Let's talk about IC2

[Pyure]

Choco, great feedback.

But can be overclocked so that people with more power can run it faster, but those that don't won't have to suffer.

The last time I checked (a few months ago I think) overclocking a miner didn't really speed it up, it just sped up how it processed one particular action (maybe how it deals with air blocks, I forget), providing no noticeable speed advantage to the user. Has that changed?

Why should it have to? If you bend over backwards to match what someone else wants it becomes a chore to do rather than fun.

I 100% agree with you that IC2 shouldn't cater to the average player. Screw the average player.

What I'm concerned about is that IC2 is sort of beginning to fail at catering to its own niche. For "tech" players who want something more involved than TE but less "screws and bolts and annoyance" than GT, there are options these days that IC2 may be failing to keep up with.

 

[KingTriaxx]

If I feel like more than TE, but less than GT, I go with Magneticraft. It's got it's own power system, both generation and transmission, that also goes straight into IC2 machines, but also has the ability to natively translate to RF. Not unlike the old Forestry Electric engine.

That said, I've been watching DrRageHard's Surviving with IndustrialCraft2 and it still manages to be a perfectly viable standalone. Not something every mod can say.

 

[ShneekeyTheLost]

I 100% agree with you that IC2 shouldn't cater to the average player. Screw the average player.

First, you have to define the 'average player'.

I also agree that IC2 shouldn't try to cater to anyone. Having said that, there's ways of doing things far more efficiently than they currently are, from a back-end perspective. There's no reason they can't use RF to do everything that the EU system currently does. Everything that differentiates EU from RF is something that can be done with the RF API. Or rather, in addition to the RF API, since, by its nature, it is non-restrictive.

What I'm concerned about is that IC2 is sort of beginning to fail at catering to its own niche. For "tech" players who want something more involved than TE but less "screws and bolts and annoyance" than GT, there are options these days that IC2 may be failing to keep up with.

This. I would honestly love to give IC2 another chance. One mechanic that no one has ever managed to duplicate is the use of CF on cabling to not only conceal but to protect it. Back in the day, after CF was implemented, I *ALWAYS* CF'd my cable, simply because if I accidentally screwed up the voltage, it would minimize collateral damage. And should the occasional creeper blow up just outside my house, I won't lose cabling within that wall.

However... I am concerned that it is simply falling by the wayside, being propped up by nostalgia and fond memories of days gone by.[/QUOTE]

 

[GreenZombie]

What I'm concerned about is that IC2 is sort of beginning to fail at catering to its own niche. For "tech" players who want something more involved than TE but less "screws and bolts and annoyance" than GT, there are options these days that IC2 may be failing to keep up with.

Immersive Engineering seems to fill this niche.

One might argue that IC2 needs multiblocks (other than the reactor) but I disagree with that - IC2exp is - to me - a potentially far more elegant multiblock mod in that it does introduce a number of 'single block' devices, but they need to be powered, and connected to other blocks, to fulfill a purpose (such as processing ores).

If anything - it needs to add its own pipe for IC2 liquids and steam (the liquid router is handy, but expensive to chain), and a bus for items (again, the item router can fill this purpose, but is too expensive when going more than one block - Perhaps an IC2 chest (i.e. a plain inventory that can have upgrades installed) would complete the ability to create IC2 "machines".

Also - given the built in mechanisim for concealing cables are CF blocks - There should be a machined / metallic finish available using the base IC2 machine texture so that cables can be concealed as part of a machine without looking out of place.

 

[Pyure]

First, you have to define the 'average player'.

My quick definition would be to take the three most popular mods, and define them as players who don't play without those mods.

I have no idea what those would be. TE, TC, Big Reactors? Wild guess.

These players are, on average, less likely to play niche tech mods.

I am now depressed for describing one of those most popular mods in minecraft history as a niche mod.

Immersive Engineering seems to fill this niche.

That was my first thought as well.

If anything - it needs to add its own pipe for IC2 liquids and steam (the liquid router is handy, but expensive to chain),

Desperately. This is even more true ever since they added actively cooled reactors; the setups look ridiculous when they pass water/steam around via fluid regulators.

 

[Ldog]

*snip*... One mechanic that no one has ever managed to duplicate is the use of CF on cabling to not only conceal but to protect it. Back in the day, after CF was implemented, I *ALWAYS* CF'd my cable, simply because if I accidentally screwed up the voltage, it would minimize collateral damage. And should the occasional creeper blow up just outside my house, I won't lose cabling within that wall.

However... I am concerned that it is simply falling by the wayside, being propped up by nostalgia and fond memories of days gone by.

