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Welcome to Modular Routers! This is a low-tech, but (hopefully) situationally very useful mod for moving items around in various ways. With a single block - the Item Router - and one or more plug-in modules, you can pull items from an inventory (including modded inventories like Storage Drawers), send them to other inventories near & far, place items as blocks, break blocks, drop items into the world, and more. Think of the Item Router like a super-configurable Hopper on steroids...
This mod is for Minecraft 1.10.2 only. It might work on 1.9.4 but no support will be given here. It will not work (and will not be ported to) any earlier Minecraft version.
The Item Router is the centre of the system: it has a single buffer slot for items, nine module slots, and four upgrade slots. You can right-click an Item Router to open its GUI.
The Item Router has a single-slot buffer for items. Why only a single slot? The router is intended to move items around, not store them. However, if you want to use it as a 1-slot chest, you can; its inventory is fully accessible by vanilla hoppers and any other mods piping systems.
But to properly use a router, you need Modules.
The button in the top right of the GUI allows redstone behaviour to be configured, and has a tooltip indicating the mode:
- Always (default) - router will run regardless of whether or not it has a redstone signal
- High - router will only run if it has a redstone signal (any strength > 0)
- Low - router will only run if it has no redstone signal
- Never - router will not run at all
- Pulsed - router will run once on a rising redstone edge (i.e. whenever the signal strength increases). This mode could be used to synchronise the router to a timer, for example. Note: the router will still not be allowed to run any faster than usual - once per second without Speed Upgrades.
Click the button to cycle to the next mode, or shift-click to cycle to the previous mode.
A comparator placed against a router will measure the number of items in the buffer as a proportion of the maximum stack size, following usual vanilla comparator rules.
Next to the redstone mode button is a button with a little green leaf icon, crossed out by default. This button lets you put the router into Eco Mode. This is a CPU-saving mechanism, whereby a router in Eco Mode will slow itself down if it hasn't processed an item in a certain length of time - by default 15 seconds, but you can change that in the mod config. Instead of running every second (or faster with Speed Upgrades), a slowed-down router will only run every 5 seconds (by default - again, configurable). Once an item gets processed, the router will return to running at full speed.
When should you use Eco Mode? You will see benefits when:
- The router processes items infrequently.
- The router has modules which need to do a lot of work (in particular scanning large inventories). Good examples here are a Puller Module pulling from a big chest like an Actually Additions crate, or a Sorter Module sorting into a big inventory.
- You don't need super-fast response times. E.g. a Player Module extracting ores from a player's inventory is probably fine if it only checks every 5 seconds instead of every second.
- You're playing multiplayer. It doesn't hurt to use Eco Mode in singleplayer, but it's less important.
You don't need to use Eco Mode at all, but applied judiciously, it can help reduce CPU load on busy servers, making for a better experience for everyone.
While modules define what a router does, upgrades affect how the router does it. There are four different upgrade types:
This upgrade allows you to disguise the router as another block. Sneak+Right-click the router against a block to record that block on the camouflage upgrade. When inserted into a router, that router will take on the appearance of the recorded block.
- Not all blocks can be used. In general, any block with a simple model (doesn't have to be a full cube) will work, but some more complex block models will either refuse to copy or render as a empty cube.
This upgrade only affects the following modules:
- Extruder Module
- Sender Module Mk1
- Sender Module Mk2
- Vacuum Module
Each installed Range Upgrade increases the range of those modules by 1 block up to a module-specific hard maximum; see individual module documentation for more details.
By default, a router operates on a single item at a time, even if there is more than one item in the buffer. For example, a Puller module will pull one item from an adjacent inventory, even if there's a whole stack available in that inventory.
By adding Stack Upgrades to a router, this can be increased. Each Stack Upgrade doubles the number of items that can be processed, up to a maximum of 64, or the item's native stack size (e.g. 16 for Ender Pearls). It therefore follows that 6 is the maximum number of useful Stack Upgrades which can be installed in one router.
By default, a router ticks every 20 server ticks, or once per second. On each tick, every installed module is executed in order, left to right.
If you need a router to operate faster than this, you can add Speed Upgrades; each Speed Upgrade reduces the tick interval by 2 server ticks, down to a minimum of every 2 server ticks (or 10 times per second). The base tick rate, tick increase per upgrade, and hard minimum tick rate are all configurable in the module's config.
Note that for performance reasons, Stack Upgrades should always be preferred over Speed Upgrades where possible; use Speed Upgrades judiciously and only where absolutely required for maximum item transfer rate. Be Kind To Your Server (tm).
This module, when inserted, will restrict the players who can open the router's GUI. By default, it only permits the player who crafted the upgrade.
- You can add extra players to a Security Upgrade by right-clicking the player with the upgrade in your main hand.
- You can remove players from a Security Upgrade by shift-right-clicking the player.
- There is a maximum of 6 additional players per Security Upgrade (so 7 in total, including the creator), but you can install more than one Security Upgrade in a router if necessary.
- The Security Upgrade does not prevent a router being broken by a player; but since upgrades and modules remain in a broken router, players can't break a router to steal modules/upgrades or reconfigure the router (when the router is placed back down, the Security Upgrade remains installed). If you want to prevent a router being broken, you may wish to explore other mods' block protection capabilities.
- There is a non-craftable item called the Security Override Card - this can be obtained in creative mode or cheating the item in via JEI etc. A player who holds one of these in either hand is not affected by any Security Upgrade, and can access any router.