In your next Direwolf20 build, will you bother with IC2?

[Guswut]

Where tech and magic meet (imho) is its own niche entirely. Azanor seems to have coined the term 'magipunk' for this, I think. Looking at the Magitech Armor in FF6, the Asura in Guild Wars, the Gnomes in the Warcraft universe.. it really has its own distinct flavour that is different from just taking a technological item and slapping an enchantment on it.

I'd say that for most people in our generation, Final Fantasy Six (for anyone that may not know, it was released in the US as Final Fantasy Three) may be the main reason that I'd love to see a well blended technomagi system.

You are correct, though, as the vanilla enchantment system is, by itself, not very well balanced so that can only end up with suffering for anything else that interfaces with it.

Maybe there will be more ways of adding a dash of magic to MPS in the future

Yay!

You can think of it as being something along the lines of 'enchantments affect the flow of energy through an item, which might disrupt the sensitive electronics' or something like that.

Eh, rationalizations for something that doesn't need the excuse. The reason being "Because it's pretty much broken to be able to enchant things that are already designed to be fairly awesome as-is, so eat your greens!".

But yeah, now I'm just imagining using your reasoning, and then someone trying to enchant their MPS, and only getting one enchantment: "Short Circuit I" which causes the suit to malfunction every so often. Oh, the horrible fun that could be.

 

[KirinDave]

ok, not 'coined' but...

I'll admit MPS needs a sprinkling of Nanoha.

While you're about, would you care talking about where you see an MPS fitting in relation to the tech progression curve? You can talk design here, we promise to behave.

I've been playing in an GT world, and it's interesting how the GT recipies put it solidly in the late mitd-game, but the IC2 and TE recipes do not. It's interesting because the GT recipes seem to discourage you from building, for example, a power tool over a IC2 drill and then upgrading that over time.

I do like how the force field emitters are pushed more towards the quantum suit part of the tech. Right now if the IC2 or TE recipes are on, it's very iron hungry but still the best course of action to spike a full force field suit.

 

[Guswut]

ok, not 'coined' but...

I'll admit MPS needs a sprinkling of Nanoha. Starlight Breaker module...?

Mm, I wouldn't disagree at all!

While you're about, would you care talking about where you see an MPS fitting in relation to the tech progression curve? You can talk design here, we promise to behave.

I have been biting my tongue to not start spewing ideas, as that never helps. Heck, I have yet to even mention the Mark Two and Mark Three powersuits! ....Oops! Heheh.

I've been playing in an GT world, and it's interesting how the GT recipies put it solidly in the late mitd-game, but the IC2 and TE recipes do not. It's interesting because the GT recipes seem to discourage you from building, for example, a power tool over a IC2 drill and then upgrading that over time.

I agree. I'd actually like to see MPS as an "after iron" tech in GregTech, as that'd mean it'd be an upgrade to your electric jetpack, iron [legging/helmet], and longfall boots. Nano armor is usually the next step up, but nano is about pure protection and so, in reality, it is best left when what you are looking for is pure protection. Otherwise, all you'd be wearing is the nano leggings (solar helmet, longfall boots, and electric jetpack).

The advanced jetpack adds a new twist to this, but it isn't really all that different.

 

[KirinDave]

I agree. I'd actually like to see MPS as an "after iron" tech in GregTech, as that'd mean it'd be an upgrade to your electric jetpack, iron [legging/helmet], and longfall boots. Nano armor is usually the next step up, but nano is about pure protection and so, in reality, it is best left when what you are looking for is pure protection. Otherwise, all you'd be wearing is the nano leggings (solar helmet, longfall boots, and electric jetpack).

The advanced jetpack adds a new twist to this, but it isn't really all that different.

Well for example, instead of making some basic flight stuff I made an electric jetpack. Which is sad because it sucks all the oxygen out of the room for the low-tech flight options that I used in my other non-gt playthroughs. I will probably never install the parachute in a GT world, but in my DW20 SSP world it saved my stuff more than once.

