Soo... Why exactly is it impossible to automate a Steam Turbine?

[Airship]

With the recent popularity of power converters and it's ease of EU generation, there are little incentives to use the turbine anymore for most players. Covert Jaguar probably realized that too since he buffed the power output to 200EU/t - making one HP36 boiler be able to output 400EU/t per steam boiler - (vs Power Converters' 350). So yeah, 50 extra EU/t for an operating cost of ~200 steel every 3 days or so. Clearly not worth it, to be honest.

So why do CJ punish us wee few who still cling on to the old ways of non-op-magic-block-ness? Why can I not direct my AE system to simply suck up a 40% rotor, then autocraft that with another damaged rotor, get a new one, and gracefully slip it back in the turbine using AE?

With the popularization of mods like AE, full automation has become a staple of many people's playingstyle. Withholding such a feature today just feels archaic, especially since there's hardly any other mods that do this.

You can argue that Railcraft is a standalone mod, but consider that the turbine is specifically made for cross-mod compatibility (IC2). Also, there is no other machines in Railcraft that restricts automation in this way. What makes the turbine so special? Yes, it's quite powerful compared to many of IC2's stuff, especially without Gregtech, but it's still a whopping 100 steel upkeep per turbine (100 per two if you're watching your rotor durabilities like a hawk).

Sidenote, is there at least a way for me to shut a turbine down when the rotor reaches 40%? I don't want to waste the possibility of making a fresh rotor from two 40% rotors. I know that there is a gate conditional, but at best it seems like this can only tell me that a rotor is below 40%. The turbine itself doesn't seem to react to a redstone signal or anything like that.

Anyway, I guess this is just a rant about stuff that annoys me. What do you think? Should there be a way to automate turbines? Would more people use turbines over powerconverters if there is? Also, do note I'm not trying to heckle anyone here, Railcraft is probably my second most favourite mod and I have nothing but respect for CJ. Discuss.

 

[Golrith]

Direwolf20 has his Steam Turbine automated with his AE network. It does involve a bit of downtime, as it crafts a new turbine as soon as the old one is worn out. Shouldn't be an issue with energy storage.

 

[Airship]

Really? I'll try it, but I doubt it'll work. Maybe DW has another version of Railcraft?

 

[Omicron]

So yeah, 50 extra EU/t for an operating cost of ~200 steel every 3 days or so. Clearly not worth it, to be honest.

Clearly math is not your strong suit.

50 EU/t * 20 ticks * 60 seconds * 60 minutes * 80 hours = 288,000,000 EU. In other words, almost 1.5 million EU per steel ingot, if you rate the cost for a rotor at 200 ingots.

And that's the wrong way to rate the cost of a rotor, because a damaged rotor can be repaired for a fraction of its construction cost using turbine blades. One turbine blade restores roughly 10% durability, and costs three steel ingots. So one tenth of 288 million is 28.8 million, divided by three is 9.6 million.

Nearly one fully charged MFSU bonus per steel ingot for using the turbine over power converters. This makes steel ingots worth roughly twice as much as uranium in the highest efficiency reactors, and three times as good as uranium in average reactors. But yeah, clearly not worth it...

 

[Airship]

Clearly math is not your strong suit.

50 EU/t * 20 ticks * 60 seconds * 60 minutes * 80 hours = 288,000,000 EU. In other words, almost 1.5 million EU per steel ingot, if you rate the cost for a rotor at 200 ingots.

And that's the wrong way to rate the cost of a rotor, because a damaged rotor can be repaired for a fraction of its construction cost using turbine blades. One turbine blade restores roughly 10% durability, and costs three steel ingots. So one tenth of 288 million is 28.8 million, divided by three is 9.6 million.

Nearly one fully charged MFSU bonus per steel ingot for using the turbine over power converters. This makes steel ingots worth roughly twice as much as uranium in the highest efficiency reactors, and three times as good as uranium in average reactors. But yeah, clearly not worth it...

I'll be honest, I didn't exactly do the math. Now that you mention it, it does put things in a nice perspective...

 

[Loufmier]

i`ve decided to make math, if rotor is crafted from uu-matter when it wears off i.e. the simplies way of automation with AE:

a 24 hours=86400 second
1 second has 20 ticks, thus there are 86400*20= 1728000 ticks in a day

turbine produces 200eu/t and rotor lasts for 3 days(i`m not sure but lets pretend that its precise time for it to wear off completely)
1728000*20*3=103680000 eu/rotor`s life.

1 uu-matter requires 166667 eu(with amplifier) to be created.
thus after 3 days we have:103680000/166667=6220,788 uu-matter/3 days

5 uu-matter can be crafted into 4 iron=>4steel. rotor costs 200 steel, so cost of 1 rotor is:
200*5/4=250 uu-matterr.
so in total result you get 6220-250=5970 uu-matter/rotor.

cant say its a bad result, however when GT`s matter fab comes into a play, the amount of uu-matter you get/3 days is reduced by 100 times, which makes such automation total failure.

 

[casilleroatr]

Buildcraft gates have "needs maintenance" conditional. I don't know if you knew that so I was just putting it out there. I have tried pulling out the rotor with pipes, turtles, infinitubes and AE and so far nothing has worked. I am waiting for the needs maintenance conditional to activate a precision import bus to see if it works that way.

 

[Omicron]

No, you cannot automatically pull the rotor from a turbine with anything. The only way is a player opening the GUI.

You can however do the following:
Attach gate to monitor maintenance conditional. Have it power a lamp where you can easily see it. Attach an export bus to the turbine that is set to "move/craft single item" for the turbine rotor. Have two rotors pre-crafted in your AE system

Now the turbine runs. Eventually the rotor will require maintenance. Now one of two things happen:

(1) You see the light indicating the need for maintenance. You go to the turbine and manually pull the rotor. Instantly, the AE system inserts the already existing replacement rotor. Meanwhile, you take the damaged rotor and repair it, then insert the repaired rotor into the AE system for future use.

