Thaumcraft Alchemical Construct - faster automation possible?

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MigukNamja

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Jul 29, 2019
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Ok, I feel like you're severely misunderstanding me here. See, what I'm trying to say is, I'm not running my furnaces while doing alchemy on purpose. I'm not saying that my furnaces won't run while I'm doing alchemy or something. I run the furnaces and the essentia goes into storage so that I can later use that essentia for alchemy when I need it. I'm saying my problem was that when I do alchemy, the construct pulls more essentia than it needs meaning once it's hit the full amount of that specific type it needs for the recipe there's still more of that essentia in the tubes and that then needs to go back to the storage before the next type of essentia can come forth due to the fact that only one type of essentia can be in a tube at one time. Ergo, by shortening the distance I would reduce the amount of tubes from the storage to the construct and thereby reduce the amount of time it takes for the essentia to get there and back.

You severely misunderstand. Look at my picture. One tube per essentia. Don't try to put multiple through same tube.
 

Inaeo

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Jul 29, 2019
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You severely misunderstand. Look at my picture. One tube per essentia. Don't try to put multiple through same tube.

As far as my testing has shown, if you have dedicated lines for each essentia, the time is shortened significantly. If you pipe all your jars/storage in on one pipe, the essentia has to drain back out before the new suction type can pull into the line. With dedicated lines, the first overdrawn essentia is flowing back to storage at the same time the new essentia is being pulled in on a different line, thereby bypassing that wait time.
 

Lethosos

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Jul 29, 2019
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Been poking around at essentia storage systems, and figured out a different method of precision alchemy. You can set up a bunch of crystalizers and dump precise amounts of specific essence into a furnace, then xfer over to the construct setup via golem.

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adamich

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Jul 29, 2019
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I'm saying my problem was that when I do alchemy, the construct pulls more essentia than it needs meaning once it's hit the full amount of that specific type it needs for the recipe there's still more of that essentia in the tubes and that then needs to go back to the storage before the next type of essentia can come forth due to the fact that only one type of essentia can be in a tube at one time..

Ioq0zzP.png

ok here is a small version of the set up it is expandable to cover all aspects. the buffers are pulling from the furnace and fills the jars as it goes down the line.
i3oORGi.png
to get the Buffers passing to each other you need to shift right click with a wand on the output side of the buffer.

if the jars are full the essentia goes all through and into the reservoirs. and at the end i have a valve to the crystalizers to turn the extra aspects into the crystals. this way you can maintain it for 64 per jar and any extra goes to the Reservoirs. and youcan have it go almost anyware from the other side of the valve even back to the beginning of the system.

Buffers CAN transfer up to 8 types of essentia per tick/block.

and U can make prime back-tube to trasfer essentia back to reservoirs
 

Jorvalt

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Jul 29, 2019
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Apologies for the late reply. I took a break from DW20 for a while and kind of forgot about this.
You severely misunderstand. Look at my picture. One tube per essentia. Don't try to put multiple through same tube.
Well, the problem with your setup is the fact that there are 49 total types of essentia in the current version of dw20 (there may be more, but I'm fairly certain I've discovered all). At 8 connector ports per automated crucible, that's about 7 crucibles you're gonna need to make. Not to mention the fact that obviously most recipes have aspects in common, therefore you're going to have many branches coming from the same jar. Oh, also this makes using essentia reservoirs impossible (unless you use a setup similar to dw20's in which he uses essentia reservoirs as basically backup storage). In summary, having an automated alchemy setup which accounts for every aspect would require a whole mess of tubes and a bunch of automated crucibles. This does not seem like a very efficient solution.
Buffers CAN transfer up to 8 types of essentia per tick/block.

and U can make prime back-tube to trasfer essentia back to reservoirs
Except essentia reservoirs/jars only have one side you can attach tubes to. Not to mention the fact that suction cannot pass through essentia buffers, therefore this whole idea is basically just rendered nil.
 

adamich

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Jul 29, 2019
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Except essentia reservoirs/jars only have one side you can attach tubes to. Not to mention the fact that suction cannot pass through essentia buffers, therefore this whole idea is basically just rendered nil.
there is two ways to transfer water in pipes:
vacuming aka suction in thaumcraft tubes
pressure aka thaumcraft buffers

and if U cant use more than one side of jars it's not says that U cant make circle with tubes/buffers
 
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Jorvalt

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Jul 29, 2019
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there is two ways to transfer water in pipes:
vacuming aka suction in thaumcraft tubes
pressure aka thaumcraft buffers
What?
There's no such thing as pressure. Both give off suction.

and if U cant use more than one side of jars it's not says that U cant make circle with tubes/buffers
Tried that. Doesn't work.

and there is a block which can add some sides to jars)))
it's name transvector interface
Ah, I had forgotten about that. Though, doesn't each side of the block only mimic the corresponding side of the other block? Or am I wrong on that?
 

adamich

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Jul 29, 2019
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What?
There's no such thing as pressure. Both give off suction.
hmmm, always thought that buffers has no suction. and cant work with suction. and still can't imagine how suction work IN buffers.
I'll go knock on the buffers.

