I did bee math! (Now with more usability!)

[Milaha]

The nerf is notable and potentially extremely annoying depending on how and when it kicks in. Annoying enough to cheat around it? Possibly, but I hope not. I'd only just managed to find bees enjoyable thanks to Extra Bees making the genetic minigame massively less annoying to work with and now something threatens to wreck it again, bleh! So long as you can get guaranteed production from a perfectly bred bee it's fine by me, otherwise it's time for cheating. I do, however, appreciate that trying to push a bee past 100% should probably kill it - but in that case the bee's performance should be less obtuse and easier to track.

A 16 multiplier on the alveary is pretty darn forgiving (4 frames). Assuming you breed in ideal traits you are looking at 100% on a lot of products, and a very good rate on even the rarest. Who this is really going to hurt is the people who do not engage with bees enough to breed in ideal traits and just brute force it with more frames. Also a 10 mutation chance multiplier will be enough to get a lot of the more basic mutations up to garunteed, and the rare ones up to a very respectable chance. Combined with the buff to swarmer lives that I saw a while back it will mean that you need to put just a bit more effort into your system, but you will still be able to rely on bees. Maybe that is optimistic thinking though, since I am just getting started on a game where I am trying not to mine a single ore and will be relying on bees a lot

Anyway, on our server at the moment we're finding on bees bred for optimal traits (maximum production, pollination, life, etc.) six impregnated frames is always enough for 100% production even on bees with very rare specialties. This nerf may prove very irritating for those of us trying to obsolete the quarry!

This is correct, 6 frames will always get a fastest bee up to 100% even on a 1% base.

 

[Velotican]

As I just said, winning the genetic lottery and putting in the huge effort required to pull that off should get you guaranteed production for the trouble, especially as the amount of time required to obtain all that without cheating is comparable to having an elaborate automated quarry setup anyway. It would nice to have an environmentally friendly option for production that isn't an enormous pain in the arse because of some bottleneck like the versions in FTB currently are.

The apparent insistence on making using Forestry less rewarding than using other mods for more work just makes people not want to use it. I don't see the logic there.

 

[MilConDoin]

I posted the formula for the mutation limit a few days ago on twitter at https://twitter.com/sirsengir/status/322699952759386112 - the version for production is the same, except that the limit is 16 instead of 10.

This means I can use 4 of your frames (2^4 production boost) and 5 soul frames from Binnie (1.5^5 mutation boost), correct?

 

[Sengir]

As I just said, winning the genetic lottery and putting in the huge effort required to pull that off should get you guaranteed production for the trouble.

That is guaranteed production. You can boost it to 16 times the normal alveary output before there is even a chance for the queen to turn artificial (which means she can in theory still live for up to 1000 (!) more generations before she dies off without princess). And you still generate resources from nothing in doing so. Now there is actually a choice: a) stuff the alveary with frame housings for maximum production, but take pre-cautions to replace a queen now and then (or perhaps use swarmer queens from the start) or b) use a moderate amount of frame housings for still serious production boosts and rest assured your queens stay safe.

(Considering this only affects environments with EB installed, you have chests upon chests of rocky princesses anyway. Use them!)

The apparent insistence on making using Forestry less rewarding than using other mods for more work just makes people not want to use it. I don't see the logic there.

I don't care what other mods do. No, really. I don't. I balance according to how I like to play and what I think are reasonable values. Otherwise we just end up with mods trying to 1-up each other. (Adjust five values in Forestry: Congratulations! You now have the most OP mod for energy production Minecraft has ever seen! Would that be fun? I say: No.)[DOUBLEPOST=1365956864][/DOUBLEPOST]

This means I can use 4 of your frames (2^4 production boost) and 5 soul frames from Binnie (1.5^5 mutation boost), correct?

According to what I calculated: Yep.

EDIT: Sounded a bit more harsh than intended. Just explaining the reasoning.

 

[Milaha]

As I just said, winning the genetic lottery and putting in the huge effort required to pull that off should get you guaranteed production for the trouble, especially as the amount of time required to obtain all that without cheating is comparable to having an elaborate automated quarry setup anyway. It would nice to have an environmentally friendly option for production that isn't an enormous pain in the arse because of some bottleneck like the versions in FTB currently are.

