Tank: Open Block or Railcraft

[Niels Henriksen]

What to choose?

With Open Block tank you can make any size and shape. Each block gives 16 buckets.

With Railcraft there are specific sizes and they cost a lot of steel (i only want to use steel to get double content).

But what are the bad thing about them?

 

[Boundary]

I have also been mulling this one over, aesthetics aside - it seems volume or size & shape are the deciding factors. I also wondered about gate conditionals on openblocks tanks (which I have not tested)?

No answers here sorry, just some more wanderings

 

[Adonis0]

I know that with open blocks realistically you only want to make a small tank worth because of how they join together and provide a visual of the liquid it's fairly calculation heavy.

They have to constantly check if the tanks to the sides of them or below them have lost any fluid, and if so, distribute fluid accordingly, and each one does this, there's no tank controller.

So if you want a small versatile tank to fit into a corner somewhere, open blocks have got your back, but if you want to store thousands of buckets worth, you gotta go with Railcraft.

 

[DeathGoth]

I agree with Adonis0 When xycraft came out with their tanks, I still used Railcraft because of how much you can put in there in the space they give you.. I haven't used 15 so i am in 16 I will probably run the steel tanks because it makes more sense actually.. if you have a gajillion buckets of something I would use railcraft tanks.. For some of this or that I would use open blocks.. I recently started a world and I am using Open block tanks to store milk for Dartcraft engines and XP..

Also he is right, the checking on the tanks all the time would probably be killer on a server.. you would need 63 tanks to equal 1 of railcrafts iron 9x9x8's

 

[Niels Henriksen]

Thanks for your replies... Of course I should think about the block-update

 

[Teddy Bear]

I tend to use Railcraft tanks in my base/ builds but i carry around the open block tanks, one full of water/ Lava. I think open blocks are fun to use because how versatile they are but i prefer rail craft tanks in my base for show.

 

[PierceSG]

What about Extra Utilities' Drums?
Each one can hold 256,000 mB whereas Iron/Steel tanks could only hold up to 16,000/32,000 mB per block.

Might be heavy on materials, costing 17 iron ingots for each drum but they are pretty compact for that much storage.
Sent from my SM-N9005 using Tapatalk

 

[Teddy Bear]

What about Extra Utilities' Drums?
Each one can hold 256,000 mB whereas Iron/Steel tanks could only hold up to 16,000/32,000 mB per block.

Might be heavy on materials, costing 17 iron ingots for each drum but they are pretty compact for that much storage.
Sent from my SM-N9005 using Tapatalk

You sir just changed my play style... =). i totally forgot about them
i will now carry these in my tools bag, but they wont replace railcraft tanks for me, i like to set up fluid rooms

 

[vertagen]

What about Extra Utilities' Drums?
Each one can hold 256,000 mB whereas Iron/Steel tanks could only hold up to 16,000/32,000 mB per block.

Might be heavy on materials, costing 17 iron ingots for each drum but they are pretty compact for that much storage.
Sent from my SM-N9005 using Tapatalk

However they dont join togheter, which makes piping more complicated, its good for like a bigger storage than Open block tanks, but not good in the large projects.

 

[Wagon153]

I know that with open blocks realistically you only want to make a small tank worth because of how they join together and provide a visual of the liquid it's fairly calculation heavy.

They have to constantly check if the tanks to the sides of them or below them have lost any fluid, and if so, distribute fluid accordingly, and each one does this, there's no tank controller.

So if you want a small versatile tank to fit into a corner somewhere, open blocks have got your back, but if you want to store thousands of buckets worth, you gotta go with Railcraft.

This. I had a huge openblocks tank on my private server, and that chunks was taking over 800 (nanoseconds is it? I know it isn't milliseconds) to update according to Opis. Got rid of most of them, and that chunk dropped down to 200.

 

[PierceSG]

A max sized steel tank is 9 by 9 by 9, occupying 729 blocks of space while providing you with 23,328,000 mB of capacity.
While 91 drums will provide you with 23,296,000 mB of capacity.
Even after all the piping that links all the drums together, it will still take up lesser space, at a heftier cost of course.
Very hefty in fact. Considering all the fluiducts and servos or at the very least red net cable or equivalent to power those sections of pipes that should pump out to the next.

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[Niels Henriksen]

What about Extra Utilities' Drums?
Each one can hold 256,000 mB whereas Iron/Steel tanks could only hold up to 16,000/32,000 mB per block.

Might be heavy on materials, costing 17 iron ingots for each drum but they are pretty compact for that much storage.

6 steel and 11 iron

 

[Vasa]

####################
# tanks
####################

tanks {
    # The amount of buckets each tank can hold
    I:bucketsPerTank=24

If you are SSP you can use this to increase amount of storage per block on OpenBlocks tank.

 

[KingTriaxx]

I prefer to put my Liquids room on a second floor, so I put one open blocks tank in the ceiling below each RC Tank so I can just grab a bucket there, instead of having to open the GUI for the RC tank. Since they fill up first, once they're full, they don't seem to update much.

As for Drums, Logistics Pipes are a good fit. Use the Plus pattern of drums with LP Liquid Pipes in the middle.

 

[rhn]

I prefer to put my Liquids room on a second floor, so I put one open blocks tank in the ceiling below each RC Tank so I can just grab a bucket there, instead of having to open the GUI for the RC tank. Since they fill up first, once they're full, they don't seem to update much.

As for Drums, Logistics Pipes are a good fit. Use the Plus pattern of drums with LP Liquid Pipes in the middle.

You can just rightclick the bucket on the RC tank to fill/empty it too.


Personally I think I am going to stick to the RC tanks. I like the industrial looks of them and they perform quite well. But like the functionality of the drums and might use them for small storages or buffers.

 

[Iskandar]

I tend to place open block tanks in my ceiling. 1 bucket of Energized Glowstone each or lava if you're being cheap and it makes for decent and cool looking lighting.

 

[Dark0_0firE]

I'm supprised no one has mentioned Dynamic Tanks. I have heard they are far less laggy and more powerful than Open Blocks tanks. The ability to hold more than one fluid in the same tank seems impressive, plus you can build in any crazy shape you want. However, I have had a few issues with crashing when attaching a controller with fluids saved inside to a tank.

 

[Revemohl]

I know I've seen an ExtraUtils tank setup that either broke and replaced tanks when they were full, or right clicked on full tanks to fill other tanks. Seeing how they stack as well (as long as any two tanks have the exact same amount of liquid, unless that changed recently), I guess that's the best and most compact liquid setup.

 

[Jukari]

Be wary using large multiblock blocks from openblocks. I have the occasional tank or two that stays at 15999, so more liquid keeps going into them to try and top it off, but it never fills up when they're larger structures, so lots of liquid ends up getting lost. When I use Railcraft tanks though, this never happens. I would say Railcraft or Drums are better for large quantities, and Open blocks for taller one block wide storage. When your spread them horizontally is usually when there ends up being issues. The more horizontal you go, the more often it seems to happen. At least for me.

 

[dragonmaster0283]

Same here with everyone else. I generally stick with RC tanks for my liquid storage. Usually I do an upgrade system anyway. Starting out, I make portable tanks from TE to store my stuff since: a) they are easy to use, b) auto output, and c) not very expensive. From there I upgrade to a drum or 2 for my main storage (like lava to power my mag dynos). Once I'm well going and have plenty of materials I generally skip right to steel tanks (since its double). I always try to at the very least make mine 8 tall (3x3x8) and expand wider if i need to. 3x3x8 is i think 2+mil Mb