[1.7.10] EzTFC - A Simple TerraFirmaCraft Modpack! [v0.1.0]

Vauthil

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eztfcxl.png

Private Pack Code: EzTFC

What is it?

EzTFC is a lightweight modpack designed for users who want the core TerraFirmaCraft experience without additional levels of technology or other creature comforts found in other TerraFirmaCraft-based modpacks.

For those unaware of what TerraFirmaCraft is, it is a total conversion mod designed to make gameplay in Minecraft more believable (not necessarily accurate, but believable). This is not a mod where "punch tree, get wood" works. Resources require exploration and ingenuity to obtain, with even the very act of mining being a potentially perilous venture. Essentially none of your classic vanilla recipes work inside TerraFirmaCraft, so it is a very different experience from even most modded Minecraft.

What is included?

As mentioned, a goal of this pack is to be lightweight, so the mod list is quite short and largely geared towards utilities rather than content additions. The list of included mods is as follows:
  • TerraFirmaCraft - Duh.
  • CodeChickenCore + NEI + TerraFirmaCraft NEI plugin - All the stuff to make NEI functional in TerraFirmaCraft.
  • JourneyMap Fairplay - A map add-on, because you're going to be exploring a lot. Fairplay because TerraFirmaCraft is largely designed around multiplayer and that's the preferred version for server play.
  • Waila - So you can have some idea what you're looking at (note: Waila's integration is such with TerraFirmaCraft that it doesn't subvert things like using the ProPick to identify individual ore types).
  • Decorations - The only content add-on for this pack. Especially added for its mud bricks (early game structure material) and lamps (permanent lighting without suffering from Pumpkins Everywhere syndrome that tends to plague those seeking superior lighting to torches).
  • FastCraft - Optimizes Minecraft 1.7.10 gameplay and so is a staple mod for 1.7.10 packs in general now.
You are free to suggest other additions, but keep in mind that the twin purposes of the pack are to be lightweight and to stay within the general aesthetic of TerraFirmaCraft itself. Anything I add will either add functionality inside this aesthetic or be a utility mod to assist gameplay without giving too much of a leg up on it.

What makes this modpack "Ez"?

This is "EzTFC" not because of the difficulty of the pack, but because of the ease of installing and playing it. I've found a major barrier to getting folks to play TerraFirmaCraft is because of the convoluted process of setting up a modded instance of Minecraft. Amazingly enough, the concept of a modpack launcher was designed to alleviate this kind of concern. Awesome!

I looked into a number of other TerraFirmaCraft-based modpacks, but essentially all of them are "TerraFirmaCraft AND something" packs. I wanted something more or less true to the core TerraFirmaCraft experience and medieval tech level that I could throw at my friends. And so here I am with this thing.

Information for Server Owners

I do include a server package, because -- as I mentioned above -- a big part of why I have this pack is to drag my friends kicking and screaming into TerraFirmaCraft without making excuses about having to download/install the mods themselves and I would like others to also enjoy dragging their friends kicking and screaming into the experience that is TerraFirmaCraft.

Included with the server package is a set of additional custom parameters for Dynmap designed for use with TerraFirmaCraft, if you so choose to implement it. These are pulled from some publicly available tweaks and could use some additional work, so if you wish to help out I will gladly take any assistance. I do not include Dynmap itself as part of the server package because it is an advanced tool for server owners who know what they are doing with it, however.

As it is FTB policy anyway, I also do not include a Cauldron or any other third party server executable. Cauldron itself is now abandoned for development and support and, in the future, TerraFirmaCraft updates may render compatibility with the extant Cauldron executables untenable. Their team will not be making any heroic efforts to keep these working together. I can understand why server owners feel the need to use Cauldron, but as is essentially always the case in using it, you do so at your own peril. I cannot provide support for this framework and any related issues that arise will more or less elicit a "deal with it" response from me, because there's nothing anybody can do for it.

Something broke. Help!

I am happy to look into issues that arise in the pack and to forward concerns to the relevant parties, but in order to provide assistance and facilitate results I need good information. Feel free to make reports on what's going wrong with this pack right here in this thread (no special format required), but please make sure to supply the following:
  • What you were doing - I need to know what brought about this problem. If you were just doing nothing, it's okay to say that too, but say it.
  • What the game then did - I need to know what the actual problem is. If this is a crash, provide a crash log. If this is some manner in in-game quirk without crash, provide a screenshot and/or appropriate server/client logs. Give me evidence to work with. The more I have to work with, the better I can work to affect a positive outcome.
While I don't require a specific form, I would request folks take the time to make submissions coherent. Use a spell checker if need be, and try to divide up blocks of information into paragraphs or lists as applicable. Help me help you.

