EnderIO in 1.12.2 For Newbies
(A Reference for the Rest Of Us!)
(A Reference for the Rest Of Us!)
Well, here we are again, the next installment of the Mods For Newbies series. This time, I'd like to preface the guide with a polite reminder to observe Wheaton's Law. There has been some level of drama surrounding the changes that have happened in this mod, and I'd really prefer that it not happen in this thread. If you are a fan of the changes, that's cool. If you aren't a fan of the changes, that's cool too. The fun thing about Minecraft is that no one is forcing you to play in a given playstyle. So go ahead, you do you, either way.
If you can discuss in a calm and rational manner, I invite you to participate. For those who cannot, there's a 'report' button available for use, and let the Mods take care of it.
Now, if you just don't understand the changes? Well, that's why I'm here! We'll be going over this mod in detail, and while I'll be effectively covering this mod from the ground up for those who might not have used EnderIO in a previous version, I'll also occasionally point out where some of these significant changes occurred.
Please allow me to introduce myself
EnderIO is a tech mod with a fully developed and tiered machine system, and a conduit system which was revolutionary at the time of its release, and still possesses functionality not found anywhere else in the modding community at this time. In addition, it has a short-range teleport system designed to facilitate moving rapidly around a large base. The mod also did not add any new ores or worldgen, making it easy to insert into a pack after its original release without having to retrogen resources, instead relying on an alloying system which combined currently existing worldgen in new ways.
When it was originally released, it did so with critical acclaim. The majority of the modding community lauded it a hero, since the CoFH suite hadn't been released in that version yet, and it rapidly took the niche of 'primary tech mod' in the early 1.10 era. The primary complaint about the mod was concerns about being 'too powerful', citing that it required very little infrastructure to build your machines, which then require very little to upgrade to their maximum speed, and the mod featured prominently in any argument about power creep in the modding community as a whole at the time.
The new version, released relatively late in the 1.12.2 development cycle, clearly sought to change that, by having definitive tiers of machines, with specific upgrade paths. Those who enjoyed the previous simplicity were not happy, making comparisons to 'Expert Mode' or 'Hardcore' pack style gameplay, while others applauded the new system as a way of fleshing out the mod and making it more robust and interesting. However, in truth, there wasn't a great many changes that were implemented, it was just that the changes which were implemented were done so at the core level and were interwoven through your entire tech tree.
A Grain of truth
The first resource you will need to get started in this new version of EnderIO, other than the typical suite of stone and iron and a small amount of gold, lapis, and redstone, is Grains of Infinity. Instead of mining them somewhere, they are created when Bedrock is set on fire. By default (and it is configurable, more on that in a bit), if the fire lasts for 13 seconds, there is a 50% chance of it leaving a Grain of Infinity behind when it goes out. Therefore, as long as you have a means of automating igniting fires on bedrock and collecting the results, this resource may be collected in arbitrary quantities. However, as it does take time to produce, it will be something you will want to automate rapidly, as soon as you can.
This was the first significant change in the pack, and many low-tier items that used to require Redstone now require Grains of Infinity instead, most notably the low-end Machine Chassis and Capacitors. And it had some... mixed responses.
Here's the thing: the amount of time that fire will remain on bedrock is a random figure, which averages out at around 11.5 seconds, and since the default setting requires it to be at least 13 seconds before it has a chance of creating Grains of Infinity, this means that you, in fact, have a somewhat lower than 50% chance, because there's the additional chance that it simply won't stay lit long enough to trigger. And while it is extremely easy to stand around and click on bedrock, trying to wade into still existing flames to harvest Grains of Infinity before they get burned up can cause significant damage. So you do have to be careful with how you go about your initial harvest. It can also be a process which takes some time, and requires some micromanagement at first. I would suggest that the first time you hit bedrock, try to collect at least sixteen Grains of Infinity to at least get yourself started, and do a google search for 'automate grains of infinity', because there's several videos and guides already out ther on that topic.
Alternately, you can edit your minecraft/config/enderio.EnderIO.cfg file. You'll be looking for this section:
Code:
infinitypowder {
# Chance that Infinity Powder will drop from fire on bedrock. (synced from server) [range: 0.0 ~ 1.0, default: 0.5]
S:dropChance=0.5
# Stack size when dropped from fire. (synced from server) [range: 1 ~ 64, default: 1]
I:dropStackSize=1
# Should making Infinity Powder be allowed in all dimensions? If not, it'll only work in the overworld. (synced from server) [default: false]
B:enableInAllDimensions=false
# How old (in ticks) does a dying fire have to be to spawn Infinity Powder? (average fire age at death is 11.5s, default is 13s (synced from server) [range: 1 ~ 1000, default: 260]
I:fireMinAge=260
# Should making Infinity Powder by lighting bedrock on fire be enabled? Please note that you need to provide an alternative way of crafting it if you disabled this. (synced from server) [default: true]
B:inWorldCraftingEnabled=true
# Should it make a sound when Infinity Powder drops from fire? [default: true]
B:makesSound=true
}
}So as you can see, if you don't like the drop rate, you can tweak these figures to suit your fancy.
