Sorting system comparisons

  • Please make sure you are posting in the correct place. Server ads go here and modpack bugs go here

Enigmius1

New Member
Jul 29, 2019
499
0
0
I have not seen it directly but seen people post that a member of the FTB team has stated that if the original author of the mod stops working then they will use the version someone updated.

Also don't they have an updated version of the official one on the forgecraft server? Or are they using the unofficial update?

I have no idea who is u sing what where or why. All I know is that there's currently no readily available place to download a stable version of the mod for anything 1.4.2 or higher.
 

Vovk

New Member
Jul 29, 2019
321
0
0
<3 railcraft for 3 reasons

1) loaders and unloaders can be told to keep inventories supplied with X amount of 9 different items (exact recipes), told to transfer up to X items per pass (exact distribution ratios), and told to dump everything EXCEPT X amount of 9 different items (overflow handling).

2) minecarts have an incredible amount of storage space per trip, so 1 pass around generally picks up everything that has been produced by machines in the time since the last pass.

3) you can attach moving world anchors to the carts as trains so that your system is always running without all the tracks needing to be loaded.


That said, for compact systems you're better off using routers or red power. For cheap systems you're better off using buildcraft.
 

Antice

New Member
Jul 29, 2019
729
0
0
Logistics pipes makes setting up an autocrafting network a breeze. all you need is the autocrafting table from bc and a crafting log pipe.
connect some inventories with your raw mats with some provider pipes, then finish it up by adding a requester pipe to the network. put a recipe into the autocrafting table, then import it into the crafting pipe with the interface provided on the crafting pipe.
go request as many as you want of that item. they will be made for you in rapid order as long as there is enough materials in the system to do so.

That is the power of logistics pipes. it's easy to set up and extend large networks of inventories and autocrafting stations to provide you with almost anything you want without you having to do all of the steps yourself.

Redpower tube networks otoh. while fully capable of doing autocrafting with the autocrafting table from bc is not so easy. yes you can have it stock an inventory for instance by clever use of machines, but it's a real pain to set up, and it's not easy to extend it to all of those mundane items you get tired of having to craft manually all the time. (like gears, tubes and other constantly consumed items)
There is no ready made provider interface you can activate to order up what you need made. instead you have to set up a lot of circuits/buttons, or even use a computer and program it to activate the right machines in the correct order.... if anything goes wrong you have to manually go fix it as well.

In my personal experience, I ave found that while i can enjoy setting up a RP2 tube based system for fully automating my treefarm or whatnot, i will not make a giant auocrafting system. the time spent is just not worth it compared to how fast one is actually capable of batch making items oneself with the RP2 crafting table. and that is going to become even quicker now with the addition of blueprints.

As for the factorization routers, I don't know anything about them. havent tried them out yet. Railcraft sorting is okay i guess... but it takes a bit too much effort to set up tbh. I prefer it to only do bulk transport instead. like from a quarry to my warehouse or something like that.
 

voidreality

New Member
Jul 29, 2019
117
0
0
I've recently found turtles and barrels work very well together :)

AGXUv.png
 

FMAylward

Active Member
Jul 29, 2019
68
0
26
That seems simple enough, pity you can't use java for these (?) else I could probably write that in about five minuets.

edit: Didn't I have another post that has gone?
 

TheLoneWolfling

New Member
Jul 29, 2019
260
-6
0
I've recently found turtles and barrels work very well together :)
Questions about that:

How much charcoal does that use overall? Are those MFEs on the left side? How do you ensure that they get enough charcoal? What happens if/when the server goes down?

And a suggestion:
Put a block to the right of the turtles, after the final chest/enderchest. Each time the turtle moves, check the return status to determine if it hit the wall. Don't turn after x blocks, turn after it hits the wall. That way you can use the same program for any number of barrels, and you can recover gracefully from crashes.

