).

Screenshot:

The petroleum generator can now also be automated via BuildCraft pipes or hoppers. Fuel buckets or cells can be piped in from the top or bottom and the empty containers can be extracted from the side.
If anyone here thinks that the energy producing values should be changed, please leave a response (they are configurable though!)

Please note that bituminous sludge is not available in this version since TrainCraft hasn't been updated to 1.7.10 yet.

Source is available here: https://github.com/xaniox/petroleumgenerator

You may download this mod here (IC2 Experimental 822, MC 1.7.10, Direct Link)