So, I was looking around the internet for a tutorial on how to automate your extractor. I could only find designs that required either manual input or some kind of redstone circuitry to toggle a CVT unit. However, it would be part of my sorting system, so I needed it to be 100% automated. I also preferred to not bother with any redstone. I went to my testworld and toyed around for a bit until I came up with this design.
The pros and cons
Like every other design, this one too has both advantages and disadvantages.
Pros:
Cons:
The resources needed
As I mentioned before, this build is extremely resource intensive. You're going to need at least the following:
Yep, bedrock dust. If you've already got some you can skip this section. If not, continue reading. You can get 4 bedrock dust by breaking a single piece of bedrock. To do this, you will need a bedrock breaker. The bedrock breaker itself isn't difficult to craft. only requiring 4 HSLA steel. 3 obsidian and 2 diamonds, but the real issue is trying to power it.
In order to power it, I used a hydrokinetic engine, which is easy to craft but requires another 73 HSLA steel ingots along with 2 shaft units, you can reuse the third shaft unit later on. Go ahead and craft both machines now. When you're done with that, place them like this:
If your world has flat bedrock generation you need to place the bedrock breaker facing down. Along with that you need to place a bevel gear in between the bedrock breaker and the engine - you're gonna need some later anyway. Note that it won't break bedrock at Y-level 0 - if your world only has one layer of bedrock, you're going to need to drill a hole in the ceiling of the Nether, although you'd need to find another power source for that. Make sure the water is falling on the left hand side of the engine, from a height of at least 64 blocks. Finally, insert one bucked of lubricator into the engine. You can get lubricator by putting canola seeds inside a grinder. Your bedrock breaker will start chipping away at the bedrock and after a couple minutes it will have completely broken it. Simply right-click the breaker twice to get your 4 piles of bedrock dust. Note: as of v23, one bedrock will only yield 2 dust. (thanks leldra)
The crafting
Craft the following items. If you don't know the recipes, check the RotaryCraft wiki.
The building
First, place your solar towers in one big pillar, all on top of each other. Next, place the bevel gears, the CVT unit and the extractor like this:
Make sure that the bevel gears have the correct input/output configuration. Next, put one bucket of lubricator in the CVT, and insert 15 belts into it. Set the speed to 8. When you're done it should look lke this:
Now place youraqueous acumulator or pump and make sure that both the bottom solar tower and the extractor are receiving water. One aqueous acumulator is not fast enough to keep a steady supply of water flowing into both blocks. Use either multiples or something else, like Extra Utilities´ transfer nodes with some upgrades. (thanks leldra!)
Now the final part. Place all of your solar mirrors in squares around the second lowest solar tower. They should align themselves correctly.
Be warned that standing on top of the solar mirrors will set you on fire. This build will also ignite any flammable blocks near it so don't build it too close to your wooden house. When you're done, right-click the extractor. If you did everything correctly, all 12 bars for power, torque and speed should be filled for every stage.
Congratulations, you just automated the quintipling of your ores!
Automated smelting
Of course, you still need to smelt the flakes into ingots. Automating this is very easy. Craft a steam engine, a friction heater and a vanilla furnace. Place them like this:
Provide the steam engine with heat and water, and you will be able to smelt unlimited items very quickly. You can pipe items in and out of the furnace using any kind of pipe system.
Glass
The solar mirrors generate so much heat that dirt placed under them will become glass straight away. This way, you can use silk touch tools to easily get glass.
I hope you found this guide useful. If you have any questions, suggestions or other notes, feel free to leave them in the comments.
The pros and cons
Like every other design, this one too has both advantages and disadvantages.
Pros:
- It is 100% automated.
- It doesn't need fuel.
- It comes with a free glass generator (if you have silk touch).
Cons:
- It takes a lot of resources to get started (~7 stacks of steel), but once you've got your 5x ore output going you can replenish this in no time.
