RedPower Replacements?

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Bigglesworth

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Jul 29, 2019
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Indeed. I never understood why imitation oversimplified power systems became popular. Minecraft is a great tool and a lot of mods seem to totally miss an opportunity to teach a massive audience about something real and practical like bluetricity did.
 

secretzer0

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Jul 29, 2019
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logistics pipes was once upon a time one of my favorite mods despite the wonders of RP pneumatics. however i do not miss the giant bank of autocrafting tables.
 
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KirinDave

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Jul 29, 2019
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The regulator is MOSTLY replaced by the Chickenbones translocator OR an ME Interface (depending on if you need push or pull). In some cases, you want both.
 
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KirinDave

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Honestly, nothing I have seen so far replaces Blutricity as a power system.

I'm not talking about the fact how it transmits energy from A to B to drive machines. Or specific, individual blocks, which is not a good way to characterize feature replacement. Any power system offers that. Your list would be as long as there are mods that implement a form of power. But the specific implementation of Blutricity itself - the way it worked, the near-perfect split of "easy to use, difficult to master", and the way it made the workings of real electricity visible ingame does not exist anywhere else. Or even the nebulous and difficult to grasp "flavor" of it all.

I'm... not sure what you're talking about. Nearly all the subtlety of Blutricity was utterly lost by a total lack of things to do with it except produce MJ, which was such an awkward way to do it that most people only bothered because they loved windmills. You can say you enjoyed maintaining the voltage, but how many alloy furnaces can you run?

The sad reality of Blutricity was that it was often "that thing that forced me to keep a lava block under my base for the sortron." It was magic, sourceless power prerequisites with a cool system that most users cheerfully ignored.

You COULD make cool system, but with only 2 things motivating factors for generating blutricity in bulk, it was a bad design. Unbalanced, lopsided systems are bad design.

I've had high hopes for UE, but it spectacularly failed at replicating any of the good points. It's hard to see what's going on, it teaches little to nothing to the user, it's somewhere between unintuitive and frustrating to try and get it working as a newcomer, and it offers little to no incentive for improvement when it finally works.

Well UE "just works". No one uses the voltage numbers anymore (even Calclavia) and Aidan is removing the electrical units from the tooltips and switching to RF (which is internally what's used, he says). The reality of the Minecraft universe is that a very basic and idealized model of power flow is far more valuable to users and developers to a more specialized (and in Blutrucity's case, computationally expensive) models.

Don't believe me? Do you know why developers are cheerfully and vocally migrating to RF? It's not because of FoTM reasons; it's because the Buildcraft team has been trying to make MJ more distinct as a power source with increasing limitations besides (dumb power pipes, sources and sinks). Those design restrictions interfere with a lot of developers, and so they're leaping off the MJ ecosystem.

Alternative models besides RF exist, by the way. Most notably Factorization and Blood Magic have very unique alternative power generation schemes that continue to delight an amaze me. TE's system is great, but for my money Factorization and Blood Magic are the new sleeper hits of interoperable and exciting power systems.

Seriously. Check out Factorization if you miss Blutricity. It reminds me of RP2 a lot.

Everything else is well covered by many other mods. Blutricity will probably never return.

And good riddance. Non-open power systems are awful. I don't care how beautiful Blutricty's model was. It failed fundamental requirements for a good power system.
 
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Omicron

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Jul 29, 2019
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I'm... not sure what you're talking about. Nearly all the subtlety of Blutricity was utterly lost by a total lack of things to do with it except produce MJ, which was such an awkward way to do it that most people only bothered because they loved windmills.

*snip*

You COULD make cool system, but with only 2 things motivating factors for generating blutricity in bulk, it was a bad design.

No, it was unfinished. That's a difference.

Also, I'll freely agree that the system as a whole was crippled by Eloraam's refusal to allow other mods or addons to tap into it. Every other power system does it, and that's how they thrive - by cross-mod integration. Locking that door was a bad decision.
 

MigukNamja

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Jul 29, 2019
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I've had high hopes for UE, but it spectacularly failed at replicating any of the good points. It's hard to see what's going on, it teaches little to nothing to the user, it's somewhere between unintuitive and frustrating to try and get it working as a newcomer, and it offers little to no incentive for improvement when it finally works.

Have you tried Reika's RotaryCraft ?

It's not electricity, no, but it has torque, RPM, and direction, among other real-world-type mechanical stuff. You can also see what's going on and is great to learn from.

As for issues, it seems bug-free if you don't include client rendering load, i.e. client lag. With all the fancy moving stuff and fancy per-tick rendering, it puts a helluva load on low-to-mid-range client hardware.
 

