Metal Refinery vs Rock Granulator. Which is better in your opinion?

[Saturnus]

Not that I'm aware of so it's not a totally hands off solution.

[Zarquan]

I don't know how to stop it from forming the tile.  One thing you could do is create a timed scheme so that they only go to dig it right before night.  If there is more than one block of sand, you could time it so that the bottom block gets mined and then they all go to sleep.   Unfortunately, the mined sand becomes trapped in the falling sand, so this is not really a solution.  Could this be part of a solution? 

[FIXBUGFIXBUGFIX]

I know how to prevent liquids transforms to tile when they freeze. But I still have no idea about sand.

If sand transforms to tile, we lose half mass when dig it out. I think this is the biggest problem.

[donutman07]

1 hour ago, R9MX4 said:

I know how to prevent liquids transforms to tile when they freeze. But I still have no idea about sand.

If sand transforms to tile, we lose half mass when dig it out. I think this is the biggest problem.

Nah that's just a question of scaling up production. Biggest problem is figuring out how to automate the digging and collection or preventing it from forming a tile (so that collection automation is trivial)

[Kabrute]

Needs a staged preheating system that drops extremely hot dirt past a heating element to cause phase shift in fall, thus dropping pickable items.  I do it with water/ice all the time, transforming without a stable surface under you drops items, so  maybe causing this transformation to happen over mesh tiles or something would do the trick.

[Saturnus]

8 minutes ago, Kabrute said:

Needs a staged preheating system that drops extremely hot dirt past a heating element to cause phase shift in fall, thus dropping pickable items.  I do it with water/ice all the time, transforming without a stable surface under you drops items, so  maybe causing this transformation to happen over mesh tiles or something would do the trick.

I've tried that but I can't get it to work so take that as a challenge  It balls up when it hits the ground.

[Kabrute]

1 minute ago, Saturnus said:

I've tried that but I can't get it to work so take that as a challenge  It's balls up when it hits the ground.

And solid blocks don't fall into doorways

[Kabrute]

so open door instead of mesh tile, will only catch Solid blocks never falling items, ok that might work, little rolling door extractor at the bottom, might have to do some testing, thanks for getting my juices flowing Saturnis

[manu_x32]

2 minutes ago, Kabrute said:

so open door instead of mesh tile, will only catch Solid blocks never falling items, ok that might work, little rolling door extractor at the bottom, might have to do some testing, thanks for getting my juices flowing Saturnis

I tried mesh tiles and doors in all sorts of ways and couldn't make them work.

[Kabrute]

I have an idea but the closest thing I can find to it in the real world is an industrial glass maker

[manu_x32]

48 minutes ago, Kabrute said:

I have an idea but the closest thing I can find to it in the real world is an industrial glass maker

Actually when I was testing with pneumatic doors to try to block the sand tiles when they spawn, it was glitching over it when dirt and sand was spawning, and molten glass was appearing, all glitchy, stuck weirdly between the doors.

[Kabrute]

Then yes it would work but only with a liquid that can be both hotter and colder than glass, dump dirt at hot end, sand will spall out at cold end, use doors moving at about 1s buffer speed, too fast for liquids but not items and gasses tests Ice water on pwater shows it drops collectible ice cubes because the amount being cooled to solid is extremely small in quantity but piles up at the bottom.  Use doors to pull from bottom.  gonna take some tinkering to get this right.

 

Scratch that and skip 10 steps, drop your dirt into pwater. Elaboration : Super heat the dirt as it is falling so that it falls as a liquid into polluted water, this will cause the phase changes to happen as an interaction with a liquid, thus give you spalled small item collectibles sand, and will also transfer extreme amounts of heat to the polluted water steaming and cleaning, leaving......... dirt behind with the sand at the bottom

[Guest]

On 11-1-2018 at 7:36 PM, Zarquan said:

You are right.  I am talking about the device as intended, not as currently implemented.  I should have been clearer about that (by mentioning it at all).  Using it right now without being careful can result in wherever it is being filled with steam or scalding petroleum from a reasonable temperature.  Hopefully, they fix it soon.