- It doesn't run at night. If you have Mystcraft installed, consider building it in a Mystcraft age with eternal day, or if you don't mind cheating a bit, consider changing gamerule doDaylightCycle to false. The Promised Land, added by Biomes O' Plenty, also has eternal day.
The resources needed
As I mentioned before, this build is extremely resource intensive. You're going to need at least the following:
- 451 HSLA steel ingots
- 189 iron ingots
- Either 33 enderpearls and 99 gold ingots OR 66 copper ingots, 198 electrum ingots and another 99 HSLA steel ingots
- 66 redstone dust
- 201 glass
- 1 glass pane
- 1 wooden plank
- 1 smoothstone
- 1 netherrack
- If you play with GregTech installed, you need 8 GregTech steel plates. If you play without it, you need another 8 HSLA steel ingots.
- 64 leather
- 36 ink sacs
- And here comes the killer: 4 bedrock dust.
Yep, bedrock dust. If you've already got some you can skip this section. If not, continue reading. You can get 4 bedrock dust by breaking a single piece of bedrock. To do this, you will need a bedrock breaker. The bedrock breaker itself isn't difficult to craft. only requiring 4 HSLA steel. 3 obsidian and 2 diamonds, but the real issue is trying to power it.
In order to power it, I used a hydrokinetic engine, which is easy to craft but requires another 73 HSLA steel ingots along with 2 shaft units, you can reuse the third shaft unit later on. Go ahead and craft both machines now. When you're done with that, place them like this:
If your world has flat bedrock generation you need to place the bedrock breaker facing down. Along with that you need to place a bevel gear in between the bedrock breaker and the engine - you're gonna need some later anyway. Note that it won't break bedrock at Y-level 0 - if your world only has one layer of bedrock, you're going to need to drill a hole in the ceiling of the Nether, although you'd need to find another power source for that. Make sure the water is falling on the left hand side of the engine, from a height of at least 64 blocks. Finally, insert one bucked of lubricator into the engine. You can get lubricator by putting canola seeds inside a grinder. Your bedrock breaker will start chipping away at the bedrock and after a couple minutes it will have completely broken it. Simply right-click the breaker twice to get your 4 piles of bedrock dust. Note: as of v23, one bedrock will only yield 2 dust. (thanks leldra)
The crafting
Craft the following items. If you don't know the recipes, check the RotaryCraft wiki.
- At least 63 Solar Mirrors - I used 80
- 18 Solar Towers
- 2 Bevel Gears - you get 4 per craft
- 1 CVT unit
- 1 Extractor
- Either a pump, an aqueous acumulator or some other form of automatically collecting water, and the means of transporting it.
- 16 Belts
The building
First, place your solar towers in one big pillar, all on top of each other. Next, place the bevel gears, the CVT unit and the extractor like this:
Make sure that the bevel gears have the correct input/output configuration. Next, put one bucket of lubricator in the CVT, and insert 15 belts into it. Set the speed to 8. When you're done it should look lke this:
Now place your
Now the final part. Place all of your solar mirrors in squares around the second lowest solar tower. They should align themselves correctly.
Be warned that standing on top of the solar mirrors will set you on fire. This build will also ignite any flammable blocks near it so don't build it too close to your wooden house. When you're done, right-click the extractor. If you did everything correctly, all 12 bars for power, torque and speed should be filled for every stage.
Congratulations, you just automated the quintipling of your ores!
Automated smelting
Of course, you still need to smelt the flakes into ingots. Automating this is very easy. Craft a steam engine, a friction heater and a vanilla furnace. Place them like this:
Provide the steam engine with heat and water, and you will be able to smelt unlimited items very quickly. You can pipe items in and out of the furnace using any kind of pipe system.
Glass
The solar mirrors generate so much heat that dirt placed under them will become glass straight away. This way, you can use silk touch tools to easily get glass.
I hope you found this guide useful. If you have any questions, suggestions or other notes, feel free to leave them in the comments.
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