Immersive Steam Powered Rails

[Viperion]

So I've put together a modpack and although I haven't gone very deep into it yet, I'm loving how it's turned out. It's steampunk based - there are no magic mods, and no super-tech mods like Galacticraft or ComputerCraft or AE2. The three mods I'd consider "core" to it are Immersive Engineering (love those wires!), Railcraft, and Flaxbeard's Steam Power. I did include Thermal Foundation/Expansion, but I'm thinking of taking it out as being a bit too "modern" (I initially put it in purely to use the Energy Cells, but the Immersive Engineering Capacitors are doing the work for me atm ) I also left out Tinker's, because IMO it makes tools and weapons too easy-mode.

If I were to upload the pack to the curse launcher (if/after it gets approved, of course), would anyone be interested in giving it a test run for me? It runs almost entirely off Curse-enabled mods, with Mekanism v9 being the sole exception.

 

[dragon_fang101]

I think you should move this over to third party packs, this forum is more for posting pictures of worlds/

 

[Viperion]

Ah thank you I'll do that

 

[ShneekeyTheLost]

So I've put together a modpack and although I haven't gone very deep into it yet, I'm loving how it's turned out. It's steampunk based - there are no magic mods, and no super-tech mods like Galacticraft or ComputerCraft or AE2. The three mods I'd consider "core" to it are Immersive Engineering (love those wires!), Railcraft, and Flaxbeard's Steam Power. I did include Thermal Foundation/Expansion, but I'm thinking of taking it out as being a bit too "modern" (I initially put it in purely to use the Energy Cells, but the Immersive Engineering Capacitors are doing the work for me atm ) I also left out Tinker's, because IMO it makes tools and weapons too easy-mode.

If I were to upload the pack to the curse launcher (if/after it gets approved, of course), would anyone be interested in giving it a test run for me? It runs almost entirely off Curse-enabled mods, with Mekanism v9 being the sole exception.

Wait... Thermal Expansion is too high tech, but you have Mekanism in there? Ummm... you DO realize that Mekanism has a fusion reactor, right? Mekanism is industrial-level tech on a far higher level than TE has.

Personally, I'd suggest leaving out Mekanism and Thermal Expansion, but including Thermal Dynamics, which has to be one of the best pipe mods ever invented. Make sure you use the clear pipes, and you can see everything running all over the place. Big honkin' pipes for moving steam, lava, water, items... good times. It also has reasonable basic logic and can use filters, servos, and retrievers for more advanced automation and sorting.

The 1.9.4 pack I'm working on is using Immersive Engineering as a heavy lifter for tech. You can just hear the appropriate music in the background as it runs everything along conveyor belts.

 

[Azzanine]

Wait... Thermal Expansion is too high tech, but you have Mekanism in there? Ummm... you DO realize that Mekanism has a fusion reactor, right? Mekanism is industrial-level tech on a far higher level than TE has.

Personally, I'd suggest leaving out Mekanism and Thermal Expansion, but including Thermal Dynamics, which has to be one of the best pipe mods ever invented. Make sure you use the clear pipes, and you can see everything running all over the place. Big honkin' pipes for moving steam, lava, water, items... good times. It also has reasonable basic logic and can use filters, servos, and retrievers for more advanced automation and sorting.

The 1.9.4 pack I'm working on is using Immersive Engineering as a heavy lifter for tech. You can just hear the appropriate music in the background as it runs everything along conveyor belts.

IE is out for 1.9.4? Since when?

Either I missed it or it's only just released.
That or you have access to alpha builds not on Curse Forge?

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[Viperion]

Wait... Thermal Expansion is too high tech, but you have Mekanism in there? Ummm... you DO realize that Mekanism has a fusion reactor, right? Mekanism is industrial-level tech on a far higher level than TE has.

It's all the lovely clanking noises I like

Plus it gets you early game ore doubling and really easy steel... both Immersive Engineering and Railcraft Steel just take aaaaaages to make for no really good reason other than making you wait. And you need tons of the stuff.

Personally, I'd suggest leaving out Mekanism and Thermal Expansion, but including Thermal Dynamics, which has to be one of the best pipe mods ever invented. Make sure you use the clear pipes, and you can see everything running all over the place. Big honkin' pipes for moving steam, lava, water, items... good times. It also has reasonable basic logic and can use filters, servos, and retrievers for more advanced automation and sorting

Buildcraft and Logistics Pipes (which I haven't added yet but probably will) have all the pipe stuff I'll need; if I'm going to add Thermal Dynamics (and therefore Thermal Foundation) not adding Thermal Expansion just seems weird.

