Redstone Energy Conduits

[MilConDoin]

Redstone Energy Conduits aren't better than BuildCraft Pipes in every regard, at least in the current MindCrack incarnation (BC 3.3.0 and TE 2.1.6).
From the TE Wiki: "There is energy loss, it is not distance based; suffice it to say that these are indeed an improvement over conductive pipes." <-- This is not always correct.
Test case:
1 Combustion Engine with 1 Bucket of Biofuel (and sufficient water to cool it) feeding into:
a) Redstone Energy Cell (short: REC) directly
b) Wooden Conductive Pipe -> Golden Conductive Pipe -> REC
c) Redstone Energy Conduit -> Redstone Energy Conduit ->REC

The REC has in the end the following contents:
a) 204800 MJ
b) 200882 MJ
c) 194558 MJ

The two conduits don't buffer 6k MJ, so they have the biggest loss of all the solutions.

Just as a heads up, that it isn't necessary to trash all your conductive pipes once you got to the conduit-stage.

 

[heavy1metal]

Keep in mind the conduit pipes themselves require a charge and will take a piece of the pie until they're fully charged. The longer the pipe, the worse the start-up cost.

 

[Bahnmor]

That would suggest then that it would be better to try and test it over 2 buckets, I might try with 5 once I get a biofuel setup ready. I'd need to fairly route it to two or three REC though. Those hold 500000 each, right?
I tend to use the conduits anyway as I think they look so much better. I'm not particularly concerned with a little efficiency loss at setup.

 

[nevakanezah]

As i understand it: the conduits, like most of the best-balanced tech mods, follow a logarithmic curve of efficiency. The high startup cost of buffering all the pipes is best suited to systems that you intend to keep running for a long time, and (to a certain degree) are spread out. That way you pay the upfront cost, and over enough time, the linear loss that regular conductives have will surpass your loss rate.

If im not mistaken, BC's conductive pipes measure energy loss in a "1MJ per X pipes" system, rather than "0.X per pipe", which means that for systems below pipe length X, there is 0 energy loss, and a pipe would be superior to a conduit.

 

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Yea, try setting up a situation in which the conduits are already buffered and see how efficient it is. Also try longer distances.

 

[Zelfana]

As I understood it from reading other people's tests and checking the config file conduits lose 1MJ every 5 seconds. Conductive pipes always lose a percentage of the power. What this means is that conduits are better for large amounts of power and certainly not a single combustion engine that can take a lot of time to dish out the power in which case the conduits will dissipate more than pipes that do not care about the amount or speed.

But still, it's 1MJ every 5 seconds which should be very small loss. I don't know if something changed but transporting power over conduits has been almost perfectly lossless before.

 

[nevakanezah]

TL;DR: Kind of a wash. Conduits > pipes for large systems, pipes > conduits for small ones. Large up-front cost of conduits balanced by low, flat loss rate vs pipes' percentile.

 

[Zjarek_S]

Conduits lose 5 % of energy (can be changed in config). Distance doesn't matter, amount of energy transferred doesn't matter.

Edit: They behaved differently in the past, but now the rate is flat.

 

[Zelfana]

Conduits lose 5 % of energy (can be changed in config). Distance doesn't matter, amount of energy transferred doesn't matter.

Edit: They behaved differently in the past, but now the rate is flat.

Doesn't that mean that the distance must be 500 blocks for them to be better than golden pipes? Which is pretty darn long. Then again stone conductive pipes lose 1% per block travelled so there conduits are better but who uses conductive stone pipes anyway and you'd be using golden pipes if you wanted efficiency.

The previous way made conduits not lose any energy pretty much but if it's 5% of the power it's too much imo. You can't use gates or pipe wire on them either so that's one drawback enough.

 

[Bevo]

If you are using TE stuff then I think conduits are much better. Like for the engines especially, if you put the engines on wooden pipes they will just keep going at full speed forever I think. (please correct me if wrong)

Using any smart machines on the BC stuff doesn't work. To use the smart machines and engines you need the conduits and those machines and engines will throttle themselves to conserve fuel and energy when either there is not much need for it or if the fuel or energy buffer drops. As a way to keep the machines going until the rest of the system catches back up.

