What does YOUR Power Room look like?
- Thread starter Kyonai
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So before the seed oil nerf I had 26 engines running on the stuff, with excess. It was temporary anyway...
So now that RedPower is out I've been experimenting (on the MindCrack pack) and trying to build the modules needed for my wheat-farm-only power setup.
Right now I'm stuck on the best way to divide the wheat between the fermenter and moistener (about 84 to 1, with excess). I can use a chest/buffer and get it to work in chunks, but was hoping for a more "fluid" approach. Any ideas?
Sorting of wheat test (seeds will offshoot from filter): http://i.imgur.com/WUp6k.png
What method would work with inline vs buffer setup?: http://i.imgur.com/xmphg.png
I really like how the moistener setup turned out!: http://i.imgur.com/kCyBz.png
The fermenter setup needs some work...: http://i.imgur.com/nc9TR.png
I have not tried managers yet, but from the videos of Direwolf20 using them, they look really spammy... If they acted a bit more like logistic pipes, I might use them. But it appears to me that some logic gates with retrievers would be less spammy...
So now that RedPower is out I've been experimenting (on the MindCrack pack) and trying to build the modules needed for my wheat-farm-only power setup.
Right now I'm stuck on the best way to divide the wheat between the fermenter and moistener (about 84 to 1, with excess). I can use a chest/buffer and get it to work in chunks, but was hoping for a more "fluid" approach. Any ideas?
Sorting of wheat test (seeds will offshoot from filter): http://i.imgur.com/WUp6k.png
What method would work with inline vs buffer setup?: http://i.imgur.com/xmphg.png
I really like how the moistener setup turned out!: http://i.imgur.com/kCyBz.png
The fermenter setup needs some work...: http://i.imgur.com/nc9TR.png
I have not tried managers yet, but from the videos of Direwolf20 using them, they look really spammy... If they acted a bit more like logistic pipes, I might use them. But it appears to me that some logic gates with retrievers would be less spammy...
I will say this about moisteners and RP2, in my tests they don't like to play that well together. Had several cases of the machines dropping the wrong items in the wrong slots even when connected to the right sides (such as cobble filling the wheat area from the top). To top this off, if you put too much wheat in a moistener it also has a chance to jam, so you need to force it to only keep so much wheat in specific slots. I found a way to set up a moistener system with 6 of the routers from Factorization. The bonus of this is that this can be extended to way more moisteners then you'll ever need. In my testing I used a massive group of 121 moisteners (11x11) and it went very well. Basically, you'd have one router ejecting cobble into another, which then puts cobble into moisteners from the top. You'd have another router ejecting wheat into a router than then inserts the wheat into only slot 0 (top left wheat slot). For extraction you'd have one router set to pull from moisteners from below (for moss cobble, or any other output you may want), and another to pull from the moistener's slot 1 (the top middle wheat slot). This will keep one stack of wheat in the working area, one in the buffer area, and any mulch will be immediately pulled out once it leaves the working area and enters the buffer area. As an added bonus, the moisteners in this setup will never jam due to it not having enough wheat in the system to allow it to. For water you can either pump it from above or below.
Sure, the setup requires 6 eyes of ender and 6 ender pearls, but is far more compact and less likely to have massive amounts of issues due to the slots on the moisteners not playing nice.
Sure, the setup requires 6 eyes of ender and 6 ender pearls, but is far more compact and less likely to have massive amounts of issues due to the slots on the moisteners not playing nice.
RP2 Regulators are the saving grace of the build. I will never have jams because I set the regulator to only allow one piece of wheat in at a time, and although it can't read the "working" inventory, only 1 wheat is in the queue.
For what I'm trying to do, I won't need crazy amounts of moisteners anyway. Every mulch gives me 12 buckets of biomass if fed.
Anyway, I'll link a picture of the interfaces around the moistener: http://i.imgur.com/QFUuB.png
Bonus. Because only one wheat is allowed in the system at a time, mulch gets created before another piece is started.
For what I'm trying to do, I won't need crazy amounts of moisteners anyway. Every mulch gives me 12 buckets of biomass if fed.
Anyway, I'll link a picture of the interfaces around the moistener: http://i.imgur.com/QFUuB.png
Bonus. Because only one wheat is allowed in the system at a time, mulch gets created before another piece is started.