 

[ShneekeyTheLost]

IE is out for 1.9.4? Since when?

Either I missed it or it's only just released.
That or you have access to alpha builds not on Curse Forge?

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it is out for 1.9.0, so I'm assuming 1.9.4 version will be out SOON(tm).

I'm also waiting on a decent worldgen mod like CoFH before I seriously put it together.

 

[KingTriaxx]

What you really need is highlands for some interesting terrain. And Railcraft for trains. (Yes, I will suggest Railcraft for any pack. Unless not thematically appropriate. )

 

[Viperion]

The three mods I'd consider "core" to it are Immersive Engineering (love those wires!), Railcraft, and Flaxbeard's Steam Power.

What you really need is highlands for some interesting terrain. And Railcraft for trains. (Yes, I will suggest Railcraft for any pack. Unless not thematically appropriate. )

That's a really good idea, I should do that

Some on the other thread (here) also suggested HIghlands; I'm using Realistic Terrain Generator to get rid of the unrealistic cliff faces Minecraft has, so I decided not to install it (yes I know RTG and Highlands do work together)

 

[KingTriaxx]

I was suggesting that to Shneekey. I remember suggesting the others to you. And you're right, Railcraft should be in everything.

 

[ShneekeyTheLost]

What you really need is highlands for some interesting terrain. And Railcraft for trains. (Yes, I will suggest Railcraft for any pack. Unless not thematically appropriate. )

I would say the exact opposite: Railcraft should never be included in any pack, even when it IS thematically appropriate. Power got nerfed to oblivion, the trains are both annoying AND useless, the only thing worth bothering with the mod for these days are the actual rails, mostly for the reinforced rails for explosion-resistant nether-rails. And even then, not worth picking up the whole mod for.

 

[KingTriaxx]

What! Lies, false hoods! Trains are awesomely epic.

The power thing isn't a matter of getting nerfed so much as it's maximum power setting is now everyone else's baseline. Industrial Steam Engines take steel and produce 80 RF/t. While the very most basic steam dynamo, takes plain Copper, produces 80, and can be upgraded.

Yes, trains can be a little annoying, but useless? Only because of Tesseracts, and flight. What's the point in a moving object, that can haul entire chests worth of items around, when you can instantly teleport it via magic block? Of course that's also BORING. And why would you ever use rails for anything when you can fly within ten minutes of starting the game? You wouldn't unless you've made flight difficult to fuel, say with a Mekanism Jetpack, or Thaumostatic Harness. When you can get creative flight, what would be the point of using a minecart. Actually, once you've got creative flight and instant item teleportation, what's the point of playing survival? Might as well just play creative.

Of course you're also missing some of the cooler features of Railcraft. Steam Ovens, cooking nine things in slightly over the time a vanilla furnace takes to cook one. The Rock Crusher being an amusing mob grinder and also being useful to double ores if you have nothing else that can. The metals chest, capable of compressing nuggets to ingots and ingots to blocks automatically without any power. The Void Chest, (Important not to confuse the two.) which has an entire chest worth of inventory space to void items in.

Of course, I understand, none of this is valid for servers. The simple presence of Railcraft in the load order is likely to cause most servers to melt and burst into flames. After all, why would it be able to keep track of an entity that runs on a fixed, predetermined path? That's just asking too much. Never mind minecarts being pretty lag proof. I've never died from a minecart randomly landing me inside terrain because the game hadn't loaded, and then did so suddenly. Of course, it's probably tons of fun, having everyone sitting in their bases, watching Tesseracts, as all those items tick up in their storage space. Because no server has ever had issues keeping track of someone having several million cobble?

 

[Azzanine]

The mainstream player base has no love for minecarts. It's laying the rails and the fact you can pretty much get everything you need within a 2 chunk radius. Even without tesseracts carts are ignored.

Sad thing is railcraft contributed to this decline of cart use. It tied up rails to it's own tech tree that made rails too much of a pain to deal with. Even on railcrafts release it was outclassed by IC2s jetpack.

Tesseracts was only the last nail in the coffin. At least for modded play.

I often think to myself "hey, I should make a rail road" then I remember the materials and time needed for it.

To make rails great again you need to make a pack that makes sure that rails are the premier mode of transportation. Which means no flight no teleportation of items, fluid, energy or players. Then you will need to make it so ore deposits are like Factorio by that I mean very spaced out but plentiful the smallest deposit should yeild a stack of ore, maybe even use poor ores (not 100% nessesary). Essentially make the investment of the rail system worthwhile.