KirinDave

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No, it was unfinished. That's a difference.

If you say so. My policy is: "Until you have coded it, it does not exist." If you release a mod, it should work and be internally consistent and work for each release. Modders cannot ship promises. Pretending that intent being there mad it any less bad as a release is wrong.

Many modders take this approach.

P.S., Factorization and Blood Magic.[DOUBLEPOST=1386012835][/DOUBLEPOST]
Have you tried Reika's RotaryCraft ?

I have yet to meet a person who "likes" Reika's system. A lot of people appreciate the complexity, but as a whole the power transmission feels like it's really in need of a balance pass. I've logged about 25 hours playtesting RoC to evaluate its inclusion in Resonant Rise or RRLite. A consistent complaint was, "There is so much in this mod you will never ever use because by the time you need it, you can build this 3x easier system for only 1.5x the cost."

And unlike electricity, which is governed by math you can do in your head, Reika's system sometimes take a sketchpad to work out.
 
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sicfacade115

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Jul 29, 2019
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It might have been mentioned, but is there a block that will give off a redstone signal like the RP2 regulator once a certain amount of material is received, then the material is moved to another location? I need this function for a build that will be compact. It must also be easy to build and work with.
 

MigukNamja

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Jul 29, 2019
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It might have been mentioned, but is there a block that will give off a redstone signal like the RP2 regulator once a certain amount of material is received, then the material is moved to another location? I need this function for a build that will be compact. It must also be easy to build and work with.

AE has Level Emitters and can certainly move stuff.
 

sicfacade115

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Jul 29, 2019
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AE has Level Emitters and can certainly move stuff.
Maybe I'll rephrase my problem. I want an extremely small system that when a certain number of items are put in by a player, another item will be given to them. It has to be quick and be able to repeat the operation multiple times. The player will deliver the items by dropping them in and the received item will drop on them. This system will be repeated 20-50 times throughout a small area because it's an adventure map. I used a regulator because I could set an amount of items so when it received them, it gave off a signal. This system was fit in about 2x3x3 area.
 

un worry

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Jul 29, 2019
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Not on your list, but what about replacement lights?

Aside from the Glowstone Illuminator (which comes in one flavour out of the box) I seem to struggle to find decent lighting blocks in the main packs.
 

KirinDave

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Jul 29, 2019
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Not on your list, but what about replacement lights?

Aside from the Glowstone Illuminator (which comes in one flavour out of the box) I seem to struggle to find decent lighting blocks in the main packs.

Project Red _really_ has you covered here, and it's 100% forge multipart now.
 
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MigukNamja

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Maybe I'll rephrase my problem. I want an extremely small system that when a certain number of items are put in by a player, another item will be given to them. It has to be quick and be able to repeat the operation multiple times. The player will deliver the items by dropping them in and the received item will drop on them. This system will be repeated 20-50 times throughout a small area because it's an adventure map. I used a regulator because I could set an amount of items so when it received them, it gave off a signal. This system was fit in about 2x3x3 area.

Sounds like a ComputerCraft computer with OpenPeripherals installed, connected ("opened") to an input inventory and and output inventory. That requires just 3 blocks and some modest Lua coding. To lock it down (enclose it), you might need 4 more - 1 on each remaining side of the computer.
 

ShneekeyTheLost

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Lost as always
Not on your list, but what about replacement lights?

Aside from the Glowstone Illuminator (which comes in one flavour out of the box) I seem to struggle to find decent lighting blocks in the main packs.
Luma used to have your back there, but it seems to have halted development in 1.6.2.

ExtraUtils just came out with some amazing lamp blocks, which are not only Forge Multipart compatible, but also Connected Textures by default. You should really check them out.
 
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Bigglesworth

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Jul 29, 2019
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KirinDave, the issue of compatibility is besides the point. No one would argue that it being a closed system was unfortunate. However the system itself was superior to the made up stuff we have today and if IC2/BC/etc suddenly went with that system and remained open it would be an improvement. Thats what we miss, not the lack of comparability. All systems have shortcomings, you cant just disregard one based on one disadvantage, you study it, remove the disadvantage and produce positive progress.
 
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casilleroatr

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Jul 29, 2019
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That entire network is largely replaced by Infinitubes, which by the way is a very powerful system and–come to think of it–can also partially replace regulators!
I'm already a fan of infinitubes I have used it a lot in the past, although mostly for dumb jobs. I am going to need to think for a bit before I see how they can be used like regulators.