Question about MineFactory Reloaded

[Tyken132]

I recently gotten into this mod as it offers some interesting features. However I seem to be having a slight problem and i'm not sure whats up.

All of my machines have what they need to work, plenty of items, maxed power, yet they love to sit and idle for long periods of time. Any idea whats up?

A bit of additional information:
I am using it to make an automated tree farm. I have 1 harvester with a void pipe for sludge. Attached to a tesseract.
I have a planter under the middle of the farm, filled with sapplings, I have a fertilizer filled with fertilizer. All 3 machines are getting plenty of power, all have a quartz upgrade so they can fit an 11x11 plot of dirt for my farm.

 

[Maul_Junior]

MFR Machines have a timer where they can't do anything. This is a blue bar on the far right IIRC. Next time it's idle, check and see if that bar is decreasing.

 

[343N]

Update to mfr 2.3 (latest 1.4.7) and the machines idle period is decreased significantly. Farms are a lot faster too.

 

[Tyken132]

i know the idle bar waits but it simply stays filled, goes down, fills back up and repeats. may just be a visual glitch, maybe? because it seems to drop way faster than the idle timer suggests. Also running on ultimate 1.0.2 if that helps/matters.

 

[343N]

depends
for farms, it scans the first block for harvesting/planting/fertilizing. (if you're using upgrades it'll scan the bigger range) then goes idle (idle takes longer if no action is done e.g no plant harvested/planted etc.) and then scans the next block and does the same thing. So if you have a huge farm (with emerald upgrades) it's gonna take a bit for those blocks with actual things in em to get scanned

 

[Tyken132]

Ah, that makes sense then. Thanks.

 

[MilConDoin]

I recently gotten into this mod as it offers some interesting features. However I seem to be having a slight problem and i'm not sure whats up.

All of my machines have what they need to work, plenty of items, maxed power, yet they love to sit and idle for long periods of time. Any idea whats up?

A bit of additional information:
I am using it to make an automated tree farm. I have 1 harvester with a void pipe for sludge. Attached to a tesseract.
I have a planter under the middle of the farm, filled with sapplings, I have a fertilizer filled with fertilizer. All 3 machines are getting plenty of power, all have a quartz upgrade so they can fit an 11x11 plot of dirt for my farm.

A quartz upgrade will be enough for a 19x19 field. The numbers of the upgrade are added to the radius, not to the diameter, so a quartz upgrade (+8) will have a diameter of 8+3+8 = 19. Since you have a range of 19x19 (361 blocks), but your farm only uses 11x11 (121 blocks), two thirds of the time nothing happens.

 

[power crystals]

Yeah. The idle countdown is basically how the machines go "ok nothing to do, no point in wasting CPU checking again". Pre-2.3 the harvester checked all 9 tiles at once with a somewhat long delay; in 2.3 it checks one at a time with a brief delay between them. All the machines have a much shorter (if any) idle period if they actually succeed in doing whatever it is they're doing, which you probably noticed if you saw a post-2.3 harvester eat a tree.
If you apply redstone power to a mchine, that also locks the idle bar at 100%.

 

[gullgum]

Yeah. The idle countdown is basically how the machines go "ok nothing to do, no point in wasting CPU checking again". Pre-2.3 the harvester checked all 9 tiles at once with a somewhat long delay; in 2.3 it checks one at a time with a brief delay between them. All the machines have a much shorter (if any) idle period if they actually succeed in doing whatever it is they're doing, which you probably noticed if you saw a post-2.3 harvester eat a tree.
If you apply redstone power to a mchine, that also locks the idle bar at 100%.

im using Mekanism power, does this affect the idle bar?

 

[jordsta95]

im using Mekanism power, does this affect the idle bar?

Mekanism, if you tell it to in the configs, will output RF, which MFR accepts.
If your idle bar is still at 100% when using Mekanism, the machine is either getting a redstone signal, or (depending on the machine) it can't carry on operations because it is backed up (e.g. harvesters still has items in it, ranchers full of milk, etc.)

