[1.7.10]Atonement: Sins of the Past Hardcore Survival Thaumcraft Focused

[Iskandar]

Ah, yes. I am currently in the process of rebuilding the pack. What you see is a transition build. The world gen is in place, the changes have been made, the documentation has yet to catch up. That is coming. The lack of a laurel crown is a bug and will be fixed in the next version. Be warned, things are a bit off balance yet. The next patch should improve things quite a bit.

However, I am quite pleased with this update. Performance has improved substantially and mob spawning is now working more or less how it should, minus some balance problems to be fixed in the next update. Both of these problems have plagued the pack from the start and finally finding a definite fix is a major step forward. I am quite pleased with the change to a sky island type map, and Botania's change to the sky makes it look amazing. I've replaced quite a few mods, which is why there are no tornadoes. There are now meteors in their place. Clockwork Phase has been replaced by Silent's Gems and Witchery by Essential Craft. There are a few new Thaumcraft add ons and overall the pack is in much better shape.

Expect the new documentation in the next patch, although the change from simple Achievements to Better Questing will take a little longer.

The next update should be next week some time.

Oh, and it should be noted I am no longer maintaining my packs on FTB, I have moved to Curse exclusively. It is a better system overall and it was confusing trying to deal with both.

 

[DigitalWino]

Thanks for the updated info Iskandar (and for the info on the CL forum as well). We totally understand that you are busy with life right now. And life, especially kids or expected kids, should come first. No question about that. You make some awesome and brutally hard packs (heh, I'm kind of curious what kind of soul crushing ideas you and Eyamaz could come up with if you teamed up...). What I love about your packs, is the depth of game play, and how much thought and work you put into them. It makes your packs feel less like mod packs, and more like independent games.

I used to play a lot of the FtB packs, but after a while they felt like they were all the same. They just took all of the big mods, and threw them together. It was the same "kitchen sink" pack over and over again, just newer version. Not to say that they didn't take time and effort to make. Just never really felt like anything new was happening. Then they announced that they were going to be doing packs with specific directions instead of kitchen sink packs. I got excited. But then they seemed to scrap that idea and just go back to kitchen sink packs. Very sad. Then it seemed like at least two of they're more prominent well known members (purposfully leaving out names) left the team to go solo and/or work on collaborations of their choosing. At least one of which I believe said they did so BECAUSE of the whole kitchen sink pack thing. And those two pack creators have made some of my favorite packs, and have some in the works that sound utterly awesome.

Anyway, lol, my point is that I love that your packs have direction, and story, and it's not just a bunch of shit thrown together. "People like mod X, so I better put it in my pack, even though it does the same thing as mod Y and Z which are already in there."

I just wanted to check with other people about the stuff that seemed to be missing to me because there was a lot of talk of clockwork tools, tornadoes, and the laurel crown, none of which I had seen, lol. So I wanted to make sure that I wasn't crazy or missing something.

I LOVE the sky island style maps. It was the first thing I noticed, and made me instantly fall in love with the pack. Honestly, I wish I could find a way to have that be the type of map generated in pretty much every pack I play that doesn't use a default map, lol. Obviously it adds the danger of falling off, but as long as you're careful, not a big deal.

And I don't know if it was always there, but I also REALLY LOVE that you can pick the thaumometer and scan items in your inventory (and even yourself, lol) with it. Saves soooo much time on dropping items on the ground, then picking them up. I'd always thought that should be a feature. I know it's not your mod, but the only other thing that I think it needs, is that when you scan an item that you can't learn anything from, it gets flagged as scanned and then just shows a red X for aspects or something, that way you don't have to keep scanning it (I have a shitty memory, especially when sometimes it will be most items from a mod that can't be scanned, but then there a few random ones that can).

 

[Iskandar]

And I don't know if it was always there, but I also REALLY LOVE that you can pick the thaumometer and scan items in your inventory (and even yourself, lol) with it. Saves soooo much time on dropping items on the ground, then picking them up. I'd always thought that should be a feature. I know it's not your mod, but the only other thing that I think it needs, is that when you scan an item that you can't learn anything from, it gets flagged as scanned and then just shows a red X for aspects or something, that way you don't have to keep scanning it (I have a shitty memory, especially when sometimes it will be most items from a mod that can't be scanned, but then there a few random ones that can).

Eh, it isn't too bad. I'd suggest moving anything that can be scanned but you can't currently to its own chest. You should advance to the point of being able to scan everything within a few minutes to a few hours and not need that trick and can get rid of the chest afterwards.

 

[DigitalWino]

Yeah, that's what I eventually did. But am now past that point.

I find it amusing that was the part you focused on after my big post of praise, lol.

Edit: Never mind. Just saw the Crash Landing post.

 

[Desman]

I liked the Clockwork Phase, but I felt it was a bit overpowered (as well as the high res textures...). Looking forwart to the next version.

 

[DigitalWino]

Are there any charts or anything out there that show ore generation for this pack? I'm specifically looking for copper and zinc. The base ores, you can find the best Y level in NEI (assuming that it's correct, lol), but not copper or zinc.

 

[Iskandar]

Are there any charts or anything out there that show ore generation for this pack? I'm specifically looking for copper and zinc. The base ores, you can find the best Y level in NEI (assuming that it's correct, lol), but not copper or zinc.

Copper and Zinc should be near the top. Like y 50 ish? Maybe a bit higher.

 

[DigitalWino]

Sweet, thanks.