As noted above, I do not provide Cauldron support. This also goes for you adding basically anything to the pack that I do not include in the core downloads. If you provide good information I may still try to help you out anyway, but please understand that my time and energy are limited and my priority is supporting the pack as distributed.

Changelog (Last Updated March 3, 2015)

v0.1.0
- FastCraft added. Yay!
- WAILA updated. Generic renderer/stability fixes.
- Decorations updated. Fixed issue with placeable gem textures and resource pack swaps, and an option to disable placeable gems is available (not toggled in this pack, however).

v0.0.1

- Initial Release, let's see what we can break!

Credits

This modpack is made possible by the following folks:

Bioxx, Dunkleosteus, & the rest of the TFC team - TerraFirmaCraft
aleksey_t - Decorations
ChickenBones - CodeChickenCore, NotEnoughItems
@dries007 - TerraFirmaCraftNEIplugin
ProfMobius - Waila
techbrew - JourneyMap
Player - FastCraft

Technical Notes & Known Issues (Last Updated Jan 28, 2015)

Key things you should note with this modpack:

Java Version
TerraFirmaCraft is only compatible with Java version 7 and higher. If you are using Java 6 (this is especially important for Mac users), update. Please note that I provide no support for performing such an update as I don't want to be held responsible if it gets botched. Look up a guide online for your system OS for doing this update.

Stack Size Limitations
If you are running into crashing issues with things such as crashes when you are chopping down sequoia trees, this is usually due to Java's defaults for stack size not really being sufficient for all the work involved on the back end. Add the Java parameter -Xss4M (which bumps the standard stack size up to 4MB) in your launcher's runtime options and your issue should be fixed.
 
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Vauthil

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Other Commentary

First things first: this is pending submission right now because, hilariously enough, as a Global Moderator on this forum I do not have the correct permission to use the submission form. I'm getting that worked out, but while I wait I figured I'd get this thread up and then move it to the right place when "go live" occurs. =)

In addition to adding FastCraft when it's available for modpacks to include, there are a few other mods I am considering the inclusion of.

On the utility side of things, I was considering throwing in MineTweaker just so server owners can make use of its functionality themselves, but there are a couple things holding me back. First off is the part where I'm not intending on doing any tweaks myself. Secondly, this would be a use-at-your-own-peril type of inclusion because I have no interest in trying to support it. Lastly, I am not certain if there is a demand for its inclusion right now as I don't have intentions of including mods that aren't locked in with the TerraFirmaCraft aesthetic.

On the content side of things, I am considering the Merchants mod for server play purposes. What's holding me back from including this is wondering if this is really functional without some manner of block/territory protection included anyway. Would server owners be interested in its inclusion and going on the honor system (or providing their own block protection), or is this something I should only implement if some server tools crop up that included in the future?

I'm not including InventoryTweaks right off the bat here because I'm of a mind that manual inventory management is part of the TerraFirmaCraft aesthetic, and additionally because it has been mentioned that the mere act of vanilla shift-clicking isn't actually recommended to do, so what InventoryTweaks does kinda makes me wary to include it if it's going to cause issues. I welcome feedback on this, though.

There are other mods and tweaks out there that may fit in with the aesthetic, but I don't feel particularly compelled to include any of them at this time. Feel free to try and sell me on these if you think it'll really add something to the experience, but I am trying to not get too far adrift on throwing things in here just to have them. Decorations itself is something I made an exception for because it fit in with a couple things I agree are lacking in the core implementation.

I am singularly uninterested in including automation/technology mods to this pack. There are a few TFC+tech packs out there already such as TechnoFirma, TerraFirmaPunk, and TerraFirmaTech. I am not interested in chasing them as that really isn't the experience I'm going for when I play TerraFirmaCraft. Another pack to also look at that is currently in development is TerraFirma+, which has more emphasis on some of the prettier block mods (Carpenter's Blocks, Chisel) as well as an HQM quest line.

