GregTech vs. EE (My argument *against* the addition of EE)

[superriku11]

Hey Guess what. I'm not saying anything because I like EE. To be honest I've never even used it. I don't like GregTech, and guess what I did? Guess. I DISABLED IT! The server I play on has it, but I STILL DON'T USE IT! Simple as that. Yeah it sucks that I still have to live with the more expensive recipes for things, but I don't care. I'm there to build my own stuff. I don't care what others have or don't have. It have absolutely ZERO impact on my game.

The thing about GregTech is that it's a lot less overpowered. You need lots of power and time to use it for exchanging items, and only people who've been around for a long time will reap the benefits of it's ability to exchange items.

EE presents the ability to exchange items very early in the game to you. Which isn't a good thing.




If you choose not to use EE, everyone will advance faster than you, because they'll have enough Diamonds for that Quarry or those MFSUs before you do. If you choose not to use GregTech, well it's more fair because you can't avoid GregTech if it's enabled. You have to use the harder recipes. You're not at an immediate advantage because you use it or you don't. However if you're pretty end-game and you still don't use a Matterfabricator, you'll certainly be at a disadvantage, but it's more acceptable because the Matterfabricator isn't too overpowered and still is end-game.

 

[Mikey_R]

However I have no idea how EE is chemistry. That just doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

Alchemy is essentially early your very early chemistry experiments. Trying to turn one item into another (mainly gold). They didn't know about atoms and electrons then, just that this rock is different from this one and by putting it in this liquid it sets alight, or explodes.

However, unlike real life where they failed to make gold, in EE you can make gold (call it a bit of magic if you want).

It doesn't matter if it sits well with you, but that's the idea it is based on.

You also keep assuming that everyone will turn most things into diamonds. Me personally, I would rather keep it as it is and just make diamonds when I need them. The iron, gold, tin etc. are used much more often so I would say it's better to keep it like that than continuously make diamonds. But that's just what I would do.

 

[Narcisism]

The thing about GregTech is that it's a lot less overpowered. You need lots of power and time to use it for exchanging items, and only people who've been around for a long time will reap the benefits of it's ability to exchange items.

EE presents the ability to exchange items very early in the game to you. Which isn't a good thing.




If you choose not to use EE, everyone will advance faster than you, because they'll have enough Diamonds for that Quarry or those MFSUs before you do. If you choose not to use GregTech, well it's more fair because you can't avoid GregTech if it's enabled. You have to use the harder recipes. You're not at an immediate advantage because you use it or you don't. However if you're pretty end-game and you still don't use a Matterfabricator, you'll certainly be at a disadvantage, but it's more acceptable because the Matterfabricator isn't too overpowered and still is end-game.

You keep saying that you'll be at a disadvantage. What? What disadvantage? You have less diamonds than someone else. So what? Minecraft is a building game. You know what you'll have? More iron than that other person. It's not like there's a race unless you're playing on a PvP server. And even then, you'll be behind anyone who's been on the server longer than you.

And even if two people are "racing," one using EE and the other not, the person using EE will have more diamonds (or whatever) and the person not will have more of something else. Because EE causes you to destroy some items to get other items. You're not at a disadvantage, unless you count diamonds as a way of keeping score. You can build more things that use iron, or cobble, or gold, or whatever, and they can build more things that use diamonds. It balances out.

 

[Darlock Ahe]

We don't even know what kind of balancing will be done in EE3, as far as I understand minium stone is not something we will be able to get very fast in final version of EE3 (I think Pahimar said it somewhere, but i can't remember where).
Before making any arguments for/against EE3 I need to see actual mechanics in action.

If you choose not to use EE, everyone will advance faster than you, because they'll have enough Diamonds for that Quarry or those MFSUs before you do. If you choose not to use GregTech, well it's more fair because you can't avoid GregTech if it's enabled. You have to use the harder recipes. You're not at an immediate advantage because you use it or you don't. However if you're pretty end-game and you still don't use a Matterfabricator, you'll certainly be at a disadvantage, but it's more acceptable because the Matterfabricator isn't too overpowered and still is end-game.

It's a sandbox game, not a sport, you don't compete against other people.

