What To Sort?

[jumpfight5]

So I'm about early mid-game for the MindCrack pack, and I have a basic sorting system set up. Its just 100 or so barrels that are attached to an enderchest and another "extra stuff" chest. Its all fine and dandy, but I'm going to start automatic mining (probably a turtle, though I do have resources and energy for a quarry). I just wanted to know howto set up a sorting systems, preferably with upgradeable chests because barrels, while cheap, are annoying. I wanted this to hold other common items I would be ending up holding in my inventory, such as planks, stone brick, wool, and pneumatic tubes. I also want an industrial centrifuge to be able to net myself unlimited tin, copper, electrum, bronze, brass, iron, steel, gold, and silver. I was trying to get them to have 2 chests each: one to turn them into blocks when the second chest of ingots was filled, and they would be macerated back into ingots when needed.

What kind of common items should I keep in my system if I just wanna shove things away? Also, what is *every single* mine able item underground, the nether and the end. Over world is most important, everything from apatite to zichronium, mineshaft items (but not stronghold) included. Should I use sorting machines or plain filters. It should be important to note I am not currently far in any mod except thermal expansion, which isn't....hard to do. I plan to have a couple of mob spawners up in the near future, and I am interested in Thaumcraft, but that's after this gets set up in my new, underground base/factory.

 

[Dark0_0firE]

Hoo boy not really sure how to start this one. There are a number of sorting options to chose from. I personally prefer redpower, and since you say you are about midgame, I would go with a combination sorting machine or 2 and filters. Set one sorting machine attached to your ender/dump chest to sort out the items that need to be processed, like ores and wood, filters attached to chests to passively sort items. Ill try to post some screens.

 

[Korenn]

You're talking about automatic crafting systems there, which is far beyond sorting. That's not really practical until Logistic Pipes is included in the packs. Redpower can do it, but in a broken non-sustainable way.

 

[Lambert2191]

depending on whether you're sorting into barrels, or if you're sorting from a dense ores myst world, whether it has wooden tendrils, glowstone pillars etc... :/

 

[Dark0_0firE]

You're talking about automatic crafting systems there, which is far beyond sorting. That's not really practical until Logistic Pipes is included in the packs. Redpower can do it, but in a broken non-sustainable way.

I dunno about that... Managers seem like they would make a pretty powerful autocrafting system. Expensive as hell though.

 

[Lambert2191]

I think the best way to know is make a 9x9 quarry, let it run to bedrock, and see what you find.

put each material into a sorting machine/s and run again, if anything is left out, you were just unlucky the first time

 

[Korenn]

I dunno about that... Managers seem like they would make a pretty powerful autocrafting system. Expensive as hell though.

yes, that's what I was talking about. They can do it, but in a broken non-sustainable way. Surplus crafted items clog up the system until it breaks down and you have to manually clean them out.

 

[Golrith]

Thing to remember is to always have a chest somewhere with a restriction tube on it, so that anything not sorted or excess items will get dumped into that chest.

As well as sorting machines, you will need to make yourself various coloured paints. You paint the tubes, and assign those colours in the GUI of the sorting machine. The colours then mean that that item can only pass down a tube of that colour, or any unpainted tube.
Items with no colour assigned to them can pass through any colour tube.

There's a lot of modes on the sorting machine, best to use is stack mode with unsorted processing and constant pulsing. This will pull things very fast out of chests.
Best thing to do is to assign a colour for all unsorted items. This ensures that they cannot accidently go down the wrong tube.

Here's some screenshots of my planning and building of my system:

The first picture is just tubes and netherrack to represent all the machines I wanted
The 2nd one adds some of the machines and colour to the tubes.
Starting from the Right, I have White for all my Ores, going into Pulverizers and Powered Furnances
Next is Dark Green. This is for all my wooden logs. They get split equally between a Transposer and a Filter. The transposer sends items down to a sawmill setup (represented by the chest), the Filter repaints the Logs from Green to Yellow and sends them back into the tube system
Light Green is for wooden tools, so they get processed by the sawmill
On the left, the Yellow tube goes to my storage room with all my barrels.
On the far right is a restriction tube, anything that overflows or can't be sorted ends up going down this path


First picture is with all the machines, and some tidying up of the area
All the overflow is sent to a 2nd chest, with it's own sorting system. This one just pulls out all the common junk (like cobble) and sends them to a recycler system. Anything else is sent to the other chest, down the white tube.
All I have to do is keep an eye on this end chest, see what's stacking up, and adjust the 2nd sorting machine accordingly, or add barrels.

If you need it, I can get some screenshots of the GUI on the sorting machines, to go with the pictures.

