Making ULV (tin) cables more useful.

  • Glass Fiber cable, it's the be all, end all, solution for all power needs. It has the lowest loss per block of any usable cable. It also needs diamonds so it can be made. This makes it an infuriating necessity for any industrial setup with any "long distance". Is there any possibility of their being some form of ULV batbox equiv or a ULV transformer in the works?



    As for all the naysayers stating that tin cables would be abused, help me/you/us find a solution. Bottom line, long distance power transfer needs to be a possibility without the use of GFC.

  • Why does there *need* to be another way to transfer power long distance? I mean, I can think of a few ways to do it now: Railcraft power carts, lapotron crystals in an enderchest (or a chest cart), glass fiber cables, extreme-voltage cables, some crazy system relying on power conversion, and eventually it'll be possible to transfer power by sending liquid electrolyzed water through a pipe system. How many more ways do you need?


    As for the possibility of a ULV transformer, I'm not actually convinced it'll be abused (unless the recipe is really cheap), but that it'll be useless. ULV is 5 EU/p, and after 40 blocks you've lost 1 EU, which is a whopping 20% of the power you put into the cable in the first place. Compare with glass fiber where you lose 1/512th in the same distance, or some of the other methods where you don't lose any power at all.


    Finally, I'm really curious about these long-distance power transfers because I seem to have to go out of my way to make a sufficiently spread-out system that I need such long ranges. I don't like being a naysayer, but you're going to have to give me a scenario where all the current power transfer methods are wrong, and tin cable is right, because I can't seem to be able to think one up.

    • Official Post

    To allow tin cables to be used as low-energy-long-distance transfer :
    ULV transformer takes one LV packet and splits into 16 ULV packets of 2 EU/p each.
    If you want to transfer more than 32 EU/t through distances higher than 40 blocks without any loss through ULV wires you will require lots of ULV transformers.


    OR


    Increase ULV cable packet limit to 8 EU/p.
    ULV transformer takes one LV packet and splits into 4 ULV packets of 8 EU/p each.
    Make ULV wires have a limit of four 8 EU packets. Other smaller packets remain unlimited (0-7 EU/p)


    ULV transformer recipe :
    :Intergrated Plating::Glass Fibre::Intergrated Plating:
    :Tin Ingot::Electronic Circuit::Tin Ingot:
    :Intergrated Plating::Glass Fibre::Intergrated Plating:


    :Intergrated Plating:-> Stone :Glass Fibre: -> ULV cable
    Others are what the sprite represent.


    When this would be used :
    Powering luminators, powering low-tier machines which are within 40 blocks of a batbox without any loss, transfering (very) small amounts of energy cheaply (f.e you want to transfer some energy to a friend's house cheaply)

  • I agree. Right now ULV cables are only used for wiring solars/wind/water mills. I would like to see this happen. i can also hardly see why this would be "overpowered". yes, it has a low loss rate, but the speed at which you can transfer power more than justifies that. one would need to place several dozen ULV transformers to get a decent eu/t through a cable - and that takes up space and resources.


    +1 :D

  • Transmitting via ULV may cause lag, actually. I used Advanced Solar Panels' Quantum Gen for my Test World and emitted about 131k EU through 32 EU-p and my FPS was quartered as compared to emitting via 512 EU-p.

    • Official Post

    Transmitting via ULV may cause lag, actually. I used Advanced Solar Panels' Quantum Gen for my Test World and emitted about 131k EU through 32 EU-p and my FPS was quartered as compared to emitting via 512 EU-p.

    My second way counter that , people could only transfer up to 4 8 EU packets in a single wire (32 EU/t)

  • I think it's be balanced as long as the EU/t per transformer is low. Though I'm thinking a setup thats less for long distance and more for low power medium distance. (IE, good for keeping a batbox on the other side of the workshop filled) For even harder balance shove the packet size all the way down to 1, and force constant re-transforming if long distance is wanted.

  • besides long-range energy transfers tin cable could be used to power luminators. But right now they have to be connected directly to wind/water/solar things as there are no output for tin cable out of your main power grid.

    Communication and discussion + constructive critisism = Good Ideas

  • for luminators that would be great... i really dont use them because copper cables eat so much EU when you try to light up a large complex...
    only effecient way to do it now is to generate the power via windgen/watergen and then distribute it in tincables... but i dont want to build generators only to light up my base when i have gregs lighting and redpower as nice alternatives

    List of People I know who didn't blew up a machine from Advanced Machines addon by wiring them to MV: { }


    Yay math exam is soon... lots of fun... "you love taylor approximation with parameters" *beat head with stick*