[/QUOTE]

Ahhhh yes. I fondly remember spraying all my cables in CF, waiting for it to harden and then....bam game would crash, save would be corrupted. You mean that didn't happen to everyone?

That's all it is. Nostalgia and fond memories of days gone by (aren't they the same thing?). Back in the day it was amazing. Playing with it again is making me realize all the things I hate about it now and why it pretty much dropped out of my mod lineup. Just finished making a thermal centrifuge (with all the pain that entails...although I don't know how much of it is Infinity Expert mode and how much default). The fact that I am playing on Infinity Expert and I still find IC2 extremely annoying, that should say a lot.

To me the turning point was crops. The stupid crops. That seemed to be when Alblaka lost focus and everything went to shit. It seemed like the whole mod being updated was slowed up by the crops and booze and coffee (and I love booze and coffee...IRL). Not to say it is bad, but it should have been it's own mod, which it basicly is these days since Agricraft. To me IC2 never regained it's once rightful place.

 

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Also, DW20 just demonstrated another problem I have with IC2... investment vs rewards.

Several episodes, tons of resources, a complex and lethal infrastructure chain (if you aren't wearing the proper suit) for... 360 EU/t. Erm...

This is why I was working on alternative designs for nuclear reactors, trying to get something that would be worth building. And once I finally figured it out, they nerfed it. I wasn't asking for much, something that would make an MFSU actually necessary without risking explosions. But I suppose that was too much to ask for.

 

[Pyure]

Also, DW20 just demonstrated another problem I have with IC2... investment vs rewards.

Several episodes, tons of resources, a complex and lethal infrastructure chain (if you aren't wearing the proper suit) for... 360 EU/t. Erm...

This is why I was working on alternative designs for nuclear reactors, trying to get something that would be worth building. And once I finally figured it out, they nerfed it. I wasn't asking for much, something that would make an MFSU actually necessary without risking explosions. But I suppose that was too much to ask for.

I don't mind this too much. For one thing, 360 eu/t means he did a passive-cooled reactor, which reduces your output by 50% or so. Similarly, mods have a bad habit of indulging in power-inflation. I keep an eye on a new mod called NuclearCraft which jacked up its power output specifically so it could compete with Big Reactors etc. Nowadays, if your reactor doesn't produce RF in the hundreds of thousands (or more), its "weak." (Which, btw, is one reason I like nuclearcraft and big reactors: they both allow users to tailor the outputs via configs to suit a pack. Little known fact: you can do this with IC2 reactors too)

The IC2 power outputs can reasonably be expected to balance within their own sandbox rather than accommodate the inflation.

Also: the glory of the IC2 reactor isn't necessarily its surge output, but its fuel efficiency. That 360 eu/t will last a long, long time.

 

[Someone Else 37]

Immersive Engineering seems to fill this niche.

One might argue that IC2 needs multiblocks (other than the reactor) but I disagree with that - IC2exp is - to me - a potentially far more elegant multiblock mod in that it does introduce a number of 'single block' devices, but they need to be powered, and connected to other blocks, to fulfill a purpose (such as processing ores).

If anything - it needs to add its own pipe for IC2 liquids and steam (the liquid router is handy, but expensive to chain), and a bus for items (again, the item router can fill this purpose, but is too expensive when going more than one block - Perhaps an IC2 chest (i.e. a plain inventory that can have upgrades installed) would complete the ability to create IC2 "machines".

Also - given the built in mechanisim for concealing cables are CF blocks - There should be a machined / metallic finish available using the base IC2 machine texture so that cables can be concealed as part of a machine without looking out of place.

I believe that GregTech actually adds all of the above. GT4 had a number of automation blocks that basically acted like a chest with either 1 or 27 slots and an item ejector upgrade, as well as a number of filtered versions of the same thing that send matching items one way and everything else in a different direction. GT5 replaced these machines (or at least the most basic one; I don't know offhand) with item and fluid pipes made of various metals.

GT's solution to the aesthetic issue would be to cover your pipes and cables with a plate or foil made of a metal that matches the surrounding machines. I don't know if GT cables accept any kind of structural reinforcement like IC2 cables do, so that'd be the only issue... but with the way Greg's machines try to overvolt your entire network when they explode, I'm not sure it'd make any difference.

 

[lenscas]

360 eu/t sounds like a good amount of eu/t to me. I believe that an generator gives 10 eu/t (though I am probably wrong about it because I haven't touched ic2 in a pretty darn long time)
This would mean that direwolf20 just made 36 generators, and knowing him hooked them all up to an tree harvester that can keep up with wood demand + an system that can process the wood quickly enough into charcoal.

