The Final Word on Steam Boiler Efficiency
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It's bad to just lap up and repeat information from some forum thread on the internet, mm'kay? 
Here's some actual facts on what Forestry will be doing come 1.5.1: http://forestry.sengir.net/wiki.new/doku.php?id=main:beta
If anything, it means that you have one small extra step in between spawning in the world and having infinite fuel. Both the willow and the cherry are among of the first mutations you can get, if not the first. So it should be a matter of finding one or two naturally occuring bee hives to get a bee pair and a comb, crafting a bee house and planting some vanilla trees around it, and then going off to do some mining for a while. You can do all of this as early as you have access to wood and wool - in other words, instantly at game start. And voila, you're back to pretty much the old yield (750 new vs. 800 old). As a bonus you're now getting exoticly colored wood planks, and if you scored a cherry, fruits that are great for seed oil production to boot. And put some actual effort into tree breeding, and you might double that output down the line. Then take that whole sum and triple it again if you combine traits from different trees. 4500 mB isn't looking so bad compared to the old 800, right?
Besides, some of us have been playing with custom configs setting sapling output to 200 mB or less for months now, since the default values are just flat-out broken...
Here's some actual facts on what Forestry will be doing come 1.5.1: http://forestry.sengir.net/wiki.new/doku.php?id=main:beta
If anything, it means that you have one small extra step in between spawning in the world and having infinite fuel. Both the willow and the cherry are among of the first mutations you can get, if not the first. So it should be a matter of finding one or two naturally occuring bee hives to get a bee pair and a comb, crafting a bee house and planting some vanilla trees around it, and then going off to do some mining for a while. You can do all of this as early as you have access to wood and wool - in other words, instantly at game start. And voila, you're back to pretty much the old yield (750 new vs. 800 old). As a bonus you're now getting exoticly colored wood planks, and if you scored a cherry, fruits that are great for seed oil production to boot. And put some actual effort into tree breeding, and you might double that output down the line. Then take that whole sum and triple it again if you combine traits from different trees. 4500 mB isn't looking so bad compared to the old 800, right?
Besides, some of us have been playing with custom configs setting sapling output to 200 mB or less for months now, since the default values are just flat-out broken...
I'm sorry.
And I'm not like "oh, they broke my infinte fuel generation!!!", I just don't know what to do with SC treefarm. I wanted to use planks for solid boilers and saplings for liquid ones. AFAIK, SC doesn't like forestry trees, so I have to use vanilla ones and I just don't know what to do with that crazy amount of vanilla saplings ^_^'
And I'm not like "oh, they broke my infinte fuel generation!!!", I just don't know what to do with SC treefarm. I wanted to use planks for solid boilers and saplings for liquid ones. AFAIK, SC doesn't like forestry trees, so I have to use vanilla ones and I just don't know what to do with that crazy amount of vanilla saplings ^_^'
That's just not my way to do things. My point is "Do not tweak energy outputs in configs EVER". Because that's the same as using powerConverters instead of Steam Turbine.
I guess I'll convert that saplings to biofuel anyways. Even if it is not enough to power a 36HP boiler, it's still fuel. Maybe I'll use some diesel gengerators or something like that.
I guess I'll convert that saplings to biofuel anyways. Even if it is not enough to power a 36HP boiler, it's still fuel. Maybe I'll use some diesel gengerators or something like that.
If you want to use only vanilla saplings, use the MFR bioreactor (was added in 2.3, no FTB pack is updated to that version). If the mod author doesn't change his values for 1.5.1, you'll get more biofuel per sapling than with fermenter+still and don't have to invest MJ for the conversion, too. If you add other saplings or seeds into it at the same time, the conversion ratio will improve further.
Sapling->biofuel:
1.4.7 Forestry: 240mB
1.5.1 Forestry: 75mB (with unidentified vanilla saplings, boostable to 450mB with breeding. There's also a trait for triple saplings.)