 

[superriku11]

Wow, dude. You make an argument FOR GregTech, then turn down that same argument for EE3. At least be fair. Yes, you can mine tons of cobble with a 64x64 quarry. You know what else you can mine a ton of with a 64x64 quarry? Netherrack. And that same amount of Netherrack plus a bit of flint, turns into 8 diamonds. How is that any different from EE3? Also, you say that GregTech adds the same thing as EE3, so why include EE3? Because GT doesn't add the same things. There's SOME overlap, but there's overlap between many of the mods. BuildCraft and RedPower both add pipe-based transportation. We should remove RedPower, because it does the same as something else. EE3 adds the ability to "create" diamonds. So does GregTech. But diamonds are just one example. The goal of EE3 is to let you say "Wow, I sure have a lot of X that I don't need. I wish I could turn it into Y that I do need. Oh wait. I can." You can do diamonds to copper, for example (that's one of my more common ones. I have very little use for diamond, but a TON of use for copper.) It lets you take a ton of stuff you have, then turn it into a little bit of stuff you don't. There's heavy loss, and it's a bit of a tedious process. Not my favorite form of challenge, but if you're comparing to GregTech, it's the same there, too.

And it's not unfair to change iron to gold or iron to diamonds or whatever. You know why? Because you now have diamonds, but you lost a bunch of iron. It's called "Trade". It's just that in this case, you're trading with a pre-made system, rather than a person. How is that unfair? You lose one thing and gain another.

Honestly, I won't even be using EE3 that much, so your last argument is also invalid. If you can mine the materials to convert to diamonds, how is it unfair? Like I said, you lose 32 iron, gain a diamond. Or vice versa. It's not like it's free.

You can make a 64x64 Netherrack Quarry, but with that amount of Netherrack output you'll need many Industrial Centrifuges and millions, even billions of EUs to run them. You'll need a high output power system, some Hybrid or even Ultimate Hybrid Solar Panels, or a Nuclear Reactor. What's fair about GregTech is that you can do Netherrack to Diamonds on a small scale when you're starting out. It'll run in the centrifuge when you're doing other things, and you'll get that extra Diamond here or there. When you are far enough to be able to do the Netherrack to Diamonds conversion on a large scale, you might as well use a Matterfabricator instead. It'll take longer, but give you more items instead of just Diamonds.

Also, the RedPower example doesn't fit here. RedPower adds more than pipe based transport. It adds many other things. Mostly things that could be done with regular redstone, but makes them easier by making them doable with a single block. Like a clock for example.

Trading with a pre-made system is different though. Trading with a player is on the terms of what that player wants to give you for what you want to give them. EE3 is just making items out of nothing. And again, before you say GT is making items out of nothing, GregTech makes scientific sense. It at least feels like you are making items out of something. I'm aware that neither is truly making items from nothing, as it's an exchange, however what part of turning Iron into Diamonds makes sense? Even if it doesn't make sense, that's not what I care most about, EE makes things too easy, that's my main point.

 

[Narcisism]

Alchemy is essentially early your very early chemistry experiments. Trying to turn one item into another (mainly gold). They didn't know about atoms and electrons then, just that this rock is different from this one and by putting it in this liquid it sets alight, or explodes.

However, unlike real life where they failed to make gold, in EE you can make gold (call it a bit of magic if you want).

It doesn't matter if it sits well with you, but that's the idea it is based on.

You also keep assuming that everyone will turn most things into diamonds. Me personally, I would rather keep it as it is and just make diamonds when I need them. The iron, gold, tin etc. are used much more often so I would say it's better to keep it like that than continuously make diamonds. But that's just what I would do.

*hopes that post merge works* I actually used to use diamonds as a form of storage xD I'd keep everything in diamond form to save space. But that's really the only "advantage" that EE would give someone. You can store your various minerals as diamonds. Whoop-dee-doo. A little bit of storage space is saved.

 

[makeshiftwings]

As I said, GregTech may be a bit hard in some people's views. I personally like it. It's not at the level that things are impossible, I think things are balanced enough in GregTech. It makes things like Solar Panels harder to get, and for good reason. They're essentially infinite sources of energy. Unlike Nuclear Reactors or Geothermal Generators, they don't need to be refueled in any way. And the more expensive ones produce a lot more power.

I know that EE3 is still in development, but I think it's far enough that we can begin to discuss the issues about it, which is why I made this thread. Minimum Stones are basically the "infinite everything instantly" item. Even if they wear down and break, if they drop from mobs it'll be easy to continue to get them.

