Oil Mystcraft Page

[Besty007]

So I was looking at the Mystcraft wiki today, and I noticed there is an oil page. What I also noticed was that the page on the wiki did not have an icon like the others did. Does this mean it was removed? If so then that sucks, I was looking forward to make a base over an oil ocean

-Besty

 

[13rett]

Actually I believe it is just the opposite. I'm pretty sure that the oil page is in the next Mystcraft version (0.10.1?) but that ultimate has the version just before the update to include the page.

 

[brujon]

I don't think there should be an oil age. It's already cheap as hell to create a Lava Age and use that to power magmatics/geothermals. Infinite oil ocean would mean infinite oil & fuel... Just too cheap.

 

[Adonis0]

I don't think there should be an oil age. It's already cheap as hell to create a Lava Age and use that to power magmatics/geothermals. Infinite oil ocean would mean infinite oil & fuel... Just too cheap.

You can already gain infinite oil through other means, although, I think they're a bit more balanced than mystcraft mechanics..

 

[brujon]

Yeah. I guess Oil would have to be like Dense Ores, in that it guarantees massive instability when used. Because, well, as soon as you have acccess to oil ocean... Well, let's put it this way, fuel is the most powerful energy source for MJ. Burns for longer in a boiler, generates the most MJ out of combustion engines, etc... It's balancing point is that it's non-renewable. Having access to an Oil mystcraft page makes Forestry's Biofuel basically useless and pointless. The whole thing about using Oil as an energy source is that you have to go through the hassle of relocating your pump setup every so often in order to get more Oil. Oil pages make this a moot point, especially since it's so easy and cheap to create a new Mystcraft age in the event that your current one gets eaten by instability. I'm against this symbol, honestly. Dense Ores is already a pretty cheaty symbol, there's not really any need to add other cheaty symbols...

 

[hotblack desiato]

on the other hand: honestly? if you play ftb (for example ultimate) and don't find a working fuel source, you're making something wrong. even dirt is a nice energy source (centrifuge dirt, use the 2 compressed plantballs in a fermenter + still, macerate the clay and electrolyze it. you get biofuel, sodium and lithium out of... the brown stuff that covers most of the world).

if it is oil, you need... take a look at the oil fabricator, it just generates oil out of energy (although that needs to be a bit adjusted, in order to prevent the oil-fuel-boiler-more oil cycle.

 

[Maldroth]

I would be ok with small pools of Oil kinda like the Lava pools we see in the Overworld, but a whole ocean of Oil is just too much and would kill balance.

 

[Zjarek_S]

if it is oil, you need... take a look at the oil fabricator, it just generates oil out of energy (although that needs to be a bit adjusted, in order to prevent the oil-fuel-boiler-more oil cycle.

It is not a bit adjusted, I think cost should be at least doubled. The most you can get from a one bucket of fuel in boiler is about 1,1 MMJ. I didn't count GT nitro-diesel in it.

 

[AlanEsh]

I would be ok with small pools of Oil kinda like the Lava pools we see in the Overworld, but a whole ocean of Oil is just too much and would kill balance.

That this "kills balance" is a ridiculous notion in a game where tree farms, lava pumpers, etc are already providing infinite power.

If a server admin doesn't want his players traveling 20k blocks in all directions looking for oil to satisfy someone's odd sense of "game balance" then he should be able to make it just as available in a Mystcraft age as Lava is.

Telling someone "don't make an alternative option, just use the infinite power sources we already have!" is silly; alternatives are always better than not having them.

 

[brujon]

Oil is supposed to be a rare commodity, much like it is in the real world. It is completely unnecessary for the endgame in Buildcraft, and Forestry already adds Biofuel as a renewable alternative that's almost as powerful as Oil/Fuel, AND it adds Biomass as a less powerful alternative that requires less infrastructure. Add Oil Mystcraft pages? Biofuel is useless. Biomass is useless. The way you get Mystcraft pages now, you just keep creating random ages and raiding the Abandoned Libraries found within, until you get the Oil page, and bam, done.

Also, you will never need to travel 20k blocks to find an oil well. They're fairly common in Desert & Ocean biomes, and not that rare in Swamp and Jungle types biomes. ExtraBiomesXL adds tons of biomes that are similar to these i mentioned that also generate Oil in them rather commonly. In Oceans and Deserts, it's not unusual to find two Oil Wells sitting closer than 100 blocks to eachother, and in Oceans, especially, it's not unusual to find a single Oil Geyser with 2000~4000 buckets worth of oil in it, as well as double geysers.

The catch? It will eventually run out, and you will need to move your entire setup. Also, it's difficult to pump oil out of Oceans because the pump often pumps in the water instead of the oil, which clogs the pipes, meaning you'll need a secondary tank for water, or cordon off the Oil before you can really pump it out of the oil well reliably. Adding a Mystcraft page for Oil removes all of these drawbacks, which are meant to balance out the power of Oil/Fuel, and lets it simply become the all-powerful fuel source for MJ, forever.

