Laser tree farm

Introduction

A laser tree farm is your all around automatic farm for planting and harvesting your farm. It supports trees, crops and even rubber wet spots.

General principle

While developing the next mining laser, one of our interns mistype the target coordinates and started 'mining' our own space station biodome instead of the expected test asteroid. Condemned to food rations, the engineering team quickly converted the existing rubber collection laser prototype into a full features farming tool for the crew.

The laser itself is produced by a Laser medium attached to the farming block. The latest scan the area right above it periodically, looking for crops and logs to harvest from there. As usual, any EU or RF energy source can be used for charging your Laser medium.

To activate the laser you will need to attach a ComputerCraft or OpenComputers router and wire it to a computer. When no computer is available, farming laser will automatically operate.

A Laser tree farm is packed with optical systems and computing power, so you'll need to use an external container to hold your harvest. Any chest or assimilated container placed next to it can be used. As part of the "Galactical energy conservation act", farming operation will automatically stop when no more storage is available. However, the overflowing items will be dropped on the ground, so ones will have to cleanup the mess before nature does its work.

Building

1- Laser tree farm

Place your Laser tree farm block at ground level, same as your soil.

2- Laser medium

Laser beam energy is built through a laser medium. You need at least one to output a beam. Place a Laser medium on any horizontal side, or below the Laser tree farm.

Each laser medium contains a gaz that'll be ionized with an equivalent of up to 100kEU. You'll to recharge the medium periodically to sustain continuous harvest.

4- Power connection

Each Laser Medium needs a power connection. Both RF and EU are supported. The Laser tree farm itself doesn't require power connection, it draws energy from the Laser Medium.

5- Storage Container

Harvested items are stored in the first Storage container found next to the Laser tree farm. The simplest of those container is a vanilla chest. Place a Chest (or equivalent) on any horizontal side, or below the Laser tree farm. The same chest is used to provide saplings and seeds to be planted.

6- Computer

To control the harvesting, we'll need a connection with computer. Place your Computer right next to the Laser tree farm, horizontally or below it.

Right click the computer to open it's console.

Usage with ComputerCraft

To check the preloaded scripts type the following command:

ls

If you see only "rom", your computer couldn't see the Laser tree farm: check that it's actually right next to the Laser tree farm.

To start farming, type farm in the console. For help, type the following command:

farm help

Farming will continue on its own, the script only shows the current state.

To stop farming, reset the computer by holding Ctrl-R for a few seconds, then type the following command:

stop

Usage with OpenComputers

To check your connection and the Laser tree farm mount name, type the following command to see a list of connected devices:

df

You should see a line starting with warpdriveLaserTreefarm. At the end of this line, there's the mount name "/mnt/xxx" where xxx is a set of hexadecimal digits. Change to that mount by typing the following:

cd /mnt/xxx

If you can't find a line starting with warpdriveLaserTreefarm, your computer couldn't see the Laser tree farm: check that it's actually right next to the Laser tree farm.

To start farming, type farm in the console. For help, type the following command:

farm help

Farming will continue on its own, the script only shows the current state.

To stop farming, reset the computer by holding Ctrl-R for a few seconds, then type the following command:

stop

Scaling up

For more advanced setup, multiple Farming setup can be connected to a single Computer using Networking cables and Wired mode (for ComputerCraft), or Cables (for OpenComputers). The preloaded script will automatically detect all connected Laser tree farms and control them.