Simple Machines
So, now that you have a few Grains of Infinity available, let's see what we can do with them, shall we?
There's a few entry tier Simple machines you will want, notably the SImple Alloy Furnace, the Simple SAG Mill, and the Simple Stirling Generator.
Now, the new energy system that EnderIO uses also brought a comment or two, however it's practically a reskin, since it still uses the Forge Energy API under the hood, which means it can be trivially converted to almost any other energy system which is compatible with the Forge Energy API. It does, however, look 20% cooler.
The Simple Stirling Engine is your entry-level power supply. It will passively provide energy to adjacent machines, and there's a conduit system we'll be getting into in the next section for power transfer. The Simple version is... well, it's simple. It produces 20 units/tick of energy. It is also relatively simple to craft. A couple of gears made of stone and sticks, one of those simple machine chassis which require a grain of infinity, some cobble, and bob's your uncle.
The Simple Alloy Furnace is one of two fundamental machines required for the mod's progression, and one of the key mechanics that lets it get away with zero worldgen but still have a very varied recipe list. It can accept two or three ingredients, and if provided them in the proper proportions, will create an alloy of them. For example, Pulsating Iron requires an Iron Ingot and an Enderpearl. The Simple version is quite primitive, it cannot even function as a normal powered furnace, it can only produce alloys.
The Simple SAG Mill is this mod's version of a Grinder/Pulverizer/Macerator. In short, it takes whatever you give it, and grinds it up, literal grist for the mill. This is your ore doubling mechanic, as well as a means of producing many resources that are used further in the mod. A notable example here is Coal Powder, which is used in the Electric Steel alloy, and many other things. This mod is really good at cross-mod compatibility, and will happily accept Pulverized Coal from Thermal Foundation in its place, and likely others as well.
With these three machines in place, we can progress.
Upgrade Complete
To upgrade our machines, we're first going to need to make some more refined components. Specifically, we're going to need to make Industrial Machine Chassis instead of Simple. So how do we do that? Well, for that, we need Industrial Powder Coating. You see, industrial chassis are going to be subject to harsher conditions, so it needs a powder coating to prevent corrosion. Which, actually, has a lot of verisimilitude.
You're going to need some Quartz Powder, which means either delving into the Nether or if you have another mod which adds Quartz to worldgen on the surface (such as Thaumcraft perhaps), you might get access prior to entering the Nether. You're also going to need Lapis Powder (run Lapis Lazuli through the SAG Mill), organic black dye (6x Coal Powder + 1x Slimeball in the Alloy Smelter makes two, and yes it will accept any oreDict compatible options), and organic green dye, which requires 'clippings and trimmings' that can be obtained by putting most plant-like materials through the SAG mill, with Cactus by far being the most productive for this purpose (cactus being used for a green dye... who knew?
) in an Alloy Furnace with a Slimeball. Now, there's a few people who have some acerbic commentary about this new process, however I'd like to point out the math involved, because I don't think people realized that each of these recipes produces multiple results.
It takes 6 coal powder and a slimeball to make 2 black organic dye. It takes 12 'clippings and trimmings' and a slimeball to make 2 green organic dye. But you can get 3-12 (average 6-9) per Cactus, which means you only will typically need 2-3 cactus at most per 2 dye, or roughly a 1:1 exchange on average.
You need 2x powdered lapis, 2x green dye, 1x black dye, and 4x powdered quartz to make 6x industrial powder coating. And each upgrade from a Simple Machine Chassis to an Industrial Machine Chassis only requires ONE, which means each set of Industrial Powder Coating can handle SIX such upgrades. So it's really not so bad as all that.
From there, take your machine of choice, an industrial chassis, and a couple of Energized Bimetal Gears, and you've upgraded! So, what are Energized Bimetal Gears? Maybe I should go over the gear system.
