Posts by Gus_Smedstad

Quote from willis936

That MV bootstrapping issue is what I wanted to address.

Undmodified, it’s actually a HV bootstrapping issue, since you can’t get to the gallium by-products without a HV macerator to processing thermally centrifuges ores. That was a good catch on your part. I’d just prefer to address it in a more thematic way than adding it to the Rare Earth group.

I’m tempted to add a very low yield additional byproduct for centrifuging Sphalerite or Bauxite, or both. I.e. instead of replacing the 2nd byproduct (yellow garnet for Sphalerite, Grossular for Bauxite), add a low probability of gaining a tiny gallium dust as well. 10% probability for example would yield a 1% yield overall, so it doesn’t invalidate the HV processing that normally gets you Gallium, but does give you enough to start.

I’d have to add it to several recipes, actually - every place that currently produces the 2nd byproduct, which includes centrifuging impure dusts and thermal centrifuging of pure and impure dusts.

Getting Gallium via centrifuging is “unrealistic,” but it’s a LV method of obtaining them from the actual sources of gallium.

I've looked at the Gallium problem, and decided it was better to take an approach that was closer to real life ore processing. Gallium is normally a byproduct of electrolysis of bauxite or sphalerite. So I put together a minetweaker script that added those. As you say, to get replacement recipes to show up, you have to specify a new processing time and change lines in recipe.cfg to disable the old recipes. Here's what I'm doing.

import mods.gregtech.Electrolyzer;


val aluminum = <gregtech:gt.metaitem.01:2019>;
val bauxite_dust = <gregtech:gt.metaitem.01:2822>;
val empty_cell = <ore:cellEmpty>;    
val gallium = <gregtech:gt.metaitem.01:2037>;
val hydrogen_gas = <liquid:hydrogen>;
val oxygen_cell = <gregtech:gt.metaitem.01:30013>;
val rutile_dust = <gregtech:gt.metaitem.01:2375>;
val sulfur = <gregtech:gt.metaitem.01:2022>;
val sphalerite_dust = <gregtech:gt.metaitem.01:2839>;
val zinc = <gregtech:gt.metaitem.01:2036>;




// change this line in recipe.cfg:
// I:dustBauxite=702 to dustBauxite_702=0


Electrolyzer.addRecipe( [rutile_dust * 2, aluminum * 16, oxygen_cell * 11, gallium * 2], hydrogen_gas * 10000, bauxite_dust * 39, empty_cell * 11, null, [10000, 10000, 10000, 10000],
                        707, 90 );


// change this line in recipe.cfg:
// I:dustSphalerite_92=92 to dustSphalerite_92=0


Electrolyzer.addRecipe( [zinc, sulfur, gallium], null, sphalerite_dust * 2, null, null, [10000, 10000, 2000], 97, 60 );

This adds a yield of 5% gallium from bauxite and 10% gallium from Sphalerite. Given the apparent low volume of gallium needed (typically 1 gallium for 36 "good" circuits), this should be plenty.

I've verified that this works, but haven't playtested it since I'm still struggling to get enough power delivery for my first electric blast furnace. Energy densities are very, very low before you can convert to oil.

EDIT: I belatedly realized there's a bootstrapping issue, since the MV electrolyzer and MV power sources require gallium. However, finding even one small zinc deposit should give you 2 tiny gallium, which is enough to make 8 diodes and 8 "good" circuits, which is more than enough to make a MV generator and electrolyzer.

Quote from willis936

This was a post I made from a few pages ago but it should be read by anyone looking to progress past LV and so it seems relevant to share now:

[GregTech-5][1.7.10-FORGE-1355+][Unofficial but approved Port][Stable] Even GT5 Experimental is slowly getting stable.

Ugh. I haven't progressed enough to examine what gallium's used for in GT. Doping the new integrated circuits, I'd guess. I'm still at the vacuum tube stage, since ICs and transistors appear to require MV tech. I do notice what you mean about gallium requiring a HV macerator, though, and if it's a significant need at MV, it definitely needs a fix.