 

[MachineMuse]

While you're about, would you care talking about where you see an MPS fitting in relation to the tech progression curve? You can talk design here, we promise to behave.

I've been playing in an GT world, and it's interesting how the GT recipies put it solidly in the late mitd-game, but the IC2 and TE recipes do not. It's interesting because the GT recipes seem to discourage you from building, for example, a power tool over a IC2 drill and then upgrading that over time.

I do like how the force field emitters are pushed more towards the quantum suit part of the tech. Right now if the IC2 or TE recipes are on, it's very iron hungry but still the best course of action to spike a full force field suit.

Honestly? I haven't thought too much about how it fits with other mods' progression curves (the gregtech and UE recipes both were based on outside input, since I'm only really familiar with IC2 and ThermalExpansion.) and I'm still experimenting with the mechanics. I'm starting to think maybe it's not worth having all these components with 8 different recipes (yup...if I keep on the current path I'll end up making Xycraft, Cogs, and Applied Energistics ones too), instead just letting each module cost an arbitrary set of resources to be administered by the server owner. Because as it stands, every tech mod has its own ideas about balance and progression and a lot of modpacks and private servers include more than one of, for example, railcraft, forestry, gregtech, ic2, thermal expansion, xycraft, cogs, redpower, atomic science, mekanism, etc. etc. etc. and each one affects what resources even exist, much how difficult each one is to get and/or amass.

The alternative is I add my own worldgen and set of machines, which I really don't want to do because there are already plenty of them out there, and nobody wants their chests/barrels/logipipes/AE networks clogged with stacks of every rare earth metal on the periodic table (or at least the ones with high tech applications, which is most of them, which is what I'd really want to use for this.) Even Forcicium (which, based on Real-Life Monazit, should be a mix of lanthanum, cerium, etc.) gives people migraines.

Another option is to reduce the material cost by a lot, and instead use other balancing factors like the weight, power consumption, and maybe other limitations. I really like IC2's reactor design 'minigame', and I originally wanted to do something similar for the powersuit components, but I couldn't figure a way that would make sense and still be balanceable and useful.

So that's where I am right now. I'm open to suggestions as long as the discussion remains constructive and doesn't devolve into "OMG SO OP" and "YOU SHOULD ADD A MINIMAP AND A CHARGING STATION/DISPLAY CASE!" like my thread on MCF ;D

Oh, as far as fitting into the progression curve... I originally intended it to be something that you could afford at around that time when iron starts to be ubiquitous, but then to get the more and more advanced modules you need to start using more and more expensive and rare materials. That's clearly not what's happening right now, it just takes more and more iron and maybe some ender pearls.

 

[Guswut]

Well for example, instead of making some basic flight stuff I made an electric jetpack. Which is sad because it sucks all the oxygen out of the room for the low-tech flight options that I used in my other non-gt playthroughs. I will probably never install the parachute in a GT world, but in my DW20 SSP world it saved my stuff more than once.

I'm going to be making a parachute if only to play around with it. Does it work like a hanglider? Will I be able to spin in circles still? Who knows! Well, you do, and MachineMuse knows, and likely a bunch of the rest of you reading this right now know, but don't tell me! I'm going to find out all on my own. Hopefully not at the expense of falling on my skull (again, long story, but it's why I grin so widely and am mint green).

Honestly? I haven't thought too much about how it fits with other mods and I'm still experimenting with the mechanics. I'm starting to think maybe it's not worth having all these components with 8 different recipes

I'd agree there. When I first reviewed your recipe page, I was worried that the balance was going to end up being confusing for the end user ("Wait, we're using what type of MPS recipes?"), and a whole lot of work for you.

Even Forcicium (which, based on Real-Life Monazit, should be a mix of lanthanum, cerium, etc.) gives people migraines.

