[GregTech-5][1.7.10-FORGE-1355+][Unofficial but approved Port][Stable] Even GT5 Experimental is slowly getting stable.

    Quote from Requia

    A transformer will (or at least did back in GT5 official) output IC2-EU from a GT-EU input, might need IC2 cables to make it switch output but there's an easy config for that.


    I tried a transformer. It didn't work. Unless maybe you mean an IC2 transformer? I was trying with a GT LV transformer.


    Quote from sprAngles

    What you can do with Heavy Fuel is to crack it, ideally with Hydrogen.


    Right, it's an intermediate product. Since it had a name like "heavy fuel," I though it could be used somewhere as fuel.


    I don't understand what you mean by a "diesel engine boosted by oxygen." Diesel generators only have a single fuel slot. The wiki says nothing about this. Are you saying you can pipe fuel and oxygen into a diesel generator?


    I worked out the math for the Heavy Oil -> Cracked Heavy Fuel -> LPG transformation a while back. It's about 50% better than Heavy Oil -> Oil -> Nitro Diesel. I don't have an oil cracking unit yet, since my only source of oil up until now has been oilsand.


    I don't have a distillation tower because it requires an EV pump, which requires titanium, and I don't have the vacuum freezer, kanthal blast furnace, or titanium chemical processing I need to produce titanium.

    Hmm, IC2 transformer, GT transformer, and straight to batbox all charge for me in creative.


    But, when I put down the electric feeder the batbox then drains faster than it charges, turns out each bit of track has a very high storage capacity, try using the 'electric meter' on the track in your setup and see if it has charge. If it doesn't then it might be a .28pre issue.

    Quote from Requia

    Hmm, IC2 transformer, GT transformer, and straight to batbox all charge for me in creative.


    Ack, it was a Problem Exists Between Keyboard and Chair problem. The Battery Buffer I was using as a GT power source was turned the wrong way, and I couldn't see it because I'd left a cable covering the output dot.

    Quote from Gus_Smedstad

    I don't understand what you mean by a "diesel engine boosted by oxygen." Diesel generators only have a single fuel slot. The wiki says nothing about this. Are you saying you can pipe fuel and oxygen into a diesel generator?

    What I'm referring to is the Large Diesel Engine, the titanium multiblock that requires a diesel fuel (usually nitro diesel) and a tiny amount of lubricant to run. It produces a consistent 2048EU/t (from 4L/t of nitro diesel or 8L/t of light fuel etc.) which puts you fully into EV power, but if you feed it oxygen as well (which you should always do) it has an efficiency of 150% and consumes fuel twice as fast, and as a result generates a whopping 6144EU/t, which catapults you straight into Insane Voltage.

    Quote from sprAngles

    What I'm referring to is the Large Diesel Engine, the titanium multiblock


    I had no idea that existed. It's not documented anywhere that I could find on the web. The in-game tooltip seems fairly comprehensive, though I see it lists 2 input hatches, and clearly you need 3 if you're going to supply fuel, lubricant, and oxygen. I'm guessing the 3rd input hatch is legal and has the same restrictions as the other 2.


    It's clearly beyond my current tech, but it's worth remembering.


    Quote from MauveCloud

    Glass dust. Centrifuge, then electrolyze.


    Woah. That's a lot better than what I'm currently doing if oxygen runs low, which is to electrolyze water. I'm always running a significant surplus of sand, so getting glass for that is no big deal. Right this moment I've got a significant surplus of oxygen just from electrolysis of ores, but if I can see that changing in the future.


    Is there a similar, cheap way to get hydrogen? When I originally built the water electrolysis setup, I did so because I needed hydrogen to de-sulfinate oil products (light fuel, naptha), and I wasn't prepared to sacrifice limonite to get it.

    Quote from Gus_Smedstad

    I had no idea that existed. It's not documented anywhere that I could find on the web. The in-game tooltip seems fairly comprehensive, though I see it lists 2 input hatches, and clearly you need 3 if you're going to supply fuel, lubricant, and oxygen. I'm guessing the 3rd input hatch is legal and has the same restrictions as the other 2.

