The simplest item distribution

[hotblack desiato]

easy method of moving large quantities?

raid a few mineshafts and set up a system with item loaders/unloaders from railcraft. the nice advantage, it's virtually lag free, since it's just one minecart, that runs around. the disadvantage: you need a coke oven to produce the creosote oil for the wooden ties. (and the rolling machine for special tracks).

 

[immibis]

The least laggiest option would be to send items through a filter loop. Filter from chest, leads into another chest. Another filter tries pulling that item. If it does not have space, another filter pulls out item and sends it to another chest. So on. No item rendering at all. The only rendering is the filter turning red and back.

The filter animation is worse than items in pipes.
I don't know exactly how laggy Buildcraft is, but if you use gold pipes in the loop setup then there will only be a few items in the loop at any time.

 

[Dackstrus]

But then I got to wondering. I've never seen a video where someone did this. I've never seen it in a guide. I've never seen someone say, "Well, if you want to graduate past the nerd loop to something high-tech, do this." Is that because it's the neanderthal way of doing pipes? Is it laggy? Is there some other downside I'm missing? Or is it just so basically obvious to everyone that it's beneath mentioning?

It's an ok solution.

The better option to avoid overflow is either Redpower tubes with a single filter pulling items(Which is triggered with a timer). This way, you don't need a loop because the filter will only pull out of an inventory if their space for the item to go to.

If our in the Ultimate pack, and a bit later on in your game, AE is the best option. Though also the most complicated to set up.

 

[CovertJaguar]

The least laggiest option would be to send items through a filter loop. Filter from chest, leads into another chest. Another filter tries pulling that item. If it does not have space, another filter pulls out item and sends it to another chest. So on. No item rendering at all. The only rendering is the filter turning red and back.

That little color change on the Filter? Yeah, that's 100x times worse than an item in a pipe. That's a full on block update, forcing a complete re-render of the mini-chunk and possibly a resend of the entire chunk data to the client. Every time the texture changes.

Also of note, overflow and items spewing on the ground is a far better solution to too many items than infinitely shuffling it around like RP. Items that fall out of BC pipes only last a minute, unlike normal items which last five minutes. Just never EVER build an infinite feed loop. If your chest is full, send them into a Void Pipe.

 

[budge]

That little color change on the Filter? Yeah, that's 100x times worse than an item in a pipe. That's a full on block update, forcing a complete re-render of the mini-chunk and possibly a resend of the entire chunk data to the client. Every time the texture changes..

Thanks for this. I really appreciate under-the-hood knowledge. Regarding lag and sorting, are there any other tips you could share which we might be unaware of? For example, would an item loader sorting system with a couple of carts be more or less laggy than tubes/pipes/AE?

 

[Siro]

The filter animation is worse than items in pipes.
I don't know exactly how laggy Buildcraft is, but if you use gold pipes in the loop setup then there will only be a few items in the loop at any time.

You have severely underestimated my ability to stuff thousands of items into the same recycling loop. I had to switch to AE + Routers to deal with the rate of incoming junk.

 

[CovertJaguar]

Thanks for this. I really appreciate under-the-hood knowledge. Regarding lag and sorting, are there any other tips you could share which we might be unaware of? For example, would an item loader sorting system with a couple of carts be more or less laggy than tubes/pipes/AE?

• Tubes are a bit iffy. All the blocks that connect to tubes cause full block/render updates constantly and the routing calculations aren't exactly cheap. And god forbid you get a backlog of several millions items stuck in the tubes.
• Pipes are pretty good these days, they are a safe bet. Reliable too. Not a good idea to make a pipe that travels hundreds of blocks though, and infinite feedback loops are bad too. Logistics Pipes have their own set of problems (routing calculations again). Gates and Pipe Wire also cause render updates, possibly block updates. I'd have to dig into the code to say for sure, there are ways to do render updates without triggering a server side block update.
• Minecarts are about pretty good too, but entities are pretty costly in terms of bandwidth. Render wise, you can't do much better. RC Tracks cause render updates, but not block updates when changing power state. Unfortunately, there are some long standing entity bugs in Minecraft that can make carts randomly vanish/dupe occasionally. However, for medium-large distances, they can't be beat outside of teleportation mods. For smaller distances, pipes are probably better.
• Can't speak for AE.

 

[Poppycocks]

Ah, okay. I knew about that mod. I thought you were talking about some other (apparently nonexistent) mod.

Extra utilities is a little gem. Add it and you won't be sorry.