Also, it just occurs to me that a line of sockets could function as a multi-type cable of sorts, even if it would be a bit expensive to do so compared to most cable/wire. Simply have multi-input/multi-output on corresponding faces.
[1.7.10] Engineer's Toolbox - Now with programmable sockets!
- Thread starter Emasher
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That would be fairly easy to do, I'll try to get it out in the next few days. If you have any other concerns about exploits, or OP features, I'm still balancing some things in the mod, so I'm very open to suggestions.
One thing I should note is it was recently discovered that there are some crashes when ET is run without BuildCraft, I intend to fix these fairly soon, but it is something you should be aware of.
You certainly can build custom multi-blocks with the mod, depending on how you want to define multi-block anyway. One thing I've struggled with quite a bit is giving a simple description of what the mod does that really covers everything. The multi I/o modules don't actually share the inventories or tanks or anything though, they're just combined versions of the individual I/O modules. It may be possible to set them up in a way that resources are cycled through to simulate resource sharing though.[DOUBLEPOST=1374605508][/DOUBLEPOST]
Although that's possible, it would be a massive pain to configure that many sockets let alone build them and the modules if you actually wanted to go a significant distance. It would certainly be a late game thing at the very least.
Well, if you were just using them for aesthetics, you could simply have two or three sockets hooked up in a line, then split your various resources off from there so you can conceal your lines behind the floor/wall. Using it, as an actual real life example, the power and water hookups for a washing machine which come together within the same one meter by one meter square, then diverge in the walls. I'm thinking more along the lines of compact builds and shorter distances here rather than trying to run it any significant distance.
We're still in the evaluation phase. My initial concerns are actually about the mod being a little underpowered. Our issues with power balancing are not really your problem modulo your ability to provide a config.
Yeah. If you set up a sharing face that'd enable really amusing builds. Because as it stands right now the machines you can build are pretty limited unless you use the multi-output face you simply don't have room to do a lot of the things you'd like to do. I got a fairly simple high-throughput ore processing chain going last night in testing. It didn't seem like the grinder was taking pulverizer recipes though, because I never saw any secondary outputs. Was I just unlucky in my small sample size?
Ultimately, your blocks are kinda expensive and really flexible. I like this, and I hope that over time you'll add more features (or make an API so other people can too!). My concern is that your mod will fall into the Steve's Carts UP trap, where you're so concerned about balance and stepping on other mod's toes that you become a perpetually "vanity" option of a build. And it's really too bad, because SC2 is actually a really fun mod!
A few funny successful experiments I had last night:
- I combined your pressure-plate powergen with an MFR cow farm. At volume, it can self power, generate huge volumes of sewage and milk and liquid meat. It's actually darkly hilarious to do it this way because the cow population is literally powering the machines that kill its young. Their consternation thins the population!
- I got a fairly small 3-channel-wide ore processing plant. I suspect I could make it 4-wide if I tried again with the multi-IO blocks. But ultimately that system is severely limited by the internal storage..
- You have a block breaker! It's wonderful! I made a reed farm!
- What is the self destruction option for? Did you add it for fun? I donked up my tests pretty bad playing with it.
My suggestions/questions are:
- Have you considered adding liquid routing features? Tough to configure, but MFR's liquid router is one of the quietly amazing things it has.
- Have you considered overclocking faces for the grinder face?
- Have you considered other block processing besides simple ore recipe stealing?
- I wish you had some more novel MJ generation means. I suppose I need to play with Gascraft more on this front.
- Have you thought about ways that other machines could be integrated into your multiblocks? I didn't get a chance to, but I want to try sneaking Mekanism machines into your multiblock pipelines. Seems doable, since Mekanism has a really cool configurable sidedness for machines.
Well, it has multiple internal tanks already. I suppose if you hook it directly up to an MFR liquid router, it could route all three of those liquids.
As far as other machines for integration, I know that TE should work seamlessly because they automatically output to adjacent inventories. Perhaps giving additional functionality to the vacuum module that permits it to suck from adjacent inventory on that face?
It'd be great if there was an ejector face that also could push power or liquids. The unrealized and poorly implemented dream of gregtech was powered multiblocks without all the cabling.
That's actually what the original intention of the mod was.
