1.6.4 Liquid Fuel Boiler fuel changes.

[PhilHibbs]

I, for one, welcome our new liquid fuel nerf overlords.
Solid-fueled (charcoal) boilers are still working the same way in 1.6.4 and the liquids seem to be encouraging (forcing) tree breeding, which is not a bad thing.

I disagree. I like building solutions using several mods. I've made tree farms using Steve's Carts, turtles (three different designs), RedPower frames, and MFR. I look forward to using golems for my next one. I've processed the charcoal using FZ, IC2, and TE. Right now, the only mod bottleneck for large scale MJ production is Railcraft, as it's the only mod that adds boilers and 8MJ/t engines. I don't want Forestry to become another bottleneck, becoming the only way to generate sufficient liquid fuel for power. If I can't harvest the tree and the saplings two or three different ways, then they don't exist for me. Why is it that I can automate my bees with FZ, BC, RP, or AE, yet if I want to automate my trees I have to use a Forestry Multifarm?

 

[AlanEsh]

... the liquids seem to be encouraging (forcing) tree breeding, which is not a bad thing.

I think it's a very bad thing.

 

[zilvarwolf]

I think it's a very bad thing.

Only from the perspective of multiple mods outside of an otherwise connected ecosystem, IMO.

It behooves the forestry team to write the mod so that people are encouraged to experience the entire thing, or they're wasting a lot of time writing code that isn't used. Since BC, Forestry, and Railcraft are all pretty tightly knit these days (or so it seems, at least), the results will be felt in lots of different places. This is beneficial to those mods and those developers, because they really want/need people to experience the stuff they're writing, otherwise they're spending a LOT of hours doing things that just get ignored or derided as useless. Now they get to spend a LOT of hours doing things that get them flamed...but at least the stuff is getting used

Fortunately, we're in an environment where we don't have to continue to buy into things we aren't interested in. I honestly like tree breeding...in moderation. I like it because I'm a piss-poor builder, and having more types and colors of wood to make eye-searingly disgusting buildings from is a real treat. But I wouldn't want to rely on it for my infrastructure, especially not before someone went out and did all the difficult work of figuring out which trees were awesome, and how to mix and match the traits we want to make UberTree, Defender of the PowerVerse! Now that someone has actually put that puzzle together, it's just a matter of following directions and having patience. I'm better than average at the former, and Really Bad at the latter, personally.

 

[MigukNamja]

Currently have 4x 36HP boilers fed with 2x SC2 Galgadorians and RC Steam Ovens with plenty of wood to spare. Haven't started to breed trees, but have most of a 9x9x8 RC steel (~20M) tank full of Ethanol from vanilla saplings. Will try to use SC2 for bred (Forestry) saplings, but will use TC4 lumberjacks or MultiFarm if SC2 exotic can't.....cut it. Pun intended.

For MJ power transmission and storage, Ender IO is fantastic. It doesn't look as nice as TE, but it has picked up the slack well in TE's absence.

For IC2 power, am using nuclear and Fiendish/Demonic --> simmering comb --> phosphorous --> lava.

 

[Hoff]

Now they get to spend a LOT of hours doing things that get them flamed...but at least the stuff is getting used

Not for long. More convenient, friendly, better designed mods will come about and these old mods will get pushed to the side in terms of mainstream mods as they deserve. The niche of players the devs are catering to(and are a part of) is a rather small niche within the community. The players within that niche already used the mechanics they're now forcing everyone that uses the mod to use and will only serve to force themselves out of the mainstream.

 

[AlanEsh]

Only from the perspective of multiple mods outside of an otherwise connected ecosystem, IMO.

Good point.

Now they get to spend a LOT of hours doing things that get them flamed...but at least the stuff is getting used

I prefer to pick parts from various mods to accomplish my goals, so this just makes me less likely to pick from Forestry. But, again, as you said this is a plus (I guess?) for those people using the mod outside of 100+ mod modpacks.

 

[zilvarwolf]

Not for long. More convenient, friendly, better designed mods will come about and these old mods will get pushed to the side in terms of mainstream mods as they deserve. The niche of players the devs are catering to(and are a part of) is a rather small niche within the community. The players within that niche already used the mechanics they're now forcing everyone that uses the mod to use and will only serve to force themselves out of the mainstream.

