problem with barrels + pipes

[flw3d]

Hi guys,

I just registered to post a problem I encountered. I tried googling it but couldnt find anything that helped me.
I just started FTB and the question may be quite hackneyed. Having now started up a quarry after many trials and tribulations, I want the items from the quarry to go into an enderchest, pump it out of another one set in my base and pipe it into barrels.
While the enderchest setup works, the sorting of the items into barrels does not. I made a very basic circuit that goes as follows:
Enderchest - Wooden Pipe to suck items out - stone pipe circuit with barrels mixed in.
I found out that barrels have to be loaded from the top and set it up accordingly.
The issue I now have is that the items only occasionally go into the specified barrel. They often just move on, being trapped in the circuit and do 2 or 3 "laps" before either finding their place in the barrel or going back into the enderchest even. I will attach a screenshot of the setup, which of course is as of yet very basic, since even the basics don't work. In the screenshot, I have replaced some cobblestone pipes with gold ones, but it hasn't made a difference.
It is probably a very simple problem with an even simpler solution, but it has driven me nuts since I don't know what I'm doing wrong. Thank you very much in advance.

I hope this is the right forum to post this question in. If not, please tell me so I can avoid it in the future.

best regards,
flow

 

[Malkara]

The simple answer is that (non-diamond) pipes don't work the way you want them too, when given a choice between 2 routes, pipes will simply randomly choose either direction.

There are a couple of solutions to your problem.
1. retaining the use of pipes, diamond pipes can be set thusly allowing you to choose in which direction items should go.
2. a much easier solution would be to drop a relay next to your enderchest and using pneumatic tubes, these will always make items go into the first available inventory, which would be the correct barrel, the downside being that you would likely need to prefill the barrels. And overflow chest (or 2, etc) is also recommended.

 

[flw3d]

Thank you for your swift reply.
I will definitely try using the relay and tubes next, but I'm still struggling to understand the issue.

I have only set up the circuit after encountering the problem. At first I simply had a pipe connecting to the barrels and a chest at the end. Items would still randomly enter the barrel or move on to go into the chest. As there was no different direction for them to move, I fail to understand what caused them not to go into the barrel. Could you help me shed some light on the issue?

edit: i made another screenshot to show what i mean.

 

[Malkara]

Alright, the answer lies in the way pipes work, pipes don't look at inventories, they look at directions.
When a pipe gets a chance to choose between direction A, or direction B, pipes see only the choice, not what lies at the end of A or B. And the way pipes are coded, they just semi-randomly (there is a relatively even distribution) go either to A or B.

Now when you have a setup like so:
[P] = pipe
[C] = chest
{B} = barrel

(excuse the editing, spacing sucks)
INPUT
[P]
[P] [P] [P] [P][P] [P][P][C]
[P] {B}{B}{B}{B}{B}
{B}

Every time an item would go into the pipe above a barrel, it doesn't really care about the barrel more than "can I go in there?".
If the answer is "Yes!" then the item will still only have a 50% chance to actually go into the barrel.
If the answer is "No!" then the item will just move along the line.

Now look at the barrel that has it's own pipe attached, items would go down 50% of the time, and either can or can't go into the barrel.
If it turns out they can not go into the barrel, they will drop out(might be wrong), because they have nowhere to go.

Why pipes work this way ? It's just how they were made to work, that is all.

 

[Peppe]

Thank you for your swift reply.
I will definitely try using the relay and tubes next, but I'm still struggling to understand the issue.

I have only set up the circuit after encountering the problem. At first I simply had a pipe connecting to the barrels and a chest at the end. Items would still randomly enter the barrel or move on to go into the chest. As there was no different direction for them to move, I fail to understand what caused them not to go into the barrel. Could you help me shed some light on the issue?

edit: i made another screenshot to show what i mean.

Red power tubes go to the first available inventory.

Build craft pipes - the ones you are using - check at each intersection where they can go and if there are multiple paths at an intersection it will take any path with equal chance.
So at your barrels an item can go down into the barrel or to the right. The pipes will check an attached inventory, so at the barrel down is only valid if the item matches what is in the barrel.
So dirt has a 50% chance to go in the barrel or go past it, while everything else at the dirt intersection will always go past. Same rule for cobble -- it will pass the dirt 100%, but have a 50% chance over its barrel.
To fix this with pipes you can use diamond pipes. Set the item type you want in the barrel to be the down path and leave everything else blank. The diamond pipe will force the matching item down the bottom path and everything else will take open paths with equal chance. Once the barrel is full the diamond pipe will stop forcing the matching item down and let it go to any open path.

 

[Moezso]

I had this same problem, I found it easier to just run redpower pneumatic tube over all the barrels(rather than diamond pipe), then into a few iron chests. Pre-load the barrels with 1 of whatever they are to hold, cobble mostly, some dirt, gravel and sand. What doesn't have a barrel to go into (everything else) will go to the chests at the end. Use a filter with a timer to tick it, filters pull whole stacks at a time, to keep up with a fast-moving quarry.

 

[b0bst3r]

You don't even need to pre-load barrels if you're using tubes, they will automatically fill the closest barrel first then work their way along the line. Only real need to pre-load barrels when using RP tubes is if you want certain items in a certain place.

 

[Moezso]

You don't even need to pre-load barrels if you're using tubes, they will automatically fill the closest barrel first then work their way along the line. Only real need to pre-load barrels when using RP tubes is if you want certain items in a certain place.

I just do it so I don't get a barrel with 2 seeds in it, or a handful of saplings, etc.

 

[flw3d]

hey guys,
thanks a lot for all your replies, i get it now. much obliged!
i'll go ahead and use pneumatic tubes definitely then, they seem to do exactly what i want.
consider the problem solved and the thread closed
best regards,
flow