https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PLqDcvVfNOtHr5YdnWn5m-zQaNXjVHjXdi&v=44IvlKeSN_E
Looks pretty automateble to me.
Public Service Message: Big Reactors mod is out for 1.10 with a name change
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Looks pretty automateble to me.
There is a function in Botania to turn those flowers into displays if you want an aestheticly pleasing flower that doesn't decay.
I didn't mind the ingnoble princess thing to much. They still worked for breeding purposes and I just made sure I used pristine for production. The only times I lost an ignoble was when I left them automated to build a stack of drones. Since I had the excess drones it really didn't matter that I lost them.
Now Binnie's genetic machines took a serious hit in my opinion. I never minded the process using just the DNA & honey and I always thought Gendustry was too simplified. But, then it all changed and such a level of tedium that I won't be using Binnie's genetic machines any more. After using it once to explore the mod changes, I will probably never use it again.
The gendustry mechanic is too simplified - once you have isolated the DNA for a trait there is a 100% success rate at applying it as many times as you want.
If I was to propose 1 change for base forestry it would be to change the role of the drones - and to change the role of "death". In RL princesses go for a mating flight, mate with a vast number of drones (not just one) and then return to the hive to push out eggs that have a wide variety of paternal DNA. This is tricky to do so I would:
Make drones unstackable. Like princesses. This would make pure breeds far less important, which would be a good thing - the "perfect matching" DNA we always end up producing in Forestry never happens in nature.
There should probably be serveral slots for "drones", but we will call them "workers" now - the workers do the work, have very short lives, and the bees in these slots continually replaced with new offspring from the queen. If an unmated princess is placed in the hive, she gets a copy of the DNA of ALL the worker (they are treated like drones) so a mated queen is always her own DNA, plus several contributor DNAs, and when the Queen naturally dies, one of the workers is randomly promoted to a princess.
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I'm just curious, have you actually tried using the ignobles for breeding?
They tend to last, I dunno, 150 generations or something for me. I do use them for breeding occassionally (my earlier point notwithstanding). So long as you're in the habit of producing plenty of drones to replace lost ignoble princesses, they're perfectly workable for breeding.
OK but why are these people grind-obsessed?
If you simply take away all that grind, you know what you get? A bunch of hardcore players complaining about my-little-pony-obsessed minecraft.
Somebody has to lose here. There's no "right" way. I'm not saying these mods should be more or less difficult, I'm saying people need to quit complaining that one direction or the other is fundamentally "better". Its simply a matter of whether or not you happen to be the target audience for that particular mod.
Perhaps it is my general approach to breeding, but each new species queen I bank, and never change her again. So I always need a fresh (rocky usually) princess to first cross breed with the excess drones, then mutate, and then produce a few drones of her own.
I don't keep excess drones - I keep the a single pure bred princesses of each species as my gene stock - so it would be very annoying if, at any point, I lost one, as I'd have to re-mutate it. My production princesses are produced when I need them, and changed from min lifespan, max fertility, to max lifespan, minimum fertility that I've managed to capture (its very difficult to isolate Fertility 1
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Makes sense, thanks for clarifying.Perhaps it is my general approach to breeding, but each new species queen I bank, and never change her again. So I always need a fresh (rocky usually) princess to first cross breed with the excess drones, then mutate, and then produce a few drones of her own.
I don't keep excess drones - I keep the a single pure bred princesses of each species as my gene stock - so it would be very annoying if, at any point, I lost one, as I'd have to re-mutate it. My production princesses are produced when I need them, and changed from min lifespan, max fertility, to max lifespan, minimum fertility that I've managed to capture (its very difficult to isolate Fertility 1
I personally can't be bothered to keep a bunch of "useless" queens, e.g. queens that produce nothing I want, I just keep the drones. If I ever need one, I can just spin up a queen using the drones.
Wow, gotta love that backhanded insult there by implying that anyone who doesn't agree with you lack background and/or education. Yep, no personal attacks there.
You are vaguely alluding to Skinner Box in your first statement. The second is blatantly incorrect. May I refer you to a video from someone who actually makes money designing games:
He also had a great video on Skinner Boxes and how they are harmful to games, AND another on how to avoid that trap, but I'll limit the amount of linkage here. Go check out that channel if you are serious about being a professional game designer.
Also, GT players are elitist because they're in a hall of echoes who refuse to listen to anyone who doesn't agree with them, not because they are 'better'. Not that being skilled at a mechanic that didn't need to happen in the first place is an excuse for being elitist in the first place. Also, wanting to pound your head against a brick wall for two hours doesn't mean you are less skilled, it means you are wanting a different play style. GT players are more skilled at playing GT, not better skilled in general.
And here is where you are wrong in SEVERAL ways.
First, for bees, you just have to go out and explore 10x number of chunks on the surface to get what you want. That's it. Pointless grind. Because eventually, ignoble queens die. So it doesn't matter how efficient you can make ignobles, how many extra generations you can get from some mechanic... at the end of the day, they die, therefore worthless.
