Rotarycraft Gasoline Engines

[Demosthenex]

I've been thoroughly enjoying Rotarycraft, but recently I felt like I either skipped a tech tier or I should have skipped gas engines entirely.

In my extreme survival world I built automated Ethanol production for gas which was very difficult due to some cross mod breakage. That aside, I also captured a Blaze spawner and setup a Spawner Controller to produce Blaze Powder on demand.

So I have the ability to use Enderchests to run gas and performance engines anywhere in my survival world, which sounds nice in theory. I also have scaled the output to support many engines running non-stop.

I've used them in several cases, and sure they work.

Then I discovered I could hook up an industrial coil to a hydrokinetic engine, and I can't see any reason why I would ever use gas again.

So to the root of my question: Did I go out of order in the tech progression? Are the gas engines really useless? Is hydro totally overpowered?

I like that the hydro engines break all the basic materials for gearing and shafts until diamond, that's a great way to keep them out of use in the low end. I'm wondering if tungsten shouldn't be a requirement for the engine with such high output, just like the jet engine (gas turbine?).

On my quest for power I was excited to see that tungsten was required for the high end turbine, and that I could only process it having unlocked tungsten via Extractor and setup a hot enough furnace. Perhaps more of this kind of progression could be used to balance engines in the mod.

 

[McJty]

Hydrokenitc engines are nice but they do take a lot of vertical place (64 blocks for full efficiency) so they are not always appropriate. I think gas engines are somewhat easier to do early on.

 

[Demosthenex]

Another item is that after I prepped to make many gas engines for my mid tier, I discovered I could run a boring machine with all slots enabled by just hooking it to a hydro.

So I ended up with two borers, each connected to a hydro. Being deep underground and stacked they even share the same waterfall.

I felt like I skipped something. Chaining together performance engines to get enough torque sounded like a challenge, but then I discovered I could just slap down a hydra and walk away with no gearing. I nearly felt like I cheated.

 

[Pyure]

Another item is that after I prepped to make many gas engines for my mid tier, I discovered I could run a boring machine with all slots enabled by just hooking it to a hydro.

So I ended up with two borers, each connected to a hydro. Being deep underground and stacked they even share the same waterfall.

I felt like I skipped something. Chaining together performance engines to get enough torque sounded like a challenge, but then I discovered I could just slap down a hydra and walk away with no gearing. I nearly felt like I cheated.

I'm not really the best person to comment on this.

Fwiw, I always, always, always skip the hydrokinetic. In short, yes, I feel like its cheating. By abusing minecrafts water physics, you can, for some cheap lubricant, carry a single bucket of water to the top of a pole and create unlimited power.

Its really, really, really dumb. Not dumb like "an automated tree farm with trees growing every 10 minutes to chop down". Dumber than that. (No offense intended to the mod author; the block and generation mechanics are cool; its just the capacity for abuse which is unacceptable)

Industrial coils are a bit more in the middle for me. I use them a lot, and I do feel like I'm getting away with something when I do. But on the other hand, they're a bit testy (they explode if over-charged).

Regarding your borers: they're comfortable now, but if they run into a pile of obsidian, they'll have issues. Also, they're likely stuck more or less where they are, tied to the hydros: you can't take them into the nether or twilight fortress or what have you (both of which have decent reasons for quarrying)

 

[McJty]

I'm not really the best person to comment on this.

Fwiw, I always, always, always skip the hydrokinetic. In short, yes, I feel like its cheating. By abusing minecrafts water physics, you can, for some cheap lubricant, carry a single bucket of water to the top of a pole and create unlimited power.

Well isn't this like in reality? If you're lucky enough to find a good waterfall then you can also make unlimited (for all practical purposes) power in reality. Of course the difference is that in Minecraft you can make an infinite waterfall with just a single block. But then again, all water physics in Minecraft is strange and cheaty anyway. I mean, just a 2x2 water pool can give you an unlimited amount of water. If you don't like to use a waterfall for power then I think you shouldn't 'abuse' the infinite water from a 2x2 water pool as well.

Just my opinion

 

[Pyure]

Of course the difference is that in Minecraft you can make an infinite waterfall with just a single block.

^ That.

If I ever find a really nice waterfall, I'd consider using it for energy, with the caveat that I'm not allowed to dig a shaft underneath it for extra power.

Regarding infinite water sources, I'm not excited about those, but the issues are far apart in scale. In the past, I've been known to disable aqueous accumulators but allow bulkier railcraft rain tanks

 

[McJty]

BTW, the RoC steam engine can also run on its own forever with a DC electric engine, a pump, and an infinite pool of water. Of course it gives a lot less power compared to the hydrokinetic.

 

[Demosthenex]

I suppose I might feel different if the hydro required tungsten bearings and bedrock shafts. Then again I also felt that the gas engines were underpowered for the effort it takes to setup the fuel infrastructure.

 

[McJty]

I suppose I might feel different if the hydro required tungsten bearings and bedrock shafts. Then again I also felt that the gas engines were underpowered for the effort it takes to setup the fuel infrastructure.

