Selectable Output -- Solved

[kiwiCptn]

Context
I have an ender pearl farm sending its output to an ender chest. That ender chest is emptied with servos and sent for sorting and storage. I want to augment that. Just after the ender pearl is farmed, I want to choose (dynamically) where it goes. I want to pick (remotely) from a few choices like:
- store (curent behaviour)
- burn (sent to a Extra Utils generator)
- make into enderium (sent in for processing)
- toss around (endergenic generator setup)
- etc.
NB: This same idea of a "Selectable Output" can be applied to wheat (store, make cake, make fertilizer...) and other "farm" products: bone, etc. This is not specific (or limited) to ender pearls.

Question
Has anyone done this already and can share pics/ videos?
How would you go about doing this?

Insufficient prototype
I have managed to turn on/off the whole farm with a RFTools transmitter-receiver pair.
I have managed to choose one of two outputs because a given servo can be set to "push when on" and also "push when off".
I'd like to move on from this and give myself more (like 4,8,12) choices.

Brain-jiving questions
Can I turn a redstone signal strength (0 to 15) into an item routing decision? Solved: YES
Can I remotely influence a diamond item transport pipe? Solved: NO

 

[kiwiCptn]

I have a row of Retrievers or Retrieval nodes like

I========...
  r r r r
  O O O O

How do I turn only one of them on? in a easy/simple way.
I'm thinking that a redstone line would light up the first 0 to 15 retrievers.
Like 1,2.. all the way up to a max, the input signal strength.

How do I change that to lighting up only a specified one? like the 3rd one.
Using 15 computers (or half) or using 15 SFM redstone emiters (or half) seems overly complicated.

 

[GamerwithnoGame]

Hm. This seems like it SHOULD be possible! What pack are you using? That should help make sure answers are tailored to the correct mod set that you have available.

Just from off the top of my head, I'd say that if you have your ender pearl farm dumping into a buffer chest, you can then choose a route for it to go out from, by using selectable drawing out of items. So for example, you have the items going into a diamond chest, and on three other sides you have Extra Utilities 2 item transfer nodes. These can be disabled with redstone signal. If you can then direct redstone signal to those transfer nodes (say with EnderIO insulated redstone conduit, 3 colour channels), you can have that leading to your selection logic. What you'll then need is something which ensures that only one of the outputs is off (i.e. allowing the node to pull tems) at any given time. Something like Super Circuit Maker would probably be very useful here - I'm sure there would be a way to set it so that when you change, all outputs go on, then the one you've selected switches off.

SCM also includes interaction with analogue redstone, and there's some nifty things you can do there too, so you absolutely CAN turn redstone signal into an item routing decision!

Now, the suggestions above are mostly for 1.10, particularly the Super Circuit Maker stuff - the ExUtils has the same functionality in 1 as 2, and EnderIO likewise - I'm not sure how I would go about doing it in 1.7 if that's what you're looking at, but I'm sure it would be possible! As for diamond pipes, as far as I know you cannot affect their directionality at all, but iron pipes you CAN I believe, so you might be able to route things either out of a system of in a circle back in with redstone.

 

[Quetzi]

With Buildcraft available you can turn redstone signals into item routing decisions, pipe wire and gates should allow you to 'block' a pipe when certain redstone conditions are met, you may need a higher tier gate for some of those options though.

 

[kiwiCptn]

What pack are you using?

I am running a small server with Infinity Evolved 2.4.2 with Compact Machines and Advent of Ascension added. Minecraft is at 1.7.10 here. This SMP experience is about one year old now.

 

[Drbretto]

If you want a low-tech solution, you can use basic diamond buildcraft pipes and use probability to distribute the pearls more or less evenly to the different locations. You can't control it, but it's a super simple build and you can send it to 4 different locations evenly.

 

[kiwiCptn]

@Drbretto , I am not looking for low-tech or simplistic. Distributing evenly, or using probability, or nearest-first... is too simple. The emphasis here is on control.

 

[Drbretto]

Fair enough Just tossed it out there. Sounds like you're looking for gates as Quetzi mentioned.

 

[GamerwithnoGame]

Right, OK, this still seems eminently doable. You mentioned you wanted to have control, and you also mentioned remotely - what kind of control were you thinking? Do you want it to change destination based on certain requirements being fulfilled (i.e. it goes to power when your RF is low) or via lever pull so you switch it manually from afar, or something else? I'm pondering and plotting, can you tell?

 

[kiwiCptn]

What kind of control were you thinking?