I disagree; if you have to go kill mobs to get them, it's not "infinite everything instantly". Not infinite because it's gated by how fast you can kill mobs, not everything because you can only create certain blocks rather than everything, and not instantly because you need to keep building new stones if you want to keep transmuting. You could automate the entire process, but it would require a mob farm, obsidian pipes, some autocrafting tables, a cobble generator, etc, which is enough setup that it's not trivial. It's more or less on the level of setting up an infinite lava generator connected to a GT centrifuge.

GregTech's cap on exchanging items is very good. You need lots of resources to get the right things in the first place. To power those things you need lots of power. And it's only easy to get large amounts of power once you're later into the game. You can't make high output Solar Panels without Sunnarium, which requires UU-Matter, which requires a Matterfabricator, which requires a lot of power. Without those high output Solar Panels, you'll need something like a Nuclear Reactor for your initial Matterfabricator usage. And for that you have to learn and experiment, if you're not safe you'll blow things up.

Meh, there's plenty of ways to get infinite power, like the infinite lava, or steam boilers. Or even a bunch of normal generators with a tree farm. There's a thread somewhere in this forum about how to make a low-cost infinite resource generator with the centrifuge.

I'm still giving EE a chance. I don't think it should be impossible to make a machine that gives you resources, as long as it requires some time and setup. I disagree with the GT philosophy that "the more time it takes, the more challenging it is", so just increasing the number of steps or forcing the player to play vanilla longer doesn't appeal to me. For me, EE would be ideal as long as the mechanism for recharging the minium stone turns out to be somewhat hard to automate.

 

[Dex Luther]

The thing about GregTech is that it's a lot less overpowered. You need lots of power and time to use it for exchanging items, and only people who've been around for a long time will reap the benefits of it's ability to exchange items.

EE presents the ability to exchange items very early in the game to you. Which isn't a good thing.




If you choose not to use EE, everyone will advance faster than you, because they'll have enough Diamonds for that Quarry or those MFSUs before you do.

You keep repeating this over and over and over again and everyone keeps telling you WHO CARES? Who cares if they get things before you do? People that were on the server longer than you will have things before you do, and for all you know they could have gotten favors from the owner and had some stuff given to them from creative mode to get the server going. How does this affect your game play in the least? It doesn't. It doesn't affect you one iota!

Do you demand that severs be reset when you start playing on them so people don't have more stuff than you do? I doubt it. Spend more time playing the damn game rather than looking over at your neighbors and what they have.

PS: I'm absolutely sure you'll be happy your neighbor has EE when you're doing something and are short a few items. Oh how happy you'll be when he offers to give you some of whatever you're missing because he's got plenty.

 

[Narcisism]

You can make a 64x64 Netherrack Quarry, but with that amount of Netherrack output you'll need many Industrial Centrifuges and millions, even billions of EUs to run them. You'll need a high output power system, some Hybrid or even Ultimate Hybrid Solar Panels, or a Nuclear Reactor. What's fair about GregTech is that you can do Netherrack to Diamonds on a small scale when you're starting out. It'll run in the centrifuge when you're doing other things, and you'll get that extra Diamond here or there. When you are far enough to be able to do the Netherrack to Diamonds conversion on a large scale, you might as well use a Matterfabricator instead. It'll take longer, but give you more items instead of just Diamonds.

Also, the RedPower example doesn't fit here. RedPower adds more than pipe based transport. It adds many other things. Mostly things that could be done with regular redstone, but makes them easier by making them doable with a single block. Like a clock for example.

Trading with a pre-made system is different though. Trading with a player is on the terms of what that player wants to give you for what you want to give them. EE3 is just making items out of nothing. And again, before you say GT is making items out of nothing, GregTech makes scientific sense. It at least feels like you are making items out of something. I'm aware that neither is truly making items from nothing, as it's an exchange, however what part of turning Iron into Diamonds makes sense? Even if it doesn't make sense, that's not what I care most about, EE makes things too easy, that's my main point.

I'm not sure I see how needing to manually gather the form of "energy" (minium stone durability) by hand, babysit the process of upgrading one item to another, and use more resources to do it, is EASIER than automatically generating your energy, dumping one eighth the material into a machine, then walking away for a bit. Care to elaborate on that?

