[Suggestion] wood processing

I see what you mean, maybe have a wood-splitting machine that has makes 5 or 6 planks instead of just 4? And im not sure about the coal dust because i have an Equivalent exchange so my 16 glowstone aggregrators give me all the diamonds i need

I actually agree with this, some sort of Sawmill device that would use power to turn a Log into extra boards would be awesome.

Quote from Alblaka

Possible, but there's a slight flaw: When do you even need wood for the planks? Afaik 90% of all chopped wood is used for charcoal either way. And i don't think one would create a machine for the few pieces of wood he wants to craft into planks...

There must be a real, unique use for some sort of sawmill machine, otherwise it's too pointless to implement.

From wiki on Pyrolysis

Quote

Charcoal

Pyrolysis has been used since ancient times for turning wood into charcoal on an industrial scale. Besides wood, the process can also use sawdust and other wood waste products.

Charcoal is obtained by heating wood until its complete pyrolysis (carbonization) occurs, leaving only carbon and inorganic ash. In many parts of the world, charcoal is still produced semi-industrially, by burning a pile of wood that has been mostly covered with mud or bricks. The heat generated by burning part of the wood and the volatile byproducts pyrolyzes the rest of the pile. The limited supply of oxygen prevents the charcoal from burning. A more modern alternative is to heat the wood in an airtight metal vessel, which is much less polluting and allows the volatile products to be condensed.

The original vascular structure of the wood and the pores created by escaping gases combine to produce a light and porous material. By starting with a dense wood-like material, such as nutshells or peach stones, one obtains a form of charcoal with particularly fine pores (and hence a much larger pore surface area), called activated carbon, which is used as an adsorbent for a wide range of chemical substances.

Display More

A Pyrolysis Chamber could use electricity to burn wood-based items and make charcoal, so Planks, Logs, whatever could be turned into a larger output of Charcoal than basic burning of logs in a furnace. I'm not sure if 2x rate would be too high versus a traditional furnace, but any increased output works.

Also,... If we make some other things that use wood, it could be a profitable machine.

Right now, im thinking about multi-passenger boats (with an engine or fuel motor), or also furniture (cause there is no furniture yet).

Well,... there is some multi passenger vehicles mods around. Maybe it could be posible to decompile them and see what they are made of.
About the furniture,... Yeah, I know that there is nothing made of wood that could need it, and furniture its not in the "IC" spectre. But if only something could need some wood parts (in vehicles you can use many of them, like sits, stairs, chests, and so, for making more parts)...

"Flan" (a modder) have made planes and cars. One of the planes, and the cars, have space for 2 passengers and an own inventory. Maybe a boat with IC pieces could be near, I guess, using that models (and codes) as a base.

Quote from Alblaka

Afaik 90% of all chopped wood is used for charcoal either way. And i don't think one would create a machine for the few pieces of wood he wants to craft into planks...

Unless you want to build a wooden house, fence up a large area, make a stack of ladders for a mine shaft, etc.. I guess it depends on your play style, but sometimes you do need a lot of planks. At least in the early game. (So it would make sense for the sawmill to be a cheap machine, one you could build in the first few days.)

The sawmill could also be used to turn rubber tree wood into resin so you get more rubber out of it than if you just extract it as-is.
Or turn blocks into slabs (more efficiently). Also maybe something silly like split glass into glass panes, metal into uninsulated cables, TNT into dynamites.

I agree with Rowy. Also,... the wood its the only renovable resource. If you spend all the stone,... In a server made for a long term game, someday you are gonna need to go far for stone, and all below the ground will be a hollow place. Also you destro the beautyness of the map. But with wood, you can build foerever without touching too much the landscape. And 10 wood blocks are in a normal way 40 wooden planks.

In IC you can use matter to create stone or whatever. Anyway, it eats stars in the process.

Quote from Vannya

I agree with Rowy. Also,... the wood its the only renovable resource. If you spend all the stone,... In a server made for a long term game, someday you are gonna need to go far for stone, and all below the ground will be a hollow place. Also you destro the beautyness of the map. But with wood, you can build foerever without touching too much the landscape. And 10 wood blocks are in a normal way 40 wooden planks.

