Hi,

 

I'm currently working on an energy network and I am wondering how I can send energy into a specific direction.

 

Imagine the following situation:

• You've got about 100 solar panels which produce energy
• You've also got one machine which should consume the energy
• Everything is connected with cables

 

Point beeing: How can I and how do other mods find out in which direction the energy should be send so that it ends up beeing send to the consumer and not beeing send to producer 51 or the like.

 

Thx in advance.

Bektor

Edited August 15, 20178 yr by Bektor

1 hour ago, Bektor said:

How can I and how do other mods find out in which direction the energy should be send so that it ends up beeing send to the consumer and not beeing send to producer 51 or the like.

If I am not mistaken Ender IO and Thermal Expansion send energy through there pipes by just filling there pipes with energy, which allows them to get past all of that path finding that if I am not mistaken IC2 does. Though if you go with my suggestion from the other thread you could bypass all of that and just store it in the 'network' instead of the pipes.

6 hours ago, Animefan8888 said:

If I am not mistaken Ender IO and Thermal Expansion send energy through there pipes by just filling there pipes with energy, which allows them to get past all of that path finding that if I am not mistaken IC2 does. Though if you go with my suggestion from the other thread you could bypass all of that and just store it in the 'network' instead of the pipes.

I might look into your idea at some point, thought not yet as I don't have enough time to do the required testing and implementation before the Server of a few friends of mine goes online.

Hm, I'm wondering, how does this pathfinding from IC2 actually work?

I dont know exactly but maybe keep track of all connected machines and wires then everytime one is updated/changed use A* pathfinding to find the path from every producer to every consumer.  Its just an idea i dont know how efficient it would be or if its even possible.

 

For example every set of connected machines would be stored as a network and everytime the network changes you would recalculate the paths.  I would assume you would want to do it asynchronously as to prevent lag with large networks.

Edited August 15, 20178 yr by drok0920

You shouldn't need "pathfinding" really. You have a network with inputs, outputs, and storage. This storage could be in the form of cables, or dedicated batteries. In any case, inputs add to the network, cables/batteries hold it, and outputs consume the stored energy. If you REALLY want each block to have it's own energy storage, then you could treat batteries as both consumers AND producers, although this would result in unnecessary lag from energy being endlessly transferred back and forth. Otherwise, just treat the entire network as a single object with a single variable to store its energy.