Thermal Expansion Status

[SonOfABirch]

just for those who tell about plugging american devices in european power sockets. okay, firstly they are differently shaped

The UK and Ireland use 3 pin plugs (earth, live, neutral) and the rest of Europe use 2 pin (neutral, live)
American plugs fit into these 2 pin sockets, but as Europe uses a higher voltage, the American applience would blow up, killing anyone in a 300µm range.
Conversely, any European device put into an American socket would just run super slowly. A converter is necessary both ways.

 

[INCSlayer]

actually there are both grounded(earth) and ungrounded pins in the rest of europe:
grounded:

Not Grounded:

 

[ShneekeyTheLost]

nah nah nah... imagine if

wrote the music for minecraft.. that would be cool

I still want a mod that plays the Gerudo Valley song every time I mount a horse/donkey/mule.[DOUBLEPOST=1380834692][/DOUBLEPOST]

You cant realy own a unit of tesla... And if you own someone named Tesla id have to report you for slavery...

... or do you mean the electrical device?

I believe he means vehicles produced by Tesla Motors which are fully electric vehicles which easily out-perform most of the other vehicles in their bracket.

 

[Omicron]

Tesla Motors vehicles basically represent what's technologically possible right now in the electric vehicle department. As a result, of course, they are expensive luxury vehicles. Most other electric vehicles can't compete with Tesla's performance simply because they are targeted at lower price points, and at the current level of technology, going down in price on an electric design requires you to sacrifice a lot. As a result, all attempts at targeting the mass market have been sorely lacking... Tesla made the smart move and simply said "screw the mass market, we'll just go fulfill the needs of the enthusiast crowd that nobody else is catering to".

We'll see that technology filter down the price ladder slowly over the next few years. Tesla themselves have announced a vehicle less than half their current offering's cost that'll still get acceptable range (200 miles / 320 km)... to be produced within a few years.

 

[LordBlackHole]

Tesla Motors vehicles basically represent what's technologically possible right now in the electric vehicle department. As a result, of course, they are expensive luxury vehicles. Most other electric vehicles can't compete with Tesla's performance simply because they are targeted at lower price points, and at the current level of technology, going down in price on an electric design requires you to sacrifice a lot. As a result, all attempts at targeting the mass market have been sorely lacking... Tesla made the smart move and simply said "screw the mass market, we'll just go fulfill the needs of the enthusiast crowd that nobody else is catering to".

We'll see that technology filter down the price ladder slowly over the next few years. Tesla themselves have announced a vehicle less than half their current offering's cost that'll still get acceptable range (200 miles / 320 km)... to be produced within a few years.

Nearly all ordinary technologies started out so expensive only the very wealthy or governments could afford them, like cars and computers for example. The Tesla is what the giant building-sided computers of the 50's and 60's are to your tablets today. In a few more decades it will seem horribly inefficient and insanely expensive compared to whatever they have invented since then.

Although I really feel that this discussion is a little off topic.

 

[Fuzzlewhumper]

If we're talking about energy transfer ideas...

Anyone remember the old Transformers cartoons where megatron would find some source of power on earth and they would convert it into energon cubes?

Would be neat to have a cube form of power that could be generated and transferred as items and then when they got to a receiver they were drained back into power. Coal is similar but it's just for burning and not an actual solid form of energy.

Oh well, probably totally misunderstood all this talk of power .

 

[immibis]

Well they may not be for you, but for lazyasses like me and my friend it would be pure awesome. We wouldn't have to bother with the noise of multiple power systems. (well HE wouldn't have to, normally i mostly handle magic and he machine). But hey, if you don't want to, you don't want to, all i can do is type words here to convince you otherwise.

The problem with universal power is: which system do you want to become universal? MJ? EU? Blutricity?
Or do you make your own system like UE did?

 

[DaeDroug]

The problem with universal power is: which system do you want to become universal? MJ? EU? Blutricity?
Or do you make your own system like UE did?

It seems to me that UE is a complicated answer to a simple problem, the only thing you should need is a common unit and the methods to add and remove energy from a network. Let the mods decide how that energy is transferred, how it propagates, how it is stored, etc.

