QuickTip: Automating your Bio Reactor efficiently

[ShneekeyTheLost]

We're talking about the MFR BioReactor which can produce Biofuel when given various plant materials. It gets more efficient as you get more different types of biofuel-compatible items. However, it can get difficult to automate having precisely x amount of nine different types of items in its inventory.

Enter Chickenbones' new Translocaters! Slap one of these babies on your BioReactor, set to receive, then hit the center with a diamond nugget. Oh, don't give me that look, it'll be worth it. Now tell it to keep a half a stack of nine different biofuel ingredients that you are already producing in your MFR Farms via Harvesters, Planters, and Fertilizers (and your leather factory producing the material which you make the fertilizer with at no additional charge!).

Now, it needs something... else. There's a couple of ways to do this. If you are using an ME Network, then you slap down an ME Interface, and tell it to keep one of each of those ingredients in its inventory. Once you hit the half stack limit, it will refuse any further, and it will buffer 1 in it's inventory. Ta da.

If it is at a remote location, then do that thing with your ME Interface, set up another identical setup with an EnderChest. Since you've got 9 diamond nuggets out of a diamond, you can afford a second nugget to likewise throttle input into the EnderChest. Unfortunately, Item Tesseracts just won't do because they don't have an inventory that the Translocaters will recognize.

Badda bing, badda boom! Now it will automatically keep a half stack of nine different items in your Bio Reactor all automatic-like.

 

[Loufmier]

why need to keep less than 64 items in reactor? is half of stack of potatoes a big loss when you produce more than reactor uses?

 

[ShneekeyTheLost]

why need to keep less than 64 items in reactor? is half of stack of potatoes a big loss when you produce more than reactor uses?

The problem arises when you end up accidentally running out of one item, and another item ninjas its place. So then you've got two stacks of one item, and zero stacks of another... reducing overall efficiency. If you just tell all of the items to jam themselves into the bio-reactor, you risk one or another item flooding the bio-reactor and blocking the others, reducing overall efficiency.

 

[Exe19]

Can I use RP2 Managers instead?

 

[DZCreeper]

Can I use RP2 Managers instead?

That should work quite well, but I think the solution above works with 1.5.2.

 

[Ako_the_Builder]

The problem arises when you end up accidentally running out of one item, and another item ninjas its place. So then you've got two stacks of one item, and zero stacks of another... reducing overall efficiency. If you just tell all of the items to jam themselves into the bio-reactor, you risk one or another item flooding the bio-reactor and blocking the others, reducing overall efficiency.

Doesn't work that way now (I'm think you are also talking about 1.5.2 as I think CB's translocators are only for that?). In 1.5.2 if you have an item in the bottom "work" area of the bioreactor it will only accept a max of 1 stack in the hopper area. If item 9 runs out then slot 9 of the hopper section will stay empty (mine is fed by 2 AE precision export buses but am pretty sure whatever is feeding is fine as long as it can deal with the various items).

 

[Saice]

I only toyed with them in creative.

But it seems if you use the MFR item collector and a belt on top of them. They will only take one full stack of each item that passes over them. Making the sorting of different items easy as pie.

Give me a few and I'll test it a bit more and post something for you. Or say Im totally wrong and delete this post, burn down my house, and kill off everyone that knows it existed.

 

[Saice]

Yeah you can do is really easy with just MFR stuff.

10 different items being flooded in as fast as the clock can pump them out.


BIO EASY by Saice, on Flickr

And if you check the reactors they all just get a selection of 9 items and only a stack of each never doubling up on there own.


BIO EASY by Saice, on Flickr


BIO EASY by Saice, on Flickr


BIO EASY by Saice, on Flickr

 

[Jerx99]

Since this is the thread I end up in when googling this question, I figure I'll revive it with some new (?) information.

Regular buildcraft transport pipes will NOT fill more than one "hopper" slot with a single item type (if forced to pump in, it'll just overflow). So the (in my opinion) easiest way to automate this is to stick an insertion pipe (they're in Unleashed now) on the bioreactor with a gate set to 'Space in inventory -> Redstone signal'.

Boom. Done.