I'm not sure about how replacing GT machine recipes works. The last time I tried, I couldn't get it to work. There's no Remove() method for GT machines in Mine Tweaker, and turning off the config line also turned off my replacement recipe. Is it really enough to just ensure the processing time is different? Or do you need to add another config line?

I encountered another recipe problem, this one being that there was no way to make biochaff. I was exploring alternatives to steam power, and biochaff is the gregtech method of making ethanol. I figured it was another mod conflict, like the problem with the compressed coal ball, so I tried it out with my minimal installation. Sure enough, the biochaff recipes worked there.

After about an hour of slowly deleting mods in a test directory, I determined the mod conflict. It's Gregtech 5U. Specifically, Gregtech and Unidict. Unidict hasn't changed, the source of the conflict is .31 (and .32pre4). If you load Unidict 2.9.2 and Industrialcraft 2, or Unidict and Gregtech .28pre, both the biochaff recipes and the compressed coal ball work correctly. If you load .32pre4, those recipes vanish.

I noticed one new feature in .32pre4 which, while not vital, is worth grabbing the update by itself.

Pipes no longer auto-connect to everything adjacent. They’ll auto-connect to the block to which you are pointing, so if you are making a line of pipe you just point to the previous pipe segment and they’ll connect, but the don’t connect to the stuff to the sides. To make those connections, you have to use a wrench. The interface for connecting / disconnecting pipes is the same as it is for placing covers or rotating output sides.

This is a big, big improvement. It used to be a pain, placing pipes carrying different fluids or gasses adjacent. You had to place a cover to prevent connection, place the pipe, paint it, and then remove the cover. Or just leave the cover in place. Now it’s much more difficult to connect pipes by accident.

Getting water in my steam pipes or steam in my water pipes used to be very annoying.

EDIT: Cables still auto-connect, accidental LV to HV cable connections are still a hazard.

Paint to force pipe separation is now optional, though still useful for color-coding what a particular pipe is carrying.

The only drawback is that if you don’t know how it works, it’s not obvious at first why something isn’t connecting. I discovered this feature while trying to connect a steam pipe to a steam turbine, and I was initially baffled as to why the pipe hadn’t connected. It does often mean a bit of additional clicking, making the final connection from a pipe or cable to the destination block, but it’s worth it.

I fired up my minimal install, which I created primarily to re-balance the food values of Harvestcraft meals, and sure enough, I can create compressed coal balls in a compressor.

I can't imagine what is suppressing it in my main directory. Of the mods I have installed, only IC2 and Gregtech are aware of the coalball. I deleted my Gregtech config directory to force default values, and the problem persists.

While I'm past that bottleneck now, since I used the Forestry Carpenter to create wood pulp and eventually completed an assembler to make compressed coal balls, it would have been nice to have industrial diamonds (and thus the macerator) earlier. Getting the assembler required a few prerequisite machines, since it has conveyors as components, and the only method for creating rubber is now the chemical reactor -> fluid solidifier route.

An early macerator also would have addressed my string shortage, since it converts wool to string, and sheep farming for wool is something you absolutely have to do for the black carpet portion of the LV cable insulation anyway.

Wool's not a problem, since other primary mod I'm using is Ancient Warfare, which allows for automated wool-shearing via hired NPCs. I got it primarily as a more-plausible way of automating wood production for fuel. Unlike Forestry's multifarms, which just sort of magically work, in Ancient Warfare you hire lumberjacks who cut down trees in your designated tree farm areas.

I still have Forestry installed, and I'll probably use it anyway eventually because the multifarms do some things that Ancient Warfare's farms won't, like auto-harvest resin from trees.

OK, I fired up 5.09.32pre4. The lathe requires 1 diamond. Compressed coal balls can only be made in the assembler. I’m not running scripts that change either one, and I’m not running a mod pack.

I don’t know how you’re seeing different results.

Found 5.0.9.32pre4 via the “dev versions and old versions” link in the first message. I should probably grab that one to see what changes. While my knee-jerk response is to wait for “official” builds, I ran .28pre for a while because it fixed some stuff in .28 that was important to me at the time.

