Where is the line between contraption and exploit?

[Vauthil]

Mind sharing the used symbols / the content of the book?

Mushroom Island / Single Biome (I'm cruel, not sadistic; the prison spawns no other hostile inmates)
Bright
Normal Stars
Blue Sky
Blue Horizon
White Clouds
Blue Night Sky
Blue Fog
No Seas
No Weather
End World
Zero-Length South Rising Moon
Zero-Length Noon Normal Sun
Rainbow
Clear Modifiers (I made this age when you wanted to always include that)

I replaced the surface layer with silktouched grass (special thanks to the Wand of Equal of Trade), planted Rainbow Oak Saplings and a Robust Twilight Oak Sapling for flavor, sheared the mooshrooms and Transformation Powdered them into deer, dropped in some chickens and Transformation Powdered them into penguins.

The oddity of the Rainbow is because Mystcraft 0.10.0 rainbow rendering is a bit off. XCompWiz adjusted this in Mystcraft 0.10.1 but the packs aren't running that yet.

 

[jumpfight5]

Why, that cause they're cylinders of ugly?

 

[PhilHibbs]

Personally I felt guilty every time I made an Enderpearl from iron. Not an exploit at all, it's how EE3 is supposed to work, but I still felt it was OP. Now, not so much, because I have a farm in the End so I can get as many pearls as I like, so making them out of iron is just a time-saver, and one that costs me something in another way. I'll have a drop trap before too long so I can just make it rain Enderpearls. I could make an automatic Enderpearl to Diamond converter and leave it running with a dozen Minium Stones, but that would also cross the line in my mind.

 

[brujon]

I don't see why. Getting enderpearls from iron always was a time saver, because you could always go hunting them in the night in the Overworld, so what changed after you set up your farm, besides the fact that you now have overflow of Enderpearls? In fact, the whole point of EE3 right now is being a time saver. Oh, i need 3 diamonds. Oh, wait, i know! I have 12 gold here i can burn. Bam. Done. No need to go mining for 10 minutes to actually go and find the three diamonds. Also, using it as a space saving measure. Overflow of gold? NP, save a barrel's worth, convert the rest to diamonds, turn into diamond blocks, store into a barrel. Convert back if you need to. Overflow of iron? Same deal. Don't want to waste precious time mining Obsidian (which is easily made, but is time consuming to acquire and mine)? NP, you never need much anyway, just transmute some logs. It's ALL about saving time, and compressing stuff into more valuable forms that you can convert back if needed. I don't see anything inherently OP about that, because in the end, it's all stuff you could've gotten yourself by mining, you're not making it out of thin air, like could do in EE2.

Like someone pointed out in another thread, you have a problem with infinite iron/gold? This is doable in vanilla. Iron Golem farm = Infinite Iron. Pigman Farm = Infinite Gold. Sure, the pigman farm is slow and laggy as hell, and you have to build dozens of Nether Portals, which take a lot of obsidian, which takes a lot of time to mine. And iron golem farms require handling villagers, which is tricky and time consuming. But in the end? Not like it's giving you anything besides what you could have gotten yourself, infinitely, and legitimately.

Now, if you were to say to me that Minium Stones have too many uses for the resources and the time it takes to get them, i'd agree. They should be nerfed so as to not allow them to be used so many times, so you'd still need to lose a little bit of time either making a good mobtrap, or hunting a lot of mobs, to keep getting shards of minium. But what they do? It's not OP at all. Being a time saver is not being OP, if it's just saving you time. It's when you start getting stuff with close to zero effort, that things start getting into the realms of OP, but right now, the only thing i know of that is able to do this, is UU-Matter Solar Factories, that keep producing more and more HV Solars that power mass fabs, that produce more UU, until you're drowning so badly in UU that you simply don't need quarries anymore, and keep running and getting more efficient as time passes with no input from the player after the first HV generates. But by the time you get there, you already have so much infrastructure set up, that it doesn't really matter anymore now, does it?

And even then, the UU Solar Factory is a contraption in my opinion, not an exploit. You're using the tools you were given, in a way they were intended to be used, only, the process is automated. Instead of crafting everything yourself out of the UU matter, it's all automatic...