Though, doesn't each side of the block only mimic the corresponding side of the other block?
it's work side to side: top side of block will work as top side jar

Truth born in a dispute ;)
 

Jorvalt

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Jul 29, 2019
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hmmm, always thought that buffers has no suction. and cant work with suction. and still can't imagine how suction work IN buffers.
I'll go knock on the buffers.
Buffers give off 1 suction by themselves (if they aren't choked by shift+clicking with a wand) and give off I think 32 additional suction for every Arcane Bellows attached to them. The suction is always untyped (might be able to be typed using a filtered tube, not sure).

it's work side to side: top side of block will work as top side jar

Truth born in a dispute ;)
Ah, okay. Well, that only fixes the mess of essentia tubes problem, but not the needing-to-hook-up-jars-to-multiple-automatic crucibles-problem.
 
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LukeWUK

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Jul 29, 2019
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if your making huge amounts of 1 thing could you run dedicated pipes for each essentia ?
 

fxavatar

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Jul 29, 2019
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I too have been looking for a way to do this. It can be done, but it is very slow when using reservoirs. It can be created to be truly automated.
This can be done, but it is a bit slow when crafting. 1st off, the layout of your sorting system must be changed to allow for a dual pipe system. The directional flow crafting pipe that allows for drawing from all the tanks without letting them fight each other. The second pipe would be the return overflow (thanks for the over-draw it does). However, this return pipe would have to filter and not have the tanks fight each other. The other main issue is that reservoirs only have a suction of 24. With 50+ non-core types plus the core 6 elements, the single wrap of a room just will not work. The final issue I found is that when the alchemical construct changes types, it will cause a clogging of the draw pipe system at a random location and instantly causes everything to jam. This is where you need to use a redstone clock connected to a valve. This allows the draw from the alchemical construct to be cut off and allow for the lower pressure drain system to flow back into your sorting system. You will need to adjust it to allow the pressure from the alchemical construct to drop all the way before triggering the redstone pulse to re-open the valve. Personally I used a rednet controller for exact settings, but you can build a redstone clock from vanilla minecraft as well if your mudpack does not have it. Sadly, this process causes the delay.. every time it changes draw types, you have a good amount of delay.



The 2 layouts I have come up with allows for the sorting system (using the buffer with the outbound settings already noted in earlier posts to sit on top of the filter pipes, that are linked to the draw pipe. This also allows for the randomly placed clogged pipe to be drained out. Side note, the layout allows you to pipe in from the top to allow connecting to your alchemical furnace setup and take advantage of the filter. Also, at the end of your filter chain, place a few alchemical centrifuges and feed the output back into the filtering system to make a fully contained system (since the final 6 have a void tank).

Long Line Layout.png
Single Chunk Layout Idea.png

The main advantage of the second layout (from the second screenshot) is that the end line pressure is a touch higher allowing for a few seconds faster clock to be used. Plus, with only 15x7, this allows for you to build it all in one chunk (for those like me that like to focus your base into single chunk layouts for chunkloaders). For the second screenshot, I left the reservoirs, buffers, and void tanks off for easier viewing, but my love of balance can be satisfied with the 6 core elemental void tanks sorted into the center area.
 

Azzanine

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Jul 29, 2019
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I think even now what Jorvalt wanted to do is impossible, at least impossible to make fool proof. He wanted a centralized essentia storage that actually worked despite essentias frankly screwy mechanics. I've seriously tried to undestand essentia mechanics but my feeble mind fails me.
From what I understand Thaumcraft alchemy machines produce a suction value of a certain type. To get essentia to work you need the destination to have more suction then the source.
The only thing I can think of is to have a buffer underneath or next to the tube inserting essentia so the exess has something to drain to. But then you have to figure out how to get that exess back to their original storage point without the suction mechanic screwing things up.

I sort of just cheesed Thaumcraft alchemy and installed Thaumic energistics. I know, lame... But essentia tubes make my head hurt and golems make my face hurt from all the palming it gets.
I also have Technomancy which at the time of the original post was a hot buggy mess, that and not part of any pack. Thankfully it's stable now! Essentia coils are the business.

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