Biofuel Struggle

[Prototype958]

Hey guys, I'm looking for some advice on how to automate my Biofuel factory because I just can't seem to get it working properly.

The Biofuel Reactors' buffer doesn't seem to like to accept input from, well anything really. I've tried feeding my resources in directly with regular gold pipes but that was too inconsistant. I've also tried direct with Insertion pipes, but it only works if the item it's trying to feed into the buffer is in the first slot of the buffer. My final attempt has been with hoppers being fed with Insertion pipes, but again, they only feed down into the Reactor if the item is in the first slot AND there are no others of that type in the buffer.

I'm getting tired of babysitting my setup... I automated everything for a reason and it wasn't so that I could free up time to watch plants get fried in the reactors. Lol.

There's probably a stupidly simple solution since I really havn't been able to find this problem anywhere else on forums or Google.

Additional Info: Tekkit 1.0.6 on a private server I host for myself and a handful of buddies

[Daemon_Eleuel]

what are you feeding to it?

I would recommend using liquiducts. I used AE to move stuff around and I know pipes are... acting odd, in 1.0.6 so that might be the cause of your problem.

If you just use a cobblestone pipe from the harvester to the <whatever needed> and then to the reactor does it work?

A screenshot of your setup would help finding out what's wrong :|

[Dewfire]

Precision export bus in the bottom of the reactors seems to work perfectly for mine. Have it set to feed when it has a Redstone signal.

Can post pics if you'd like.

[Prototype958]

If you just use a cobblestone pipe from the harvester to the <whatever needed> and then to the reactor does it work?

A screenshot of your setup would help finding out what's wrong :|

You know what... I haven't tried it with just regular pipes since I put in my overflow loop... Before the loop I was losing too many seeds/saplings/etc because of the way basic pipes don't always feed where you want them too... I'll give that a shot now. If it doesn't work I'll pop back in with some SS.

Precision export bus in the bottom of the reactors seems to work perfectly for mine. Have it set to feed when it has a Redstone signal.

I've literally just started getting my ME networking going this morning but it's a good distance from my reactors. Once I have things up and running I'll give it a shot with the extractors. You're suggesting the harvesters feed the seeds/saplings/etc into the network, and then have the network push them out to the reactors, right?

[Daemon_Eleuel]

yep. AE import/export buses are not affected by overflow (they will put stuff only as long as there is space).

You can use a void pipe to throw excess material, instead of a loop.

If you don't have any more consumers having more than that is not going to help anyway.

You can use wireless AE to save some material btw :)

[Dewfire]

Yea with the pipes I've noticed it only feeds into the side the pipe is on, so if you put a pipe in the top, it only fills the top 3 squares of the reactor, etc. I then have RedNet cable running to all theExport BUS's so with the flip of a lever it feeds all 8 of my reactors to max and then the Liquid Tesseract feeds back to my Generators and Tanks.

Where as with the Export BUS it fills all the square, only limit is the number of spots on the BUS is one less then the squares in the reactor.

But yea, all my harvesters feed into chests or DSUs. From the chests I just have simple Import BUS's connected, and for the DSU's I have Storage BUS's on them to feed from.

[Prototype958]

Good to know guys, thanks a ton. I've got a temp set up right now that doesn't require me to babysit it using just gold pipes, some iron pipes to maintain direction and an overflow loop. Again, it's hit or miss with the gold pipes, I watched one sapling do 4 laps around the loop before feeding into a reactor that had 3 open slots... At least it fills the whole buffer right now though, or I think it is... Once I get my ME network fully functional I'll play with those Inport/Export BUS's. Sounds like those will be the most consistant method.

[TokiWartooth]

pipes are aweful for MFR automation TE and ME stuff is the way to go. Shoot conveyers probably work better than BC pipes for MFR automation.

[Prototype958]

I know, I hate the regular BC pipes, always have problems with them. All I really use now are Diamond, Void and a couple Distro pipes at this point. Anything I have that's still using pipes is purly till I can figure out a better solution. Like I said, slowly getting my ME network online, getting all my crafting requirements out of the way then I'm going to push a wireless set up over to my farm/reactor and replace all those ugly pipes and loops.

[Prototype958]

Just wanted to follow up with this. I was able to get things working beyond perfectly. Those percesion Export Bus's did more then I could have ever hoped for. Thanks again. =P

Here's a couple SSs to show my(less then ideal) setup.

http://imgur.com/s9HDR8i

Here I have my 2 compact auto-farms, one's set up to handle wheat, carrots, and potatos. I manually rotate as needed. The other I rotate through different saplings for bio fuel efficiency. I have a distro+void pipe assembly throwing out some of the excess components so I don't get completely flooded with logs or seeds. Then the biofuel components get piped into that gold chest which has an Import bus attached to the bottom.

http://imgur.com/r5NTZE2

This one just shows my 4 reactors receiving input from 4 percision export buses. They fill the main processing bar to max, then they add an additional stack of each item to the buffer. It's perfect!

