IC2, GT, EU Suggestion/Idea Thread

[danidas]

To me solar panels need to be reworked from the ground up into a scalable multiblock on the same level as a tank from railcraft or xycraft. Where the more solar panels you place next to one another the greater the energy output will be and said energy will be in the from of single packets. As the main issue with solar panels and the reason compact solars exists is that having a ton of panels on your power grid that are each emitting 1eu/t it causes a ton of lag due to IC2's energy net. The same can be applied to wind/water mills as well as any other energy source where the more traffic you have over your grid the laggier it will be.

In other words, death for your server/client by a thousand cuts.

 

[Whovian]

Multiblock is aesthetics. It works exactly like compact solar arrays.

I thought the point of Compact Solars was, well, to compactify your solars to lessen the size of solar stuffage? In which case the multiblocks are most certainly not aesthetics.

 

[CrafterOfMines57]

To me solar panels need to be reworked from the ground up into a scalable multiblock on the same level as a tank from railcraft or xycraft. Where the more solar panels you place next to one another the greater the energy output will be and said energy will be in the from of single packets. As the main issue with solar panels and the reason compact solars exists is that having a ton of panels on your power grid that are each emitting 1eu/t it causes a ton of lag due to IC2's energy net. The same can be applied to wind/water mills as well as any other energy source where the more traffic you have over your grid the laggier it will be.

In other words, death for your server/client by a thousand cuts.

Actually, as I stated earlier, it's not 512 solar panels making 1 EU/t that is causing the most lag, it is the constant check to see if the panel can see the sky.

 

[danidas]

I thought the point of Compact Solars was, well, to compactify your solars to lessen the size of solar stuffage? In which case the multiblocks are most certainly not aesthetics.

Aesthetics was never the issue and instead the reason compact/advanced solars exist is due to the lag caused by IC2's energy network dealing with a ton of traffic in the from of the 1eu/t packets each panel is producing. With compact solars it combines those panels into one that produces only 1 large packet instead of many small ones.

In fact any energy source in IC2 can cause a ton of lag if you have enough of them sending individual packets over the network.

 

[DoctorOr]

I thought the point of Compact Solars was, well, to compactify your solars to lessen the size of solar stuffage? In which case the multiblocks are most certainly not aesthetics.

The primary purpose of compact solars is to reduce the packets on the wire, and thus reduce lag. Single block is a method, but not what was designed for.

 

[Chocorate]

Solar panels, along with water and wind mills are supposed to give power early game, not to compact 200 of those to power your mass fab...

Just like how these Solars and Watermills aren't meant to be as powerful as the Ultimate Hybrid Solar, they're supposed to be used in combination with other things. Making them multiblock structures is both an aesthetic choice as well as a lag reducing choice. (Compact solars also reduces lag, but this is assuming you don't have that installed. It's a way to build onto your solar setup, as well as making them require maintenance. Killing 2 creepers with 1 stone, the multiblock solars' dust (or photo-whateveryoucallit panels) would be able to be replaced all in one go, rather than cleaning (replacing) each one. Ultimately it looks less ugly than having tons of separate machines, while also providing a slight EU bonus to the original watermills. (larger EU bonus after you switch the watermill wheel to the 2nd tier) Also, the watermills can't be combined to 200, the idea is improving upon the original, ugly, weak ones to make them worth the make.

 

[CrafterOfMines57]

IIRC, I think RichardG said something about him and Player having new ideas for 1.5 or something similar.

Yes, I'm replying to my self, no, I'm not crazy,

http://forum.industrial-craft.net/index.php?page=Thread&postID=106102#post106102 and
https://twitter.com/richardg867/status/316711932822446080

 

[Mash]

Personally, I like solar panels.

FTB is too big to not have a set and forget feature in regards to energy generation. If I was too busy squabbling around trying to calculate how much time I had left before my solar panels no longer outputted enough energy to run my matter fabricator, or making sure that I had enough carbon plates to replace their broken ones, I'd never get anything else done.

This isn't World of Warcraft. We don't need to balance every little thing to make sure that everything else revolves around it nicely. You don't like it? Well, that's perfect, because it's not mandatory.

That being said, I would like some more options in regards to EU generation. Most other avenues are so pale in comparison to solar panels that I don't even feel the motivation to use them. Windmills and watermills are great examples of this. They. Are. Terrible.