The gas engine infrastructure really isn't that hard. It is just a fermenter. At least unless you want to fully automate it. In that case it becomes a lot more complicated. But I think that the gas engine is not really meant for automation. It is an early RoC engine which is easily handled manually until you can go to more advanced energy producers.

 

[Demosthenex]

Regarding your borers: they're comfortable now, but if they run into a pile of obsidian, they'll have issues. Also, they're likely stuck more or less where they are, tied to the hydros: you can't take them into the nether or twilight fortress or what have you (both of which have decent reasons for quarrying)

Why would I ever move a borer once setup? I have them at different heights, and since they mine horizontally forever there's never a need to relocate them (unlike a quarry).

My server has multiple people with borers setup to mine off the edge of the map, because players can't cross the world border but the borer can. As the server admin, I'm ok with this because Reika force loading single chunks doesn't impact our storage needs greatly and chunk generation lag has not been an issue.

Lastly regarding obsidian, I had a test borer setup at one point and I was using gas engines. Without moving to diamond or bedrock gearing I had difficulty getting enough torque to run it at max size and pass through modded blocks. Who knew Tinker's Aluminum would register as harder than obsidian?

Slap down the hydro and attach a boring machine, I had an instant 8k NM torque. Later that was bumped to 16k. No gearing required, though slow. That's why it felt cheaty.[DOUBLEPOST=1402584259][/DOUBLEPOST]

The gas engine infrastructure really isn't that hard. It is just a fermenter. At least unless you want to fully automate it. In that case it becomes a lot more complicated. But I think that the gas engine is not really meant for automation. It is an early RoC engine which is easily handled manually until you can go to more advanced energy producers.

I created fully automated Ethanol production. Given we added Harvestcraft to Monster, I had to deal with a bunch of issues between Magic Crops and Harvestcraft for sugar production (sugar cane with a damage value). Add in using Magic Crops to automate dirt creation and an MFR tree farm to shear leaves, and I was able to build a complex system to ensure I had sufficient renewable Ethanol.

Next I did the same for Creeper and Blaze spawners for Gunpowder and Blaze Powder as engine additives.

It was kind of a letdown that after all that effort to automate, the hydro obliterated the need for gas engines.

 

[McJty]

It was kind of a letdown that after all that effort to automate, the hydro obliterated the need for gas engines.

Well I still find the gas engine a lot easier to just slap down somewhere next to a machine and then feed it some ethanol. You can't really do that easily with the hydro (although with coils you can probably achieve something similar).

 

[Pyure]

Why would I ever move a borer once setup? I have them at different heights, and since they mine horizontally forever there's never a need to relocate them (unlike a quarry).

Couple things:
* Depends how early you are in the game. If you only have 1 or 2 borers, sometimes you need to shift them around to get the heights you need (iron vs redstone, etc)
* Depends on world-specific ores. Your borers are currently getting no bedrock dust (twilight forest) or ammonium chloride (nether) or other-world mob spawners. You may care about none of that

Slap down the hydro and attach a boring machine, I had an instant 8k NM torque. Later that was bumped to 16k. No gearing required, though slow. That's why it felt cheaty.

That's a lot of torque for the borer You can increase the speed dramatically with Efficiency books. (In addition to silk touching them)[DOUBLEPOST=1402584541][/DOUBLEPOST]

Well I still find the gas engine a lot easier to just slap down somewhere next to a machine and then feed it some ethanol. You can't really do that easily with the hydro (although with coils you can probably achieve something similar).

I'm starting to think we're talking about two different things. OP mentioned blaze etc, which mean's he's talking about the gas turbine, rather than the gasoline engine. Post title may need fixing.

 

[Demosthenex]

Well I still find the gas engine a lot easier to just slap down somewhere next to a machine and then feed it some ethanol. You can't really do that easily with the hydro (although with coils you can probably achieve something similar).

That's exactly the use case that the coils replaced. For long term machines, gas still made sense (with pump, water, ender chests of ethanol + blaze powder).

Charging some coils completely replaced the need for gas engines and any gearing in my workshop where I ran things occasionally (grinder, jet fuel maker, coil winder, fueling station, friction heater etc).

 

[McJty]

That's exactly the use case that the coils replaced. For long term machines, gas still made sense (with pump, water, ender chests of ethanol + blaze powder).

Charging some coils completely replaced the need for gas engines and any gearing in my workshop where I ran things occasionally (grinder, jet fuel maker, coil winder, fueling station, friction heater etc).

Are we talking about the same thing? I.e. gasoline engine vs gas turbine?

 

[Demosthenex]

Couple things:
* Depends how early you are in the game. If you only have 1 or 2 borers, sometimes you need to shift them around to get the heights you need (iron vs redstone, etc)
* Depends on world-specific ores. Your borers are currently getting no bedrock dust (twilight forest) or ammonium chloride (nether) or other-world mob spawners. You may care about none of that

I'd say I'm in late mid-game, and two borers have been sufficient in the overworld. One at 12, the other at 55. I've got everything, and more than I can use.

