Well, Vis and Light essence work off of passive generation. Dark Essence and LP work off of self/mob health sacrifice. Neutral Essence and Arcane Infusion work off of sacrificing in game items/pools of water.
So it looks like health is one common denominator between them. How many LP you get from a stab is dependent on ruins, etc. Tho TC4 doesn't really have anything health related, hmm.
Tech mods also have passive (solar), consuming items/fluids: coal; lava; herba/food/mob essence for biofuel. Though tech doesn't really a self-sacrifice component.
Alright, let's expanded on what @
SatanicSanta posted above me, specifically this:
Now, since you used a Solar Panel as an example of passive power, let's go through what you need to get one as of 16 November 2013. I will be taking this info from
http://wiki.feed-the-beast.com/Solar_Panel_(IndustrialCraft_2), so if it is wrong, whatever, point is still made.
Code:
Solar Panel
Coal Dust
Coal
Macerator/Pulverizer/Rock Crusher/whatever
Power
Glass
Sand
Furnace
Electric Circuits
Copper Cable
Copper
Rubber
Rubber Trees
Refined Iron
Iron
Furnace
Redstone
Generator
RE battery
Tin
Redstone
Copper Cable (see chart above)
Furnace
Machine Block
Refined Iron
Iron
Passive tech energy generation, via an IC2 solar panel. Now, let's compare this to Blood Magic's passive LP generation:
To get to passive LP generation, we'll assume the Well of Suffering for this example, you need a T4 altar (~92 total Blank Slates), and the five required elemental inks for the ritual. Which means you need a Ritual of Binding and a diamond sword, which requires a T3 altar, which, in order to make, requires a significant time investment due to the regeneration speed of player health, as well as Nether access. Oh, and to get a T3 altar, you need a T2 altar, and a minimum of a Weak Blood Orb (assuming you use only the standard Blood Runes, which will
greatly increase the time commitment involved). I've also greatly shortened this list, because the amount of stone is in the range of dozens of stacks, and because there are several blood orbs that are required in order to even contain the LP required to fund the Well of Suffering.
Sure, it may seem like fewer steps, but the
time involved in this is far more than what it takes to craft a solar panel. That solar panel, since the recipe has more than likely changed with IC2 Exp., should take under 2 minutes assuming you have millions of every possible resource in the game (Or nearly instant if it's programmed in a MAC or other autocrafter). Under the same conditions of several million of every resource, getting to passive LP generation will end up taking a minimum of about 2 hours due to the regeneration speed of the player. Oh, and I haven't even mentioned the fact that in order to take full advantage of the Well of Suffering, you need a mob spawner of some sort. Which is another time commitment to build and test to prevent accidental explosions and damage to the ritual or the altar setup. And you can't have it automatically created with an autocrafter.
Again, magic mods are created with a different set of balance principles. As Santa said, it's often time and effort, unlike the resources of tech mods. Putting all magic mods on the same "energy system" (and yes, I am considering a "power converter" to be the same exact "energy system", because it essentially is), you eliminate the time and effort requirements of the mods, which throws everything out of balance.
