Translocators

There are currently two devices for automating resource transfer between blocks, the controlled Item Translocator and the controlled Fluid Translocator. These devices work very similar:

On the machine there are two Block input ports that define the blocks (and their access sides) between which the resource transfer is performed. These could be connected to basically any two blocks in the world via the mod's Block Reference System. They could even change rapidly between different blocks as long as you take care of [signal timing](Signal Timing).

Then there is a signal input that controls the maximum amount of resource to transfer and a corresponding signal output that gives feedback about how much was actually transfered in the previous operation. Transfer works bidirectional so you can simply feed negative numbers into this amount limit input to make the resource transfer go in the opposite direction (feedback output will also be negative then).

Finally you need to feed a clock signal into the Clock IN port to tell the machine when to actually operate. The machine will perform exactly one transfer operation on every rising or falling edge of the clock signal (so basically whenever it changes). The machine requires a small amount of energy to operate so don't forget to connect the energy input, otherwise it won't work (unless you set energy consumption to 0 in config)!

Item Translocator

The controlled Item Translocator moves items between block inventories like chests furnaces etc..

In addition to the basic ports listed above it also takes slot select input signals for both source and destination Inventory. You set them to either -1 to interact with all available inventory slots or to a number greater or equal zero to only interact with a single slot. How the slot IDs correspond to the different inventory slots is unique to each block. Since mods rarely document their inventory slot ID mappings you have to find it out yourself by experimenting. If you have the mod Inductive Logistics installed, its Portable Inventory Remote Access will come in very handy for that. However, most machines will only provide a single slot per block side so it's just slot ID 0.

Item transfer is performed as follows:

• If both source and destination are set to a specific slot, it will try to extract as much of the source stack as possible and insert it into the destination slot. It can theoretically transfer more than a full stack size at once if the inventories allow that (like Inductive Logistics' Item Buffers do for example).
• If source slot is specific and destination slot is set to -1 any, it will try to insert the source stack into all destination slots, stacking with existing items first before filling new empty slots.
• If source slot is set to -1 any and destination slot is specific, it will go through all source slots and try to insert their stack into the destination slot.
• Having both set to -1 any is not supported so no items are transfered! Use a counter instead that sequentially counts through all source inventory slots and triggers an i to any transfer for each slot.

There is currently no direct way to filter items but you can indirectly filter by transferring items through an intermediate chest and making sure that your control circuitry will always keep one item of each type in the chest. If you have access to Item Buffers from Inductive Logistics, this sorting becomes much easier with their lock item types feature.

Energy consumption for this machine consists of a base energy that is always consumed on every operation (if amount limit =/= 0), even if no items could actually be moved, plus a dynamic consumption that scales linearly with the number of items that were moved. By default, the base consumption is equal to the dynamic consumption for 16 items. So transferring in larger bulks and only when there are actually items to transfer can reduce energy consumption significantly.

Fluid Translocator

The controlled Item Translocator moves fluids between block inventories like tanks but it can also drain or fill fluid blocks in the world. So this machine is not only useful for automated fluid transfer between machines and tanks in a factory but can also be connected to a quarry like 3D Block Selector setup to pump out lava lakes or create artificial fluid lakes in terrain.

When filling or draining in world fluid blocks the transfer amount must be large enough to move the full block at once (usually 1000 mB).

Like the Item Translocator, energy consumption consists of base and dynamic cost, with base cost being equal to 200 mB dynamic cost by default settings. But for placing or draining fluid blocks in the world, there is an additional energy cost equal to 1000 mB dynamic cost on top of that.