Which green generator do you prefer ?

I think that at beginning game, using windmills in conjunction with watermills would be best because it would be easier to make than solar panels. For me, I would make a house, put windmills on top, and under my basement, I would put a room with watermills, something like what raGan made. I also thought about making an "oil rig" a bit far out from land and having tin cable go down all the way down to the ocean floor and put water mills along the tin cable, and voila, free energy without having to worry about water placement. Of course, you'd have to make some air pockets along the bottom of the ocean floor, but I don't think it would be too hard. And on top of the oil rig, you could have an "antenna" supporting some windmills. This wouldn't be where I would live, so I would probably connect all the generators to an MFSU (not directly), and place a mass fabricator next to the MFSU for an automated UU-matter generator.

I'll be the first to admit that my current setup is microscopic compared to others (I only have four macerators!), but I use a small group of solar flowers to power my machines, and a small group of water mills under my house to power the lights and induction furnace (the room also acts as a passage between my house and workshop). Some day I plan on adding some wind generators for a rainy day (literally :P) and to power my mass fab, but I'm afraid that building a cable up to the surface of the world will become a bit of an eyesore (that, and my nuclear reactor's almost set up to power the fab).

Quote from SpwnX

Edit: 32 wind mills per tower is a good number.

Ahh, I have 28 in my towers and I was wondering if there was some sort of mathmatics or optimization you use to tell you that 32 is best.

Keep on stackin’ [windgens]!

I know it's kinda like... brute forcing windgens to offset the loss from collisions with sheer bulk. But 32 gens can fit into a 5 block vertical profile in a tower while the same amount would make an 800 SQUARE BLOCK RAFT in a horizontal setup.

If anything has given wind power the stigma of being eyesores up in the sky, it’s that kind of setup. On the other hand, wind towers look kinda cool if you ask me.

While im still trying to figure out why Solars recipe was nerfed, when they are inferior compaired to Winds, I just cant make myself build a Windfarm, even if the same amount of resources gives a lot more EU from Wind (Even more now, with the horrible 2-curcuits-per-solar recipe)
On the server I play, im making MV/HV Solars from the great Advanced Machines mod, to cut down on my C02... I mean Latency useage, rather than making 2k Winds. Again, I know I should just make that horrible farm, get more EU, save resources. Solars are my guilty pleasure.

Quote from Rekalty

While im still trying to figure out why Solars recipe was nerfed, when they are inferior compaired to Winds, I just cant make myself build a Windfarm, even if the same amount of resources gives a lot more EU from Wind (Even more now, with the horrible 2-curcuits-per-solar recipe)
On the server I play, im making MV/HV Solars from the great Advanced Machines mod, to cut down on my C02... I mean Latency useage, rather than making 2k Winds. Again, I know I should just make that horrible farm, get more EU, save resources. Solars are my guilty pleasure.

I think the reason people prefer solars is laziness. To set up a solar panel, you can just plonk it down anywhere on the surface - while to set up a watermill, you need to at least bring a bucket of water and clear out some space, and to use a windmill effectively you need to make a long wire going straight up (unless you live near Y=127 of course).
I used solar panels in 1.23 for this reason, then 1.337 came along and made them much more expensive. I still don't see why that was, but I use wind now. (And on another server with Forestry, charcoal and peat in normal generators)

I started using alternatives.

First is the Cobblestone-Generator... really it turns Cobblestone into Energy.

I use Redpower Building a cobblestone-generator and feed cobblestone into a recycler. Every 8 Cobblestone nets one Scrap which is burnt for 870 EU. Provides about 2 EU/t (since one recycler doesn:t provide enough Scrap to make the Gen run permanently). With 3 Recyclers you reach the maximum of about 7 EU/t. (the Generator works almost permanently), since 3 EU/t are needed to run the recyclers.

Second is the Reed-Generator...

I don't want to bother with turning reeds into fuel. So I just burn them directly. Thats incredible easy, because you could use RP for harvesting the reeds on cropsticks and collect them with transposers. It's easy to set up, but doesn't provide much power. But since you might use the reeds for other things too, it's just a method of getting rid of the overproduction.

i have made a great water gen that produces more power each than a soalr/wind could using IC2 and redpower pr4d
you use a deployer to fill buckets a filter to pull full ones out and a retriver to pull empty ones out can fill an mfe in a good 10 min's whith only 6 mills

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It's an effective system, no doubt - but to fill an MFE in 10 minutes with only 6 water mills would require that each mill generates 8.3 EU/tick.
I'm not quite sure water mills are capable of quite that much output.

Quote from jaidens111

i have made a great water gen that produces more power each than a soalr/wind could using IC2 and redpower pr4d
you use a deployer to fill buckets a filter to pull full ones out and a retriver to pull empty ones out can fill an mfe in a good 10 min's whith only 6 mills

I've seen this idea before on youtube. One LP'er i can't remember and i think direwolf made a system like this. How much eu/t does the whole set provide? I hate math.

Quote from Gamm

How much eu/t does the whole set provide? I hate math.

Each mill will provide 2 EU/tick. You'll get 12 EU/t from a set of 6.

Quote from HeadHunter67

Each mill will provide 2 EU/tick. You'll get 12 EU/t from a set of 6.

Still this is totally OP. You only need one retriever for about 20 Watermills (maybe even more). And since the retriever is the only thing that is even slightly costly you get 40 EU/t for not that large investments.

That's why I think manned mode should be 1 EU/t with twice the time spent on one bucket (so a bucket still gives you 1.000 EU, but will take 1.000 Ticks till depleted instead of 500.

I would still like watermills to work more like real water-generators.

Quote from raGan

But retriever is not part of IC. What should be balanced then ? Retrievers, for being very cheap or water mills for being able to be used with retrievers ? Water mills are not unbalanced when used without other mods, theese mods make it unbalanced.

Actually try using at least 4 water-gens with basic IC2 in manned mode. You need to refill a bucket every 6,25seconds. So doubling the time spent on one bucket, by lowering the output would change nothing for normal IC2-User since they are limited by the amount of buckets they could push into a water-gen, not by the amount of energy produced.

So actually the water-gen is unbalanced in manned mode either way. Without automation manned mode is hilarious since it eats away a bucket of water in 25 seconds and doesn't accept water-cells. With autmation manned mode is totally OP. Changing the EU/t produced by the Generator in manned mode without changing the EU per Bucket actually helps for both situations.

Solar is basic if your playing only with this mod. but if you have redpower added, then watermills are best. im making 12eu/t with my 6 water mills and it takes small amount of space. its all about tubing and deployer that fills buckets and filter that takes buckets to watermills and retryver that takes empty buckets back to deployer. so my MFE is always full

You forgot to mention the one big downside of running that manned watermill setup: The horrendous noise. It's worse than wind gens, although you can at least hide that water setup deep underground so you don't hear it all of the time.

That doesn't stop other people on my server complaining about the "sewage treatment plant sound" coming from my house.

A tip? Make solar flowers or solar plantsin a desert biome, since it never rains there. And have your cable run underground to your house/base/toilet on a (F.E.), taiga biome.