Currently this is a few of the shots on how my test build looks like:
Pic 1 shows the moisteners from below, pic 2 is the setup for the input routers (this is the wheat side, you want them separate so the ejecting routers only pull from the nearby barrel), and pic 3 is how the output routers are setup (they eject onto the barrel from above, this one for mulch).
Had to drop some glowstone so you could actually see the inside of the area since it's completely dark otherwise and yea, way more moisteners than anyone should ever need, but it's a proof of concept. At most I could probably see someone using a handful of moisteners, and with this setup you could use BC or RP to pipe stuff into/out of the barrels while eliminating a massive amount of tubing and machinery.
Pic 1 shows the moisteners from below, pic 2 is the setup for the input routers (this is the wheat side, you want them separate so the ejecting routers only pull from the nearby barrel), and pic 3 is how the output routers are setup (they eject onto the barrel from above, this one for mulch).
Had to drop some glowstone so you could actually see the inside of the area since it's completely dark otherwise and yea, way more moisteners than anyone should ever need, but it's a proof of concept. At most I could probably see someone using a handful of moisteners, and with this setup you could use BC or RP to pipe stuff into/out of the barrels while eliminating a massive amount of tubing and machinery.
I created a machine that fuels a RailCraft 36HP boiler using Scrap from IC2 Recyclers. As with any Boiler setup, you will need a large surplus of fuel to heat the boiler but otherwise it is entirely self-contained and will require absolutely no external input once the Boiler is fully heated. Also note that 20 MJ/t are used to power the Recyclers via Magma Crucible -> Geothermal Generator, so it produces a surplus of 124 MJ/t maintenance-free.
It also produces a slight surplus of Scrap which you can use to feed a Matterfabricator, stockpile to pre-heat additional boilers, or convert to scrapboxes for free items.
Video:
It also produces a slight surplus of Scrap which you can use to feed a Matterfabricator, stockpile to pre-heat additional boilers, or convert to scrapboxes for free items.
Video:
And that is with the latest version running on 1.4.6? I'm making sure because since 1.4.2 solid fuels were heavily nerfed.
Also, in the video you mentioned doing this instead of processing biofuel and all that stuff, howver those methods don't require the use of industrialcraft, which some people have started to move away from (not me, bt some people).
My main issue woiuld be how much infrastructure you'd have to add to support multiple boilers like this though, Yesm while the biofuel production line can take a good deal of area, it can also be more readily added on to. As an example it would be a lot easier setting up an extra fermenter and 4 stills than it would be to set up that many recyclers and igneous extruders with all the tubing. Basically, it's not that bad of a design if you only plan to run one boiler, but for multiple boilers it's very space inefficient.
Having said that, it's an interesting build that I can see some people probably using simply because they will only need that much energy, and if you aren't running multiple boilers it will probably be more space efficient. Personally though I plan on stickin with my biofuel farms as I'm sure I'll find a use for massive amounts of MJ.
Also, in the video you mentioned doing this instead of processing biofuel and all that stuff, howver those methods don't require the use of industrialcraft, which some people have started to move away from (not me, bt some people).
My main issue woiuld be how much infrastructure you'd have to add to support multiple boilers like this though, Yesm while the biofuel production line can take a good deal of area, it can also be more readily added on to. As an example it would be a lot easier setting up an extra fermenter and 4 stills than it would be to set up that many recyclers and igneous extruders with all the tubing. Basically, it's not that bad of a design if you only plan to run one boiler, but for multiple boilers it's very space inefficient.
Having said that, it's an interesting build that I can see some people probably using simply because they will only need that much energy, and if you aren't running multiple boilers it will probably be more space efficient. Personally though I plan on stickin with my biofuel farms as I'm sure I'll find a use for massive amounts of MJ.
I set this up in MindCrack v4, and confirm it works in v6, so yes this is with nerfed solid fuels.
I really doubt you can build a full biofuel production area in less space -- the scrap machine in my design takes up 5W x 12L x 5H to fully fuel 1 boiler, and I didn't make any effort to compact it at all. Most sugarcane or cactus farms I see are something like 21W x 21L footprint, and that's just for the farms, not including biofuel production, tank, etc.
