[Suggestion] Machine recipes for compacting non-metallic materials directly into Bricks / Ingots

theJ89 · May 30, 2021, 7:00am

I recently finished an HF ore processing setup so I could process a bunch of Purified Coal Ore that’s been sitting in a barrel in my base for a long time into Refined Coal Ore (and get a decent amount of Graphite as a byproduct).

After processing all of it, I sent it to my Coke Ovens, which convert each Refined Coal Ore to 6x Coal Coke Chunks. I can manually combine 4 of these in a crafting grid to get 1x Coal Coke Brick, but it seems like there isn’t an ideal solution when it comes to doing this automatically:

There’s the Autocrafter I recently got, but because it’s not specialized for any particular type of crafting it takes a lot of time and energy per crafting operation which isn’t ideal.
If it was metallic, I could run it through an Extruder containing an Ingot Extruder Shape, but Coal Coke isn’t metallic so that’s not really an option.
Another option (and the best one I’ve found so far), you can send 36 chunks through the Boxinator with a Selector Tag [9] to make a Block of Coal Coke Brick, then send those through the Unboxinator to get Coal Coke Bricks. However, this feels more indirect than it should be.

My suggestion is adding this recipe to the Boxinator:

4x <Material> Chunks + Selector Tag [1] (not consumed) => 1x <Material> Ingot / Brick / etc.

A similar recipe could be added for Nuggets:

9x <Material> Nuggets + Selector Tag [1] (not consumed) => 1x <Material> Ingot / Brick / etc.

Unboxinator recipes to go from Ingots to Chunks or Nuggets could also be added, but this would probably require the addition of a second slot to the Unboxinator for a Selector Tag.

To chunks:

1x <Material> Ingot / Brick / etc. + Selector Tag [4] (not consumed) => 4x <Material> Chunks

To nuggets:

1x <Material> Ingot / Brick / etc. + Selector Tag [9] (not consumed) => 9x <Material> Nuggets

Other machines might be more appropriate than the Boxinator. For example, you could add Press recipes that take Nugget / Ingot / Block Pressure Molds and an appropriate amount of input material, and then the press would force the provided material into the mold, producing the desired shape, e.g.:

4x <Material> Chunk + 1x Pressure Mold (Ingot) (not consumed) => 1x <Material> Ingot / Brick / etc.
9x <Material> Ingot / Brick / etc. + 1x Pressure Mold (Block) (not consumed) => 1x Block of Solid <Material>

That might not make sense for all materials, but for softer materials (e.g. coal, coal coke, lignite, lignite coke, peat, bituminous peat, wax, beeswax, fishmeal, cooked fishmeal, and so on) it makes at least some sense to me.

That’s all the ideas I have on this topic.

Gregorius · May 30, 2021, 10:12am

Uh 4 Chunks in Boxinator with Selector Tag that says 4 = Ingots? That already exists?

theJ89 · May 30, 2021, 10:50am

If it does, then I think something might be broke.
When I look up the (edited: usages) for Coal Coke Chunks, NEI gives me six results for the Boxinator, none of which have a Selector Tag [4] in them:

When I put 4x Coal Coke Chunks and 1x Selector Tag [4] into the Boxinator, nothing happens:
boxinator-coal-coke-2

Gregorius · May 30, 2021, 12:25pm

This Version should probably be working for you. ^^

(note 1: The scary sounding Description is only there to make sure people don’t use that Version lightly.)

(note 2: if you use this Version more often, make sure your Browser didn’t cache the Download)

theJ89 · May 30, 2021, 10:45pm

Tested with Coal Coke and confirmed that the following Boxinator recipes are working in the latest snapshot:

4x <Material> Chunk + 1x Selector Tag [4] (not consumed) → 1x <Material> Ingot
9x <Material> Nugget + 1x Selector Tag [9] (not consumed) → 1x <Material> Ingot
18x 1/72nd of a Pile of <Material> Dust + 1x Selector Tag [4] (not consumed) → 1x Small Pile of <Material> Dust
4x Small Pile of <Material> Dust + 1x Selector Tag [4] (not consumed) → 1x <Material> Dust
8x 1/72nd of a Pile of <Material> Dust + 1x Selector Tag [9] (not consumed) → 1x Tiny Pile of <Material> Dust
9x Tiny Pile of <Material> Dust + 1x Selector Tag [9] (not consumed) → 1x <Material> Dust

Will there be Unboxinator recipes to go in the opposite direction in the future?

Gregorius · May 30, 2021, 10:53pm

Yeah but which should be the output? There is only one Recipe possible in the Unboxinator.

theJ89 · May 30, 2021, 11:01pm

A second slot for a Selector Tag ([4] or [9]) could be added to the Unboxinator to choose which one you want, but if you didn’t want to do that I’d recommend 1 to 9, since that’s what vanilla Minecraft and most mods tend to implement:

1x <Material> Ingot → 9x <Material> Nugget
1x <Material> Dust → 9x Tiny Pile of <Material> Dust

Cadde · June 4, 2021, 4:00pm

I just skimmed over this but your question of turning chunks into ingots to me has an obvious solution?
Just send the chunks into an item barrel that is set to hold coal coke ingots. It will accept any size “metal” and turn it into whatever size you need. Such as blocks, ingots, chunks, nuggets.

EDIT: This also works for dusts.
But not for ores of any quality. I.E, you can’t turn tiny purified X into regular purified X or their crushed/refined counterparts.

theJ89 · June 5, 2021, 12:07am

Huh, I knew the Item Barrels / Mass Storages could collect dusts of different sizes, but I didn’t know they could convert between different sizes of metallurgical shapes (nugget / chunk / ingot / blocks) as well. Cool! TIL.

As an aside, it might be a good idea to add a tooltip line to the Item Barrels / Mass Storages mentioning they can do this. I’m not sure if this feature is documented anywhere else.

Donzil · June 5, 2021, 10:21am

This is what I did until recently and it just stopped collecting them, still works manually but just wouldn’t accept via pipes. I assumed it had been nerfed.

Cadde · June 5, 2021, 3:49pm

IT can also happen when a pipe is clogged. Put an accepting chest on it and see if items suddenly appear.