Manual and remote. Like a command screen: a monitor with buttons. Or levers with transmitters.

@GamerwithnoGame , your solution is the best so far. Here's how I would work it:
- Send farm output to a cache.
- Pull from cache with nodes in 4 directions: top, bottom, left, right. (Not doing front to keep cache accessible.)
- Have two Redstone Emitters (Steve's Factory Manager) in the top-left and bottom-right corners.
They can output to a specific side. Add cable to complete the factory.
- SFM would deal with turning off all the nodes and turning one on.

Left-overs
1. I would then have to communicate remotely to the Factory. I can use Computers in those corners instead.
They can also output to a specific side but they can have a modem.

2. This still gives me only 4 choices. How do I get more? It seems I have to use Retrievers on the other side.

  O O O O O O
  r r r r r r      I: system Input
I=============...  r: Retriever or Retrieval node
  r r r r r r      O: system Outputs
  O O O O O O      =: pipe

This leaves me with one problem. See top post.

 

[GamerwithnoGame]

Ah I hadn't spotted your retrievers post; hmm that... wait. Now, I've had a thought - if the retrieval nodes respond to redstone in the same way that the transfer nodes do, you could do them all off the one chest instead of being limited to the 4 as you mentioned. You'd still need the large number of SFM redstone emitters I think, because however you get the redstone signal to your retrievers (if you have enderIO insulated redstone conduit that will be simple) you still need, at the OTHER end, something putting the correct redstone signals in. Although... you DO also have ProjectRed's bundled cable, or MineFactory Reloaded's Rednet... yes! Rednet cable carries 16 channels, and interacts with the rednet controller, which can interact with ComputerCraft's computer (though it may not need to) - with some programming or circuitry (which is beyond me I'm afraid) I'm sure you could arrange so that an analogue signal input, when read by some sort of device, could be translated to a digital output on a channel that is decided by the signal strength input.

So, signal strength 1 corresponds to channel 1, which activates the retrieval node to endergenic generator; signal strength 2 will set an output along channel 2, which gets it to pull into your enderium setup.

Or you might even be able to set it so that you just pick where you want it to go on a screen, and it automatically sends a signal along the correct channel! All these things are possible, I believe

EDIT: It may be that computercraft no longer interacts with any type of bundled cable, I've not found any up to date info on this yet. But, I'm sure something is possible.

EDIT 2: Scratch that, there's no MFR integration with ComputerCraft, but there IS with ProjectRed's bundled cable I believe, so all is not lost. It depends on just how simple you want to make it really! For example, it seems possible that you could arrange it so with a single click from a wireless redstone remote doohickey, you could cycle through the various outputs one by one. You'd need to keep track of how many clicks you did, of course

 

[kiwiCptn]

My retrievers post came after; when I realized, with your help, that if I was on one chest, the most I could have is 6-1=5 choices. 4 was the easily doable choice.
Retrievers do work the same (and most often better) then Servos. This lifts the previous limitation. I can have 15 and even 30 choices now, which is more than I'll need.
ComputerCraft does interact with colored cable. I have a setup where I cycle anti-block rainbows from 4x6 drawbridges:

(If drawbridges wouldn't duplicate or eat blocks, that'd be nice. Not sure if the blame is actually on the mod.)

Anyway.. My issue with colored cable is that it does not connect to pipes. You need a block in between. You rs-power that block. That block rs-powers all six sides, which might be 1 or 6 servos.
I will give MFR's Rednet a try. I really haven't yet.

 

[GamerwithnoGame]

My retrievers post came after; when I realized, with your help, that if I was on one chest, the most I could have is 6-1=5 choices. 4 was the easily doable choice.
Retrievers do work the same (and most often better) then Servos. This lifts the previous limitation. I can have 15 and even 30 choices now, which is more than I'll need.
ComputerCraft does interact with colored cable. I have a setup where I cycle anti-block rainbows from 4x6 drawbridges:
View attachment 32824
(If drawbridges wouldn't duplicate or eat blocks, that'd be nice. Not sure if the blame is actually on the mod.)

Anyway.. My issue with colored cable is that it does not connect to pipes. You need a block in between. You rs-power that block. That block rs-powers all six sides, which might be 1 or 6 servos.
I will give MFR's Rednet a try. I really haven't yet.

Oh wow! That looks pretty awesome Rednet may work, or EnderIO as mentioned, that should attach to pipes and power correctly. Hopefully...