I really doubt you can build a full biofuel production area in less space -- the scrap machine in my design takes up 5W x 12L x 5H to fully fuel 1 boiler, and I didn't make any effort to compact it at all. Most sugarcane or cactus farms I see are something like 21W x 21L footprint, and that's just for the farms, not including biofuel production, tank, etc.
That's assuming you're only using the farms for biofuel though, which may be the case with most instances. However, it wasn't just a measure of land taken, but also a measure of how many machines you'll need to run. Now, having said that, I don't know how many of each of the different farms it would take to supply a single fermenter, though I'd assume you'd want to run them on saplings when available and sugar cane/wheat any other time (hopefully carrots and potatos get added). I haven't actually worked much with automating the ealy stages, since I was testing the late stages first to see if it was even worth attempting. However, the space for your system is misleading in some ways. Yes, it's a relatively small system compared to aving massive farms, however it contains a lot of machines over that space. From what I gather from your setup, you're using 20 igneous extruders with 20 recyclers, as well as another extruder going into a Magma crucible, which then goes into a geothermal generator. so just for this system right there is 43 machines, which wouldn't be bad if it wasn't just heating a boiler with a bit of overflow (not sure how much overflow you'd get, since in your vid the boiler wasn't nearly hot enough). With a biofuel system, you'd have a fermenter, four stills (only need two for a single liquid boiler, but 4 to eat up most of the biomass, though a fermenter on water is something like 4.5 stills worth), at least one moistener for mulch (squeezer if you want to use apple for mulch and get some apple juice as well) and bare minimum one farm. So going bare minimum to feed a sngle liquid boiler you would need:
2 aqeuous accumulators, one each for the fermenter and moistener (if you keep them separate)
1 fermenter
1 moistener
1 combine
1 harvester
2 stills
on top of any piping and/or wiring you need to do (via energy conduits, condctive pipes, or transporting steam)
So for just the machines it's a minimum of 8 needed to run a single liquid boiler, minus any machines you might have connected to your pipes (such as transposers or buffers, as this would vary based on the design and piping method used).
I'm leaving out the boiler and engines for obvious reasons here though.
That said though, yes, tanks and farms can take up tons of space if not dealt with properly. However, for the bare minimun needs for this setup you don't even need tanks - the system will just overproduce fuel and go through the earlier production stages more slowly than when the boiler was still heating up. Another thing to note is that with this system outside of the initial heat up to 100C is fully self-sustaining, so you won't have to have a fuel buffer in place such as the coal coke you used.
As I initially stated however, I'm not saying your design is omg horrendous. I'm only saying that for me I feel like I'd be able to expand my planned system more readily than yours since I would only have to add a bit more piping and a few more machines, rather than a large amount of machines.
Hopefully, someone else will have the experience to fill in my gaps in knowledge, such as how many farms it takes to keep a fermenter going or, indeed, if they can keep more than one going per farm.
2 aqeuous accumulators, one each for the fermenter and moistener (if you keep them separate)
1 fermenter
1 moistener
1 combine
1 harvester
2 stills
on top of any piping and/or wiring you need to do (via energy conduits, condctive pipes, or transporting steam)
So for just the machines it's a minimum of 8 needed to run a single liquid boiler, minus any machines you might have connected to your pipes (such as transposers or buffers, as this would vary based on the design and piping method used).
I'm leaving out the boiler and engines for obvious reasons here though.
That said though, yes, tanks and farms can take up tons of space if not dealt with properly. However, for the bare minimun needs for this setup you don't even need tanks - the system will just overproduce fuel and go through the earlier production stages more slowly than when the boiler was still heating up. Another thing to note is that with this system outside of the initial heat up to 100C is fully self-sustaining, so you won't have to have a fuel buffer in place such as the coal coke you used.
As I initially stated however, I'm not saying your design is omg horrendous. I'm only saying that for me I feel like I'd be able to expand my planned system more readily than yours since I would only have to add a bit more piping and a few more machines, rather than a large amount of machines.
Hopefully, someone else will have the experience to fill in my gaps in knowledge, such as how many farms it takes to keep a fermenter going or, indeed, if they can keep more than one going per farm.
Last I checked, to keep a fermenter supplied needed 3 cactus or reed farms, which take up 21x21x5 each, though maybe with efficient farm layouts 2 would be enough. I think to power the harvester, fermenter and stills to produce biofuel will eat up around the same 20 MJ/t as I'm using to make scrap, or close to it at least. And you need to supply the fertilizer from somewhere, you can make it from some pulverizers (sand + saltpeter, which you get from pulverizing sandstone) and that takes some extra power also.