We're still in the evaluation phase. My initial concerns are actually about the mod being a little underpowered. Our issues with power balancing are not really your problem modulo your ability to provide a config.
Yeah. If you set up a sharing face that'd enable really amusing builds. Because as it stands right now the machines you can build are pretty limited unless you use the multi-output face you simply don't have room to do a lot of the things you'd like to do. I got a fairly simple high-throughput ore processing chain going last night in testing. It didn't seem like the grinder was taking pulverizer recipes though, because I never saw any secondary outputs. Was I just unlucky in my small sample size?
Ultimately, your blocks are kinda expensive and really flexible. I like this, and I hope that over time you'll add more features (or make an API so other people can too!). My concern is that your mod will fall into the Steve's Carts UP trap, where you're so concerned about balance and stepping on other mod's toes that you become a perpetually "vanity" option of a build. And it's really too bad, because SC2 is actually a really fun mod!
A few funny successful experiments I had last night:
I'd really love to see what sort of builds you made the mod for. There is a bunch of redstone control but I confess I don't entirely get why you'd want it.
- I combined your pressure-plate powergen with an MFR cow farm. At volume, it can self power, generate huge volumes of sewage and milk and liquid meat. It's actually darkly hilarious to do it this way because the cow population is literally powering the machines that kill its young. Their consternation thins the population!
- I got a fairly small 3-channel-wide ore processing plant. I suspect I could make it 4-wide if I tried again with the multi-IO blocks. But ultimately that system is severely limited by the internal storage..
- You have a block breaker! It's wonderful! I made a reed farm!
- What is the self destruction option for? Did you add it for fun? I donked up my tests pretty bad playing with it.
My suggestions/questions are:
- Have you considered adding liquid routing features? Tough to configure, but MFR's liquid router is one of the quietly amazing things it has.
- Have you considered overclocking faces for the grinder face?
- Have you considered other block processing besides simple ore recipe stealing?
- I wish you had some more novel MJ generation means. I suppose I need to play with Gascraft more on this front.
- Have you thought about ways that other machines could be integrated into your multiblocks? I didn't get a chance to, but I want to try sneaking Mekanism machines into your multiblock pipelines. Seems doable, since Mekanism has a really cool configurable sidedness for machines.
Up until about a minute ago I thought a sharing face would require a serious rewrite of the mod, but I just thought up a way to do it. I'll look into adding it, but it might be a while.
As far as the grinder goes, it currently only works with IC^2 macerator recipes. I'm still trying to get pulverizer recipes to work with it. This is pretty important as otherwise, there's no point in using the grinder when you can just use a pulverizer.
I understand your concern about underpoweredness caused by balancing with other mods. Balancing mods isn't an easy thing to do. Generally though, my philosophy isn't to completely balance everything to every other mod, but to make sure I don't obsolete the features of another mod. I'd like there to be a tradeoff where there are advantages to doing something either way where neither has an absolute advantage. A good example would be my water intake vs a TE aquaeous accumulator. They both do the same thing, but an aquaeous accumulator is cheaper, whereas a water intake is more flexible. Balancing things in this way requires time and actually playing the game though, so in general, it's far from complete.
The self destruct system is more for PVP. I added it mainly as a way of making completely invisible landmines using it, a pressure plate module, BuildCraft facades, and the module locking mode of the remote. I'm sure there are other uses for it though.
I do intend to release an API, but it will require some changes that I'd rather wait until I update to MC 1.6 to implement. When that's done, any mod will be able to add modules.
Liquid routing will be coming with item sorting, when I implement it.
Overclocking is a good idea.
I'll be adding more processors, but probably not until I integrate the GasCraft stuff in 1.6.
I definitely intend to add more means of power generation, but On that front, I'd like to try and do more original stuff. when I integrate GasCraft, I imagine I'll be able to do some pretty interesting stuff. I should probably warn you though that gascraft is currently pretty buggy.
Once I add item extraction modules, I imagine integrating machines from other mods into builds will become very easy.
I intend to add fluid and item "dumpers" that will output any items or fluids regardless of what inventory or tank they're stored in (with the ability to exclude an inventory or tank similarily to the distributors). That should make the sort of build you're suggesting much easier.
Unless I misinderstand what you're trying to say, the multi output module already does that.