You are massively overstating the trouble to get a species up to max speed with extra bees machines. It takes maybe 10 minutes, of which you actually spend a net total of 30 seconds attending to it yourself. Sure you have to find a species with the speed first, but that is no more trouble than any other basic breeding. I can see your argument if we were talking about forestry without extra bees. But, you can get to 100% on every forestry bee with the new caps!

The apparent insistence on making using Forestry less rewarding than using other mods for more work just makes people not want to use it. I don't see the logic there.

Your aparent insistence that every mod must balance against all other mods is baffling to me. Yes, some mods are often combined, but not always. Every mod maker strikes the balance they want, some people will enjoy that balance, some wont. Just because you seem to like things on the easy side does not mean everyone does.

 

[Velotican]

Perhaps my experience with vanilla Forestry bee breeding several months ago has clouded my perception of the modern situation worse than I realised.

At any rate, the information is valuable and something I can work with so our stuff doesn't break in the future. This was my main concern. I'm not in the habit of scrapping worlds I don't have to.

 

[snooder]

Meh, the production change isn't a huge deal, but the mutation cap really ruins bee breeding for me.

One the things I like most about Extra Bees was being able to guarantee what species I get and what traits they have. It's hard enough to breed the really rare specialities.

For example, when I tried to breed heroic bees in apiaries, it took 2 or 3 real life days of trying. And that was when I already had a set of steadfast and heroic bees. I cannot imagine doing that for EVERY low mutation chance species.

 

[DoctorOr]

if(mutationModifier > 10) {

No mutation modifier means that no chance for this to kick in. Since two same pure bred bees cannot mutate (except for vis) this is thus business as usual for bees in production and their OP alveary frame housings.

At the same time, you can exceed that limit of 16 without any enhancement on all, on some mutations (Demonic, for instance)

I'd much rather see the whole "get max rate with 9 frames!" fixed than mutations made more problematic.

 

[Milaha]

No mutation modifier means that no chance for this to kick in. Since two same pure bred bees cannot mutate (except for vis) this is thus business as usual for bees in production and their OP alveary frame housings.

At the same time, you can exceed that limit of 16 without any enhancement on all, on some mutations (Demonic, for instance)

I'd much rather see the whole "get max rate with 9 frames!" fixed than mutations made more problematic.

You seem to have misread/understood. The 16 is a production multiplier limit and it only applies to the bonus from the housing, it ignores the bee itself. This is exactly 4 standard frames in an alveary. The 10 cap is a mutation multiplier cap, and again is based ONLY on the bonus from the housing. The easiest way to hit that exactly would be to use a single uranium ore in a mutator.

 

[DoctorOr]

You seem to have misread/understood. The 16 is a production multiplier limit and it only applies to the bonus from the housing, it ignores the bee itself. This is exactly 4 standard frames in an alveary. The 10 cap is a mutation multiplier cap, and again is based ONLY on the bonus from the housing. The easiest way to hit that exactly would be to use a single uranium ore in a mutator.

The code says mutation modifier must be above 10 (which he posted is now 16) for the rest of it to take effect.

This means a production bee of identical princess and drone, which cannot mutate (excepting vis), will not satisfy the if statement

http://pastebin.com/ggsbQ00N

Perhaps there is an additional change, or perhaps "getMutationModifier" returns something totally contradictory to the function name - I haven't decompiled Forestry to check, but this one appears to only affect mutation attempts and is low enough to take effect on a small number of natural mutations with no enhancement.

Why anybody attempting to mutate a breed would also be bothering to achieve high production totally escapes me. (Why anybody would bother doing it in anything but an apiary also escapes me. Mutator blocks are unnecessary)

 

[ex13]

housing.getMutationModifier() returns the mutation modifier of the housing (i.e. apiary or alveary). Both housings have a base mutationmodifier of 1.0, and are changed by frames (i.e. soul frame mutliply the modifier by 1.5) and the alveary mutator (i.e. uranium multiplies the modifier by 10). The housing mutation modifier does not depend on the bees, whether they can indeed mutate, what the mutation chance for a specific mutation is, not even if there are bees at all - the modifier is just a number that is computed for each bee house (and will eventually used as a factor to compute the actual mutation chance for two bees once the queen dies).

