Tips to help you start automating food!
There will be to main different ways of automation food.
Number 1 is ME controlled so requesting X amount of that food and Number 2 is constant automation for it (my personal favourite) for this method it would either go in a void drawer, infinite YABBA barrel or a Blackhole unit.
ME Food Automation Tips/Help
Due to ME systems such as AE2 and Refined storage having there own auto crafting we will not be needing any excess machines used for crafting unless the food requires liquids (I will go over this).
Starting from the beginning your going to need to automate all the base materials. For example, the Ham and Pineapple Pizza base materials are Milk, Salt, Pineapple, Cooked Pork/Tofacon, Tomatoes, and Wheat (Also the respective pots and stuff needed). These materials are all pretty easy to get and there are only a few of them. But some of the best Pams Foods are a real tree craft. You are going to want to automate each of these things. This will be a process for some foods but it’s worth it. I recommend running all these items into a drawer network (I recommend upgrading them to the max with void). Slap an external Storage or equivalent onto that thing. Now you will be able to access these ingredients in your ME. Heres the easy part but the most painful in my opinion. The patterns! Go through your whole tree of food recipes and set those patterns up. With foods needing liquid crafting my recommendation is a Sequential Fabricator from the mod Thermal Expansion, add the augment ‘Fluidic Fabrication’ then use JEI to add the recipe, then add an interface/crafter (depending on your type of ME) now the fluids. Most foods will need Water or Milk, for water place a sink (Cooking for Blockheads) or an Endervoir (EnderIO) and pipe it in. For milk it’s a bit more of a pain, You need an Animal Rancher (Industrial Forgoing), a cow and 3 fences. Image is shown below.
Pipe the milk into the sequential fabricator. Done! If you have set all the patterns in your ME correctly you should be able to order the Food (You may need to wait a bit for the Ingredients to bulk up in the drawers before ordering a lot) Sorta like being at a restaurant!
Constant Food Production
Follow the same steps as Number 1 up and till the external storage part. We are going to be using crafting blocks now to help us. I personally use sequential fabricators (you could use crafters but this guide is using sequential fabricators). For every craft in your food recipe, you are going to need one of this machine you are also going to need the Pattern validation Augment. Set all the recipes and pipe in the required materials from the drawer controller using item filters. If one or more recipes requires liquids read the above steps for that part. run all of these materials into the last Sequential Fabricator and set the recipe for the final product. Pipe it out into a storage or your ME. I personally recommend a Blackhole unit with an external storage on it connected to your ME. If you are playing a pack like E2:E Blackhole tanks are expensive so just use a drawer with maced storage capacity and void upgrade on it.
Thanks for reading my guide!
Having issues or want a question answered? post in the replies!
Jack.
