Machine Rates & a BC+IC Idea

The recylcer ratio is 8:1, and yes, I agree the wiki should have all of the process times in addition to power consumption, Or at least the old info from the HEYO Original post with the info, which also told how much power was used per process as well as per tick, making ticks per process easy to figure out.

Most of the machines seem to already have this information. For example, in the Energy section of the Extractor page, the input is listed as “313 (2 EU/t)”, on the Compressor page it's “625 (2 EU/t)”, and on the Recycler page it's “35 (1 EU/t)”. Knowing that there are 20 ticks per second you can easily enough compute the time per item for each machine.

Also, for the record:
Set up a large chest full of cobblestone, and have a pipe sending the cobble past 3 macerators, with a gold pipe to send them faster. In my attempts, a slow moving block was liable to try and go down a tube and fall out of the system, so an active gold pipe is needed. Loop the pipe back around so that it leads back into the main chest - you'll be drawing stone faster than the macerators can process it.

Once macerated, pull the sand produced through some iron pipes and channel it to an induction furnace, turning the sand into glass. From there, send it to an automatic work bench, converting glass into glass panes at a 16:6 ratio. Then shunt the glass panes into a recycler. At this rate, 3 macerators will produce material at slightly under the rate of recycling. It's quick enough to keep busy, but slow enough that you can add more scrap if you find the need. I had a feed chest that would dispense panes, but could also add dirt or whatever to it and it'd get recycled fairly reliably. Hooking up the recycler was a bit of a pain though, as items would often slip past it. I finally settled on a 2x2 square of pipes, with an iron pipe that would let items into the loop but not out, and a gold pipe that would keep them swirling, turning the pipe loop into a buffer system that could hold some materials while the recycler worked, and keep the recycler running at peak performance.

A large chest of stone at 12.5% scrap rate would turn 54 stacks of cobblestone into 6.75 stacks (432) of scrap. Through the conversion to glass and panes, you get 18 stacks (1,152) of scrap, over 2.5x returns. That's 128 scrap boxes, and if I'm doing the conversion right, that's 3-4 diamonds on average. I quarried a whole chunk and got 3+ large chests of cobblestone, so that's easily a dozen diamonds running through the machine! For bonus points, I had it sort garbage like wooden hoes and junk back into the recyler, so only the good stuff was kept. Sadly I deleted my world so I can't show off this messy jumble of pipes, but I had linked it to a dispenser and a repeater to auto-deploy the scrap boxes and sort them as well. It was rather glorious...

Quote from Girlinhat

Also, for the record:
Set up a large chest full of cobblestone, and have a pipe sending the cobble past 3 macerators, with a gold pipe to send them faster. In my attempts, a slow moving block was liable to try and go down a tube and fall out of the system, so an active gold pipe is needed. Loop the pipe back around so that it leads back into the main chest - you'll be drawing stone faster than the macerators can process it.

Once macerated, pull the sand produced through some iron pipes and channel it to an induction furnace, turning the sand into glass. From there, send it to an automatic work bench, converting glass into glass panes at a 16:6 ratio. Then shunt the glass panes into a recycler. At this rate, 3 macerators will produce material at slightly under the rate of recycling. It's quick enough to keep busy, but slow enough that you can add more scrap if you find the need. I had a feed chest that would dispense panes, but could also add dirt or whatever to it and it'd get recycled fairly reliably. Hooking up the recycler was a bit of a pain though, as items would often slip past it. I finally settled on a 2x2 square of pipes, with an iron pipe that would let items into the loop but not out, and a gold pipe that would keep them swirling, turning the pipe loop into a buffer system that could hold some materials while the recycler worked, and keep the recycler running at peak performance.

