Gregtech recipes = ridiculous?

[BanzaiBlitz]

But stone and dirt are the main things that you drill through. That was what was good about the intro drill. For every one block of ore that you click on, you click on like 20+ stone or dirt, so that's where the extra speed is useful. I definitely don't see enough difference between the two that anyone would say the jackhammer is fine but the drill is OP.

Let me rephrase a bit then.

Ores have much value, but stone and dirt are about the same value as their name implies. In trade for not wasting resources on picks to break the cheap stuff in your way, you have a cheap infinite tool to muscle through the mass of waste while saving your expendable iron (or other) picks for things that hold a fair bit of value. Having once dug a 64x64 pit with mostly stone picks in vanilla, I can most certainly see the dramatic value of a tool that doesn't break. Even without much or any speed boost, a batpack and infinite tool let you do vastly longer mining trips without concern towards how much space you need for picks, or if you have to stop and craft a fresh one every time it breaks.

In addition, it is my opinion that Gregtech is trying to extend the gameplay length of a given world by extending progression time. This is a preference issue more than anything and I feel it is a great thought when you might use the same world far beyond maxing your non-gregtech gear. Yes, you still will most likely use the same world for whatever you feel drawn to do but the extra flavor of increased effort for the best goodies isn't a bad idea at all. Not to mention the extra feeling of accomplishment you can have by doing it the hard way.

 

[makeshiftwings]

Let me rephrase a bit then.

Ores have much value, but stone and dirt are about the same value as their name implies. In trade for not wasting resources on picks to break the cheap stuff in your way, you have a cheap infinite tool to muscle through the mass of waste while saving your expendable iron (or other) picks for things that hold a fair bit of value. Having once dug a 64x64 pit with mostly stone picks in vanilla, I can most certainly see the dramatic value of a tool that doesn't break. Even without much or any speed boost, a batpack and infinite tool let you do vastly longer mining trips without concern towards how much space you need for picks, or if you have to stop and craft a fresh one every time it breaks.

I think you're misunderstanding me. I think the infinite tool is great and agree with all of that; I was saying that there's not enough difference between the jackhammer and the drill that one is ok and the other is OP. The jackhammer is the same as the drill except you have to switch to a pick for ores. Ores aren't the timewasters when mining; stone and dirt are. So it doesn't make sense that people think the jackhammer is fine to get at the beginning of the game but the drill is so powerful that it has to wait until the end of the game. They're almost exactly the same.

In addition, it is my opinion that Gregtech is trying to extend the gameplay length of a given world by extending progression time. This is a preference issue more than anything and I feel it is a great thought when you might use the same world far beyond maxing your non-gregtech gear. Yes, you still will most likely use the same world for whatever you feel drawn to do but the extra flavor of increased effort for the best goodies isn't a bad idea at all. Not to mention the extra feeling of accomplishment you can have by doing it the hard way.

I understand the appeal of grinding for gear and I (and almost everyone else I think) would be fine with GregTech adding a bunch of new stuff that takes five million hours to grind out. The problem is that he's taking someone else's mod that many people use to actually build stuff, and changing it just to cater to people who think of the whole mod as nothing but a gear grind "challenge" to get the best items.

 

[FrenchKafka]

I'm afraid I do not understand the use of the introduced gregtech machines. Many of them are used for storing rather stupid amounts of power. Many more do exactly the same as other mods do with more customization and less cost.

I especially do not understand the use of the block which can store nigh-infinite amounts of a single block, simply because of three things. 1)any block which you need to store several hundred stacks of is likely to be some form of cobble, which can be easily manufactured either with a simple Thermal expansion machine, a more complex vanilla machine, or simply mined out from another area. 2)Most other blocks which can be found in that quantity are renewable. Which begs the question why go to the trouble of storing stupid amounts of them when you can simply get them on demand. 3) Factorization upgraded barrels do it for a lot cheaper. a LOT cheaper. I calculated it out, and it requires the use of at leas 72 ground up rubies.