It isn't too bad if you have a dedicated macerator for it, set to a dedicated extra dimensional barrel with a dedicated overflow into a dedicated recycler for your dedicated scrapdump for junk.

Which is a lot of dedication for something so single-use, eh?

Another option is to reduce the material cost by a lot, and instead use other balancing factors like the weight, power consumption, and maybe other limitations. I really like IC2's reactor design 'minigame', and I originally wanted to do something similar for the powersuit components, but I couldn't figure a way that would make sense and still be balanceable and useful.

Yeah, at some point you'll end up with people that have metagamed the minigame to minimax'd out the optimal builds, as we can see from IC2 reactors. But bringing the MPS into the early game by making it weaker would be fine with me so long as it can still be continued into the mid and endgame. It's the type of armor that I'd say would be nice to get right after/when you can start making iron armor without feeling like you are going to run out of iron because of that, as well as keep throughout the game (discounting losing it from dying [time to get a Twilight Forest charm farm set up!]) and have at the end.

 

[KirinDave]

Honestly? I haven't thought too much about how it fits with other mods and I'm still experimenting with the mechanics. I'm starting to think maybe it's not worth having all these components with 8 different recipes (yup...if I keep on the current path I'll end up making Xycraft, Cogs, and Applied Energistics ones too), instead just letting each module cost an arbitrary set of resources to be administered by the server owner. Because as it stands, every tech mod has its own ideas about balance and progression and a lot of modpacks and private servers include more than one of, for example, railcraft, forestry, gregtech, ic2, thermal expansion, xycraft, cogs, redpower, atomic science, mekanism, etc. etc. etc. and each one affects what resources even exist, much how difficult each one is to get and/or amass.

Yeah, multi-modpack design is hard. Every time someone bashes EE2, I cringe. It's crazy difficult. You might want to, perhaps, support a few recipe sets as guidelines and then provide easy config options or a simple API for injecting recipes so other mods or maintainers can do so.

The alternative is I add my own worldgen and set of machines, which I really don't want to do because there are already plenty of them out there, and nobody wants their chests/barrels/logipipes/AE networks clogged with stacks of every rare earth metal on the periodic table (or at least the ones with high tech applications, which is most of them, which is what I'd really want to use for this.) Even Forcicium (which, based on Real-Life Monazit, should be a mix of lanthanum, cerium, etc.) gives people migraines.

Personally? I'd rather have more cool stuff for my armor than more machines. The only possible exception is a universal charging station that runs off the power systems you deign to support. I know you have some alternative ideas on that, it seems.

Another option is to reduce the material cost by a lot, and instead use other balancing factors like the weight, power consumption, and maybe other limitations. I really like IC2's reactor design 'minigame', and I originally wanted to do something similar for the powersuit components, but I couldn't figure a way that would make sense and still be balanceable and useful.

This sounds attractive, but calling on IC2's minigame the problem with this approach is that it's difficult to keep it abreast of the evolving metagame. IC2 reactors are an awesome and beautiful idea, but very few people build them because they've wasted away to "a minigame you need never play" and in fact playing it will waste resources that could be spent better on other power generation methods. Keeping it simple might keep you more flexible in the future.

I dunno how much fortitude you feel like expressing.

So that's where I am right now. I'm open to suggestions as long as the discussion remains constructive and doesn't devolve into "OMG SO OP" like my thread on MCF ;D

Understood. All I really want to offer is that your mod is great and when I am not so busy I want to dig into adding a bunch of modules myself fyc (bee HUDs and rednet controlled huds!). But that's for later.

What I really love about the mod is the idea of a smooth power curve that starts very early and ends very late. You can make just a power tool early on and it'll work. That's awesome. That's why I asked about the GT stuff, because even the tinker table is pretty dang expensive by comparison to the pretty-good single-purpose IC2 tools.[DOUBLEPOST=1362501559][/DOUBLEPOST]

I'm going to be making a parachute if only to play around with it. Does it work like a hanglider? Will I be able to spin in circles still? Who knows!