1.4.7 MFR: 80mB-160mB (depends on the number of different saplings/seeds converted at the same time)
Sapling->biofuel:
1.4.7 Forestry: 240mB
1.5.1 Forestry: 75mB (with unidentified vanilla saplings, boostable to 450mB with breeding. There's also a trait for triple saplings.)
1.4.7 MFR: 80mB-160mB (depends on the number of different saplings/seeds converted at the same time)
Not really. I actually spent some effort on trying to breed cherry trees for a build and it took about a week. As in a real life week. I later figured out that the problem was that I needed to use Industrious bees for the faster pollination trait. I was using Imperials, which like most other bees hover between slowest and slow pollination. Keep in mind, I did this after I'd already setup a pretty decent power/infrastructure setup.
Sure, biofuel will still be viable, but adding tree breeding to it makes it a mid to late game option rather than the early-mid game option it is currently.
Don't quote me on this, but if I'm not mistaken, Steve's Carts will also be updated with the Forestry saplings, so you'll be able to go through the nonsense of tree breeding (I have zero interest in that) once to get the saplings you want, then just use them in your existing SC farm.
NEI is not wrong. I'm on the latest MindCrack pack and some of the slabs have 150 heat, but some types of wood still have 300, so you can double your heat by converting your planks into logs.
I'm loving the new changes to Forestry. I can't wait to play with those new trees and bees. I hope some of my other favorite mods update to 1.5.1 soonish.
I've use bother boilers and combustion engines, and I'll say my preference leans to the combustion engines. reason being is that they have their own safety net in the form of a gold gate (I use structure pipe for the gate structure) Set the gold and gate to check for water AND what ever conditions that tell it to turn on and they will never blow, for my water source, I use a 7x7 water source pumped out via a BC pump running with 1MJ (redstone cells to limit power flow) and it has never ran out since the initial feed, note it's not a bad idea to fill the engines initially with capsules, but you can just refill your watersorce if needed.
I also never consistently use all the power provided by a boiler
My set up:
1 primary RS Energy cell with a gate connected to it on a structure pipe (iron will due if using red pipe wire, I prefer blue wire, so I use a gold gate). Do not set this condition yet.
a second RS Energy cell to act as a buffer to accept any MJ overflow (I may also connect up some Stirling engines here depending on my charcoal stores, but that is not important here) but this is not required.
obviously RS Energy conduit connecting the cells.
1 gold AND gate for each combustion engine you wish to use. also get your self the engines
Connect your engines to the buffer RS Energy cell, you CAN use gold/wood conductive pipe to do this and to run the wires/gold gates, but each Combustion engine MUST have it's own wooden conductive pipe, having 2 engines on 1 gate WILL CAUSE AN EXPLOSION because of the gates being confused.
Run the pipe wire, either via the conductive pipe, or cobble structure pipe, or some combination of the 2
Place a gate next to each engines set the first condition to be <pipe wire on --> redstone signal on> The pipe wire should be off still. the second condition should be <Liquid in tank ---> Redstone signal>, then take a bucket of water and click it next to the Liquid in tank condition. Note Gates will accept a true condition from ANY block around them, so if you have 2 engines connected to the same gate, 1 has water, the other does not, it will still keep the redstone signal on, and eventually an explosion or 2.
Set up your fuel and water delivery, you can use pipes if you are using Fuel, maybe biofuel (not sure haven't used it since fuel was bumped up in MJ/T and burn time) but seriously consider using Liquiducts to connect the water supply, if nothing else, it's better than running 4 pipes from a pump, or setting up several pumps.
after all that , go to the gate by the first RS Energy cell and set it to <can store energy --> pipe wire on>
you now have safe combustion engines
This set up can be scaled and modified for any size/location, I use 2 wires for control in a quarry set up (one for "quarry has work" other for the transport box not being full, I prefer the mystcraft/railcraft transport method) as well as the has water condition.
