It might be dying, or just not interesting anymore. Macerators, induction furnaces - I made this stuff thousands of times. Pulverizers and other things too, but they are more interesting and configurable sides is a very nice mechanic. And they way faster than macerators unless you put tons of overclockers into it.
But industrial grindier is much more interesting and cool-looking that either macerators and pulverizers.
Power generation.
Man, solars are boring. Especially those fancy 100500 eu/t output ones. Coal generators are boring. Geotermal generators are not so boring, since they require some sort of infrastructure, but it's getting old. That's why I'm using Steam Turbines, even though they are not as efficient as other boring methods of power generation. Seriously, what soultions do I have for IC power? Only Nukes are somewhat interesting. And RailCraft system. Dave's idea to move to Universal Electricity is actually a good idea, since it's like a fresh breath. And it's not as stupid as obsolete IC "packetsize = voltage" and so on concepts of IC2 Seriously, IC2's Eu's are not electricity - they are angry gnomes carrying packets with energy. UE is not perfect, too, but at least it's something different.
Greg's machines also have an interesting idea - "supply MV, or it wouldn't work". Even THIS approach is closer to real electricity. Try to feed your microwave oven with 50 volts instead of 220 or 110 (depending on country
).
Glass fiber cables also was an idiotic thing. We had a nice "higher voltage/less loss percentage" line and there are HV cables that just destroys that curve. Who uses HV to transport energy? Who uses ANYTHING but glass fiber in final builds?
And didn't mentioned that real glass fiber is not conductive at all!
RedPower power is interesting, but it is pretty hard to produce and there are no real uses of it except Frames. And awful capacity of wires and slow stabilization period doesn't do well for RP2.
Factorization power is interesting. That's the solar generator I like. However, it lacks uses except Factorization ore processing.
Actually Factorization is an example of something more interesting than IC2. Its multi-stage ore processing is something new compared to concept "macerate, get dusts + bonus, smelt them - ORE DOUBLING". Maybe factorization way is too complicated, however, it is interesting. I should use it at some point.
Actually, before TE, buildcraft power had an interesting concept - no energy storage. It might seem bad, but that changes the gameplay a bit (or a lot) - you need to produce as much power as you consume and "put a solar - go mining" method won't work. But without TE, buildcraft had no machines that somehow were able to replace IC2.
I don't know, IC just getting old. It's machines don't change, while machines from other mods do. There are new mods with new machines that easier to automate, or they work better, or more interesting. The only thing that IC2 had monopoly for a bit - is chargeable tools. But there are MachineMuse's suits for now, and a lot of people prefer her armor and tool over Q-armor. For now, IC doesn't have anything that cannot be replaced with other mods.