Quote from MauveCloud

However, I just loaded up a test world with 5.09.32pre4, and looking in NEI, I can't reproduce your claims about compressed coal balls requiring the assembler or the LV macerator and lathe needing industrial diamonds. Are you sure those aren't limitations imposed by your modpack, rather than GT5u itself?

I’m not playing a mod pack. I’m playing GT5U 5.09.31, plus a grab bag of mods I added for various reasons. I haven’t looked at .32pre4, maybe the recipes are changed, but in 0.31, the lathe requires 1 diamond (industrial or natural), and the compressed coal ball can only be made in the assembler. You can make IC2 coal balls via the usual method, but you can’t compress them. That recipe has been disabled.

I was somewhat tempted to re-enable the IC2 compressed coal ball recipe via Minetweaker. I decided to tough that one out.

I’m not sure why you’re suprised the macerator requires diamonds. GT5U macerators (all flavors) have required diamonds for as long as I can recall. That the lathe now requires them was an unpleasant surprise.

I’m not sure where you get .32pre4, since you can’t download 5U from the original links anymore. My understanding was that Curse was the only host for it now. That’s where I got .31, and that’s the latest version mentioned in this thread. Maybe Blood Asp uploaded a GT New Horizons variant to Curse? Because I know that version has always had some screwy additional requirements.

I’m grinding my way up to making a LV assembler so I can make industrial diamonds, which are required for a macerator and a lathe (and who knows what else, now).

I’m seriously thinking about shelving it, because I’m feeling somewhat bored. My motivation for returning is that I’m playing via a HTC Vive, and I’ve added Magneticraft purely for its conveyor system. I really want to play a VR version of Factorio, and this felt about as close it was going to get.

I’ve experimented with the Magneticraft conveyors in Creative, and they seem pretty nice. They’re bulkier than item pipes, but it’s much clearer exactly what’s going on, and they’re pretty fancy looking. I remember the last time I played I had some inconsistent item-pipe behavior which appeared to be due to timing issues. Having the items visibly move around, and get moved on/off the belt with inserters which can do some limited filtering should give me more interesting results.

The problem is, I’m not getting there anytime soon, and the amount of what feels like pure waiting is getting to me. Waiting for steel, and waiting for string, mostly. Diddling around waiting for a couple of bricked blast furnaces to turn out a usable amount of steel is dull. Somewhere around .28 the tin / red alloy cable recipes got changed to require string, and I underestimated just how much string I’d need. I’ve got cotton from Harvestcraft to provide string, but I now realize I proabably should have planted huge fields of the stuff.

The string requirement rather boggles me - what do people do if they don’t have Harvestcraft or something similar? Breed IC2 crops for flax? There’s no way you can reasonably farm spiders for the truckload lots of string you need. Building a centrifuge ate something like 40 string right there.

I’m also finding the other staple of Gregtech, searching for ore veins and tediously mining them out, to be really dull this time around.

Given the low traffic in this thread, I wonder if anyone is playing 5U anymore.

I ended up using Forestry’s Carpenter to convert wood into wood pulp. I feel like that’s a completely reasonable alternative. Making wood pulp should be a relatively easy, low-tech process, unlike ore maceration.

I powered the Carpenter with a windmill from Ancient Warfare, which felt rather thematic. A wind-powered sawmill, as it were.

RE: RF->Greg EU conversion - GT transformers will convert IC2 EU or RF into GT power. I’ve never done it because I was wary of balance issues. Mod authors vary wildly in how efficient they think power generation should be.

Case in point, I felt if I was going to do this again, I’d want a non-exploding steam boiler. Magneticraft has one, but the conversion rate is 1 charcoal = 8000 mb steam, which is about 16% of what you get from a GT high pressure coal boiler.

Against my better judgement, I'm firing up Gregtech 5u again. I'm stuck because it seems near impossible to get out of the steam age now.

Electronic circuits require coated circuit boards. Coated circuit boards require "wood planks" which are not wood planks as we know them. These generic wood planks can only be created from wood pulp. Wood pulp is not obtainable in the steam age.