The lightning rod is novel but not as reliable as other generation methods. The lithium packs are quite cool, mostly because of the new aesthetics and a mid-tier battery.

And I am agreeing with makeshiftwings. 90% of what someone will mine out is sand, gravel, dirt, stone, etc, and that's true whether using a shovel, a pick, a drill, or a jackhammer. Making a drill more difficult to get, and then making a jackhammer that does 98% of what a not-diamond drill does, is pointless. I could understand it if it made the drill normal to make and then required another item, a re-forged drill head made with a block of diamond, but making it more difficult to get one item and then replacing it with an item which is almost identical is pointless.

 

[Tylor]

But stone and dirt are the main things that you drill through. That was what was good about the intro drill. For every one block of ore that you click on, you click on like 20+ stone or dirt, so that's where the extra speed is useful. I definitely don't see enough difference between the two that anyone would say the jackhammer is fine but the drill is OP.

From my experience, exploring cave systems and only digging visible minerals is both more fun and more effective. And there is also thing in IC2 called Mining Laser, that digs 10 or so blocks with one click.
As for difference between iron pickaxe and diamond drill, it's mostly coal veins. it's so painful to dig them with iron pickaxe, i mostly just skip them.

 

[BanzaiBlitz]

When I fire up a new world, I tend to meander from one project to another and everything kinda evolves in spurts somewhat evenly spread across the various needs. Well, except for building design. My feelings towards building design shifted when my vanilla castle covering over 6 chunks or so with parts going from bedrock to sky limit suddenly found itself in a snow biome after a vanilla patch and my water features and surrounding lake/moat/ocean started to all freeze over.

The perspective I get from Gregtech according to my playstyle being so relaxed and sporadic in advancement lets it feel rather smooth and reasonable. Not really a gear grind person (can't stand WoW for it) so finding a progression pace that's both relaxed and avoids overly painful gaps is sometimes difficult. Perhaps I am just weird in this fashion. Either way, getting a tool that won't break while tearing through low value material for relatively low cost, then later upgrading via steel to an omni-miner's tool that does not break while substantially speeding up your profits relative to time taken appears to me a logical transition. The gregtech wiki seems to be lacking an explanation of whatever specifics the jackhammer has, so I am guessing it is relative to a low-end pickaxe/shovel combination for basic materials. Obtaining the drill gives you a rather fast pickaxe/shovel combo short only on handling obsidian before diamond upgrades or that new gregtech advanced version, whatever it does.

Regardless of it all of course, we all like our Minecraft /w mods using a different set of spices. Personally, I am looking forward to an FTB ultimate pack major build that will include a fusion reactor or two creating all my EU requirements.

 

[kells117]

I think after playing with gregtech its better that recipes are more costly for IC2 because it makes it more rewarding and more of a challenge instead of getting your ores doubled for nothing after a couple of mining trips

 

[LazDude2012]

The thing is, the macerator is only there to meet the demands of IC2. IC requires a huge amount of resources, and the macerator is there to provide those.

 

[Mikey_R]

And, as has been stated several times, the recipe for the macerator is the IC2 recipe, the one that uses flint, the simple easy cheap one. Infact, the first recipe you will most likely notice that has changed is the Solar Panel.

 

[FrenchKafka]

Can I offer a serious question?

What if Gregtech kept the vanilla IC2 macerator recipe, and used the gregtech Macerator for an upgraded macerator, which would provide 3 ingots worth of dust from ore? As an alternative from the Rotary macerator? It would take longer to macerate but provide more as a result? It would keep the balance necessary to allow people to advance in IC2 while also giving another goal to reach for.

 

[CrafterOfMines57]

Can I offer a serious question?

What if Gregtech kept the vanilla IC2 macerator recipe, and used the gregtech Macerator for an upgraded macerator, which would provide 3 ingots worth of dust from ore? As an alternative from the Rotary macerator? It would take longer to macerate but provide more as a result? It would keep the balance necessary to allow people to advance in IC2 while also giving another goal to reach for.

