Mods/basic machines/Factory

From Minetest

Factory with basic-machines

The above section Grinder had recipes for duplicating iron, copper, gold, mese and diamonds.
(Same for ore from other mods, e.g. tin/silver/mithril, ...)
Here follows an overview of the machines and equipment required to do that.

For cost, we assume 3 steel or copper or bronze = 1 gold, 1 mese crystal = 5 gold, 1 diamond = 10 gold (as on the ROBOTS-server).

Basics

  • Constructor - for making the basic machines.
Cost: 8 steel + 9 copper = 6 gold
  • Battery - to power the machines
Cost: 3 steel + 9 mese + 1 diamond = 1 + 45 + 10 = 56 gold
Cost per upgrade: 1 mese-block + 1 diamond-block = 45 + 90 = 135 gold
Total: 56 + 99 × 135 = 56+13365 = 13421 gold
(We need to build 2 batteries: one to build a generator, and one to use as a battery)
New since 2017-12-19:
Cost: 16 copper + 2 tin + 9 mese + 1 diamond = 6 + 45 + 10 = 61 gold
Cost per upgrade: 1 mese-block + 1 diamond-block = 45 + 90 = 135 gold
Total: 61 + 200 × 135 = 61+27000= 27061 gold
(We need to build 6 batteries: 5 to build a generator, and one to use as a battery)
  • Generator - make power cells for the batteries
Cost: 1 battery + 5 diamond-blocks = 56 + 5 × 90 = 506 gold
Cost per upgrade: 1 gold-block + 1 diamond-block = 9 + 90 = 99 gold
Total: 506 + 99 × 99 = 506+9801 = 10307 gold
New since version 2017-12-19:
Cost: 5 battery + 5 diamond-blocks + 5 gold-blocks = 5 × ( 61 + 90 + 9 ) = 5 * 160 = 800 gold
Cost per upgrade: 1 generator = 800 gold
Total1: 800 + 4 × 800 = 800+3200 = 4000 gold (minimum to reach medium-level, to produce blue power-blocks)
Total2: 800 + 20 × 800 = 800+16000 = 16800 gold (minimum to reach high-level, to produce green power-rods)
    • The cost of all the upgrades for generator and battery are the most expensive, by far.
  • Mover - harvest, plant, move items from inventory to inventory.
Cost: 6 mese + 2 stone + 1 keypad = 6 × 5 + stone + wood = 30 gold
Similar (but much simpler) devices from mesecons are pistons and sticky-pistons.
A robot (from basic_robots) costs about as much as such a mover.
  • Grinder - grind input item into dust.
Cost: 13 diamonds + 4 mese-blocks = 130 + 4 × 45 = 310 gold

Normal stuff

  • Furnace - to smelt ore, dust and other stuff (stones, wheat, etc.)
Cost: 8 stone
    • Furnace1 - smelt dust 33% into dust 66%
    • Furnace2 - smelt dust 66% into finished items
  • Chests - to store input and output materials from each step
Cost: 8 wood (+ 1 steel for lock)
  • Keypads - to activate the machines
Cost: 2 wood
  • Suitable room, doors, lights, etc.
To secure the area, you might also need some protectors (depends on installed mods).

Advanced

  • Clock-generator - every 5 seconds, it activates the device on top
Cost: 1 Diamond-Block + 1 Keypad = 90 gold
A similar device from mesecons is the blinky-plant (activate every 3 seconds).
  • Detector - detect & measure conditions, and activate machines.
Cost: 4 Mese-Crystals + 1 Keypad = 20 gold
A similar device from mesecons is the object-detector.
  • Distributor - forward an input signal to up to 16 other devices.
Cost: 1 Steel + 1 Mese-crystal + 1 Keypad = 6 gold
With mesecons, you need to use wires, and logic-gates.
  • Ball-spawner - spawn an energy ball that can activate stuff
Cost: 1 Power cell + 1 Keypad
  • AutoCrafter - automatic crafting
Cost: 5 Steel + 2 Mese-Crystals + 2 Diamond-Blocks = 2+10+180 = 192 gold

Example-setups

The most humble setup (see factory1) would be for producing clay-bricks (requires no upgrades), by hand (no automation):

  • constructor, generator, battery, grinder: 6 + 56 + 506 + 310 = 878 gold
The furnace can also be used for smelting ore, making glass, baking flour to bread, etc.

