To all the people going off (somewhat) on a tangent and discussing the legality of rotaryflux, I, for one, would like to see some supporting evidence other than personal interpretations. From both sides.
Getting opinions on RotaryFlux and my responses
- Thread starter Reika
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The reputation hit he's concerned about would come from his breaking of the other mod from his side, and the question is if the other mod is made available to the public, should he leave the resulting subversion of his mod's identity unchallenged because of that reputation hit. I do tend towards "no".
The issue is that it takes literally the most interesting part of the mod (and the one main niche it has) and tosses it out the window. It is against this power system that Rotarycraft is balanced, so tossing that out the window leaves you with tools that are likely going to be simpler to use than any comparable alternative, and also much more potent.Might as well weigh in, for whatever miniscule worth
I don't see that Reika has a 'right', morally or ethically, to tell other modmakers how to interact or otherwise with his mod. Legally appears to be somewhat more of a point of contention.
I think he has a 'right' to alter his own code to close what he might view as an exploit. Many game-makers do, usually in multiplayer environments. It's a slightly dodgier decision in a single-player environment. However, that'll likely lead to a stealth war as the modmaker might simply work around his changes, rinse and repeat.
I do _not_ agree that the alterations can be aggressive, say leading to game crashes. Disabling one's own mod when the other is detected is perhaps as aggressive as it should get.
I don't, however, entirely understand Reika's issue with the mod. I mean, I see where the inclusion of it can trivialise his mod, but surely the decision there lies in the hands of the player? Server admins would presumably not include the other mod if it opened the door to issues, mod pack makers would likewise make their own decisions based on how 'easy' they want their pack to be... I just don't see the reputation hit he's claiming.
I think aggressively confronting this mod, no matter how justified or otherwise, is much more likely to damage Reika/RoC's reputation, than any possible in-game experience with someone who has presumably knowingly included both mods.
One of Rotarycraft's aims is to have a VERY powerful end-game. I repeat end-game. As Rotarycraft's endgame is based entirely on it's power system, throwing the power system out results in a very powerful mod with litrally no gating, as pretty much EVERYTHING in Rotarycraft is made out of Iron and relatively smaller amounts of other (vanilla) materials. The point I made earlier about how you take a 1 dimensional power (RF) and handle it as a 2 dimensional power (Rotarycraft's Watts (Torque x Speed)) sensibly still stands imo. This is as close to completely breaking Rotarycraft as you can get imo.
Additionally, since Rotarycraft machines often take as much power as you give them, there is another issue on the other side. You want to give the machines as much power (speed) as possible in most cases to speed them up, which could mean alot of wasted energy, especially as most machines don't really have a way to turn them off, except for turning off the power. (And if we assume he simply does a conversion from RF > Watts, then treats speed and torque as the square root of the Wattage, which is the most likely thing I can think of, it's going to be incrementally ineffeceint to 'overclock' the machines using RF, except for certain instances, like the friction heater.)
That said, this means I would NOT use RotaryFlux should it come out.
Okay, fine. Let's say there isn't anything wrong with this mod, which modifies Reika's code, and I'm wrong.
Reika can still add code that negates this mod. If I'm writing a piece of software (haha, yes, I'm still going to go use the "other piece of software" example), and I find that someone's making it work how it isn't supposed to, I am completely within my rights to insert code to detect and stop it from doing that.
EDIT: Fixed a missing quote
Reika can still add code that negates this mod. If I'm writing a piece of software (haha, yes, I'm still going to go use the "other piece of software" example), and I find that someone's making it work how it isn't supposed to, I am completely within my rights to insert code to detect and stop it from doing that.
EDIT: Fixed a missing quote
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Same here. That would take all the fun out of it. I recall I've had quite a few "How the heck do I do this" moments when playing with RoC, but none of those had anything to do with the power system.
I wonder if there is a market for a written tutorial. I can't be bothered with the hassle of making videos, and anyway my spoken English isn't really very good, but I've been tempted to write a "RotaryCraft for Dummies". It would probably start with: "You think RotaryCraft is difficult? Well, maybe it is, but not for the reasons you think. The plain fact is: if you can divide and multiply by 2, you have the intellectual capability to play competently with RotaryCraft. Now, do you back off or will you continue?"
