Pump [BC] behaving glitchy

[Flextt]

Hey guys,

after having played the sh*t out of Technic during an internet-less month (thanks for that sweet, sweet month), I migrated over to Tekkit Lite to explore and conquer new content. After scouring the forums here for a bit, I decided to finally register und seek out help. The search function did not yield problems similar to mine.

Being without condensers, I realised I needed cheap and efficient energy and because I run Tekkit Lite on a server on my computer only for myself, performance issues were secondary to me. Also, because the problem is seemingly pump-related, suggestions like using a ender-chest based system with lava buckets will be rather useless, if well-intentioned.

As much as I try to avoid the Buildcraft mod as a whole, I created a Geothermal Facility in the Nether to power MassFabs and thus, felt the need to run it on BC-Pumps + Liquiducts + Fast Electric Engines. The first pumping station worked like a charm with 2 pumps working in parallel with each pump feeding about 20-something generators. After dismantling the first pumping station and setting up a new one in the middle of a huge lava ocean, I ran two pumps in parallel from the start, hooked up by Liquiducts to a Liquid Tesseract.

This is where the real problem starts. Somehow, one pump, mostly the same, gets stolen its lava source blocks directly underneath it, making further operation for it seemingly impossible. (Keep in mind, the ocean is far from drained at this point) I can repair the damage by going into creative, restoring the lava source blocks underneath it and place the pump anew. I tried to make a wall behind the pumps' hoses to reduce the chance of making the source block flow to a nearby drained block, but it doesn't seem to work. This did not happen at the previous site.

Things that seem to faciliate the problem:

- Leaving the area even though it is covered by a Dimensional Anchor

- Leaving the Nether alltogether

- Shutting down the server

Any help is much appreciated.

[TheGnomeGuardian]

As you said at the end, leaving the Nether may be something affiliated with the problem. Buildcraft is known for it's chunk errors with it's pumps. You should try using some of Zeldo's chunkloaders, called Teleport Tethers. They're more designed to work with Buildcraft than the anchors are. If that doesn't work, the best option I can give you is move the station to the Overworld and try and supply it with lava/magma there.

[Flextt]

Can a RP2 Pump do the job? I only inspected the IC2 pump closer, but it seems to be more like a liquid transposer.

[Undead_Fish]

You'd need railcraft installed to make the setup with an RP2 pump, and it would only over complicate the process. My best advice to you is just set up the pumps slightly further away from eachother and make sure that the lava lake is several blocks deep under both

[GreenWolf13]

You'd need railcraft installed to make the setup with an RP2 pump, and it would only over complicate the process. My best advice to you is just set up the pumps slightly further away from eachother and make sure that the lava lake is several blocks deep under both

Um, no you wouldn't. Why on earth would you need railcraft installed to get Red Power 2 pumps to work?

[Undead_Fish]

RP2 pumps are only good for transporting liquids, not storing them and, unless you know something I don't, they dont connect up the the necessary machines to make the conventional process work. Railcraft puts in tanks that RP2 is compatible with, so you could use them to pump lava into , and then wooden liquid pipes to pump it out and into the correct machines. As I said originally, you would need railcraft, which would make the whole process more expensive and unecessary anyway. Also, setting it up in the first place would be a pain too. If I am wrong, someone please correct me, however, that is my understanding.

[GreenWolf13]

I'm pretty sure that Red Power 2 liquid pioes can pump into regular buildcraft tanks.

[Undead_Fish]

Then that may be an update, I shall check now.

I have now checked and I was correct, they will not attach. Even if they had, my respons would still be the same, don't use redpower. It is a far superior mod compared to BC in everything but liquid transportation, with which BC is much better.

[Teraku]

Yeah, BC is still king when it comes to liquids. Railcraft comes close, though.

[Flextt]

hum, I replaced the dimensional anchors with Teleport Tethers but it is currently difficult to check if it worked, since the ocean is down to 1 layer. I will keep the Railcraft suggestion in mind and spread the pumps a little at the next chosen site.

Off-topic: I don't mean to be unneccessarily harsh, but what part of buildcraft does still have great appeal? The pump, builder, engines and tanks are okay thanks to lack of moderately available alternatives, but overall, the mod feels like a giant glitch- and lag-machine. Buildcraft was awesome when it came out together with IC1. A quarry doing all the work for me? HOLY SH*T. But now, thanks to a plethora of mods covering a lot of the same niches with highly improved mechanics behind them, the mod feels more and more antiquiated.

[cerevox]

Buildcraft covers every possibility. Not very well, but if you can't find anything else that will do it, BC will. That and several other mods that are quite nice rely on it. Forestry might have a loopy author, but the mod itself is great, and it needs buildcraft stuff to work. The BC quarry is one of the best mining machines around. I admit, I use IC for my basic stuff and only dip into BC for specific functions. It really feels that BC is the brute force approach, sometimes finesse and skill matters, sometimes you just want a 30x30 hole straight to bedrock.

[lukeb28]

sometimes you just want a 30x30 hole straight to bedrock.

I like mine 64 x 64.

BC is the do everything OK mod. Its a jack of all trades. Like a jack of all trades, is doesn't do anything perfect (except the quarry!) but it does everything to an acceptable point. Its also a great begging game automation mod. Redpower needs to many things to get it going by day 3 but you can start BC pipes in 10 minutes.

