I'm Getting Bored

[zbeeblebrox]

You know, the thing about dust - and ore doubling specifically - that always kind of bothered me is that it's purely an end. The goal is to double ores, that's what it does, and there's nothing else to it. If you compare that to, say, the vanilla piston which was originally a mod, or to RP2 frames, or to apiaries from Forestry, or Ender Storage, most of MFR, or hell even PortalGun which I think is OP in Ultimate; what you have in those examples are a means to any number of ends. Those kinds of open possibilities are what I like about Minecraft. Crafting those kinds of blocks/items expands what you can do in the game, whereas crafting macerators/pulverizers/etc contracts what you can do, at least in the short term. Build a pulverizer, and you've locked yourself into building the infrastructure for doubling ore, storing said ore, sorting, automation, etc.

Don't get me wrong, there's lots of creativity to be had in there still, and I don't deny that there are people who like this sort of thing. But when I look at ore doubling set ups, I don't see an expansion of possibility. All I see is a block that does one thing, for one exact reason. And worse, if it's enabled in a pack, it almost makes you feel like you're playing the game wrong if you don't utilize it. Or intentionally creating a challenge for yourself or something. I don't want Minecraft to feel that way, I don't want there to ever be a "right" way to play any aspect of Minecraft. But stuff like pulverizers do exactly that: they introduce discrete "better" and "worse" strategies to the game.

I think this is one of the primary reasons I've never been a huge fan of IC2 and to a lesser extent Thermal Expansion (and Tale of Kingdoms, but that's not relevant here). It introduces a path, and when you reach the end of that path you're "done". And it's not the "done" part I dislike, because you can always decide that you aren't, it's the "path" part. It's creating linearity inside a game that's supposed to eschew linearity.

That said, it would be really neat if dusts could be placeable in the world. Just a neat little visual addition to mix things up.

 

[Wekmor]

If you are bored of pulverizer->furnace way of doubling ores, then why don't you just use factorization?

 

[Daemonblue]

Stuff

Except doubling ores in itself is only a means to an end. That's why doubling ores is generally one of the first things people do. By doubling your output you're reducing how much time you have to go and hunt resources so you can build and do other things. In a resource heavy mod pack not having ore doubling early on can lead to people getting bored from having to mine all the time instead of actually building.

 

[zbeeblebrox]

...That's why doubling ores is generally one of the first things people do. By doubling your output you're reducing how much time you have to go and hunt resources so you can build and do other things. In a resource heavy mod pack not having ore doubling early on can lead to people getting bored from having to mine all the time instead of actually building.

While it's true that it takes some of the load off mining, it does so without adding anything to the game and on top of that makes itself a necessity simply by existing. It's a necessary evil introduced to solve a problem created by those same mods. Resource balancing by way of The Red Queen's Race.

 

[Hydra]

Dusts are stupid because we have no real interesting alloy system.

Not just that, we don't have an interesting ore system. Iron ore, as a simple example, is typically found in hematite and magnetite. These you can simply pulverize and smelt. But a lot of other ores are more complex amalgamations of metals and other elements such as oxygen. It would be nice if we could do more with that.

 

[RedBoss]

But seriously, the game has magic, monsters, jet packs, lasers, rockets, dragons, etc... And folks want "ore processing" to be more fun?

Some folks need to leave the base every now and then

 

[PhilHibbs]

gregtech flamewar yay, wheres my pocporn

One person posting a stupid and offtopic rant does not make a flamewar. Don't feed the trolls.

 

[Scum]

Not just that, we don't have an interesting ore system. Iron ore, as a simple example, is typically found in hematite and magnetite. These you can simply pulverize and smelt. But a lot of other ores are more complex amalgamations of metals and other elements such as oxygen. It would be nice if we could do more with that.

Gregtech is really the only mod that adds realistic chemical features. All of his new ores aren't "silver ore" or "lead ore", they have real names like you would find them in nature. Galena ore, for instance, is gregtech's lead/silver/(something else I forget) ore.

 

[Hydra]

Gregtech is really the only mod that adds realistic chemical features.

Hah. Hardly. Just putting some chemical notations under item names does not make it "realistic". Actually, Gregtech is simply unrealistic as hell. I mean, centrifuging stuff to create methanol? Really? And turning fish/meat into methanol? It's as unrealistic as turning lead into gold. I actually dislike such half-assed attempts. Either make it realistic or don't even bother trying.

 

[Petrus]

Unless you go into Forestry, broadly speaking, this game consists of four things.

a} Mining.
b} Power generation.
c} Ore processing.
d} Sorting.

There's a certain amount of combat, but not much; and if you get to the top of the IC2/MPS tech tree, that will be so easy for you that it's barely worth mentioning at all.

Despite what that sounds like, I'm not actually complaining. This is, however, a big part of the reason why I reinstalled 1.2.5, in order to have RP2, EE2 and ToggleBlocks to allow me to do the above in more novel ways. With more recent Minecraft, everyone does things in pretty much the same way. You make a BC/railcraft engine based power system, use it to process ore via Thermal Expansion, and then sort it via Applied Energistics. You also don't need to understand the actual mechanics of any of it. You're working with closed white boxes; you can watch a video from Direwolf20 or someone else to learn how everyone sets them up, and then do the wiring very simply with either RP2 or, more recently, MFR.