I noticed this quite a lot around here. People ask simple questions about simple mechanics, but the topic usually drifts into much more advanced mechanics which don't really relate any more to the question.

The topic maker had a misconception about the granulator where he/she thought the produced output was a roll of the dice, which is not. I think correcting that and then going forward a simple comparison -whattage, efficiency, rough heat output, etc- would more than have helped. Instead, it confused him or her probably even more by telling how it can be used as an oil refinery.

Showcasing knowledge is nice, but not everyone is at that same level. People should be a bit more aware of that. For the record, this is not specifically targetted to you, just in general.

[Kabrute]

3 hours ago, turbonl64 said:

I noticed this quite a lot around here. People ask simple questions about simple mechanics, but the topic usually drifts into much more advanced mechanics which don't really relate any more to the question.

The topic maker had a misconception about the granulator where he/she thought the produced output was a roll of the dice, which is not. I think correcting that and then going forward a simple comparison -whattage, efficiency, rough heat output, etc- would more than have helped. Instead, it confused him or her probably even more by telling how it can be used as an oil refinery.

Showcasing knowledge is nice, but not everyone is at that same level. People should be a bit more aware of that. For the record, this is not specifically targetted to you, just in general.

Which may be fine but if you read the first page you would see it was in fact the OP that pulled the topic Off topic,

[Zarquan]

@turbonl64 I agree this has gone way off track from the initial discussion topic.  I probably shouldn't have said what I did about oil refineries.  I was just trying to say that the extra heat didn't have to be a problem that needed a solution, but is instead a valuable and dangerous resource that can be managed and harnessed.  But talking about the devices as they are supposed to work rather than how they currently work is useful I feel.  The fact that it is buggy is probably part of the reason why people don't use it.

Also, I just noticed you can automate digging by having a build order in place.  If the build order is invalid (say, due to a missing foundation block), they will still keep the area dug out as if they were going to build it.  Just have to be careful and make sure the build is never completed (meaning the foundation is never complete).

This conversation has diverged a lot from the original topic.  Maybe it should be its own thread?

[Kabrute]

I had thought of automated digging orders but that still destroys half the sand you create, I do agree that it probably should be its own thread but turbo running off on a tangent about how we ran off on a tangent is pedantic and self righteous at best.

[Zarquan]

If someone wanted to find a conversation about sand production from burning dirt, would they look in a thread titled "Metal Refinery vs Rock Granulator. Which is better in your opinion?"  I think making this discussion its own thread keeps the forum healthier. 

I don't think proposing a change of venue is self righteous.  I am also not claiming innocence of driving this discussion off topic.  The whole first part of my post was me admitting that I was making off topic comments and explaining my reasons for what I said (while saying I probably shouldn't have said it).  If we don't want to move threads, we can stop talking about it now and kill the meta-tangent immediately. 

[Kabrute]

Not you, turbo but thanks for pointing out how easily misread what I wrote was

[Guest]

2 hours ago, Kabrute said:

I had thought of automated digging orders but that still destroys half the sand you create, I do agree that it probably should be its own thread but turbo running off on a tangent about how we ran off on a tangent is pedantic and self righteous at best.

Let's look at the facts: I produced 2 posts about this, including this one to simply tell you I'm not in this for any self-rightuous reasons, and you have produced 3 about it. 4 if you reply to this. I'm sorry, but if you accuse of " running off on a tangent about how we ran off on a tangent", than you definitely are "running off much more on a tangent about me running off a tangent about how you ran off a tangent, than me running off on a tangent about how you ran off on a tangent".

What I said was nothing more than an observation, not only in this topic or meant against one specific person, but in general. If you feel personally adressed by it, than that's not really my problem.

 

And yes, that'll be the last thing I have to say about it.

[Saturnus]

How about letting the mods decide if the thread has drifted too far of topic?

[Zarquan]

Well, people stopped posting here, but I still want to talk about this, so I opened a new thread.