It slows your fall but almost no motion is possible. By the time you can build the GT recipes you can make the gliders and fall damage nullifiers, which are probably better. Parachutes are a nice option because they're crazy cheap, as is basic plating.

 

[MachineMuse]

Okay, I guess I'll just keep focused on improving the functional mechanics and adding new modules rather than redesigning any particular part of it

 

[esotericist]

So that's where I am right now. I'm open to suggestions as long as the discussion remains constructive and doesn't devolve into "OMG SO OP" and "YOU SHOULD ADD A MINIMAP AND A CHARGING STATION/DISPLAY CASE!" like my thread on MCF ;D

I have to admit, a Metroid Prime style minimap hud element would be awesome.

Personally, what I'd like to see for MPS progression is a clearer set of distinct 'tiers' for more things.. The way you have LV -> HV for power, I'd like to see that for jetpacks and other things, so that instead of just the weight/power/effectiveness tradeoffs, you also have a material investment series. Larger investments of material could perhaps lessen the weight/power constraints for getting the higher grades of performance.

I kind of imagine in addition to the install/salvage section, you might have an 'upgrade' section that requires parts to take that component to the next tier.

EDIT: In case it matters to anyone, note that I'm not imagining "larger investments of material" conceptually meaning "put a bunch more iron in it and now it's somehow lighter", but more "going through more a lot of raw materials to get the refinement you need.. with a lot effectively wasted in the process"

 

[Guswut]

Okay, I guess I'll just keep focused on improving the functional mechanics and adding new modules rather than redesigning any particular part of it

That sounds awesome to me. Maybe let a redesign be a part of MPS2, when it really needs it, whereas now it is fairly well off indeed.

 

[MachineMuse]

I have to admit, a Metroid Prime style minimap hud element would be awesome.

Personally, what I'd like to see for MPS progression is a clearer set of distinct 'tiers' for more things.. The way you have LV -> HV for power, I'd like to see that for jetpacks and other things, so that instead of just the weight/power/effectiveness tradeoffs, you also have a material investment series. Larger investments of material could perhaps lessen the weight/power constraints for getting the higher grades of performance.

I kind of imagine in addition to the install/salvage section, you might have an 'upgrade' section that requires parts to take that component to the next tier.

EDIT: In case it matters to anyone, note that I'm not imagining "larger investments of material" conceptually meaning "put a bunch more iron in it and now it's somehow lighter", but more "going through more a lot of raw materials to get the refinement you need.. with a lot effectively wasted in the process"

While possible, this would be exponentially harder to balance and make little sense from a realism perspective (imho... where does all that runoff go?) which is still kinda important to me. I also don't know how I feel about just being a huge resource sink, since there are so many ways of getting all the resources and all of them are just time-consuming.

 

[esotericist]

While possible, this would be exponentially harder to balance and make little sense from a realism perspective (imho... where does all that runoff go?) which is still kinda important to me. I also don't know how I feel about just being a huge resource sink, since there are so many ways of getting all the resources and all of them are just time-consuming.

I have a few notions on that.

First, the completely not productive: Realism in a game where you take two sticks and a diamond and get a shovel?

Re: difficulty to balance/resource sink, I was thinking this could also potentially provide a better mechanism for providing interaction between mods, since you could have tier-oriented components that could be targeted for non-vanilla material replacement. Could make it easier for a server admin/mod pack author to tune things for their particular resource availability if there's pre-set points for doing so, while still not putting a particular kind of functionality entirely behind some arbitrarily set wall.

(See: MPS jetpack in the current GT recipes. Having access to a /basic/ one without being way post-End-tech while having full-fledged flight available later on would be nice.)

To get back to the "where does it go" item, there's a lot of processes that can produce waste runoff that is essentially too expensive to practically recycle. Given the way physics seems to work (or not work as the case may be) in the minecraft world, that being approximated with "it stops existing" seems appropriate.

