The Item Router
The Item Router is the centre of the system: it has a single buffer slot for items, nine module slots, and five 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.
To the left of 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 the greatest 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 on a multiplayer server. It certainly 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.
As of Modular Routers v1.2.0, item routers have the ability to manipulate the fluid and energy levels of containing items, e.g. batteries and tanks.
-
When an energy-containing item is in the router's buffer, energy cables from other mods will connect to the item router, and can supply energy to the item in the buffer. You can charge battery items in this way.
-
When a fluid-containing item is in the router's buffer, fluid cables from other mods will connect to the item router and can be used to insert or extract fluids for that item.
-
The Inspection Filter can filter energy and fluid-containing items by the level of energy/fluid they contain.
-
See also the Fluid Module and Fluid Transfer Upgrade.