New since 2017-12-19: 6 + 61 + 800 + 310 = 1177 gold

Minimum setup for producing diamonds (see factory2):

  • as above, plus the following upgrades:
The generator needs 20 upgrades to produce the blue powerblocks
The battery needs 8 upgrades to power the grinder while grinding diamonds

The time to cook diamond-dust is about 5 minutes, twice.

It needs one pass for the 33%-dust, and another pass for the 66%-dust.
  • 878 + 20 × 135 + 8 × 99 = 878 + 1980 + 792 = 3650 gold

New since 2017-12-19:

The generator needs at least 4 upgrades to produce the blue powerblocks
The battery needs 3 meseblocks as upgrades to use the blue powerblocks (e.g. for furnace)
The battery needs 8 upgrades to power the grinder while grinding diamonds ??
  • 1177 + 4 × 800 + 8 × 99 = 1177 + 3200 + 792 = 5169 gold

Factory with maximum (99) upgrades:

  • 878 + 13421 + 10307 = 24606 gold

With those upgrades, the time to cook diamond-dust is about 130 seconds, twice.

New since 2017-12-19:
...

Additionally, a factory owner might want some automation.
E.g. set up some movers:

  1. move energycrystals from the generator to the battery
  2. move ore/dust from a chest to the furnace-input
  3. move finished products from the furnace-output to a chest

A robot costs about the same as a mover, but can be programmed - so it is more flexible.

And after all that, the factory owner might want a second furnace (with a second battery,
plus upgrades, plus automation) to cook both kinds of dust at the same time...

( and maybe another set for cooking mese, and another to cook misc stuff :)

Only one generator is needed - it produces enough energy for several batteries.

Automation

Activating all these machines, moving stuff, etc. quickly gets boring and tiresome, so these steps should be automated.

Machines for automating the factory:

  • Mover - move stuff (i.e. fuel/powercells, ore/dust, finshed products)
  • AutoCrafter - set up a recipe, and craft automatically
  • Clock generator - repeatedly send activation signals (e.g. to keep a furnace running)
  • Detector - sense condition, eg. stuff in inventory, open/closed door/trapdoor, ...
  • Distributor - activate several machines (movers, furnaces...)
  • basic robots - can do the work of movers and distributors

Example-Factories

Farming

Introduction

This is for harvesting crops, like wheat or cotton.
Farming whole trees is also possible.

We need a constructor, generator, battery, and mover plus simple stuff like chest and keypad.

The mover is used in 'dig'-mode, the source-area set to the field to be harvested, and a chest as target.
The mover also has a reverse-mode that can be used for planting seeds after the harvest.
This is activated by sending an 'off'-signal to the mover.
A mover has a range of 10, so it needs to be near the field.

The battery provides power to adjacent devices
so it needs to be placed left/right/in front or behind the mover. It also needs to be filled with some power-crystals (and optionally with upgrades).

The generator that produces the power-crystals can be located anywhere, and for now, we just move the crystals by hand.

To activate the mover, we need some device, eg. a keypad, a detector or some mesecons-devices (eg. lever, pressure-plate).
The keypad is the most cheap and simple of these, and a good place for it is on top of the mover.

The constructor is needed to produce all the basic-machines.
A constructor can also produce coal from energy-crystals, for use as fuel in furnaces.
If it is not needed for operations, it can still serve as a storage-block, like a chest.

Setup

  • Prepare the field (dirt, water, hoe, seeds, protector),
  • Make and install the constructor, eg. 'at home'.
  • Make and install the generator 'at home' or near the field,
  • place mover near the field (or at its center),
  • place battery next to the mover,
  • place keypad on top of the mover,
    • configure the keypad,
  • place chest (or constructor) near the mover (witin range 10)
  • configure the mover.