 

[jumpfight5]

I think the best way to know is make a 9x9 quarry, let it run to bedrock, and see what you find.

put each material into a sorting machine/s and run again, if anything is left out, you were just unlucky the first time

I'm quite suprised there's no list, actually. I have a good amount of things one could find:

Apatite, Copper, Tin, Crude Oil, Oil Sands, Sand, Sandstone, Cobblestone, Gravel, Dirt, Silver, Gold, Iron, Diamond, Ferrous, Iridium, Lead, Emerald, Redstone, Nikolite, the 5 types of Zichronium and Thaumcraft shards, Aluminum, Ruby, Sapphire, Green Sapphire, Quartz (I heard there was a sorting issue, apparentally there are 5 or 6 types of quartz that act excactly the same), wooden planks, torch, fence, chest, Monazit, Lapis Luizi, Bauxite, Saltpeter (It's used to make gunpowder, I don't live in a desert but I may be mining there).

For the end, I have Endstone, Obsidian, Soladite, Olivine, and the blue dust.

Nether?: Glowstone, Gravel, SoulSand, Nether Brick, Netherrack, Nether Brick Fence, NetherWart. I think that's it, but I'll try your quarrying.

I dunno about that... Managers seem like they would make a pretty powerful autocrafting system. Expensive as hell though.

I'm sorry, what are managers? I was thinking I would have (For Example: Iron) the Industrial Centrifuge to make tin, put that in an automatic crafting table to create buckets, then put that in an alloy furnace to get Iron, put that in a compressor to make a block, have a chest, and have a macerator there to put it back into Iron Ingots. I'd have the quarry send the ore off to an Induction Smelter, output the Slag to a chest, and send the iron into the line previously stated, into the compressor. I'd probably use quarry cobble to send in a nice supply of Cobblestone, if it's not enough (yeah, right), or I'm just too lazy (okay, that sounds about right), I'll plop an igneous extruder next door to the Pulverizer and the sand will go into the Induction furnace.

Thing to remember is to always have a chest somewhere with a restriction tube on it, so that anything not sorted or excess items will get dumped into that chest.

As well as sorting machines, you will need to make yourself various coloured paints. You paint the tubes, and assign those colours in the GUI of the sorting machine. The colours then mean that that item can only pass down a tube of that colour, or any unpainted tube.
Items with no colour assigned to them can pass through any colour tube.

There's a lot of modes on the sorting machine, best to use is stack mode with unsorted processing and constant pulsing. This will pull things very fast out of chests.
Best thing to do is to assign a colour for all unsorted items. This ensures that they cannot accidently go down the wrong tube.

Here's some screenshots of my planning and building of my system:
View attachment 1626View attachment 1627
The first picture is just tubes and netherrack to represent all the machines I wanted
The 2nd one adds some of the machines and colour to the tubes.
Starting from the Right, I have White for all my Ores, going into Pulverizers and Powered Furnances
Next is Dark Green. This is for all my wooden logs. They get split equally between a Transposer and a Filter. The transposer sends items down to a sawmill setup (represented by the chest), the Filter repaints the Logs from Green to Yellow and sends them back into the tube system
Light Green is for wooden tools, so they get processed by the sawmill
On the left, the Yellow tube goes to my storage room with all my barrels.
On the far right is a restriction tube, anything that overflows or can't be sorted ends up going down this path

View attachment 1628View attachment 1625
First picture is with all the machines, and some tidying up of the area
All the overflow is sent to a 2nd chest, with it's own sorting system. This one just pulls out all the common junk (like cobble) and sends them to a recycler system. Anything else is sent to the other chest, down the white tube.
All I have to do is keep an eye on this end chest, see what's stacking up, and adjust the 2nd sorting machine accordingly, or add barrels.

If you need it, I can get some screenshots of the GUI on the sorting machines, to go with the pictures.

I've seen sorting machine GUI's before, that little button in the corner shows the thing you want the machine to do. I'm not sure which one that is. I also don't quite understand your screenshots, I saw those pictures before on another thread, and I would like it if you could take them again, in vanilla if it's not too much trouble.


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Also, I have seen, online, people's sorting machines that sort out everything. That's a bit overkill for me, I don't need a special machine for my Ender Dragon Egg and any other bits and bots I may come across my Minecraft world. I mainly want quarry goods and common factory items (filters, tubes, pipes, timers, wire) to be sorted out all neatly so if I need a quick inventory removal, I won't have to come back to it in my big ol' chest I leave when I want to do something quickly. Unfortunately, this varies quite often. One day, I may be carrying some Aluminum I just blasted, the next, I may be holding a Vis wand, some Iron Tank blocks, and a Boiler Firebox.