Renewable Resources was the Core Mechanic of Forestry. Ignoble spat in the face of that. Sengir decided to change one of the fundamental concepts behind the origin of the mod. Which is great, he has every right to do that. But let me ask you: When was the last time you saw anyone install Forestry without Gendustry, which mitigates or entirely removes that grind? Yea, didn't think so.
Second... no, it does not force players to change how they play. It forces them to decide between changing how they WANT to play (yanno, the player, the one actually PLAYING the game), or removing the mod in question. Remember, you aren't producing a game here, you are producing a mod for a game, which the player is under no obligation to use.
Fine, some people like grind, or don't understand concepts like Skinner Boxes and realize the trap people are trying to set for them. And for those, there's the new Forestry and GT. Great. Good for them. But that, again, doesn't make it any more challenging, or any more difficult. It just means they get to put 10x as many hours into achieving the same thing. For some people, that's fun. And that's good for them.
I wonder how many people actually play with Forestry because they think it is fun, and how many play with forestry because of the power of the default and it being included in nearly every public pack. Launchers did an amazing thing for players, it removed the requirement of being able to make a pack yourself to play in a pack. It made it dozens of times easier to play with a group of friends on a server without running into a bazillion compatibility or version errors. But you now have pre-bundled packages being distributed, and each individual player who is counted as downloading that pack is being counted as 'playing that mod', even when they really don't.
Also, if your thesis had any merit, Gendustry would not be seen as mandatory companion for Forestry. Or Bennie's Mods. Or both. Or something else that did fundamentally the same thing: Mitigate or remove grind. Well, and Bennie's Mods also adds in post-resource scarcity after a while to give you a carrot on a stick to drive for.
Things like Gendustry, or the unofficial fork of Botania that removed passive flower decay, are a warning sign that a significant portion of your user base does not agree with you, because someone literally made a mod to un-fix your fix. And a LOT of other people agreed with them, because they have all downloaded it.
First year psych and logic fail to grasp operational realities.
Shneekey, find your place of calm. I'm not trying to insult you. If you're wrong, its not because "you're stupid", dude. You're obviously very clever. Its just because I know considerably more about the subject than you do.
You're making some interesting assumptions about what I do and don't do for a living btw.
You've tossed up a bunch of straw men I'm not going to bother addressing. I'm also not trying to convey the impression that I'm debating this. Its not an "argument". I'm trying to teach. If you're not getting it, that's fine: I'm a terrible teacher. Go about your business, and sorry for getting you riled up. But I suspect your minecraft gameplay is going to become more frustrating for you over time rather than less as long as you continue reaching for a reality that doesn't exist.
Oh, I did want to reply to one thing:
"Things like Gendustry, or the unofficial fork of Botania that removed passive flower decay, are a warning sign that a significant portion of your user base does not agree with you, because someone literally made a mod to un-fix your fix. And a LOT of other people agreed with them, because they have all downloaded it. "
100% agree. This is the fundamental basis of what I'm trying to say. SIGNIFICANT portions of the user base are always going to disagree with large chunks of the mod. If you please one portion, you're going to displease the other.
This is all fine, and why I absolutely love forks. But its unfortunate when someone feels a need to tell the people in the OTHER fork that their way is stupid, boring, grindy, etc.
You're making some interesting assumptions about what I do and don't do for a living btw.
You've tossed up a bunch of straw men I'm not going to bother addressing. I'm also not trying to convey the impression that I'm debating this. Its not an "argument". I'm trying to teach. If you're not getting it, that's fine: I'm a terrible teacher. Go about your business, and sorry for getting you riled up. But I suspect your minecraft gameplay is going to become more frustrating for you over time rather than less as long as you continue reaching for a reality that doesn't exist.
Oh, I did want to reply to one thing:
"Things like Gendustry, or the unofficial fork of Botania that removed passive flower decay, are a warning sign that a significant portion of your user base does not agree with you, because someone literally made a mod to un-fix your fix. And a LOT of other people agreed with them, because they have all downloaded it. "
100% agree. This is the fundamental basis of what I'm trying to say. SIGNIFICANT portions of the user base are always going to disagree with large chunks of the mod. If you please one portion, you're going to displease the other.
This is all fine, and why I absolutely love forks. But its unfortunate when someone feels a need to tell the people in the OTHER fork that their way is stupid, boring, grindy, etc.
I will defend the hell out of the Botania design choice as it has literally no lasting impact on the grind or speed of progression.
I will not defend the change to Magical Crops which DID impact the grind and speed of progression, by a LOT.
there are 2 sides to this and this is how I see them. to me it's not about all these changes are good, or all of them are bad, It's more of:
Does the change have an actual impact on the game and progression?
-No, then ok, I'll just adapt and not be a baby about it. i.e. making a machine in 10 seconds to automate Endoflames or make Muchdew and Kek reactors in botania.
-Yes, well I'll just use a different mod. i.e. Using Agricraft over Magical Crops
There is a difference between, changing the way something works and changing the difficulty and grind. They are not the same thing.
