Automatic Tree Farm Discussion

[Robilar]

Edit: Seeing as my question was answered, I think the thread would be better served to discuss the efficacy of certain tree farm designs. Title changed.

Since this is my first post involving BTW, I'm going to start by thanking FlowerChild for his awesome work. Adoration aside, I've recently been working my way through the automatic farms one by one, and I've fallen on a stumbling block of sorts on the tree farm. I've successfully created a Battosay style device that powers when the tree grows, washing away the wood and replanting the tree, but after replanting, the tree refuses to grow. I've only managed to get the tree to grow through fertilizer thus far.

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I'm wondering there's anything I might be missing that could cause the tree to not grow? I've cleared as many blocks around it as I can without causing a loss of product when the saws cut the wood. So far I've intentionally waited five Minecraft days to see if the tree will grow, and I've still got a sapling sitting there. The extra torches near the saws were for the screenshot, since my desktop monitor made it look darker than it was.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

[Battosay]

Mmmm... I'd say more light is needed, first. Try to add a Lightblock on the other side of the sapling, or in the floor next to the dirt.
And try to give it more space, maybe remove the stone around the saw.
The problem with farms like that is that only a few kind of trees, the smallest, can grow, so it's pretty slow. But it's automated ;)

[Robilar]

I'm going to start with *squee*, since you're my favorite builder (I love your designs). I gave it a little cleaning and replaced the surrounding tiles with glowstone. I gave it a five day simulate (I use somnia, since I hate that nothing grows while you sleep) and came back to an empty chest still.

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I'm starting to wonder if something is interfering with my trees growing in general. I'm going to go plant a few in my courtyard and see what becomes of it.

Thanks for the help!

Edit: Aha! When I came back from simulating the trees upstairs there was a small pile of wood where the tree base should be. The tree at least grows now. Perhaps I'll address the issue of the leaf block decaying too early by putting a set of delays on the BDs that release the water.

[Ferrus.Manus]

It's an overkill, 1 lightblock should do just fine since it raise illumination to the max level anyway.

[Robilar]

It's an overkill, 1 lightblock should do just fine since it raise illumination to the max level anyway.

I'm ok with overkill with this particular instance, since I'm just aiming for a personal proof of concept. If I can make a machine that harvests the tree when it grows I can fine tune it for efficiency and then replicate it 4-6 times.

[Urian]

How many empty spaces are there between the dirt and the DB? You'll want to strike a balance so that it's tall enough that trees will grow somewhat frequently but low enough that the DB will detect even the shorter trees. Six empty blocks usually does the trick, seven will make the trees grow a bit faster but you'll need to keep an eye on the farm if the DB is in the ceiling since the tree might also be a bit shorter.

[Robilar]

Currently, six. I've been considering moving the DB and raising it up to eight, configuring it so that I can grow all trees without branches (presumably), but currently there's six. I'll give it a shot later, maybe make several on a test map with inv edit.

[JammerUno]

Read this: http://www.minecraftwiki.net/wiki/Tree#Sapling_growth

No tree will grow in your setup.

edit: at least it's gonna take a long time.

It will have to be a large tree of minimum size. Trees choose their shape before checking size. And they're size before checking whether there's enough room. Large trees are 4-14 high. You're only covering 1/11th of that here. So your tree needs to randomly generate as large, size 4. Very small odds there.

[Dark_Tundra]

No tree will grow in your setup.

What are you talking about? He has six spaces including the sapling, and your link says:

The sapling must have at least 4 blocks of space above it,

6-1>4

And, he has already grown a tree.

The tree at least grows now

Is there something I'm missing?


@Robilar: My own tree farm has a roof height of six, and it is slow growing.
I'd like to see your configuration once you've expanded it to a branchless eight. Perhaps I can get a little more reliability out of my own with more growth odds.

[JammerUno]

New suggestion:

Just tested it, pistons can move gears/axles/saws. If you use pistons to move the saws into place, you won't be limited to big trees, since you'll be fulfilling the space requirement for small trees too (no blocks around the trunk). That should seriously cut down growth time. Then you just need to make sure to cut through any leaves between your saw and the trunk before moving there.

edit: the bottem bkocl of the trunk doesn't have that restriction, do you a) don't have to shift the bottom saw, b) can place a DB there.

[Robilar]

I raised the ceiling two blocks, making it an eight high room.

