Two TileEntities not communicating correctly

[44tim44]

I've implemented an energy-cable-system in my mod, and I'm having trouble with the communication between the two machines on either side of a cable.
I've made a generator, "SolarPanel", and a consumer, "Pulverizer". They both work perfectly, transferring generated energy from the solar panel to the pulverizer through the cable.
(The cables forward what the machine on the opposite end of the cables is, to the the machine on the first end)

However, I'm now implementing a second consumer, "ChargingStation", which is a battery-bank of sorts. It has an internal storage of energy.
When my SolarPanel tries to use the ChargingStations increaseCharge()-method, the method executes, but the result; a higher energy-value in the storage, does not get recorded.
In other words: if I'm looking at the GUI of the ChargingStation, I can see the energy in the storage increase, but as soon as I close (and reopen) the GUI, the value resets to 0.

I assumed this was because of client/server mismatch, so I made the call of increaseCharge() from the SolarPanel check for !isRemote(), which solved the problem, but only if the ChargingStation is "initialized" by having it use increaseCharge() itself (which is done when the ChargingStation tries to charge using a battery in its inventory.) Otherwise, it never starts charging to begin with.

Any help on how to fix this would be awesome. Thank you.

Code:

ChargingStation: https://github.com/44tim44/BetterThanElectricity_1.12.2/blob/master/src/main/java/se/sst_55t/betterthanelectricity/block/chargingstation/TileEntityChargingStation.java

SolarPanel: https://github.com/44tim44/BetterThanElectricity_1.12.2/blob/master/src/main/java/se/sst_55t/betterthanelectricity/block/solarpanel/TileEntitySolarPanel.java

Cable: https://github.com/44tim44/BetterThanElectricity_1.12.2/blob/master/src/main/java/se/sst_55t/betterthanelectricity/block/cable/TileEntityCable.java

[Draco18s]

My immediate guess is that you are synchronizing the value to the client.

[44tim44]

Uh... Could you elaborate?

[Draco18s]

Ok, I misread at first. I thought you said you couldn't see the value updating.

One minute...

[44tim44]

Update:
If I use

if(!world.isRemote){
	chargingStation.increaseCharge();
}

then everything works, except it won't start unless the SOLARPANEL is initialized, by placing a battery in the solarpanels charging-slot

[Draco18s]

Thing I noticed as I was perusing your code to see what it does:

1) Why are you asking an item stack what the charge time is when sending energy to a TE?

https://github.com/44tim44/BetterThanElectricity_1.12.2/blob/master/src/main/java/se/sst_55t/betterthanelectricity/block/solarpanel/TileEntitySolarPanel.java#L62

2) Why are you allowing for a null item stack? Item stacks are never null in 1.12

https://github.com/44tim44/BetterThanElectricity_1.12.2/blob/master/src/main/java/se/sst_55t/betterthanelectricity/block/solarpanel/TileEntitySolarPanel.java#L85

3) Not that getItemChargeTime gives a shit about the item passed to it anyway...

4) Why is IBattery not an IChargable?

https://github.com/44tim44/BetterThanElectricity_1.12.2/blob/master/src/main/java/se/sst_55t/betterthanelectricity/block/solarpanel/TileEntitySolarPanel.java#L36

These two interfaces even supply the same method:

https://github.com/44tim44/BetterThanElectricity_1.12.2/blob/master/src/main/java/se/sst_55t/betterthanelectricity/block/solarpanel/TileEntitySolarPanel.java#L45-L51

5) Why are you using Interfaces at all? This is why capabilities exist. Forge has even supplied a capability definition for Energy.

