Changing Machine Mod bye bye IC2?

[rhn]

Hmm....not in my experience. At least not if you put your quarry over the ocean with no solid blocks anywhere at the surface. No flowing water there, instead source blocks will be generated as your quarry removes the solid blocks. It's been a while since I did this though, maybe things changed?

Try and do a little experiment. Dig a small pool and fill it with water. Then start digging it deeper and deeper. Then remove the water from the original pool at the top. You will see that all the water that was in the deeper area of the pit was only flowing water, not source blocks.
Problem/trick is that in deep water vertical flowing water is indistinguishable from source blocks. You can use this to quickly make a large cosmetic sea/pool that acts exactly like the real thing. But you really dont want to have continuous block updates in it.

Also, I don't understand that "Flowing" blocks will impose any performance penalty at all. They are not more prone than anything else to generating or propagating block updates, and don't impose any rendering penalty when hidden/surrounded by water - any more than regular water source blocks would.

Problem is that the Quarry is forcing constant block updates throughout the water, which causes constant recalculations of the flowing water. A source block needs to scan the nearby area for solid blocks and probably other water blocks to figure out how it is supposed to flow. It probably reaches the same result and no visible change occurs, but it still recalculates all the flowing water in the region afaik.

 

[Reika]

Yeah... I like "easy" when I want to play in a sandbox and get started quickly, which, with time constraints, is all the time. Interesting isn't bad, but don't hate on easy for being easy. It's a perfectly legitimate playstyle which stems from a different set of circumstances.

As stated earlier, the problem is that the community is largely pushing for that sort of design to become standard, and mods are increasingly becoming stratified into "easy" and what is usually referred to as "grindy", but really just includes anything else that is not plug-and-play. Also, it leads to a lot of misconceptions regarding other things, such as balance, because people look at (not "easy") mod X with powerful item A, assume it is balanced like ("easy") mod Y with much less powerful item B, and then assume item A must be overpowered because they assume the means to reach item A are similar to item B.

 

[rhn]

As stated earlier, the problem is that the community is largely pushing for that sort of design to become standard, and mods are increasingly becoming stratified into "easy" and what is usually referred to as "grindy", but really just includes anything else that is not plug-and-play. Also, it leads to a lot of misconceptions regarding other things, such as balance, because people look at (not "easy") mod X with powerful item A, assume it is balanced like ("easy") mod Y with much less powerful item B, and then assume item A must be overpowered because they assume the means to reach item A are similar to item B.

Configs where ever possible to allow for the modpack maker to even out the power of items/machines/generators/etc. and difficulty of crafting cost/recipes/fuel-consumption GREATLY helps with this and allows for if not perfect then better coexistence of mods.

For example I love the idea of GT's total conversion, but I would never play it as it really means you have to play GT alone to get the experience. But luckily it can be tweaked to heck and back to coexist with other mods that can be tweaked to meet it "half way". And then I can actually enjoy it in a non-pure, but still amazing form.

 

[Reika]

Configs where ever possible to allow for the modpack maker to even out the power of items/machines/generators/etc. and difficulty of crafting cost/recipes/fuel-consumption GREATLY helps with this and allows for if not perfect then better coexistence of mods.

For example I love the idea of GT's total conversion, but I would never play it as it really means you have to play GT alone to get the experience. But luckily it can be tweaked to heck and back to coexist with other mods that can be tweaked to meet it "half way". And then I can actually enjoy it in a non-pure, but still amazing form.

Your argument seems to boil down to "nothing is wrong because mods can effectively be made to work like each other". That is simultaneously wrong and - even were it true - dangerous. It is wrong because often the differences go deeper than just numerical differences or additional abilities. Sometimes, much of a mod's difficulty or power comes from it being fundamentally different somehow, such as RotaryCraft and its power system. This leads into the second point: Even were that configurable, that sets a very dangerous precedent, because it means you are both going to see a drop in originality among mods - why spend months designing a unique system if most people are just going to configure it away, and possibly never even realize it exists? - as well as running up against the problem of the fact that if a mod dev feels they lost creative control over their mod, and value that (for example, by Botania having a "use RF" option, and then half the packs using it), they are very likely to leave.

 

[Ieldra]

Your argument seems to boil down to "nothing is wrong because mods can effectively be made to work like each other". That is simultaneously wrong and - even were it true - dangerous. It is wrong because often the differences go deeper than just numerical differences or additional abilities. Sometimes, much of a mod's difficulty or power comes from it being fundamentally different somehow, such as RotaryCraft and its power system. This leads into the second point: Even were that configurable, that sets a very dangerous precedent, because it means you are both going to see a drop in originality among mods - why spend months designing a unique system if most people are just going to configure it away, and possibly never even realize it exists? - as well as running up against the problem of the fact that if a mod dev feels they lost creative control over their mod, and value that (for example, by Botania having a "use RF" option, and then half the packs using it), they are very likely to leave.

