50% of this forum seems to be hate about Gregtech, so I decided I would create a little thread to outline the things that I like about that under appreciated mod.
First of all, I have to say that the industrial grinder is one of my favorite things in any mod. It makes lots of pretty dust for me to collect and I get an actual sense of internet-accomplishment when I build a fully loaded one.
This kind of leads into what I wanted to talk about next; many people seem to find Gregtech hardmode recipes, well, hard. While I understand that some of the changes made by Gregtech to other mods may be frustrating, the majority of the mid level machines included in the pack are not too labor or resource intensive. I haven't ventured too far into the chrome and iridium heavy far end game, such as the new fusion reactor, but I feel like the mod has a very comfortable progression curve that I like.
This brings me to my next typing point. Just to make some comparisons, I'm going to take a fairly standard mod, Thermal Expansion, and compare it to Gregtech. Note that they could both be considered addons. Thermal expansion is generally very liked, and personally, the pulverizer is my favorite way to start ore doubling in a new world. The big style difference that I see between Thermal Expansion and Gregtech is the progression curve. In Thermal Expansion, really, the most difficult thing to build that is added to the mod would be a tesseract or redstone energy cell. The base components in Thermal Expansion are all fairly basic but you can do tons of things with them. In Gregtech, however, individual items are often far from basic. The industrial grinder, that I lovingly mentioned before, requires many different machines in its construction and is even a multiblock structure. Now, the function of the industrial grinder is not very far from that of the Pulverizer. They both turn ores into dust and they both give byproducts. The industrial grinder, however, rewards you a little more when you treat it right. If you have the infrastructure to support the industrial grinder, it can be much more powerful than the pulverizer.
This is when I'd like to touch on the types of addon that Gregtech is. Gregtech stacks a lot, and I mean a lot of technology to industrialcraft 2 that far surpasses the original mod's capabilities. While doing this, it also restructures the existing technology curve to make the transition between IC2 and GT smoother. Thermal Expansion, on the other hand, adds a swath of new machinery to Buildcraft that is of similar levels and complexity, and thus no restructuring is required.
Now that that dense bit of rant is out of the way, I'd just like to list off some of the things that I like about Gregtech.
Gregtech seems to do a pretty good job of linking mods in the Feed The Beast pack together. For example, the magic energy converter is a nice bit for Thaumcraft, adding a way to get dull shards while generating EU to boot. Also, The Pneumatic Generator Upgrade that lets machines run off MJ not only links with Buildcraft, it also gives players an option as to how they would like to run their machines.
Gregtech also gives options to mid to end game players as to how they would like to do certain low level things. For example, if the player has a strong EU infrastructure, perhaps a solar farm, he might want to use a distillation tower in lieu of a refinery, for a higher fuel to oil ratio at the cost of EU.
While the rebalancing done by Gregtech can sometimes be a pain, it can also help low level players. For example, Gregtech allows the use of Redpower rubies in energy crystals instead of diamonds, something that I was grateful for when I was first setting up MFEs.
Finally, I just like all the stuff added by Gregtech. I was recently messing around with the new fusion reactor in creative and while it is definitely very very endgame, to me, it was a lot more interesting than your mainstream solar farm or tree boiler.
Ok, I used list very loosely.
First of all, I have to say that the industrial grinder is one of my favorite things in any mod. It makes lots of pretty dust for me to collect and I get an actual sense of internet-accomplishment when I build a fully loaded one.
This kind of leads into what I wanted to talk about next; many people seem to find Gregtech hardmode recipes, well, hard. While I understand that some of the changes made by Gregtech to other mods may be frustrating, the majority of the mid level machines included in the pack are not too labor or resource intensive. I haven't ventured too far into the chrome and iridium heavy far end game, such as the new fusion reactor, but I feel like the mod has a very comfortable progression curve that I like.
This brings me to my next typing point. Just to make some comparisons, I'm going to take a fairly standard mod, Thermal Expansion, and compare it to Gregtech. Note that they could both be considered addons. Thermal expansion is generally very liked, and personally, the pulverizer is my favorite way to start ore doubling in a new world. The big style difference that I see between Thermal Expansion and Gregtech is the progression curve. In Thermal Expansion, really, the most difficult thing to build that is added to the mod would be a tesseract or redstone energy cell. The base components in Thermal Expansion are all fairly basic but you can do tons of things with them. In Gregtech, however, individual items are often far from basic. The industrial grinder, that I lovingly mentioned before, requires many different machines in its construction and is even a multiblock structure. Now, the function of the industrial grinder is not very far from that of the Pulverizer. They both turn ores into dust and they both give byproducts. The industrial grinder, however, rewards you a little more when you treat it right. If you have the infrastructure to support the industrial grinder, it can be much more powerful than the pulverizer.
This is when I'd like to touch on the types of addon that Gregtech is. Gregtech stacks a lot, and I mean a lot of technology to industrialcraft 2 that far surpasses the original mod's capabilities. While doing this, it also restructures the existing technology curve to make the transition between IC2 and GT smoother. Thermal Expansion, on the other hand, adds a swath of new machinery to Buildcraft that is of similar levels and complexity, and thus no restructuring is required.
Now that that dense bit of rant is out of the way, I'd just like to list off some of the things that I like about Gregtech.
Gregtech seems to do a pretty good job of linking mods in the Feed The Beast pack together. For example, the magic energy converter is a nice bit for Thaumcraft, adding a way to get dull shards while generating EU to boot. Also, The Pneumatic Generator Upgrade that lets machines run off MJ not only links with Buildcraft, it also gives players an option as to how they would like to run their machines.
Gregtech also gives options to mid to end game players as to how they would like to do certain low level things. For example, if the player has a strong EU infrastructure, perhaps a solar farm, he might want to use a distillation tower in lieu of a refinery, for a higher fuel to oil ratio at the cost of EU.
While the rebalancing done by Gregtech can sometimes be a pain, it can also help low level players. For example, Gregtech allows the use of Redpower rubies in energy crystals instead of diamonds, something that I was grateful for when I was first setting up MFEs.
Finally, I just like all the stuff added by Gregtech. I was recently messing around with the new fusion reactor in creative and while it is definitely very very endgame, to me, it was a lot more interesting than your mainstream solar farm or tree boiler.
Ok, I used list very loosely.