I was tempted to mess with doing an HQM version of this, but I have no wish to compete with TerraFirma+ or the Mindcrack B-Team's forthcoming Sticks & Stones pack. That would be a separate pack anyway as the focus of this pack is a lightweight TerraFirmaCraft install for both users and server owners, and HQM is a wholly different can of worms to bust open and have to support.

Additional Commentary Posts (Updated March 3, 2015)

Additional Commentary #1 (January 28, 2015)
Additional Commentary #2 (January 29, 2015)
Additional Commentary #3 (March 3, 2015)
 
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Vauthil

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Additional Commentary #1

I still haven't gotten my access to the submission form as of yet, so no submission yet. FTB is a volunteer organization with very busy people putting in their time, so this stuff sometimes takes a bit. =)

I added a note to the OP regarding Java Versioning as well as mentioning the stack size tweak because these are two common technical things to go wrong that might frustrate users right off the bat. The stack size tweak was something I ran into personally because I essentially run on a toaster of a system and the default stack for me did not agree with chopping down a sequoia.

Something I realized after posting and thinking a bit is that a fair number of users of TerraFirmaCraft also install two other mods that I have no intention of including by default: shaders and smart moving. As I mentioned above, my system is basically a glorified toaster, and so I do not run these kinds of advanced tweak mods on them as they're just lag generators for me. From a design perspective, as the primary goal of this modpack is to be a lightweight and beginner-friendly distribution for TerraFirmaCraft with some basic utilities, throwing these in runs athwart that design. From a support perspective, I will not include something in the default distribution that I cannot provide support on. So yes, if you want those kinds of things, feel free to throw them in yourself, but I will not be including them in this pack for these reasons.

I may attempt to record and/or stream some of this pack in the future. This is again something possibly curtailed by my technical limitations (although my toaster is at least a multi-core toaster), but I will make an effort to do this, especially as the inclusion of Decorations provides an early game solution for the housing problem (mud brick structures) that standard TerraFirmaCraft LPs wouldn't be able to show off.
 
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Vauthil

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Additional Commentary #2

And, thanks to the powers that be, within a day of asking for help the submission form access is fixed and the pack is now submitted and at the mercy of the third-party pack team. I may or may not have derped on the server-side submission (I honestly don't know but I'm sure I'll get yelled at if I did) and that may delay the submission, but we'll see. In the meantime, while we get sorted, on versioning and how I reckon it with anything I release:

The initial submission for this pack is noted as version 0.0.1. This makes it the first (and thus most unstable) beta release. The way I decide the version number, if we consider the version number as X.Y.Z, is thus:
  • X is the overall pack version. This should only shift with a major pack overhaul. The two instances I foresee this happening right now is that 0 will become 1 when I feel the pack is stable. 1 will then probably become 2 if and when this pack moves on to the projected TFC2, something I will not rush into as long as TFC itself is updated with content.
  • Y is the major release version number. An increment on this indicates a shift in content, either through an adjustment in the mod load out or when TFC itself has a version bump. For example, currently TFC is 79.15; if they bump to 80.1 and beyond then I would increment this number. If/when FastCraft becomes modpack-inclusive, or if I added something like the Merchants mod, this would be a major release increment as well.
  • Z is the minor release version number. An increment on this indicates a fix for a technical issue or quality of life issue. The goal with minor release versions is that as these are incremented, the pack itself becomes a more stable product. If TFC updates from the current 79.15 to 79.16, this will probably be the number I increment. This goes for bug/QoL updates on other included mods as well.
And that's your morning pedantry on versions. =)
 
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Vauthil

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Additional Commentary #3

Welcome back, folks! Sorry for the silence/delay; v0.0.1 in fact was submitted but had two issues: because I needed to make triple sure I was good on submitting the server package, it didn't have one enabled, and the client version never made it up to the repo somehow (not a big deal beyond delaying this a month because I saw FastCraft was close for having an available permission, so I didn't bug the already swamped 3rd party team with that issue). I also got distracted with playing Infinity for a while for my "Minecraft play time sink" as well.

I was going to hold out on this update to also include the version bump for TFC 79.16, which has some nifty WAILA integration you can see here, but I figured the wait was enough as it is.

So, our first publicly listed release is v0.1.0, with the addition of FastCraft to the pack, as well as minor tweak/stability updates on Decorations and WAILA. The NEI plugin has some newer versions, but those are built against 79.16 and so I am locked on that until that update comes.

So now this is officially live and you can inflict the essential and basic TFC experience on your friends without making them have to install mods themselves. =)