 

[Bibble]

I'm still unsure about the enderpearl thing, particularly the method. If it were, for instance, made from 4 gunpowder, or some combination of other, difficult to obtain drops, then it wouldn't be as bad, but iron is fairly plentiful, and I usually feel bad for making what is, early game, a rare resource from such a common one.

I appreciate that enderpearls and obsidian have been made easier to get, I'm just not sure about the raw materials. From what I can gather, EE3 is possibly going to have some manner of "aspect" system at some point, which will likely address these concerns. Until then, I'll just happily keep making tesseracts and ender chests, and hating myself for it

 

[Lambert2191]

The only reason I have a problem with Enderpearl - > Iron and Iron - > Enderpearl is because the "value" of Enderpearls change so dramatically once one enters the End.
Before you reach there, Enderpears are hardly common items. Endermen aren't the easiest mobs to kill and they don't have a 100% drop chance. So transmuting iron - > Enderpearl is pretty fair. However, after you reach the End, it is so unbelievably easy to get Enderpearls as to break the entire mechanic and would have one rolling in so much iron for so little effort.
Every other transmutation I'm okay with, but I think any transmutation involving Pearls needs to be gotten rid of.

 

[brujon]

Lambert: Logs > Obsidian > Enderpearl > Iron > Gold > Diamond

You can be swimming in logs quite early in the game, if one of the first things you do is get some Fir Saplings and set up UWC turtle program, which only takes as "expensive" resources to make 3 diamonds, 4 redstone, 1 iron for the wireless mining turtle, 2 pieces of obsidian for the Obsidian Pipe, 4 pieces of gold for the gold pipes(Which are more or less optional), and 2 more iron for the iron pipe, 3 more iron for the bucket you need to fill the system up, some more redstone and iron for the Redstone Engines, and then you're set. Set it on no bonemeal mode.

That's it, sustainable, infinite source of logs, because the logs produce charcoal which the turtle uses as fuel, and there's always surplus charcoal floating in the system. Kill some creepers, get gunpowder, smelt it, create a lot of sulfur torches, set up a secondary sulfur goo farm and you speed up this process tremendously. By the time you get your first Minium Stone, you can have nearly every resource in the game pretty fast. Are the turtles or the minium stone broken? No. Again, it just saved you time. But, now that you have iron and diamonds on demand, not that hard to start setting up quarries, turtle or otherwise, and start rolling in the resources. If you're really smart about it, you don't actually need to go manually mining more than once or twice before automating everything.

 

[Lambert2191]

Lambert: Logs > Obsidian > Enderpearl > Iron > Gold > Diamond

You can be swimming in logs quite early in the game, if one of the first things you do is get some Fir Saplings and set up UWC turtle program, which only takes as "expensive" resources to make 3 diamonds, 4 redstone, 1 iron for the wireless mining turtle, 2 pieces of obsidian for the Obsidian Pipe, 4 pieces of gold for the gold pipes(Which are more or less optional), and 2 more iron for the iron pipe, 3 more iron for the bucket you need to fill the system up, some more redstone and iron for the Redstone Engines, and then you're set. Set it on no bonemeal mode.

That's it, sustainable, infinite source of logs, because the logs produce charcoal which the turtle uses as fuel, and there's always surplus charcoal floating in the system. Kill some creepers, get gunpowder, smelt it, create a lot of sulfur torches, set up a secondary sulfur goo farm and you speed up this process tremendously. By the time you get your first Minium Stone, you can have nearly every resource in the game pretty fast. Are the turtles or the minium stone broken? No. Again, it just saved you time. But, now that you have iron and diamonds on demand, not that hard to start setting up quarries, turtle or otherwise, and start rolling in the resources. If you're really smart about it, you don't actually need to go manually mining more than once or twice before automating everything.

Obsidian transmuted straight into Iron. And I know, I've used that logs > diamonds recipie a couple of times early game when I've been struggling for diamonds. My logs came from steves carts though

 

[brujon]

Yeah, but the point is that logs are even cheaper and easier to get lots of than enderpearls are, and thus, more efficient way of getting iron. Even though you use your minium stone faster. EE3 makes all resources of that tree available from the point where you craft your first wooden tools and are able to kill mobs to get Shards, and chop trees to get wood. In fact, it's available right at the start, since you can use your fists for both tasks. It will only take more time to get the shards and wood when doing it by hand instead of by tool.