Ah well. It's not like I'm going to feel hurt if you don't; I was just taking up the invitation for suggestions.

 

[kilteroff]

This isn't about the debate between the two. This is about ore processing.

Edit: if there was another mod that is in the game that can process the ore, please let me know.

AE's quartz grind stone doubles, and you can make it about 1 minute after starting a fresh map, just sayin >_>

 

[KirinDave]

AE's quartz grind stone doubles, and you can make it about 1 minute after starting a fresh map, just sayin >_>

Yeah it's early tech. But the first time you come back with a load of stone you immediately realize you desperately want to double ore automatically.

But given that this tool exists, I'm considering turning off GT expensive macerators on our server. It seems increasingly like ore doubling is just the price of admission.

 

[Guswut]

AE's quartz grind stone doubles, and you can make it about 1 minute after starting a fresh map, just sayin >_>

You will only make it once in a serious attempt to use it early game. Then you'll use it only as needed. It's awesome, but so utterly painful. I love it, and hate it, and love it some more.

 

[MachineMuse]

I have a few notions on that.

First, the completely not productive: Realism in a game where you take two sticks and a diamond and get a shovel?

Re: difficulty to balance/resource sink, I was thinking this could also potentially provide a better mechanism for providing interaction between mods, since you could have tier-oriented components that could be targeted for non-vanilla material replacement. Could make it easier for a server admin/mod pack author to tune things for their particular resource availability if there's pre-set points for doing so, while still not putting a particular kind of functionality entirely behind some arbitrarily set wall.

(See: MPS jetpack in the current GT recipes. Having access to a /basic/ one without being way post-End-tech while having full-fledged flight available later on would be nice.)

To get back to the "where does it go" item, there's a lot of processes that can produce waste runoff that is essentially too expensive to practically recycle. Given the way physics seems to work (or not work as the case may be) in the minecraft world, that being approximated with "it stops existing" seems appropriate.

Ah well. It's not like I'm going to feel hurt if you don't; I was just taking up the invitation for suggestions.

you're right that it would provide more ways for other mods to factor in, but at the same time that's more design effort for people who are often already juggling ID conflicts, ore dictionary, balance issues, etc. with potentially hundreds of mods... I don't know :s

 

[Guswut]

you're right that it would provide more ways for other mods to factor in, but at the same time that's more design effort for people who are often already juggling ID conflicts, ore dictionary, balance issues, etc. with potentially hundreds of mods... I don't know :s

As you stated earlier, and entirely unique difficulty system might be the way to go. Something that gives you a minigame (wiring or something like that?) which requires access to some basic materials (iron and redstone, sand, maybe copper/silver/gold?) and then requires advancement through a tech tree. Unlike Thaumcraft, instead of being research based in a way that is gameable, it could be based on randomized patterns of research that would then mean that no one would be able to go look up the answer easily. If accessible, the game seed could be used, along with some other randomization factors so as to disallow ease of people creating a program to decode the research system. From there, research just requires a small input of valuable materials (diamond, emeralds, etc) as needed to obtain access to more advanced functionality.

Maybe make each research suit-based, as well, so losing your suit is an even more painful loss. Each suit would then be personalized by a person's research interests, and the like. Perhaps backups of the suit's current configuration (player-specific), which then keeps a person from bootstraping someone else, while at the same time also allowing for a less-resource hungry system that incorporates a strong tech-based research tree (something that I'm sure you've seen a LOT of people wanting badly) which rewards dedication to MPS early on (early access to strong stuff, if you work at it/are good at the research system).