I also would like to know how it is possible to put chargeable items in a chest (jetpacks, Nano armor), and get them automatically charged and sent back out into a different chest. Since I don't have tons of NanoSuit armor pieces, Lappacks, or Jetpacks (though I should, a backup's always nice), these won't need to be sent in the special storage facility, I will most likely keep them in a normal chest (maybe even in the front of my base so I can run back with armor and pick up fallen items in case of an unexpected death).

 

[Lambert2191]

I'm quite suprised there's no list, actually. I have a good amount of things one could find:

Apatite, Copper, Tin, Crude Oil, Oil Sands, Sand, Sandstone, Cobblestone, Gravel, Dirt, Silver, Gold, Iron, Diamond, Ferrous, Iridium, Lead, Emerald, Redstone, Nikolite, the 5 types of Zichronium and Thaumcraft shards, Aluminum, Ruby, Sapphire, Green Sapphire, Quartz (I heard there was a sorting issue, apparentally there are 5 or 6 types of quartz that act excactly the same), wooden planks, torch, fence, chest, Monazit, Lapis Luizi, Bauxite, Saltpeter (It's used to make gunpowder, I don't live in a desert but I may be mining there).

For the end, I have Endstone, Obsidian, Soladite, Olivine, and the blue dust.

Nether?: Glowstone, Gravel, SoulSand, Nether Brick, Netherrack, Nether Brick Fence, NetherWart. I think that's it, but I'll try your quarrying.

Assuming one is running gregtech

I'm sorry, what are managers?
Redpower tier 3 sorting machines
I was thinking I would have (For Example: Iron) the Industrial Centrifuge to make tin, put that in an automatic crafting table to create buckets, then put that in an alloy furnace to get Iron, put that in a compressor to make a block, have a chest, and have a macerator there to put it back into Iron Ingots. I'd have the quarry send the ore off to an Induction Smelter, output the Slag to a chest, and send the iron into the line previously stated, into the compressor. I'd probably use quarry cobble to send in a nice supply of Cobblestone, if it's not enough (yeah, right), or I'm just too lazy (okay, that sounds about right), I'll plop an igneous extruder next door to the Pulverizer and the sand will go into the Induction furnace.


I've seen sorting machine GUI's before, that little button in the corner shows the thing you want the machine to do. I'm not sure which one that is. I also don't quite understand your screenshots, I saw those pictures before on another thread, and I would like it if you could take them again, in vanilla if it's not too much trouble.


----------------------------------------------------------------------

Also, I have seen, online, people's sorting machines that sort out everything. That's a bit overkill for me, I don't need a special machine for my Ender Dragon Egg and any other bits and bots I may come across my Minecraft world. I mainly want quarry goods and common factory items (filters, tubes, pipes, timers, wire) to be sorted out all neatly so if I need a quick inventory removal, I won't have to come back to it in my big ol' chest I leave when I want to do something quickly. Unfortunately, this varies quite often. One day, I may be carrying some Aluminum I just blasted, the next, I may be holding a Vis wand, some Iron Tank blocks, and a Boiler Firebox.

I also would like to know how it is possible to put chargeable items in a chest (jetpacks, Nano armor), and get them automatically charged and sent back out into a different chest. Since I don't have tons of NanoSuit armor pieces, Lappacks, or Jetpacks (though I should, a backup's always nice), these won't need to be sent in the special storage facility, I will most likely keep them in a normal chest (maybe even in the front of my base so I can run back with armor and pick up fallen items in case of an unexpected death).

Direwolf20 did this in his last server play series with lapatrons... all he needed was filters, one with an empty charge as the filter, and one with a full charge..

 

[jumpfight5]

Oh, I was thinking would it be possible to not make 3 of the item I guess it could be the only way.

Also, I am playing Mindcrack, so I am running GregTech.

 

[Golrith]

I'm quite suprised there's no list, actually. I have a good amount of things one could find:
I've seen sorting machine GUI's before, that little button in the corner shows the thing you want the machine to do. I'm not sure which one that is. I also don't quite understand your screenshots, I saw those pictures before on another thread, and I would like it if you could take them again, in vanilla if it's not too much trouble.

No problem at all, here you go. This is the current layout, and I've included my power room, as some stuff is sorted down there, and the GUI interface of the main sorting machine.

Barrel Storage area - designated Yellow on the sorting system
The heart of the system
Power Room
Since the barrels are storing all the items that don't need processing, the first sorting machine just needs to deal with the items that need some sort of processing, like ores, logs, etc.
I've yet to start with automated mining, so may need to make use of that spare column.
The two ingots are there are IC2 versions of copper and tin. Since I'm going down the Thermal Expansion Route, I need those ingots to be reprocessed. I get some either from loot in chests, or from the recycler system and the dusts that it can produce (which are processed down the red route).

 

[jumpfight5]

Oh, I understand. Because you're using barrels, you just want processed items to be removed specially.