Pseudocode (without refueling code):
Code:
while True:
    turn(left)
    if is_air(forward):
        turn(right)
    else:
        turn(left)
    while forward():
        pass
    while not bulkLoad(down):
        pass
    turn(left)
    turn(left)
    while forward():
        if bulkUnload(down):
            break
    for slot in slots:
        grab(down)

Refueling pseudocode:
Code:
for slot in slots:
    if fuelLevel >= 250:
        break
    do:
        currentFuel = fuelLevel
        refuel(1)
    while currentFuel != fuelLevel and fuelLevel < 250
 

Rick

New Member
Jul 29, 2019
33
0
0
Bc pipes are inventory aware. Try using iron pipes at inventories. The items wont pop out when the inventory is full. Also tried bc gates?
 

TheLoneWolfling

New Member
Jul 29, 2019
260
-6
0
Bc pipes are inventory aware. Try using iron pipes at inventories. The items wont pop out when the inventory is full. Also tried bc gates?
Iron pipes either won't go into the inventory in the first place, or will pop out when the inventory is full. Other pipes will choose another path for the items if the inventory is full, but only 50% of items that should go into the inventory actually will - the other 50% will choose the other path.

I suppose one could use Iron pipes + gates + diamond pipes (iron pipe next to inventory with gate on it - if inventory is full change route to overflow), but at that point it's simpler to just go with diamond pipes on the inventory itself. (One nice and little-known feature of diamond pipes is that if an item cannot go down the marked path due to the inventory being full, it will go down the default route instead.)

There is in fact a way to sort with BC pipes that won't drop excess items, but it's annoying to say the least, and it isn't space-efficient. Alternate obsidian pipe-gold pipe - nothing, with the inventory in question connected to the gold pipe. If the inventory can accept the item from the gold pipe, it will, otherwise it will skip to the next obsidian pipe due to the speedup of the gold pipe. You can also do this downwards with anything that can accept items from the side (not barrels unfortunately) - as obsidian pipes don't connect to each other, just stack a bunch of obsidian pipes vertically connected directly to chests or whatever and drop items from the top. They'll go into the first valid inventory.
 

voidreality

New Member
Jul 29, 2019
117
0
0
How much charcoal does that use overall? Are those MFEs on the left side? How do you ensure that they get enough charcoal? What happens if/when the server goes down?

No charcoal, although with some small code changes you could. I use the misc peripheral add-on. The block to the left is a charge station. It allows for the turtle to charge with IC2 power while it's waiting for items to sort. This could easily just be a refuel barrel with charcoal or other fuel inside. And you could call a refuel routine if the turtle was low before it started sorting. If the server goes down, the turtle returns to home position (these guys are gps aware) and restarts the sort program.

And a suggestion:
Put a block to the right of the turtles, after the final chest/enderchest. Each time the turtle moves, check the return status to determine if it hit the wall. Don't turn after x blocks, turn after it hits the wall. That way you can use the same program for any number of barrels, and you can recover gracefully from crashes.

That's not a bad idea. The way I handle this is to just have a distance to travel variable in the code. If I want to add more barrels, I just have to change that variable to the number of barrels +1 (for the ender chest at the end). I didn't want to make this build to complicated. I did this all in about 30 minutes. Setup and code. It was more of a "why not" then a necessity . This could easily be done with BC/RP2 pipes, with no coding needed.

I guess I should explain my ender chests in this setup briefly. The lower left one is the incoming from ore processing. The top left and bottom right are linked. Turtle on the bottom gets stuff in its' ender chest, and starts it way down the line. Any extra stuff gets placed in the bottom right ender chest. This kicks off the top row sorter turtle. Any extra items end up in the golden chest at the end. I like the fact that the turtles pass items off in a linear fashion like this. You could also use diamond pipes to sort the items directly into the two starting points and the turtles would work independently off each other.
 

TheLoneWolfling

New Member
Jul 29, 2019
260
-6
0
No charcoal, although with some small code changes you could. I use the misc peripheral add-on. The block to the left is a charge station.
Ahh ok. Considering you're using that addon, you may with to look at the inventory upgrade, specifically the sneakyplace function. That way you can have a barrel above, below, and to one side of the track.