 

[Antivyris]

I believe conduits lose 5% of stored energy per second. The maximum stored energy is X * 1000, where X is the number of 'nodes', nodes being any conduit attached to a machine. So, if you have 100 conduit going to 4 machines, the total internal energy is 4000, losing 5% of that per second coming to 200 a second. Average of 20 ticks per second standard, you are looking at loosing, however, from what I've observed and I believe research of other players (link at end), the loss only occurs when not in use. So, while no energy is entering the system, they lose 5% per second, but still output what is in.

Link: Redstone Conduit math, few posts down (FTB Forum post)

 

[Zjarek_S]

BC energy pipes are not obvious, results of my tests (BC 3.3.0, TE 2.1.6):
Stirling engine, one coal (3200 MJ), output to energy cell with 100 MJ/t input. All engines connected to wooden conductive pipe and then golden conductive pipes (GCP).

N_GCP - E_ received /MJ
3 - 2953
6 - 2300
9 - 2003
11 - 1805
REC - 3037

Two coal, the same setup as before (new empty energy cells)

3 - 5891
6 - 4585
9 - 4039
11 - 3649
REC - 6079

Energy cell connected to other energy cell with 100 MJ/t output, full discharge (600000 MJ):

3 - 590790
6 - 582069
9 - 573335
REC - 569998

@Antivyris this is not correct since TE 2.1.4.

 

[Antivyris]

I'll have to throw that up in creative then, I think it would be good to get some exacts on the info.

Curious though, is there a difference on BC pipes and conduit when comparing TE's engines. I know That a TE conduit system has intelligence built in, and only pulls what it requires and engines are supposed to react the same, but I'm also wondering if the output is different as well. I know BC engines send basically packets when it's cycle is complete, wonder how the TE engines send energy.

 

[Malkuth]

The problem with Buildcraft pipes is the amount of energy you lose over time.. IE Wooden pipes always draw energy and waste fuel. At least with TE Pipes you can store the energy in Energy Cubes and not waste as much.

For instance you run off to go build something for a few hours.. Leavinig your engines on to Run By themselves.. Buildcraft you wooden pipes are always sucking the engines dry.. And any energy you don't use gets lost.

With the TE system.. This same system you can control how much energy is going out... And store the extra energy that is not being used in the TE Cells. TE pretty much makes IC2 Type storage possible for Buildcraft.. And gets rid of that nasty Wooden Pipe.

 

[Bevo]

The problem with Buildcraft pipes is the amount of energy you lose over time.. IE Wooden pipes always draw energy and waste fuel. At least with TE Pipes you can store the energy in Energy Cubes and not waste as much.

For instance you run off to go build something for a few hours.. Leaving your engines on to Run By themselves.. Buildcraft your wooden pipes are always sucking the engines dry.. And any energy you don't use gets lost.

With the TE system.. This same system you can control how much energy is going out... And store the extra energy that is not being used in the TE Cells. TE pretty much makes IC2 Type storage possible for Buildcraft.. And gets rid of that nasty Wooden Pipe.

Also with the conduits the TE engines will slow them down to where they are only putting out like 0.2 mjs and using almost no fuel if the conduit they are connected to is full. Wooden pipes will keep those engines running full speed no matter what using the max fuel the engine can burn.

Like not only can you store the extra energy in the cells, but once the conduits are all full they tell the engine 'hay we are all good, thanks for the hard work. Now take a breather until you are needed again.'

 

[MagusUnion]

Also with the conduits the TE engines will slow them down to where they are only putting out like 0.2 mjs and using almost no fuel if the conduit they are connected to is full. Wooden pipes will keep those engines running full speed no matter what using the max fuel the engine can burn.

Like not only can you store the extra energy in the cells, but once the conduits are all full they tell the engine 'hay we are all good, thanks for the hard work. Now take a breather until you are needed again.'

Precisely, The Conduit system is more intuitive that using a straight BC pipe system for this nature. Yes, there are costs to start up the system each and every time when you ramp up energy from the engines, but if you have access to a renewable means of power, you can tie that energy into a Forestry engine to keep feeding MJ into said conduit as to lower the cost of turning your fuel based power on/off...