Platline

The Platinum Processing Line (henceforth just Platline) is the series of interwoven machines that turn Platinum Metallic Powder Dust into the six Platinum-group metals which are critical to your progress from EV onwards. In this article, we aim to decompose the overwhelming entirety of the platline into a digestible form for the new player, as well as provide tips and recommendations for the experienced GTNH connoisseur.

Introduction
The platinum-group metals consist of these six elements:


 * 1) Platinum (Pt)
 * 2) Palladium (Pd)
 * 3) Rhodium (Rh)
 * 4) Ruthenium (Ru)
 * 5) Iridium (Ir)
 * 6) Osmium (Os)

In GTNH, these six elements are used in various crafting recipes.

Platinum is notably used extensively in circuit components, and late-game crafting will easily use it in the thousands. Palladium and Rhodium are used to make Rhodium-plated Palladium, the LuV-tier hull material. Ruthenium and Iridium are used together to make Ruridit, used extensively in LuV-tier machinery. Iridium is used on its own as the ZPM-tier hull material. Iridium and Osmium are used together to make Osmiridium, which finds niche uses in certain ZPM-tier applications. Osmium is used on its own as the UV-tier hull material.

All of these metals are used extensively, and thus the engineering of a dedicated processing line for the sole purpose of purifying these dusts non-stop is critical. Some players see a complete and functional platline as the turning point marking a player's ascension from EV-tier into IV-tier, partially due to the final step requiring overclocking from EV into IV to complete, and partially because of a shift in mentality from simple batch-crafting towards a continuous-process mindset.

Starting Out
We will assume the reader's familiarity with multiblock machines like the Large Chemical Reactor (LCR) and the Electric Blast Furnace (EBF), amongst others. These machines are used extensively throughout the platline.

Before any purification can begin, we first must acquire some starting material. At EV, before easy access to Platinum Ore, there are several ores that we can target.


 * 1) Nickel Ore. Once crushed, the crushed Nickel Ore can be washed with mercury in a Chemical Bath to yield 2 Platinum Metallic Powder Dust at a 70% chance.
 * 2) Chalcopyrite/Tetrahedrite/Pentlandite Ore. Once purified, their purified ores can be directly used as starting material in the platline. These will be referred to as platinum-bearing purified ores from now on.

The pre-processing of these 4 ores to yield usable purified ores or Platinum Metallic Powder Dust are not commonly thought of as part of the platline. There are also many chemicals that we will need for a seamless platline to function, listed in the table below. Chlorine and Water are not listed below, though they are also needed.

Basic Platinum Extraction
With our starting material acquired, we can begin the Main Cycle of platinum purification. These can be thought of as 4 discrete steps. The astute reader may note that several outputs are not cycled, and will enter the following processes. Again, the reader will note that Palladium-enriched Ammonia and Platinum Residue are not yet used. This is because Palladium-enriched Ammonia is the starting material for Palladium Extraction, and Platinum Residue must be further processed before it can be useful to us.

Palladium Extraction
Before we can start turning our Palladium-enriched Ammonia into pure Palladium Dust, we first do these steps. This is because we need Palladium Metallic Powder Dust for a subsequent step, but a starting platline engineer will not have Palladium Metallic Powder Dust available. Don't worry, the machines used in this initial phase are used in the subsequent palladium processes.

After running your palladium extraction for a while, you might notice that you end up being restricted by the amount of Palladium-enriched Ammonia produced, and not by the amount of Palladium Metallic Powder Dust available to you. This is where the following step will come into play. Now that we are aware of these two methods of cross-conversion between Palladium-enriched Ammonia and Palladium Metallic Powder Dust, we can look at the Palladium Extraction Processes.

Platinum Residue Processing
With palladium addressed, we now turn to the Platinum Residue gathered earlier. Processing of this valuable material in these 3 steps will yield the starting inputs to purifying the remaining 4 platinum-group elements.

Rhodium Extraction
Quite possibly the longest chain of processes in the entire platline, the Rhodium Extraction Processes consist of the following steps, using Rhodium Sulfate as the starting material.

Ruthenium Extraction
Less of a pain than Rhodium Extraction, the Ruthenium Extraction Processes make use of a more diverse set of multiblock machines than the other processes so far.

Iridium Extraction
We're almost at the end of the Platline, with just two more metals to tear out!

Osmium Extraction
Lastly, we arrive at the Osmium Extraction Processes, quite possibly the simplest part of the platline. Note that Osmium Extraction 1 requires use of IV-tier voltage, so the EV player who is making their first platline will either need to overclock theirs with 2 EV Energy Hatches, or use the Iridium so diligently extracted previously to make an IV Energy Hatch to power Step 1.