I would say that a system like that needs a lot of resources and you would probably need more generators to get to the same output as the reactor due to the fact that this tree farm+ wood processing also consumes power and yes I do know that the uranium processing also needs power but that is at less often then the charcoal and wood production (constant vs a good while in between).

Another thing to factor in is that direwolf20 never claimed to be good at understanding how ic2 reactors work (I believe him saying the opposite multiple times) so I would also say its safe to assume his reactor setup isn't "ideal"

 

[GreenZombie]

360 EU/t is not an amount to sneeze at, but it is the largest amount you can get from a trivially automate able reactor (all the rods are the same size so any mod that supports insertion/removal can extract depleted rods and insert fresh rods).
Also, each fuel rod always produces power for 10,000 ticks, so that is 3,600,000 EU per over the life of the rods.
It also netts you a growing supply of plutonium that you can make a MOX reactor with, that will - if setup properly - run hotter and produce more EU/t for a different zero effort design.

 

[Chocohead]

Also, each fuel rod always produces power for 10,000 ticks, so that is 3,600,000 EU per over the life of the rods.

*20,000 ticks for 7,200,000 EU

Uranium lasts twice as long as MOX does

 

[KingTriaxx]

Not to mention you also get the pellets for the RTG generators, which make excellent backup power. I think it ends up like 20EU/t? Takes a while to get there, but then you only need the reactor when you're trying to make UU or process a lot of stuff.

 

[ShneekeyTheLost]

I don't mind this too much. For one thing, 360 eu/t means he did a passive-cooled reactor, which reduces your output by 50% or so. Similarly, mods have a bad habit of indulging in power-inflation. I keep an eye on a new mod called NuclearCraft which jacked up its power output specifically so it could compete with Big Reactors etc. Nowadays, if your reactor doesn't produce RF in the hundreds of thousands (or more), its "weak." (Which, btw, is one reason I like nuclearcraft and big reactors: they both allow users to tailor the outputs via configs to suit a pack. Little known fact: you can do this with IC2 reactors too)

The IC2 power outputs can reasonably be expected to balance within their own sandbox rather than accommodate the inflation.

Also: the glory of the IC2 reactor isn't necessarily its surge output, but its fuel efficiency. That 360 eu/t will last a long, long time.

I believe you are missing my point, or at least exaggerating for effect here.

I'm not saying it should be stupidly high, but I feel you should be able to come up with a way of getting somewhere on the order of 700ish a tic consistently so there's actually a purpose to building an MFSU other than for long-distance low-loss transmission via fibre. Which... actually, isn't the case anymore since it isn't packet-dependent anymore, so there is literally no reason for an MFSU.

For the amount of resources he just threw out there for the reactor, his returns is less than the bank of fuel generators downstairs. This gives me zero incentive to have to go through a punitive process for less production than simply expanding what I already have.

I'm explicitly stating that it is by no means internally balanced, compared to the other options within the mod.

 

[RavynousHunter]

I don't mind this too much. For one thing, 360 eu/t means he did a passive-cooled reactor, which reduces your output by 50% or so. Similarly, mods have a bad habit of indulging in power-inflation. I keep an eye on a new mod called NuclearCraft which jacked up its power output specifically so it could compete with Big Reactors etc. Nowadays, if your reactor doesn't produce RF in the hundreds of thousands (or more), its "weak." (Which, btw, is one reason I like nuclearcraft and big reactors: they both allow users to tailor the outputs via configs to suit a pack. Little known fact: you can do this with IC2 reactors too)

The IC2 power outputs can reasonably be expected to balance within their own sandbox rather than accommodate the inflation.

Also: the glory of the IC2 reactor isn't necessarily its surge output, but its fuel efficiency. That 360 eu/t will last a long, long time.

If you're not using ReactorCraft reactors, you're doing it wrong. [/sarcasm]

Honestly, and this is going to hurt a lot saying this, but...I agree. There seems to be a veritable arms race in getting the "most RF/t" or "most RF per arbitrary unit of fuel," especially in the reactor sphere. Granted, you can config (or, do like me and just not bother using) the biggest offender, Big Reactors, to bring things down to less crazy levels, but by default, the outputs you can get for a relatively trivial-to-construct-and-fuel reactor are pretty nuts.