Guys, considering the thread I saw (OP), I am now going to make an add-on featuring RotaryFlux and BigReactors. Featuring the following: Singleblock Reactors and Turbines. I happen to find it very time consuming and difficult to make these expensive multiblocks, only to find out they don't work and have to change it again. I say it's safe to assume the majority of the players think just like this (silent majority), so I packed all the functionality within two blocks, the reactor and the turbine (which ofcourse aren't difficult to make, otherwise we would have to actually spend time on it).
The reactor would cost like a few iron blocks and some yellorium blocks to craft, and the turbine would require a reactor block surrounded by some graphite and cyanite blocks.
Now that you have these blocks, you can just open the reactor GUI, which will then require 1 single yellorium ingot, but produces a few cyanite ingots every minute, but no power. Making the turbine would work just like normal (needs steam), but would atleast produce 500k RF/t. This can then be used to power any RoC machine available in the game. Ofcourse there'll be possibilities to tweak the difficulty of the recipes, or the the power output (math forbids anything lower than 200k RF/t), so I say it's very well balanced.
And even after writing this, I feel like RoC is still trashed more than I just did with the whole RF system.
Completely agree with Reika, RoC is one of the few mods out there that still provide a real challenge, besides Greg and Thaumcraft.
The reactor would cost like a few iron blocks and some yellorium blocks to craft, and the turbine would require a reactor block surrounded by some graphite and cyanite blocks.
Now that you have these blocks, you can just open the reactor GUI, which will then require 1 single yellorium ingot, but produces a few cyanite ingots every minute, but no power. Making the turbine would work just like normal (needs steam), but would atleast produce 500k RF/t. This can then be used to power any RoC machine available in the game. Ofcourse there'll be possibilities to tweak the difficulty of the recipes, or the the power output (math forbids anything lower than 200k RF/t), so I say it's very well balanced.
And even after writing this, I feel like RoC is still trashed more than I just did with the whole RF system.
Completely agree with Reika, RoC is one of the few mods out there that still provide a real challenge, besides Greg and Thaumcraft.
This statement is incorrect; one could break it further by adding a crafting recipe to turn cobblestone (or stone, if you're concerned about balance) into HSLA steel ingots, and another for tungsten.
Of course, you'd also have to add this RotaryFlux mod as well, and make an infinite RF producer made out of wood. Don't want things to be Greg-level hard, now do we?
EDIT: Raykuh plz 2 b adin durt2diamndz plz
Has the mod been released?
Have we seen anything besides screenshots?
Has there been any further communication from the initial Dev of this mod?
If the answer is no to all of this then the point is moot.
Have we seen anything besides screenshots?
Has there been any further communication from the initial Dev of this mod?
If the answer is no to all of this then the point is moot.
I have zero interest in the mod in question. I like my mods tediously annoying and stupidly difficult. That said, I am pro-modding. If I make a mod for a privately owned game (minecraft) I'm signing off on the fact that modding can happen and others might take my idea and warp it, clone it, ignore it, whatever. That's modding life.
If I don't like those options, I also have the option of not releasing my mods publicly.
If I don't like those options, I also have the option of not releasing my mods publicly.
This isn't so much as a mineCraft mod as it is a rotarycraft mod. yeah, they both use the same medium though, and that's part of the difficulty to approach something like this.
Again though, the solutions presented are modifying RCs code, not limiting what other people can make. If they really wanted to come out with this mod, there's not a whole lot you can do to stop them. This is entirely within the scope of one mod.
The whole EULA/drm/legality issue is a whole different conversation.
Yeah, that's what I mean though. Once you're into modding, you need to be aware that modding of mods becomes a legitimate possibility. The legalities are irrelevant; we're talking about a virtual issue on a global scale. If someone wants to make wuss-mode RoC badly enough, its going to happen.
The problem with this subject is that if reika decides to do something against it, it will cause drama. if reika doesn't do something against it it will cause a different kind of drama.
Pick your side bad or bad. The only thing that reika can try is to talk with the maker of the add-on and hope for the best
Pick your side bad or bad. The only thing that reika can try is to talk with the maker of the add-on and hope for the best
Its against his modus operandi, but if I were Reika there's the option of not giving a shit what this mod does.
This sort of thing happens all the time. There are TiCo mod-mods, IC2 mod-mods, GT mod-mods...the list goes on. Reika's opinion is that this is going to somehow reflect poorly on his own mod, even though the precedent is otherwise: most people "get it", and who cares about the rest.
