Was wondering if the Comparator can be duplicated.

[Furious1964]

I'm playing the Ultimate Pack and I was wondering if there was any way to make a comparator.

 

[Omicron]

Nope, since there's no Redstone source that will output less than strength 16 (vanilla) or 256 (Redpower).

The whole concept of something emitting a less than maximum signal was new in 1.5.

 

[Kahless61]

For what purpose? For instance, one functionality of the comparator is to determine if a block has inventory. This can be done with gates. Another one is to compare different power levels - which doesn't make sense since power levels aren't introduced until 1.5 - but then you'd need to ask why you need a different power level. The comparator also simplifies a good bit of redstone - functionality that has always been around, just requires more redstoning.

 

[Furious1964]

To compare different items for storage. Was going to build the Iron trench by Tango Tak and he uses Comparators. Will see if it can be made in FTB using its mods.

 

[rymmie1981]

Watch until he gets to the giant comparator. That's what it takes to mimic just one of the comparators functions using normal redstone. Besides, playing a version before 1.5 wouldn't work at all anyways since signal strength was just introduced in 1.5.

 

[apemanzilla]

Watch until he gets to the giant comparator. That's what it takes to mimic just one of the comparators functions using normal redstone. Besides, playing a version before 1.5 wouldn't work at all anyways since signal strength was just introduced in 1.5.

Signal strength has always been in... You know, the 15-block limit? It was just never very useful until now.

 

[Kahless61]

There are tons of ways to compare items in FTB. Diamond pipes, Applied Energistics has all sorts of stuff perfect for storage of specified items, ComputerCraft has some things, Routers, and I'm no doubt missing a few things.
I don't really know how you intend to compare items with a comparator, but I'd imagine the FTB solutions would be even smaller.

 

[Furious1964]

Well, you can look up Tango Tek's Iron Trench on YouTube for an idea on what I want to build. So far, got his Iron Golem Tower to work but will break when the chunk is unloaded (i.e. by going to the nether).

 

[Jakeb]

Chunk load it?

 

[Furious1964]

I thought of that too, but also want to be safe.

 

[Kahless61]

I'm skimming through the video and seeing a bunch of redstone logic gates. These can be massively simplified using RedPower in FTB Ultimate (note that RedPower is not in later versions of FTB such as the 1.5.2 beta packs and FTB Unleashed/Direwolf20, since it is not being updated, but there are replacements available, such as RedNet).
As for sorting through drops, using buildcraft you can pick them up with obsidian pipes, and then redirect them with diamond pipes. There's also the Transposer/etc route but I find that to be a bit more expensive and we're not really gaining anything for it here.

 

[Furious1964]

Is there an item in the Ultimate Pack that can also duplicate the functions of the dropper?

 

[Riuga]

Is there an item in the Ultimate Pack that can also duplicate the functions of the dropper?

turtle.place();

use dispenser for blocks

 

[Furious1964]

OK, final question: is there any way to get the vanilla version of hoppers into the Ultimate Pack? Just wondering.

 

[Someone Else 37]

Is there an item in the Ultimate Pack that can also duplicate the functions of the dropper?

Not quite exactly, but there are several things that can automate things the same way.

The two main mods for early-game automation available in Ultimate are BuildCraft and RedPower.

If you want to use Buildcraft, you'll need to craft some Transport Pipes. Place a Wooden Pipe adjacent to a chest (or any other block with an inventory, i.e. furnaces, other machines), and some Stone or Cobblestone pipes connecting the wood pipe to wherever you want it to go. Place a Redstone Engine adjacent to the wood pipe (make sure it faces the pipe), and give it a constant redstone signal. It will pull one item from the chest at a time, and it will gradually heat up and pull items faster. Don't worry about redstone engines exploding.

Note that there are more advanced items and pipes in BC, such as Autarchic Gates that can run wooden pipes more compactly, without engines, Gold Pipes that make items go faster, Diamond Pipes that sort things, etc. These are more expensive, though, and would be difficult to explain in a short paragraph.

Alternatively, there's RedPower. What you'll want to do is craft up a Transposer, some Pneumatic Tubes, and a redstone clock of some sort (RP has its own single-block redstone clock, called a Timer- I'd recommend it), like you'd use with a Dropper. Place the Transposer adjacent to the chest, making sure that the side with the large hole is facing the chest, and the side with the small hole is facing away. You can use a Screwdriver to rotate it, if it's facing the wrong way. Connect the tubes from the back of the Transposer to the appropriate destination, and connect the Transposer to the Timer (or vanilla redstone clock).

On each pulse, the transposer will pull one item from the chest and push it into the tube behind it; from there, the item will move through the tubes toward the nearest inventory. So if the tube line is connected to several different chests, items will go first into the chest nearest to the transposer, and when it fills up, the second one, etc.

Tubes also have the advantage over pipes that they will always send items where they are able to go, and will never drop items on the ground. BC Pipes, on the other hand, will usually send items in random directions at intersections, and tend to drop them on the ground if they won't fit.

Finally, note that the hopper you see in NEI in Ultimate isn't the one Vanilla added in 1.5. Buildcraft's hopper has only four slots, and will only dump items into inventories below it. It cannot pick up items, pull items from inventories, or insert items into the sides of machines.

Edit:

OK, final question: is there any way to get the vanilla version of hoppers into the Ultimate Pack? Just wondering.

No, there isn't. There are, however, some packs available for MC 1.5. Most notably, there's Direwolf20's pack, as well as some no-longer-maintained betas (152wgt and 152ngt) and the two new ones, Unleashed and Unhinged. I'd recommend Unleashed, as all the mods in Unhinged are set to hard mode- and GregTech nerfs a whole lot of vanilla mechanics.