You will need some way to stockpile a lot of fuel to pre-heat a boiler, when a boiler hits 100C it's consuming 8.2X the fully-heated fuel consumption.
I admit the Scrap-fired boiler is a little expensive, to take a rough swipe at the materials :
21 Igneous Extruder at 7 iron, 1 gold, 2 redstone, 2 tin each,
20 Recyclers at 11 iron, 3 copper, 2 redstone, 1 glowstone each,
20 transposer at 2 iron, 2 redstone each,
1 Geothermal at 10 iron, 7 tin, 2 redstone,
1 Magma Crucible at 7 iron, 2 copper, 2 gold, 2 redstone,
= 466 iron, 23 gold, 62 copper, 49 tin, 126 redstone
Plus some pneumatic tubes, IC2 cables, etc.
For the extra scrap it produce, we can calculate this easily. A recycler produces 1 scrap per 360 tick (on average) and 1 scrap provides 350 heat, and a 36HP boiler uses 15.84 heat per tick. So we need to provide 1 scrap per 22.1 tick, meaning we need 16.3 recyclers to provide it. I used 20 recyclers to neatly consume the 20 EU/t the Geothermal provides. The extra 3.7 recycler will then provide 1 scrap extra per 97 ticks. Or in a better way of thinking of it, 1 stack of 64 scrap extra every 5 mins 11 sec. If you make 5 of these scrap-fired Boiler, you will have enough scrap extra to fuel a 6th boiler without needing to make more Recyclers.
What happens in reality is when the scrap chest fills up, the recyclers fill up, the Geothermal stops making EU, the Magma Crucible fills up and stops drawing MJ, so you can have extra MJ from the system I guess, but otherwise nothing really happens.
BTW, the updated GregTech in MindCrack v6 has added a Thermal Generator, which will turn 1 lava into 30K EU at 24 EU/t. So we can all go replace our Geothermal Generators now and enjoy the 2:3 MJ to EU conversion. Also it will make the Scrap-powered boiler slightly more efficient, it is a drop-in replacement for the Geothermal Generator in my design so it can simply be swapped as-is.
You will need some way to stockpile a lot of fuel to pre-heat a boiler, when a boiler hits 100C it's consuming 8.2X the fully-heated fuel consumption.
I admit the Scrap-fired boiler is a little expensive, to take a rough swipe at the materials :
21 Igneous Extruder at 7 iron, 1 gold, 2 redstone, 2 tin each,
20 Recyclers at 11 iron, 3 copper, 2 redstone, 1 glowstone each,
20 transposer at 2 iron, 2 redstone each,
1 Geothermal at 10 iron, 7 tin, 2 redstone,
1 Magma Crucible at 7 iron, 2 copper, 2 gold, 2 redstone,
= 466 iron, 23 gold, 62 copper, 49 tin, 126 redstone
Plus some pneumatic tubes, IC2 cables, etc.
For the extra scrap it produce, we can calculate this easily. A recycler produces 1 scrap per 360 tick (on average) and 1 scrap provides 350 heat, and a 36HP boiler uses 15.84 heat per tick. So we need to provide 1 scrap per 22.1 tick, meaning we need 16.3 recyclers to provide it. I used 20 recyclers to neatly consume the 20 EU/t the Geothermal provides. The extra 3.7 recycler will then provide 1 scrap extra per 97 ticks. Or in a better way of thinking of it, 1 stack of 64 scrap extra every 5 mins 11 sec. If you make 5 of these scrap-fired Boiler, you will have enough scrap extra to fuel a 6th boiler without needing to make more Recyclers.
What happens in reality is when the scrap chest fills up, the recyclers fill up, the Geothermal stops making EU, the Magma Crucible fills up and stops drawing MJ, so you can have extra MJ from the system I guess, but otherwise nothing really happens.
BTW, the updated GregTech in MindCrack v6 has added a Thermal Generator, which will turn 1 lava into 30K EU at 24 EU/t. So we can all go replace our Geothermal Generators now and enjoy the 2:3 MJ to EU conversion. Also it will make the Scrap-powered boiler slightly more efficient, it is a drop-in replacement for the Geothermal Generator in my design so it can simply be swapped as-is.
