Posts by Corbald

Ooooh, cooling farm would be worth looking into.

I know it's kinda silly to point this out... But setting up in an icy biome DOES reduce your power consumption for a CASUC design significantly... Block breakers would reduce the number of pump/compressor/compressor combos you would need by a fair margin! Not sure what the optimal number would be.. Something like 32-64 to mine self-renewing ice. Probably 64 if the breakers are pointing up, to allow for the alternating coverstones to protect the water source blocks, yet still expose the mineable area to the sky.

Still, it's a limited use scenario.

After more thorough testing, I was able to remove the Sorter. As mentioned above, it was, in fact, not needed. Turns out that I missed the tiny destination-color select button on the Retrievers. Now using to opposing Retrievers to move empty/full buckets up/down the line.

I switched over to using a Deployer on a rapid pulse to simulate the Reactor. It simply empties my buckets and they are then pulled back into the network.

I am, however, having some serious backstuffing issues, whenever any part of the system is shut down and can no longer accept buckets of either variety. This jams the entire system, forcing manual intervention to clear out the stuffed RP machines....

I'm also having issues with the initial startup. If I turn on the flow AND the 'Reactor' simultaneously, it seems to work fine, but there's a large delay in getting those first filled buckets to it. I'm afraid it would melt down in that time. With the bucket flow ON but the Reactor OFF, I get the above backstuffing issue....

I'm working on solutions and will keep you all updated.

As to the suggestion to use BC and applicable mods. I'm trying to get this all up and running with RP tubes and machines exclusively, as I believe they will be the better solution in the long run, and because I can't abide by BC's tendency to 'spill.' (Yes, I DO know I can use an obsidian pipe to suck up the spillage.) Call me silly, but it's just my goal to use the RP machines. I feel that RP tubes give us more in the way of control over the system.

The Retriever has a 3x3 grid. I'm going to have to check to see if it can try to pull 9 buckets simultaneously. However, I am working under the assumption that it does NOT and was going to set up a similar system to the one suggested above, with multiple Retrievers on slightly offset ticks to pull empty buckets. According to my testing, I do NOT believe that Transposers/Filters will be needed AT ALL for this system. Retrievers fill the role of moving things OUT of the various machines and Sorters fill the role of moving things INTO them. So long as every item moving through the system passes through the Retriever THEN the Sorter, without any other possible routes in between those two machines, it should work just fine. Even if the tubes from the Sorter output and the Retriever input are the same network.

Where = tube, = retriever and = sorter.

Specific items will be routed through the network from their applicable storages (hoping this works with the reactor too, or the entire system fails) by the Retriever, passed through the Sorter, where they receive their color coding, then pass through to the proper sub-network.

Different sub-networks will be color coded, so (for example) empty buckets will only pass through into the filling sub-net, full buckets to the reactor's sub-net, etc....

Yes, IC2 for 1.0 will be some nuclear engineering excitement for me. I have been waiting for RP and IC to match up since Eloraam tweeted about the Retriever and the Sorter. I have a design I have built and tested in my 1.0 world that should keep my CASUC idea fueled with either Ice or Buckets to any degree that I can produce them.

Using a circular system of pipes with a Sorter and Retriever hooked up back to back allows you to route empty/full buckets all over the place, with only one tube to the reactor/refillers.

Actually, using the Sorter and Retriever in conjunction, somewhere midway in your tube system, and properly painting your pipes allows you to replace exceedingly complex systems with very simple mid-network loops. In my case, I have (with chests to stand in for the applicable IC machines) reduced my ore management center to a very simple one-track design, which can handle ANY amount of different ores but still output them all to sorted boxes. Indeed, I can then pull refined tin/copper bars BACK into the system, where they get re-macerated for the production of Bronze, without all the mucking-about with ratios that was previously required.

With the recent addition of the EU Detector wires, I plan on setting up a fully automated system to replace the Uranium Cells in my reactors once the cycle has completed. I'm hoping for a down-time of only a second or two. However, this will require that my SUC slots be filled and that SUC flow TO the reactor stop entirely before I swap out the U-Cells. I'm still working on that...

Can anyone give me an idea of how many concurrent requests I would need to make for 9 buckets (per request) to keep one of these 1k+ EU/t CASUCs cool? As it stands now, I can stuff 9 buckets per 0.2 seconds into the reactor. Double that for each Retriever/Sorter I place in the system.

So, I guess the big questions are:
1) Ice or water: Water is easier to set up, requiring only pumps and pre-made buckets. Ice works better but requires pump+compressor+compressor. Which costs the least in startup resources?
2) How many IC2 machines are needed for each setup at the maximum needed speed?
3) What's the best ratio of U-Cells to Coolant for each setup? (In a 5 core reactor w/ external cooling)

Actually, TBH, my computer probably can't handle a meltdown. I'm really waiting for RedPower's frames. According to Eloraam, they'll be able to 'inch-worm' along, so I'm designing alternatives for "Big Bertha" the mobile factory / boring machine. It'll (ideally) be able to mine out an area 16x20xN from bedrock up.

This is why I prefer to use uranium filled reactor cores for my blast mining....

Ah, ok. Makes more sense now.

While I have you here, how are the small wall strip type of luminators intended to be powered? Running a wire into the back of one makes it a wide-type, and the wires won't transfer power through a block..... ? (Nevermind... read the Wiki, neglected the blog.. (right click with a battery))

Marval: I'm not having any issues... do you have any other mods installed? Possibly IC2 sub-mods?

Oh.... What blocks does 'Electric Blocks' in the patch notes refer to, specifically? All machines, or only storage types?

P.S. OMG LAPPACK!! I was carrying around three BatPacks before.... I love you

Ok, thanks for the info. In the same vein, a single redstone dust -> Redpower wire works (in that it transfers the binary signal along the entire length) but the Redpower wire doesn't light up..... might confer with Eloraam on that?

Also: The EUD/Batbox had me going for a sec too, so don't feel bad!

P.S. MAD props on the new update! Loving the new wires (even with the minor glitches) and LOVING the doubled reactor output (though I blew up some stuff with the higher output because I missed that in the notes!)

Only bugs I have found so far are in regards to the EU-Detector cable.

1) Cable does not stop reporting current when a machine finishes all jobs. To replicate: Generator -> copper cable -> EUD -> copper cable -> macerator. Load generator with combustibles and allow it to fill up both machines internal storage. Place a macerateable in the applicable machine. Wait for the job to finish AND for the genny to stop consuming it's current fuel source. The EU-Detector will stay red, even though the EU-meter reads 0EU/t.

2) EUD does not connect to red power cables (at least the basic, un-insulated kind). Just thought you should know ;D (The EU switch wire doesn't connect either.)

Wait, wait.... Are you saying that we'll be converting redstone signals directly into an EU voltage of some sort? What I mean to say is, if I connect Redstone -> New Redwire -> Machine, with NOTHING else (no generators) the machine will get voltage from the redstone? I HOPE I'm misunderstanding this... I think what people really want is just a detection system, which will let us (for example) turn on a redstone signal when there's power in a wire, and (for example) turn OFF a wire/machine/power grid when there's a redstone signal.....

With Redpower 2 pre3 you can load/unload storage minecarts... I had a setup that moved both RE's and Lapo's around via minecart. Very efficient and I actually considered replacing large sections of my longer distance wiring with minecart tracks. Bugs in the system (read: Animals on the tracks) made me reconsider

My solution has been to hang a BC quarry over the tree and route the materials into a recycler/MF group.