That's one of the reasons my only real nuclear experimentation in the past few months have been with ReactorCraft. Why? Because you damn well earn that power. You need jet fuel (and in relatively large amounts, in my experience) to even break into ReactorCraft, and that's just building a garden-variety HTGR. You want a turbine to actually make all that steam useful? You'd better have a hefty steel supply, and a fair amount of tungsten. And a working pulse jet furnace, oxygen optional, which eats even more jet fuel. Want to break into proper fission? You'd better have bedrock dust and a high-temerature blast furnace to work with, or you're not going freaking anywhere. Even then, you still need to get a supply of fluorite, and wait for your centrifuge(s) to build up enough U-235 to be useful. And if you want a high-pressure turbine to get power out of that beauty when you're done? Yeah, the steel requirements are immense.

That, my friends, is why I don't even look at another reactor mod, anymore. Because hot damn, do you feel like hot shit when you split your first atom. IC2 don't got shit on ReactorCraft. Sorry. But, not really.

 

[Pyure]

I believe you are missing my point, or at least exaggerating for effect here.

I'm not saying it should be stupidly high, but I feel you should be able to come up with a way of getting somewhere on the order of 700ish a tic consistently so there's actually a purpose to building an MFSU other than for long-distance low-loss transmission via fibre. Which... actually, isn't the case anymore since it isn't packet-dependent anymore, so there is literally no reason for an MFSU.

For the amount of resources he just threw out there for the reactor, his returns is less than the bank of fuel generators downstairs. This gives me zero incentive to have to go through a punitive process for less production than simply expanding what I already have.

I'm explicitly stating that it is by no means internally balanced, compared to the other options within the mod.

No sir, although I'm not 100% sure I was very clear.

You can absolutely get way more than 360 eu/t from a single reactor in IC2. The trick is active-cooling, creating superheated steam, and running it through paired turbines.

And since nothing in the mod really demands those kinds of powers, its not hard to argue that these amounts really are balanced within the mod.

Which pack is he playing? The fact that he's able to generate massive amounts of fuel for his bank of generators downstairs is, I'm guessing, leveraging other mods. You can't factor those in when describing the relative internal balance of power generation mechanics.

 

[GreenZombie]

And since nothing in the mod really demands those kinds of powers, its not hard to argue that these amounts really are balanced within the mod.

The mods engame demands Iridium, and unless you are extremely fortunate (or have performed the Convocation of the Damned) you are going to need a lot of UU Matter to make Iridium. And that needs rather a lot of EU.

 

[Pyure]

The mods engame demands Iridium, and unless you are extremely fortunate (or have performed the Convocation of the Damned) you are going to need a lot of UU Matter to make Iridium. And that needs rather a lot of EU.

Do you happen to know how large a recycling and mass-fab array you can build off a single IC2 reactor, nevermind several? Its a pretty decent one

I'm not trying to be difficult. Its just, none of these are logical arguments for the IC2 reactors being imbalanced within its own mod.

 

[KingTriaxx]

Part of the RF 'arms race' is because of AE. It's just that powerful, and all the bits take energy. Lots of it, if you're using the quantum rings. But more than that, once you start auto-crafting or setting it up so it's auto-crafting, all the machines it's working with take power as well. And because most of us don't want to sit and wait on an autocraft, we accelerate the machines. What took 20RF/t, now takes 100. And chances are you've got multiples of it. Eventually dynamo's can't keep up, even upgraded. So you move x8, and x64 generators, then on to reactors. And then turbines. And then realize you still need more power. It's not necessarily a bad thing, but too many people skip the entry level and jump straight to the top for no reason other than because it's there.

Dire's design is hyper cautious. He's generating no reactor hull heat. Shifting the design to put the rods in a 2x3 pattern in the middle would boost his power, but also start generating hull heat. As long as it doesn't get high enough to melt the casing it's fine, but he's playing it very safe.

 

[GreenZombie]

Dire's design is hyper cautious. He's generating no reactor hull heat. Shifting the design to put the rods in a 2x3 pattern in the middle would boost his power, but also start generating hull heat. As long as it doesn't get high enough to melt the casing it's fine, but he's playing it very safe.

Its not hyper cautious: IC2 rods first try to dump ALL their generated heat int surrounding components. If there is no suitable component, THEN the heat goes into the hull.
This means there are basically two ways of designing IC2 reactors: Component cooled - each rod has enough components that accept enough heat, that they can take all the heat from the rods and dissipate it. And hull cooled - where each rod has NO adjacent components that accept heat, all the heat goes into the hull, and other components can then draw reactor heat, distribute it to vents, and cool the reactor.
There is no real middle ground as a rod will always dump ALL its heat into an adjacent component - potentially more than it can take and thus melting it - if there is an eligible component adjacent.
You can make a hybrid reactor where some rods are adjacent to vents that accept heat and others are not, but that always gets a bit messy to manage. and I think the resulting design is always compromised.