And i intentionally made that statement at the end, because it just shows that in the end, every tool that is available to you in game is essentially to save you time. You craft a diamond pick instead of an iron one because it's faster. Mining Obsidian is a necessity too, of course, but the main reason is speed and durability. You upgrade from your wooden tools to stone ones not just because you need it to mine better ores, but because it's faster.

The game is a Sandbox game, there are no predefined objectives, it's YOU who make the objectives, and generally the objective for most people is to build a base they're proud of, explore the tech tree of various mods, and get a sense of accomplishment out of it. In the end, every tool that every mod gives you essentially is a TIME SAVER. It's making you able to ignore that boring activity that is going to branch mine for hours on end, and concentrate on the more fun parts of minecraft, which are building cool bases, and finding cool new ways of doing things, and redstone creations.

The only time where you can talk about exploits in modded minecraft, is when you abuse features to circumvent the fact that a certain mod is not letting you do something.

Put a Drill in an enchantment table. No dice, huh? Well, i want it enchanted anyway, so i'm going to use this anvil and force an enchantment into it with a book. Bam, that's an exploit.

Man, this Vile Sword sucks, too bad i can't put Soul Stealer in... Oh wait, i got this neat Uncrafting Table! Let's see, put this Diamond Sword here... Oh, no, now i want to put Repair in the Diamond Sword too, that would be fun. Oh, let's combine it with Unbreaking, should be fun too. Bam, that's an exploit.

Oh, i see, putting this canvas bag inside the same canvas bag... Oh, did i dupe everything? :trollface:

Transmuting tin into iron using buckets and alloy furnaces...

THESE are exploits and bugs. Results of unwanted interaction between different mods that allow you to circumvent restrictions that normally are applied to you. The other stuff? Depending on the mod author, it *MAY* be viewed as a balance issue, and it MAY be corrected in a posterior update, but until further notice, not a bug, not an exploit, not a glitch, but a feature.

 

[Neirin]

For exploits, I really just look at what is intended to be possible. Dupe bugs, book enchanting IC2 tools, and that soul shard thing for practically free T5 shards all fall into this category.

There are plenty of non-exploit things I'm still not comfortable using - nether lava for power chief among them - but that's more of a game balance problem.

 

[DoctorOr]

THESE are exploits and bugs. Results of unwanted interaction between different mods that allow you to circumvent restrictions that normally are applied to you.

Intentional design does not make something less of an exploit. There is no central authority with a vision, there are 50 plus mod authors, any of which may intentional create a game breaking issue.

For example, turning a vile sword into diamond in the uncrafting table? Working as intended.

 

[Lambert2191]

Intentional design does not make something less of an exploit. There is no central authority with a vision, there are 50 plus mod authors, any of which may intentional create a game breaking issue.

For example, turning a vile sword into diamond in the uncrafting table? Working as intended.

I heard that wasn't the case anymore? In the latest version, enchants won't carry over if the destination item isn't able to get that enchant.

 

[DoctorOr]

I heard that wasn't the case anymore? In the latest version, enchants won't carry over if the destination item isn't able to get that enchant.

Perhaps, but that would represent a change of intention, and does not mean actions that were perfectly ok are suddenly bad. In current versions, the intent was to allow it. Either it is perfectly fine, or it is not.

 

[PhilHibbs]

I don't see why. Getting enderpearls from iron always was a time saver, because you could always go hunting them in the night in the Overworld, so what changed after you set up your farm, besides the fact that you now have overflow of Enderpearls?

Hunting Endermen in the overwold is dangerous. My enderman farm is 99.9% safe. So iron->pearls was saving not just time but peril as well. Now, it's just saving time.

Like someone pointed out in another thread, you have a problem with infinite iron/gold? This is doable in vanilla. Iron Golem farm = Infinite Iron. Pigman Farm = Infinite Gold...
Now, if you were to say to me that Minium Stones have too many uses for the resources and the time it takes to get them, i'd agree.