Mine is actually a bunch of red power solar pannels feeding into a bunch of battery boxes that then feed into bluelectric engines. The engines then go half an half feeding into my buildcraft machines and the other into IC2 converters the ic2 converters then lead into about ten MFSUs
I came up with a way to power a 36 HP Liquid boiler using just 1 pumpkin farm. I use the Industrial Centrifuge to turn 16 pumpkins into 1 Methane Cell, which has 18K heat in a liquid boiler (burn time ~57 seconds). It requires 5 Centrifuges as they each produce 1 Methane per 250 seconds. So the total machine setup is 5 Industrial Centrifuge, 1 Liquid Transposer, and whatever plumbing/piping and power conversion you prefer. I recommend the new Thermal Generator which turns 1 lava into 30,000 EU @ 24 EU/t. Sadly the Thermal Generator is just 1 EU/t shy of powering the 5 Centrifuges full time, and they lose progress if power is interrupted. I personally don't have a use for MJ so I convert it all to EU which will keep the Centrifuges powered 24x7 and leave around 165 EU/t surplus. It generates a small surplus of both Pumpkins and Methane also. Alternatively you can look at it as a way to turn 25 EU/t into ~140 MJ/t which I think is a quite good ratio. 
I made a demo video, it's not very compact or neat as I just threw it together quickly, so sorry for that, but I think it should provide enough details for you to build your own if you want.
I think there's probably even a more efficient and better setup like this, I'm looking forward to what others can come up with based on this...
I made a demo video, it's not very compact or neat as I just threw it together quickly, so sorry for that, but I think it should provide enough details for you to build your own if you want.
I think there's probably even a more efficient and better setup like this, I'm looking forward to what others can come up with based on this...
In my Beta A world, I had two biomass generating setups. The first was a single level cactus farm feeding into a fermenter. I ended up with way more cacti than the fermenter could keep up with.
My second setup had a two-layer farm with 3 fermenters running on cacti. Again, ended up with a significant surplus of cacti. Maybe I didn't have the fermenters running at full tilt or something, but they were running more than fast enough to keep all of my machinery tooting along
As for the fertilizer part, you can run fermenters on mulch, which can be easily produced via a wheat farm and moisteners. With this you can get a lot of moss cobble that you can also turn into scrap, and you can prdouce tons of mulch when setup right.
Edit: Also, good find with the methane and centrifuges there. Personally I haven't tried any gregtech stuff since 1.4.2, but perhaps there are other fuels that might run liquid boilers easily?
Hi.
Everyone on my server is powering their machines with a bunch of advanced Gregtech solars. I wanted to prove to my friends how overpowered "free" energy sources (solars, water towers...) really are, especially the advanced versions. So I issued (and immediately accepted myself) a challenge: build a completely sustainable powerplant that would consistently output a non-trivial amount of EU - let's say, 32EU/t.
Here are the specific requirements:
- FTB Beta A pack (so, no RedPower).
- Can not use any "free energy" machines (defined as: place block, get energy forever).
- No exploits/quirks/glitchy/cheap mechanics (energy -> lava -> more energy conversion, burning scrap to produce more energy than needed to create it, etc.)
- Must be 100% self-sustainable. The server runs 24/7, and my base has chunk loaders. If I leave for a week, the system needs to be running all this time. This means no burning nether lava, no netherrack, not even dirt is considered renewable.
- Consistent production of EU. I have "a few" advanced machines, which consume EU by the fact of simply existing. Therefore I need to output a consistent stream of EU at all times, 24/7.
- It should be one coherent system. So no "this setup creates 0.25 EU/t, so I copy it over 120 times".
After about a week I completed a project which fulfills all the requirements. It is a combined forestry/IC/Gregtech factory, with a couple of other mod machines here and there.
First, Forestry farms feeding everything:
Left to right: Peat farm (not needed in the system, but feeds off of it, and I use Peat elsewhere), Tree Farm, Rubber Tree Farm, Wheat Farm.
Every farm sorts its products into an Ender Chest, from which other machines extract it. Any excess is directed into a void pipe, in order not to spill any items when the chest overflows.