Well, sure. That's life, really. People move on.

There's going to be a great deal of institutional inertia carrying these mods along though. Modpack creators like Tekkit, Hexxit, and FTB almost have to include them in mainstream packs in order to be taken seriously, and every mod LP'er I've watched uses and relies on them heavily. As long as those things are true, it's going to be a slow uphill battle, IMO, for any kind of core infrastructure replacement.

 

[MigukNamja]

Are there viable replacements for BC, RC, and Forestry ?

Specifically:

• BC quarry
• RC boilers
• Forestry centrifuge, squeezer, multifarms, everything bee-related, etc.,.

On the surface, MFR seems like a viable replacement, but the latest versions are game-crashing buggy, in my experience. DSUs stopped working with AE Storage Buses or vanilla hoppers.

 

[MigukNamja]

Well, quarry side, BC is all but dead. Its primary purpose now is legacy and as a base of derivation. TE, Ender IO, and MFR have all but superceded BC.

However, RC and Forestry are actively being worked and have a lot of interesting mechanics.

 

[Sarda]

Not for long. More convenient, friendly, better designed mods will come about and these old mods will get pushed to the side in terms of mainstream mods as they deserve. The niche of players the devs are catering to(and are a part of) is a rather small niche within the community. The players within that niche already used the mechanics they're now forcing everyone that uses the mod to use and will only serve to force themselves out of the mainstream.

IC2 was basically a dead mod that's had no new content in a very long time and its supposedly the cause of fuel rebalance that's screwing up the popular active mods.

 

[Omicron]

I think it's a very bad thing.

Yeah, how dare mods design themselves so that you must use their content to get something in return! I mean, look at Thermal Expansion: you have to build a machine in order to get double ore output, a machine that serves no other purpose and even takes energy to run! How rude to the player can one mod author get? Soon, more convenient and friendly and better designed mods will come about and push TE to the side in terms of mainstream mods as it deserves.

...oh wait

Bottomline: you want something a mod offers, then you (surprise!) have to actually play that mod. It's not a new concept by any stretch of the imagination - it's how it has always been, and it's how it always will be, from the old guard like IC2 all the way to the new age of MFR and Tinker's Construct. Don't come complaining that a feature is "too weak" if you refuse to use it as designed, because there's nobody to blame for that other than yourself. Which mod you use and in what way is your perogative, but please spare the forums your hypocrisy when something changes somewhere that makes your favorite method of cherrypicking the low-hanging fruit from various mods a little less convenient.

IC2 was basically a dead mod that's had no new content in a very long time and its supposedly the cause of fuel rebalance that's screwing up the popular active mods.

IC2 has had more new content in the past two months than MFR and Tinker's Contruct combined.

 

[Hoff]

BC is all but moot. RC doesn't have a replacement yet but probably will before long. Forestry will die if another mod adds another system like bees in a more convenient and friendly manner.

If they continue the way they're going someone will make a mod that does what they do but better.

 

[MigukNamja]

A little too much "sky is falling here". If you want easy 36HP power, use charcoal. It was easy and is still easy.

If you want liquid 36HP power, well, you'll probably have to breed a few trees.

Bottom line : 36HP power wasn't taken away or made more difficult. It's *different*, but not more difficult.

 

[Sarda]

IC2 has had more new content in the past two months than MFR and Tinker's Contruct combined.

Then they apparently hide it extremely well since looking at their wiki and the list of every machine and item I see nothing new since the last time I looked well over a year ago. Same quantum armor that no one uses anymore, same crop system no one cares about, energy storage and wiring is unchanged, they reworked how reactors work awhile ago but that's not new content same energy makers besides that, no new resources or tools, yah... I'm not seeing anything here. This is a zombie mod that save a rework to reactors has been the same since pre-forge days.

A little too much "sky is falling here". If you want easy 36HP power, use charcoal. It was easy and is still easy.

If you want liquid 36HP power, well, you'll probably have to breed a few trees.

Bottom line : 36HP power wasn't taken away or made more difficult. It's *different*, but not more difficult.

So when your Solid Boilers get nerfed into the ground eating 4x as much charcoal I'm sure you'll claim that its just 'different' and not more difficult.

 

[Hoff]

It's not "the sky is falling" it's just the dead skin is falling off after being in the light for too long.