 

[superriku11]

Alchemy is essentially early your very early chemistry experiments. Trying to turn one item into another (mainly gold). They didn't know about atoms and electrons then, just that this rock is different from this one and by putting it in this liquid it sets alight, or explodes.

However, unlike real life where they failed to make gold, in EE you can make gold (call it a bit of magic if you want).

It doesn't matter if it sits well with you, but that's the idea it is based on.

You also keep assuming that everyone will turn most things into diamonds. Me personally, I would rather keep it as it is and just make diamonds when I need them. The iron, gold, tin etc. are used much more often so I would say it's better to keep it like that than continuously make diamonds. But that's just what I would do.

I guess it does make a little more sense like that. It still feels like magic though, and I still prefer GregTech's science feel.

I know keeping things as they are then then using them for what you need when you need it is the best way to do things. It's how I do it actually. I even keep all my stuff un-macerated until I need it, as sometimes I like to use the actual ore blocks in my base for certain looks.

The problem I feel with EE3 though is that any item is essentially what you need it to be. You need an extra 4 Diamonds and have some stacks of Iron? Iron into Diamonds! I'd feel a bit better about it if it had to take time or some extra resource like heat, maybe by burning Coal, but not a ton of Coal. However at that point, it's just changing Coal for the function that energy serves with GregTech. And again, if it's going to be a GregTech clone, why add it?



The main difference is that EE3 is pretty early-game item transformation. And GregTech is pretty late-game item transformation. I just don't like that being accessible early in the game. Because when you need just 3 Diamonds for a pick, it's a lot more reasonable to have to go find those Diamonds. However when you need 8 Diamond blocks for a Link Modifier, or anything else requiring a ton, that's a bit ridiculous to ask you to go find that many Diamonds.

 

[Dex Luther]

And again, if it's going to be a GregTech clone, why add it?

Because:

1) They serve different goals
2) EE was made before Gregtech, so it would be the other way around.

 

[Codex]

You fail to understand one fact, EE3 is still in a very very barebones pre release. While the minium stone may be a bit overpowered even now, nothing is finished and I am sure Pahimar is working on implementing more balanced features and working on some of the features in EE3.

Gregtech is totally fine, while I don't use the expensive recipes, I find the fun items it does add to be quite fun to play around with.

 

[superriku11]

You keep repeating this over and over and over again and everyone keeps telling you WHO CARES? Who cares if they get things before you do? People that were on the server longer than you will have things before you do, and for all you know they could have gotten favors from the owner and had some stuff given to them from creative mode to get the server going. How does this affect your game play in the least? It doesn't. It doesn't affect you one iota!

Do you demand that severs be reset when you start playing on them so people don't have more stuff than you do? I doubt it. Spend more time playing the damn game rather than looking over at your neighbors and what they have.

PS: I'm absolutely sure you'll be happy your neighbor has EE when you're doing something and are short a few items. Oh how happy you'll be when he offers to give you some of whatever you're missing because he's got plenty.

The amount of items you have should be proportionate to how long you've played and how you play. If you mine all the time, and you have been for a while, it's okay if you have stacks and stacks of Diamonds. However you shouldn't be able to transform your extra Iron that's laying around for Diamonds when you're really mid way through your game progression.

Nobody else cares because they all like easy mode. What you're basically saying is this:

If I go into an FPS game and use speed hacks, I'm at an advantage, right? Well everyone technically has the ability to use speed hacks. So everyone should just install speed hacks and then everything is fair, right? Wrong. It's fair from one perception that everyone would then have the same abilities, however it ruins the game that everyone's running around at 120 MPH. EE makes the game too fast. Makes things too easy to get, therefore progression happens quickly. The game is more fun and rewarding when things are slower and harder to get.

I'm not sure I see how needing to manually gather the form of "energy" (minium stone durability) by hand, babysit the process of upgrading one item to another, and use more resources to do it, is EASIER than automatically generating your energy, dumping one eighth the material into a machine, then walking away for a bit. Care to elaborate on that?

This reply confused me to a certain level... Honestly I'm not sure where you're talking about GregTech and where you're talking about EE. All I'll say is, GregTech takes longer and more effort to "exchange" items. Where EE does it instantly if you have the stone, and the stone is easy to get no matter how it's done. Whether it's a mob drop or requires you poisoning yourself. If it's poison, drink a regeneration potion. If it's mob drops, make a mob farm.