Here is my bioplant:
Left to right: Moistener, Fermenter, Iron Tank (Railcraft) with Biomass, Still, Iron Tank with Biofuel, Combustion Engines.
The Moistener receives wheat and seeds from the wheat plant, and turns them into Mulch and Mycelium. The Mycelium is processed by a Factorization Grinder (not shown) into Dirt, which is fed back into the system. Mulch is used in the Fermenter, which receives saplings from the two tree farms and turns them into Biomass.
This is then processed in the Still into Biofuel, which feeds four Combustion Engines. Coolant is provided by Thermal Expansion's Aqueous Accumulators (barely visible under the engines). The engines power the farms, as well as all the machines in this room.
This setup also produces more MJ than needed, and as you can see from the Biofuel in the tank, it could feed even more engines. Although not required by the original challenge, this is also a completely sustainable source of BC energy. (I haven't done the math of how much of it is produced, as the MJ needs of Forestry machines are largely unknown.)
Carpenter room:
Pretty simple, a pair of Carpenters creating Bog Earth and Humus from Dirt and Mulch generated from the system, and Sand created by macerating Cobblestone from an Ingeous Extruder (not shown). The version of Forestry in Beta A has a bug, and Carpenters can't be fed by pipes. I solved this by using Routers, instructed to deposit items into specific slots. Buildcraft gates manage extraction from the Carpenters so that the Ender Chests never overflow.
(The bits at the right side are from something else (bee products processing).)
Finally, the IC/GregTech powerplant (a.k.a. The Beast):
All GregTech item-moving machines lose their textures when I leave the server. But the signs explain how the individual machines are connected. The following process is used:
Industrial Centrifuge: 12x Empty Cell + 16x Rubber Wood + 25,000 EU --> 8x Sticky Resin + 6x Plantball + 4x Methane Cell + 1x Carbon Cell
Industrial Centrifuge: 8x Sticky Resin + 12,500 EU --> 28x Rubber + 2x Compressed Plants + 2x Plantball
Rubber is discarded into a void pipe (I have a barrel full of it already).
All Plantballs are compressed into Compressed Plants.
Compressor: Plantball + 800 EU --> Compressed Plants (this is used 8x every cycle)
The Carbon Cell is extracted to get an empty cell back. (There is no sustainable way to get energy from Carbon. Turning them into Methane cells consumes one cell.)
Extractor: Carbon Cell + 800 EU --> Empty Cell
Crafting: Compressed Plants + Empty Cell --> Bio Cell
Methane Cells and Bio Cells are deposited into an Ender Chest, to be used by machinery on the right side of the room:
Industrial Centrifuge: Empty Fuel Can + 6x Bio Cell + 5,000 EU --> Fuel Can (26,040 EU) + 6x Empty Cell (this happens 5x every 3 cycles)
Industrial Centrifuge: Empty Fuel Can + Methane Cell + 1,000 EU --> Fuel Can (45,000 EU) + Empty Cell (this happens 4x every cycle)
Empty Cells are returned back to the system through an Ender Chest. Note that during one cycle, we get all the used cells back, so the system doesn't eat any tin.
Fuel Cans are distributed by Factorization Routers (very right edge of the image) between 6 Generators to generate fuel. A fuel can, unlike a cell, is not consumed by the Generator. Another Router then picks the empty cans up and inserts them back into the centrifuge to be filled.
Summing it all up, one entire cycle of the system consumes only 16 Rubber Wood. No additional resources are required, all other materials used are returned. One cycle creates on average 223,400 EU. Subtracting the running cost of all machines needed to process various items, every cycle nets 166,366 EU. (Note, this does not account for power needs of GregTech Translocators and Sorters, which is however negligible).
Looking at the time the various operations need, centrifuging the rubber wood is the bottleneck - it takes 250 seconds. All the other components can easily keep up. Therefore the whole setup produces, on average, 33.27 EU/tick.
Obviously I don't claim that this is anything resembling efficient. In fact this setup could probably compete in a Rube-Goldberg Machine contest. But it fulfills all the original demands - a 100% sustainable energy source, which does not rely on any glitches, quirks, or inter-mod balance issues. And I had loads of fun figuring out the needed processes, building the machines, and optimizing all pipes and item transport.