 

[Freakscar]

Just as a thought: Does it have to fit in between the already existing armor-options? I mean, there are several options when it's down to "I want to fly. Period." and stuff. Why fit it in between and not let the MPS be an alternative option? That would in turn mean, you could "level" the costs of any given MPS-Part alongside the armor you see equivalent. Say, somewhere near/next to Quantum. For GregTech, we have Iridium which is pretty costly. Why not make it a (GregTech-Hardmode) part of MPS? It's already there, it's pretty expensive and thus would calm the whole "This mod is OP" a bit, as before someone can fly at the speed of light, while sipping classy from his cup of tea while his laserpowered Exo-Arms dig up all the shinies for him while traveling over whole continents - he first has to create a good bunch of pretty expensive stuff. Okay, I run around in circles here. As it is now, MPS is way cheaper than anything Quantum. Add in just a bit of Iridium (or another equivalent rare/expensive material) and you upped the ante quite a bit. Not that MPS is CHEAP (it ate all my iron reserves *sob*) but some of that stuff is too easily reachable. Basically choose a rare material to up the cost. Be it Iridium (best armor plate in town!), be it a Netherstar (to power the good ole laser-space-thingamajigwoop-reactor for the Suit), be it something I can't think of right now. Heck, for me, it would be enough to just throw in some Sulfur - and you have me busy for ages (as I ran across my map several countrymiles each direction w/o finding any extreme hills^^).

Twist is, don't overdo it. Neither in terms of cost (GraviChest waving at us), NOR in terms of complexity. I can only speak for myself, but the time I spend researching Thaumcraft, questing villages for Mystcraft pages, fiddle with an IC² nuclear reactor, trying to figure out Steve's carts addons for an automated treefarm including coke ovens, buildcraft pipes, the cargomanager and a chicken (don't ask!), while ALSO trying to squeeze an automatic Redpower sorting system in my way too small cellar.. and then I start thinking about how I never really tried ComputerCraft (LUA) or the soon to be included Applied Energetics auto-crafting system.. whelp, after all that, I light a cigarette, get me a cup of coffee and grab my trusty ol' pickaxe and go mine for an hour.Morale of the Story: A new techni-magic contraption may in the short run be a fascinating toy to play with - but it has to entertain in the long run. And with all the stuff keeping us busy right now - I was very happy to NOT first have to rebuild the CERN in order to jump a bit higher. All this of course, is only true, as long as any given system falls flat. I for instance (again) hate the research in Thaumcraft, whereas others love it to death.

tl;dr: I do not agree with Guswut here, coming from a time-usage side. Right now I do not have the time to do everything I want to. Another research/tech-tree-buildup feature.. I'd simply skip it. Just my 2 cents. =)

 

[MachineMuse]

Just as a thought: Does it have to fit in between the already existing armor-options? I mean, there are several options when it's down to "I want to fly. Period." and stuff. Why fit it in between and not let the MPS be an alternative option? That would in turn mean, you could "level" the costs of any given MPS-Part alongside the armor you see equivalent. Say, somewhere near/next to Quantum. For GregTech, we have Iridium which is pretty costly. Why not make it a (GregTech-Hardmode) part of MPS? It's already there, it's pretty expensive and thus would calm the whole "This mod is OP" a bit, as before someone can fly at the speed of light, while sipping classy from his cup of tea while his laserpowered Exo-Arms dig up all the shinies for him while traveling over whole continents - he first has to create a good bunch of pretty expensive stuff. Okay, I run around in circles here. As it is now, MPS is way cheaper than anything Quantum. Add in just a bit of Iridium (or another equivalent rare/expensive material) and you upped the ante quite a bit. Not that MPS is CHEAP (it ate all my iron reserves *sob*) but some of that stuff is too easily reachable. Basically choose a rare material to up the cost. Be it Iridium (best armor plate in town!), be it a Netherstar (to power the good ole laser-space-thingamajigwoop-reactor for the Suit), be it something I can't think of right now. Heck, for me, it would be enough to just throw in some Sulfur - and you have me busy for ages (as I ran across my map several countrymiles each direction w/o finding any extreme hills^^).

