Posts by method_missing

Quote from HeadHunter67

That's not a bad idea - an 18x18 area at one time? How much power do you find it generally uses for the dig? And how do you prefer to power that in the field?
I'm sure a Quarry would be comparable but it's such a pain dealing with all the dirt and cobble it digs up. I've gotten to the point where I usually use a Filler afterwards and put it all back.
The nice thing about Miners is, it's a neat little hole that is basically self-sealing.

I agree that the Quarry seems like a massive waste for what it picks up. I'm intrigued by the idea of setting a filler up to replace all the trash it digs up, but there's also the potential of turning its output into scrap for a mass fab. Isn't that the engame of IC now?

I currently consider quarries as something to build to use up oil deposits and gather me some building materials, however all but the most massive builds are going to be easily satisfied by a quarry's output. When it comes to diamonds, a miner is my immediate choice. An OV miner should be almost guaranteed to pick up a diamond vein. If it doesn't, then replacing it 10 blocks over will definitely get some. Right?

Thanks everybody for all the advice!

If the costs on the wiki are correct... (missing the canning machine cost)
40,000 (macerator) + 40,000 (compressor) + 20,032 (extractor) = 100,032 (processing cost) - 460,800 (yield) = 360,768 net
<~ 104,768 more power from coalfuel than just burning the coal. Not to mention all the running around you have to do.

It's certainly even more dismal with the canning cost subtracted out. I agree with the verdict that, even though you use 20,032 out of the total 256,000 from cooking charcoal, it's certainly far simpler and more sustainable for early game until better power sources become available.

I also think I'll bow to the inevitability of solar for first-tier manufacturing power needs. You wouldn't believe how much time I spent hydrating coal dust and moving things from one machine to the next. Set-and-forget for those basic machines seems to be the funnest strategy for future industrial operations.

The last game I was playing, which I messed up by corrupting my save after switching versions of Millenaire, I decided I was against solar power. In my first IC game I set up a 9-panel solar tree and had enough power to do whatever I wanted in the lower tech tier. For a bit more challenge, I decided all my coal would be put to use producing coalfuel to fuel further refining and my basement miner.

What I started to find, however, was that due to an unlucky spot that didn't have any magma at bedrock, I was stuck using coalfuel for the third OV miner placement, and my coal supplies were dwindling fast. Turning all my coal into fuel, I was teetering at about 30-40 coalfuel cells with no upward trend in supply.

Was I just unlucky, or is it impossible to sustain a single miner indefinitely on its coal product alone?

Should I cave in and instead convert all coal to dust for solar generators?

Note: I did turn up about 8 uranium and was working to get a MFSU, then a MK-I generator going, but since I was still only running one miner resources were a bit scarce.