Some final notes and other random thoughts:
* In addition to EU, the system produces all sorts of byproducts: BC power (MJs), Wheat, Seeds, Peat, Wood (Oak and Rubber tree), Dirt, Mulch, Biofuel, Rubber. All of these are generated in larger amounts than needed, therefore the setup is also an infinite source of all these things.
* The IC setup creates 10,397 EU per piece of Rubber Wood. I know turning regular wood into Scaffolds would create more, however I consider burning Scaffolds a very cheap mechanic balance-wise. (One of those I didn't want to abuse.)
* It is not energy efficient to convert Bio Cells into Biofuel Cells (in Beta A). It costs less to centrifuge Biofuel Cells into cans, but the difference is not enough to cover the Extractor power cost.
* Ender Chests are really, really powerful when it comes to compacting your piping. The entire setup contains maybe 40 individual pipes, vast majority of that is used by Forestry farms. They are needed there because the farms are really really dumb, and there is no way to sort their outputs other than pipes. I would absolutely love a TE-style interface to send, for example, saplings from one side and wood from another.
* At one point I had the excess Biofuel transported into Bio Generators. I found out they use a LOT of it. So much that even one ate all the excess fuel. I could just spam a bunch of tree farms to produce more saplings, but that would use much more space, and go against the "no copying a weak setup" requirement.
* The GregTech room causes a very significant FPS drop whenever I'm near it. I have no idea why.
Everyone on my server is powering their machines with a bunch of advanced Gregtech solars. I wanted to prove to my friends how overpowered "free" energy sources (solars, water towers...) really are, especially the advanced versions. So I issued (and immediately accepted myself) a challenge: build a completely sustainable powerplant that would consistently output a non-trivial amount of EU - let's say, 32EU/t.
Here are the specific requirements:
- FTB Beta A pack (so, no RedPower).
- Can not use any "free energy" machines (defined as: place block, get energy forever).
- No exploits/quirks/glitchy/cheap mechanics (energy -> lava -> more energy conversion, burning scrap to produce more energy than needed to create it, etc.)
- Must be 100% self-sustainable. The server runs 24/7, and my base has chunk loaders. If I leave for a week, the system needs to be running all this time. This means no burning nether lava, no netherrack, not even dirt is considered renewable.
- Consistent production of EU. I have "a few" advanced machines, which consume EU by the fact of simply existing. Therefore I need to output a consistent stream of EU at all times, 24/7.
- It should be one coherent system. So no "this setup creates 0.25 EU/t, so I copy it over 120 times".
After about a week I completed a project which fulfills all the requirements. It is a combined forestry/IC/Gregtech factory, with a couple of other mod machines here and there.
First, Forestry farms feeding everything:
Left to right: Peat farm (not needed in the system, but feeds off of it, and I use Peat elsewhere), Tree Farm, Rubber Tree Farm, Wheat Farm.
Every farm sorts its products into an Ender Chest, from which other machines extract it. Any excess is directed into a void pipe, in order not to spill any items when the chest overflows.
Here is my bioplant:
Left to right: Moistener, Fermenter, Iron Tank (Railcraft) with Biomass, Still, Iron Tank with Biofuel, Combustion Engines.
The Moistener receives wheat and seeds from the wheat plant, and turns them into Mulch and Mycelium. The Mycelium is processed by a Factorization Grinder (not shown) into Dirt, which is fed back into the system. Mulch is used in the Fermenter, which receives saplings from the two tree farms and turns them into Biomass.
This is then processed in the Still into Biofuel, which feeds four Combustion Engines. Coolant is provided by Thermal Expansion's Aqueous Accumulators (barely visible under the engines). The engines power the farms, as well as all the machines in this room.
This setup also produces more MJ than needed, and as you can see from the Biofuel in the tank, it could feed even more engines. Although not required by the original challenge, this is also a completely sustainable source of BC energy. (I haven't done the math of how much of it is produced, as the MJ needs of Forestry machines are largely unknown.)
Carpenter room:
Pretty simple, a pair of Carpenters creating Bog Earth and Humus from Dirt and Mulch generated from the system, and Sand created by macerating Cobblestone from an Ingeous Extruder (not shown). The version of Forestry in Beta A has a bug, and Carpenters can't be fed by pipes. I solved this by using Routers, instructed to deposit items into specific slots. Buildcraft gates manage extraction from the Carpenters so that the Ender Chests never overflow.