 

[SynfulChaot]

It seems to me that UE is a complicated answer to a simple problem, the only thing you should need is a common unit and the methods to add and remove energy from a network. Let the mods decide how that energy is transferred, how it propagates, how it is stored, etc.

Is the problem that there are too many different kinds of power networks or that there is too little ability for simple, if lossy, conversion?

 

[snooder]

The problem with universal power is: which system do you want to become universal? MJ? EU? Blutricity?
Or do you make your own system like UE did?

UE was a good idea with an absolutely terrible implementation. You don't really make a 'universal' power system by creating one with more complications and weirdness than the current standards. Nobody is going to bother with it. If anything, Power Converters came closest with its relatively simple and intuitive design.

 

[SynfulChaot]

UE was a good idea with an absolutely terrible implementation. You don't really make a 'universal' power system by creating one with more complications and weirdness than the current standards. Nobody is going to bother with it. If anything, Power Converters came closest with its relatively simple and intuitive design.

Power Converters, though, provided nearly completely lossless conversion that could be ... abused. That and it's aesthetics are lacking. It's aesthetics match it's own theme, but none of the components match the themes of the systems it's converting to and from.

 

[LordBlackHole]

Is the problem that there are too many different kinds of power networks or that there is too little ability for simple, if lossy, conversion?

Neither really. It's not the number of networks, but the fact that they all work so differently and that they're so mutually exclusive. It is possible to make say, machines that can accept different kinds of power, but you have to basically do them all individually. A few functions for EU a few for MJ a few for UE, while it's possible it's a lot of work, and the different systems don't work very well together. Doing much more than that, say, adding your own wires or batteries or other things are much more complex and require weird code to basically trick the system rather than working with it.

Thermal Expansion apparently (based on what King Lemming has written in this thread, and I could make mistakes) used to sort of trick Buildcraft into thinking that conduits were machines that could accept energy. He'd then put that power into one single system representing the whole conduit network and then output it at conduits that touched other outputs by telling them to act basically like engines outputting their power. In other words he had to hijack the whole MJ system rather than work with it. That's an over simplification at least.

 

[LordBlackHole]

Power Converters, though, provided nearly completely lossless conversion that could be ... abused. That and it's aesthetics are lacking. It's aesthetics match it's own theme, but none of the components match the themes of the systems it's converting to and from.

Didn't he offer fully configurable conversion rates? If it can be configured, you have no right to complain since you can make it lossy yourself.

Regardless, this thread it really making me consider making my own Power Converters type mod, only with an eye to well, keep with the styles of the mods it works will. Like, a single different block for each type to another, so maybe a bunch of different Engines that would look like Buildcraft engines, or generators that try to look like IC2 ones even if their "fuel" is MJ or whatever. And I'd let users configure the rates (which could default to some loss rate) and disable any block they don't like. Maybe. It's a neat idea.

What do you guys (and gals) think?

 

[SynfulChaot]

Didn't he offer fully configurable conversion rates? If it can be configured, you have no right to complain since you can make it lossy yourself.

Regardless, this thread it really making me consider making my own Power Converters type mod, only with an eye to well, keep with the styles of the mods it works will. Like, a single different block for each type to another, so maybe a bunch of different Engines that would look like Buildcraft engines, or generators that try to look like IC2 ones even if their "fuel" is MJ or whatever. And I'd let users configure the rates (which could default to some loss rate) and disable any block they don't like. Maybe. It's a neat idea.

What do you guys (and gals) think?

Heck yes. If you got the aesthetic feel right then it'd be great. And if you did it right then it really could become a mainstay in modpacks. I was ... halfway thinking of doing similar myself, but it's been years since I've really coded in Java.

 

[RavynousHunter]

Didn't he offer fully configurable conversion rates? If it can be configured, you have no right to complain since you can make it lossy yourself.

Regardless, this thread it really making me consider making my own Power Converters type mod, only with an eye to well, keep with the styles of the mods it works will. Like, a single different block for each type to another, so maybe a bunch of different Engines that would look like Buildcraft engines, or generators that try to look like IC2 ones even if their "fuel" is MJ or whatever. And I'd let users configure the rates (which could default to some loss rate) and disable any block they don't like. Maybe. It's a neat idea.