 

[netchip]

Not quite exactly, but there are several things that can automate things the same way.

The two main mods for early-game automation available in Ultimate are BuildCraft and RedPower.

If you want to use Buildcraft, you'll need to craft some Transport Pipes. Place a Wooden Pipe adjacent to a chest (or any other block with an inventory, i.e. furnaces, other machines), and some Stone or Cobblestone pipes connecting the wood pipe to wherever you want it to go. Place a Redstone Engine adjacent to the wood pipe (make sure it faces the pipe), and give it a constant redstone signal. It will pull one item from the chest at a time, and it will gradually heat up and pull items faster. Don't worry about redstone engines exploding.

Note that there are more advanced items and pipes in BC, such as Autarchic Gates that can run wooden pipes more compactly, without engines, Gold Pipes that make items go faster, Diamond Pipes that sort things, etc. These are more expensive, though, and would be difficult to explain in a short paragraph.

Alternatively, there's RedPower. What you'll want to do is craft up a Transposer, some Pneumatic Tubes, and a redstone clock of some sort (RP has its own single-block redstone clock, called a Timer- I'd recommend it), like you'd use with a Dropper. Place the Transposer adjacent to the chest, making sure that the side with the large hole is facing the chest, and the side with the small hole is facing away. You can use a Screwdriver to rotate it, if it's facing the wrong way. Connect the tubes from the back of the Transposer to the appropriate destination, and connect the Transposer to the Timer (or vanilla redstone clock).

On each pulse, the transposer will pull one item from the chest and push it into the tube behind it; from there, the item will move through the tubes toward the nearest inventory. So if the tube line is connected to several different chests, items will go first into the chest nearest to the transposer, and when it fills up, the second one, etc.

Tubes also have the advantage over pipes that they will always send items where they are able to go, and will never drop items on the ground. BC Pipes, on the other hand, will usually send items in random directions at intersections, and tend to drop them on the ground if they won't fit.

Finally, note that the hopper you see in NEI in Ultimate isn't the one Vanilla added in 1.5. Buildcraft's hopper has only four slots, and will only dump items into inventories below it. It cannot pick up items, pull items from inventories, or insert items into the sides of machines.

Edit:

No, there isn't. There are, however, some packs available for MC 1.5. Most notably, there's Direwolf20's pack, as well as some no-longer-maintained betas (152wgt and 152ngt) and the two new ones, Unleashed and Unhinged. I'd recommend Unleashed, as all the mods in Unhinged are set to hard mode- and GregTech nerfs a whole lot of vanilla mechanics.

I won't start a new 1.4.7 world, if I were you.

Also, just add GregTech to Unleashed to get a very nice pack, disable iron axe nerf, disable matter fab and you're good to go

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 4 Beta

 

[Kahless61]

The hopper and dropper are frequently used in redstone logic concepts such as timers and flip flops. All these can be emulated and simplified using RedPower. RedPower has a Timer block, Pulse extender, Pulse shortener, Flip Flop blocks (your choice, T-flip-flop, RS-nor Latch), And/Or/Not/Xor/Nand/Xnor gates, the works. These blocks will make the redstone for your circuits a *lot* smaller - even smaller than with the new Hopper/Dropper/Comparator/Lockable Repeater.
If you try to emulate the individual behaviors of the hopper/dropper/comparator/lockable repeater, you're going to massively overcomplicate the system. Just use redpower. Figure out what logic concepts you need to use, and use the blocks appropriate for it.
And if you can't figure that out, you're also not going to be able to figure out how to emulate the individual behaviors and integrate them into your system, so it will be a bust anyways.

 

[Someone Else 37]

I should also point out that the only way I know to check inventory levels in 1.4.7 is using Buildcraft Gates. You'll need an Assembly Table, which needs Lasers to power it, which require Buildcraft Power to run... but once you've got gates, you can place them on any pipe adjacent to any inventory, and click the squares in its GUI to program it.

Example: Detect when a furnace has finished smelting an item, to pull more of them from a chest into the furnace, so the pipes don't overflow and drop things.

You'll need an Iron Gate (whether it's AND or OR doesn't matter here), an Autarchic Iron Gate, two Red Pipe Wires, a Woodem Transport Pipe, a Stone (or cobble, or gold) Transport Pipe, a chest, and a furnace.

1. Place the stone pipe on top of the furnace, the wood pipe adjacent to the stone pipe, and the chest adjacent to the wood pipe.
2. Place the Autarchic gate on the wood pipe, and the other gate on the stone pipe.
3. Place a pipe wire on each pipe.
4. Open the autarchic gate's GUI, set the top left square to "Red Pipe Signal On", and the top right square to "Energy Pulser". Don't do anything with the bottom squares.
5. Open the other gate's GUI, set the top left to "Inventory Empty" and the top right to "Red Pipe Signal".

Now, whenever the top slot of the furnace is empty, the regular gate will detect that and turn on the red pipe wire, which the autarchic gate will then detect and start pulling items from the chest. You could place a regular Iron Gate on the wooden pipe instead, set its GUI to Red Pipe Signal > Redstone Signal, and aim a Redstone Engine at it (with no lever), but autarchic gates are both faster (due to lack of a warmup period) and more compact.

Note that smelted items are extracted from the SIDE of furnaces, and fuel goes in the BOTTOM. Most mod automation systems don't have the silly "can only pull from the bottom" restriction that vanilla hoppers have.