Adding additional mods to packs: yea or nay?

[scienceguy8]

I've been thinking of adding an additional mod to my FTB Infinity single player world to make IC2 reactor operation a little less of a hassle, but I'm a little conflicted about it. I see the packs as more or less balanced/crafted in such a way to provide a certain experience, and I don't want to mess that up. What are your thoughts? Do you further mod your mod packs, and if so, how?

 

[Cptqrk]

With Infinity, unless you are playing expert mode, there is no real balance. It's considered a kitchen sink pack and you should have no moral qualms about adding and removing what you like (do keep in mind, if you ever want to play expert mode you will need to remove added mods and replace removed mods for the pack to work!)

Enjoy the pack how you wish, just watch for version numbers and conflicts and you will be fine!

Sent from a mystical device from North of the 49th

 

[GreenZombie]

I don't even consider "expert mode" particularly balanced. They've left a bunch of rather overpowered mods in, and in the case where multiple mods provide the same functionality, the recipe (and ongoing RF) costs vary so wildly its impossible to determine if using the cheap machine is an oversight and if not, what is the point of the extreme cost of the expensive variant.

 

[Inaeo]

If a pack is trimmed and configured for a particular feel, adding or removing mods can and will affect the pack. For instance, dropping mods into (or removing mods from) a pack such as Regrowth will have dire consequences in regards to the atmosphere and balance of the pack.

On the other hand, adding or removing mods from Infinity (non-expert mode) happens all the time. Any large(ish) pack with no overarching theme or goal can be, and tends to be, a good starting point for people to tailor the pack to their own play preference.

The obvious drawbacks include not being able to auto update your new pack, screwing with any existing scripts (Expert Mode, for instance), and the inability to connect to servers who haven't done the exact same changes as you. If you're OK with these, there really isn't much of a problem.

If you have second thoughts, make a backup before adding your mods (always highly recommend practice anyway). Then, if down the road you decide you made a bad choice, revert to before you added and move forward from there.

 

[Quetzi]

I don't even consider "expert mode" particularly balanced. They've left a bunch of rather overpowered mods in, and in the case where multiple mods provide the same functionality, the recipe (and ongoing RF) costs vary so wildly its impossible to determine if using the cheap machine is an oversight and if not, what is the point of the extreme cost of the expensive variant.

Yea, when regularly Infinity was put together there was no thought put into a future expert mode (because the idea hadn't yet been conceived). With one of the design goals being the ability to switch between modes on a whim taking some of those mods out was really not feasible, despite them breaking some of the expert mode changes. With the next iteration of Infinity and expert mode we'll be able to build normal mode with an eye on what we intend to do with expert mode, so those mods that provide easy workarounds that can't easily be configured can be left out.

 

[RavynousHunter]

Always. Don't get me wrong, Infinity is a fine pack with plenty to do, but I have...certain tastes in mods that don't seem to be anywhere near the standard. For example, I'm quite fond of Reika's stuff, but next to no one seems to include it, even as an optional extra, so I have to tack 'em on myself. The worst I've come across are biome/potion ID conflicts, but those are relatively simple (if not necessarily quick, esp. in the case of biome IDs with BoP installed) to fix. I also like to experiment with new mods and play with new things and...I get bored kinda easily, so that lends itself quite well to additional mods to whatever pack I'm playing, or just building my own if I'm playing SSP.

 

[Hambeau]

I've added Veinminer and, if the pack had Tinker's Construct, Iguana Tweaks to every pack I've played since 1.7.10. I've been able to stop adding Iguana Tweaks since TiCo now has most of it's features built in.

 

[KingTriaxx]

I've usually disabled more mods than I've added. Ones I knew I wasn't going to use, like Sync, or ones I knew didn't fit the direction of the pack that I wanted to play when I was playing. It's why I've played only one HQM pack, because those tend to spaz out if you touch the load order.

At the moment, I'm playing a custom pack based on Type1Ninja's Intro2mods pack, because it's very light to start with and I could add just the mods I wanted to play with. But I played Monster with some of the mods turned off, and did the same for Modular Mayhem.