You see, much like Thermal Expansion, EnderIO in this version is really big on subcombines, and baking in material costs. One of the ways EnderIO does this in the new version is Bimetal Gears, although technically gears have been doing this since Buildcraft. Basically Bimetal gear is a second tier gear which requires the previous gear to craft. Yanno, much like how you'd make an iron gear with a stone gear and four iron? Similar process, only in this case we're using Infinity Bimetal Gear (which is just iron, iron nuggets, and a grain of infinity) and surrounding it with Energetic Alloy *nuggets* (so one ingot covers an entire gear, with a nugget left over). Energetic Alloy is Redstone, Glowstone, and Gold in an Alloy Smelter. So you will need to have gone to the nether to get to this step.
So, you'll notice almost immediately that these new machines *require* a Capacitor to function. Capacitors were the upgrade function in the previous version of EnderIO, and they still serve that function. Personally, I've never run a machine without a capacitor in them previously, so I almost missed this the first time. So yea, you'll need at least a basic capacitor, which are ridiculously cheap, to get them to work.
You'll also notice that both the Alloy Furnace and the SAG Mill have some added functionality not present in the Simple versions. Let's go over these.
The Alloy Furnace has a new button on the bottom right of its GUI. This will toggle which mode the machine is in, and can be set to either just do Alloying, just do regular Smelting, or do both depending on what it has available. If it has an Alloy recipe it can do with what it has inside it, then that will take precedence over a normal smelting recipe.
The SAG Mill has a new slot in its inventory over on the right-hand side. You can put Flint in there and get an increased yield percentage from secondary products. You can also put Grinding Balls of various alloys in there as well. Keep in mind that they will be slowly consumed in return for greater secondary yields. The exact percentages can be obtained through JEI.
By the way, the SAG Mill and Alloy Furnace were the entry-tier machines in the previous version, and the recipes for those machines still exist as alternatives if you don't want to make a simple machine and upgrade it, assuming you have infrastructure from another mod which lets you make the industrial coating. However, the upgrade route is available so there are no 'wasted' machines. Pretty nifty, in my opinion, but YMMV.
Also in the Industrial tier are many new types of generators which run on various resources and machines which require said energy.
- Combustion Generator runs on liquid fuel and coolant, for example. The Zombie Generator runs on Nutrient Fluid. Solar Panels exist in this tier, although their output is fairly anemic.
- Capacitor Banks are this mod's version of an energy storage block. However, it can also connect with other capacitor banks to form a multiblock structure. This increases its maximum throughput (max energy per tick input and output) as well as its maximum capacity. It also gives it more sides, in the event that you want many different wires going off in many different directions.
- Wired and Wireless Chargers will charge up equipment that requires energy to function. Wired chargers require you to place the item into them. Wireless chargers will charge anything capable of accepting energy within a broad radius around it, even through solid walls!
- Then there's The Vat. Not just A Vat, but THE Vat, and don't you forget it. It is used in the brewing of many different fluids which are used in this mod. It's probably best to use JEI, because the list is very exhaustive, just like the list of alloys.
- The Travel Anchor is an interesting block. It can be used as an Elevator, if another Travel Anchor is directly above or below it, ducking will drop you down a level and jumping will move you up a level. If you have a Staff of Traveling, equipping it will permit you to see all of the Travel Anchors in your area, with the rest of the world faded out, permitting you to highlight the one you want to warp to, and with a right click, will take you there instantly. This makes for a fairly interesting mechanic for getting around a base when the base sprawls in all three dimensions.
- The Telepad is a multiblock structure which can teleport you to another Telepad. Requires a Dialing Device to bridge the connection, then Beam Me Up! A Rod of Return may be bound to a Telepad to instantly transport back to that telepad from wherever you are, in any dimension.
- The Farming Station is an all-in-one stop for all your automated crop needs. Requires a hoe and an axe. Can automate trees or crops, and has four quadrants that can be set up for dedicated use. As you give it larger capacitors, it becomes capable of greater area of effect.
You Conduit All Night Long!
Conduits are the piping system of EnderIO, and one of the things that really puts this mod on the map. The two most significant things about Conduits that differentiates them from other pipes/cables/etc are:
1) You can have multiple conduits occupy the same square. They will appear to 'bundle' together. So you can have a fluid conduit, item conduit, energy conduit, and redstone conduit all running through the same square, and even connecting to a machine on the same side. This is pretty huge for avoiding spaghetti wiring (typically referred to in the modding community as 'DireWire' in honor of a popular Youtuber DireWolf20, and his infamous wiring habits).
