Circuit Assembly Line
The Circuit Assembly Line (CAL) is an LuV tier multiblock specialized in crafting circuits. It is very similar to the regular Assembly Line in that ingredients need to be inserted in the order which they appear in NEI and the multiblock itself consists of a series of slices. The major difference, however, is that CAL must be imprinted with a specific circuit type to begin crafting which means there is no universal setup and no datasticks or optical hatches. The reason for using CAL over normal circuit assemblers is that the recipe costs for crystal, wetware, bioware, and optical circuits are 6x more expensive otherwise.
The CAL also has an alternate circuit assembler mode which allows it to craft normal circuit assembler recipes without splitting ingredients up across the different slices. This mode is also compatible with the crafting input buffer/bus and allows bus separation. Change mode in the controller's GUI or by right-clicking the controller with a screwdriver.
Construction
The Circuit Assembly Line can be built left-to-right or right-to-left. Both are valid, but which one is used will affect the ordering of the input ingredients. The slice with the controller is always the front and therefore the location of the first input ingredient. Using a Multiblock Structure Hologram Projector will show the player the minimum length CAL, but holding multiple in a single stack can show/build different lengths up to the maximum of seven.
Requires:
- 1 Circuit Assembly Line (Controller) (front of the first slice on layer 3)
- 2-7 Assembling Line Casing
- 4-19 Grate Machine Casing
- 1-11 Solid Steel Machine Casing
- 4-14 Reinforced Glass or Borosilicate Glass (any)
- 1 Energy Hatch (any grate machine casing on layer 3)
- 1 Maintenance Hatch (any solid steel machine casing on layer 1)
- 2-7 Input Bus (bottom center of each slice)
- 1 Input Hatch (any solid steel machine casing on layer 1)
- 1 Output Bus (bottom center of last slice)
Wallsharing
The CAL only accepts ONE energy hatch and is incapable of tier skipping. However, all but one recipe takes just 0.5A of power which means that one energy hatch can be shared with up to four CAL at once. The only exception to this is the living bio chip recipe for ZPM Bioprocessors. The input hatch and the output bus can also be wallshared between multiple CAL.
Slices
When building the Circuit Assembly Line, think of the multiblock as a series of slices. At the bottom center of each slice is an input bus for a single ingredient in the recipe. The number of slices required depends on the amount of ingredients in the recipe. For example, IV crystalprocessors have six input ingredients and therefore need seven slices to craft (the last is for the output bus). The order in which the ingredients are inserted is the same order in which they appear in the NEI recipe.
Slice Construction, from Top-to-Bottom:
Front view (left) and side view (right) |
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Buses and Hatches
The Circuit Assembly Line does NOT accept TecTech Multi-Amp Energy Hatches or Laser Target Hatches. Only ONE energy hatch is accepted per CAL and it cannot tier skip. However, the CAL at least offers perfect overclocks for energy hatches that are higher tier than the recipe.
The input buses can be any tier, but typically stocking input buses are used with automation because dedicated setups simply require filtering each slice with the necessary item. Unlike the regular Assembly Line, the output bus must be on the bottom center of the last slice.
Only one input hatch is required because no CAL recipe uses more than one fluid. This can also be any tier, but typically a stocking input hatch is used with automation for the same reason as above. A regular input hatch also works just fine prior to UV.
Imprints
For Circuit Assembly Line recipes, a circuit imprint must be placed in the controller block to specify the specific circuit to be crafted in that machine. This is a one-time cost and permanently sets the controller block to that circuit type. Note that different variations of the same circuit tier also require different imprints (ie. crystal LuV circuits and wetware LuV circuits cannot be run in the same CAL). Gathering circuit imprints requires a few rare materials that the player is likely unfamiliar with:
1) Prasiolite is most commonly obtained through meteors or blast furnacing quartzite and amethyst dust together to make flawed prasiolite. Both the dust and exquisite versions are needed so do not up the quality of everything right away. A stop on Venus may be necessary to acquire enough amethyst dust. Once the player has a T5 rocket, prasiolite ore can be mined directly on Ross 128ba.
2) Cubic Zirconia is obtained through blast furnacing zirconium dust to make flawed cubic zirconia. The zirconium dust can be farmed from Red Zircon Ore on Ross 128b, sifting cassiterite/tin/ilmenite ore, or chemical bathing tin/rutile ore. The blast furnace recipe also requires a single yttrium oxide or yttria dust which is easily acquired through rare earth (I) or rare earth (II).
3) Tellurium is most commonly obtained through blast furnacing crushed lead ore. It can also be electrolyzed out of alburnite dust or picked up by a void miner in the overworld.
Automation
Since every CAL is dedicated to a specific circuit type, automating them is not nearly as difficult as a regular Assembly Line. The only prerequisite is a stocking input hatch for the AE2 method, but early on that can be easily substituted with a regular input hatch and a fluid storage bus.
Method 1: GregTech
The benefits of this approach is that it does not use very many AE2 components so idle power consumption is low and it is quite simple/cheap to setup for your first few CAL. This approach will not scale to the higher voltage tiers when hundreds of CAL are needed.
| STEP 1
Place an input bus (HV+) on the bottom center of each slice and an ME output bus on the bottom center of the last slice Place an input hatch adjacent to the ME output bus on the last slice |
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| STEP 2
Place an item filter block with DEFAULT SETTINGS underneath each input bus and facing into it Place a full-block ME Dual Interface with DEFAULT SETTINGS underneath the input hatch Set the filters to the required items and in the proper order Place a dummy item (cobblestone) in the input hatch to prevent any items from incorrectly being placed in there |
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| STEP 3
Connect a high throughput item pipe (ie. Quantium) to all the item filter blocks and the ME Dual Interface Connect the ME Dual Interface and ME output bus to the main AE2 network (red) |
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Method 2: Applied Energistics
The benefits of this approach is that space and throughput are not limited by input buses or item pipes. This approach is also highly parallelizable and quick to setup with the Ring of Loki + datastick for copying/pasting stocking input bus settings.
First and foremost, every circuit type should have its own AE2 subnetwork. This helps with TPS and saves on a significant number of channels on the main network. Expect to use a single ME controller for each circuit type at first, but that will quickly escalate to needing a large 7x7x7 ME controller for some of the higher tier circuits.
| STEP 1
Place a ME stocking input bus on the bottom center of each slice and an ME output bus on the bottom center of the last slice Place a ME stocking input hatch adjacent to the ME output bus on the last slice A regular input hatch and fluid storage bus can substitute the ME stocking input hatch |
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| STEP 2
Set the filter on the stocking input buses to the required items and in the proper order Right-click all of the buses and hatches with a wire cutter to let ME channels connect to any side Connect an ME Controller and an ME Drive containing both a solid and fluid storage cell Power the CAL subnetwork (green) with a quartz fiber cable from the main network (red) or a neutronium energy cell |
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| STEP 3
For the INPUTS place an ME Dual Interface on the main network facing directly into another ME Dual Interface on the CAL subnetwork (top set) For the OUTPUTS place a storage bus set to INSERT ONLY on the CAL subnetwork facing directly into an ME Dual Interface on the main network (bottom set) Filter the storage bus to the correct circuit and set the priority to anything above zero to avoid it being stored in the CAL subnetwork Parallelizing this approach is as easy as connecting more CAL to the same subnetwork |
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