Aye, I liked peat, peat was fun. Vanilla cobble factories are okay for vanilla, but...if I want something to build with cheaply, I'll just stick with a few igneous extruders. I never got into Thaumcraft because I never had the time nor patience to bother with the research mechanic, and...Steve's Carts does in-world crafting? What madness are you speaking?
Tech Mods: Missing the Point
- Thread starter mDiyo
- Start date
Celestialphoenix
Too Much Free Time
We should probably rephrase it as in-world manufacturing.
Igneous extruders are kinda the whole thing about tech mods 'missing the point' -basic cobble is fairly easy, obsidian requires a little more thought. In world manufacturing vs a magic block.
You know, I don't get that whole "missing the point" thing. What "point" is there to miss? I always thought the mods had a "point" all on their own, a purpose defined not by some external standard, but by a particular internal design paradigm. If they're fun, what does it matter? I also find the whole "magic block" argument to be as pointless as it is chock full of pedantry. You're telling me that, in a world with creatures that can teleport at a whim, a world full of suicide-bombing creatures that could never have possibly evolved because their only defensive mechanism removes them from the gene pool, a world that literally accepts the idea of magic in the form of enchanting and magic portals to other dimensions, that a block that does things internally is somehow a "magic block," a term which implies that such a thing is inconsistent within the constraints of the game to which it was added? How are, for example, crystal growth accelerators from AE2 any less "magical?" You don't literally see them adding in minerals that aid in crystal formation, or electrolyzing the water. You get a few fancy particle effects and the seeds "magically" grow faster. Hell, take that a little farther, and the computer you're using is a "magic block." You don't see the electrons whizzing about with your naked eyes, you can't see the hard drive spinning (though you may be able to hear it), or watch the data going thru the air between you and your wireless router. By the definition of "magic block," everything is magic. Just because you can't see the internal workings doesn't make a block magic.
Celestialphoenix
Too Much Free Time
While I agree with the sentiment, magic block doesn't mean its magical
- rather its slang for a 'one block fits all' system, such as the MFR farms, or the TE/IC2/Greg machines.
Basically Add input, provide power and get an output product. Its just a reskinned furnace when you think about it.
If the block implies something is being done, without it "really" being done, it's a magic block.
Of course, nothing is really being done in videogames- it is just very organized and well-done roleplaying and make-belief being powered by computer simulation. Everything in minecraft is a magic block to some degree.
The key is context- if what the magic block does improves the gameplay, than it's good, but if it does the gameplay for you, it's (usually) bad*(Sometimes doing some of the gameplay for you improves it, though). Since different mods have different gameplay design, it inevitably conflict to some degree.
Of course, nothing is really being done in videogames- it is just very organized and well-done roleplaying and make-belief being powered by computer simulation. Everything in minecraft is a magic block to some degree.
The key is context- if what the magic block does improves the gameplay, than it's good, but if it does the gameplay for you, it's (usually) bad*(Sometimes doing some of the gameplay for you improves it, though). Since different mods have different gameplay design, it inevitably conflict to some degree.
I don't really understand your argument or complaint here.
MFR is not a 'one block fits all' system. To set up an auto-farm, you require at least two blocks, a Harvester and a Planter. If you want to speed things up, you also need a Fertilizer. Each of which has inputs and outputs that need to be managed.
I also don't understand your complaint about being a reskinned furnace. Do you have a problem with how furnaces operate?
Precisely! I don't get why its considered a bad thing. I also really fail to see how rather strongly implying that something is being done constitutes a "magic block," but that's probably just me. The term "magic block" is bandied about like a dirty word, like it taints whatever it touches, when really its just a question of implying action versus showing it. Showing action is, computationally, more expensive than implying action, unless you're really shitty at implementation.
Besides, unless they use custom models, all blocks are a cubic meter in size. You can do a lot in a cubic meter. Go and build a rack of computers that fills up a cubic meter of space; even out of average components, you'd make something quite powerful.
Besides, unless they use custom models, all blocks are a cubic meter in size. You can do a lot in a cubic meter. Go and build a rack of computers that fills up a cubic meter of space; even out of average components, you'd make something quite powerful.
Worth noting is that strong tiering and enforced progression is stupidly difficult and often unpopular to maintain. To do so, it is absolutely essential that you maintain a total lock on what can and cannot produce your critical gating materials/power/et cetera, and on the recipes and/or other parameters of the mod.