The way I handle this is to just have a distance to travel variable in the code. If I want to add more barrels, I just have to change that variable to the number of barrels +1 (for the ender chest at the end). I didn't want to make this build to complicated. I did this all in about 30 minutes. Setup and code. It was more of a "why not" then a necessity . This could easily be done with BC/RP2 pipes, with no coding needed.
I tend to overcomplicate things a "little"... But yeah, that could be accomplished with diamond pipes fairly easily too.

I guess I should explain my ender chests in this setup briefly. The lower left one is the incoming from ore processing. The top left and bottom right are linked. Turtle on the bottom gets stuff in its' ender chest, and starts it way down the line. Any extra stuff gets placed in the bottom right ender chest. This kicks off the top row sorter turtle. Any extra items end up in the golden chest at the end.
Figured as much. One other nice thing about that design is that you can have different inputs connect to different points in the chain - for example your smelter output could be connected directly to your second turtle.

Unfortunately, as I am on a SMP server, I have a strictly limited number of ender chests, so the one I just built zigzags - the bottom one goes L-R, the middle one R-L, and the top one L-R as well. Fairly simple change, and it means that I can fit in an extra barrel in each level. Not as elegant though.
 

thatsIch

New Member
Jul 29, 2019
120
0
0
RP can do all of that. I think part of the reason there's such ongoing debate is because people figure out one system and they don't want to learn the others so they don't. Then when someone says RP is great because of its tubes and item sorters, everyone smiles and nods and yes that is why RP is good but this OTHER system does THIS that RP doesn't do...

RP does it all. Add in cleverly used filters and retrievers and you can run an auto-crafting system that pulls only what it needs, too, but a person has to have an understanding beyond "item sorters and tubes" to make it happen.

havent played with rp yet (waiting for FTB 1.4.6 )
can it eeven request items to your enderpouche via a remote?
what about multi-stage crafting?
what about interdimensional stuff?
are there teleport pipes for it?
 

Enigmius1

New Member
Jul 29, 2019
499
0
0
havent played with rp yet (waiting for FTB 1.4.6 )
can it eeven request items to your enderpouche via a remote?
what about multi-stage crafting?
what about interdimensional stuff?
are there teleport pipes for it?

No, there are no teleport pipes in RP, nor is there need for them with ender chests. Yes, it can handle multi-stage crafting very handily. Yes, you could set up a system to send items to your ender pouch.
 

thatsIch

New Member
Jul 29, 2019
120
0
0
No, there are no teleport pipes in RP, nor is there need for them with ender chests. Yes, it can handle multi-stage crafting very handily. Yes, you could set up a system to send items to your ender pouch.

how would a small setup for a remote request look like?
 

trunksbomb

New Member
Jul 29, 2019
390
0
0
how would a small setup for a remote request look like?

With the new Manager machines in RP, it would be pretty easy. Just tell a manager to keep exactly the materials required for one (or more if you'd like) recipies of whatever in an adjacent chest. It will automatically pull from other managers on the network to fill its own inventory. So if you either take the items out of the chest manually or they are otherwise removed (pipes, loaders, etc), the manager will try to replace them.

edit: Just threw this together.

X9Jzb.png


Input chest is at the bottom of the image. Three retrievers pull out a stack each every pulse, so three stacks at a time. Managers only accept the items that are specified in its GUI. The chest on the right has no manager- it is for unsorted items or overflow.

This setup was entirely possible with RP before Managers were introduced, just substitute Sorting Machines in place of the Managers. Same basic functionality. However, Managers allow items to go both ways.. so for example, you could keep your project tables stocked with a stack's worth of recipes at all times. Just put a Manager on it with the items you want to keep stocked and make sure to give it a higher priority than your storage Managers and it will keep itself stocked. Once RP is included in the FTB pack, attach a Manager to an Interdimensional Barrel and give it a priority of 0. Give the corresponding chest a priority of 1. Now you've got a nearly infinite overflow storage that will refill the chest as needed. (edit: Just tried this.. apparently Managers set to "pull all" won't pull from each other, even with proper priorities. Solution: Keep your "top", main storage chest stocked with X stacks of an item. When it exceeds this, the rest go to the matching lower priority chest. When the main chest no longer has X stacks, it pulls from overflow.)

