Excavator (Immersive Engineering)

The Excavator is a 8x3x7 multi-block added by Immersive Engineering. It is used for extracting Mineral Deposits from chunks, although it is very complex.

"Better than Dwarves"

- The Engineer's Manual

Construction
The Excavator is complicated to make. It uses 26 Steel Scaffoldings, 15 Steel Sheetmetal, 9 Blocks of Steel, 9 Light Engineering Blocks, 5 Heavy Engineering Blocks, 3 Radiator Blocks and 1 Redstone Engineering Block. It requires a minimum of 179 Steel Ingots, making this a late-game machine.



* According to the Engineer's Manual (in-game manual) the above image is mirrored. everything on either side of the wheel must be swapped.

The Excavator is actually made of two parts. The "Wheel" is the center part, and is formed by right-clicking with an Engineer's Hammer on the the hidden Block of Steel. The "Engine" is the other part, and is formed by right-clicking the Engineer's Hammer on the center block of the back side (which should be a Heavy Engineering Block).

Before 0.8
The Excavator is very complicated to make. It uses 21 Blocks of Steel, 9 Light Engineering Blocks, 13 Heavy Engineering Blocks and 23 Steel Scaffoldings.



The Excavator is actually made of two parts. The "Wheel" is the center part, and is formed by right-clicking with an Engineer's Hammer on the the block behind the plus made by Light Engineering Blocks. The "Engine" is the other part, and is formed by right-clicking the Engineer's Hammer on the center block of the right-side (which should be a Heavy Engineering Block).



Usage
The Excavator does not have a GUI, and it requires 4,096 Redstone Flux per tick (RF/t) to operate. In Immersive Engineering, the only way to generate this much RF is through a Diesel Generator. Energy should be entered through one (or more) of the three black power-plugs on the backside of the Excavator. Once it receives the needed energy, the machine will start spinning it's wheel clockwise and mining.

The multi-block's processes can be halted via Redstone through the "control panel", the block on the left-middle spot of the right side. Mined items will fall out the center spot of the right side.

The Excavator may break a few block under it when it starts up, but it once it has some space it will not break anything else. Any broken blocks are broken with Silk Touch; that is, it will drop the block itself instead of the usual item/items.

A fully powered Excavator can spew up to one Ore per every 3 seconds. If you are sending ores directly into a Crusher, it may be necessary to build two Crushers, as only one will not keep up with the full speed of an Excavator. Over time this yield rate will lower, but the full extraction process can last for 144 (Minecraft) days. This equals 5,760 ore blocks per deposit.

Trivia

 * Because Mineral Deposits can be in all chunks, the Excavator will function in void worlds, even though this is quite unrealistic.