A windgen placed on top of the world will still make more than a watermill even with the cable losses than a unmanned watermill. Isnt this a little bit weird?
Are Water Mills as useless as they seem to be?
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A windgen placed on top of the world will still make more than a watermill even with the cable losses than a unmanned watermill. Isnt this a little bit weird?
For a passive water gen, this is true. For an active (bucket-powered) watermill, however, it should only barely compete. According to the wiki a windmill produces an average of around 1.3 EU/t averaged over the whole day (mileage may vary depending on location). Even if the windmill produced 3 EU/t average, which is asking a lot from it, it still suffers from needing LOTS of space around it to work at full capacity (AKA no dense clusters), inconvenient build location (in the sky) and also, you can't use tin cables with them, because if the mill sends out a 4 EU pulse (which it can) it will fry your wiring.
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Yeah. Its not worth it.
Unless you just REALLY wanna make something, its not worth automating a water mill cluster.
Way too many engines and loss of FPS over huge systems, not to mention all the extra resources you have to pump into that to even make it.
If it could be done with nothing but rp2 it would be a different story. Unfortunately, bc is required for it because of the way the wooden pipes work.
windgens are practically as cheap, and offer 12+ times the energy output completely unmanned if they are placed correctly. And when tin cables get buffed, they are going to be even more ridiculous. But on the other hand, I would never make a wind farm simply because its hideous. I cant play on max view distance so placing a windfarm at the top of the world irritates me. It looks like wires from space are powering my house, I would take a MASSIVE watermill farm over a few windgens every day of the week for this reason alone. Unmanned water mills should have their eu/t doubled, or you should get 2 mills for every recipe. I would also encourage wind power having at least 1 effective eu/t knocked out of it, and able to place them at layer 64 and higher without any energy loss, top of the world is retarded.
Lols, I had just thought about doing this [making an automated water-mill system using just redpower 2]. Since a deployer can fill 2.5 buckets / second, and a watermill uses 1 bucket every 25 seconds, theoretically 1 depolyer could run 10 watermills (I'd have it run 8 just to keep things safe). Just did some quick calculations, looks like I could make 16 watermill cluster in a 9x7x4 area. The problem is it'd take 1 filter per watermill [so basically increasing each watermills cost by 2 gold and 1 iron].
So using 2 deployers, 18 filters, and 16 watermills to produce 32 EU/t.
Edit: Comparing the resources to more conventional methods (like the 16 EU/t 32 solar panel array, a 2.33 efficiency 2 chamber reactor [35 EU/t], or a 2 efficiency 0 chamber reactor [20 EU/t]) seems like this system might be viable. -- Guess it would depend on how many buckets would be required to have everything running smoothly. [And how well the equi-distance splitting on tubes works]
Ed2: Then I build the thing, and it's epic... then I find out you have to tube in from the top to have the buckets go to the bottom slot (also +1 bucket / filter). Time for a minor redesign.
----- Then I don't realize that you would need to use a filter/transposer from the top to pull said bucket back out.... So I don't think it's possible to do with redpower. -
Edit: Comparing the resources to more conventional methods (like the 16 EU/t 32 solar panel array, a 2.33 efficiency 2 chamber reactor [35 EU/t], or a 2 efficiency 0 chamber reactor [20 EU/t]) seems like this system might be viable. -- Guess it would depend on how many buckets would be required to have everything running smoothly. [And how well the equi-distance splitting on tubes works]
Ed2: Then I build the thing, and it's epic... then I find out you have to tube in from the top to have the buckets go to the bottom slot (also +1 bucket / filter). Time for a minor redesign.
----- Then I don't realize that you would need to use a filter/transposer from the top to pull said bucket back out.... So I don't think it's possible to do with redpower.lol I wish I had caught you before the edits bud
I laughed so hard when I read "Then I build the thing, and its epic... Then..."I did the exact same thing with the exact same response like 4 days ago, I even built a dam around it so one side would have water touching it the whole time, and bam..