I don't have a problem with infinite resources, but I do have a problem when it's so easy that there's minimal set up or challenge to it. I'm not saying that anything is OP or should be nerfed. I'm merely saying where my personal line is. And that line stops short of an Enderman farm feeding automated iron/gold/diamond production. On the other hand, I don't have a shortage of any of those three at the moment so it's a bit moot.

 

[Neirin]

Intentional design does not make something less of an exploit. There is no central authority with a vision, there are 50 plus mod authors, any of which may intentional create a game breaking issue.

For example, turning a vile sword into diamond in the uncrafting table? Working as intended.

Personally, I'd file that under unintended behavior and consider it an exploit. With regard to TF, it's working as intended, but not in regards to SS.

 

[OmegaJasam]

Enderpearls into Iorn And vise versa are definitely not /exploits/. But they are /definitely/ a major balance issue. The choice to allow it, (multiplayer) or to use it (single player) can dramatically change the feel of he game.

(Trees = diamonds, iorn, gold and pearls (most of the resources for a stone) could let you skip low teir tech entirely, use more things en mass(easy iorn) or more rarer things (ender pearl items))

It's definitely a time saver, but it saves so much time that you jump over levels of infrustructure most people would build. This is a bad or good thing depending on the desired experience of your sandbox. (do you enjoy redirecting water to dampen the sand to build your sand castle, or just the castle building itself)

With both exploits and balance, the line is basicaly just to the left of what's the intended experiance for yourself or your server.[DOUBLEPOST=1364309736][/DOUBLEPOST]

Personally, I'd file that under unintended behavior and consider it an exploit. With regard to TF, it's working as intended, but not in regards to SS.

Didn't that get explictly prevented in the current direwolf as well?

 

[brujon]

You shouldn't get a diamond out of uncrafting a Vile Sword, but the vile ingots you used to craft it. If it's giving diamonds, it's a bug.

And intentional designs DO make something cease to be an exploit. If it's intentional, then by DEFINITION it isn't an exploit. An exploit is when you use something in a way where it A) produces results that weren't intended or B) circumvents restrictions via bugs or conflicting design models.

 

[RetroGamer1224]

Since the topic of trees to diamonds using EE3 is brought up lemme say this. To get a diamond from logs you need one hundred twenty eight logs which become sixty four obsidian which becomes thirty two iron which becomes four gold which then becomes one single diamond. You waste more then one third your Minium Stone for it. To get say nine diamonds for a block it will bring your stone down to about fifteen percent, give or take, and is only worth it if you have a mega surplus in say logs. The balance in EE3 is the lovely durability.

Before someone says "Make multiple stones" that still is a major chunk of resources to invest in each stone plus if you automate it like Neptunepink did on the SMP (I believe it was Mr. Pink) you still have to replace the stones once in a while. Yes a mob grinder will help but by the time you get to these stages, I presume, diamonds and other resources shouldn't be a concern.

 

[Lambert2191]

I much prefered it when one kept the inert stone after all the uses had been... used...

 

[brujon]

Doesn't matter, for the discussion at hand. 4 iron and 1 gold are not a significant chunk of resources, and Minium Stones are trivially easy to make. An inefficient mob grinder using a simple mob drop and a dark tower can be built with only cobble & water, both of which are essentially infinite. You could even build it out of DIRT if you didn't want to mine more than the 3 iron necessary for the bucket, and some could argue that you don't even need the bucket for the mob trap to be built since you can do it on the ocean and just kill the source blocks you're not going to use with dirt blocks, so you arguably don't need even a single tool to build one.

All it takes to build a mob trap is time, because it doesn't require any resources, at all. The basic inefficient ones, that is. Complicated vanilla ones using pistons, vines, cobwebs, and the whole shebang are costly as HELL and only worth it in vanilla. Doing one in FTB is just for bragging rights, honestly. SS does it better.

So, woohoo, infinite shards of minium... For as long as you stand there and punch the 0,5 heart monsters. Don't recall if mobs still drop shards when killed by melee turtles or not, since they count as player kills for the purposes of rare drops and experience. If they do, then there's your answer right there.

Durability is not an efficient balancing point if one shard that's easily obtainable can get you so many resources before breaking. They have to break much faster in order to be fair. Then you'd see them more as convenient tools than "free" resources.