 

[Narcisism]

EE3 isn't really early-game. It seems like it right now, because you get minium from mob drops. But that's going to change. I'm fairly certain that you'll need at LEAST one diamond to start with, and you still need 32 iron to make that one diamond. So a stack and a half of iron to make a pickaxe. And really, if you've gone on a mining venture and gotten a stack and a half of iron, you probably have better uses for it. Like a generator. Because who needs a diamond pickaxe, really? You can literally make anything you need in the early game without ever getting diamonds (take a look at TE's igneous extruder). And by the time you decide that you need diamonds, you either already have them, or need them for better energy storage or something. And at that point, you probably have a ton of iron, anyway. You could either make diamonds through GregTech or convert a handful of iron into diamonds. In that exact instance, GregTech and EE3 are identical. Except that GT can't convert glowstone to redstone, iron to gold, gold to copper, copper to cobble, or whatever else you might need.

And isn't the recipe for a minium stone something like 8 minium shards and a diamond? I can't remember, and I can't seem to find it online, annoyingly enough. Either way, I'm fairly certain you need a diamond before you can even start transmuting, so you have to find diamond before you can make diamond.

 

[superriku11]

Because:

1) They serve different goals
2) EE was made before Gregtech, so it would be the other way around.

GregTech does many things though, many more useful things than exchanging items. EE only exchanges items, and does it too easily. GregTech is focused around adding more advanced and difficult things to the game. EE is based around "Let's find a mostly fair way to exchange items". EE would be somewhat okay on it's own, but in contrast to GregTech, it's not. It's too easy in contrast to GregTech. GregTech is an example of how it should be, the way I see it. And getting rid of GregTech is a no no since it's the more difficult mod anyways and it adds more features.

I'm aware the serve different goals. However your second point isn't really valid. It doesn't matter when a mod was made, it matters what the mod does. GregTech does a lot and has the ability of fair but difficult item exchange as a feature as well. EE goes for medium difficulty item exchange and nothing else.

You fail to understand one fact, EE3 is still in a very very barebones pre release. While the minium stone may be a bit overpowered even now, nothing is finished and I am sure Pahimar is working on implementing more balanced features and working on some of the features in EE3.

Gregtech is totally fine, while I don't use the expensive recipes, I find the fun items it does add to be quite fun to play around with.

I know it's very barebones, but as I said, from what I heard of it, I have enough of an idea of what it'll be like. And really if they just try to make it harder to exchange items, it's just like GregTech, only they'll probably never make it as hard as GregTech is, and the only difference is that EE exchanges items based on a different method and "theory" behind how it works (GregTech = Science / EE = Alchemy). Since GregTech already exchanges items, why add something else that exchanges items?[DOUBLEPOST=1355538871][/DOUBLEPOST]

EE3 isn't really early-game. It seems like it right now, because you get minium from mob drops. But that's going to change. I'm fairly certain that you'll need at LEAST one diamond to start with, and you still need 32 iron to make that one diamond. So a stack and a half of iron to make a pickaxe. And really, if you've gone on a mining venture and gotten a stack and a half of iron, you probably have better uses for it. Like a generator. Because who needs a diamond pickaxe, really? You can literally make anything you need in the early game without ever getting diamonds (take a look at TE's igneous extruder). And by the time you decide that you need diamonds, you either already have them, or need them for better energy storage or something. And at that point, you probably have a ton of iron, anyway. You could either make diamonds through GregTech or convert a handful of iron into diamonds. In that exact instance, GregTech and EE3 are identical. Except that GT can't convert glowstone to redstone, iron to gold, gold to copper, copper to cobble, or whatever else you might need.

And isn't the recipe for a minium stone something like 8 minium shards and a diamond? I can't remember, and I can't seem to find it online, annoyingly enough. Either way, I'm fairly certain you need a diamond before you can even start transmuting, so you have to find diamond before you can make diamond.

To address the points about the Diamonds, a single Diamond isn't hard to get. And once you have the ability to exchange items with EE you can get more Diamonds anyways. It's kind of like how you need A LOT of power to kick on a Fusion Reactor. So while the first ignition costs a considerable amount, the output will be more than the input.

