Experimentation w/ forestry and redpower

1st Official Post

    So, I've been setting up a peat-fired power plant -- BUT using redpower's item transport instead of buildcraft's. I've discovered that redpower is:


    -Much more reliable -- when buildcraft item transport attempts to fit an item into a full inventory (eg, cobble into a recycler with a 64 cobble stack inside), the item gets spit into the world, and is a pain to automatically retrieve. Redpower item transport instead throws the item back into the transposer, and prevents it from spitting out more peat. Awesome.


    -Much more difficult -- buildcraft looks at a peat engine and thinks, "any input goes into the burninator slot, any output takes from the ash slot." Easy peasy. But Redpower item transport looks at a peat engine and thinks "bottom inventory is ash inventory, side inventory is for burninator slot." Redpower has been a real pain.


    -Much buggier -- redstone tubes connect to peat engines, but won't give them redstone power. Jacketed wires won't connect to the engine, but will power it.


    Edit: I also realized that clever use of retrievers and filters allows me to rapidly switch between burning low-power peat, and scarce bitumious peat, for times when I need a lot of power


    Any other comments?

    • Official Post

    First Bug is Sir Sengirs fault, because he made the Engines (and all other Forestryobjects) in another Way (more intelligent, but sometimes hacked), as all the Defaultmachines.


    Redstonetubes are also not sending Signals to Nuclearreactors, which are directly (without Hull between) adjacent to them, some People call it a Bug, but it's a Feature, because it prevents Redstonesignals from Tubes, to spread to other surrounding redstoneaccepting Objects.


    And guess, why i prefer Redpower over BC.

    So redstone tubes won't send redstone signal to non-redpower machines? Naturally. I actually managed to get the powerplant working just now; creative use of cover plates ensures that each engine gets a roughly equal amount of peat, and a retriever connected to the top of each engine can take out any ash that is produced. Now I just need to get my automatic peat production and distribution going. . .

    Personally for peat engines I find buildcraft indispensable and much easier due to the logistics pipe addon. set up a chest for ash and peat, mark the pipe(s) as such then just put provider pipes on the back of the engines and set them to provide 5 peat per engine.


    after a while you'll be swimming in ash. You'll also be swimming in peat unless you run 9 or 10 engines per bog. (I run 9 and get a surplus, haven't tried 10 yet)

    I'd like to use logistics pipes, but I don't quite have the materials necessary (methinks I need to get a start on industrial diamond production). Right now, I only have 5 peat engines, I have a crazy peat surplus -- Right now, I'm aiming at creating biomass for biogas engines. I'm supplementing my buildcraft power with bitumious peat, for now though. I'm also thinking burning peat in IC generators, for some additional IC2 energy.

    Quote from RichardG

    My Forestry stuff LIVES on logistic pipes. Everything is automated - except upgrading my iron chests when they get full, terminus module not working properly -_-


    Yeah, terminus modules are a bit odd. I found they don't work right with basic pipes and a terminus, they have to be used in conjunction with an item sink or a polymorphic item sink module in a chassis pipe. They should work like that though, they have been for me one I made that change.


    But yeah.. logistics pipes make forestry a lot less annoying, just fire and forget level.


    Though I will admit to building a RP2+forestry contraption just because. Namely, a set of 5 biogas engines powered by the milk from one cow. (and several buckets of lava to kick them off) Free energy! :) Though as my friend said: "I think the cow would disagree"