Automated factories: what method is better?
If you're familiar at all with Buildcraft or Redpower, you'll be well aware that both mods include ways to automate processing of machines, such as your macerator and extractor, both of which can produce multiple goods for each action. Because of this, automatic extraction from the output is often preferred. Today's look introduces the cheapest options for automating with both mods, analyzes their cost, and any additional advantages and drawbacks.
Buildcraft is the one we have seen other companies use, and upon first glance it's easy to see why. It has a very quick build time and requires very little resources to get working. All that is required is a redstone engine (once again, all calculations are made in vanilla non-renewable resource and tier 1 non-renewable resource costs) and a redstone engine requires a piston to become functional. So for one redstone and one iron, plus wood and stone, a simple automated factory becomes possible. Buildcraft pipes, when branching, will perform an equal ratio distribution regardless of distance. In this way they play nice with multiple machines. Lastly, the included tool to manipulate special piping and engines costs a maximum of 3 iron and never breaks.
So, why have we elected to use Redpower's mechanics when possible? Let's take a look at the drawbacks. Buildcraft allows for a slightly streamlined workflow but since each machine requires a steady flow of redstone signal, a switch must be wired up to each redstone engine to keep it working. And redstone engines are very low power and require some time to reach maximum efficiency. However, these pale in comparison to the final flaw in Buildcraft piping: if the exit is blocked, the item will drop from the pipes and require manual cleanup! This makes the drop and forget method of automated machine preperation next to impossible. The loads would have to be carefully balanced in order to achieve maximum efficiency.
Redpower's automation using transposers seems a bit trickier. Before one can pipe anything, they will need brass piping, which has to be smelted from 3 copper ingots and 1 tin ingot in a red alloy furnace. Thus, to begin one must start by collecting enough clay to make a red alloy furnace! If all that is desired is prepping a machine, however, a transposer can be streamlined so that it directly takes from the chest and directly deposits into the top of the machine. However, transposers are still more expensive than the redstone engine, requiring two redstone and one iron ingot to create. Furthermore, they work from redstone pulses, not a constant redstone signal, which means timers should be created to automate their inner working. Timers are also quite expensive to build. Stone much be smelted into stone wafers, then redstone must be crafted into the wafers to create the mechanisms needed to build the circuit. Finally, timers are noisy bunches.
With all those drawbacks, why use it? Well, for starters, a transposer will never drop an item. If all the pathways to machines are blocked, it will flow back into the transposer, jamming the device and preventing it from functioning until the pathway has been cleared. The internal buffer of transposers is large enough where even stacks of items will not be lost. Transposers are also easier to manually cut off-simply provide a constant redstone signal to the machine and it will stop functioning. Cutting the signal to a redstone engine will cause it to have to build up momentum all over again. This is useful for manual overrides of a machine should you ever need to do so (for example, grinding a large amount of coal).
With everything considered, the most cost effective automated macerator/smelter combo appears to be a transposer feeding items to the macerator, then wooden piping extracting the output to electric furnaces, and finally wooden piping extracting the smelted product to a proccessed chest for further sorting. We have preferred to use all transposers for maximum control over the process. Though costly in redstone, we have never lost an item to the machines dropping it. We also believe this is much safer for mutliplayer options.
Buildcraft is the one we have seen other companies use, and upon first glance it's easy to see why. It has a very quick build time and requires very little resources to get working. All that is required is a redstone engine (once again, all calculations are made in vanilla non-renewable resource and tier 1 non-renewable resource costs) and a redstone engine requires a piston to become functional. So for one redstone and one iron, plus wood and stone, a simple automated factory becomes possible. Buildcraft pipes, when branching, will perform an equal ratio distribution regardless of distance. In this way they play nice with multiple machines. Lastly, the included tool to manipulate special piping and engines costs a maximum of 3 iron and never breaks.
So, why have we elected to use Redpower's mechanics when possible? Let's take a look at the drawbacks. Buildcraft allows for a slightly streamlined workflow but since each machine requires a steady flow of redstone signal, a switch must be wired up to each redstone engine to keep it working. And redstone engines are very low power and require some time to reach maximum efficiency. However, these pale in comparison to the final flaw in Buildcraft piping: if the exit is blocked, the item will drop from the pipes and require manual cleanup! This makes the drop and forget method of automated machine preperation next to impossible. The loads would have to be carefully balanced in order to achieve maximum efficiency.
Redpower's automation using transposers seems a bit trickier. Before one can pipe anything, they will need brass piping, which has to be smelted from 3 copper ingots and 1 tin ingot in a red alloy furnace. Thus, to begin one must start by collecting enough clay to make a red alloy furnace! If all that is desired is prepping a machine, however, a transposer can be streamlined so that it directly takes from the chest and directly deposits into the top of the machine. However, transposers are still more expensive than the redstone engine, requiring two redstone and one iron ingot to create. Furthermore, they work from redstone pulses, not a constant redstone signal, which means timers should be created to automate their inner working. Timers are also quite expensive to build. Stone much be smelted into stone wafers, then redstone must be crafted into the wafers to create the mechanisms needed to build the circuit. Finally, timers are noisy bunches.
With all those drawbacks, why use it? Well, for starters, a transposer will never drop an item. If all the pathways to machines are blocked, it will flow back into the transposer, jamming the device and preventing it from functioning until the pathway has been cleared. The internal buffer of transposers is large enough where even stacks of items will not be lost. Transposers are also easier to manually cut off-simply provide a constant redstone signal to the machine and it will stop functioning. Cutting the signal to a redstone engine will cause it to have to build up momentum all over again. This is useful for manual overrides of a machine should you ever need to do so (for example, grinding a large amount of coal).
With everything considered, the most cost effective automated macerator/smelter combo appears to be a transposer feeding items to the macerator, then wooden piping extracting the output to electric furnaces, and finally wooden piping extracting the smelted product to a proccessed chest for further sorting. We have preferred to use all transposers for maximum control over the process. Though costly in redstone, we have never lost an item to the machines dropping it. We also believe this is much safer for mutliplayer options.
posted by Lord DoomRater at 12:48 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home