 

[KingTriaxx]

If you have trees that are grown but not harvested, chances are something's stuck in it. If the trees are not growing, chances are the fertilizer is looking for saplings, or other bonemealable objects, and not finding them, then going back to idle. Try swapping to a silver upgrade. Or use the Precision Sledgehammer to check the area they're looking at.

 

[gullgum]

Mekanism, if you tell it to in the configs, will output RF, which MFR accepts.
If your idle bar is still at 100% when using Mekanism, the machine is either getting a redstone signal, or (depending on the machine) it can't carry on operations because it is backed up (e.g. harvesters still has items in it, ranchers full of milk, etc.)

i switched to an Extra Utilities power, but its still not working, i think it might be because im using Mekanism Universal Cables.

 

[KingTriaxx]

That shouldn't be an issue. Make sure you've accounted for all possible drops from the trees you're using. Universal Cable is exactly that, Universal and will suck power from anything, and dump it into anything. Right click the Harvester, and check the red bar. It should be full.

Things to check:
Has the Planter planted the trees?
Is this underground?
If underground, did you remember to light the place up enough for the trees to grow?
If underground, is the room big enough to let the trees grow?
If aboveground, take some bonemeal and grow one of the trees and see if the harvester detects it.

What modpack are you running?

 

[Zelfana]

If there aren't any trees grown for a short while the Harvester will go through its idle loop. It can take a while after a tree has grown for it to get cut down if the area is fairly large because the Harvester has to check the whole area after that idle loop to see if there is anything to harvest. If you're using a Fertilizer I'd say just 3x3, max 5x5 is totally enough. There will be enough trees to cut if the Fertilizer is full of power and fertilizer. Also, as long as nothing has changed and I would be totally wrong you have to put the Fertilizer under the center dirt block of your farm area.

 

[Type1Ninja]

Also, as long as nothing has changed and I would be totally wrong you have to put the Fertilizer under the center dirt block of your farm area.

Do you mean the planter...? I think the fertilizer goes on the side like the harvester.

 

[Zelfana]

Do you mean the planter...? I think the fertilizer goes on the side like the harvester.

I don't remember, haven't those in a while. It's kind of confusing that you have to put one of them under the ground.

 

[Baron_Falcon]

I don't remember, haven't those in a while. It's kind of confusing that you have to put one of them under the ground.

That is the planter. In center of farm one block down with a bucket of water over it.

 

[gullgum]

That shouldn't be an issue. Make sure you've accounted for all possible drops from the trees you're using. Universal Cable is exactly that, Universal and will suck power from anything, and dump it into anything. Right click the Harvester, and check the red bar. It should be full.

Things to check:
Has the Planter planted the trees?
Is this underground?
If underground, did you remember to light the place up enough for the trees to grow?
If underground, is the room big enough to let the trees grow?
If aboveground, take some bonemeal and grow one of the trees and see if the harvester detects it.

What modpack are you running?

Im not using trees, im using magical crops. I've watched a series of the mod pack I'm using and their farm works fine and they are using the same power as me, just different cables

 

[gullgum]

Im not using trees, im using magical crops. I've watched a series of the mod pack I'm using and their farm works fine and they are using the same power as me, just different cables

Actually, I think I see the problem, my item ducts don't seem to be sucking the items out because when I break the harvester I get items. I will try to fix it. But thx for the help guys

 

[Baron_Falcon]

Actually, I think I see the problem, my item ducts don't seem to be sucking the items out because when I break the harvester I get items. I will try to fix it. But thx for the help guys

If you are using TE ducts, I have experienced that before with TE item ducts and MFR tree farms. For some reason the TE ducts did not play well and would glitch out for no reason. At one point the duct went invisible and could not be broken. I had to r and r the entire run to fix it. I haven't tried it with the new TE ducts in Infinity but they did get squirrely when I first ran them off a quarry output to sort in to barrels. Once I broke and replaced they settled down. Ender IO conduits have performed flawlessly with MFR and are much superior to anything else.

However I had the same problem with TE ducts and Steves carts farm and barrels. Im starting to think TE ducts don't like trees.