And I know that GT can't convert some things, which is how it should be in my opinion. If you need something, it shouldn't really be that whatever you need can be made from what you have. Speaking of basic ores of course. If you need Gold you shouldn't be able to get that from Iron. If you're doing those kinds of exchanges it's more balanced because of how you're limited by your amount of Iron, however I prefer having to get Gold if you don't have it, not just exchange it.

 

[Dex Luther]

The amount of items you have should be proportionate to how long you've played and how you play. If you mine all the time, and you have been for a while, it's okay if you have stacks and stacks of Diamonds. However you shouldn't be able to transform your extra Iron that's laying around for Diamonds when you're really mid way through your game progression.

Nobody else cares because they all like easy mode. What you're basically saying is this:

If I go into an FPS game and use speed hacks, I'm at an advantage, right? Well everyone technically has the ability to use speed hacks. So everyone should just install speed hacks and then everything is fair, right? Wrong. It's fair from one perception that everyone would then have the same abilities, however it ruins the game that everyone's running around at 120 MPH. EE makes the game too fast. Makes things too easy to get, therefore progression happens quickly. The game is more fun and rewarding when things are slower and harder to get.

No. You just don't get it do you. Your comparison is like Apples and Oranges.

Someone using speed hacks in an FPS DOES affect my game. An FPS is a competition. In an FPS one team wins and the other loses. Where is that in Minecraft? Do you lose the game if some idiot on the server gets diamond armor 3 hours after starting the game because he just happened to find a lot of diamond? Does your neighbor using EE somehow stop you from building your dirt castle with purple wool bridge? No it doesn't.People that donate to servers often get extra stuff and/or other privileges/loot do they affect how you play your game too? Want to have them removed from the game too? Like I said before stop looking at what your neighbor has and concentrate on playing the game. What other people have has no affect on you. If you don't like a mod, don't use it. It's as simple as that. Even the moderators of the forums have said the same. The Minecraft universe doesn't revolve around you and your ideals. Get over that.

 

[Tylor]

EE, GT and Thaumcraft are all "global overhaul" type mods (with difference that EE and TC are made from scratch, while GT is frankenshteined from different mods). I don't think they will work right together.
IC2 is, technically, also "global overhaul", but it is around for so long, it is already a standard for balancing other mods, such as TE and RC. So, we now have at least 4 separate "balances" - "classic", EE, TC and GT.

 

[Narcisism]

This reply confused me to a certain level... Honestly I'm not sure where you're talking about GregTech and where you're talking about EE. All I'll say is, GregTech takes longer and more effort to "exchange" items. Where EE does it instantly if you have the stone, and the stone is easy to get no matter how it's done. Whether it's a mob drop or requires you poisoning yourself. If it's poison, drink a regeneration potion. If it's mob drops, make a mob farm.

For GregTech, you take a stack of netherrack, stick it in a machine, wait a bit, pull it out, stick it in a workbench with flint, put it in another machine, then wait awhile.
The energy distribution is automatic. You dump a stack of coal (coke) in a generator. Boom. Done.

For EE3, you first need the minimum stone, which you have to craft, and it runs out. So you kill a bunch of mobs (in the current version). Not hard, but harder than throwing a stack of coal in a generator. Then, you stick cobble (which, if you're mining the normal way, is harder to get than netherrack, else it's the same) in a crafting table, make as much as you can, then go make another stone, which means farming more mobs. Meanwhile, the GregTech machine is still running, without you doing ANYTHING. Then, you have to manually craft all the various "tiers" of materials to work your way up to a single diamond. So let's count it in terms of interface interactions:

GregTech
1 (Dumping a stack of netherrack in the machine)
1 (Dumping coal in the generator)
1 (Grabbing stuff from the centrifuge. Can be automated, if you want)
1 (Crafting Table for coal ball)
1 (crafting Table for coal block)
1 (Compressor for block->diamond)
Total: 6, and a bit of waiting time, in which you can go do something productive.
Total Resources Used: 64 Netherrack, some coal.