Balance? For just 3 diamonds you can triple all of your ores, and that's balanced? GregTech is about making mods harder, not providing more efficient ways to do things, although later versions of GregTech do have what is called an Industrial Grinder, which gives about 2.5x the product on certain ores, at a ridiculously high EU cost, and a very high setup cost of the machine.

 

[FrenchKafka]

Fine then. Frankly, I don't see "challenge" or "difficulty" in what gregtech does. Finding metals in a cave or in a strip mine is a crapshoot in my opinion, and I do not find either entertaining. There is no guarantee that you'll win back resources that you've lost, and indeed I have spent many real life days trying to find diamonds normally.

To contrast, I point to Twilight Forest's Hollow Hills. It provides an actual challenge and guaranteed payout of resources in exchange for the cost of fighting for your life against possible hordes of monsters. As a result, I've had a lot more fun mining out a hollow hill vs mining out under my home, even though it's entirely possible that I spent the same amount of time and stone for picks.

It's difficult because there is the distinct possibility of defeat and loss. With gregtech, there's not a possibility of defeat against... more complex and expensive crafting recipes. It's just more tedious for me.

 

[Bluehorazon]

Fine then. Frankly, I don't see "challenge" or "difficulty" in what gregtech does. Finding metals in a cave or in a strip mine is a crapshoot in my opinion, and I do not find either entertaining. There is no guarantee that you'll win back resources that you've lost, and indeed I have spent many real life days trying to find diamonds normally.

That is not related to Gregs. Actually Gregs has a nice return once you set it up. The Centrifuge, the Electrolyzer and the Grinder are able to create a lot of ressources if you have enough EU. And well Gregs also makes the Nuclear-Generator more interesting since it adds ways to use all the energy such machines create.

To contrast, I point to Twilight Forest's Hollow Hills. It provides an actual challenge and guaranteed payout of resources in exchange for the cost of fighting for your life against possible hordes of monsters. As a result, I've had a lot more fun mining out a hollow hill vs mining out under my home, even though it's entirely possible that I spent the same amount of time and stone for picks.

Well Gregs is a techmod, while twilight forest is... let's call it adventure-mod. How should a mod that adds machines and recipes be difficult? You will never die from such a mod. Gregs is more about Ressource-Management and Planning. And it provides some challanges with this.

It's difficult because there is the distinct possibility of defeat and loss. With gregtech, there's not a possibility of defeat against... more complex and expensive crafting recipes. It's just more tedious for me.

Well I don't really see the tedium in much things. GregTech utilizes a lot of things in multiple ways. You need a blastfurnace for Steel anyway... why not use it for the mining-drill? It is not more tedious to put 5 Iron into a Blast-Furnace than putting 5 Iron into a normal furnace. The only difference is the output. The only difference is that the BlastFurnace is not avaible as early as a normal furnace, so the mining-drill is not avaible as early as it would be normally.

It is the same with the solars. The Electrolyzer/Centrifuge produces two solar-cells every 100 Seconds. The only difference again is moving the Solar-panel away from early-game access. But the costs of the items do not change that much. It is just a processing-element that is used, which you will need later anyway.

What Gregs does is denying early access to certain items.

It denies early access to solar panels for some reasons. First spamming solar-panels is not that industrious. You are not very involved in this and placing them provides no real challange. Gregs encourages players to use the wide varity of not only more efficient, but also a lot more interesting Generator/Geothermal-Setups. Exspecially with TE they are a lot stronger than solars anyway so no loss for the player if he accepts the challange to build a system that runs well on its own.

It also denies early access to the Mining-Drill and the Chainsaw. The Chainsaw is better than a diamond-sword+axe and it is much the same with the mining-drill. Putting them a bit back is reasonable, although RC still allows early access to them by either killing Blazes early (which at this point might be some challange, since you most likely run around unarmored) or finding steal in a dungeon.