What do you guys (and gals) think?

Back in the olden days of 1.2.5, that's exactly what Power Converters did and looked like. You had electric engines for EU -> MJ and pneumatic generators for MJ -> EU. The main reason it changed, I believe, was to facilitate more energy types like UE power and Factorization charge in a way that was simpler and more modular. At least, if I'd made the decision, that's what my reasoning would've been.

 

[Zenthon_127]

For Power Converters (or a similar mod) to really work perfectly, you would have to have maybe 25% loss on all producers and have no steam converters. Also, having better names and models (actual BC engine pl0x) would be great.

 

[SynfulChaot]

For Power Converters (or a similar mod) to really work perfectly, you would have to have maybe 25% loss on all producers and have no steam converters. Also, having better names and models (actual BC engine pl0x) would be great.

25% loss is far too much. Very few conversion technologies have such a high loss. I can understand such a high loss on wireless power transmission such as is done by a tesseract, but the loss should not be that high simply for conversion. Maybe 5% as was previously done by TE conduit?

 

[Flipz]

I, personally, (not an official opinion!) would like to see a Forge power API like LordBlackHole is suggesting, with one exception:

The API includes a check to see if the energy sender and receiver are using compatible types of power. If the receiver is happy with the power type, great, everything goes as described; if not, no connection is made, and no energy calculations are made at all.

I like that there are different power systems in FTB, and that they do (mostly) different things; I also like the idea of converting power from one network into another, via a machine. I don't want an "all-in-one" setup, but I'd like an API that standardizes the code so that a.) it's easier for mod makers to switch power systems from one to another and/or support multiple power systems if they want to, b.) it's easier to track down and fix bugs, and c.) it makes power conversion more consistent by using a pre-set unit of power from within Vanilla as the standard for all power.

 

[Omicron]

While we're exchanging opinions here, I'll add mine - I don't think a unified power API is conducive to creativity and diversity. It's a bit of a catch-22... if you standardize a lot, then you're limiting the designs, but if you're trying to avoid limiting the designs then you can't standardize much at all and the exercise threatens to become pointless.

I also don't feel like I'm missing power conversion in my life. I haven't ever used Power Converters - personally I tend to call it "overPowered Converters" - and I haven't used any power bridging mod at all ever since the days of 1.2.5, a little over a year ago. I tend to be someone who builds small, efficient setups, just enough to do the job. To do the most I can with as little input as possible, that's my favorite design challenge. As such, I generally build a lot less infrastructure than some others. If I only had one power system to build, I would run out of things to design within a day or two! I rather have a mod environment where I need to build up something new a couple times in any given world in order to access all the features I want.

Example: I've been playing in a 1.6.2 world for the past 2-3 weeks, in order to try out IC2 experimental. It started out with only IC2, Buildcraft (item and fluid transport, quarry, oil), Railcraft (chunkloading, tanks, decorative blocks and other general convenience) and Forestry (multifarms, tree breeding). Over time I've added some supporting content mods like Nuclear Control and Iron Chests, but no other "big" mods with their own power systems.

Right now my base features a big and beefy nuclear reactor with MFSU and several transformers for the IC2 side, and for the Buildcraft side a multifarm supplying wood to a bank of 10 coke ovens which in turn drive a 12 LP solid boiler, an 8 LP liquid boiler and a 1 HP liquid boiler. I technically have a Buildcraft refinery and an ethanol production, but I don't currently use it (beyond 3 combustion engines on my quarry when I need it). And now that I've finished setting all of that up, I sorely wish I had Redpower or Thermal Expansion available to play with yet another power system. Conversely, if I could power every machine with one type of power, then I'd probably drive everything off of my nuke. The entire farm/coke oven/boiler chain wouldn't even exist, and I'd have been bored of that world over a week ago.

 

[PhilHibbs]

25% loss is far too much. Very few conversion technologies have such a high loss. I can understand such a high loss on wireless power transmission such as is done by a tesseract, but the loss should not be that high simply for conversion. Maybe 5% as was previously done by TE conduit?

For converting DC to AC or vice versa, yes, 25% is way too high. But for converting electrical energy to pneumatic pressure or to thermal energy, I'd say it is probably way too low.