 

[DigitalWino]

Note to self (and others): If I have to start another world, next time around plant a silverwood tree asap. These damn things take FOREVER to grow w/o a hoe of growth. But I need to the tree, to get the wood, so I can make the arcane alembics and get jars of essentia so I can make the hoe to get the tree to grow faster, lol. I've always been able to run around and find one to chop down real quick and get the wood I need to start.

 

[goreae]

This may be a stupid question, but what mod do you use for the skylands?

 

[DigitalWino]

I'm curious as well. I might start adding it to every pack I play If I had to guess, I would think Dimensional Control.

 

[Iskandar]

Dimensional Control. It can do that and much, much more. It is also keeping villages from generating and a few other things. Spawning mobs was finally fixed by JustAnotherSpawner. Everything is much improved in the new version.

Speaking of which, the documentation is overhauled and I just finished rebuilding the Simple Achievements book. There are now over 50 goals to achieve, from fighting monsters, to building stuff, exploration, recreating lost fauna and flora, visiting other dimensions and quite a bit more. I'm getting a few people to run it through its paces before releasing it wide in case I've made a stupid mistake. Whivh happens more often than I'd like.

Edit: As much as I am fond of Crash Landing this is a better pack overall. More polished, less grind, and it actually has a win condition, something that Crash Landing, ultimately, lacked.

 

[DigitalWino]

Yeah, crash landing could have used something where you were trying to gather a lot of materials to fix the ship so you could leave again. Or something where you could teraform the planet and start a civilization.

I'm sure you have a specific set of people for testing, but if you need another, let me know ;-)

 

[DigitalWino]

There was a question earlier about biome overrides when it came to the pure nodes vs ethereal blooms. On the FtB wiki it says:

"These trees have a rare possibility of creating a pure node which can change the biome that it is in from whatever it is into a magical forest which is where you can have a Mana Pod plant grow.

If you decide you no longer want an area to be a magical forest, you can restore the area to its original biome using an Ethereal Bloom"

So it would seem that technically, the world is by default all plains, that has then been changed to tainted lands by the corruption. So when we use an ethereal bloom, it removes the change and reverts it to default of plains. And that it will in fact remove ANY changes, and turn it into the default (in this case, plains). I finally got my first tree, no node though. But now that I have the one, I can get into distilling essentia, make myself a hoe of growth, and now I wont have to wait anymore. Sounds like what I should probably do though is remove my bloom before I grow the trees, that way if there is a node, the bloom wont screw it up, lol.

 

[Desman]

It shouldn't screw it up, the node will happily convert the biome as soon as you remove the bloom. If you leave both, I imagine they will create a random pattern of plains/magic biome.

 

[Lachim Heigrim]

How does everyone survive the nether visit? Is it just a lucky draw for an underground spawn or is it quite late game?

I came in an while the world was generating and the flaming dogs attacked me. I quickly built a pillar of cobble under me and slashed them. While on the pillar a ghast shot me and everything went into flames. LAG. I ate a golden apple and started running random direction. I somehow survived it but few second later I went into flames repeatedly until I realized I am being attacked by the dogs again. LAG+darkness. I killed the dogs and tried to approach the portal so the ghast started shooting at me again. I returned one shot but two more exploded around me and I was dead.

I was wearing full set of manasteel armor, no enchantments. I can do few more things: bring more golden apples to keep tanking, maybe fit the flaxbeard's armor with fire protection on. What do you guys do? I feel I need to get more creative in overworld before hitting Nether. My motivation for the visit were basic Botania runes.

 

[Desman]

General-purpose Nether tactic: bring 10 obsidian and a flint&steel, on entering hit Esc and let it load properly, run away a few blocks and dig in to build a new portal.

That works even in BnB. Unless you spawn over a lava sea.

 

[Iskandar]

Alright, the new updated Atonement is live on Curse. Documentation is sorted, goals are expanded, performance and mob spawning look good.

The changes:
The map is now a sky island type map
Mob spawning has finally been fixed. As such, tainted animals should be easier to find and and caves should be a bit more dangerous
Silverfish now only spawn at y level 50 or below, should make the initial dig in easier and safer
Weather has been replaced by MeteorCraft. If you can find one it does contain a good variety of resources as well as destroying terrain and setting things on fire
Ores have been rebalanced a bit
Witchery has been replaced by EssentialCraft (no more flaming dogs)
Clockwork Phase has been replaced by Silent's Gems
A few new Thaumcraft add ons, including Thaumcraft Inventory Scanner, which does exactly what you'd expect (hold a thaumometer in your hand to scan a chest or other inventory)
Starting stone tools have been replaced by flint tools
Vocation has been added for a bit of being vO and hints, tips, and other announcements
Performance should be a lot better. For me, at least, my FPS was nearly double over the old version of Atonement
The Simple Achievements goals have been reworked and expanded. There are now over 50 goals to achieve, fighting, exploration, rebuilding, renewal, defense and quite a bit more. And, unlike a typical quest pack you can achieve this goals in any order, and mostly in any way, you please.

As a note: I am no longer maintaing my packs on FTB, only on Curse.Trying to keep both launchers in sync was confusing and a real pain.

Also, don't forget to grab Fastcraft. Performance is much improbed, but the initial world gen can be a bit slow.
Screenshots:

Spoiler

 

[DigitalWino]

Are old worlds compatible, or is it best to start anew? I mean it would seem if nothing else you likely don't get the crown, you don't have the tweaked ore/silverfish gen, but would there be anything else?

 

[Dweia]

Hello, I was playing this modpack before it was updated and I loved it!

However, when I downloaded the current version from the curse launcher, the game crashes.
So, how do I post the crash log, exactly? I really don't know much about this sort of stuff.
Sorry if the answer is obvious and I missed it.