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

[xSINZx]

Sure. Here is a video of a slightly more ambitious test flight.

By the way, this setup is by no means cheap, involving 6 ion drives and four servo motors to achieve this effect (providing no defense or power storage, just dash and propulsion). And if you don't have some way to land safely you're going to kill yourself the very first time you try it (I did, twice), so at least 2 servomotors and some wool will be next (or cheap out and get the parachute, but that can still get you killed if you mistime things). And this setup requires a fairly hefty battery backup of the HV Capacitor variety so expect to be dumping lapotronic crystals into your armor like a crazy person. So people crying "OP" might want to keep in mind that this armor is definitely more expensive than quantum in the DW20 pack.

I've also added the glider. The glider reduces your top speed when you kick it on, but consumes no power. But the glider does interact with haste and speed increasing passive items. Boots of the traveller with haste on them make for some awesome unpowered flight. I recommend it because it ups your max range tremendously, which is great when you want to scout for villages and stuff where a faster speed would only mean your server is lagging anyways.

I, um, sorta also enchanted the maxed out mining tool with efficiency IV. It's not the vajra, but you can do things like quantum dash at the wall while holding left click and if the camera angle is right you cut a passage at that speed, which is a funny trick.

http://www.universetoday.com/60171/ion-drive/

Had to look up Ion drive Never heard of it. Thought it was the next generation of SSD. lmao
I'm old, have Kids and am way over worked. Don't have the time to look at everything.
Nice Frame Rate btw. EVGA all the way?

 

[Katrinya]

To be honest, I've gotten a little sick of IC2 over the past year or so. Part of that is that I'm bad at sticking to a single world, and it used to be that IC2 was the only viable way to start out with ore processing... so I built the same couple of machines over and over. TE was a huge breath of fresh air in that regard. I find a lot of the higher end Industrialcraft items rather tedious to build... nuclear reactors require absurd quantities of resources and it takes an eternity to accumulate enough iridium for a quantum suit. I'm pretty excited to give MPS a try this weekend; if it really competes with a quantum suit, no one will be happier than me.

I can see how Gregtech might alleviate the staleness of IC2 for some, but it's clearly aimed at a more hardcore type of player than I am. GT configs set to hard add a lot of challenge and "balance", obviously, but given that the machines don't do much that can't be accomplished more efficiently by other mods.... well, I don't see the point of playing it with the configs on easy. The glut of ores added by Gregtech alone makes me shudder. (My poor sorting system!) I do love the rockcutter tool, though.

So Gregtech won't revive IC2 for me, but this isn't to say that Industrialcraft has become useless. I love spraying scaffolding with construction foam, the haz-mat suit is invaluable in some situations, and the speed of a constantly running induction furnace is unmatched. That's still my favorite way to quickly smelt something up. The mining laser remains useful (though no longer irreplacable) and the diamond drill is still a good early upgrade from your pickaxe. I'll still recycle my extra cobble eventually, but now that there's an alternative to the quantum suit, I feel much less pressure to do so early on. Basically, my Minecraft experience used to revolve around IC2. Now IC2 is on the periphery of the experience, and for the sake of variety, that's a good thing.

As an aside, people who like Modular Power Suits may also like Applied Energistics, a very powerful mod which aids item storage and autocrafting. For me it was love at first sight- how can I not love a mod that singlehandedly solves all my inventory problems? Now, if only I could find some more quartz...

 

[esotericist]

For me, it's kind of a tough call. I like IC2. I like the EU system it uses (it feels more "Minecrafty" to me than the universal electricity stuff some people prefer), and the general style of the way machines are designed pleases me in some difficult-to-explain fashion. And I also kind of like a kinetic-energy/electrical-energy division between MJ and EU.

On the other hand, I personally think the IC2 devs and community are kind of ... strange... with strange notions. (see: The whole lossy wrench thing) So... I think with TE in the state it's in, and some of the MPS stuff you're showing me, I could probably live without IC2... Not sure if it's something I'd opt into, though. I'll probably be thinking about this for a while.

 

[Ember Quill]

That part of the discussion is cogent, because it supports your point - namely, that IC2 alone can be left out of your modset without missing essential functionality (particularly with MP). GT is what revitalizes IC2 for many people. They, like you, might not use it otherwise.

Oddly enough, GT had the opposite effect for me. The more difficult macerator and solar panel recipes forced me to look for alternatives for early-game ore processing. After starting to use TE for ore processing, I discovered how little I really needed any other IC2 machines, to the point where the only IC2 items I use now are the rechargeable tools like the drill and jetpack. I don't even have a generator. I just swipe EU from my neighbor's base when my tools need to be recharged.

 

[Herrozerro]

Personally, IC2 was probably the first mod I used, in addition to BCs pipes. I have made small forays into MJ power but I still find EU to be easier to generate. Does MJ have any good passive generation methods? and by that i mean wind or solar equivalents?

 

[Katrinya]

Personally, IC2 was probably the first mod I used, in addition to BCs pipes. I have made small forays into MJ power but I still find EU to be easier to generate. Does MJ have any good passive generation methods? and by that i mean wind or solar equivalents?