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Since the tree can vary in height, I had to move the detector block block to an area that would trigger when any tree grew. Another problem, as a result, is that since the detector will turn off when the log is cut, I had to make some kind of delay. I installed a one high reed bioclock in the wiring underneath attached to a latch, so when the clock triggers it resets the latch, thus resetting the farm. Another issue that came up is that since more than the minimum can grow, a tree with branches can also grow in the space provided, reducing the growth time of the next tree due to leaves and logs. Somewhere in the design the wood blocks became able to be stuck in the small space afforded under the saw blade, reducing the output.

On the plus side, the steady bioclock timer causes less loss of wood due to an early leaf decay, and with many more possible tree shapes, the tree grows much faster. Also, if your hopper (or other collection mechanism, I used buildcraft pipes in the test farm) allows for the collection, many more saplings will be collected, as the leaves have time to decay and be swept away before the water flow ceases.

All in all, I'd call it a slight improvement, but it needs a lot more tweaking for perfection.

Edit: It seems that (in my limited testing) a seven block high ceiling will not generate trees with branches, or if they do, it is much more rare than an eight block high ceiling. I'm currently attempting to develop a way to remove the loss of wood due to the gap caused by the saw blade (some wood stuck there is visible in the screenshot).

[gftweek]

I followed FC's design a bit, and made the dirt block come out of a BD as well, so the water flow is below or alongside the dirt block, so less wood gets lost, however I'm not currently getting any saplings out of my design as I have space restrictions (built inside a floating island).

I'm also going to try a design using doubled up BD's to collect logs instead of wood. Redstone for this might be a pain though, and I need to destroy my mushroom farm to make space.

[Battosay]

Be carefull, sometimes the leaves grow in the redstone circuit, and cut the Detector's signal. Try to use glass on the appropriate place if that happen.
As for the wood stuck, just remove the block under it, and make a water flow going out of there ;)

[finite8]

Oh ho ho... do I have the design for you guys.

I'm at work at the moment, i JUST finished it before i left for work this morning (taken me days to get this thing working) but the features are:
- Uses Pine trees.
- Detects when tree has grown and collects ALL the wood.
- Replants after collection cycle.
- Approx 40% of saplings dropped by decaying leaves are collected and automatically fed back into Block Dispenser for replanting (no player interaction required to keep sapling supply up is the aim) through a rather ingenious (but not very reliable) method.
- Automatically cuts collected wood into Planks and once chest is full, all other wood produced is turned into Panels, Moulding, Corners and Gears (randomly).
- All output stored in chests.
- Thanks to turntable, continues to function after reload.

When i get home (and after I have put the kids in bed and had dinner) I will try to make a vid of this prototype setup and post it here.

Trust me... it is awesome. Not very efficient on space but then again, as far as redstone based designs go it's not THAT big.

[gftweek]

Be carefull, sometimes the leaves grow in the redstone circuit, and cut the Detector's signal. Try to use glass on the appropriate place if that happen.
As for the wood stuck, just remove the block under it, and make a water flow going out of there ;)

Yes, I was thinking about having some sort of sequencing where the BD furthest from the tree at the bottom would put out a BD, then the one above it would output redstone to power the BD below (closest to the tree), then ripple up the tree in sequence. Not sure how feasible it is though, and the redstone behind the furthest BD's would still be susceptible to leaf displacement. Although thinking about your videos, where a BD can power a light block, perhaps it can power a BD directly as well, need to try some SCIENCE!

I've had leaves grow right through glass as well (and in some cases logs have grown through stone), but that may have been a problem in earlier versions of MC that has been fixed now?

[gftweek]

Oh ho ho... do I have the design for you guys.

-snip-

Trust me... it is awesome.

Sounds awesome, but I though pine trees were even slower growing/more restrictive than regular trees? Mine tree farm is currently too slow with 2 regular trees, so I usually bone meal it up when I need wood, kind defeats the automation really, I need to expand it, but lack space in it's current position.

[Robilar]

I can't claim to know the exact tree algorithm, but in my experience it seems that the game places a tree in a random design, and removes from the design any blocks already occupied. In the original proof of concept design I had, the saws came from two sides and the gaps were filled in with other blocks. Leaves still grew on the other side of the saws, back in the axles and gearboxes, even though completely covered by a wall.

Oh ho ho... do I have the design for you guys.

I'm at work at the moment, i JUST finished it before i left for work this morning (taken me days to get this thing working) but the features are:
- Uses Pine trees.
- Detects when tree has grown and collects ALL the wood.
- Replants after collection cycle.
- Approx 40% of saplings dropped by decaying leaves are collected and automatically fed back into Block Dispenser for replanting (no player interaction required to keep sapling supply up is the aim) through a rather ingenious (but not very reliable) method.
- Automatically cuts collected wood into Planks and once chest is full, all other wood produced is turned into Panels, Moulding, Corners and Gears (randomly).
- All output stored in chests.
- Thanks to turntable, continues to function after reload.