But I'm preaching here for no reason. I've mentioned this to Reika privately and publicly something around 1000x. He doesn't get it. He's not going to get it. He's going to continue paddling against the current with little gain to anyone and a lot of debates.
At least the arguing is moderately amusing sometimes.
This sort of thing happens all the time. There are TiCo mod-mods, IC2 mod-mods, GT mod-mods...the list goes on. Reika's opinion is that this is going to somehow reflect poorly on his own mod, even though the precedent is otherwise: most people "get it", and who cares about the rest.
But I'm preaching here for no reason. I've mentioned this to Reika privately and publicly something around 1000x. He doesn't get it. He's not going to get it. He's going to continue paddling against the current with little gain to anyone and a lot of debates.
At least the arguing is moderately amusing sometimes.
This.
I think this community (the global modded MC community that is) is toxic, and that's why I'll never release any mod I code. Other modded communities that I've been a part of do not have this type of issues or drama.
I personally don't really care about this mod of your mod, but if someone likes it and gets use of it, who cares? You made the choice to publicly release your mod. Yet you don't like dealing with 90% of your users, the public opinion of your mod, or really.. anything.
While I think the original reddit post smells heavily of troll, it's safe to say this thread has evolved beyond this specific instance into a discussion around creator's rights and the entitlement culture of consumers, which I feel has some value every now and again.
Also, "moot: subject to debate, dispute, or uncertainty, and typically not admitting of a final decision." While applicable in this circumstance, based on the context I suspect you mean 'irrelevant'.
During this whole fiasco, I have been repeatedly told by many people - Watchful included - that no, most people would prefer the RF version of RotaryCraft, that people who want to play RC "properly" are in fact a tiny niche minority. One person explicitly named you, as well as people like leldra, @Demosthenex, Padfoote, @1M Industries, lfja, TomeWyrm, and just about anyone else I "regularly" interact with, as extreme outliers. Combine this with some of the comments I saw on the reddit thread, and the concept of a silent majority, I find it not unlikely that if this mod or something similar gets released, that it will become a common fixture in packs - and I hold FTB packs as especially likely given their focus on RF - and that most users of RC will be using it as an RF mod. Because of the problems associated with that - as well as the fact it craps all over the whole point of the mod - this is completely unacceptable, and telling me that I have to grin and bear it totally negates any of my own wishes.
Long story short, this is not about taking an option away from some tiny subgroup of players. This is about RotaryCraft's future because it could fundamentally change how the mod works for most of the community.
And this, here, is the problem. This is a Reika-specific issue. You cannot win, because you can't distinguish between "your" point of your mod, and "somebody else's" point of your mod.
Your best-case scenario is to give up and stop modding, and even as your regular harshest (intelligible) critic, I'll say that that's utter crap.
Anything you do in the other direction...anything...results in a zero gain scenario. If I'm a hypothetical avid modder who doesn't give a shit about your feelings (particularly considering you may not give a shit about mine) but wants to make a mod like rotarycraft work the way I want it, I'll make it happen. You mod your vision, I'll mod mine.
If the idea of your vision being adopted and warped by others is a personal problem for you, you have a serious and really unpleasant conundrum. To an overwhelming degree you simply can't overcome that with copyright or license agreements or DRM. At the end of the day there's absolutely no reason why someone else cannot or should not say "Reika's wishes crap all over the whole point of my modding vision, and that's totally unacceptable. Telling me I have to grin and bear it totally negates any of my own wishes."
I think releasing a mod to the public is an awful lot like raising a child. While they're under your roof they obey your rules, but once they're out on their own, all you can do is say "I did the best I could."
Is it really too much to ask that my mod not be more often used and known as something unrecognizable, especially given how severely broken this version is?
No it isn't. It really feels like it goes one way. People are fighting to say "Well, you gave me this mod, you need to let me do whatever I want with it and you can't tell me what to do."
If this is true, why isn't the reverse? You have every right to do whatever you want as well. Whether or not people agree with it, whatever. It's a bit hypocritical to say that I can do what I want, but you can't.
Though you might end up not being as popular as you possibly could be by not bending to public will. I know people give a lot of crap over this, but you don't even have to be here or even talk to us. People forget that.
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