It's slower but! O.O

at least it turns on! and I could actually play for quite some time.  Not sure exactly how long the poor thing is going to last though but hopefully until I finish AS?  Though seeing as how slow I go the laptop's probably going to give out before I come even close to finishing. We can hope though.

And since the pc is working, however slow it may be, perhaps we can progress in AS as well, however slow I may be.  Picking up from where we last left off, the automation of our cobble generator, we are left with the old cobble generator and what to do with it.  Because the island is rather small and the old generator is rather bulky, the logical thing to do would be to dismantle the generator and free up the room.  But then again, when have I ever been logical? 

Nope, instead we just go and make the old cobble generator into our dedicated gravel maker.  Yes, you could go and make a pulverizer to make gravel, sand and/or dust as it takes no additional material other than RF/MJ or whatever source of energy it needs to run unlike the set-up I am currently using.  And yes, I did do this on the other island - even went on to make 3 pulverizers so I could do it all at once quickly.  However, I'm not in so much of a rush this time, and I'm ok with making more hammers for the machine to use - especially since I finally figured out how to pipe them into the machine from a chest now.

To automate the grave-making process without the use of a pulverizer, we make an Autonomous Activator, AA-kun for short.  This device will mimic the actions of a player's right or left click. It also does sneak shift but we're just mainly concerned about it's ability to click left or right.  The recipe as always is available from NEI, requiring mats like diamonds, emeralds, and invar - you did make the smeltery, right?  

Once made, we place AA-kun in his new home at the cobble generator.  He will be placed at the same level of the cobble being formed - in the spot you normally stand to grind on a cobble - the green spot in the picture. 

^ From the old island

The 'face' (the side with the moving mouth) should be facing the cobble and the other 'mouth' will be facing you when you stand in the back.  You can change the way the 'face' faces by clicking on it with a cresent hammer.  

old island raised generator with hopper & chest

Now, before you place him, you do need to put a hopper below the cobble so when the cobble, or gravel in this case, is mined it will drop in to the hopper and then flows into the attached chest below.  You did extend the island lower with the piston ladder way and make your second floor so you could place your hopper and access  your chest from there, right?  Because if you don't do this, you will be left to scratching your head as to where the cobble/gravel block is disappearing to and how you were suppose to get it in the first place.  The other alternative would have been to elevate the cobble generator, as we did on our first island map.

Having placed AA-kun, you now need to fill his inventory up with some hammers or attach an inventory to him via chest so he can get hammers to use to grind cobble into gravel.  Once he has the hammers, he will follow your instructions on whether to right click or left click via the mouse icon, in this case, left click to pound down the cobble.  Next, check to make sure he is pounding at eye-level (three options here of up arrow, line or down arrow) - the straight white line.  After that is done, all you need to do is let him at it!  Set the redstone signal to ignore and he'll keep on going until you stop him.  Which you can do by turning the redstone signal to high - if you don't attach any redstone devices like a lever or button to him.  

twin rear view

twin front view

Once this is done and your gravel production flows along almost as quickly as your cobble production,  you can make a few more of these quickly for some other menial tasks, like sifting blocks through sieves or helping with the smeltery.  The sieve twins here are especially useful as it can also double as a sand and dust grinder - one can place the block and the other can hammer it.  With a lever to stop them from behind, some item collectors above to suck up the drops and a chest attached to hold the drops you're set to go.  These twins really go a long way in alleviating the grindy part of gathering resources so I'd recommend getting a set or two just for these purposes.  And since some of the most grindy parts are being relieved from you, maybe now we can turn our short attention to the matters of a farm now? 

                                                                      生き返ってくれました！

多少、起動が遅いと言うか物凄く起動がヤバイ感じだとか、と言う事を除けばプレイできますので出来る内に出来ることを遣りましょうって感じです。ハイ。

と言う訳で、話進めます。何回か第二夫人に点いて触れているかと思いますがAAくんです。Autonomous Activator又の名はプレイヤー代理くんです。プレイヤーが右クリックか左クリックで行う作業を同じ様にしてくれて退屈の時間から開放してくれる良夫です。又の名は便利君でも良いかも。兎に角AAくんを何台か養えれば左団扇間違え無しです。 ナンカチガウ・・・・

ええ～っと、兎に角、今回は先ず初めに初代丸石製造機を片付けるのもめん・・惜しいので他に活用方法として砂利専門機にするのも良いかも的な考えから生まれたAAくん活用場です。前回でキッと地下二階とか工房とか造られたことは了承済みだと思います。此処で何故これ等が必要かと言うと謎が解けると思います。大した謎でもありません。自分の頭の中身の方が謎だらけです。ハイ。

先ず造る材料ですがNEIで調べた結果ダイヤとかエメラルドとかInvarとかが必要だったりしました。ダイヤやエメラルドはザルで得る事が出来ますがInvarは工房無くしては造れませんので工房横道でした。地下二階は丸石製造機持ち上げるのも面倒だな～と思ったので地下二階をつくったのです。地下二階を造る方が面倒だな～と思うかも知れませんが造る方が片付ける方より楽しかったりします。自分的に。ので、先日の横道小道です。地下二階はこの段階では未だ見え辛い理由ですね？もっと詳しくは以下に。

便利くんの造り方はNEIの通り材料が揃えば割りと簡単でした。後は設置ですがこれは上記の金箔製造機の緑地面の部分に置きます。すると、丸石と同じ目線に立っているAAくん。ハンマを持たせてプレイヤー同様左クリックする設定にして(これはマウスのアイコンを弄る事で設定できます)目の前にある丸石を叩くので目線を一直線（これは三点選べます。上、下、真っ直ぐ）にしてGOサインをレッドストーン無視Ignoreに設定すれば休み無しにハンマ壊れてもチェスト入らない状態に成っても左クリックし続けます。便利な奴です。こういうの何処かに転がって無いでしょうか？

Fishing for squids?

でもこれだけでは砂利は造れても砂利は拾ってわくれないので 丸石の下にHopperとチェストを置きます。で、ここで製造機の持ち上げ話になります。チェストとhopperを置くには地面を掘り下げて下に置くか製造機を持ち上げて丸石の下に滑る込ませるかしなければ成りません。 で、偶然にも地下段階が出来上がったいたので持ち上げず下を開けて置きました。計画なし行き当たりバッタリでも何とかなるさ～的な瞬間でした。だって、地下はイカ墨場として造ったんだもん。話、逸れますが実際に最下段階イカ釣り牧場になっていたり。結局、下迄ガラス張りにして一寸溜まる様に陸揚げで逝ける様にな感じで忘れた頃に下に下りてみると珠にイカ墨とかイカの身が泳いでいたりします。可愛いイカさんです。

Helping with Ingots and Blocks

 話し戻りますが、AAくん他にも色々と便利で有能です。ザルの前に双子宜しく設置すれば一人が砂利を置いてもう一人がザルに押し込んで鉱石発掘をしてくれたり。ハンマを持たせれば砂利を置いて砂に砕いたりとかしてくれます。設定しだいではとても便利です。要は目線とクリック設定弄りです。後、レバーを設置するかしないかの使い違い。

兎に角、AAくんの登場で色々と煩わしい事から開放される訳ですが。ソロソロ牧場畑作りにも移れるかな？

最後に可愛いので堕ちて逝くイカさん。

君の犠牲は忘れない。