Tutorial Autocrafting Without Crafting Pipes

[Kalbintion]

The goal of this thread is explain my thought process about creating an auto-crafting system and my experiences along with it.

 

The Primary Objective

Create a repeatable system that can be expanded upon that allows for crafting for all items possible through the use of the crafting table, while avoiding the Crafting Pipes, Crafting Chips, Extended Pipes, etc.

 

The First Design

Going off of the objective, I attempted to create a system using the Cyclic Assemblers that would create a certain amount of items. Using basic redstone mechanics of vanilla Minecraft. I was able to achieve this by using vanilla minecraft chests getting the output of the Cyclic Assembler, and using a comparator to see how many items were made in the system.

 

 

 

As you can see from the images, the top portion of the Cyclic Assembler receives the item input, the Routed Interface Pipe has a "Stock Keeper" card in it with the desired ingredients necessary to craft an item specified by the Schematic in the Cyclic Assembler. This will always keep the necessary items on-hand in the machine. The chest to the right of the machine was a temporary holding area for storage items and would be the input from your storage system into the machine.

 

The Cyclic Assembler is marked to only accept input from the top, and only output to the bottom. This was necessary in this design to prevent unwanted artifacts from occurring. As well as the Cyclic Assembler was marked to have a low redstone signal in order to function. This was key in the design to prevent it from just constantly producing output if redstone was ignored, and to not involve a NOT signal in the event of using a high redstone value.

 

With the Cyclic Assembler outputting into the chest below, the Comparator works on it and will send out a signal depending on the contents of the chest.

 

The First Design Results

This worked pretty well, outside of the fact that for some items that my not want to have a ton of on-hand, such as Machine Frames or other expensive machines, this method would create 124 of them before turning off the machine. One downside to this design is the fact that the chest cannot be opened and thus a Routed Request Pipe is necessary to interact with it, with a Routed Interface Pipe and an Item Broadcaster chip installed on the chest.

 

The Second Design Objective

Learning from what I did in the first design, I set out to come up with a second solution to the problem of: How to limit the amount of items to be slightly more specific, or at least give an option of a lower max output.

 

The Second Design

Again, starting with basic redstone mechanics, and how the redstone comparator works. I ended up replacing the chest with a Hopper, an object that has a lot less inventory space and thus each item counting to a higher value.

 

 

The Second Design Results

This design was much better for limiting output to a certain amount. For items that stack to 64, it was limited to 23 of that item on-hand through the use of the Hopper.

 

The Third Objective

What other storage systems work with the comparator and what values do they output a redstone signal of 2, since this is what is required to turn off the machine.

 

The Third Design

No changes were made to the system as the portion that did the numerical value relied on the Redstone Comparator, using this, I could simply place a container down and then put a comparator to read its contents, and then place as many items into it until the signal power was 2. 2 being the desired strength in the previous designs to turn off the cyclic assembler.

 

The Third Results

Container - Amount Until Signal 2

Hopper - 23

Breeder - 39

Storage Crate - 65

Rancher - 77

Chest - 120

Locker - 120

Secret Trapped Chest - 120

Secret Chest - 120

Bamboo Chest - 120

Koa Chest - 120

Reinforced Chest - 179

Reinforced Locker - 179

Vacuum Hopper - NS

Pattern Chest - NS

Ender Chest - NS

Backpack - NS

Ender Backpack - NS

Deep Storage Unit - NS

Cardboard Box - NS

Crafting Station (BetterStorage) - NS

Strongbox - NS

Hardened Strongbox - NS

Reinforced Strongbox - NS

Resonant Strongbox - NS

Mailbox - NS

Planter - NS

Fertilizer - NS

Veterinary Station - NS

Unifier - NS

 

NS values represents a "No signal" condition. That is, the redstone comparator did not output a signal regardless of the number of items in the container.

 

The Fourth Preface

Using the previous tests values, I could come up with a simple system of limiting certain items to always have 23 on hand using Hoppers, and another container for higher values but it was now onto the stackability.

 

The Fourth Objective

Create a repeatable method of auto-crafting systems that took up as less room as possible but still functional

 

The Fourth Design

Using the fact that the redstone comparator only outputs a signal of 2, making the cyclic assembler responsible for the containers output to be the only one to disable, the system could be stacked horizontally (X/Z repeat) with no gaps inbetween, making the system very compact.

 

That is, stripping the original setup down to the components of the Cyclic assembler, the storage container, and the redstone in the back, this could be stacked on the left or right side of them to create an infinite line and could be stacked vertically in some situations.

 

 

 

More to come to this post as my designs and tests progress.

Edited April 17, 2014 by Kalbintion

[Loader]

This is awesome, I hadn't played with autocrafting using these yet but I can see there's a lot of things I hadn't considered (I would've thought it was a simple matter of cyclic assemblers and pipes, but that just shows I hadn't actually stopped to think about it).

 

Thanks for putting this up.