 

[zilvarwolf]

Are there viable replacements for BC, RC, and Forestry ?

Specifically:

• BC quarry
• RC boilers
• Forestry centrifuge, squeezer, multifarms, everything bee-related, etc.,.

On the surface, MFR seems like a viable replacement, but the latest versions are game-crashing buggy, in my experience. DSUs stopped working with AE Storage Buses or vanilla hoppers.

There are other mods with auto-digging features, depending on what you're looking for. Probably the most obvious answers are computercraft and thaumcraft. I was just glancing over RotaryCraft earlier today and there were some items that looked kinda like they might be autodiggers (I think one of them was a Borer, or something like that). And Steve's Carts has the mining drill, which I've never used.

I'm not sure what you'd need a boiler for if you didn't have the default infrastructures installed. Right now they exist primarily to eat up resources at an amazing rate All jesting aside, there really isn't a lot of savings in material to use a boiler vs a lot of engines. I suppose the most obvious replacement would be the MFR biofuel engines, or whatever they're called. They produce a great deal of power, smartly, and aren't all that difficult to automate. For solid fuel, not sure. I just haven't needed that level of power for anything (short of an MFR laser) recently. I haven't used a boiler in my last...3, I guess, worlds.

And without forestry itself, I can't see why you'd even want the rest of the forestry stuff. I don't use multifarms at all. If I want trees, I use MFR. I've only used bees for automation once, and it felt a lot like cheating (but then again, I was using an MFR planter with xycraft soil 3 deep for my tree farm to power my 4 boilers, so cheating is very relative). I guess I'd have to respond to specific goals to know whether or not there are really replacement for any of those items other than bees/bee-stuff.

 

[AlanEsh]

Yeah, how dare mods design themselves so that you must use their content to get something in return! I mean, look at Thermal Expansion: you have to build a machine in order to get double ore output, a machine that serves no other purpose and even takes energy to run! How rude to the player can one mod author get? Soon, more convenient and friendly and better designed mods will come about and push TE to the side in terms of mainstream mods as it deserves.
...oh wait

I love TE.
Bees and tree breeding don't do anything positive for me, so I'm less likely to use anything from Forestry the more they intertwine all of their overly fiddly bits. So, in the context of FTB, which might be the web forum we're on, and which might employ 100+ mods with at least some the intent of them working together nicely, I don't see this as a positive development. Pardon me for disagreeing with a blanket "it's better" post.

 

[Hoff]

I love TE.
Bees and tree breeding don't do anything positive for me, so I'm less likely to use anything from Forestry the more they intertwine all of their overly fiddly bits. So, in the context of FTB, which might be the web forum we're on, and which might employ 100+ mods with at least some the intent of them working together nicely, I don't see this as a positive development. Pardon me for disagreeing with a blanket "it's better" post.

Obvious bias makes the argument pointless. Forcing people to do tree breeding to get end game power out of Ethanol is not a bad thing. At least it wouldn't be if a single 36 HP was considered end game level power. It's not. Back when 100 MJ/t was an incredible amount of power there was abysmal use for it. Now? Extremely higher power demands. Using IC2 as a baseline for power generation is a stupid idea unless EVERY mod toned down it's power consumption to match.

Then again the idea that machines should follow the "coal standard" in and of itself is an amazing show of stupidity.

 

[Yusunoha]

Maybe I'm just unlucky then. I have 3 bee houses near a apple oak & silver birch. The two trees are planted in a bog biome (normal/damp), and one of the bee houses is also in that biome (swamp bees). Two more bee houses (meadow bees) are a few blocks away in a field biome. I'm getting a good number of mutations, but zero white willows. Lots of oak-birch hybrids, and some silver limes & common beeches, but no willows.

just a quick and simple stupid question from me, but are you using the spectacles?

 

[MigukNamja]

I think the coal standard is fine and charcoal-fired 36HPs have never been easier. Until they come for the charcoal, I'm mostly failing to see what the fuss is about.

Indeed, I mostly welcome this change. Pre-nerf, I thought Refined bees were laughable. I was getting over 500 MJ/t from one Queen. Likewise, Mahoe saplings were a joke. Pre-nerf, 1 MultiFarm could net over 1000 MJ/t.

Not quite MFR squid territory, but OP nonetheless.

*Old man grumbles and shambles off to tend his trees and bees*