2) Conduit Facade can cover all conduit in a given block, and be 'painted' to appear to be any other block in the game, although it still has a few problems with connected textures. This lets you hide wiring in walls or floors without needing an extra square of space behind it to run cabling through. New to this version is the addition of Hardened Facade, which resists explosions and protects the conduits inside, and transparent facades which can be painted to resemble non-solid blocks and still conceal the conduit within.
The combination of these two properties have led to EnderIO Conduits being generally regarded as the most powerful conduit system in the modding community. And really, I can't argue with that. Of course, one man's 'just right' is another man's 'horridly overpowered', and the conduits are frequently pointed to in various discussions about 'overpowered' or 'power creep'.
All Conduits require Conduit Binder, with the recipe generally being six conduit binder, and three of something else sandwiched in the middle. Eight conduit binder in a square shape makes a Conduit Facade. Conduit Binder is made by smelting Binder Composite, which is simply made with gravel, sand, and clay. Moreover, each crafting of Binder Composite yields eight of them, and each one smelts into two Conduit Binder, meaning you end up with sixteen Conduit Binder per craft of Binder Composite. As a result, this is not really a significant cost investment. And really, this is why the conduit facades are so awesome... they're literally dirt cheap, so you can make them in bulk without breaking the bank. Upgrading a Conduit Facade to a Hardened version which resists explosions requires four obsidian powder each.
Also, EnderIO will check and see what other mods you have in your pack and what sort of cabling they use, and might have additional cross-mod compatible conduits. For example, if you have AE2 in your pack with EnderIO, you'll find both Cable and Dense Cable conduit, packs with Mechanism can find Gas Conduits, and those with Refined Storage can use Refined Storage Conduit. These will connect to their appropriate pipes as normal, and will perform their tasks through the conduit, taking advantage of the Conduit's ability to be stacked in the same square as other conduits and being concealed by Facades.
Soul to the highest bidder
As we have Industrial Powder Coating, we also have Soul Attuned Powder Coating, which will bake onto a simple chassis to create a Soul Attuned Machine Chassis. It's not that different from Industrial Powder Coating, replace the green organic dye with brown and you're done. Machines that require these are going to run off of, or at least work with, mob essence or player experience.
Slice n' Splice is a machine which requires this new powder coated Chassis. It requires shears and an axe to function, and will slowly eat away at the durability of these tools, requiring them to be replaced periodically. It creates various diodes using various monster heads that are components in higher-tier machines.
The Soul Binder has a few uses. First, it can upgrade some of the circuits to their advanced version, which will require a Soul Vial that has trapped the soul of a specific creature. Second, it is used in the creation of Ender Crystals, by applying the soul of an enderman to an Emerald. There are other crystals now that can be created as well. Using a Villager soul instead of an Enderman will make an Enticing Crystal, and using a Shulker soul will net you a prescient Crystal. Of course, the souls are consumed in the process, being fragile things and all.
In addition, the Soul Binder can attune a Powered Spawner to create a specific type of mob within its area effect once it is given power. Making a Powered Spawner requires a broken spawner plus a few other odds and sods. While not as flexible as the spawning mechanic from Industrial Foregoing, in that it can only spawn one type of mob (although it can be re-attuned in a Soul Binder), with an Octadic Capacitor, it is probably the fastest (and most power-hungry) mob spawning mechanic available at this time. Useful if you want to ensure you always have a supply of Enderpearls on hand, for example, or wither skulls.
These chassis also are used in the creation of various obelisks, which I encourage you to discover on your own. In particular, the experience obelisk is much like a battery for player experience levels, and is quite useful in enchanting.
Speaking of enchanting, EnderIO has the Enchanter, which requires a blank book and quill, and various resources, to create books of enchanting of a particular type. For example, Protection I would require 16 Dark Steel, 3 Lapis, and 5 levels of experience. This lets you customize your enchantments and ensure that you don't have to play Enchantment Roulette just to get your stuff appropriately enhanced.
But Wait! There's MORE!
If that were all EnderIO had, it would probably be a noteworthy pack, but we've only barely scratched the surface. At this point, I'm going to shut up and let you just explore the mod for yourself, now that you have the basic ideas down. And, yanno, hitting that post size limit. JEI is your friend.
In Conclusion
So, this mod. It's pretty awesome. Conduits, alloys, and more utility than you can shake a sonic screwdriver at. It's pretty much got everything you'd want from a tech mod, then goes above and beyond. Some people didn't like that there are now more steps to awesomeness, other people still think it is too awesome for them. And that's perfectly fine. That's gonna have to be your call. Not mine, not anyone else's. There's a lot of configuration capability built into the config file, if you feel the need to tweak things around. So check and see if EnderIO is right for you!
