ME Interface Export to Itemducts

[Cwmwd24]

Hello,
I've been trying to tidy up my bootstrap AE ore processing chain by relocating and expanding it. My idea is to have a row of three or four pulverizers being fed by a common Itemduct and dumping output back into the ME network. I'd have a similar setup with furnaces.
 
I'd like to use a bank of ME Interfaces to feed items into the input itemduct so I can use combinations of encoded patterns (cobble to sand, for example) and auto processing (gold ore into gold dust, for example) but I can't figure out how to get the Interface to interact with the Itemduct.
 
An example: I place a new Interface down with a single piece of gold ore in the left-hand "Export Config" grid. The network places a piece of gold ore in the right-hand "Exported Items" grid. Now I want to use an Itemduct to draw that piece of gold ore out of the Interface and into a pulverizer so that all the gold ore in my network eventually gets processed automatically into gold dust. I'd then have a duplicate setup to smelt all the gold dust into gold ingots and so on. My understanding is that the Interface looks like an inventory to the Itemduct?
 
I've tried applying a redstone signal to the Itemduct; a pneumatic servo in the Itemduct; "rotating" the Interface to point it's "crafting" side at the Itemduct and putting a chest between the Interface and Itemduct. The only way I can get it to work is to use a Fuzzy Export bus to fill chests with items and then Itemducts from the chests for the auto processing part and use separate ME Interface with encoded patterns placed directly on a pulversizer/furnace for the on-demand part.
 
Am I missing something or do I have to rethink?

[Curunir]

Your workaround with buffer chests is indeed the only working solution to bridge them, iirc. Keep in mind that these are from separate mods, and interaction is not that good at least in the old build that Tekkit is still running on. Also, ducts generally tend to connect only to inventories, and are usually not inventories themselves = can't connect to each other (hence buffer inventories, like chests). The best way to hook up processing to your ME network is using ME Buses extensively, i.e. on each and any interface. That means hooking up all possible in-/outputs on TE machines ideally. I think you can also work with ME Interfaces (instead of Im-/Export Buses) and put some kind of recipe (from Applied Energistics) in there to control the machine. But I never used that option myself, so don't quote me on it.

 

Basically, you don't need Itemducts for ME network integration. They can be useful for some select cases, where their sorting and distributing options might outperform what ME stuff can do. But the usual path is replacing Itemduct paths with ME equipment the more you "professionalise" your operations.

Edited March 12, 2015 by Curunir

[Cwmwd24]

Thanks for the reply, Curnuir. I was kind of expecting that the answer would be a "no", oh well -- back to the drawing board (which, to be honest is half the fun of playing Tekkit) and start making more Export Busses. I favour the Item-/Flui-ducts for general transport because they hide behind Forge Microblocks, whilst only the Immibs ones seem to work with the ME cables and I've had lag problems with the Immibis blocks, but that's a whole new thread...

 

However, I'm still unclear what the "Export Config" part of the ME Interface UI is for, as it does not seem to export items to attached inventories (chests or machines) either. They seem to only export items for crafting via installed Encoded Patterns when they are requested by the MAC or a ME Terminal.

[Curunir]

I am by far no expert on ME networks, but I think the Encoded Patterns are useful with Interfaces to make an external machine available to the network as an on-demand processing device. The Patterns can also be used in the Molecular Assembler for (non-machine) crafting automation. The Im-/Export Buses on the other hand are just to get items into and out of the ME network, with the different levels (regular, precise, fuzzy) offering increasing degrees of control over how they operate. You can of course use Im-/Export Buses to construct some kind of assembly line, but bear in mind that the on-demand processing is probably better implemented with Interfaces in some cases (like smelting and pulverizing).

 

That being said, don't invest too much time into old Applied Energistics. The world keeps turning, and the cool kids are using Applied Energistics 2 now, which is drastically different from the old system in many ways. It will of course only work on Minecraft 1.7.10 and is thus not available on still-current Tekkit. But once the new pack is released, AE2 is very likely to be included. Sadly, no announcement has been made yet for the actual release, and the rules forbid to ask about it (=it's done when it's done).

 

About Microblocks: Yes, only Immbis works with ME cabling, and those even have crash issues in addition to the other quirks. In the new world, there are much better solutions, but on 1.6.4 that is what you need to work with.

Edited March 12, 2015 by Curunir

[Kotja]

I send items and energy to my bank via tesseract but some it losses items.

Any help?

[Cwmwd24]

Hi Kotja,

Not really related (so a new thread might be in order) but, from my understanding Tesseracts are only "lossy" when used to send power (25% according to the fine wiki) but not with items. How many items are you losing -- if you send four stacks of dirt (256 blocks), how many do you receive at the other end?

The wiki mentions that the power lossy-ness can be adjusted in a configuration file, perhaps yours is changed to make item transfer lossy as well?

Sorry I'm not much help without a little more information.