I can put buckets in, I can take buckets out, BUT I CANT PUT BUCKETS IN AND TAKE THEM OUT. I was so frustrated I spent the next hour trying combinations of transposers and filters and transposers+filters on every side.
Its not possible with redpower right now, not unless we can get an extra side to work with or a two-way transposer or maybe a two way 2 inventory slot filter.
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For a passive water gen, this is true. For an active (bucket-powered) watermill, however, it should only barely compete. According to the wiki a windmill produces an average of around 1.3 EU/t averaged over the whole day (mileage may vary depending on location). Even if the windmill produced 3 EU/t average, which is asking a lot from it, it still suffers from needing LOTS of space around it to work at full capacity (AKA no dense clusters), inconvenient build location (in the sky) and also, you can't use tin cables with them, because if the mill sends out a 4 EU pulse (which it can) it will fry your wiring.
They dont produce 1.3 eu/tick average. I havent seen a windgen production go lower than 2 eu/tick. They produce like 3 eu/tick on average. I dont see you babysitting watermills just to get 1000 eu per bucket. You would be better off with 1 windgen on top of the world than having to man a watermill on bedrock level. The windgen will keep producing while you mine your stuff while watermills stop after a short time. I made a pretty nice windgen farm on my old world consisting of 36 windgens which made over 100 eu/tick (that includes the cable losses) most of the time. I rather run a simple wire down to than make a new nerfed watermill farm for energy.
Btw 2 way transposer/filters sounds nice. That would make it possible to make a 4 chamber CASUC reactor with 2500 cooling capacity instead of the 3 chamber we have now.
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They dont produce 1.3 eu/tick average. I havent seen a windgen production go lower than 2 eu/tick. They produce like 3 eu/tick on average. I dont see you babysitting watermills just to get 1000 eu per bucket. You would be better off with 1 windgen on top of the world than having to man a watermill on bedrock level. The windgen will keep producing while you mine your stuff while watermills stop after a short time. I made a pretty nice windgen farm on my old world consisting of 36 windgens which made over 100 eu/tick (that includes the cable losses) most of the time. I rather run a simple wire down to than make a new nerfed watermill farm for energy.
Btw 2 way transposer/filters sounds nice. That would make it possible to make a 4 chamber CASUC reactor with 2500 cooling capacity instead of the 3 chamber we have now.
I guess we'll have to see what Eloraam does with the "item sorter" but I highly doubt it'll help. It's just kinda sad that I thought with buildcraft it was the side and the bottom that put buckets into the correct slot for a watermill.
I could cheat and add buildcraft, I've already gotten pipes / tubes to hook up alright, so I could use filters to pull out the buckets, and pipes to send them in. [Though that would add another mod for the people who don't use RP2, IC and BC :P] ... Probably would make the setup a ton easier though... I'll have to make sure I'm remembering the pipes the right way first this time... before I go and build two failed devices
Hrm pipes is top as well... guess it's the watermills that must have changed. -
I made bucket-powered 16хwatermill electrostation with rp2 deployer, buildcraft engines and additional zeldo pipes. It's pretty simple and easy to build when you already know how!
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I made bucket-powered 16хwatermill electrostation with rp2 deployer, buildcraft engines and additional zeldo pipes. It's pretty simple and easy to build when you already know how!
Ya but that feels like cheating lols, also it takes 4 mods and I was on the edge about using 3.
I mean I know it -can- be done like that, it'd just be nicer if there were an easier way (for example if other mods saw the side of the watermill as the bottom slot, instead of top only and everything else is the top slot.. which is a bit confusing to begin with :P) Hell even if it was "just" the side that would put items into (and out of) the bottom slot everything would be much happier considering there's 4 sides...
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Here's the simplest and most efficient design i could come up with. The update was actually a boon in disguise. Line of pumps in the middle, 1 chest 1 water on either side, alternating. Add pipes and redstone engines and it'll run forever at full speed. dimensions are 5 long, 7 wide (including blocks for redstone) and 4 high. Design is best when stacked vertically or lengthwise
According to my measurements a water gen is equal to three solars over a minecraft 24hr, because you have to cut the solar's 1EU/t in half due to night. the water gen loses about .2 of it's EU/t to the pump. so gen makes 1.8/t, which is around 3 solars, conservatively. 24 iron for 3 solars VS 16+1(circuit)+2(engines)=19 iron for watermill+pump+2 redstone engines
One bucket just flops back and forth between the chest and the watermill. If the bucket is empty, the pump fills it and puts the full bucket back in the chest. Easy as pie, no loop required.