[Kalbintion]

Just updated the first post with some images of the array set-up. And glad you find it useful Loader.

[DanielUSA]

How exactly does a comparator work? Wouldn't it shut off the system if the chest had 1 item in it?

[anubizra]

Excellent walk-through of your solution @Kalbintion. When I looked at your last images, the one showing the front looks like you have attached routed interface pipes to the hoppers. I figured that means you connected the hoppers (or whatever storage container you have there) back to the central item system via the project red transportation pipes.

 

I have implemented this method in my world but I have come across one issue. The comparator does not seem to update the redstone signal when an item is removed from the hopper by the routed interface pipe. If I remove an item by hand from the hopper, bringing the count down from 23 to 22, everything updates correctly and the system starts up and stops once it has 23 back in the hopper.  If on the other hand I request one from the routed request pipe, the count in the hopper goes down to 22 (when I look in by hand in the hopper and via the routed request pipe) but the signal does not change and the system never starts up again.

 

I did notice that if I remove the cyclic assembler that is on top of the hopper, everything is updated correctly via both methods. Of course this is not a solution since the whole point is to use this machine to do the crafting.

 

Is this how your have implemented the output? Have you run into this issue? If so, have you found a solution?

 

I'm still working on it myself, but so far no luck. Any insight you might have would be greatly appreciated.

Edited August 5, 2014 by anubizra

[Kalbintion]

This method is how I have it setup personally, and i havent ran across the issue of it not updating. Did you experience this issue elsewhere with other items other than the hopper? Since this method relies on using a comparator to get a 2 redstone tick out, if the comparator isnt getting an update, it should be affecting the chest methods as well unless the hopper has something oddly issued around it in your particular setup.

 

How exactly does a comparator work? Wouldn't it shut off the system if the chest had 1 item in it?

 

Sorry I missed this post Daniel! No, the way the comparator works, is that it emits a redstone signal based on the total number of items in the container out of the total number of possible items in the chest. The stack size also affects this value, meaning if you have a hopper with only one item in it that stacks up to 64, the maximum item count is (5*64), and it would send a signal out based on that % of it, if however you have eggs in there, which only stack up to 16, and you have empty spaces elsewhere, the max is (16+4*64).

[anubizra]

Yes, I did try using a chest instead of a hopper, same result. I also switched out the Cyclic Assembler for a MFR LiquiCrafter to no avail (again, same result).

 

I've been playing around a bit more and here is what I have observed.  I switched out the Cyclic Assembler for a normal old chest, just to see if it had something to do with the mods (I know, I'm grasping here).

- the chest seemed to have the same issue. I drop items into the chest, they go into the hopper, when I get to 23 items the comparator pumps out a signal of 2 and trips the system.

- If I remove an item from the hopper using the routed request pipe, the count decreases to 22 and the comparator still is only sending a signal of 2. I can actually request all the items, emptying the hopper out and I the comparator is still sending a signal of 2.

- If I look in the hopper manually, I see no items in it and when I stop looking nothing changes

- However, if I look in the chest and then close it, the comparators signal is updated to the correct value and the system starts up again.

 

I'm going to continue tinkering on it tonight, if I learn anything new or find a solution I'll update the thread. If this gives you any insights, please let me know. Thanks.

[Kalbintion]

A solution to the issue would be to cause the comparators to update (a redstone torch for example can cause the comparator to update) on a regular basis, but i will need to take a look into this a bit more.

[o11y_75]

I use a system that doesn't require any redstone signals for my autocrafting. The only downside to this is there is exactly 1 stack of each item crafted. As mentioned, this can become expensive, but for things like chests, sticks, and planks for example it is really not an issue. I have a row of assemblers next to each other (with no space between them) I then place 2 interface pipes next to my assemblers connected to the main system and linked together with regular transport pipes. The input is on the top, and the output is on the back. The input pipe has the stock control chip (set to fill when items missing) and the output pipe has nothing more than a broadcast chip. When I query my system at the request pipe, the stacks of crafted items (still sitting in the assemblers) will show up and are able to be extracted. I find this to be extremely simple, cheap and compact and for the more basic items I have a ready supply waiting for use. I also have incorporated some redstone furnaces into the system using a similar method to keep a supply of glass and smooth stone ready for use. What I was thinking of doing while writing this post is having a  chest in my crafting room that connects to the main system and has a stock keeper chip to keep the items required to make machine frames, chips and other common items.

[Kalbintion]

The reason i didnt go for that method of just keeping it in the machine itself is because it is limited to only 64 with little change in whats desired, hence my method of using other means to get a specific number using comparators, but that method itself does work.

[anubizra]

I have fallen back to o11y_75 method as well for now. I do want to get Kalbintions method working for me in my world as well for things that are difficult to keep in stock. I'm not sure why I'm having the update issue and looking into ways to update the comparator as suggested. If I find a solution I will be sure to post it. Thanks for all your help.