Quarry

Quarry
Name	Quarry
Physics	No
Transparency	No
Luminance	No
Tool
Stackable	Yes (64)
Data Value	516
Source Mod	Buildcraft 3

The Quarry is a Buildcraft 3 machine that is used to automatically mine out large areas. By default, it will mine out a 9 x 9 chunk of land down to bedrock, given enough time and MJ power. The default area to be mined can be altered with Land Marks. When placed without Land Marks, black and yellow guidelines appear behind the Quarry showing the area it will be working on. When first powered, the quarry will spawn a floating robot that destroys any blocks above the area outlined by the landmarks or within the yellow and black guidelines. It then forms a structure of Frames five blocks high that outline the area to be mined, and the drill appears. The quarry keeps the chunks that it is mining on loaded in memory even if unpowered, thus it can serve as an alternative to the Chunk Loader.

The quarry's maximum energy comsumption and digging speed varies depending on your mod pack:

• Tekkit: 100 MJ/tick
• GregTech: 100 MJ/tick, digs faster than the player can walk
• DireWolf: 50 MJ/tick

An unpowered Quarry.

Recipe

Buildcraft 3

GregTech

Changing the Default Area

Land Marks can be used to define an operating area for the quarry. The area mined can be expanded to a maximum of 64 x 64 blocks or shrunk to a minimum of 3 x 3. Place a land mark on three of the four corners of the area to be mined and then right click a land mark to activate them. Land marks must be on a level plane and align with each other into a square or rectangle in order to connect. A solid red laser line should appear connecting the land marks when they are correctly oriented and activated. A quarry can then be placed outside the area, adjacent to any of the landmarks. (i.e any of the wooden blocks in the photo below is a legal placement.)

Place a quarry only outside the defined area, on one of the wooden blocks

If the quarry is placed incorrectly (on the red beam) then as soon as the quarry is powered and begins to clear the area (prior to building the frame) it will delete itself and be lost.

Powering

A quarry can be powered in a number of ways. The easiest way is 2 Stirling Engines placed right next to the quarry. The quarry's speed varies by how much power (MJ/t) is available to it. It can consume up to 47.6 MJ/t, though efficiency decreases with energy consumption. One of the most popular ways of powering a quarry is by using an Electrical Engine connected to your base's EU power grid or connected to Advanced Solar Panels. This is particularly effective in conjunction with (careful!) use of a Soldering Iron.

A Blutricity solar array.

A large number of Blutricity's Solar Panels in conjunction with multiple Blulectric Engines can completely power a Quarry, using Redstone Energy Conduits to carry the power to a Redstone Energy Cell. Space wise this is much more inefficient than Advanced Solar Panels, but the material cost for Blutricity's panels are extremely low. The primary ingredients are Nikolite and Silver, and both have few uses in an IndustrialCraft based setup.

Redstone Energy Conduits also have an advantage in that their power loss is not determined by distance, but number of devices connected to the conduit. Thus, a "power island" can be easily set up in the middle of the ocean or another remote location, and conduits used to pipe power out to the Quarry.

Operation

The quarry will dig through water but is stopped by Lava; the best way to combat this is when the Quarry has dug its first few layers, place one or more water source blocks in the corners of the quarry pit. This will turn all lava into Obsidian, allowing the quarry to continue mining. Alternately, mining out the Ocean has the twin advantages of fewer soil levels to clear and existing water blocks.

Diamond Transport Pipe sorting a quarry's output.

A Quarry will break almost any type of block in its way, including chests, spawners, Beehives and ores. It will pick up loose items that the drill passes over, similar to an Obsidian Transport Pipe. The main disadvantage of a Quarry is that it cannot carry enchantments such as Fortune or Silk Touch. Blocks or items mined are expelled from the Quarry block as soon as they are harvested unless it is attached to Pipes or is adjacent to an inventory, like a Chest. In this case the Quarry will place the items into the pipe or chest instead. A combination of a Diamond Transport Pipe for sorting, Void Pipe for deleting unwanted blocks, and an Ender Chest is commonly used to carry the output of a Quarry back to the player's base. A system that automatically empties the Ender Chest is necessary to keep it from quickly overflowing with the Quarry's output.

The quarry output can be sent to an Ore Processor which will automate the process of turning ore into ingots. This video is a step-by-step guide on how to build an ore processor using BuildCraft and IC2.

Bedrock Glitch

In older versions there is a bug (fixed in BC 3.4.2) where it is possible for quarries to delete bedrock. This happens when bedrock is in the operating area during the building stage. This glitch can be used to get into the Nether's upper void, where blocks can be placed, the area is perfectly flat and, due to bedrock's transparency, is also mob free. It is also possible to get into either world's lower void as well. However, this requires you to find a natural hole through bedrock, which is an extremely rare occurrence.