My dream for gearboxes

Odd. I tried painting it, but it didn’t work. I’ll have another go.

edit: tried spray paint again: consumes one use, but doesn’t change colour. Tried bath with chemical dye: does nothing. Tried bathing pot with chemical dye: does nothing.

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Oh, oops, I guess I fucked something up, lemme fix that for next Version. :wink:

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I usually see planetary gear assemblies encased to prevent things from getting into and destroying the gearing, generally only exposing 3 binding points on the outside for the various connections along with 1 or 2 pressure points to allow for compression of the gears to slow/stop a set (great for reversing or simple step up/down).

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Here a Screenshot of the Planetary Gears, I tried to capture a frame where the bottom left one isn’t aligned with the idle ones. I also ended up catching that 4th Frame that I added to the other Gearbox to make it less jarring.

They are available in the Secret Version as of right now. :wink:

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Lemme back up my save…

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Lol, never hurts to do that, I keep LOTS of backups… ^.^;

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It works :+1::

(Well, mostly. 1, 2 and 4 boilers work as expected, but 3 boilers only power 2 centrifuges for some reason - swapping out for an HV motor driven by 3 MV batteries works fine so the problem is at the turbine.)

It’s quite hypnotic to watch, but I don’t have the energy to put together a gif right now.

The variable turbine driving it all is mostly an exercise in proving to myself that it can be done, but in reality it’s more trouble than the efficiency over electricity is worth - there’s more infrastructure beneath the floor, and the igniters are a little temperamental in a way that would require the whole system to be at least 2m longer or wider to fix. That’s assuming you want the Gibbl-O-Meter-driven boiler-pre-heat option permanently turned on - it gets even larger if you want to be able to turn it off completely. Without pre-heat, the boiler response is just too slow.

To make best use of the transforming gearboxes for now, it’s probably best to carefully match machine speeds along a whole production line and have the whole line either on or off. One feature that would help with that would be some way to limit how many packets a gearbox outputs to an attached machine - right now if you replace the first bronze centrifuge with a steel centrifuge the rest of the line stalls as it takes the full 256 RU/t. If I wanted to put 128 RU/t into the first machine and 64 RU/t each into two others, currently there isn’t an easy way to do it. (I tried selector covers/tags both with and without universal extenders, and none worked. Selector tags feel the most appropriate, I think.)

Eventually, to really make use of these new gearboxes, some variability in steam generation would be good. Ideally, (and I’m dreaming again now) make the current boiler ratings a maximum with steam output scaling linearly with HU/t below that, and allow us to attach redstone selector covers to burning boxes (gas only?) to limit their fuel usage and HU/t output to some fraction of their maximum. It’s not totally unrealistic and, as it’s explicitly making machines less powerful, it can’t be accused of being OP.

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Later I will make an Advanced Burning Box, I guess I can use the Mode Selector Cover on that one to make the Fuel usage adjustable, so this could work.

But yeah it being way more cumbersome is a great general Nerf to the System compared to just using electricity, especially with it being so much more efficient to just directly use Rotation Energy (like you can already do, but that requires ugly looking redundant Setups).

Btw you can use Shutter Covers to detach Axles from each other (has to be placed on the Axle itself). This might be helpful if you want to switch from charging your Batteries with the Dynamo, to powering a Sluice Juice Centrifuge or a Shredder with the overflow power, without having to cool down your perpetually running Boiler.

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Nah, I’d disagree with “great” Nerf. It’s too cumbersome - cumbersome enough that I won’t be building one outside of testing. You can make good use of all the new axles/gearboxes etc. just fine with a fixed output boiler - the variable output was just an experiment to see how far you could push their usefulness.

But this build is not just less convenient than electricity, it’s less convenient than the time-sharing solution I used on the silicon plant above, less convenient than a transformer gearbox plus synchronised line, and less convenient and barely cheaper than just powering each machine directly. It’s just too cumbersome.

And to be honest, it wasn’t a fun build - the different parts just don’t want to be put that close together. But not in a cool “solving an engineering problem” kind of way - in a way that makes you feel you’re fighting against the game and a ton of compatibility issues (e.g. the build is 4m longer than it feels it should be as ProjectRed and the Gibbl-O-Meter have some odd ideas about how they should connect to each other).

I’m not sure variability strictly needs to be cumbersome anyway - early throttles were little more than a spring-loaded obstruction in the fuel line.

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Oh yeah Project Red doesn’t like my things, there is GT6 Red Alloy Cables if you wanna use those, though no Logic gates for that yet.

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But without the pulse former (or a large self-built vanilla equivalent) the igniter isn’t really automatable, and without bundled cables you need a separate signal line for each machine. And you can’t mix and match GT6 Red Alloy Cables and ProjectRed wires, because one or the other flickers erratically when you try.

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Okay now Gearboxes evenly split the Power among all Faces. If you wanna try the Secret Version again, go ahead. :wink:

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I want to ask a question: if the size of the packet in the GT6 circuit is equivalent to voltage, and the number of packets transmitted at each moment is equivalent to current, then in the rotating power system, the size and number of packets should correspond to torque and speed respectively. Now the question is: which torque should correspond to, which speed? When a large RU packet is decomposed into four small RU packets with a transformer gearbox, is it equivalent to reducing torque and increasing speed or decreasing speed and increasing torque?

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Speed = Voltage, Torque = Amperage

Speed is how fast a Gear moves, so compatibility between multiple gearboxes and stuff would need to be done via speed, that’s why Speed is Voltage.

The actually transmitted Power, or Amperage would be Torque then. :wink:

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Will cam (or something else) be added in the next version?
By the way, you seem to have forgotten to fix the alkali metal…

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Oh right I forgot that one, which one was the one that doesn’t explode when coming into water contact again?

Also what is cam? Camera? You mean that Piston thingy ? yeah thats planned for this week

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lithium
The "piston"I think it’s more appropriate to use an eccentric link (like a train wheel).

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Dude Lithium definitely explodes with Water, if you dont control the Reaction. The whole Reaction releases Hydrogen which then readily explodes with the Air around it.

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