By the time I have the aluminum for either, my energy requirements are so large that I'd need several hundred of either to even make the materials that they require. It's backwards logic.

 

[Chocorate]

Personally, I like solar panels.

FTB is too big to not have a set and forget feature in regards to energy generation. If I was too busy squabbling around trying to calculate how much time I had left before my solar panels no longer outputted enough energy to run my matter fabricator, or making sure that I had enough carbon plates to replace their broken ones, I'd never get anything else done.

I understand what you mean completely. I think that the solar maintenance should be a config option, as well as not be crippling. Even at full buildup of dust (replacement), a large solar multiblock would still produce as much power as a standard solar (that we have now) does.

 

[Mash]

I understand what you mean completely. I think that the solar maintenance should be a config option, as well as not be crippling. Even at full buildup of dust (replacement), a large solar multiblock would still produce as much power as a standard solar (that we have now) does.

That I could get behind.

I agree that solar panels should probably have some form of maintenance, but so long as it isn't crippling (the steam turbine comes to mind - That thing is just ludicrous for a measly 100 eu/t), then I'm down with it.

And I loooove multiblock structures. I would love to see more of that type of thinking. Multiblock thermal generator, amirite? Have the current (or an upgraded) thermal block be the GUI interface thing, and then just have casing or some other arbitrary construction block be used for the main structure. The bigger the structure, the more efficiently it uses lava, and the more EU/t it puts out.

Hell, even if you had the blocks cost iridium plates and UU matter I would be totally down with that. It'd pay for itself, eventually.

 

[YourLocalMadSci]

There is another option I would like to throw out for solar balancing. I don't suggest this for the sake of realism, however, real life can be a source of inspiration for interesting game mechanics.

Why are renewable energy sources not used for all our power generating needs in real life? There are a number of reasons, including economic viability, often requiring exotic materials, efficiency, and power grid load balancing. Two that could be applied well to Minecraft are variability of supply and location-based renewable resources.

What if solars output a variable amount of energy, with a long time based variance, simulating seasonal and weather effects? Suppose that instead of outputing 512 EU/tick every day, an advanced solar would output anywhere between 500,000 and 0 EU/tick. The average EU/tick would remain constant, if you averaged over a long time period (say 30 Minecraft days), but the actual power output would vary from day to day. This would make having alot of of storage capacity vital. You might think "Great! This solar is outputting a ludicrous quantity of energy! I've filled up my MFSU in 10 seconds flat!" only to realise that now your storage is full, you are wasting every excess EU being produced, and that MFSU is going to have to last you a long time when the "sunny" day ends. As an additional component of depth, the variance could be linked to the type of biome a solar is placed in. Naturally, we would expect a desert to be a great site for a solar plant, while a tundra would be far less useful.

This effectively means that the actual utility you get out of solars is dependant on your storage capabilities. The more you rely on solar, the bigger your storage needs to be in order to make the most out of the array, and avoid wasting excess EUs. It ties in nicely with the storage options available, in that some basic solar panels might be efficiently catered for with only a dozen bat-boxes, while more advanced arrays may require a lot of MFSUs to even out supply. It gives a unique challenge to solars, without touching their cost or average energy production. This system also has the advantage of not requiring the development of new blocks, and being pretty easy to implement in the existing mods. My knowledge of Java is pretty limited, but it seems like this would be pretty easy to test without requiring more complex mechanics.

 

[Mash]

There is another option I would like to throw out for solar balancing. I don't suggest this for the sake of realism, however, real life can be a source of inspiration for interesting game mechanics.

Why are renewable energy sources not used for all our power generating needs in real life? There are a number of reasons, including economic viability, often requiring exotic materials, efficiency, and power grid load balancing. Two that could be applied well to Minecraft are variability of supply and location-based renewable resources.

What if solars output a variable amount of energy, with a long time based variance, simulating seasonal and weather effects? Suppose that instead of outputing 512 EU/tick every day, an advanced solar would output anywhere between 500,000 and 0 EU/tick. The average EU/tick would remain constant, if you averaged over a long time period (say 30 Minecraft days), but the actual power output would vary from day to day. This would make having alot of of storage capacity vital. You might think "Great! This solar is outputting a ludicrous quantity of energy! I've filled up my MFSU in 10 seconds flat!" only to realise that now your storage is full, you are wasting every excess EU being produced, and that MFSU is going to have to last you a long time when the "sunny" day ends. As an additional component of depth, the variance could be linked to the type of biome a solar is placed in. Naturally, we would expect a desert to be a great site for a solar plant, while a tundra would be far less useful.