Same for production speed modifier (which is capped at 16 - i.e. 4 normal frames). Its just a number, the actual production of a bee also depends on its speed and the product it creates (i.e. the base chance for a specific comb or specialty).

So, I have no clue what you wanted to say with

At the same time, you can exceed that limit of 16 without any enhancement on all, on some mutations (Demonic, for instance)

Also, the changes sengir made indeed fix

I'd much rather see the whole "get max rate with 9 frames!" fixed than mutations made more problematic.

since with a housing production modifier of 16 some bees will never reach max speed (like the diamond bee).

On a side note: Apiaries with frames (except of course the nova frame I guess) will always be fine, since there is no way to reach a production modifier of 16 or mutation modifier of 10 with just 3 frames. If you used apiaries for your mutations you don't need to worry. The change only matters for alveraries with too many frame housings or mutator blocks.

Edit: I actually like this - I never used frame housings in alvearies, since I always found this a bit cheaty - the production rate is just incredible with 6 frames. I always felt that frames were only ever meant for apiaries to bring them (non-automateble) closer to alvearies. Indeed, a production modifier value of 16 is still quite large - I wouldn't mind an even lower value.

 

[Sengir]

The code says mutation modifier must be above 10 (which he posted is now 16) for the rest of it to take effect.

This means a production bee of identical princess and drone, which cannot mutate (excepting vis), will not satisfy the if statement

http://pastebin.com/ggsbQ00N

Perhaps there is an additional change, or perhaps "getMutationModifier" returns something totally contradictory to the function name - I haven't decompiled Forestry to check, but this one appears to only affect mutation attempts and is low enough to take effect on a small number of natural mutations with no enhancement.

Why anybody attempting to mutate a breed would also be bothering to achieve high production totally escapes me. (Why anybody would bother doing it in anything but an apiary also escapes me. Mutator blocks are unnecessary)

I posted the formula for the mutation limit a few days ago on twitter at https://twitter.com/sirsengir/status/322699952759386112 - the version for production is the same, except that the limit is 16 instead of 10.

Also: getMtutationModifier.

 

[Milaha]

At this point all I can say is "don't feed the troll" He seems to believe that by reading half of one function he knows better what the program does than the creator, who has very kindly come to this thread to explain exactly what the changes are for us.

 

[DoctorOr]

So it appears that "Perhaps there is an additional change" is in fact, in play.

At this point all I can say is "don't feed the troll"

Lol sure.

 

[twisto51]

6 mutator blocks with uranium has produced a pure-bred mutation every time I've put the right bees into the alveary. Doesn't feel like a lottery to me.

Getting the species needed to produce on alveary wasn't very hard either. 1% work, 99% waiting for top-tier extrabees machines to do their job. Synthesizer, purifier, and inoculator are sloooooow.

 

[snooder]

6 mutator blocks with uranium has produced a pure-bred mutation every time I've put the right bees into the alveary. Doesn't feel like a lottery to me.

Getting the species needed to produce on alveary wasn't very hard either. 1% work, 99% waiting for top-tier extrabees machines to do their job. Synthesizer, purifier, and inoculator are sloooooow.

You don't need 6. Each one multiplies by 10 so you just need 2. (10 x 10 = 100%)

 

[twisto51]

You don't need 6. Each one multiplies by 10 so you just need 2. (10 x 10 = 100%)

Not true. I had 3 and wasn't getting pure-bred pairs every time. With 6 I do. Admittedly my sample set isn't huge and the number could be less than 6. It definitely isn't 2, though, at least not on the version I'm playing.

 

[DoctorOr]

pure-bred pairs

Why...just why is this even necessary?

 

[twisto51]

Why...just why is this even necessary?

Because if I get a pure-bred pair I drop them into inoculators with max fertility serum, then I breed them for extra drones, then I use the drones to get any serum(s) I want from the species in question.

It is "necessary" because I don't want to have to do it again.

...and it isn't like I have any other use for the >5000 uranium currently taking up space in my AE system.

Spoiler

 

[Milaha]

You were doing something wrong. 2x uranium ore in a pair of mutators will give pure bred pairs every time, done it many times myself.