Rolling Machine uses power when not in use
- Thread starter Recon
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Yep, always worked this way, and now all manner of other BC machines are in on the act too.
hmm odd. so its intentional. I thought maybe a bug. Seems like a pointless game mechanic - like the whole "IC2 machines might get destroyed if you remove them" thing.
Yeah, it's intentional. The big names behind Buildcraft are pushing for MJ to be something that is constantly drained and produced instead of saved and used when needed in order to set it apart from IndustrialCraft EUs. Expect most things from Buildcraft, Railcraft, and Forestry to drain MJs even when not in use.
irritating. Especially when playing on servers which are always running. It means you NEED renewable energy, which is the big challenge with steam boilers. Even an efficient oil/fuel steam boiler will burn TONS of fuel overnight when you aren't playing. Burns through oil wells in no time. Seems bees are in order to save the day. Its one of the mechanics I didn't like about the "Advanced IC2 Machines" which draw EU when not in use, to stay at operational readiness. Even a nuke will deplete its uranium cells in no time just from a small 24/7 power draw without automatically renewable energy.
In the case of machines like the Induction Furnace, the constant EU draw is low enough that you can have a few Solar Panels to cover the constant draw and then use non-renewable "burst" energy like coal in the generator to cover situational draw like when you're actually using the machine.
Fortunately, MFR and Thermal Expansion machines don't have idle draw, so it's still safe to keep them connected to your Redstone Energy Cell. For everything else, you'll either have to come up with a self-renewing system for producing MJs or have a battery of engines constantly turned on and off whenever you need to use a machine.
Or if you have Additional Buildcraft Objects, just put a power switch pipe before the constant draw machines to cut them off. Ideally with a Gate on the machines set to "Has Work -> Redstone Signal" to turn on power as needed
What would be great is if redstone energy conduits could be shut off with a switch. 
I have a redstone energy cell sitting next to my ME Controller with a lever on it JUST to turn my ME network off when I'm not online.
I have a redstone energy cell sitting next to my ME Controller with a lever on it JUST to turn my ME network off when I'm not online.You could just hit the end of the conduit with a wrench. Switching from output to input turns it off as well as a lever couldWhat would be great is if redstone energy conduits could be shut off with a switch.
or have your constant draw machine linked to an energy cell set to redstone level high, and have the lever turn that on/off
or you can place a energy cell right against the machine, max both out/in, use a red pipe wire to set up a gate pair as follows
@ storage cell: can store energy->red pipe signal
@engine: red pipe signal->redstone pulse.
you can connect several storage cells to a single engine group this way.
theres a few hundred MJ gap between the full cell and the can store signal coming on.
you will see the engines come online occasionally as a cell hits this limit, some of the other cells should fill from this w/o triggering thier gate. IE one thats at 599900 should pick up its 100MJ as another cell at 350000MJ fills.
force engines or electrical engines are good for this.
force engines have NO warmup/cooldown period.
electrical engines has a warmup period, but the output from a few of these strokes can take care of a maintinance fillup. they also dont need fuel.
it can warm up all the way when a machine depletes the buffer.
i know the force, and i think both of the engines, will output thier internal buffer when not being used, so this also helps keep the cells filled w/o using up fuel.
I've used a similar setup before and it worked fine. But given the choice, I'd rather have it set up to cut the constant draw machines from power completely, at least early on (pre-boilers). Especially since the constant draw machines I have I don't really use that often, so it feels like a lot of waste. I always set up some kind of power cutoff, how I do it depends on the rest of my setup
Wouldn't that mainly force people to resort to boilers as an always on power gen?
use the factorization solar boiler and mirrors as a keep the machines topped off source of energy. (it only takes 8 mirrors to get to 1Mj/t territory with a hobbyist steam engine)
The draw from the machines is really small, so no need for a big setup either. yes it does cost silver, but who cares. there aren't that many other uses for the stuff anyhow.
The draw from the machines is really small, so no need for a big setup either. yes it does cost silver, but who cares. there aren't that many other uses for the stuff anyhow.
I never liked the factorization solar units because of the bizarre silver requirement. So the mod chose to spam huge amounts of silver into the worldgen, throwing the silver balance for all the other mods way off. Would have been much better to throw a single silver ingot into a rolling machine or something, to make a bunch of silver foil for mirrors.
I like silver. They give me 3 ingots when I process them with liquid Force in the Carpenter.
Best advice is look at the energy options in your mod pack, look for those that are passive generation, and build just enough of them (along with conversion systems) to counter the constant draw of the machines. So even if you hate solars, you are not relying on them for your main power production. Plus it gives you something else to build. The universal electricity Solars and Windmills are very useful (although not in the FTB packs).
It does indeed feels like a promotional act for boilers, as if they weren't heavily used already. Up to now I've always kept my rolling machine in a chest next to a power output and only placed it there when needed. I'll probably handle all other machines that use the new lossy system the same until lategame when I probably won't mind spamming gates on every machine to cut the power when they don't have anything to do.