Cost

  • Constructor: 8 steel + 9 copper
  • Mover: 6 mese-crystals + 2 stone + 1 keypad
    • Upgrade: 1 mese-block (max. 10)
  • Battery: 16 copper + 2 tin + 1 mese-block + 1 diamond
    • Upgrade: mese-block (for power), diamond-block (for capacity)
  • Generator: 5 battery + 5 diamond-blocks + 5 gold-blocks
    • Upgrade: 1 generator per level
  • misc: wood, stone

Table:

# Item Steel Copper Tin Gold Mese-Crystal Diamond Remarks
MineGeld prices 4 5 5 10 15 20 for server Blue world
1 Constructor 8 9 - - - -
1 Mover - - - - 6 -
1 Battery - 16 2 - 9 1
1 Generator/Up. - 80 10 45 45 45
= Total 8 96 12 45 60 46
= (in MineGeld) 32 480 60 450 900 920 Sum=2842

...

Configuration

  • Mover:
    • Mode: dig
    • Source1, 2: opposite corners of the field
    • Target: chest
  • Keypad:
    • Mode: 2 (=ON)
    • Target: 0 -1 0 (this means the block just below the keypad)

Operation

  • Get energy-crystals from generator and put them into the mover.
  • Wait until the crops are ripe (look for ...)
  • Punch keypad to activate the mover
  • Get harvested crops from chest

Energy required: ...

Notes

Results/Profits to be expected:

  • a field with 8x8 spaces planted with cotton yields 64 strings after growing about 2 days
  • this can be turned into 16 blocks of wool, or
  • crafting a small bag needs 25 strings
  • crafting a medium bag needs 54 strings
  • crafting a large bag needs 112 strings
  • From 64 wheat we could produce 16 flour, and bake that to 16 bread.
But with lots of animal-mobs around, there might be not much demand for bread.

On the server Blue world, 10 wool sell for 8 minegeld,
and a small bag is sold for 20 minegeld at the spawn-shop.
Players get 1 minegeld each day if they dig or place at least one block.

Considering the substancial cost of this 'factory', and the rather low profit,
this is probably not a project for poor, starting players.

(But it looks nice as a demo, when built by an admin, or a proud owner of a factory3 :)

Also, the farm can be extended and automated, eg.

  • make flour from wheat, bake that to bread, and fill a shop with it.
  • make wool from cotton, and produce bags and rope.
  • from wood, we can produce chests, torches, ladders, doors, trapdoors, signs, etc.

Factory1 - Starter

Introduction

This is a workshop for manufacturing simple stuff, like coal, torches, bread, glass, bricks,
and processing low-grade ore (iron, copper, tin, clay, sand).
This is probably not your real goal, but rather 'the best you can do'
while you don't have enough upgrades for doing 'real work' (see next chapter, factory2).

We need a constructor, generator, battery, and grinder, plus simple stuff like chest, furnace and keypad.
No upgrades required (or rather 'without upgrades, we can do only low-level stuff').

The key-item to get rich is the grinder.
It can grind ore and ingots to dust, which doubles the amount.
Thus, with 2 passes thru a furnace, we can double our yield.

Eg. 1 iron-ore is ground to 2 iron-dust (33% purity).
The furnace will turn that to 2 iron-dust (66%),
and another pass thru a furnace finally gives you 2 steel-ingots.

A battery can power a grinder or furnace on top,
and battery-upgrades accellerate the cooking time of a furnace.

Upgrades enable a generator to produce energy faster,
and better types of energy-crystals (eg. with 4 upgrades it makes blue power-blocks ).

Note: for high-grade materials (gold, mese, diamonds...) the grinder needs upgrades in its battery,
and the generator needs upgrades as well.

Also, a constructor can turn energy-crystals from the generator into coal.
Coal-blocks made from 9 coal burn better and last longer then simple coal-lumps.

So, once we have a complete workshop and some ore of each type,
there is no more need for boring old digging and mining,
and we can concentrate on exciting new work in our factory
(like moving stuff between constructor/generator/battery/grinder/furnaces/chests :)

Setup

E=Generator B&G=Battery+Grinder+Keypad M=Mover F=Furnace C=Chest or constructor

C1 __ M3 __ __ __ __ __
E M1 B&G M2 __ F1 F2 C2
__ __ M4 __ __ __ __ __
  • Build a secure base for the factory (house/cave, doors, protectors...),
  • Make and install the first constructor
  • Make and install the generator (this is quite expensive, see 'costs' below)
  • make and place battery #1 so it has 4 free spaces around it
so we can place movers on these spaces later
  • make and place grinder on top of battery
  • make and place a keypad on top of the grinder
  • make and place a mover next to battery #1
  • configure the keypad (to point at the mover)
  • configure the mover (to move energy from generator to battery)
  • place 2 furnaces, chests

...