However doing this will damn the pack to obscurity because people love the convenience that all the easy travel brings.

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[GamerwithnoGame]

Hello,

Just a couple of thoughts: Tinker's is definitely a bit power-crazy at times, BUT if you add in Iguana Tinker Tweaks, that adds a curve of difficulty that Tinker's by itself doesn't have. You can also alter configs and Tweak in extra progression (in the manner that @Eyamaz did very VERY well with Blood N Bones) so that stepping up the ladder into TiC isn't a simple trivial matter!

If you definitely don't want Tinker's, that's totally fair enough, I just thought I should add in my two pence with regards to making it fit better and not be as much of a cheese-fest

 

[KingTriaxx]

@Azzanine: True enough. Which is why I'm playing a custom pack. I've tried to figure out how to do that with the deposits and haven't managed it. My response was to find a world with Highland Rock Mountains, which have double ores over the normal height.

Though you could perhaps manage it by using Mekanism, with the Digital Miner disabled, and the Teleporter set to insane power requirements. Or perhaps if it had an option to charge up before use. The jetpack works well, but you can't really generate hydrogen on the fly the way you can power, so you have to be a bit sparing with it.

That's a funny thing, since most people complain about machines you only use once, and the Rolling Machine is one you cannot get away from. Plus it actually costs LESS material to use the Railcraft recipe. Okay, fair enough you're using more wood, but that's an infinite resource. And using steel flat out quadruples your output over the vanilla recipe.

Just like bees, too many players make the mistake of focusing only on Railcraft. Setup the Coke Oven, and go do something else. Setup the Blast Furnace, and wander away to other things while it runs. Of course a mod is going to be boring if you sit and stare at it while it's working. Same issue with Steve's Carts. Wander off and build something. Set up the things to run, and then build the buildings around them. That's one of the reasons I don't play vanilla. If you build your building, there's nothing to do but sit and stare at the furnace. And that drives me mad.

I think perhaps the best way to do the pack might be to eliminate that easy travel, and have something like Roguelike dungeons, which encourages exploration, giving you a reason to run rails off to them, and haul things back, or take you back after you inevitably die.

 

[Viperion]

Iguana Tinker's Tweaks is WAY more overpowered than base Tinker's!!!! It's marginally more difficult at the start (but not really) but the fact that the tool levels itself, plus the ability to upgrade it without losing those improvements, puts it in the "why would you ever use anything else?" camp.

@KingTriaxx : Roguelike Dungeons might be a great idea! I've emailed Phedran to see if I can use the modified "Ruins" mod that Life in the Woods: Renaissance uses, because those are COOL, but haven't had a response yet.

 

[Azzanine]

IguanaTweaks can have the leveling turned off and you can adjust the material progression via a config.

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[GamerwithnoGame]

IguanaTweaks can have the leveling turned off and you can adjust the material progression via a config.

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@Viperion This *points above* is what I was thinking when I mentioned ITT; you're absolutely right though, it can also be super powerful. It's very configurable, which is where I was going with it. Also, if your code-fu is strong, you can minetweak/modtweak in materials and modifiers and all sorts of things to really customise the whole thing. TiC and its associated bits can be really flexible, which is very handy when you have a vision in mind!

 

[Viperion]

I have neither the time nor the inclination to dive under the hood that much

 

[GamerwithnoGame]

I have neither the time nor the inclination to dive under the hood that much

Hehe that's totally fair enough

I'm definitely biased because I've been getting really into the idea of customising and mine-/mod-tweaking stuff in a pack to give it a different play experience and feel, so that's always the first thing that comes into my head! Bear in mind I haven't actually started trying to DO this yet, I've just been learning about how its done, so I may well be talking out of my bum - and tearing my hair out in frustration in short order!

The pack itself sounds really awesome! My gaming group has recently moved on from a similarly themed steampunky pack, and it was a LOT of fun! We had many of the same mods, including Flaxbeard's, Railcraft and IE - excellent choices there! You really don't need any of the Thermal stuff, IE's steel isn't all that hard to get to really, and the IE capacitors do a great job!

We actually used Cogs of the Machine as very early game stuff, it really does feel proper steampunky with all the gears and stuff, and brings in very early ore multiplication. Not doubling, but better than 1:1, making it worthwhile. The only thing I would potentially do differently now would be to integrate the mods a bit more, as Cogs dropped by the wayside after a little while. We also used Clockwork Phase, which is an oddity, but rather nice.

I wish I could help test this, but unfortunately I barely even have enough time to test out the 1.7.10 pack my group has just started on! Good luck, hope it all goes well!

- GwnG