Shouldn't the Macerator require more energy than Ore Washing plant or thermal centrifuge?

With ore processing, you pay 2 eu/t for macerating, but 48 for the Centrifuge. I am working (slowly) on a custom pack that makes energy much harder to get, but the high cost of the centrifuge kind of throws off balance.

If you are handing mining I guess you owuld want to maximize every ore. But, if you are hand mining but allowing automated ways to get power (tree farms, solar panels, etc.) then you end up with a lot more power than you need, because you dont have a lot of items to process.

If you use quarries, you now need a lot more power (for the quarry, and more power to process all the stuff). This makes the centrifuge require more power, simply because it is processing more ores.

the thing is, once you move to automated mining, the energy cost of a centrifuge isn't worth the extra tiny dust. 48 eu/t is 192 rf/t which is pretty good speed on a quarry. I would think it would be more efficient to just make another quarry and use that energy to dig more ores up, than it is to get extra tiny dusts.

Any ideas on solutions for this? You cant set power consumption per machine in the ic2.ini, so the only thing i could think of was to change the macerator to only put out one crushed ore. No boost in production, but a necessary step to get more production out of ores. Then again, it almost makes ore processing not worth the time, other than to set up machines.

I kind of wish the macerator put out just an extra tiny dust or two, but only ONE crushed ore, and then the centrifuge doubled each purified ore into two real dusts. this would make getting the most expensive and powerful machine really worth the investment. A macerator is super cheap and requires no power, so it just gives you a couple extra tiny dusts.

There is no way to change the macerator to put out tiny dusts, but is it possible with minetweaker to have it only put out crushed ores, and then have the centrifuge do the doubling?

Quote from Chocohead

It's designed so the higher tier machines use more power, which is just down to logic. The macerator has used 2 EU/t since it was added too, it does have issues over the fact the ore washing plant and thermal centrifuge especially don't output enough/take too much power for what they do output. Maybe only outputing 1 crushed ore is too harsh, taking the GT approach of the crushed ore outputting 15 nuggets perhaps, to have 1.5x ore doubling, then increasing the output again with the ore washing plant and thermal centrifuge would work.

I don't like that idea, the macerator is an electric machine, turning it into a slightly better furnace is detracting from it's usefulness and realism.

I realize just one dust is harsh, but it makes more sense with respect to balance. I didnt think of just outputting tiny dusts though. Actaully doesnt the ic2.ini have its own 'minetweaker' options?

So if you had a smelted crushed ore only output say, 6 tiny dusts, thats 12 tiny dusts out of the macerator, or about 133% ore production vs straight smelting. Purified ores could do the same thing, but then can you minetweaker or use the ic2.ini to make the centifuge output two normal dusts, plus the extras? That would really make the power and cost of the centifuge worth it.

The annoying thing about tiny dusts is crafting them back into normal dusts.

That doesn't really apply. That law is about things like having 8 people build a car, and adding more people to make the car faster. At some point, adding more people just makes things worse. put 1000 people on an assembly line building one car, and eventually you will be getting less output per person.

This is much more basic economics. If eu is considered the currency, then I have $48 to 'spend'. I can run a thermal centrifuge and get a few extra tiny dusts per ore. OR run a second quarry with it, doubling my ore income. The energy cost for the centrifuge isnt worth it. Only solution is to make quarries require a lot more energy.

It just seems silly that 2 eu/t will net you 100% production increase, but 48 eu/t only gets you 20% or something?

In Gregtech a high end machine like that will get you a specific, rare metal. So you would be willing to invest the 48 eu/t because the by product is something you need, like titanium from bauxite or whatever.

So other than making macerator require more energy, ideally the centrifuge would spit out tiny dusts of some metal that you cannot get from mining, that is used in high end Ic2 machines like the fabricator or something.

If the recipes can be customized, that could work.