Like, break-maps-requiring-a-rollback worlds buggy or, "I guess I can't get hydrogen that way" broken?
One of the machines, the fan, doesn't work properly, which makes it difficult to obtain smoke. There have also been some reported crashes, which may be world breaking, I don't really know since I haven't been able to replicate them myself. As far as I know though, all the bugs are related to gas blocks being in the world, so as long as you avoid that, you should be fine. Make sure the mining hazard gas blocks are turned off in the config though. I've been playing with it without issue, so if all you want to use it for is power generation, you should be fine.
I've been looking into creating some sort of multi-block interface module. It's trickier than I originally thought, but its still doable. It will probably be a while before I get around to implementing it though.
Anyway, I've just put out a quick update (1.5.7). Here's the changelog:
- Removed unnecessary dependencies on BuildCraft (everything should work without BuildCraft installed now, hopefully anyway).
+ Added Item Extractor module (see below)
+ Added config option for EU to MJ ratio
* Fixed tank interface render bug
The Item Extractor works exactly like an item input, except it can pull from adjacent inventories. When it's not configured to use redstone, it will constantly pull items. If it is, it will pull an item every time it gets a redstone pulse.
Anyway, I've just put out a quick update (1.5.7). Here's the changelog:
- Removed unnecessary dependencies on BuildCraft (everything should work without BuildCraft installed now, hopefully anyway).
+ Added Item Extractor module (see below)
+ Added config option for EU to MJ ratio
* Fixed tank interface render bug
The Item Extractor works exactly like an item input, except it can pull from adjacent inventories. When it's not configured to use redstone, it will constantly pull items. If it is, it will pull an item every time it gets a redstone pulse.
Awesome! I can't wait to get this into RR. Even as it stands it still seems like it could be really exciting.
Hey, heads up on a bug. The item extractor texture is broken.
And an aside about Gascraft, in our pack the only thing you can extract from any shale/bedrock resource with the fracker is oil.
It should be fixed now. I haven't changed the version number, just re-download 1.5.7.
For some reason texture file names aren't case sensitive in MCP, but they are when you're running the game normally. I've run into this several times before. It was just a typo.
I'm not sure what's going on with the shale resources, but there have been some very odd bugs coming up with that code before. I'm going to re-write it when GasCraft becomes an Engineer's Toolbox Addon, which may happen before I upgrade to 1.6, I'm not entirely sure at this point.
For some reason texture file names aren't case sensitive in MCP, but they are when you're running the game normally. I've run into this several times before. It was just a typo.
I'm not sure what's going on with the shale resources, but there have been some very odd bugs coming up with that code before. I'm going to re-write it when GasCraft becomes an Engineer's Toolbox Addon, which may happen before I upgrade to 1.6, I'm not entirely sure at this point.
Aaaand sold! Once V manages to get the ID list compiled, I will definitely include this in a new LTR version of ShneekeyCraft.
So I've been thinking more about multi-blocks. They're doable, but redstone control is going to be an issue as the only method I can come up with to share it would cause way too much tick lag. I'm considering that perhaps rather than doing proper multi-blocks, it might be better to add an advanced multi I/O module that you can configure between extraction input and output for each resource type, which will also include redstone. The only downside to this is it will only be able to do one inventory or tank per face. The other option is multi-block modules that do everything but redstone. The earlier option is more likely at this point I think. Either way, this sort of thing isn't going to be implemented for a while yet.
Well if you did make a proper multi-block that you'd have to make of the right size before configuring, then you'd have shared redstone for every block. The first step I'd imagine is to have a multiblock that just gives you more faces but the same number of internal tanks and inventories, and it all shares the same internal state.
That would require too many changes to the mod's internal structure. I think it still may be possible to do it the way I originally wanted to do it, it just might cause tick lag if the structures get too large (It would require doing a tree traversal every tick with certain modules installed). To be perfectly honest, I'm still not entirely convinced more faces sharing the same internal resources would open up that many more possibilities compared to what's avaliable now (as well as the advanced multi I/O module I plan on adding) with a bit of tinkering. Do you have any examples of what you might want to do specifically? One possibility would also be to have alternative tank and inventory indicators that would allow selection of multiple inventories for the advanced multi I/O module.