I want to do something different. Though the big picture and the number of stacks of a certain item is quite useful in a pinch, it's annoying because they are not upgradeable. If I used plain chests, I could convert and upgrade them into larger chests--no problem--if needed. Though I may not want to have a diamond chest full of smooth stone, it could be useful in a pinch.

I don't think I want as much of a pure sorting system as a full on automation system. If it were possible, I'd like this to be implemented in my system:

Quarry sends cobblestone through an enderchest. Cobblestone is split up and sent into different places.
1. Pulveriser: This would make sand, and the sand from this pulverizer would go into two different places.
a. Sand would go into multiple Thermal Expansion Induction Smelters to smelt other ores received from the quarry.
b. Sand would go into a chest to be stored. This sand here would go to multiple places
i. Sand would go to a powered furnace to be smelted to create glass.
ii. Sand would go to an automatic crafting table to produce sandstone, which would go to two places
a. Sandstone would go into a chest
b. Sandstone would be converted into smooth sandstone.

That's not even the complex part. What I want it to do is take the cobble, and the first place I want it to go into the pulverizer(s). Then, the first place I want THAT sand to go is into the Induction Smelters. The extra sand produced by the pulverizers would be taken and put into a chest, from a buffer that holds the sand for use in the Induction Smelter in case I have no cobble or energy. After said chest fills up (not the buffer, right before that), I want it to go into a powered furnace to create glass. Having extra glass is really useful and it's annoying when I don't have any because smelting it takes a while. After the glass chest is fulled and if and only if the chest with extra sand from the buffer is full, I want it to go and be made into sandstone. Then I'd want the extra sandstone made to go be made into smooth sandstone.

So: Quarry--Pulverizer--Buffer chest to Induction Smelter--Storage--Glass--Sandstone--Smooth Sandstone.
That is just one example of what I would want in this sorting system. This, alone, is easy enough, except figuring out how to not get Smooth Sandstone filled before Sandstone before Glass before Storage before the Induction Smelter.

Another example:

I'd like for all my blaze rods from a blaze spawner to be macerated into blaze powder, electrolyzed into coal dust, mixed with gravel macerated into flint from the quarry, compressed, added to Obsidian, and compressed again for diamond fabrication. Any extra coal not being used for Coke would also be macerated and mixed in.

ANOTHER example:

I would get an Industrial Centrifuge (or 4) and pump in lava produced by Magma Crucibles that get either cobble from the quarry (it's second output--storage is third) or netherrack from a nether quarry, turned into Electrum, Copper, Tin, and Tungsten dust. I would take the Tungsten dust to get Blasted, and take the Tin and Copper to many different places.

The Copper would go to storage first
Then it would go make bronze with Tin,
Then it would go make Brass with Tin
Then it would go make Blocks. These blocks, in times of a Copper shortage, would be Macerated and sent back into the Copper Storage, which could then be sent through the cycle again.

Tin would go to storage first
Then it would go make bronze with Copper
Then it would go make Brass with Copper,
Then it would be crafted into buckets and sent through an Alloy Furnace to make Iron
The Iron would be turned into Refined Iron with a Powered Furnace
Then the Iron would be sent to go make steel after it is stored in ingot form.
After steel is made, Tin and Iron would be made into blocks,
After Iron blocks are made, the steel would be sent to turn into blocks.

Then, the Electrum, would be turned into Gold and Silver,

The Silver would be turned into Lead,
The Silver would then be turned into Block form
The Lead would then be turned into block form.

The gold would be mixed with extra redstone to create Glowstone,
Then it would be turned into blocks.

So what I want is something fluid: Everything would be willing to change form. I am not sure if I want my slag automatically put with Shiny Dust, but that is also a possibility.


In addition to ALL OF THIS, I would like everything to be sorted out.
Looking back, this may be a bigger project than I imagined...

On another related note, is it possible for the Forge Lexicon to be automated? If not, I'd like a system like yours so I can hold all the ingots together in one storage.

 

[Golrith]

Forge Lexicon can't be automated, best way is to do as I've done and get the ingots reprocessed into the type used by the main smelting system you are using.

Everything you'd said can be automated. You just need plenty of room and redpower tubes and plenty of sorting machines.

Take the first example. Send cobble to the pulverizer, but have the tube extend beyond the pulverizer to a 2nd storage area (recyclers, chests, whatever you want).

Get the sand from the pulverizer to feed into a relay, then connect tubes and send first to the induction smelter, then continue the tube to a normal chest, and continue the tube again to another chest.
Connect the crafting table to the 2nd chest. Best thing at this point is to split your sandstone 50/50. Half get's stored, other half get's processed again to smooth sandstone.

It's all a case of dealing with overflow, just ensure that the overflow has somewhere to go if the first process/machine in the chain get's filled up.