In IC you can use matter to create stone or whatever. Anyway, it eats stars in the process.

Cobblestone generators (and a furnace if you want smooth stone)? I don't think you'll run out of lava and water(!).

True. I was not thinking about that. Sorry : /

Quote from Vannya

In IC you can use matter to create stone or whatever. Anyway, it eats stars in the process.

Stars?
???

UH UH got an idea for the use.

After reading this my mind couldn't rest, cause I liked the idea.

I found 2 uses, the sawmill coul chop trees in a certain area around it and place the logs in a chest, and/or could chop planks into sawdust, which could be compressed into compressed plant balls or burned directly in a generator.

if you could turn a log into 6 wooden planks, you could burn those in a genorator and get more energy than if you burned the logs into charcoal and used that.
charcoal=4k EU
1plank=750 EU (6planks=4.5k EU)
and, when making charcoal, you have to supply your furnace with fuel or EU(electric furnace and induction furnace)

Quote from nOtime

Alright, sorry i disappeared for a while there but now im back with the masterplan about this.
I feel like wood can be a very interesting and useful ressource in the future, it could be compressed to higher tier wood plank types so its not too easy to have a lot of it, also this would lead to a more versatile gameplay: mining wouldnt be the only thing you have to do in order to get all the machinery. Doing the same thing all the time gets dull after a while , so this would bring new light into IC2 i feel.
Also i kind of liked Bierhamster's idea of automatic wood gathering, only instead of chopping wood in an area i though of something like a plantation-ish machine that accepts saplings as a ressource, takes energy (,maybe light?, maybe water?) and depending on what u want to program it like, alblaka, it could either just output some wood (or rubberwood, if it was that sort of sapling) or actually grow a tree above itself and then actually harvest the tree. i like the first idea better though.
On another note, to alblakas criticism against the need of larger amounts of wood: in real world usage, wood is a very useful building component and has good insulating properties, i think there is a lot u can adjust with wood ingredients in recipes for balance and new possibilities for wooden machinery are endless.
I feel like nobody's gonna read this whole lot of text if i continue so im gonna stop here : D

Playing BC/IC2, I can't see the argument that Wood goes unused for the most part.

I am burning through so much lumber it isn't even funny.. Batboxes are a vital part of my hierarchical power storage and its costing me a lot of wood, pistons cost wood, redstone engines cost wood, structures are built from wood, Logs become Charcoal used to power Stone Engines or such.

I mean there's more than enough uses to warrant something that increases lumber output. I'd love to establish proper Sawmills and such.

Industrialcraft Lumber Industry Items:

Harvester
When receiving power will cut down nearby trees automatically around it, spits out Saplings/Logs/Rubber or if a chest is placed next to them will place the stuff in a chest. Effectively a Miner for trees. Could add a scanner of some sort to increase its radius possibly.

Planter
When powered and recieves a redstone input, will place a sapling from its storage on top of the dirt block above it.

Fertilizer
Constantly fertilizes around it in an area using Bonemeal stashed inside, requires power and will fertilize when it receives redstone input.

Sawmill
When logs are inserted into the device and it is powered, will turn every Log into 8 Wood. Effectively a Macerator for Wood. Could also output a second resource called Wood Pulp into a bottom slot, Wood Pulp is turned into Paper at a crafting bench.

Pyrolysis Chamber
Turns each log into two Charcoal or Wood Pulp into one Charcoal when powered. (Carbon Fibers are made by Pyrolysis too btw)

This would allow properly automated logging systems from tree to production, allowing us to multiply our board and charcoal outputs (similar to how we can multiply our ore outputs) using modern machines. The Harvester/Fertilizer/Planter combo would allow tree farms to be created, autoharvest, and fed into Sawmills/Pyrolysis Chambers for the creation of Charcoal and Lumber for use. It would add a full new industry to Industrialcraft, one that's been relatively untouched by IC so far.

you want 5 machines (basically one more blockid) just to make batboxes?