(The bits at the right side are from something else (bee products processing).)
Finally, the IC/GregTech powerplant (a.k.a. The Beast):
All GregTech item-moving machines lose their textures when I leave the server. But the signs explain how the individual machines are connected. The following process is used:
Industrial Centrifuge: 12x Empty Cell + 16x Rubber Wood + 25,000 EU --> 8x Sticky Resin + 6x Plantball + 4x Methane Cell + 1x Carbon Cell
Industrial Centrifuge: 8x Sticky Resin + 12,500 EU --> 28x Rubber + 2x Compressed Plants + 2x Plantball
Rubber is discarded into a void pipe (I have a barrel full of it already).
All Plantballs are compressed into Compressed Plants.
Compressor: Plantball + 800 EU --> Compressed Plants (this is used 8x every cycle)
The Carbon Cell is extracted to get an empty cell back. (There is no sustainable way to get energy from Carbon. Turning them into Methane cells consumes one cell.)
Extractor: Carbon Cell + 800 EU --> Empty Cell
Crafting: Compressed Plants + Empty Cell --> Bio Cell
Methane Cells and Bio Cells are deposited into an Ender Chest, to be used by machinery on the right side of the room:
Industrial Centrifuge: Empty Fuel Can + 6x Bio Cell + 5,000 EU --> Fuel Can (26,040 EU) + 6x Empty Cell (this happens 5x every 3 cycles)
Industrial Centrifuge: Empty Fuel Can + Methane Cell + 1,000 EU --> Fuel Can (45,000 EU) + Empty Cell (this happens 4x every cycle)
Empty Cells are returned back to the system through an Ender Chest. Note that during one cycle, we get all the used cells back, so the system doesn't eat any tin.
Fuel Cans are distributed by Factorization Routers (very right edge of the image) between 6 Generators to generate fuel. A fuel can, unlike a cell, is not consumed by the Generator. Another Router then picks the empty cans up and inserts them back into the centrifuge to be filled.
Summing it all up, one entire cycle of the system consumes only 16 Rubber Wood. No additional resources are required, all other materials used are returned. One cycle creates on average 223,400 EU. Subtracting the running cost of all machines needed to process various items, every cycle nets 166,366 EU. (Note, this does not account for power needs of GregTech Translocators and Sorters, which is however negligible).
Looking at the time the various operations need, centrifuging the rubber wood is the bottleneck - it takes 250 seconds. All the other components can easily keep up. Therefore the whole setup produces, on average, 33.27 EU/tick.
Obviously I don't claim that this is anything resembling efficient. In fact this setup could probably compete in a Rube-Goldberg Machine contest. But it fulfills all the original demands - a 100% sustainable energy source, which does not rely on any glitches, quirks, or inter-mod balance issues. And I had loads of fun figuring out the needed processes, building the machines, and optimizing all pipes and item transport.
Some final notes and other random thoughts:
* In addition to EU, the system produces all sorts of byproducts: BC power (MJs), Wheat, Seeds, Peat, Wood (Oak and Rubber tree), Dirt, Mulch, Biofuel, Rubber. All of these are generated in larger amounts than needed, therefore the setup is also an infinite source of all these things.
* The IC setup creates 10,397 EU per piece of Rubber Wood. I know turning regular wood into Scaffolds would create more, however I consider burning Scaffolds a very cheap mechanic balance-wise. (One of those I didn't want to abuse.)
* It is not energy efficient to convert Bio Cells into Biofuel Cells (in Beta A). It costs less to centrifuge Biofuel Cells into cans, but the difference is not enough to cover the Extractor power cost.
* Ender Chests are really, really powerful when it comes to compacting your piping. The entire setup contains maybe 40 individual pipes, vast majority of that is used by Forestry farms. They are needed there because the farms are really really dumb, and there is no way to sort their outputs other than pipes. I would absolutely love a TE-style interface to send, for example, saplings from one side and wood from another.
* At one point I had the excess Biofuel transported into Bio Generators. I found out they use a LOT of it. So much that even one ate all the excess fuel. I could just spam a bunch of tree farms to produce more saplings, but that would use much more space, and go against the "no copying a weak setup" requirement.
* The GregTech room causes a very significant FPS drop whenever I'm near it. I have no idea why.