    Yes, you'll need 3 hatches, for diesel fuel, lubricant and oxygen. Also, it's worth noting that it is legal to put additional useless input hatches or buses (or output) on a multiblock, as long as you have the minimum required structure block (e.g. minimum 24 stable titanium casing). This is a fantastic way to save on resources when building multiblocks made of very valuable or hard-to-obtain materials, like the processing array.

    Quote from Gus_Smedstad

    Is there a similar, cheap way to get hydrogen? When I originally built the water electrolysis setup, I did so because I needed hydrogen to de-sulfinate oil products (light fuel, naptha), and I wasn't prepared to sacrifice limonite to get it.

    Personally I got hydrogen earlier on by electrolysing all my methane (I had a natural gas oil rig, which has the bonus of not requiring as much hydrogen to desulfurise) and also by processing bauxite to get titanium. By the time I was able to build my diesel engine I had tungstensteel production ongoing, so I built a processing array of electrolysers to get 32 buckets of hydrogen every 75 seconds.

    Quote from sprAngles

    Personally I got hydrogen earlier on by electrolysing all my methane (I had a natural gas oil rig, which has the bonus of not requiring as much hydrogen to desulfurise)


    That sounded promising, but when I crunched the numbers methane -> hydrogen is actually more expensive than water -> hydrogen + oxygen, mainly because methane's a moderate source of energy.


    5000L of methane + 4800 EU = 4000L hydrogen + 1 carbon. 5000L of methane = 202,500 EU if burned in a 128v gas turbine. 202,500 EU + water -> 9000L hydrogen + 4500L oxygen.


    The oxygen byproduct is probably more use than the carbon, but I don't know what the balance is like late game. Right now I've got far more carbon than I need from ashes. Currently I'm using it for nitro-diesel and carbon mesh. I know it's also used for things like smelting tungsten, but I haven't gotten that far yet.

    What's the best strategy for finding sub surface ores? (I'm most hard up on redstone right now but there's a few other things I'd like to hit, all below ground). I've tried sinking shafts every chunk and every 3 chunks, but came up empty on all but two shafts. I've had a touch more luck caving (if nothing actually useful). But actually finding caves is pretty sporadic.

    Quote from Requia

    What's the best strategy for finding sub surface ores? (I'm most hard up on redstone right now but there's a few other things I'd like to hit, all below ground). I've tried sinking shafts every chunk and every 3 chunks, but came up empty on all but two shafts. I've had a touch more luck caving (if nothing actually useful). But actually finding caves is pretty sporadic.


    I usually go with shafts at "predicted vein centers", which is x and z coordinates both in the list +/- 24, 72, 120, 168, ... (though the builds Blood Asp has posted include a weird issue where the veins in negative coordinates are one chunk closer to the axis than they should be; I made a PR to fix that, but for the "experimental" branch instead of the "unstable" branch, so it hasn't been picked up for a release :/ )

    Speaking as someone who used to have a lot of trouble finding ore, vertical exploration is the way to go. Veins are wide, thin squares. Vertical shafts are likely to hit a vein because horizontally, even the smallest veins are very wide. Horizontal shafts almost always miss because many veins are only 5 blocks high.


    Caves don't help at all, if they're horizontal and the ceiling is low. Some of those vast chasms can be really helpful because they expose a lot vertically, but you can still miss stuff because it's out of torch range if you're going along the bottom. For example, I found a big chasm, explored it and didn't find much, and later on I found a vein that connected to it about 40 levels up from the bottom.


    Every 3 chunks offset by +24 / +24 seems to work. A lot of holes are going to turn up dry because there's genuinely no vein there. I've been using Xaero's Minimap / World Map, and marking everything I find with a waypoint. If I don't find anything, I mark that too, so I don't look there again. It's a long, busy list of waypoints, but I keep most of them disabled except when I'm planning new shafts.


    So far, I've found:


    36 dry holes
    21 Magnetite
    11 Oilsands
    10 Coal
    8 Limonite (iron)
    6 Bauxite
    6 Salt (contains lithium-bearing ores as well)
    5 Redstone
    5 Apatite (Gregtech, not Forestry)
    4 Nickel
    4 Chalcopyrite (copper / iron)
    3 Cassiterite (tin)
    3 Beryllium
    2 Soapstone
    2 Graphite (supposed to have diamonds, I haven't seen any)
    2 Lapis
    1 Galena (Lead / Silver)
    1 Quartzite
    1 Tetrahedrite (Copper / Antimony)
    1 Uranium (Gregtech, not IndustrialCraft)
    1 Sapphire
    1 Monazite
    1 Manganese


    ... notably missing is Tungstate for tungsten.