6) This else return false is extraneous.

https://github.com/44tim44/BetterThanElectricity_1.12.2/blob/master/src/main/java/se/sst_55t/betterthanelectricity/block/solarpanel/TileEntitySolarPanel.java#L121

7) This boolean does nothing

https://github.com/44tim44/BetterThanElectricity_1.12.2/blob/master/src/main/java/se/sst_55t/betterthanelectricity/block/solarpanel/TileEntitySolarPanel.java#L42

 

[44tim44]

1 minute ago, Draco18s said:

Thing I noticed as I was perusing your code to see what it does:

1) Why are you asking an item stack what the charge time is when sending energy to a TE?

https://github.com/44tim44/BetterThanElectricity_1.12.2/blob/master/src/main/java/se/sst_55t/betterthanelectricity/block/solarpanel/TileEntitySolarPanel.java#L62

2) Why are you allowing for a null item stack? Item stacks are never null in 1.12

https://github.com/44tim44/BetterThanElectricity_1.12.2/blob/master/src/main/java/se/sst_55t/betterthanelectricity/block/solarpanel/TileEntitySolarPanel.java#L85

3) Not that getItemChargeTime gives a shit about the item passed to it anyway...

4) Why is IBattery not an IChargable?

https://github.com/44tim44/BetterThanElectricity_1.12.2/blob/master/src/main/java/se/sst_55t/betterthanelectricity/block/solarpanel/TileEntitySolarPanel.java#L36

These two interfaces even supply the same method:

https://github.com/44tim44/BetterThanElectricity_1.12.2/blob/master/src/main/java/se/sst_55t/betterthanelectricity/block/solarpanel/TileEntitySolarPanel.java#L45-L51

5) Why are you using Interfaces at all? This is why capabilities exist. Forge has even supplied a capability definition for Energy.

6) This else return false is extraneous.

https://github.com/44tim44/BetterThanElectricity_1.12.2/blob/master/src/main/java/se/sst_55t/betterthanelectricity/block/solarpanel/TileEntitySolarPanel.java#L121

7) This boolean does nothing

https://github.com/44tim44/BetterThanElectricity_1.12.2/blob/master/src/main/java/se/sst_55t/betterthanelectricity/block/solarpanel/TileEntitySolarPanel.java#L42

 

1) Code is still WIP, and a lot of the code is copypasted from when I was only using batteries, and not cables. (Will be fixed)
2) See 1) The nullable is just an addon, so I don't have to pass an Itemstack to get the chargeRate.

3) See 1)
4) Because an Battery can give and take Charge, IChargeable can only take. (In the logic of my machines)
5) Because whenever I've tried to learn capabilities, I've run into troubles. I had troubles with capabilities attached to itemstacks not syncing properly between server and client. (I know I know, I should learn how to use capabilities properly, but I haven't yet. And this works in the meantime.)
6) Will fix.
7) Old code not cleaned up properly.

[Draco18s]

4) In that case, IBattery should extend IChargable or you have to interfaces IChargable and IDrainalbe (or whatever) and a battery just implements both.

 

But in any case, you should really learn to use capabilities. It really isn't that difficult. This is pretty much all you need:

https://github.com/Draco18s/ReasonableRealism/blob/master/src/main/java/com/draco18s/hardlib/api/capability/RawMechanicalPowerHandler.java

Only instead of IMechanicalPower you'll use whatever the interface is that Forge supplies for Energy.

You'd then set up some kind of object for the energy storage (look at the ItemStackHandler for inspiration on how to handle it) and then supply that object instance via getCapability.

 

You might need this, I'm not sure:

https://github.com/Draco18s/ReasonableRealism/blob/master/src/main/java/com/draco18s/hardlib/api/capability/SimpleCapabilityProvider.java

Edited October 29, 2017 by Draco18s

[44tim44]

Yeah, I'll try to learn capabilities.
But, I'd rather start from a point where my code is already working, so I don't run into trouble.

I do think I found the problem myself though: the variable totalChargeTime in TESolarPanel is not initialized unless an item is place in the charging slot in ContainerSolarPanel.
Which is a bit stupid, since as you said, I don't even use the passed itemstack in getItemChargeTime() to calculate totalChargeTime.