Sure, you can create infinite Oil with bees already, but that means you will need to have done quite a bit of exploring already in order to get the T1 bees needed, plus a lot of bee breeding in the meantime, which is not an exact science, in order to get your Distilled Queens. The hassle and process you go through with bee keeping is the balancing factor in that. Mystcraft pages don't have that kind of balance, it's all RNG. You can find an Oil page in the first village you raid, or you can find it after 2 hours of searching in random Mystcraft ages. It's completely and utter random. The mod is not complete, it's balance is still off, and adding this will only contribute to increase the amount of imbalance the mod creates. It's already one of the most powerful mods available, it doesn't need anything else added to it in addition to that.

 

[AlanEsh]

Also, you will never need to travel 20k blocks to find an oil well.
...
The catch? It will eventually run out, and you will need to move your entire setup.

(I find these two statements in the same post funny)
So... you're OK with totally renewable power, just not fuel as made from Oil wells. Seems legit.

 

[brujon]

Yes, i'm totally OK with renewable power, but when you have to do at least a bit of work to get it. Not have it handed to you through the power of RNG. To get renewable Oil/Fuel with bees you have to:

A) Roam the world and get:

Forest + Meadows (Any two: Forest, Meadows, Modest, Wintry, Tropical, Marshy, Water, Rocky, Marbled, Embittered) to get Common
Any Two Overworld + Common to get Cultivated
Common + Cultivated to get Diligent
Diligent + Cultivated to get Unweary
Diligent + Unweary to get Industrious

- First part is done.

Now you need another Common + Cultivated to get Noble
Combine Noble + Diligent to get Ancient
Ancient + Noble to get Primeval
Primeval + Modest to get Oily
and FINALLY
Oily + Industrious to get Distilled.


B) The catch? Well, many of these bees don't work that well in all biomes. You're probably going to need Alvearies to get all the production going on. Which require a LOT of bee keeping, because they're honey hungry, they require insane amounts of pollen & royal jelly (which you only start getting midway in the Noble Branch), and in order for them to produce Oil in sufficient quantities, since the nerf, you NEED an Alveary with at least 4 Frame Housings using Proven Frames (which are obtained only through villagers), or 5 Frame Housings using Impregnated Frames. Which requires Seed Oil, which requires a lot of Infrastructure to produce in sufficient quantity. Oh, also, that Frame Housing quantity? That's with the Fastest Productivity trait, which, more often than not, requires the Extra Bees machine, which take in OVER 50 MJ/T to run.

Only after you've done ALL that, will you be able to produce OIL in a renewable manner. And one Alveary with the max productivity is not enough to keep up with one max size HP boiler. You need TWO in order to produce enough Oily Combs, which still need to be refined, which needs MJ to run.

Before you get to that point, you've already reached pretty much the endgame in Forestry. Renewable oil at that point is more for bragging rights than for any real need to produce more MJ. That would have taken you several, SEVERAL in-game hours of gathering resources and exploring most of what the other mods have to offer in order to get that far in game. Frankly, you're better off just sticking with Biofuel for the rest of the game, because it's a HELL of a lot easier than getting the renewable Oil.

Would a Mystcraft page for Oil have nearly the same amount of balance as the whole process i described to you?

 

[Maldroth]

Agreed, I don't really like oceans of lava either but people already tap the Nether dry and the return rate on lava isn't that great. The worry is if Oil becomes so ridiculously easy to get then the length it powers might get reduced to try to balance that out. Railcraft and Thermal Expansion have already balanced Lava out a few times since it is really easy power.

I'm okay with the existence of the Oil page but it just can't be a modifier for Ocean, it would simply be too good.

 

[Berserkenstein]

Agreed, I don't really like oceans of lava either but people already tap the Nether dry and the return rate on lava isn't that great. The worry is if Oil becomes so ridiculously easy to get then the length it powers might get reduced to try to balance that out. Railcraft and Thermal Expansion have already balanced Lava out a few times since it is really easy power.

I'm okay with the existence of the Oil page but it just can't be a modifier for Ocean, it would simply be too good.

I have the Oil page, it was actually pretty rare. It took 3 weeks of age raiding and villager trading to get one.

It is in fact an ocean modifier, as I made an oil ocean world with it.

It has massive stability issues. I have made proper ages with stability adding modifiers like charged and scorched surface and there was always decay noticeable right when you spawn in.

 

[hotblack desiato]

Oil is supposed to be a rare commodity, much like it is in the real world. It is completely unnecessary for the endgame in Buildcraft, and Forestry already adds Biofuel as a renewable alternative that's almost as powerful as Oil/Fuel, AND it adds Biomass as a less powerful alternative that requires less infrastructure. Add Oil Mystcraft pages? Biofuel is useless. Biomass is useless. The way you get Mystcraft pages now, you just keep creating random ages and raiding the Abandoned Libraries found within, until you get the Oil page, and bam, done.