Well not entirely, you can make it with a steam macerator - but that requires 2 diamonds. It's no longer possible to make industrial diamonds in the steam age, because the compressed coal ball now requires an assembler. Natural diamonds would work, but good luck finding those.

Honestly, the whole thing is really screwed in the head, it's so unreasonable. I'm tempted to use Minetweaker to create a recipe to make these generic "wood planks" from regular wood planks and a saw.

Quote from willis936

Multiblocks should never cross chunk boundaries regardless of how clever the dev is.

The corollary is that if you're designing a mod, even a mod where bad things happen if there's a problem, no multiblock should have a catastrophic failure mode.

That said, I'm pretty sure the boiler did not cross chunk boundaries. When talking about chunk-loading problems, I'm making a wild guess at something that might prevent water from flowing to the boiler properly, since the water source wasn't in the same chunk. I'll never really know what happened.

Yep, steady supply of charcoal. And water, of course.

I'm just not motivated to rebuild all the stuff I lost in the explosion. Most of my power generation, which was ethanol / steam / nitro diesel / methane, all of my power distribution, my blast furnace, and probably some other stuff. With so much destruction it's hard to take inventory of everything I lost.

"Should have avoided steam in the first place" isn't really helpful now.

I've never liked the "you take serious losses if there's a problem" design philosophy of Gregtech. I think it's toxic. The Crucible is why I won't play Gregtech 6. I could have lived with losing the boiler itself due to a glitch, but I can't quite get my head around how much stuff I'd have to replace.

So, this happened:

That's a boiler explosion. It shouldn't have been possible, I had huge water reserves, including tanks dedicated to supplying water to the boiler. I assume it's some sort of chunk-loading bug, or other wonky issue with liquid flow in pipes.

I think I'm done with Gregtech.

Yeah, that was my reaction as well. I looked into OpenComputers as a response to Willis's post, and my immediate thought was that the potential number of errors was absolutely huge, particularly since the OpenComputer Robots don't seem to have much in the way of sensors.

Really, doing almost anything automated with them looks like it's bound to fail.

You had an automatic way of placing logs in the charcoal pit? I envy you. That's so tedious and error-prone by hand.

As for populating the crafting table - after using the Project Bench from Forestry, I can't go back to any crafting table variant that forces me to actually place the correct number of components in the crafting grid. It's so much better when the crafting grid is a blueprint, and the table will continue to craft items that match that blueprint as long as you have the materials in your inventory. Particularly since I can right-click and get either a full stack or the maximum my materials will allow.

That the project bench has a memory of 9 recipes and its own inventory is gravy. The main thing is not having to move things from inventory to the grid.

Yeah, I found out that they stack in groups of 16, not 64. But still, 256 buckets per stack is better than 64.

I'm using a fluid canner at the mining rig. The energy cost isn't high, and when combined with a chest buffer and a chest for empty cells, it means I can leave a lot more than one input hatch's worth of fluid at the rig.

I'm not going to install Extra Utilities, for pretty much the reason you state. It's always a balancing act, deciding when something from another mod is unbalanced because it's too cheap or too good.

I want to run trains into the Nether, just because. I just want something that's reliable and doesn't have that balance problem.

Found it. Double Steel plate + 2x Steel Ring = Large Steel Fluid Cell. I had no idea it existed, and it has no recipes in NEI. It does, however, work in the fluid canner, and holds Drilling Fluid. Which, it's interesting to say, the standard Gregtech cell do not - I had to use IC2 Universal Fluid Cells to transport my drilling fluid.

It's 2.5 steel per cell, vs. 2 tin for the basic cells, so it's much more cost efficient than the basic fluid cells. Modulo the value of steel vs. tin, of course.

Quote from laurynasl

Try fluid cells, made from steel.

I'm not sure what you're talking about, but it doesn't seem to be Gregtech. There's nothing in NEI about an alternate fluid cell, beyond the normal one (made from tin) and the legacy IC2 Universal Fluid Cell (also made from tin). On the off chance there was an unregistered recipe, I tried using my Cell mold for the extruder with steel ingots, and nothing happened.