Cost

  • Constructor: 8 steel + 9 copper
  • Mover: 6 mese-crystals + 2 stone + 1 keypad
    • Upgrade: 1 mese-block (max. 10)
  • Grinder: 13 diamonds + 4 mese-blocks
  • Battery: 16 copper + 2 tin + 1 mese-block + 1 diamond
    • Upgrade: mese-block (for power), diamond-block (for capacity)
  • Generator: 5 battery + 5 diamond-blocks + 5 gold-blocks
    • Upgrade: 1 generator per level
  • misc: wood, stone

Table:

# Item Steel Copper Tin Gold Mese-Crystal Diamond Remarks
MineGeld prices 4 5 5 10 15 20 for server Blue world
1 Constructor 8 9 - - - -
1 Mover - - - - 6 -
0 Mover-Upgrade - - - - 9 -
1 Grinder - - - - 36 13
1 Battery - 16 2 - 9 1
0 Battery-Upgr. - - - - 9 9
1 Generator/Up. - 80 10 45 45 45
= Total 8 96 12 45 96 59
= (in MineGeld) 32 480 60 450 1440 1180 Sum=3642


Configuration

  • Mover #1:
    • Mode: Inventory
    • Source1,2: Generator, 'Fuel'
    • Target: Battery, 'Fuel'
  • Keypad #1
    • Mode: 2 (ON)
    • Target: Mover #1

Operation

There are several flows to maintain:

  • move energy-crystals from the generator to the battery powering the grinder
  • move fuel to the furnaces:
With only one battery for now, we use coal for the furnaces
We could also burn other collected stuff, eg. leaves, wood, cactus ...
    • move energy from generator to constructor (when grinder not in use)
    • convert energy to coal (select 'coal', and press the 'craft'-button)
maybe make coal-blocks from coal
    • move coal/blocks from constructor to furnaces
  • move input material into grinder,
    • grind it
  • move 33%dust to furnace#1,
  • move 66%dust to furnace#2,
  • move finished stuff to chest

You may want separate sets of furnaces for iron and copper,
and another for cooking misc low-volume stuff like glass, tin, flour, clay.

Steps:

  • Get energy-crystals from generator and put them into the battery.
  • get some ore, put it in grinder-input (use shift-move)
  • move dust/33% from grinder-output into furnace#1
  • move dust/66% from furnace#1-output into furnace#2
  • move finished ingot from furnace#2 to a chest or constructor (or back into grinder)

...

Notes

  • The Generator stops when it is full with 25 energy-crystals,
    so you must move them out often.
This would be the first task to automate.
  • When moving energy into a battery by hand, one energy-crystal is lost.
This doesn't happen when using a mover to fill a battery.
  • Cooking times

...

Factory2

Introduction

This is for also producing high-grade stuff, including mese and diamonds.
As above, plus upgrades. Also, some more furnaces, constructors and maybe batteries.

...

Setup

Floorplan:

E=Generator CD=ClockGenerator+Distributor
B&G=Battery+Grinder+Keypad M=Mover mm=space reserved
F=Battery+Furnace C=Chest or constructor A=AutoCrafter

C1 C2 M2 __ __ m5 __ __ m8 __ __
E M1 B&G M3 m4 F1 m6 m7 F2 m9 C0
CD C3 mm __ __ mm __ __ mm __ __
  • C0: Chest for Output
  • C1, C2, C3: Constructors to convert energy-crystals to coal
power-rods -1-> power-blocks -2-> power-cells -3-> coal
  • M1: Mover for getting energy from generator to constructor#1
  • M2: Mover for filling grinder-battery
  • M3: Mover for moving dust from grinder to furnace#1
  • m4: move energy to constructor#2
  • M5: Mover for filling furnace-battery
  • M6: Mover for moving dust from furnace#1 to furnace#2
  • m7: move energy to constructor#3
  • M8: Mover for filling furnace-battery
  • M9: Mover for moving ingots from furnace#2 to chest

The distributor routes the periodic signal from the clockgenerator to all the movers and batteries,
to keep the batteries full, and the furnaces running.