I think rhn has a point. RotaryCraft is another example of a mod that only works if you use it as the main mod others attach to. It's not possible to just dip in and try a few things to see if it suits you, exactly because of the way certain components of the mod fail to connect to others. An option to configure, say, imports of certain other mods' resources to work with RotaryCraft, that I'd consider highly desirable, and it wouldn't adversely affect RotaryCraft's identity.

I've said this about a million times but it bears repeating. As much as too much connectivity can adversely impact a mod's identity, too little connectivity can result in isolation, which leads to fewer people playing with it. RotaryCraft lacks inward connectivity. It attempts to rule its environment at the expense of other mods, while being completely uncompromising about being influenced by others in turn. Config options to change that, even if off by default, could resolve this difficulty and attract more players, at no cost to RotaryCraft's identity.

 

[Reika]

I think rhn has a point. RotaryCraft is another example of a mod that only works if you use it as the main mod others attach to. It's not possible to just dip in and try a few things to see if it suits you, exactly because of the way certain components of the mod fail to connect to others. An option to configure, say, imports of certain other mods' resources to work with RotaryCraft, that I'd consider highly desirable, and it wouldn't adversely affect RotaryCraft's identity.

I've said this about a million times but it bears repeating. As much as too much connectivity can adversely impact a mod's identity, too little connectivity can result in isolation, which leads to fewer people playing with it. RotaryCraft lacks inward connectivity. It attempts to rule its environment at the expense of other mods, while being completely uncompromising about being influenced by others in turn. Config options to change that, even if off by default, could resolve this difficulty and attract more players, at no cost to RotaryCraft's identity.

I go to great lengths to make RC play well both alone and with most packs, and many mods often make using RC both easier and more enjoyable.

The only hard-locked things, especially resources, are the few gating materials, and RC is hardly alone in that. Asking me for a config to allow other mods to replace those, for example, would be identical to asking Azanor for an option to use, say, Draconium instead of Voidmetal. Few would even consider it, and even fewer would think that a good idea, much less something that he would be obligated to provide if asked.

 

[GreenZombie]

Oh stop it. Rotary craft is a brilliant mod. But it's not unique or somehow immune to being integrated with other mods.

 

[Azzanine]

I go to great lengths to make RC play well both alone and with most packs, and many mods often make using RC both easier and more enjoyable.

The only hard-locked things, especially resources, are the few gating materials, and RC is hardly alone in that. Asking me for a config to allow other mods to replace those, for example, would be identical to asking Azanor for an option to use, say, Draconium instead of Voidmetal. Few would even consider it, and even fewer would think that a good idea, much less something that he would be obligated to provide if asked.

But Thaumcraft doesn't use resource as a gate, it uses the research mechanic. I guess those few researches that require a certain material to be scanned might be considered a resource gate though.

Personally I think modders are letting popularity get in the way of making their own mods. Reading some of Reika's and Asie's comments here has cemented my opinion further.

I know it's not worth making a mod for like 4 people but you shouldn't need 90% of the community. If you have a community that you can't count with 2 hands it should be worth it.
Also FTB isn't the be all end all of the minecraft modding community.
I know GregT gets derided for various things but as far as modding your own way, he's got it effing made in his little community. For him at least, divorcing himself from the FTB community was the best thing he did. I mean that in the most positive way possible.

Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk

 

[rhn]

Your argument seems to boil down to "nothing is wrong because mods can effectively be made to work like each other". That is simultaneously wrong and - even were it true - dangerous. It is wrong because often the differences go deeper than just numerical differences or additional abilities. Sometimes, much of a mod's difficulty or power comes from it being fundamentally different somehow, such as RotaryCraft and its power system. This leads into the second point: Even were that configurable, that sets a very dangerous precedent, because it means you are both going to see a drop in originality among mods - why spend months designing a unique system if most people are just going to configure it away, and possibly never even realize it exists? - as well as running up against the problem of the fact that if a mod dev feels they lost creative control over their mod, and value that (for example, by Botania having a "use RF" option, and then half the packs using it), they are very likely to leave.