Takes a lot of wood to make this though, for the stupid engines. Could also be more efficient (pump-wise, 1 pump can supply about 1.2 gens) with tele/distro pipes but this is built for vanilla IC and BC
O.O
... I'm going to have to work on this one... lol
Awesome work!
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Too mention the obvious: Watermills are meant to be crafted 2 for each recipe. I've got no clue how that slipped through the IC porting.
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lols that explains all XD
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I have a hard time believing you'll get that level of power (100/tick from 36). I'll run a test later.
Also when I wrote bucket-powered, I didn't mean by hand. That is stupid, considering it can be automated with vanilla buildcraft and vanilla IC pump easily.
They dont produce 1.3 eu/tick average. I havent seen a windgen production go lower than 2 eu/tick. They produce like 3 eu/tick on average. I dont see you babysitting watermills just to get 1000 eu per bucket. You would be better off with 1 windgen on top of the world than having to man a watermill on bedrock level. The windgen will keep producing while you mine your stuff while watermills stop after a short time. I made a pretty nice windgen farm on my old world consisting of 36 windgens which made over 100 eu/tick (that includes the cable losses) most of the time. I rather run a simple wire down to than make a new nerfed watermill farm for energy.
Btw 2 way transposer/filters sounds nice. That would make it possible to make a 4 chamber CASUC reactor with 2500 cooling capacity instead of the 3 chamber we have now.
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You cannot use other mods as a argument in balancing IC2. Maybe in the form of a addon.
I got over 100 eu/tick pretty often with 36 windgens. Highest i have seen was 132 eu/tick. Its simple maths through. 36*4 = 144. So i havent even seen the max output yet.
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You cannot use other mods as a argument in balancing IC2. Maybe in the form of a addon.
I got over 100 eu/tick pretty often with 36 windgens. Highest i have seen was 132 eu/tick. Its simple maths through. 36*4 = 144. So i havent even seen the max output yet.
I'm starting to think there's a bug in the windgen function (since it can output 4 EU and pop tin cables) I think Alblaka plans to buff the tin cables to handle it even though windgens are supposed to send 0-3 EU/t, not 4...
And I'm not sure if the Wiki is correct for windgens I know Talon did that back in IC1, so ... calculations might have changed [if you're claiming higher then 1.3 EU/t average @ optimum efficiency]. -
Windgens got buffed to make them actualy usefull.
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Too mention the obvious: Watermills are meant to be crafted 2 for each recipe. I've got no clue how that slipped through the IC porting.
Oooh, okay, I'm looking forward to that getting fixed. I'm going for space efficiency instead of generator efficiency, and packing the towers in densely enough that they only touch ~15 blocks of water instead of ~21 blocks of water looks like it will get 50% more eu/t per tower section (going by my napkin math here), but at the cost of using 112.5% more water mills. Having the cost of the mills halved will make this plan a heck of a lot less crazy.
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You cannot use other mods as a argument in balancing IC2. Maybe in the form of a addon.
I got over 100 eu/tick pretty often with 36 windgens. Highest i have seen was 132 eu/tick. Its simple maths through. 36*4 = 144. So i havent even seen the max output yet.
Ive been trying to use
but how do you space the mills out for yours setup? -
Ive been trying to use
but how do you space the mills out for yours setup?dont even worry about spacing them... just go to the top of the world and do this:
top:
.... 
....You can space them out a block or so from layer to layer but they generate so much EU up there you dont need too. Unless im wrong on this, every block that counts as a "obstruction" actually only lowers the windmills effective height by one, so at layer 128, those 4 should act like they are on 123ish?
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I made them with only 2 blocks that obstructed them purely for resource reasons.