Layout:
Gold AND gate settings:
Running the combustion engines full tilt enough to fill 14 RS Energy cells while processing and making fuel. do note; that I can not process fuel (BC refineries) and a forestry centrifuge, and make a positive MJ gain, I have no idea why, I just turn my bees off.
As for fuel, I prefer "FUEL" not biofuel, to get the oil needed, make a mystcraft world with <ocean - single biome, oil - standard/flat terrain> and make the rest stable, add several charged symbols (if possible, haven't tested this yet.) to keep the age from making you sick (or just keep making ages till you find one w/o nausea, but you will need a charged symbol to keep the decay away.) then drain it dry.
I also never consistently use all the power provided by a boiler
My set up:
1 primary RS Energy cell with a gate connected to it on a structure pipe (iron will due if using red pipe wire, I prefer blue wire, so I use a gold gate). Do not set this condition yet.
a second RS Energy cell to act as a buffer to accept any MJ overflow (I may also connect up some Stirling engines here depending on my charcoal stores, but that is not important here) but this is not required.
obviously RS Energy conduit connecting the cells.
1 gold AND gate for each combustion engine you wish to use. also get your self the engines
Connect your engines to the buffer RS Energy cell, you CAN use gold/wood conductive pipe to do this and to run the wires/gold gates, but each Combustion engine MUST have it's own wooden conductive pipe, having 2 engines on 1 gate WILL CAUSE AN EXPLOSION because of the gates being confused.
Run the pipe wire, either via the conductive pipe, or cobble structure pipe, or some combination of the 2
Place a gate next to each engines set the first condition to be <pipe wire on --> redstone signal on> The pipe wire should be off still. the second condition should be <Liquid in tank ---> Redstone signal>, then take a bucket of water and click it next to the Liquid in tank condition. Note Gates will accept a true condition from ANY block around them, so if you have 2 engines connected to the same gate, 1 has water, the other does not, it will still keep the redstone signal on, and eventually an explosion or 2.
Set up your fuel and water delivery, you can use pipes if you are using Fuel, maybe biofuel (not sure haven't used it since fuel was bumped up in MJ/T and burn time) but seriously consider using Liquiducts to connect the water supply, if nothing else, it's better than running 4 pipes from a pump, or setting up several pumps.
after all that , go to the gate by the first RS Energy cell and set it to <can store energy --> pipe wire on>
you now have safe combustion engines
This set up can be scaled and modified for any size/location, I use 2 wires for control in a quarry set up (one for "quarry has work" other for the transport box not being full, I prefer the mystcraft/railcraft transport method) as well as the has water condition.
Layout:
Gold AND gate settings:
Running the combustion engines full tilt enough to fill 14 RS Energy cells while processing and making fuel. do note; that I can not process fuel (BC refineries) and a forestry centrifuge, and make a positive MJ gain, I have no idea why, I just turn my bees off.
As for fuel, I prefer "FUEL" not biofuel, to get the oil needed, make a mystcraft world with <ocean - single biome, oil - standard/flat terrain> and make the rest stable, add several charged symbols (if possible, haven't tested this yet.) to keep the age from making you sick (or just keep making ages till you find one w/o nausea, but you will need a charged symbol to keep the decay away.) then drain it dry.
DaemosDean: I use very similar setup, but with iron gates and red pipe wire. REC has two structure pipes, connected to simple RS nor latch and when it is in discharging cycle, it emits redpipe signal to gates next to engines. Engines will only run when there is no red pipe signal and if an engine is orange it also emits this signal (+ additional manual shutoff).
Why would I want a quantum generator, I don't use EU.
Also, how is the Mystcraft age different than finding an oil well, and sending a cart to your base via the nether (and Mystcraft protals), which is how I got the first 2800+ buckets of excess fuel. Note, I use fuel for both MJ and EU production, so I produced a bucket ton more fuel than that. It's actually harder to deal with a mystcraft age for oil than the OW -> Nether -> OW oildropoff method because of the instability (nausea is too common)
But to each their own.