I'm considering a rather drastic and dramatic change for ShneekeyCraft in 1.6.x, one which will cause quite a bit of stir. It got me thinking enough about this that I thought I'd share my thought process with the rest of the class.
Yes, that means this is going to be one of those 'trim it down to keep it under the character limit' posts. You have been warned.
I was going over my list of mods I'm planning on using in 1.6.x, and looking at each one and what they provide, and what my core fundamentals are. And I have discovered something rather shocking... I may well be dropping Buildcraft entirely from the 1.6.x version of ShneekeyCraft.This decision came after deciding to include Extra Utilities and Sockets.
Yea. Buildcraft. One of the oldest mods, a foundation upon which countless mods have been formed. Right up there with IC2. But hey... I decided against IC2 in the last version, right? Why not? So, let's look at this cool and logical. What does this mod bring to the table?
Well, the first thing that promptly springs to my mind are pipes. You've got liquid pipes, you've got energy pipes, and you've got item pipes.
But there's one problem with pipes: Framerate lag. You've got all those items zipping around in pipes. There's still a bit of problems with items popping out of pipes if things get too backed up. And there are alternatives.
First off, Extra Utilities pretty much replaces pipes with their own system that works exceedingly well. Extra Utilities also uses exactly ONE type of pipe, it's just the connectors it cares about. It does a tree-traversing algorithm to determine where stuff goes, but it's not bad. You can also speed things up with upgrades.
For power, Thermal Expansion's Energy Conduit provides a higher-tier solution, with far less stress on the server. It is a pure upgrade, for the cost of required infrastructure.
For liquids, Thermal Expansion's Liquiducts are more expensive (copper and reinforced glass for four), but again, blows the pipes away.
So. There's plenty of alternatives to actual pipes. Sure, none of them may be quite as early game, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. It means you get to do a little work before you can get your base up and running. The upside here is that you don't have a handful of pipes you will never use again cluttering things up once you have upgraded them.
Right. What about the machines? What about the Quarry? What about the pump? How will we drain the nether of precious lava without a pump?
Again, ExtraUtilities has you covered with a nether lava pump. As far as the quarry and the filler? Eh, both have problems. To be honest, the Filler has never really been cost effective for its intended purpose, unless you are DW20 and have a passion for building tons and tons of 9 x 9 square buildings. The mining well, again, never really functioned all that well unless it was used in ways it was not originally intended (fully automated with turtles).
Well, what about gates? Dude, do you know the kind of automation that can go on with gates?
Well, without pipes, we don't need gates. Most of the automation done with gates can be done 'in house'. Who needs an autarchic gate on a wooden liquid pipe when a liquiduct does the exact same thing just by whacking it with a wrench?
So what does Buildcraft really provide the end-user?
Well, there's the engines. Basically, the redstone engine is dead now, but you've got Stirling and combustion. Now, Combustion can explode, but it provides good MJ output. Stirling is kinda meh, but is cheap. But there are plenty of alternatives out there. I don't use Dartcraft, but Forestry's Biogas is a solid replacement for the Combustion, and of course Railcraft has the steam engines. The Hobbyist Steam Engine blows the Stirling out of the water. So does the TE Steam Engine. The Magmatic Engine is a mid-tier option.
Buildcraft provides oil!
Right. But the problem with oil is that it is, by its very nature, not a renewable resource, which means you can't depend on it for a long-term energy supply. Sure, you can use it to kick-start your boilers a bit easier, but when all is said and done, it is only a temporary resource. After that, it's just a flammable eyesore. Besides, MFR has you covered with an oil fabricator, if you really want to set up power loops via steam boilers. It would be easier to run via biofuel, though.
I've changed my opinion on automated mining quite a bit lately. With tools like TiCo Auto Smelt + Fortune, you have enormous resource potential to dramatically reduce your mining. Adding in Nether Ores makes it much easier (though a bit more dangerous) to obtain much needed resources without having to cause massive holes in your world.
People seem to take for granted that Quarries are absolutely necessary to building an infrastructure, and I'm starting to doubt this 'truth'.
So what will this do for game balance in ShneekeyCraft?
Well, you'll be spending more time mining, although that can be significantly mitigated by having TiCo tools with smelt + fortune. It removes some early-game automation capability, however it has no further impact once you get an Induction Smelter down. ExtraUtilities and AppliedEnergistics. Fuel will no longer be a viable early game source of MJ, but you can get Biofuel going with MFR fairly easily.
I came to this staggering idea when I realized just how little I actually use BC. Basically, I use it for item pipes, and that's pretty much it. Adding in ExtraUtilities solves that problem. Plus we have some tantalizing hints from TE that might indicate item transportation is in production.
ShneekeyCraft is a minimalist mod pack, designed for low resource servers and systems. As such, I have to weigh 'what this mod gives the user that he can't get elsewhere' against 'what kind of system performance impact does this have'. And it's... just not measuring up anymore.
I'm not suggesting that all mod packs drop Buildcraft. For many, maybe even most, it still makes a lot of sense. However, it's just one of those fundamental truths that 'everyone' knows that I'm testing for validity within a minimalist mod pack setting. However, I would ask you: What parts from actual Buildcraft are you actually using in your mid to late game builds? The answer might surprise you.