Gregs also nerfs the bronze-recipe from forestry (although I think not in 1.4.2) giving you only 2 bronze-ingots (the 1.4.5 version of FTB seems to disable the forestry-recipe completly so this does not matter anyway). This makes it not any more effective than the old dust-recipe.

While complaining about all the stuff people often don't notice that Gregs makes a lot of things more easy. With Electrum and Iron-Tubes Crafting advanced circuits is a lot easier. You normally need 3 Steps, which are down to 2 + giving you more output. Also every recipe Gregs touches accept all kind of circuits, making Iron Tubes a good replacement although you need an extra machine. Lithium-Batpacks are a good alternative to normal batpacks also.

 

[FrenchKafka]

I apologize for not quoting directly, I'm afraid I'm not used to the forum here.

First off, I'll say that I went off point in that first section and forgot to say why, so I apologize for that as well. Other posters have made the claim that Gregtech makes IC2 more "difficult" or "challenging," such as kells117, and I was saying that Gregtech's "challenge" is not so much a challenge as it is an exercise in refining various materials, and that it still relied on Vanilla mining methods for the most part, which other posters point to as being the "challenge" or "difficulty" of the mod, which resulted in the rest of my post railing against vanilla mining methods.

I do see what you are saying about the challenge of Gregtech, that it is in fact in planning how to make various things, and I can understand how someone else would find that challenging. I do not, however, find it interesting or challenging, merely annoying, which is likely one of the reasons why I do not like Gregtech. When I need another item for crafting, I end up waiting for my factorization crystalizers to make it, and figuring out what all I need annoys me because it keeps me from actually making structures which I am content with or are unique creations for me.

So what I have learned from your post is that it offers other means to make items, which is good, I enjoy that, that's in Thaumcraft, but the challenge it offers does not align with my playstyle or sensibilities.

What I hope to have said properly is that it is a mistake to call Gregtech "difficult" as it's merely preventing players from getting more advanced items sooner by requiring more advanced recipes, rather than challenging someone with the chance of failure. Challenging might be a better word for it due to the way recipes work, however I am dubious as to how well it applies.

 

[Tylor]

Tech mod challenge is engineering challenge. Making some non-trivial structure. RP frame mechainsms is prime example. Other examples are IC2 reators and windmills.
1.2.5 FTB is a good example too - while it required a lot of resource, you were not supposed to dig them up with iron pickaxe.

 

[Hydra]

My two cents:

My main concern is that Gregtech as a part of the 'basic' map might put off a lot of users moving to FTB. I quite recently moved from Tekkit to FTB (because it's missing Forestry and also seems to be lagging behind in updates a lot) and I got very confused because all the IC2 recipies I know so well suddenlt were different. And I also could not find out on the IC2 wiki why they were different.

In my opinion messing with other mod's recipies is fundamentally flawed. It confused the heck out of new users. Secondly, I think making it more 'difficult' by just making recipies more complex and require more rare materials is also fundamentally flawed. It doesn't make it more complex, it just makes it more tedious. There's already tons of stuff to do in FTB, we don't need that stuff to simply take longer. Crafting recipies should not be incredibly complex; the fun is building stuff, not clicking through tons of different subcomponents to make a simple solar panel.

I personally just disabled Gregtech and I will never enable it again. I also will never play on a server that has is because in my opinion that mod is fundamentally flawed and build by someone who doesn't understand gamedesign.

 

[noskk]

My two cents:

My main concern is that Gregtech as a part of the 'basic' map might put off a lot of users moving to FTB. I quite recently moved from Tekkit to FTB (because it's missing Forestry and also seems to be lagging behind in updates a lot) and I got very confused because all the IC2 recipies I know so well suddenlt were different. And I also could not find out on the IC2 wiki why they were different.