(2) You don't see the light indicating the need for maintenance. The rotor will eventually die, and the AE system will insert the replacement. You now have another chance to see the light on the next round. If you do, and go pull the rotor, you'll notice it won't be instantly refilled. Thus you know you missed a maintenance cycle. But hey, the AE system is already crafting a new one. Once that is in the turbine, and you put the repaired rotor back into the AE system, the initial situation is restored. With the exception that you get to kick yourself for wasting a ton of steel

And if you keep missing the light? No worry. The AE system will keep crafting new rotors. It's simply going to cost you a whole lot more steel. Maybe you should consider placing the light into a more obvious location...

 

[Loufmier]

No, you cannot automatically pull the rotor from a turbine with anything. The only way is a player opening the GUI.

not even turtles can do that?

 

[Airship]

No, you cannot automatically pull the rotor from a turbine with anything. The only way is a player opening the GUI.

You can however do the following:
Attach gate to monitor maintenance conditional. Have it power a lamp where you can easily see it. Attach an export bus to the turbine that is set to "move/craft single item" for the turbine rotor. Have two rotors pre-crafted in your AE system

Now the turbine runs. Eventually the rotor will require maintenance. Now one of two things happen:

(1) You see the light indicating the need for maintenance. You go to the turbine and manually pull the rotor. Instantly, the AE system inserts the already existing replacement rotor. Meanwhile, you take the damaged rotor and repair it, then insert the repaired rotor into the AE system for future use.

(2) You don't see the light indicating the need for maintenance. The rotor will eventually die, and the AE system will insert the replacement. You now have another chance to see the light on the next round. If you do, and go pull the rotor, you'll notice it won't be instantly refilled. Thus you know you missed a maintenance cycle. But hey, the AE system is already crafting a new one. Once that is in the turbine, and you put the repaired rotor back into the AE system, the initial situation is restored. With the exception that you get to kick yourself for wasting a ton of steel

And if you keep missing the light? No worry. The AE system will keep crafting new rotors. It's simply going to cost you a whole lot more steel. Maybe you should consider placing the light into a more obvious location...

Er, you can insert the rotors with AE? I've tried sides, front, top and bottom, but it refuses to cooperate. What's your trick? Also, for some reason, my rotor crafting recipe is turning up as red in the assembly chamber, even though I have all the components (the disks). So my crafting doesn't work. Am I forgetting something important here?

EDIT: Fixed the crafting thing. My AE network still refuses to insert anything into the turbine, though.

 

[danidas]

Doesn't the rotor get ejected from the machine if you break one of the blocks that make up its multi block structure? You could setup a system to pick up the rotor from where ever it gets dropped to and than send it off to be repaired and reinserted.

 

[casilleroatr]

Doesn't the rotor get ejected from the machine if you break one of the blocks that make up its multi block structure? You could setup a system pick up the rotor from where ever it gets dropped to and than send it off to be repaired and reinserted.

That could be interesting. The only problem is that the rotor might bounce around a lot between all the pipes. If it can be reliably picked up by a hopper or golem or item collector/conveyor belts though that would be great.

 

[Airship]

That could be interesting. The only problem is that the rotor might bounce around a lot between all the pipes. If it can be reliably picked up by a hopper or golem or item collector/conveyor belts though that would be great.

Still have to insert them manually though :\ But I like the idea! Maybe a steampowered obsidian pipe would have enough range to be able to pick the item up from anywhere? A golem would probably do the trick as well.

 

[whythisname]

An obsidian pipe has quite a big range with a Redstone Energy Cell next to it, at least if that still works (it's been a while since I've played FTB and a lot has changed xD).

 

[Omicron]

Er, you can insert the rotors with AE? I've tried sides, front, top and bottom, but it refuses to cooperate. What's your trick? Also, for some reason, my rotor crafting recipe is turning up as red in the assembly chamber, even though I have all the components (the disks). So my crafting doesn't work. Am I forgetting something important here?

EDIT: Fixed the crafting thing. My AE network still refuses to insert anything into the turbine, though.

Huh. Curious. I could swear I've seen a turbine automated with AE somewhere that was working just fine... I'm gonna have to try this when I get home.

 

[Airship]

Huh. Curious. I could swear I've seen a turbine automated with AE somewhere that was working just fine... I'm gonna have to try this when I get home.

Yeah, Direwolf made a similar setup I think. Though I've been skimming through his episodes and couldn't find it... zzz. sent him a message asking if it was still working, here's hoping he's not too busy.

 

[casilleroatr]

I am running Applied Energistics rv.11.a and Railcraft 7.2.1.0 and I cannot export a rotor into the housing.
I tested it just now.

 

[Airship]

Same, but with Railcraft 7.3.0.0 instead. So, did Direwolf lie? Was this possible back then, and Dire has just neglected to mention that his automation isn't working anymore? So many questions

 

[Loufmier]

damn, inability to insert rotor via AE, BC pipes(they dont even connect), hopper or router, rendered steam turbines completely useless for me, and they were promising math-vise...

 

[Omicron]

Yeah, Direwolf made a similar setup I think. Though I've been skimming through his episodes and couldn't find it... zzz. sent him a message asking if it was still working, here's hoping he's not too busy.

I am running Applied Energistics rv.11.a and Railcraft 7.2.1.0 and I cannot export a rotor into the housing.
I tested it just now.

Yeah, confirming. The turbine does not interface with any item transport solution whatsoever. It behaves exactly like a railcraft tank. Only liquid connections are allowed.

No idea what Direwolf fif there with the export bus on his turbine... he certainly didn't ever demount it...