The Vajra is a horrid abomination that disappoints me for the simple reason multiple reasons, most simply that it boggles me a mod maker would add such a powerful SMP griefing tool. It doesn't matter how long it takes to get it, some of the "best" trolls and griefers would be the "sleeper agent" ones anyways. It pops Hedge, Mazestone, and Iridium Reinforced Stone with a tap, and it would not surprise me for a moment if it the upcoming Warded Doors and Stone from Thaumcraft have no defense against it either. The Mining Laser may be just as absurd, I haven't yet checked, but at least I know that has a convenient config option to disable it. Even ignoring the griefing potential, it frustrates me to no end that some people think it's good game design to trivialize EVERYTHING with the top tier of equipment. Have they never learned from RPGs that do such things that it sucks all the fun out of having new toys if there's nothing left worth using it on? If nothing else, it spoils the fun of trying to defend a base with such high defense blocks as it pretends they're not even there.
A couple of things popped into my head as I was reading this. First, not everyone plays (or cares about) SMP, or they enjoy SMP gameplay on private servers where griefing isn't an issue. If you're on a public SMP server where certain items make it too easy to grief, it's up to the admins of the server to ban those items. Problem solved.
Second, if you're mad that the technology/magic centric mod provides ways for players to easily breach walls, your options are to defend your facilities with something more robust than mundane walls or not play a technology/magic centric modpack with your Minecrafting.
The one problem is that the Advanced diamond drill isn't faster. Testing with the advanced chainsaw yields no faster results either. The only thing, albeit a good advantage, is that the advanced drill can cut through grass and gravel as fast as dirt, which makes terraforming easier. However, I've noticed that it doesn't work on everything the normal drill works on. For example, crystals from Mystcraft can't be quickly mined with the advanced drill, as opposed to the normal one.
Advanced Diamond Drill *is* faster than the stock Diamond Drill. This can be clearly observed by a test on a block of obsidian. You're not going to see a massive difference on trash blocks and such, but something that normally takes several seconds to eat through like obsidian is where you'll see the difference. If you're comparing to a different variant of a Diamond Drill (ie. gregtech variant) that's a whole other issue, but the mod maker didn't promise a drill better than the Diamond Drill as mutated by another mod.
I've never heard of the Vajra, but I'll be using it for sure now. I have an ultimate lappack, so 3k per use is nothing with 10mil storage. That's over 3000 uses in a single trip.
Vajra is fantastic for rapid clearing but you probably don't want to be using it near anything you don't want to break, as it tends to be a little too fast on occasion.
Vajra uses 3333 EU per operation where the advanced drill uses 160. Gravisuit and ultimate solar helmet combo is ridiculously OP and that makes you able to never have to recharge at base. The helmet can charge everything in your inventory and works even in the dark.
Ultimate Solar Helmet wouldn't be able to keep up with a Vajra. It can extend the length of time you can spend in the field but you can still drain your power. 512 EU/t from the helmet (only above ground during the day) won't keep up with 3333 EU/t consumed by a hard working Vajra. I'd also be curious to see if it could keep up with a flying GraviSuit. Not having to recharge at base is a tough criteria to label something OP, I think.
The chainsaw working as shears doesn't make any sense to me. Really now, would you shear sheep with a running chainsaw? Also, I would rather have it break the leaves normally than shear them. And btw, Nano Saber and chainsaw both use power when you attack with them so there's really no point to use the chainsaw as a weapon when you have Nano Saber. Yeah you have to activate the saber but it's not that bad.
The Vajra is somewhat balanced by the energy usage but the armor added by the same mod makes it a non-issue anyway.
I'm always going for the optimal solutions because why not. Less work done, more fun had. You can start over if you feel you don't have anything to do.
Who cares if the chainsaw as shears doesn't make 'sense'? You know what else doesn't make sense? The idea that you'd have a snowball's chance in hell of shearing a wild sheep to begin with...with any kind of tool. "I don't like it because it's not realistic" doesn't belong as a rationalization in a video game unless the game is trying to project a theme of accurate realism. The zombies and walking skeletons with bows that show up every night in Minecraftia shot that to hell pretty quick.
If optimal is what you need ot enjoy yourself, then that's fine. Particularly if you realize tha tyou're pigeonholing yourself into an extremely limited selection of alternatives because there can only ever be one 'best'. It's the tragic idiom that plagues certain components of the MMORPG community. They complain all day long that there's no variety but as soon as the devs offer up some variety, the min-maxers bust out their spreadsheets and within minutes they're back down to one choice and only one choice...the 'best'. Not everyone wants to play that way. If someone wants to use a diamond pick with a certain enchant because it's faster, awesome. I'll be alternating between my drill and my Vajra because I hate repairing or replacing broken tools. That's just my thing. That's how I like to play. What you need to understand is that you may be thinking that such-and-such ruins a game, but others might be loving it. It's not about the devs learning how to do it right, it's about them learning how to do it your way. They did. It's called a config file.