[TokiWartooth]

well you now have more reactors than you will ever need, lol, I run 2 and that runs fuel positive with 22 generators, about 16 running full bore, and one of my reactors is backed up draining fuel, so if you get 9 varieties in 4 reactors you will be massively ahead of almost any power setup you should need.

[Dewfire]

Looking nice, and yea I have 8 Reactors feeding my 26 Generators now with several very large tanks, and I just have to flip my switch to feed it more about once a week.

[Prototype958]

Yea, it's complete overkill. I've been meaning to add on a few more Generators, but I just haven't needed to. I figured the 1:1 wasn't necessary, most of what I saw was at the very least 2 Gene's to a Reactor. This was kind of thrown together in a rush one day, with very little research because my Combustion set up exploded one day(only had 2 coolers for 6 engines) and I wanted something more stable.

[CharlieChop]

what do you guys use as fuel to increase the output of biofuel? i was thinking of carrots seeds potatos and 3 kinds of saplings... but making farms for all those seems like a really tough task.

[weirleader]

it depends what you mean by "making farms". Planters can hold multiple types of items, so I have three types of trees in a single farm. I also have cactus (just be sure to cook the cactus to make it cactus green before trying to use it in the BioReactor). And I've planted by carrots and potatoes in the same plot because I don't need the same quantities of them that I do for wheat. Bone meal also works and possibly dandelion yellow and rose red (though I can't remember where I heard that).

EDIT: Just confirmed the yellow and red (but you have to process the flowers first, obviously).

[Dewfire]

I use Rubber, Oak and Spruce Saplings, Carrots, Potatoes and then wheat, melon and pumpkin seeds.

I have level emitters on the Cycly Assemblers for the Melon and Pumpkin seeds and I find it can crank them out as fast as I can pump them in when needed. Plus Melon and Pumpkin farms are super low maintenance since you don't even have to worry about a planter. Oak farms while creating a lot of extra stuff you don't really need out produce my spruce farm almost 2 to1in Saplings.

[TokiWartooth]

I run them all, lol wheat, melons, pumpkin spruce, birch,rubber, carrots, potatoes, and cactus makes 9 doing all of this in 2 25x25 farms. really, I run 2 bio reactors for 22 gens and keep ahead on fuel.

[CharlieChop]

how do you harvest the pumpkins and melons? do the MFR harvesters work? the cyclic assembler idea is genius...ill use it a ton xD. also, i made a huge farm, and coupled it with my AE and steves carts to be 100% maintenance free. are any of these mods able to harvest the pumpkins and melons?

[weirleader]

I use the MFR harvester for my pumpkins and melons and two autocrafting tables (one for each) to process them into seeds.

[Spoonman]

Hey guys, I'm looking for some advice on how to automate my Biofuel factory because I just can't seem to get it working properly.

The Biofuel Reactors' buffer doesn't seem to like to accept input from, well anything really. I've tried feeding my resources in directly with regular gold pipes but that was too inconsistant. I've also tried direct with Insertion pipes, but it only works if the item it's trying to feed into the buffer is in the first slot of the buffer. My final attempt has been with hoppers being fed with Insertion pipes, but again, they only feed down into the Reactor if the item is in the first slot AND there are no others of that type in the buffer.

I'm getting tired of babysitting my setup... I automated everything for a reason and it wasn't so that I could free up time to watch plants get fried in the reactors. Lol.

There's probably a stupidly simple solution since I really havn't been able to find this problem anywhere else on forums or Google.

Additional Info: Tekkit 1.0.6 on a private server I host for myself and a handful of buddies

Try this setup

[Prototype958]

Thanks but that's terribly inefficient. =/

What I have now feeds 2 stacks of 7 different plants(4 different saplings, potatos, carrots and seeds. I'll be adding cactus to that shortly). I just need to add more generators and more machines to use all that power! =P

[Karaktar]

holy crap that is reallly inefficient and the worst tort i have ever seen he didnt really teach anything just kinda showed his setup which sucks however he did give me one idea for setting up the reactor to gens however it had nothing to do with how he was set up

i have a pretty sweet set up now think maybe i will have to do a tort

[Prototype958]

I've been meaning to put together a couple Tutorials myself with some of the not so obvious stuff I've picked up in Tekkit, like using Mystcraft to build a waypoint network and stuff like that. I'm just more interested in playing then teaching right now. Lol.

Anyway, I think the 2 to one ratio would probably be the bare minimum toward efficiency. I could probably easily remove two of my reactors and still have more power then I would know what to do with. As it stands now I even took out all of my biofuel mats and just let my generators go, trying to drain them so I could measure how quickly they would build energy with the new efficiency from the export buses... It took 2 days to even make a dent in the tanks... and I ran a max sized quarry to help with the drain, as well as all my usual machines, and the budding ME network I was building.

[Karaktar]

do you mean 2 gens to one reactor if so forget that i run 8 on one reactor with out even a hic-up now mind you i am using 7 different items in the reactor

[Prototype958]

Wow, didn't realize how much power those reactors dished out... O_o;

Does anyone know the optimum ratio for high output? I just intergrated my auto cactus farm into my system so it's feeding my reactors as well, giving me the maximum 8 items that the Percision Export bus can handle