[...]
It's already one of the most powerful mods available, it doesn't need anything else added to it in addition to that.

yes, you are right, when it comes to getting oil as a renewable resource with bees.

but if you just set up a 36 HP boiler, a destillery (to turn oil into fuel) and a oil fabricator (to make oil out of buildcraft energy) and a bunch of steam engines, you can just produce oil.

one bucket of oil costs 600k MJ + 10kMJ to turn it into fuel. one bucket of fuel gives ~870k MJ (not sure about the value). that is a factor of 1.39 (sure about that value). leaving you with a system that just works and generates oil, after it's started with 100 or so buckets of fuel.

no hours of breeding bees spent...

additionally, a nuclear reactor with a good setup, that generates 150 million EU per cycle (actually, with gregtech, that isn't really good, there are better setups), one 14 hour rund with thorium generates 1000 buckets of oil (the oil fabricator can be fuelled with IC2-energy aswell).

even after a balance nerf for the oil fabricator, the nuclear way would still supply you with more oil than you can possibly use.

so, let's see what happens.

by the way: if you are capable of setting up a fusion reactor, there is another mystcraft page, that matters: the one that turns the regular layer of dirt into endstone. macerater/pulverize/grind endstone to endstone dust, centrifuge it, and suddenly, you get helium, ultimatively turning an end-like world into something that is way more powerful than a ocean full of oil....

 

[brujon]

Yeah, but the Nuclear way you mentioned is actually using the Oil Fabricator as intended. The Oil Fabricator isn't energy positive (if used as intended), rather, it's energy neutral. Fuel is actually a pretty efficient way of storing energy. Each bucket stores 600k MJ worth. A smallest size iron tank holds 432 buckets, that would equal 259.200.200 MJ's worth, in that 3x3x3 space. 1 bucket of fuel is also exactly equal to a REC, so that makes the comparison easier. It's 432 Redstone Enercy Cells in a 3x3x3 Space. That's an *extremely* high energy efficient storage option right there.

To give you an idea, that's over 500 million EU worth if you use Power Converters, since with that, 100 MJ = 224 EU. That's a silly amount of energy. That's 50 fully charged MFSU's worth of energy stored in a 3x3x3 space. It's almost double the energy density as an MFSU. The only better options for EU storage are gregtech's IDSU, and AESU.

When using the Oil Fabricator with the energy positive loop using the Boiler, as you described, then yes, you are effectively creating oil from nothing and have successfully made Oil a renewable resource.

 

[Adonis0]

The thing that I like about all these renewable oil resources, is they require effort to set up.
Yes they're infinite, but you have to think about creating a system, sometimes a very complex system in order to make it work.

Oil ocean?
That requires a pump, already existing MJ source or a simple to set up one, a refinery, maybe a tank for oil, and then a way to get it back to the overworld for storage as fuel. The only balancing factor is its rarity as loot or as villager trading, but that's not a consistent factor, some people may get it first library, while others it may take a month or more.

So at its most complex, it requires less than 10 things built which have no prerequisites to obtain and if you're thinking about using oil, i wouldn't be surprised if you already have those on hand by the time you get the oil page.

 

[Glowstrontium]

Honestly, how much more OP is an oil age than a lava one? Sure, oil generates a lot more MJ per bucket than lava, but you need to set up a refinery system; and to generate any useful amount of EU from it, you need to either use a huge array of diesel generators, or a steam boiler & turbine setup.

 

[brujon]

One bucket of Lava = 18000 MJ in a Magmatic Engine. 1 Bucket of Fuel = 600000 MJ in a Combustion engine, 1,39x that amount in a fully heated HP Boiler, or 834000 MJ. How is it not much more OP than the Lava page? Plus, you don't need a Lava Page since you can pump out of the Nether, which has enormous lava pools as well. Do you have a vanilla alternative to the Oil page? Nope.

 

[MagusUnion]

Do you have a vanilla alternative to the Oil page?

Oil comes from Buildcraft, not vanilla Minecraft. You can't use that argument with this. Also, a lesser known fact is that BC spawns Oil every 40 chucks (only know this by looking at the world gen. parameters, since BC is open source and you can look at those kinds of things using a program that can write Java classes). It's easier to find them in single biome deserts since the only critical factor you have to worry about is sand...

Honestly, at this point anything with Mystcraft is going to be OP. You can scapegoat entire realms for your needs, and simply toss the worlds aside when you've depleted them into decayed husks. It does make for a scary perception on (the lack of) environmental awareness. However, since Mystcraft follows more towards the tradition of keeping true to the Myst series (really good, imo), you can't exactly fault it in the terms of balance. It's just a fun mod with alot of other exploits that you can preform when used aside of things more technical. It happens, and it is the price we pay for our all-encompassing compatibility. A Mod author can do what they can to balance their mod, but they can't catch everything (*coughGregcough*)...