[Neowulf]

Quarry, right...

Try a mining turtle "excavate 62" vs a 64x64 quarry given 1MJ/t and see which one is faster.

Above MJ amount is based of turtle power usage rate of 1 move per second, 80 moved per charcoal, 1600MJ per charcoal. 1600/80 = 20MJ/move / 20 ticks/sec = 1MJ/tick.

Quarry only wins if given a very large head start from an empty space between the start point and the ground.

Place a buffer behind the turtle's starting spot, a filter facing it, and you favorite RP2 sorting system and everything is faster and more efficient.

[Teraku]

Quarry, right...

Try a mining turtle "excavate 62" vs a 64x64 quarry given 1MJ/t and see which one is faster.

Above MJ amount is based of turtle power usage rate of 1 move per second, 80 moved per charcoal, 1600MJ per charcoal. 1600/80 = 20MJ/move / 20 ticks/sec = 1MJ/tick.

Quarry only wins if given a very large head start from an empty space between the start point and the ground.

Place a buffer behind the turtle's starting spot, a filter facing it, and you favorite RP2 sorting system and everything is faster and more efficient.

Turtles need to be refueled, though. Not sure if that's done automatically in "excavate". Also, you'd need to have it drop off its items somehow. I have to say, I have no idea how those pre-processed programs like excavate work, I always just do the programming myself.

[Neowulf]

You can refuel a turtle up with all the fuel it'll ever need if you pump in enough fuel and set a label.

That said, excavate can refuel itself if needed. Haven't checked the logic myself cause frankly I've got better use for coal than refueling turtles.

As for unloading, that's what the buffer is for. If you place an inventory behind the turtle's starting spot it will toss in it's inventory automatically when it returns to start when full.

I used to roll my own dig program before excavate was upgraded, even then it was faster to dig a 1block pillar at a time and return to start after every one to unload than to run a quarry.

[theprolo]

Yeah, excavate does all that itself. One thing I really do like from Buildcraft is the Builders - they saved me from suicide when I decided to move house, and my house was a huge castle.

[cerevox]

The thing about the quarry though is that it takes almost no knowledge, skill, or effort to get up and running decently. Turtles and rp2 frames both beat it out in pretty much every category, but a quarry is just so simple. If i need a hole NOW I use a bomb, if I need resources right now I just dig them up myself. A quarry is the simplest option, and the starting point for pretty much everyone. Most people, at least it seems to me, start at the quarry, turtles are an advanced thing.

Plus, there is just something soothing about watching the quarry rip its way down to bedrock. Something that really feels of the industrial revolution when the only goal was output and damn the consequences.

[Teraku]

Yeah, excavate does all that itself. One thing I really do like from Buildcraft is the Builders - they saved me from suicide when I decided to move house, and my house was a huge castle.

Most definitely. They're also really useful for copying setups like farms.

[Flextt]

The thing about the quarry though is that it takes almost no knowledge, skill, or effort to get up and running decently. Turtles and rp2 frames both beat it out in pretty much every category, but a quarry is just so simple. If i need a hole NOW I use a bomb, if I need resources right now I just dig them up myself. A quarry is the simplest option, and the starting point for pretty much everyone. Most people, at least it seems to me, start at the quarry, turtles are an advanced thing.

Plus, there is just something soothing about watching the quarry rip its way down to bedrock. Something that really feels of the industrial revolution when the only goal was output and damn the consequences.

I partly agree with you. In my new Tekkit Lite world, I actually haven't build a single Quarry, whereas in my Technic world I used one several times in succession. Personally, I think it is, overall, an undesirable machine. It provides me with resources I either do not want or can obtain elsewhere more easy (cobblestone, dirt, ...), forces me to waste huge amounts of important resources on a single device (10 diamonds, fuel for the 2 steam engines which can only power the quarry and nothing else). For it to be truly effective, I would have to build it on lower levels making logistics early on more complicated. This time, I stayed with simple, good old, 5-million-kJ-Power-Tool-on-25x-speed (talk about energy efficiency) branch mining, although it is, if nothing else, a very nostalgic machine.

sidenote: did they buff the speed of quarries? i just read in the wiki that they now take 40 mj

[cerevox]

Okay, Ill be honest, I am really only using BC for the forestry farms and for liquid metals, mostly the liquid metals. LM is an awesome mod and sadly, is a BC addon.

Edit: found an actual reason to use quarrys, crystal type blocks that break and drop their items like vis crystals from thaumcraft or the crystals in xycraft won't be picked up by turtles, but will be by the quarry.

[Flextt]

Edit: found an actual reason to use quarrys, crystal type blocks that break and drop their items like vis crystals from thaumcraft or the crystals in xycraft won't be picked up by turtles, but will be by the quarry.

Yep, I noticed that back in Technic. At first, I was wondering what I should do with those crystals, because I couldnot condense them

Anyhow, I migrated the system to a new, untouched ocean, several blocks deep. 2 of the 3 pumps did not start operation at all. I positioned them on the side of another wall and voila, one of the 2 started to work. I moved the other one as well to yet another wall and it started to work too. We will see for how long. Messy sh*t....

[cerevox]

You might want to consider alternate power sources. The current pump based one seems to be crappy.

[Undead_Fish]

I have my setup running off of two roughly 8 blocks away from eachother and no problems what so ever. I'm out of ideas for you dude.