Yes, that means this is going to be one of those 'trim it down to keep it under the character limit' posts. You have been warned.
I was going over my list of mods I'm planning on using in 1.6.x, and looking at each one and what they provide, and what my core fundamentals are. And I have discovered something rather shocking... I may well be dropping Buildcraft entirely from the 1.6.x version of ShneekeyCraft.This decision came after deciding to include Extra Utilities and Sockets.
Yea. Buildcraft. One of the oldest mods, a foundation upon which countless mods have been formed. Right up there with IC2. But hey... I decided against IC2 in the last version, right? Why not? So, let's look at this cool and logical. What does this mod bring to the table?
Well, the first thing that promptly springs to my mind are pipes. You've got liquid pipes, you've got energy pipes, and you've got item pipes.
But there's one problem with pipes: Framerate lag. You've got all those items zipping around in pipes. There's still a bit of problems with items popping out of pipes if things get too backed up. And there are alternatives.
First off, Extra Utilities pretty much replaces pipes with their own system that works exceedingly well. Extra Utilities also uses exactly ONE type of pipe, it's just the connectors it cares about. It does a tree-traversing algorithm to determine where stuff goes, but it's not bad. You can also speed things up with upgrades.
For power, Thermal Expansion's Energy Conduit provides a higher-tier solution, with far less stress on the server. It is a pure upgrade, for the cost of required infrastructure.
For liquids, Thermal Expansion's Liquiducts are more expensive (copper and reinforced glass for four), but again, blows the pipes away.
So. There's plenty of alternatives to actual pipes. Sure, none of them may be quite as early game, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. It means you get to do a little work before you can get your base up and running. The upside here is that you don't have a handful of pipes you will never use again cluttering things up once you have upgraded them.
Right. What about the machines? What about the Quarry? What about the pump? How will we drain the nether of precious lava without a pump?
Again, ExtraUtilities has you covered with a nether lava pump. As far as the quarry and the filler? Eh, both have problems. To be honest, the Filler has never really been cost effective for its intended purpose, unless you are DW20 and have a passion for building tons and tons of 9 x 9 square buildings. The mining well, again, never really functioned all that well unless it was used in ways it was not originally intended (fully automated with turtles).
Well, what about gates? Dude, do you know the kind of automation that can go on with gates?
Well, without pipes, we don't need gates. Most of the automation done with gates can be done 'in house'. Who needs an autarchic gate on a wooden liquid pipe when a liquiduct does the exact same thing just by whacking it with a wrench?
So what does Buildcraft really provide the end-user?
Well, there's the engines. Basically, the redstone engine is dead now, but you've got Stirling and combustion. Now, Combustion can explode, but it provides good MJ output. Stirling is kinda meh, but is cheap. But there are plenty of alternatives out there. I don't use Dartcraft, but Forestry's Biogas is a solid replacement for the Combustion, and of course Railcraft has the steam engines. The Hobbyist Steam Engine blows the Stirling out of the water. So does the TE Steam Engine. The Magmatic Engine is a mid-tier option.
Buildcraft provides oil!
Right. But the problem with oil is that it is, by its very nature, not a renewable resource, which means you can't depend on it for a long-term energy supply. Sure, you can use it to kick-start your boilers a bit easier, but when all is said and done, it is only a temporary resource. After that, it's just a flammable eyesore. Besides, MFR has you covered with an oil fabricator, if you really want to set up power loops via steam boilers. It would be easier to run via biofuel, though.
I've changed my opinion on automated mining quite a bit lately. With tools like TiCo Auto Smelt + Fortune, you have enormous resource potential to dramatically reduce your mining. Adding in Nether Ores makes it much easier (though a bit more dangerous) to obtain much needed resources without having to cause massive holes in your world.
People seem to take for granted that Quarries are absolutely necessary to building an infrastructure, and I'm starting to doubt this 'truth'.
So what will this do for game balance in ShneekeyCraft?
Well, you'll be spending more time mining, although that can be significantly mitigated by having TiCo tools with smelt + fortune. It removes some early-game automation capability, however it has no further impact once you get an Induction Smelter down. ExtraUtilities and AppliedEnergistics. Fuel will no longer be a viable early game source of MJ, but you can get Biofuel going with MFR fairly easily.
I came to this staggering idea when I realized just how little I actually use BC. Basically, I use it for item pipes, and that's pretty much it. Adding in ExtraUtilities solves that problem. Plus we have some tantalizing hints from TE that might indicate item transportation is in production.
ShneekeyCraft is a minimalist mod pack, designed for low resource servers and systems. As such, I have to weigh 'what this mod gives the user that he can't get elsewhere' against 'what kind of system performance impact does this have'. And it's... just not measuring up anymore.
I'm not suggesting that all mod packs drop Buildcraft. For many, maybe even most, it still makes a lot of sense. However, it's just one of those fundamental truths that 'everyone' knows that I'm testing for validity within a minimalist mod pack setting. However, I would ask you: What parts from actual Buildcraft are you actually using in your mid to late game builds? The answer might surprise you.