Tips and Recommendations
Chemicals which can be perfectly recycled, with some effort, are Aqua Regia and Potassium for Potassium Disulfate. All other chemicals used are not perfectly recycled and will require an external source of replenishment.

All sifting steps should be performed using the GT++ Large Sifter multiblock for maximum speed. Sifting is a known bottlenecking point for the various process sections.

For fluid extraction and fluid solidification, the GT++ Large Processing Factory is far too expensive to just dedicate for use in a platline (until ZPM+), so use of a Processing Array (PA) with at least 32 MV/HV-tier single-block machines inside will facilitate your platline smoothly chugging along.

If your budget allows for it, you can use the GT++ Industrial Mixing Machine for the mixing steps, though a HV-tier single-block mixer will suffice for a while.

While it may be tempting to use singleblocks or do multiple recipes in one multi to save on materials, the demands of the platline only grow as you progress. It is recommended to use individual multis for everything (with some exceptions, e.g. aqua regia mixer as noted above). Using primarily multiblocks allows for easy scaling by swapping out energy hatches as necessary.

For players with access to Platinum Ore & Sheldonite Ore (T3 Rocket or Far End Asteroids), processing of these ores to yield Platinum Metallic Powder Dust is the superior starting input for the platline, even over the purified platinum-bearing ores. Sheldonite obtained in this fashion can be processed in two ways: it can be centrifuged to yield both Platinum Metallic Powder Dust as well as Palladium Metallic Powder Dust, alongside nickel and sulfur, or it can be directly smelted for twice as much Platinum Metallic Powder Dust. The suggested way is smelting as the ratio between Sheldonite Dust and Platinum Metallic Powder Dust is 1:2, rather than the 1:1 offered by centrifuging it.

The platline is a perfect candidate for using a subnet for abstraction, simplification, and reducing the overall necessary size of your main AE network. A network with minimal storage that all platline related dusts are routed to by high-priority storage bus, and all platline outputs are routed away from back to the main network in the same way is common. Additionally, the various fluids can be easily handled with fluid p2p as it is many-to-many.

= Sample Platlines = Due to the complexity of the platline and the 3D nature of Minecraft, it is easy for different players to engineer different setups that all fulfil the function of being a "Platline". These designs below serve as samples for how you too can engineer your own platline. Use and/or abuse these to your heart's content.



Two-Chunk Platline 1
This design makes use extensively of wallsharing for both LCRs and EBFs to save on materials. Several LCRs also perform multitasking, exploiting several features of the platline. In this manner, the entirety of the Platline can be performed with in a total volume of 32x16x10 blocks (2 chunks surface area x 10 blocks vertical space).



Two-Chunk Platline 2
This successor design also makes extensive use of wallsharing, as well as Processing Arrays to perform parallelized single-block processes. With the advent of full-dust recipes, the use of packagers for platline designs are no longer necessary. Again, non-annotated steps are done by single-block machines buried in the basement.



Platline Tower
This abomination of a design has several measures taken in order to maximize throughput.

Firstly, each process has a dedicated multiblock machine in order to eliminate recipe shifting delays (5s between recipe shifts).

Secondly, all machines utilize fluid/item detectors and machine controller covers to intelligently throttle activity based on presence of outputs, to minimize voiding losses.

Thirdly, all machines have been optimized to utilize overclocking to the fullest, and some have achieved 1t/recipe, which is a fundamental limit on recipe speed.

Lastly, AE is used to intelligently deliver required inputs and manage outputs, including Fluid P2P for fluid logistics and GTEU P2P for energy delivery.

Due to the intensive material requirements for such a design, designs of this scope are recommended only for late-game players (ZPM+) who desperately need the throughput that this setup can provide.



Labeled Platline
This design sacrifices a majority of its in-world process grouping to allow the player to place machines largely where they see fit.

It relies on two things: a sufficiently large AE network or subnet to allow liberal use of P2P and other AE multiparts, and a combination of signs and an accompanying flowchart. The flowchart can be photo edited to add identifying codes which can then be put on signs attached to each machine. These codes allow the player to easily figure out what each machine does and where it's located on the flowchart.

The main draw of this type of design is twofold: modularity and documentation. In terms of modularity, the design allows the player to easily add, modify, or upgrade machines in any part of the process. Sections of connected machines can be segmented without losing information on what each machine does, since all of them have a label correlating to the flowchart. In terms of documentation, the design allows players unfamiliar with either your implementation of platline or platline as a whole to more easily understand where everything fits together so long as they have the corresponding edited flowchart, even if the machines themselves are all over the place.