The only downside to this particular system is the noise from the timer. Setting the timer as low as it goes to pull out items as quickly as possible, it makes a lot of noise. You could move the timer deeper underground, or do a repeater clock, or use BC conditional gates. Or skip that entirely and attach the Sorting Machine(s) directly to the chest and set them to pull everything automatically. Plenty of workarounds.
 

thatsIch

New Member
Jul 29, 2019
120
0
0
With the new Manager machines in RP, it would be pretty easy. Just tell a manager to keep exactly the materials required for one (or more if you'd like) recipies of whatever in an adjacent chest. It will automatically pull from other managers on the network to fill its own inventory. So if you either take the items out of the chest manually or they are otherwise removed (pipes, loaders, etc), the manager will try to replace them.

edit: Just threw this together.

X9Jzb.png


Input chest is at the bottom of the image. Three retrievers pull out a stack each every pulse, so three stacks at a time. Managers only accept the items that are specified in its GUI. The chest on the right has no manager- it is for unsorted items or overflow.

This setup was entirely possible with RP before Managers were introduced, just substitute Sorting Machines in place of the Managers. Same basic functionality. However, Managers allow items to go both ways.. so for example, you could keep your project tables stocked with a stack's worth of recipes at all times. Just put a Manager on it with the items you want to keep stocked and make sure to give it a higher priority than your storage Managers and it will keep itself stocked. Once RP is included in the FTB pack, attach a Manager to an Interdimensional Barrel and give it a priority of 0. Give the corresponding chest a priority of 1. Now you've got a nearly infinite overflow storage that will refill the chest as needed. (edit: Just tried this.. apparently Managers set to "pull all" won't pull from each other, even with proper priorities. Solution: Keep your "top", main storage chest stocked with X stacks of an item. When it exceeds this, the rest go to the matching lower priority chest. When the main chest no longer has X stacks, it pulls from overflow.)

The only downside to this particular system is the noise from the timer. Setting the timer as low as it goes to pull out items as quickly as possible, it makes a lot of noise. You could move the timer deeper underground, or do a repeater clock, or use BC conditional gates. Or skip that entirely and attach the Sorting Machine(s) directly to the chest and set them to pull everything automatically. Plenty of workarounds.

thank you very much for your work to put it up together, though I'm kinda missing the "remote" part of it :3
with LP you have a remote in your hand and with an enderpouche you can request anything you want from every point in the world as long your base is loaded (super handy cause you dont have to go back to your base for every lil itchy thing which you are missing)

and I watched DW20's spotlights of the new update but nothing like that was introduced
 

thaile4ever

New Member
Jul 29, 2019
56
0
0
Factorization router can be used for sorting , but are limited to really just barrels due to the way they work. Routers are fast to setup as you only need one to handle unlimited numbers of barrels, but every barrel has to have an item in it as routers deposit items in a round robin fashion to every valid inventory. Which is why mixing chest and barrels don't work. Also since they only have one slot they can jam easy if it gets an item that doesn't have a corresponding barrel. Probably best used with other sorting system to filter that items it gets as it has no way of handling unknown items itself.

That being said routers sorter can handle a lot of the bulk common items easily, fast and is super simple to expand.

As you can see the router is on the left side handles sorting everything to the barrels in front of us and also down two more stories. I also have a second router hidden that is hooked up to the pipe network from the farms. All the sections of barrels are hooked together with hidden furnaces.
MMHVQl.jpg
 

Zivel

New Member
Jul 29, 2019
134
0
0
thank you very much for your work to put it up together, though I'm kinda missing the "remote" part of it :3
with LP you have a remote in your hand and with an enderpouche you can request anything you want from every point in the world as long your base is loaded (super handy cause you dont have to go back to your base for every lil itchy thing which you are missing)

and I watched DW20's spotlights of the new update but nothing like that was introduced

Can you tell me how to do this, I know logistic pipes well and have used teleport pipes to request things but have no idea how to do it from an enderpouch... please elaborate.