At a much earlier point in this game's development, things like ToggleBlocks and Peronix's mods meant that we could come up with a lot of different weird and wacky ways of doing things, but these were gradually stamped out, either because their devs got tired of maintaining them, or because they were seen as "unrealistic," or "imbalanced."

I've got Mo'Creatures and Grimoire of Gaia with my 1.5 SolitaryCraft install; that adds some much tougher mob combat than I've ever seen before, which is making the game a bit more interesting again. Eventually, though, I'll still work my way back up to the above.[DOUBLEPOST=1372005028][/DOUBLEPOST]

Hah. Hardly. Just putting some chemical notations under item names does not make it "realistic". Actually, Gregtech is simply unrealistic as hell. I mean, centrifuging stuff to create methanol? Really? And turning fish/meat into methanol? It's as unrealistic as turning lead into gold. I actually dislike such half-assed attempts. Either make it realistic or don't even bother trying.

You've come to the same realisation I have, I suspect. The point of more recent tech mods is not to make things more realistic at all. It's to give people who truthfully are already bored with the game, that many necessary steps in the process of doing anything, that they've always got something to do, regardless of how tedious said something might be.

 

[RedBoss]

Wow Petrus, you leave out BUILDING? Is that why all the Gregtech people are getting rain on their machines?

 

[Petrus]

Wow Petrus, you leave out BUILDING? Is that why all the Gregtech people are getting rain on their machines?

Building isn't an issue for me, because I pretty much always make underground bunkers; but yes, it would be an issue for some.

 

[Saice]

Building isn't an issue for me, because I pretty much always make underground bunkers; but yes, it would be an issue for some.

Your statment of "this game consists of four things."

I belive is why he points it out. Building things is a fairly large part of the game for a lot of people. Some like me would even go so far as to say the main draw of the game is in building neat things.

 

[RedBoss]

I don't like to boil down the game at all since the thing I love about modded MC is its state of perpetual change and it's ability to offer SO much to all people.

For me, Saice's awesome reactor was cool. But the fact that it's inside a cleverly crafted spaceshoop makes it cooler than a polar bear's toenails.

Building is my thing. Using all the unique materials offered by the mods is what I love. I cringe at people showing off wild machines, inside of caves with dirt on the floor and walls. I don't criticize them, but I almost feel my skin crawl looking at that. It's like someone buying a Ferrari F430 Scudierra and parking it on top of horse manure.

I'm fortunate to play with super awesome people who are teaching me things about the technical side of modded MC. My only concerns have been full powered quarries, max powered processing and instant steak cooking. But now I want to build awesome power stuff as well (dammed peer pressure). But I want it to look cool. That, and I tend to blow up caves.... A LOT

 

[FtbBossWhoIsAw3s0m3]

Told you

 

[Spikednate12]

I'd say there's a lot of them but for some people that's the bee's knee's. I mean I'm not personally a fan either. I would say go Factorization because that triples ore output but if you don't auto-mate it then you have to actually pay attention to it for results. MC is to be played to one's own fancy not in directions nor the other. Honestly in my opinion as well, if you play minecraft you play to start over. As mods update among other things, restarts are only natural. If your tired of dusts, and at end game status, why not restart and do it differently. Now with that being said, some people don't play to start over and that's fine. I've used IC2 for beginning power generation for so long that when we reset my main goal is going to be building my way up without most of the mods that aid in reaching end game quick.

 

[Brilliance]

Gregtech is really the only mod that adds realistic chemical features.

I like Gregtech, but what really keeps me hooked is the realistic chemical features. I can never decide if I should centrifuge a fish into methane first, or maybe assemble a diamond by blowing up diamond dust .

Surely you meant to say Minechem?

 

[Bibble]

Dusts are stupid because we have no real interesting alloy system. Just hurp durp 3 this and 1 this = new metal useless processing step that doesn't really do anything special/fun, just makes the game more convoluted.

If someone would make an intresting alloy system (a la thaumcraft learning and discoveries) and let gear be reinforced/have different resists or properties based on certain % mixtures instead of LOLZ IRIDIUM = JESUS then it might be coo. Hopefully if someone does make this they will base it on reality, so people screwing around with alloys can actually learn something whilst they create.

So, you basically want Tinker's Construct? I'll grant you that the alloying system in that isn't that in depth, but the addition of extra materials for extra properties is there, too.

The issue with an alloying system is mainly that it isn't as simple as percentages. If you mix half of one metal with half of another, you don't nessecarily get something that has properties of both, you might get something that has properties of neither, but a whole new set of considerations. The current "alloying" system is usually used as a kind of filter. You need to be at a certain level (i.e. the level to get the machines) in order to make the metal as a component for more advanced stuff.


WRT the main topic, the dusts thing is prevalent in mods, mainly because IC2 had it first. GT is an extension of IC2, so it would make sense that it would extend the present system, and TE was kind of supposed to be the BC-powered version of IC. It's since developed, but the origins are still with IC.

Having said that, there are a number of ore-expanding systems in FTB, you have factorisations multi-step breakdown, cleaning and crystallising process, TC3's cluster and nugget system, Tinker's construct smelting system. The main issue with all of these is that they cost more in time/resources to be able to start with. Remember the uproar when GregTech was first included with FTB? That was (not entirely, but most of what I remember) because he made the macerator need diamonds, taking it further down the setup tree than it used to be, so people (myself included) started using TC instead, as it's cost was balanced to the IC2 macerator, and it was suddenly the cheapest method of ore-doubling.

Basically, there are other methods, but dusts are the most common because they are cheap and easy.