EE3
1 (Minium Stone crafting)
16 (Cobble -> Wood. Assuming Shift+Click. 1024/1521 Transmutations used from the stone)
2 (Wood -> Obsidian, another 128 used from the stone. It's at 1152/1521)
1 (Obsidian-> Iron. 32 transmutations more. 1184/1521)
1 (Iron->Gold. 4 transmutes more. 1188/1521)
1( Gold -> Diamond 1 more transmute. 1189/1521)
Total: 22, and the need to go farm a bunch of mobs beforehand.
Total Resources Used: 8192 cobble (Same EMC as Netherrack, btw). Some sword durability (fighting mobs). 4 iron, 1 gold. Which, as you'll recall, is one fourth of the diamond to begin with.
Also correction to my previous post: The minium stone needs 8 shards of minium, 4 iron, 4 smooth stone, and 1 gold ingot for each one. So those are what you need to have before you start making diamonds.

So I say that GregTech is easier. On top of that, you can actually automate most of the process of GregTech's version, and you probably aren't even using just a regular generator for it, so you could possibly knock out the coal cost.

EDIT: By the way, I assume shift+click for any interface interaction, and I didn't include the act of putting things in the crafting table, because that would be the same for both mods. Also, you can use ACTs, redpower, and buildcraft to automate the GregTech version's process. If you want to do that for the EE version, you need to make TWO minium stones for EACH crafting recipe, because of the way AutoCrafting Tables work. And that would mean that you just spent more than a diamond's worth of materials to make a single diamond, so that's kind of silly.

 

[superriku11]

No. You just don't get it do you. Your comparison is like Apples and Oranges.

Someone using speed hacks in an FPS DOES affect my game. An FPS is a competition. In an FPS one team wins and the other loses. Where is that in Minecraft? Do you lose the game if some idiot on the server gets diamond armor 3 hours after starting the game because he just happened to find a lot of diamond? Does your neighbor using EE somehow stop you from building your dirt castle with purple wool bridge? No it doesn't.People that donate to servers often get extra stuff and/or other privileges/loot do they affect how you play your game too? Want to have them removed from the game too? Like I said before stop looking at what your neighbor has and concentrate on playing the game. What other people have has no affect on you. If you don't like a mod, don't use it. It's as simple as that. Even the moderators of the forums have said the same. The Minecraft universe doesn't revolve around you and your ideals. Get over that.

Stop thinking that I believe everything revolves around me. You're extremely rude in your replies when you add those unnecessary remarks.

As I said, I intend to better represent those opposed to EE. Lots of people come just saying they don't like EE or that it's too overpowered without presenting many or any reasons at all. I'm trying to present everything I can against EE that is relevant to how it is overpowered. Those who have come to just say they don't like it are hopeless against the "HURR I LIEK EASY MODE" army that fights for EE.

EE is like a cheat, but a somewhat restricted one. You can get as many Diamonds as you want as long as you have the Iron for it. Almost everybody has excess Iron in a time of need for Diamonds. You should have to go find those Diamonds though. Not only does it give a feeling of much more accomplishment, but it also balances the game and makes you go slower rather than just "Okay I've got no Diamonds and 20 stacks of Iron, let's just turn this all to stacks of Diamond". You can get stacks or Iron in an hour's worth of mining. However stacks of Diamonds is closer to days worth of mining.

 

[Narcisism]

Stop thinking that I believe everything revolves around me. You're extremely rude in your replies when you add those unnecessary remarks.

As I said, I intend to better represent those opposed to EE. Lots of people come just saying they don't like EE or that it's too overpowered without presenting many or any reasons at all. I'm trying to present everything I can against EE that is relevant to how it is overpowered. Those who have come to just say they don't like it are hopeless against the "HURR I LIEK EASY MODE" army that fights for EE.

EE is like a cheat, but a somewhat restricted one. You can get as many Diamonds as you want as long as you have the Iron for it. Almost everybody has excess Iron in a time of need for Diamonds. You should have to go find those Diamonds though. Not only does it give a feeling of much more accomplishment, but it also balances the game and makes you go slower rather than just "Okay I've got no Diamonds and 20 stacks of Iron, let's just turn this all to stacks of Diamond". You can get stacks or Iron in an hour's worth of mining. However stacks of Diamonds is closer to days worth of mining.

You sir, have TERRIBLE luck mining. A stack of diamonds generally takes me just a couple hours. Go look for a ravine or an abandoned mineshaft. Or somewhere where those both intersect. You'll find diamonds. A lot of diamonds. I usually end up with more diamonds than iron, but then again, I tend to start ignoring iron after awhile.