A large chest of stone at 12.5% scrap rate would turn 54 stacks of cobblestone into 6.75 stacks (432) of scrap. Through the conversion to glass and panes, you get 18 stacks (1,152) of scrap, over 2.5x returns. That's 128 scrap boxes, and if I'm doing the conversion right, that's 3-4 diamonds on average. I quarried a whole chunk and got 3+ large chests of cobblestone, so that's easily a dozen diamonds running through the machine! For bonus points, I had it sort garbage like wooden hoes and junk back into the recyler, so only the good stuff was kept. Sadly I deleted my world so I can't show off this messy jumble of pipes, but I had linked it to a dispenser and a repeater to auto-deploy the scrap boxes and sort them as well. It was rather glorious...

sounds like a lot of work for a little gain. Personally I just run a cobblestone generator to feed the recyclers between quarrying sessions. I used to use a quarry set up over a 2 block wide cobble generator but I now use redpower's block breakers and a redpower timer. (didn't want to move the quarry then move it back again, had RP2 installed)

Did you have an automatic scrap box processing system set up? After I learned that dispensers can "use" a scrap box I quickly set one up. Took 2 diamond pipe to filter out all the stuff I don't want. (which naturally feed back to the recyclers)

Quote from Krazygluon

You know that jaw dropping moment when you realize you've only scratched the surface of something...

I just had it. (for like the 9th time in this game)

So is the drop rate for diamonds from scrap boxes better than the effective drop-rate from a scrap-fed matter fab? or is it just the energy cost associated with the matter fab?

Something like that. It's also the fact that it takes a billion items (ok more like 2376) to make a diamond using scrapboxes (along with 83k EU).
I'm not sure how much scrap it takes / uu mater at 100% uptime on scrap, or how much energy.... but my guess is, it's cheaper on items, more expensive on energy.
Not sure which would take more time either (obviously would depend on the # of recyclers / mass fabricators).

Also note: I'm pretty sure Alblaka is going to nerf scrapboxes (which is something to keep in mind before building a giant recycling plant).
*Item/EU values based on a 3% drop rate of diamonds from scrapboxes [may not be the actual drop rate].

Quote from AkhkharuXul

Also note: I'm pretty sure Alblaka is going to nerf scrapboxes (which is something to keep in mind before building a giant recycling plant).
*Item/EU values based on a 3% drop rate of diamonds from scrapboxes [may not be the actual drop rate].

and you got that information from..?
Besides, even if scrap boxes get changed I could just as easily feed the scrap output to the mass fab i've got running near constantly.

Quote from FnordMan

and you got that information from..?
Besides, even if scrap boxes get changed I could just as easily feed the scrap output to the mass fab i've got running near constantly.

http://forum.industrial-craft.…ad&postID=16717#post16717

The 3% I got from someone who ran tests (though I can't find the post) I made up the number 3% based off the fact that it was an equal chance for scrap box items (except dirt which is twice as much) and since there are 32 possible items (2x dirt = 33) and an equal chance 33x3.030303=99.999999% [so I guess it'd be a 3.030303% chance not 3 *shrugs* still may be wrong *shrugs*]

I was using scrap boxes because I didn't have a matter fab at the time. And this is a lot of work for comparatively little gain, but it's very well regulated and I enjoy building complicated machines. The main cobblestone box could be any size and it would still run perfectly fine, no chance over overflowing the recycler, and it would squeeze out any efficiency possible. I had 20 solar panels producing more than enough energy to run this monster and store some for extra use, like my usual macerators and furnaces for after-mining purposes. It was a fun little engineering challenge and it gave me some great output at comparatively low tech and low power costs. Plus, I got plenty of gold helmets to help those special ed kids that I'm sponsoring!

I send my scrap to matter fabricator, currently I am using 4 32 solar flowers for a total of 128 EU/t going into it.

From rough estimation with 128EU/t one scrap lasts for 3% of 1 UU-matter, making it about 33 scrap per UU-matter.

then times by 9 for a diamond makes 297 scrap per diamond. So take your pick for whatever system you want.

with the chances (taken from wiki) of a diamond 28/1000 (or 1 every 35.7 boxes) per scrapbox. the amount of scrap required is 321.42......

so i guess if you are just going for diamonds matter fab with 128 panels is the way to go, 297 compared to 321 scrap/ but then you get other items as well.

take your pick.

Matter fab won't give you cake~

mmmmm cake

Yes I looked at this as well. In short, recyclers need to be nerfed massively if you are playing with redpower 2, because redpower 2 cobble generators take no energy to run. So on my world, recyclers need 10x more energy to run, and I also make the diamond rate 1% instead of 3%.

Quote from Alblaka

I hate Glass Panes.

But I thought Eloraam did a nice job offering Glass Panels for us to be able to take down and put up repetitively...

Oh! You mean Notch's Glass Panes.. (lol)