Genuinely self sustaining, no babysitting powerplant.

[Lostonexxx]

Ive seen a lot of people stuck in their ways doing the lava from the nether power option, and I agree it is a perfectly good power source. Or an AE tree farm, charcoal, steam engine setup is also perfectly viable. But I have to say the MFR tree farm and biofuel setup is genuinely hassle free and needs no babysitting whatsoever, no replacing the blades in a steves cart or moving pumps about. Just set it up and let it run. I know this isnt the place to post youtube videos ( it is posted in the lets play section). But from the topics Ive seen the last couple of days, somebody needed to point this method out to the masses.

Skip to around ten minutes for the actual tree farm construction to start. Mfr machines are genuinely cheap to make, but I dont think many people are making use of them. If you like the idea, in episode 5, I add two more reactors and 8 biofuel generators to start siphoning off the excess saplings. The finished farm is currently running three quarries and multiple machines without breaking a sweat. It also works on the moon and space stations, and you can add a few oxygen collectors around it to provide constantly refreshed leaves for oxygen.

N,b, When using saplings off world, dont put them on your hotbar, and they wont be converted to the ones that require four water source blocks to grow. (let the planter do the planting)

Also, just using oak saplings provides enough biofuel for substantial power. But nothing is stopping you making a couple of these with different trees to make your reactors more efficient. I would recomend oak though as they seem to drop more saplings than other species.

This is by no means a one block HV array, but its pretty darn good nonetheless :D

[Dash16]

... I had no idea you could do that with landmarks. You sir, are my hero. I've been eyeballing mini-map coordinates to line them up.

[Dash16]

Going to have to try a similar setup with ME cables, interfaces and storage. My goal for the new Tekkit is not to ever use BC pipes for anything.

[Euphoreich]

Great video! I never knew you could do that with landmarks. I reccomend using insertion over diamond feeding into the planters as the diamond will half the time send the item backwards back to the harvester where theyll fall onto the ground. Even better than insertion pipes would be to feed them using AE. Also you really shouldnt feed bioreactors directly with buildcraft pipes, it doesnt work properly with the bioreactors buffer inventory, items will not go in when they are supposed to. Instead feed it into hoppers first if you insist on using pipes, otherwise use AE, and youll never have to babysit it again. Also sludge buildup doesnt stop MFR machines, you can just let it build up indefinitely. Also little known fact those planter color codes correspond to a grid where you can choose which quadrant stuff is planted in (Note this only works when the planter has stuff in each slot.)

Is my current setup, with a max ouput of 1440 MJ/tick its overkill. Biofuel engines are super powerful but they consume a fair bit of fuel and you'll really want to get 9 different sources to maximize effeciency. With 1 source you get 80mb per source. With 9 sources you get 160mb per source. The way it compounds makes it basically required if your making large plants using only biofuel generators to use all 9 different sources.

[Lostonexxx]

Haha yeah, the landmark thing was a real time saver when I found it out. I found out by accident while trying to power the old style golden transport pipes. And yes, this would be vastly improved with an AE control system. I havnt found the diamond pipes are sending items back to the harvesters at all? So I dont think there is a need for the insertion pipes on the planters. I thought sludge did slow down the harvesters, I tested it in a creative world, and the countdown/sleep timer in the harvester seemed to take longer when there was sludge in the system, though that may have been my imagination.

1440mj/t? Wow that is a bit overkill lol, there isnt much in the pack that can make use of that amount of energy lol. As I said, the finished farm is powering three quarries and several machines at the same time and its still producing more saplings than it uses, making it more efficient with different items, although not a bad idea in the long run, is not necessarily needed.

How do bioreactors not work properly with buildcraft pipes? I know they dont fill up the full buffer with the same item, but they arent supposed to. They keep one slot on the item bar and one slot in the buffer filled with the same. Is it a problem with feeding in multiple different items? Because with just the single type of item, it seems to be working fine. If I was having trouble with not enough items coming through, a hopper would definitely be a good idea though.

But all in all, once your system has been running a while and filled the planter and bio buffers with saplings, then most people will have more power than they will ever need, and it really doesn't need babysitting at all. The only time I choose to add saplings manually is during the start up process, as it makes it fill up faster. But its really not needed, you can just let it fill up itself, and once it has done, it will run indedefinitely.

[Spudgy]

After getting sick of fiddling about with engines and trying to source lava I switched to bio generators and found them far easier. I went with steves carts for gathering the resources just because it was more fun to build and it looks cooler.

This farm gets the 9 types of fuel for the reactor with 3 carts. I only have 1 reactor going but it gives me at least 10x the material I need and could scale 2-3 times larger before warranting extra carts.

They're all self powered with the materials being collected by energistics which also exports into the reactor. Pumpkins and melons are exported into auto crafting tables for conversion into seeds.

It's very expensive to make it fully self sustaining though. The galgadorian cutter and farmer aren't too bad if you're good with mining (i.e. combined use of turtles and fortune pick), but the huge cost of a galgadorian drill just for harvesting melons and pumpkins does seem a bit ridiculous. The auto-spawner will get a solid workout for that one.

[Lostonexxx]

Agreed Spudgy, that definitely looks cooler than my setup. With the cost of galgadorian items, I didnt even factor in Steves carts as an option. I saw that they had a durability to be contended with as well now, so never gave them a second thought. You have certainly opened my eyes though.

[Euphoreich]

How do bioreactors not work properly with buildcraft pipes? I know they dont fill up the full buffer with the same item, but they arent supposed to. They keep one slot on the item bar and one slot in the buffer filled with the same. Is it a problem with feeding in multiple different items? Because with just the single type of item, it seems to be working fine. If I was having trouble with not enough items coming through, a hopper would definitely be a good idea though.

Yea it's the multiple items, something goes super awry and it won't accept items at all of certain types even if it's completely out.