That's a lot of torque for the borer You can increase the speed dramatically with Efficiency books. (In addition to silk touching them)[DOUBLEPOST=1402584541][/DOUBLEPOST]
I'm starting to think we're talking about two different things. OP mentioned blaze etc, which mean's he's talking about the gas turbine, rather than the gasoline engine. Post title may need fixing.

I'm so glad Reika's code is on Github. I had to crunch numbers to find out how much torque I needed to overcome the obstacles from modded ores. Again, I ran into ores that the borer considered harder than obsidian (tinker's aluminum for instance).

I do mean gasoline and performance gasoline engines. The performance engines are the upgraded gas engine and they take blaze powder as an engine additive to bump the power output and require active cooling via water.

The turbines need blaze powder in the creation of jet fuel only. Speaking of, anyone know a good way to farm slime? I had to manually harvest a bunch of slime trees to get enough green slime to make magma cream.

 

[Pyure]

The turbines need blaze powder in the creation of jet fuel only. Speaking of, anyone know a good way to farm slime? I had to manually harvest a bunch of slime trees to get enough green slime to make magma cream.

I wonder if slime trees can get processed by RoC's tree chopper machine?

MFR = auto-spawners for slimes as an alternative. I think horizons has a couple other weird ways to get slime. Magic Crops is one.

I'd say I'm in late mid-game, and two borers have been sufficient in the overworld. One at 12, the other at 55. I've got everything, and more than I can use.

Again though you're not getting any ammonium chloride. No 100% efficiency gain in ReactorCraft for you

 

[Demosthenex]

Again though you're not getting any ammonium chloride. No 100% efficiency gain in ReactorCraft for you

I'm hoping to start on Reactorcraft shortly. I saw an excellent document on making a pebble bed system. I must admit that at the moment the only reason I have to do so is to charge a bedrock enhanced industrial coil. What I'll use that for, I'm not certain. The challenge of building one is really the key.

To that effect I had seen where Reika posted he had 30+ borers running off a reactor. It's sad that the same could be done, though slower, off a few vertical waterfalls.

 

[Pyure]

I'm hoping to start on Reactorcraft shortly. I saw an excellent document on making a pebble bed system. I must admit that at the moment the only reason I have to do so is to charge a bedrock enhanced industrial coil. What I'll use that for, I'm not certain. The challenge of building one is really the key.

To that effect I had seen where Reika posted he had 30+ borers running off a reactor. It's sad that the same could be done, though slower, off a few vertical waterfalls.

Agreed all around.

I'm building reactors atm because a) they're a lot of fun to build, and b) I'd like to run those roads-made-of-light all over my damn base just for the pimp factor of it.

 

[Demosthenex]

I've considered setting up the base defense gear to run off the reactor. We really are on an extreme survival server, the nightly hordes are amazing.

I'm going to setup the reactor in a remote location, so my only issue is transport. The shaft through the Nether could work, or maybe I'll do Electricraft and chunk load a superconducting powerline.

To toot my own horn regarding the survival... We have Zombie Awareness setup, so zombies (and other mobs) are attracted to lightsources and blood (you drop while hurt) from a distance of 64 blocks. Then add in Special Mobs so there's a variety of creepers, skeles and zombies, plus they have griefing enabled to break light sources and destroy farmland. Add Hunger Overhaul so you don't heal nearly as fast, and you have a recipe for bases with strong defense!

We've never been so dark ages before... We have a fort with high ramparts and an overhang, and a moat (to limit mob mobility and creeper damage). It's always full in the morning.

 

[Pyure]

I've considered setting up the base defense gear to run off the reactor. We really are on an extreme survival server, the nightly hordes are amazing.

I'm going to setup the reactor in a remote location, so my only issue is transport. The shaft through the Nether could work, or maybe I'll do Electricraft and chunk load a superconducting powerline.

To toot my own horn regarding the survival... We have Zombie Awareness setup, so zombies (and other mobs) are attracted to lightsources and blood (you drop while hurt) from a distance of 64 blocks. Then add in Special Mobs so there's a variety of creepers, skeles and zombies, plus they have griefing enabled to break light sources and destroy farmland. Add Hunger Overhaul so you don't heal nearly as fast, and you have a recipe for bases with strong defense!

We've never been so dark ages before... We have a fort with high ramparts and an overhang, and a moat (to limit mob mobility and creeper damage). It's always full in the morning.

That sounds fantastic

Good idea with ElectriCraft. I power by entire base from a top-tier Aurora battery (it holds, I forget...215TJ or something)

I've never made a PBR before. I don't think you can use Ammonia with it (unless you enjoy explosions) so the ammonium chloride argument won't fly with you.

I do know they were nerfed slightly recently.

Standard fission reactors on the other hand are still amazing. There's a thread here somewhere where I post my various designs (currently running with a 16-core that produces, well, stupid amounts of power)