    The point to listing all that is to give you an idea how tough it is to find some things, and how often it's a complete miss. It's very disappointing when I hit bedrock without finding anything, but it's still a much better hit rate than I had before I went with spiral staircase prospecting.

    Quote from Requia

    What's the best strategy for finding sub surface ores? (I'm most hard up on redstone right now but there's a few other things I'd like to hit, all below ground). I've tried sinking shafts every chunk and every 3 chunks, but came up empty on all but two shafts. I've had a touch more luck caving (if nothing actually useful). But actually finding caves is pretty sporadic.


    If you're short on redstone, just head to the nether.


    Quote from Gus_Smedstad

    ... notably missing is Tungstate for tungsten.


    That vein is really rare. I'm not surprised you haven't found it yet.

    Quote from Gus_Smedstad

    It's a long, busy list of waypoints, but I keep most of them disabled except when I'm planning new shafts.


    I switched to using a spreadsheet grid to keep track of where I've looked and what I've found. I suppose a minimap mod that allows grouping waypoints so they can be enabled/disabled together (not just by dimension) would work too. I don't see a way to do that in JourneyMap. I haven't used Xaero's, so for all I know, it might have something like that.

    Hmm, 3 of the first 6 attempts, much better.


    As for nether mining, my version of the nether appears to be an endless ocean of lava, an overland trip that actually reaches shore would be extremely long.

    Quote from sprAngles


    If you're short on redstone, just head to the nether.


    Oh wait do you mean to centrifuge netherrock dust or that there are redstone ores? The former is even less practical, I need redstone to make electric machines in the first place.

    Quote from Sapient

    Thats why I'm using MapWriter :)


    I used MapWriter a few years ago, but iirc when I explored far enough, I got a heap usage crash - I think MapWriter keeps the entire visited area in memory, allowing one to zoom out further than other minimap mods allow, but with that as a risk.

    Quote from MauveCloud

    I suppose a minimap mod that allows grouping waypoints so they can be enabled/disabled together (not just by dimension) would work too.


    Xaero's just introduced waypoint sets in the last release. It's close to what you're describing - you could keep prospecting waypoints in their own set, so you're either looking at your regular waypoints or you're looking at the prospecting waypoints. If there's some regular waypoint you really must have visible when prospecting (i.e. your home base), you have to duplicate it.


    ---


    Some days I feel like I'm really slow at making progress. I found that oil deposit several days ago, and I'm still working my way toward building my first oil rig.


    A good part of that is that I decided I was going to transport the oil back by rail instead of pipe. It's about 200m in orthogonal distance from my base, plus another 50m since I've decided to plant my oil rig as close to the bedrock as possible to reduce drilling time. 2x tiny pipelines (1 for fuel for the generator, 1 for oil) would run about 250 bronze, and I've got far more bronze than that... but rails are more interesting as well as being less material intensive. Plus they can haul around anchors - with a long pipeline oil transport might stall if chunks aren't loaded.


    I spent a good day in a Creative world exploring how Railcraft signals work. I'm familiar with train signaling in general, and I've built big, elaborate freight networks in Factorio, but Railcraft's signals don't behave anything like rail signals in any other game I've played. They're only detectors, and you have to set up the traffic control using locking track separately. Usually signals are train detectors and traffic control, and usually they can control traffic based on direction. You can set up locks that only affect trains going in one direction, but it's a moderate amount of work and redstone logic to do so.


    After quite a few train explosions in Creative, I managed to come up with a design that allow for multiple trains a single track, with a 2-rail passing zone in the center. I'm still a little concerned about race conditions, i.e. the case where two trains enter a signal block simultaneously, though that never actually arose in my experiments.


    When I finally did dig the tunnel, I ran into lots of lava in the target area, and handling that was a pain. Maybe drilling from near the surface would have been smarter. I'm not clear on whether or not oil rigs can drill through lava, though.


    So far I've got the tanks and machinery I want down there, but no oil rig yet. I got diverted by the fact I was out of lithium, sodium, and salt, so I need to make a mining run for the battery buffers.