Beyond Pack + Mekanism/Tank Options

[WeirdBuilder]

Hey guys, I've been playing on FTB Beyond for around 150+ hours now, and have been eyeing Mekanism as it seems like a really interesting and cool mod to mess around with. Though, I question whether or not it will be balanced with the other mods in Beyond. I've seen many people argue that the 5x ore processing, digital miner and reactor are all balanced (arguably) due to their required infrastructure, and others complain that they were simply too powerful in comparison to other tech mods. I've never played with the mod, so I'd appreciate if you guys could let me know whether you think it'd be alright to add it into the pack. Or, if it isn't, what config changes could I make for it to better suit the overall balance of the pack?

One other thing I've been wondering is if there are any mods that add fluid tanks which have a visual representation of the type and quantity of the liquid it stores in a multiblock structure, similar to that of Railcraft's iron and steel tanks? AFAIK, Railcraft only had a partial port to 1.10, which is why the tanks are not present. I've installed the Fancy Fluid Storage mod to make up for it, but I'm wondering if there are any other options available.

For the record, I know that Deep Resonance has this kind of functionality, but the tanks were not as aesthetically pleasing as I'm hoping for.

Cheers!

 

[Daihok]

I personally think Mekanism is a great mod and also it offers fluid tank Multibock that IMO are way superior to railcraft multi tanks.

 

[Inaeo]

Mekanism is balanced with itself in a vaccum. It needs a ton of resources to set everything up, which the Digital Miner and the 5x processing helps to provide. These machines, especially when upgraded, draw large amounts of power, which Mek is happy to provide. When you add Mek to packs, that power gen and 5x processing can seem overpowered in comparison. My last custom pack featured Mek as the cornerstone tech mod, and using solely Mek power gen, I was swimming in power my entire playthrough.

On to tanks:
When I used Mekanism in my last custom pack, I used Tinker's Construct Tanks to hold my stores of Ethylene, Liquid Hydrogen, and Liquid Oxygen. They work on the same premise as the Smeltery, only you use a Tank Controller rather than a Smeltery Controller, and I believe the box has to have a roof on it. If you build it with seared glass, you get the visual indication of contents and level. You need a drain for each input/output.

The XU Drums hold an absolute silly amount of fluids, and they change color depending on contents, but they don't show their level and they are single block.

Mek has its own Dynamic Tanks, as mentioned above, which were pretty cool in the limited sample I used them.

 

[Nephrahim]

I'm not going to touch balance because that's so complicated but I played a pack with Mekanism once and thought it was a really good mod and I'm sad it doesn't get any love in FTB packs.

 

[fowltief]

I'm not going to touch balance because that's so complicated but I played a pack with Mekanism once and thought it was a really good mod and I'm sad it doesn't get any love in FTB packs.

Someone would have to design the pack around mekanism itself. I love it but compared to other mods people in general find it too OP or easy.

Sent from my 0PJA2 using Tapatalk

 

[Madzai]

Someone would have to design the pack around mekanism itself. I love it but compared to other mods people in general find it too OP or easy.

But is it actually so much work to add Mekanism to packs like Beyond, as it is a "sink" pack anyway? I read the whole story about older FTB packs and Mek and had to agree about it not really fit there without too muck work, but for current 10.2? It have less modes compared 1.7 versions, recipes are being tweaked anyway. If some part is OP just turn it off, like digiminer or Mek passive energy generation methods. Add rare ingredients to high tier machines for anything higher than x2 ore processing. Raise energy drain for machines.
I really wish that FTB "sink" Modpacks end-game wasn't limited to Draconic Evolution.

I understand argument - "do it yourself if you like it so much", but if i could, i already would have done it. It's not even about adding Mek itself, which is easy, it's about config tweaks. Even there, the instruction on how to turn some recipe off or solve conflicts\ add new recipe to machine\ore dictionary are available. But the whole idea of how to balance it properly is out of my reach. And in this aspect FTB team is very knowledgeable.

 

[Inaeo]

But is it actually so much work to add Mekanism to packs like Beyond, as it is a "sink" pack anyway? I read the whole story about older FTB packs and Mek and had to agree about it not really fit there without too muck work, but for current 10.2? It have less modes compared 1.7 versions, recipes are being tweaked anyway. If some part is OP just turn it off, like digiminer or Mek passive energy generation methods. Add rare ingredients to high tier machines for anything higher than x2 ore processing. Raise energy drain for machines.
I really wish that FTB "sink" Modpacks end-game wasn't limited to Draconic Evolution.

I understand argument - "do it yourself if you like it so much", but if i could, i already would have done it. It's not even about adding Mek itself, which is easy, it's about config tweaks. Even there, the instruction on how to turn some recipe off or solve conflicts\ add new recipe to machine\ore dictionary are available. But the whole idea of how to balance it properly is out of my reach. And in this aspect FTB team is very knowledgeable.

I feel like you're arguing with yourself a bit on this one. You open by asking if it's really that much work, then close by detailing how much work it would take. I understand that if the team did it once for the pack, nobody else would have to bother learning how, but the real question is whether or not they justified the amount of work it would take with their vision of the pack, which clearly they did not.

If we look at Beyond as a building block for an Expert Mode gameplay, perhaps the tech involved in Mekanism was simply too hard to gate in an order they thought was worthwhile. While the argument of simply disabling parts of the mod seems simple enough, it often breaks the flow of progression, misguides people from the intent of the mod itself, or otherwise just pisses off yet more people.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoy Mekanism - my last play with it was incredibly fun. I would love to see it featured prominently in a FTB pack. Just not this one. Mek has tendency to become the dominant tech mod in any pack it's in, so why not balance a pack around it, rather than trying to conform it to the field.

 

[WildWilly]

For multi block tanks I always liked the Immersive Engineering tank. It looks neat and has an exterior fill level indication. The wiki article says you need a pump to extract but I think it drains from the bottom without one.

 

[Nuclear_Creeper0]

The Mekanism power is not as op as people say. Mekanism was designed for the ability to play stand-alone. The insane power generation is a result of that, considering the full 100% automated. Digital miner, 5x ore processing plant is several million RF to maintain.

 

[Inaeo]

The Mekanism power is not as op as people say. Mekanism was designed for the ability to play stand-alone. The insane power generation is a result of that, considering the full 100% automated. Digital miner, 5x ore processing plant is several million RF to maintain.

That was part of my point above. In a vaccum, Mekanism is a beautifully balanced mod. It's when you start to add other mods around it that the extremes (power gen, resource multiplication, resource acquisition) begin to skew the balance of the pack. This makes it hard to just slap Mek into any old pack without disrupting the existing balance of said pack. If the pack were built around Mek being the intended backbone, we could see it really shine. Adding it to Beyond by default would cause both to suffer.

 

[Nuclear_Creeper0]

That was part of my point above. In a vaccum, Mekanism is a beautifully balanced mod. It's when you start to add other mods around it that the extremes (power gen, resource multiplication, resource acquisition) begin to skew the balance of the pack. This makes it hard to just slap Mek into any old pack without disrupting the existing balance of said pack. If the pack were built around Mek being the intended backbone, we could see it really shine. Adding it to Beyond by default would cause both to suffer.

An idea I had I to add Mekanism and the Mekanism cable mod. (I love the universal cables, they can transfer all types of power.) But not add Mekanism generators.