The former is extremely difficult to pull off because it essentially means closing the mod inward; you cannot have tiering if you can go, for example, from endgame RailCraft straight to your mod, or if your tungsten ingots are ore-dictionary interchangeable with those which can simply be mined out of the ground from other mods. Even if you attempt to try this, like I do, it makes a lot of players unhappy or at least confused, and can easily be destroyed by unwanted interactions from other mods. For example, if magic bees gained the ability to produce jet fuel, or magic crops gained a bedrock dust crop, the entirety of RotaryCraft would become so horrifically unbalanced that I myself would refuse to use it on a server. You can of course always try to solve things diplomatically like I try to do, asking other developers to not interfere with your mod's progression, but that is no guarantee that they will do so; about half of the ones I talk to either simply do not care or feel it is the height of self-importance to ask for things like "no uncapped EU-RoC converters". And if another mod does crap all over your progression and the developer makes it clear that they will make no efforts to change, what can you do? As soon as you start interfering with other mods, even something as minor as removing a recipe (like, for example, 8 of these hypothetical bedrock essence to 1 bedrock dust), you will be vilified, and your mod's usage in packs will suffer severely. If their interference is less easily "broken", you are essentially SOL; all you can do is either discard all concern with what people think of you and reflect/ASM the hell out of someone else's mod or sit back and watch as you get branded as the most OP mod ever made. Either way is a losing game and will see your user base plummet as users flee and most packs pull your mod.
The latter...oh god, where do I start?
Locking down your recipes and other progression is a surefire way to make yourself one of the most divisive and polarizing developers in the entire community. Those well-acquainted with your mod will probably not mind, but pack makers and server owners will take it as a direct (and often personal) assault on their "domain of control", something they will make extremely (and often loudly) clear to you and likely everyone they think listens to them. Like above, you will rapidly gain a reputation as a developer who thinks they are above the rest of the community and who is so engrossed with their own self-interest that they are to be avoided at all costs, and that your mod forces everything else to be balanced around it. You will be flooded with indignant, often livid, server owners and pack developers, 95% of whom have never used your mod and are entirely unaware of the progression, demanding that you allow them to "replace bedrock with compressed cobble, 'cause bedrock's too easy" or "disable [crucial techtree] machine X, it's OP". If you refuse, they hate you. If you concede, they screw up their server's economy or pack's balance....and hate you.
On top of all that, a lot of other mod developers, only familiar with their own mod's traditional resource-gating systems, will also see your refusal to add configs to modify core behavior/disable items as a case study in what not to do, and many will make that abundantly clear to you.
Long story short, you can make a mod with a rigid progression system, and it can work out very well, but very few developers can or care to put up with the mountains of feces they will have slung at them, day in and day out, as a result.
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Celestialphoenix
Too Much Free Time
That says a lot about how little we've progressed as a 'community' since the whole technic/tekkit thing.
I agree completely with that entire post. Oh man some of that even reminded me of how I was when I first started modded MC.
And frankly, I fear there truly are no definite ways to fix the problem.
Only way I really see mitigating it in the least is allowing only respectable modpack makers like Jaded or Eyamaz to modify it but then... XD! That could end up in so many problems it's not even funny!
But yeah, disregard that last paragraph in the spoiler, it was just me thinking out loud and it would be a pipe dream for that to actually work out positively. Oh well, what can you do about the unwashed masses.
Code:
/excecute @e[type=modGenieReika] ~ ~ ~ totalRespect 100% "cheese"
Can't we just minetweak the community to bypass the progression tree?
*shakes head* This reminds me of one job where we got so many emails like that, that we modified the website's workflow to force users to search the FAQ before they could email us. ...didn't help much...
Can't we just minetweak the community to bypass the progression tree?
*shakes head* This reminds me of one job where we got so many emails like that, that we modified the website's workflow to force users to search the FAQ before they could email us. ...didn't help much...
Your entire comment consists of so much win!!!
The amount of fail that person represented cannot be adequately displayed without using scientific notation. I'm honestly unsure if he was trolling, or just that plain stupid. Then again, given the maxim 'never attribute to malice that which may adequately be explained by incompetence', I suppose I shall have to attribute to stupidity given a lack of direct evidence of trolling.
After reading the title of the thread I am struggling to see who is missing the point the "Tech mods" or Mdyio.