When i get home (and after I have put the kids in bed and had dinner) I will try to make a vid of this prototype setup and post it here.

Trust me... it is awesome. Not very efficient on space but then again, as far as redstone based designs go it's not THAT big.

Sounds amazing. Tearing out a cavern to build a copy of it now. =p

[finite8]

Sounds awesome, but I though pine trees were even slower growing/more restrictive than regular trees? Mine tree farm is currently too slow with 2 regular trees, so I usually bone meal it up when I need wood, kind defeats the automation really, I need to expand it, but lack space in it's current position.

Yeah, it is a bit slow but then again, trees don't grow that quick anyway. If you need a large supply of wood in the short term, the design is no good however... if you go off and build other things and come back you should find a nice plentiful supply of wood and other bits waiting for you.

Sounds amazing. Tearing out a cavern to build a copy of it now. =p

lol. If ye desire however, the things to note are:
- Needs a fair bit of space underneath the actual tree for the redstone mechanics.
- 2 BD's are used in the Planting process. One for the Dirt, and one for the Sapling.
- On tree detection, the two BD's consume the block in front of them. The bottom one picks up the dirt fine, but as long as the top one is FULL of saplings, it won't be able to pick up the trunk and thus... doesn't stuff up the replant process later on.
- Uses Pistons to push UP gravel along the tree line. As Pines only ever grow in a straight line, you know where all the wood is.
- Gravel is pushed up to the maximum height (12 blocks i think?) where there is a Sticky pistons that collects the top most block. As it is the max dist for a piston to push, the bottom piston won't push up any further. Gravel is effected by Gravity so the Gravel simply falls back down after being picked up by the Sticky Piston thus, you can filter out the Gravel used to push it all up from the actual tree trunks (as they DON'T fall back down).
- A piston is then used to push these tree trunks away to the actual mill.
- After a set amount of time, the cycle reverses and the gravel is all collected back at the base.
- Once the gravel is out of the way, the dirt block is replaced and another sapling is planted.

This is a bit hard to describe it... the video will show it more clearly. No promises but i should be able to record and upload it around maybe 8pm tonight (UTC +10 - Melbourne).

[Robilar]

I think I understand the concept. I'll stockpile a decent number of saplings, since it's a bit less the wood and more the fun of making the system I'm after (though it'll be nice to not have to go cleaving through a forest every once in awhile). Sounds like the room needs to be more tall than wide, so I'll take that into account while clearing. Sounds like it'll take less axles and gearboxes than my design as well.

Given I'm UTC -6 (Minnesota), I'll see your design in the morning, circumstances willing.

[Urian]

If my memory serves, pine and spruce won't grow at all if there are adjacent blocks. Someone said something about saws having some code so that they don't count as an obstructing block but that might or might not be true.

[Robilar]

I believe that to be correct, Urian. On the wiki it mentions that Pine and Birch both won't grow without a 5x5xtree height space. That's another reason I'm rather interested to see this design. Birch trees also have a faster growth time, though that's mostly ignored due to the extended period it takes to grow them in such cramped spaces as an auto-farm.

If saws didn't count as an obstructing block, you'd also have to account for the axles and gearboxes, since many of those would be in that space, assuming the wiki is correct.

Either way, I think I'll see when/if Finite8 posts a picture/video of the set-up. (I love comparing designs, it gives me insight into a way I hadn't considered before. Maybe I'll post some of my other basic contraptions or my redstone circuitry.)

[finite8]

And here it is:



Will annotate it all when i get the chance. Will put some in now though to explain briefly.

EDIT: Have annotated the Tree production process. The Milling part is on my to-do-list.

[gftweek]

Oh, according to youtube I may be the first to see it, my life is now complete, I've seen a video on youtube before anyone else. I think I have to yell something? Onest was it?

Anyway, unfortunately youtube videos are always darker than they appear when you are recording, so it is hard to make out the details in the last half of the video, and in the underground sections.

I still get the gist of it, it's a very cool idea, I can see why you only have the one tree though, it's quite a complicated machine! I like the cobblestone piston square timing/counting device.

I was looking forward to seeing the wood processing part too, but couldn't see much.

[finite8]

I was looking forward to seeing the wood processing part too, but couldn't see much.

Lol. Yeah, sorry about that. Only realised how bad it was when i was annotating. Will do a new version of the video one i have prettied up the whole Mill WITH lighting (It was a prototype design).

[Battosay]

And here it is:
-snip video-

Amazing ! I love overdesigned contraptions like that :)
Congrats !