Universal cable problem?

[Lostonexxx]

Hey all, Im new to the UE mod, but after someone mentioned the universal cable being a cheaper alternative than redstone conduit, I thought I would try it out.

Im using it on a 3x3 self sustaining biofuel tree farm from mfr. But even if the machines arent working, the cable seems to continuously draw power from the biofuel generator. In effect, all the biofuel is used up, before there are saplings to replace what has been used.

Is the universal cable supposed to work this way?

If it is, then what a load of rubbish, Id rather go back to conductive pipes. If its not, is this a problem with mfr compatibility?

Im on the latest build 1.3.10

[typer_monkey]

As of yet 1.3.10 isn't currently the recommended as it is still effectively being bug tested. I'm unfamiliar with the Universal cables sorry.

[Lostonexxx]

Im aware that it isnt recomended, but didnt want to say wether it was a bug or not, as I dont know if its supposed to behave this way or not. Does anyone have previous experiencxe with universal cable?

[gfb]

I'm not sure about UE cable, but I do know that a generator, or any MJ engine, for that matter, will run forever when connected to a red stone conduit. Any excess MJ not used by whatever is downstream is wasted. To prevent this I hook my generators to a redstone energy cell. A BC pipe of any kind with a red stone gate on it can then be used to emit a signal when the cell is full, which you can use to turn off your engines/generators.

[Lostonexxx]

Hmm the conduit shouldnt act like that. It doesnt in tekkit, ftb ultimate, mindcrack or direwolf20. The engines will continue to run, but consume very little fuel. Its designed that way. But Ive never had conduit drawing from biofuel generators when its not needed before. The universal cable draws a staggering amount of energy from a biofuel generator, enough to make a tree farm run out and stop entirely. Other on the server have reported no problems with the cable for windpower and stuff. Nobody Im aware of has them hooked up to biofuel gens though.

[daeos]

I am have a different problem with the Universal Cabling system. The liquid energy causes tremendous fps loss when using them in a large cable network.

[CanVox]

Hmm the conduit shouldnt act like that. It doesnt in tekkit, ftb ultimate, mindcrack or direwolf20. The engines will continue to run, but consume very little fuel. Its designed that way. But Ive never had conduit drawing from biofuel generators when its not needed before. The universal cable draws a staggering amount of energy from a biofuel generator, enough to make a tree farm run out and stop entirely. Other on the server have reported no problems with the cable for windpower and stuff. Nobody Im aware of has them hooked up to biofuel gens though.

I'm not sure where you got this impression, but it's completely false. All buildcraft engines operate on a push-energy basis. They have no way of knowing whether energy is being requested, and in fact, buildcraft provides no capability for delivering this information from the machines. Every tick, BC engines run and push energy into the energy network. WIth conductive pipes, they explode if no energy is needed. Conduits instead just throw the energy away and don't explode. In either case, it is your responsibility to use redstone signals to deactivate engines when their power is not needed.

EDIT: Or you could use simple power storage/redstone energy cells to store the excess energy.

[Lostonexxx]

I'm not sure where you got this impression, but it's completely false. All buildcraft engines operate on a push-energy basis. They have no way of knowing whether energy is being requested, and in fact, buildcraft provides no capability for delivering this information from the machines. Every tick, BC engines run and push energy into the energy network. WIth conductive pipes, they explode if no energy is needed. Conduits instead just throw the energy away and don't explode. In either case, it is your responsibility to use redstone signals to deactivate engines when their power is not needed.

EDIT: Or you could use simple power storage/redstone energy cells to store the excess energy.

Sorry, my mistake, its the thermal expansion engines that slow down and use less fuel, not the standard bc ones. I believe the mfr biofuel generator operates on similar principles but stops entirely. If power isnt being used, its internal buffer fills up. When its full it stops producing power. But the universal cable draws all the power constantly and dumps it I guess. Im using redstone conduit instead, and its working perfectly again. For others, i would highly recommend avoiding the universal cable, unless you have a constant powersink using the full output of a biofuel gen. Otherwise, you are throwing your biofuel away.

[Kraytex1]

To add to this, Universal Electricity cable has actually attempted to send information down standard buildcraft pipe on our server, causing a server crash whenever that chunk is loaded.

Also, we found that using this cable from machines that don't have a constant power flow, will cause EXTREMELY high CPU usage of a server. For the past few days our i7 3770 Server has been constantly sitting on 100% of a core. It took a few days to find the problem, but it seems that the lighting updates from the cable, cause all the CPU issues. Personally I recommend anyone using this cable to stop immediately and remove the item from being crafted.

[Stone Rhino]

Uni cable has its uses in specific places. As I've mentioned before it will short out REC's quickly. Dont use REC's with Uni cable as all faces are both input and outputs on an REC. There is no way to regulate the directional flow.