Twist is, don't overdo it. Neither in terms of cost (GraviChest waving at us), NOR in terms of complexity. I can only speak for myself, but the time I spend researching Thaumcraft, questing villages for Mystcraft pages, fiddle with an IC² nuclear reactor, trying to figure out Steve's carts addons for an automated treefarm including coke ovens, buildcraft pipes, the cargomanager and a chicken (don't ask!), while ALSO trying to squeeze an automatic Redpower sorting system in my way too small cellar.. and then I start thinking about how I never really tried ComputerCraft (LUA) or the soon to be included Applied Energetics auto-crafting system.. whelp, after all that, I light a cigarette, get me a cup of coffee and grab my trusty ol' pickaxe and go mine for an hour.Morale of the Story: A new techni-magic contraption may in the short run be a fascinating toy to play with - but it has to entertain in the long run. And with all the stuff keeping us busy right now - I was very happy to NOT first have to rebuild the CERN in order to jump a bit higher. All this of course, is only true, as long as any given system falls flat. I for instance (again) hate the research in Thaumcraft, whereas others love it to death.

tl;dr: I do not agree with Guswut here, coming from a time-usage side. Right now I do not have the time to do everything I want to. Another research/tech-tree-buildup feature.. I'd simply skip it. Just my 2 cents. =)

um, there are already gregtech recipes and have been since early february...

As you stated earlier, and entirely unique difficulty system might be the way to go. Something that gives you a minigame (wiring or something like that?) which requires access to some basic materials (iron and redstone, sand, maybe copper/silver/gold?) and then requires advancement through a tech tree. Unlike Thaumcraft, instead of being research based in a way that is gameable, it could be based on randomized patterns of research that would then mean that no one would be able to go look up the answer easily. If accessible, the game seed could be used, along with some other randomization factors so as to disallow ease of people creating a program to decode the research system. From there, research just requires a small input of valuable materials (diamond, emeralds, etc) as needed to obtain access to more advanced functionality.

Maybe make each research suit-based, as well, so losing your suit is an even more painful loss. Each suit would then be personalized by a person's research interests, and the like. Perhaps backups of the suit's current configuration (player-specific), which then keeps a person from bootstraping someone else, while at the same time also allowing for a less-resource hungry system that incorporates a strong tech-based research tree (something that I'm sure you've seen a LOT of people wanting badly) which rewards dedication to MPS early on (early access to strong stuff, if you work at it/are good at the research system).

Maybe. I think it's very important not to substitute 'real fun' (learning a system) for 'fake fun' (randomized rewards) - I don't remember the book this was from but I have found it to be very important. Thaumcraft's research system does a decent job of this, balancing the 'lottery' nature of research with the fact that over time you learn the cheapest ways to get all the different aspects. The trouble is once you learn all the aspects, then there's nothing left but the 'lottery' which is just tedious.
From that perspective, any randomization in the minigame should be purely to present the player with novel situations to solve using the system, not an integral part of the system itself. Think...Minesweeper, where each map is random but the strategies you learn over time - not Memory, where the strategy of picking random unknown cards (unless are matching a known one) is no worse than any other algorithm.
As for research, playing off the 'Muse' theme, I thought maybe individual modules could be unlocked via some sort of 'inspiration' system where the Tinker Table suggests (and requires) little achievements you can do to get an idea of how to make that module, such as examining (picking up) a feather to be 'inspired' about how to make glider wings, or throwing an ender pearl to be 'inspired' to make the Blink Drive. Something trivial to do when you know what you're after and have the resources, but still gating content using something other than material costs. Generally, I'd rather have a tech tree that's broad and shallow, to encourage people to seek out the modules they want to use.

 

[Doormat]

I will always have time for IC2 ...because I like it.

Now that the alternatives have matured I make use of them also, so I use IC2 less - but it still adds to my enjoyment of the game.

That's why I don't use forestry - because it detracts from my enjoyment of the game. The arboretum, for example, is pure magic block and that just puts me off. But the fact that forestry doesn't work for me doesn't mean that other people can't enjoy it ... which means that there is still a place for it, and the same applies to IC2.