I am well aware that things get lost in the process of "equalizing" mods out for a modpack. But often it is either this or not play the mod at all. For example this is how I feel with your mods. I LOVE the direction you go with complexity. I really admire that you stay the course and keep original. But I am not interested in playing a "one mod modpack" and so far it have seemed impossible to create a large wellrounded modpack with these mods that is at the same time well balanced(at least I have not been able to find any). So reality is that I have actually never played any of your mods seriously due to this. And I am deeply sad of this because I probably wont in the foreseeable future either unless something change. I on one side want the large packs, but simply lost interest on the ones that slap mods in together and leave them balanced only with them selves internally.


And I think you give the modpack makers too little credit. There might be a few that will push out a "super EZ-mode OP pack", and there might be a few players that really want to ruin their Minecraft experience on that. But on the other hand there are tons of REALLY gifted modpack makers out there who only wish they could simply make the mods work a little better together. They might add another mod to the pack that offsets the internal balance on your mods and simply want to fix that. Or the combination of your mod and another mod causes a cross mod combo that is too powerful and they simply want to scale that back a bit. Or there might quite possibly be people out there that want to make your mods harder and more challenging to fit a specific gameplay.
And even when mods are HUGELY configurable(Like GT), "purist packs" still get made for people who want the real, unchanged experience as the author intended it.

Look at Big Reactors. It offers configs for pretty much all its reactor/turbine factors. Modpack makers have complete freedom to make them as OP as they want to. Yet today pretty much everyone run them with severely neutered configs. Not because there was something wrong with the default configs, in a setting of BR alone! But in an environment of lots of other mods fuel becomes too easy to come by(Quarries/Bees/Laser Drill/whatever), Cooling materials are too powerful and reactor materials are really easy to get. So the config settings are tweaked and suddenly it works again.

You are right that many things are too unique and special for each mod to balance and config for. You cannot change HOW the mod fundamentally works, nor should you. What I think would be welcome however are:

• Simple power requirement/production multipliers for machines/generators. Is fuel too easy to come by in the pack? Dial down the power output of generators. Is it a themed pack with special really power hungry requirements, dial it up.
  
• Normal, Hard (and maybe easy) mode crafting recipe settings. Nothing fancy, just slight increases/decreases in expenses of crafting recipes. This way imbalances in the mod itself introduced by addition by other mods or imbalances compared to other mods could be somewhat equalized(specially if other mods had same settings: Easy Mod A: Hardmode Recipe Config. Hard Mod B: Easymode recipe config = roughly same difficulty of obtaining same rewards).
• This one is probably just a personal wish and probably impossible for most mods: Adjustment for ore multiplication processes output. This way once you have balanced the mods out in crafting recipes, power etc. you could possibly make them output the same amount of metal from the same ore(or close to the same, or rank them based on difficulty in obtaining mathod, or something different). This could open up for people not feeling forced to absolutely having to do THIS instead of THAT all the time. Or they could use one mod for Iron and another mod for Copper and so on just for fun, and not feel penalized for doing so.

Sure config options opens up the possibility for people to wreck the mods. But doing so would also open up for a LOT of creative people to make good use of your very nice mod in some unexpected and most likely amazing ways.
Like I have this dream myself of someone doing something like TPPI for GT and RoC et. al. But I don't see how this is possible at the present.

 

[KingTriaxx]

Rotarycraft gets away with it's power system, because it's explicitly not an energy based system. Power is transferred by hard, visible objects. There's a tangible feedback to it, that power goes here, comes out there, just doesn't quite have. Buildcraft has the same thing. Run power through BC pipes, and you can see at a glance if you're producing too much power, or not enough. With TE, or EIO, it's all about pumping in huge amounts of energy through because it automatically balances across all the machines. There's no need for feedback, so there isn't any.

At least magic mods have the excuse of being magical, for not having feedback on their power systems.

 

[Reika]

And I think you give the modpack makers too little credit. There might be a few that will push out a "super EZ-mode OP pack", and there might be a few players that really want to ruin their Minecraft experience on that. But on the other hand there are tons of REALLY gifted modpack makers out there who only wish they could simply make the mods work a little better together. They might add another mod to the pack that offsets the internal balance on your mods and simply want to fix that. Or the combination of your mod and another mod causes a cross mod combo that is too powerful and they simply want to scale that back a bit. Or there might quite possibly be people out there that want to make your mods harder and more challenging to fit a specific gameplay.
And even when mods are HUGELY configurable(Like GT), "purist packs" still get made for people who want the real, unchanged experience as the author intended it.

Look at Big Reactors. It offers configs for pretty much all its reactor/turbine factors. Modpack makers have complete freedom to make them as OP as they want to. Yet today pretty much everyone run them with severely neutered configs. Not because there was something wrong with the default configs, in a setting of BR alone! But in an environment of lots of other mods fuel becomes too easy to come by(Quarries/Bees/Laser Drill/whatever), Cooling materials are too powerful and reactor materials are really easy to get. So the config settings are tweaked and suddenly it works again.