In my opinion messing with other mod's recipies is fundamentally flawed. It confused the heck out of new users. Secondly, I think making it more 'difficult' by just making recipies more complex and require more rare materials is also fundamentally flawed. It doesn't make it more complex, it just makes it more tedious. There's already tons of stuff to do in FTB, we don't need that stuff to simply take longer. Crafting recipies should not be incredibly complex; the fun is building stuff, not clicking through tons of different subcomponents to make a simple solar panel.

I personally just disabled Gregtech and I will never enable it again. I also will never play on a server that has is because in my opinion that mod is fundamentally flawed and build by someone who doesn't understand gamedesign.

Jackhammer only useful against Stone and Cobblestone, not to Gravel and Dirt or Sand, when you strip mining Jackhammer helps with the Stone but That's It....If you meet dirt/gravel you still have to swap to your shovel; while with mining drill it's good to be used against NEARLY every rock-based things...

And don't judge it so fast.. you are using FTB version of it.. GregTech's latest version has more cool stuff in it, disabling it at 1.4.2 might be ok, but you have to try the 1.4.5 version as I believe it has become one of the best resource-processing add-on although you need a lot of energy to get there.. I didn't even use the macerator/pulverizer/rock crusher any more once I got my grinders..

 

[Hydra]

And don't judge it so fast.. you are using FTB version of it.. GregTech's latest version has more cool stuff in it, disabling it at 1.4.2 might be ok, but you have to try the 1.4.5 version as I believe it has become one of the best resource-processing add-on although you need a lot of energy to get it.. I didn't even use the macerator/pulverizer/rock crusher any more once I got my grinders..

I'll look into it later. But as long as it by default changes recipies of other mods I won't use it.

 

[BanzaiBlitz]

It will always do that by default with FTB, based on my current impressions. And I believe you miss one of the benefits buried in the expensive recipes.

By being forced to wait on those machines and tools, you will tend to use other machinery and new approaches to things. It generally pushes mods into a more integrated form in addition to that. Just look at the creative approaches DW20 puts to good use in his various LP runs. Something new every time he finds a new tool.

The biggest joy with modded MC isn't setting up an EZ mode for yourself, it is the new things you can do. There is nothing wrong at all with busting out a Quantum Suit every game soon as you can, but new methods of getting those "must have" items you always crave will present you with unexpectedly new and interesting things along the way.

To fear change away from what you're used to and know is to be forever left in the darkness of ignorance, despite it being a painfully common human trait.

 

[StarLiner]

At first I didn't like the recipes, but now they make sense. A drill should be damn hard to get, since they obsolete everything from pickaxes to shovels. A diamond drill more so.

It makes you EARN your toys, and adds some very nifty things like the Fusion Reactor as an ultimate end-game goal. The new power requirements means I can't hook up two standard solar panels to a quarry, plop down a World Anchor, and go to sleep.

If I get everything within a week I'll be wanting a reset within the month. When I take my fusion-powered teleporter 10,000 blocks to my far away island base, I won't think it's ovepowered, because I built it all with my blood, sweat, and tears. And I EARNED the right to use it, by proving that I don't need it to get that far.

 

[makeshiftwings]

It will always do that by default with FTB, based on my current impressions. And I believe you miss one of the benefits buried in the expensive recipes.

By being forced to wait on those machines and tools, you will tend to use other machinery and new approaches to things. It generally pushes mods into a more integrated form in addition to that. Just look at the creative approaches DW20 puts to good use in his various LP runs. Something new every time he finds a new tool.

This always bugs me. A lot of us don't need to be "forced" to use the other mods by installing a mod that screws over a different mod. I already use all the mods; I install modpacks because I like using all the different mods. If I just wanted to use nothing but IC2, I would just install IC2. It's stupid to even install Buildcraft if you don't want to use it unless you're "forced" to by another mod ruining the mod that you used to like more. Why don't you just "force" yourself to give the other mods a try and build some interesting things instead of spending your day building a million solar panels or whatever it is that GT users feel they need to be forced to stop doing. Try playing Minecraft as a game where you build things for fun, and you will probably enjoy it a lot more.