This may sound like a noob question, but...

How do forestry loggers work? I want to know how to make them harvest, and how's to get the supply's.

 

Loggers work in conjunction with arbouretums. The latter plants trees in a set pattern (when filled with humus and saplings), and the former cuts down all trees in a certain area, and will spit out the logs/saplings/apples/resin (yes, it does that too) either into connected chests or pipes (pipes are i-sided, so you might want to consult the forestry wiki about that)

 

I guess it may not have harvested because it had nowhere to go. 2 more questions.

1. If I place a chest on top, will it dump in there? And...

2. Does it need MJ?

 

1. Yes, I think. I'll typically put mine next to it, though.
2. Yes.

 

Regarding power: 1MJ/tick engines are enough. For example the BC Stirling Engine fed with Coal or the Forestry Peat-Fired Engine (on Peat) are engines that give 1MJ/t so that's good. You can't power it with redstone engines.

Keep in mind that both the Arboretum and the Logger both need 1MJ/t.

 

Hmm, once my power is going I think I'll just leave the two of them with a redstone energy cell to share. Another question, if the cell is full, and it's output is 2MJ/t(enough to fuel them both), how often do I have to recharge the cell?

 

Well the Redstone Energy Cell can hold 600,000MJ so at 2 per tick that's 300,000 ticks or about 4 hours (give or take a little).

 

Or just run a REConduit line out there, it's fairly lossless. I have a cell set to 3MJ/t incoming, 2MJ/t output. This allows it to trickle charge off my main grid while letting it run if I ever lose power. My backup power generation is a pair of TE Steam engines that eat scaffolds, so keeping the wood incoming is paramount.

 

If you want to get into forestry, I would personally recommend (because it's what I do) you get into peat production first.

The peat you grow can then be used in Peat-fired engines to power several forestry farms. I think the wiki says something like one peat farm can power up to 10 peat engines.

I tend to use 2 peat engines for my forestry tree farms (1 for the arboretum, 1 for the logger)

Another tip I could give is that you can use a Turbary (the thing that harvests Peat) to harvest two layers of peat bogs. By two peat bogs I mean your regular layer of peat created by Peat Bog #1, then a 2nd story and a 2nd Peat Bog #2 above that.

Just offset the Turbary one block higher than Peat Bog #1 and it will reach (and harvest) both the peat below, and above (from Peat Bogs #1 and #2 respectively). Using only 3 peat fired engines to power the whole thing (two on the peat bogs 1 and 2, and 1 on the turbary) leaves 17 remaining Peat-fired engines that could potentially be powered.

 

Forestry is an easy-setup fire and forget method. I've started getting into Steve's carts for farms. They're more resource-hungry on the setup, but less on the rest (you can easily make a completely self-sufficient tree farm without a huge amount of effort, while the forestry version will need a fair amount of maintenance and humus to function).

 

To be clear, this is an appropriate place for noob questions.

By default loggers output sapling to pipes on top and wood on the sides, and everything to a chest on any side. This can be changed in the config.

Interestingly, if only part of a tree is within a logger`s range it will harvest the whole trunk, but it can miss diagonal branches like on large oak and jungle trees. This is not a problem with trees planted by an arboretum as their growth is restricted.

 

Why didn't I think of this before!

 

Rofl!

 

I like that setup and may try it at some point. My problem is: one basic oak tree farm, one basic wheat farm making mulch, 2 carpenters one for bog earth, one for bog. I get plenty of mulch to each carpenter. I have 2/3 of the dirt from the peat farm going to the hummus carpenter and 1/3 to the bog carpenter. All the sand from the tree farm to the bog carpenter.

I end up overflowing hummus and running out of sand for the bog.

I'm thinking about running a 2nd tree farm to use up hummus and make sand and hopefully balance it out.