While the factory is not yet completed, the work of missing movers must be done by hand.

Upgrades

Generator-Upgrades:

  • 0 - Generator produces 1 power-cell every 18 seconds --> 25*1 energy
  • 1 - Generator produces 3 power-cells every 18 seconds
  • 2 - Generator produces 5 power-cells every 18 seconds
  • 3 - Generator produces 7 power-cells every 18 seconds
  • 4 - Generator produces 1 power-blocks every 18 seconds --> 25*11 energy
  • 5 - Generator produces 1 power-blocks every 16 seconds

..

  • 19 - Generator produces 1 power-rods every 20 seconds --> 100 energy
  • 20 - Generator produces 2 power-rods every 20 seconds

..

Battery-Upgrades: (Diamond-blocks for power, mese-blocks for capacity)

  • 0 diamond-blocks - maxpower 1 - enough to power the grinder for iron, copper, gravel, clay
  • 1 diamond-blocks - maxpower 3
  • 2 diamond-blocks - maxpower 5
  • 3 diamond-blocks - maxpower 7 - enough to power the grinder while grinding gold
  • 4 diamond-blocks - maxpower 9 - enough to power the grinder while grinding mese
  • 5 diamond-blocks - maxpower 11
  • 6 diamond-blocks - maxpower 13
  • 7 diamond-blocks - maxpower 15
  • 8 diamond-blocks - maxpower 17 - enough to power the grinder while grinding diamonds

..

  • 0 mese-blocks - capacity 3 - base
  • 1 mese-blocks - capacity 6
  • 2 mese-blocks - capacity 9
  • 3 mese-blocks - capacity 12 - enough to use blue power-blocks
  • 4 mese-blocks - capacity 15
  • 5 mese-blocks - capacity 18 - enough to grind 1 diamond before recharging
  • 6 mese-blocks - capacity 21
  • 7 mese-blocks - capacity 24
  • 8 mese-blocks - capacity 27
  • 9 mese-blocks - capacity 30
  • 10 mese-blocks - capacity 33
  • 11 mese-blocks - capacity 36 - enough to grind 2 diamonds
  • 12 mese-blocks - capacity 39
  • 13 mese-blocks - capacity 42
  • 14 mese-blocks - capacity 45
  • 15 mese-blocks - capacity 48
  • 16 mese-blocks - capacity 51 - enough to grind 3 diamonds
  • 17 mese-blocks - capacity 54
  • 18 mese-blocks - capacity 57
  • 19 mese-blocks - capacity 60
  • 20 mese-blocks - capacity 63
  • 21 mese-blocks - capacity 66
  • 22 mese-blocks - capacity 69 - enough to grind 4 diamonds

..

Mover-Upgrades:

  • 0 mese-blocks - base
  • 1 mese-blocks -

...

So, to process diamonds we need at least

  • 4 generator-upgrades
  • 8 diamond-blocks and 5 mese-blocks to upgrade the grinder-battery
  • 1 diamond-blocks and 3 mese-blocks for each of our 2 furnace-batteries
  • = 10 diamond-blocks and 11 mese-blocks
  • 1 upgrades for movers

...

Cost

Table:

# Item Steel Copper Tin Gold Mese-Crystal Diamond Remarks
MineGeld prices 4 5 5 10 15 20 for server Blue world
3 Constructor 8 9 - - - -
0 AutoCrafter - - - - - -
1 Clockgen - - - - - 9
1 Distributor 1 - - - 1 -
0 Detector - - - - 4 -
9 Mover - - - - 6 -
9 Mover-Upgrade - - - - 81 -
1 Grinder - - - - 36 13
3 Battery - 48 6 - 27 3
10 Battery-Upgr.P - - - - - 90
11 Battery-Upgr.C - - - - 99 -
5 Generator/Upgr. - 400 50 225 225 225
= Total 9 457 56 225 479 340
= (in MineGeld) 36 2285 280 2250 7185 6800 Sum=18836

Configuration

Operation

Notes

...

Factory3

Introduction

Like Factory2, with maxed generator and batteries, plus automation.

Setup

Cost

Configuration

Operation

Notes

Retrieved from "https://wiki.minetest.org/index.php?title=Mods/basic_machines/Factory&oldid=1119"