This one bears addressing. As a matter of fact, most packs do build to what they think will be popular, and that sort of gameplay is a good way of doing it. Your referencing the BR configs is a good example. Yes, most of the "big name" packs like FTB or DW20 nerf them, but a majority of packs, going by number, actually buff them, sometimes to ridiculous extremes, and even the big-name packs often find themselves modified once they reach a server, again usually in this direction.

 

[rhn]

This one bears addressing. As a matter of fact, most packs do build to what they think will be popular, and that sort of gameplay is a good way of doing it. Your referencing the BR configs is a good example. Yes, most of the "big name" packs like FTB or DW20 nerf them, but a majority of packs, going by number, actually buff them, sometimes to ridiculous extremes, and even the big-name packs often find themselves modified once they reach a server, again usually in this direction.

Well I have no idea of the the actual statistics of which fraction of packs config how, nor if there have been any great surveys or anything made to investigate what people do to their instances/servers once they have downloaded the packs.
But basing it on my on "feeling" from the daily use of the forum, there seems (to me!) to be two common majorities: Those who find BR OP and know how to config it to not be, and those who never touches the configs. (not saying that there are not other categories, but feel these are the major ones)

But more importantly perhaps, I cannot really see what the harm of it would be. I would be proud that some people have taken what I created and made possible and tweaked it and made it part of a much better whole. So what if there are a few people that doesn't use it as I had intended? They most likely also have fun, just in another way. "What rocks your boat", aye? And if someone "butchers" the settings of the mod for a modpack so the mod doesn't make sense any more then people will know. And they wouldn't play the pack. At least the ones whose opinion matter to me.

 

[Reika]

And if someone "butchers" the settings of the mod for a modpack so the mod doesn't make sense any more then people will know. And they wouldn't play the pack.

This is where we disagree and why I get concerned. My past experience tells me that this is often not the case, doubly so if the "butchered" version could be more "general appeal" than the original.

 

[Celestialphoenix]

• Simple power requirement/production multipliers for machines/generators. Is fuel too easy to come by in the pack? Dial down the power output of generators. Is it a themed pack with special really power hungry requirements, dial it up.

This will inevitably break things- RoC is largely balanced around power production and its learning curve. Changing power output/requirements could easily make certain processes/machines impossible, or inadvertently remove the gating/skill [such as friction heating for sintered tungsten].

And unlike with crafting recipes its not as immediately obvious when you break something.
​

However RoC's fuel is manufactured rather than mined/extracted. So a 'difficulty control' which tweaks how rapidly resources are consumed to produce fuel [or how rapidly fuel burns in an engine] would sort out your issue.

• Normal, Hard (and maybe easy) mode crafting recipe settings. Nothing fancy, just slight increases/decreases in expenses of crafting recipes. This way imbalances in the mod itself introduced by addition by other mods or imbalances compared to other mods could be somewhat equalized(specially if other mods had same settings: Easy Mod A: Hardmode Recipe Config. Hard Mod B: Easymode recipe config = roughly same difficulty of obtaining same rewards).

This is already partly implemented [lubricant consumption, maintenance on bore/extractor, blast furnace material].

• This one is probably just a personal wish and probably impossible for most mods: Adjustment for ore multiplication processes output. This way once you have balanced the mods out in crafting recipes, power etc. you could possibly make them output the same amount of metal from the same ore(or close to the same, or rank them based on difficulty in obtaining method, or something different). This could open up for people not feeling forced to absolutely having to do THIS instead of THAT all the time. Or they could use one mod for Iron and another mod for Copper and so on just for fun, and not feel penalized for doing so.

Just an outside observation but most people generally seem to use and stick to whatever method they prefer, the only real time they are 'forced' into 'this' instead of 'that' is when 'that' (their preferred option) isn't in the pack/available to start with.

 

[GreenZombie]

This will inevitably break things- RoC is largely balanced around power production and its learning curve.

Minecraft is a sandbox game with no actual objectives. Balance is completely subjective, and how 'broken' something is depends on the player. Not the modpack author, not the mod authors.

In so much as I, a player, buy into the idea that I want the authentic Rotary Craft (or whatever mod) experience, then fair enough, RoCs intended progression might be broken in the presence of things. (But, given I *want* the experience, I will probably avoid said 'things').