This effectively means that the actual utility you get out of solars is dependant on your storage capabilities. The more you rely on solar, the bigger your storage needs to be in order to make the most out of the array, and avoid wasting excess EUs. It ties in nicely with the storage options available, in that some basic solar panels might be efficiently catered for with only a dozen bat-boxes, while more advanced arrays may require a lot of MFSUs to even out supply. It gives a unique challenge to solars, without touching their cost or average energy production. This system also has the advantage of not requiring the development of new blocks, and being pretty easy to implement in the existing mods. My knowledge of Java is pretty limited, but it seems like this would be pretty easy to test without requiring more complex mechanics.

Naturally, if we're simulating seasonal effects, biomes would have to be taken into account too, yeah?

Looks like I'll be moving to a Desert biome for this.

 

[danidas]

Personally I still prefer just making these energy sources into multi block structures with the only limiting factors being the aesthetics and initial resources.

 

[Chocorate]

Naturally, if we're simulating seasonal effects, biomes would have to be taken into account too, yeah?

Looks like I'll be moving to a Desert biome for this.

Until Minecraft cuts the **** with the whole rain effect being global and just not rendering in deserts, good luck. It's really irritating though, rain has almost no good effects. It's loud, laggy, makes everything dark, and thunder lights stuff on fire. That's not even getting into the effects it has in mods...

 

[Mash]

Until Minecraft cuts the **** with the whole rain effect being global and just not rendering in deserts, good luck. It's really irritating though, rain has almost no good effects. It's loud, laggy, makes everything dark, and thunder lights stuff on fire. That's not even getting into the effects it has in mods...

Hah. Yeah. Personally, I'd wondered if they were ever going to incorporate a finite water system that was replenished by rainfall, but they never really did anything like that, understandably. That would make a menagerie of complications.

But, they do need rain to have some benefits. Or at very least, a mute option. Because I live in Washington, one of the rainiest places in the continental US, and I can tell you that it does not rain that much, nor that often... ever. I've never been in a 3-day monsoon before. I'm pretty sure clouds can't hold that much liquid.

 

[MagusUnion]

Good news everyone! You're getting Boats! Boooaaaatttsss!!!!!!!!

And whatever the hell Abla is working on. Usually something good, but hopefully not as tedious as the Agriculture system...

 

[Chocorate]

Good news everyone! You're getting Boats! Boooaaaatttsss!!!!!!!!

And whatever the @#!*% Abla is working on. Usually something good, but hopefully not as tedious as the Agriculture system...

I don't get it. They're pulling a Mojang and adding new unrelated things rather than improving existing things? I was hoping Traincraft could make itself relevant by adding steamboats or something, but i guess we have tech mods to do that.

 

[jumpfight5]

Well Traincraft has it's own issues to fix. And the boats seem cool, but they fit about as much as IC2 crops--not at all.
There should just be a separate boat mod, too bad there are none that stand out. I hope the electric boat has some kind of engine on the back of it, I think it's just 5 ref.iron. maybe a new kind of metal that can float that's mixing ref.iron with something? Porous refined iron?

 

[Mash]

With the advanced Electric jetpack, I... can't really think of any practical use for boats.

Unless it could like, double as a submarine or some shit.

 

[Chocorate]

Well Traincraft has it's own issues to fix. And the boats seem cool, but they fit about as much as IC2 crops--not at all.
There should just be a separate boat mod, too bad there are none that stand out. I hope the electric boat has some kind of engine on the back of it, I think it's just 5 ref.iron. maybe a new kind of metal that can float that's mixing ref.iron with something? Porous refined iron?

Took me 5 tries to not read your post in rap style.

Exactly though, it's like Xycraft's crops. They just don't fit, especially henequin compared to Flax. I mean, I get why xycraft has it, for if it's used standalone it can still show off xycraft soil. I just don't get why they are adding boats (which use the same models and I'm assuming controls and handling as vanilla boats) instead of improving the poop they have in the rest of their mod. I'm hoping that they'll at least add a boat that can hold a player and an MFe/u/batbox.