I will not defend the change to Magical Crops which DID impact the grind and speed of progression, by a LOT.
there are 2 sides to this and this is how I see them. to me it's not about all these changes are good, or all of them are bad, It's more of:
Does the change have an actual impact on the game and progression?
-No, then ok, I'll just adapt and not be a baby about it. i.e. making a machine in 10 seconds to automate Endoflames or make Muchdew and Kek reactors in botania.
-Yes, well I'll just use a different mod. i.e. Using Agricraft over Magical Crops
There is a difference between, changing the way something works and changing the difficulty and grind. They are not the same thing.
Things I want two address with certain people.
@GreenZombie even with passive mana gen flowers decaying, botania is still about flowers. I'd say 80-85 percent of the mod is based directly around flowers.
@Pyure do you have proof that you know more on the subject? If you do that's one thing. But as it stands? I interpt it "clearly I have to know more". If that's not the case then I apologize. But currently I'm thinking schneeky
Has a right to feel insulted.
@GreenZombie even with passive mana gen flowers decaying, botania is still about flowers. I'd say 80-85 percent of the mod is based directly around flowers.
@Pyure do you have proof that you know more on the subject? If you do that's one thing. But as it stands? I interpt it "clearly I have to know more". If that's not the case then I apologize. But currently I'm thinking schneeky
Has a right to feel insulted.
I'm not super concerned with proving myself to or sharing my personal bona fides with a forum.
I like to share knowledge. People accept it or they don't.
Agreed. I did find however that it impacted how I used the mod. Previously I leaned hard on passives, and now I have zero passives.
One thing I haven't figured out yet is dealing with the scenarios where functional flora want to be "powered". Normally I'd leverage passives, but now I need to send mana where its wanted and I'm not strong enough with the mod to figure out how to get that mana where its needed.
What was the change? I didn't use MC much as I found it made most packs too simple. I wonder what was changed and what the justification was.
Going back to @ShneekeyTheLost's excellent point: I would imagine a major change here would split the community, and I wonder whether that split is 50/50, 80/20, 99/1 or what.
I also feel compelled to mention that I don't always dev with an audience in mind. Sometimes I dev for myself and share that stuff. If I'm the only person who likes the end product, that's sometimes fine. Praise the spirits for forks.
No. Botania is about things called flowers, that have none of the properties one would expect of flowers. Except, nominally, being modeled after them. But they don't grow. They die. There are no seeds. And they need complicated redstone contraptions to do anything. Do they need the sun? Water? Open space and fresh air? Do bees play any part in their life cycle? Flowers? Not really.
I'd really like to see (or learn) botania-centric solutions to all these issues. It does make me a bit sad to see my endoflame pods swarming with project red logic apparatus.
Id argue that the lifecycle/requirements of botania flowers is understandable as it is a magic based mod. Passive flowers (gotten through a magical process and thus not grown ) dying makes sense. They have no means of permanently sustaining long term mana production. It doesn't claim that it fills every need with a flower. A lot of what isn't done directly with flowers is done via the generating floras product. I won't deny that it misses a few things. But to say it isn't about the flowers seems a tad short sighted.
I probably would have attacked the passive problem a bit differently. Making them die was a "hard control". I typically use "soft controls". In this case: make it so that passive flowers are progressively self-defeating.
One way to do this might be for passive flowers to emit a sort of "flux" that makes flowers (as a whole) less productive. The more passives you have, the less productive any nearby (?) flowers become. With, say, 10 or so passives, you wouldn't notice a penalty, but once you get up to 50, maybe your orechids are suddenly useless, your endoflames are weak, and hopperhocks take way too long to grab stuff.
the change was the removal the use fortune on the plants to get more seeds back so instead of cultivating more plants from a single you had to recraft the entire seed. It doesn't sound bad for tier 1 crops, but tier 4 crops it is a nightmare.
since it works off powers of 4 you need 4 to the power of tier + 1 [4^(t+1)] minicio for every single crop you want.
Need more Diamond plants, you need to harvest 4^5 (1024) (4 stacks) of minicio just to get 1 more diamond plant instead of cultivating more from your original one.
this is only easy and viable if you have a massive minicio farm to begin with which you STILL have to craft every single seed for.
The entire mod turned into a grind fest to the point where Agricraft looked more appealing and balanced. In fact you can use Agricraft with magical crops to solve the entire problem and generate more plants from 1, but both combined is over shooting it to the point it's more OP than before.
The middle ground is lost.
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In a way that already kind of was implented. You couldn't and still can't put dayblooms to close to each other. It's not a perfect by any means But it was there. Maybe the logic behind the change was that after awhile mana production is toxic to the flower. Active generation flowers get around this by having the catalyst also act as a toxin scrubber, in the case of the hydrogena water isn't a strong enough cleanser. That's how I would explain it.
The problem for botania was as simple as people relied too heavily on Passives and didn't try anything else... and they lagged servers, looking at you mass hydrongena farmers.