However, in so much as I play a modpack that includes things like ExU and a collection of broadly integrated RF based mods, I do not have to at all consider RoC progression important. And should I choose - and were I able - to make a RoC progression blocking end-game alloy by mixing the ingredients in a TK Smeltery rather than leaping through RoC's hoops I would not hesitate to do so. Because, in the context of a many things modpack, where I as the player decide my own sense of balance, that might be way more interesting a build to me.

tl;dr: no: It will not inevitably break things.

 

[KingTriaxx]

My first experience with Minecraft, outside of the demo, was with the Ultimate Mod Pack. Which meant Greg Tech. Meaning I needed diamonds for the macerator. Instead of spending forever looking for diamonds, (I've never been lucky with diamonds), I simply built a Thermal Expansion Pulverizer for ore processing. Did it completely break and destroy GT progression forever and ever? No. It just provided an alternative route to the end goal. Honestly, that's how all cross-mod interactions should work. Even if the path is vastly different, there shouldn't be one 'correct' route to the end.

 

[rhn]

This is where we disagree and why I get concerned. My past experience tells me that this is often not the case, doubly so if the "butchered" version could be more "general appeal" than the original.

But would that really be so bad if a large group of people who weren't playing RoC before started playing it in a version that is still your mod with all your machines, generators, reactors etc., with your unique and original power system, etc. The configs and tweaks might make it possible to skip certain things and insert other mods in the chain, but in essence it is still the same mod. But the way most people play is that they skip part of Mod A and replaced it with mod B. But the next guy over might do it the other way around. Or they might do it in a new third way the next playthrough.

And packs with your mod with default(or as close as possible) configs are still going to be made. We are talking either "throw them together and care little about balance" packs that are hugely popular(I am not sure myself why you would prefer your mod in packs like those, but whatever), and dedicated "purist" specialized RoC packs. This is not going to stop.

Just an outside observation but most people generally seem to use and stick to whatever method they prefer, the only real time they are 'forced' into 'this' instead of 'that' is when 'that' (their preferred option) isn't in the pack/available to start with.

As I said this might be something personal. I for example did not touch RoC etc. in Monster because I felt it made everything else in the pack obsolete. And I enjoyed using all the other mods too. If they could have been balanced to roughly the same level, I would have used them all together.



But this is just an attempt at some constructive criticism/suggestions from a great fan that will most likely never play RoC etc. due to it not really working with other mods...

 

[Baron_Falcon]

I think rhn has a point. RotaryCraft is another example of a mod that only works if you use it as the main mod others attach to. It's not possible to just dip in and try a few things to see if it suits you, exactly because of the way certain components of the mod fail to connect to others.

Ummm, what? I have several times over several modpacks integrated RC on various levels ranging from just a grinder powered by little steam engines for processing cobalt and ardite, to massive ore processors that do a process per tick and are triggered using pipes from other mods. Of course you have to build machines that are used to create components for the next level of machine. How does that NOT make sense? How is that a new concept in any way? Just like the real life natural progression from steam powered lathe to CNC machines, you need the machines that make the machines. Even TE has that on some levels.

What I find being the main issue when comparing mod packs is the difference between being "challenging and interesting" vs "just being difficult and a pain in the ass for no reason". RC is the only mod I've played that made sense from every angle, and incorporates something very similar to real life mechanical and electrical characteristics. The only thing I could think of that would make it better is if it somehow incorporated ohms law, which it very nearly does.

TE takes the extra step into the future with more of a sci-fi feel, but you still have to make some machines in order to get to their higher levels of performance, which I can say was a very welcome addition for me to the mod. And I don't know of another mod besides maybe TiCo that integrates other mods as much or as well into their crafting processes.

Other mods have taken a processing step and created substeps requiring more machines to perform that process, nerfed the fuck out of other mods in order to force you to play how they think you should up to and including malicious code that crashed games, and basically alienating a lot of mod users doing it, and achieving what I would call a cult status following for the minority of their fans in the process, and of course designed it purposely to not work or play well with other mods.

Which is exactly why we have this thread.

 

[Baron_Falcon]

Also. When can we expect RC to be added to Infinity, if at all?

 

[Chocohead]

Ironic really how generally Reika's mods themselves have what you would describe as a cult due being so infrequently used in packs, yet you attach that to forcing progression and deliberately crashing. Describing people who use a mod as a cult purely as it isn't mainstream is quite unfair, just because you're not against what a mod author chooses to do does not mean you condone every action they take nor does it detach you from the community into a mod's "cult bubble".

And I wouldn't say that's exactly why the thread is here at all. The thread has derailed a lot from the original topic of "what's an RF tech mod I could try instead of IC2" anyway.