Good luck! Hope I've helped

 

[kiwiCptn]

Yes, thanks for the help. So revised plan:

I========...
  r r r r
  o o o o

Each r is a Thermal Dynamics Retriever (or Extra Utils Retrieval Node) hooked up to its own channel of redstone (preferably MFR Rednet but might be something else, like colored cable + block).
A controller is on this "farm side" to light the right channel(s) up.
A computer is on the "base side" to offer manual (or automated) control of this.
There's something (?) allowing the computer to 'talk to' the controller, across dimensions.

 

[Dman0829]

Well if your trying to accomplish all of the tasks, you should just store all your pearls and use them for each operation as needed. The endergenic generator is automated with redstone so if you just used a power monitor and turned it on when needed and off when not, and keep the pearl launcher full, you can use me limiters to keep a certain amount of enderium in stock by having the final induction smelter only operate without a redstone signal, and if you have an endergenic generator, using the extrautilz gen would be a waste. If you are production to many pearls you can have an inventory checker from rf tools scanning the last slot of the ender chest, and when full(the chest would be full than) turn off the farm or use storage drawers to store the pearl with a void upgrade to stop overflow. If you absolutely need the control setup using EnderIO conduits you can set up receivers/transmitters going into logic gates and such so each one sends it to a different location as said several times. If you had the farm outputting into a chest you could say each different redstone signal gave turns on extraction of one side into its own enderchest going to where you want which would give you 4 choices unless you either roundrobined the pearls into different chests or if the 5th, 6th...... (however many other choices there are) and at least 1 is on it would extract from the first chest into the second and go to the other locations, this could be done infinitly such as where I is pearl input, c is chest, and O is pearl output with a redstone signal allowing it to output, this could be done with receivers on an rftools monitor with buttons or if you want to do computer craft this would take a lot more infrastructure where when you tell it to output a signal it sends and item into an enderchest, and having an inventory scanner on the enderchest by the farm detecting when an item arrives, turning on each signal, than when the signal is off have it retrieve the item back into a chest by the computer. If I were you, I would just output all the pearls into the ae2 system, and just autocraft enderium and other resources when I want with the system auto outputting its pearls into the endergenic first so you always have power. "The outputs and arrows go above the C's
O O
^ ^
I---->C--------->C
v v
O O

 

[KingTriaxx]

Retrievers can be redstone responsive I believe, so plugging into them with either Rednet cable or EnderIO insulated redstone conduits will let you translate signals into dynamic control. IE only allowing them to pull when you want them to. You'll have to 'jumper' redstone signals through another block, such as a slaved computer to use EnderIO, but it's doable. (One color connecting to each side of the block emitting the signals, so you can select which signals are being output.)

Buildcraft can do most of the logic in itself, including external overrides on redstone condition. You'll have to use advanced gates for enough conditions, but it's doable. Using lens and filters and control, you can have them routed to any number of destinations automatically.

Alternatively again, you can extract from the farm into 'routing' chests, that only extract to their specific destinations on signal, via EnderIO conduits. Each chest can have up to 6 destinations, because the routing can be colored.

ME Export busses are also redstone responsive and can be controlled through miniature subnets, with only two blocks, using a Storage Bus and Level Emitter to cause it to provide items only until that number is met, and then turn off. Use quartz fiber cable to provide power without using main network channels.

Combine all of this with Extra Utilities Mini-chests, and you can ensure you're not pulling too much stuff into any one destination by limiting it to a single stack feed.

 

[kiwiCptn]

The MFR RedNet part works.

Here, I am using the "Redstone: Volume I" item in a BiblioCraft bookshelf.
That analog output is sent to the PRC which is set to DeMux-16.
That output is sent to 1 of 16 channels. (Only 8 pictured here.)
(PS: When you put two books, the first one is used.)

 

[kiwiCptn]

When a RFTool Transmitter-Receiver pair is used,
even when a signal strength of 3 is sent,
a signal of max strength 15 is received.

Those items do not trs/rcv the analog signal strength.

 

[kiwiCptn]

The WR-CBE pair also has the same effect, of boosting the signal strength:

(The trench is because I tried straight-up connection with Red Allow Wire
and Insulated/ Colored Wire. Those work but will be impractical for my application.)

How am I supposed to do this?

 

[kiwiCptn]

Sidebar: A little bit of a surprise to me but you can DeMux-16 in vanilla too:

This is thanks to the "Goldilocks Gate" by Jonas Stare, here.
This doesn't help but it was interesting.