Not unless you go windmill --> blulectric engine, which is inefficient. (You can also convert your EU from solars to MJ with an electric engine at a loss, but I assume you knew that.) MJ is indeed harder to generate than EU, which is probably which MJ is worth more in most other mods (MPS, for example).

 

[KirinDave]

Not unless you go windmill --> blulectric engine, which is inefficient. (You can also convert your EU from solars to MJ with an electric engine at a loss, but I assume you knew that.) MJ is indeed harder to generate than EU, which is probably which MJ is worth more in most other mods (MPS, for example).

Or, you know, the forestry+railcraft route people love to go. "Solar" for MJ power systems is just "growing trees". Lots of people like to use Steve's Carts, Railcraft, and Forestry to accomplish that goal. Basically the game is: find a renewable source of biogas, refine it to biofuel, have infinite MJ. Doing it via steam is more efficient, but it wouldn't be hard to just use combustion engines.

There are also a lot of different solid fuel routes that really can be extremely efficient. And with the addition of thaumcraft automating those systems is generally trivial.

 

[whythisname]

I might consider doing a world without IC2. I do like the things GregTech adds, like the centrifuge and the electrolyzer. Other than that I dislike the way IC2 power works and how it is generated (an automated tree farm is something I enjoy building and seeing a lot more than a bunch of solar panels). I also think vanilla IC2 just has too many arbitrary restrictions and limitations for the sake of "balancing" (you can't pump water into watermills using waterproof pipes, but you can put water buckets/bottles into them via pipes... why not allow waterproof pipes to connect and just nerf the amount of power you get from that...).

I've been keeping an eye on MineChem though and to me it looks like that might make a nice addition to replace GregTech (not so much the costly high end stuff, but it does add that mad scientist component I miss in most BC related mods).

On the topic of "passive" MJ generation, Redstone Engines always used to be the go to engine for "free" power. Though they nerfed it so you can't really do anything with it except take items out of inventories. Not that I mind, I think it's good power generation requires a bit more thought than just plopping down a block and hooking up some wires and that you can't just repeat that until you've got enough power.

 

[DoctorOr]

I also think vanilla IC2 just has too many arbitrary restrictions and limitations for the sake of "balancing" (you can't pump water into watermills using waterproof pipes, but you can put water buckets/bottles into them via pipes... why not allow waterproof pipes to connect and just nerf the amount of power you get from that...).

There may have been an arbitrary decision to keep it that way recently, but that's not why it was originally designed. Remember the timeline, when IC2 came out there was no liquid support. No pipes. No extra liquids. That began in Buildcraft and was adopted - pretty much wholesale - into Forge, so now IC2 has access to it.

But IC2 hasn't had any serious updates, there are no IC2 native liquid pipes so those would need to be implemented before any of those machines could be pumped directly into. (IC2 isn't about to start acknowledging other mods exist, that's part of what GregTech does - patch inter-mod holes that IC2 refuses to manage)

On the topic of "passive" MJ generation, Redstone Engines always used to be the go to engine for "free" power. Though they nerfed it so you can't really do anything with it except take items out of inventories.

Those were expressly nerfed because the buildcraft developers don't want any passive/free generation.

 

[Captain Neckbeard]

Those were expressly nerfed because the buildcraft developers don't want any passive/free generation.

And then along came Forestry.

 

[KirinDave]

And then along came Forestry.

Forestry is the "good" kind of passive/free generation. You can get a hands-off power system from forestry but it is generally a huge affair with lots of moving parts and typically one resource that cannot be magically automated but is consumed very slowly.

You can get infinite stuff from bees, but anyone who says bees are OP is crazy. They're a huge time sink. If you get infinite whatever from bees you've earned it.

 

[DoctorOr]

And then along came Forestry.

Forestry is nothing like the generation of solar, "wind" or watermills, or the huge farms of redstone engines. It's self regenerating, but it's not "engines/generators producing power from nothing"

 

[Captain Neckbeard]

Oh, I wasn't knocking it, Forestry is awesome. I really like the steady generation with big upfront cost and time investment shtick. A big sprawling complex of farms and boxhives is much better and more interesting than a wall of Redstone Engines and pipes (or a few pigdisgusting HV Solar Arrays for that matter), but the point remains that hands-off power generation is feasible.
Forestry's got a great balance of utility and cost, and throws around non-gamebreaking convenience everywhere.

 

[whythisname]

There may have been an arbitrary decision to keep it that way recently, but that's not why it was originally designed. Remember the timeline, when IC2 came out there was no liquid support. No pipes. No extra liquids. That began in Buildcraft and was adopted - pretty much wholesale - into Forge, so now IC2 has access to it.

But IC2 hasn't had any serious updates, there are no IC2 native liquid pipes so those would need to be implemented before any of those machines could be pumped directly into. (IC2 isn't about to start acknowledging other mods exist, that's part of what GregTech does - patch inter-mod holes that IC2 refuses to manage)

That's not true, the Geothermal Generator can accept Lava through liquid pipes and as far as I know it has been that way for a very long time. Nothing is stopping the IC2 devs from copy/pasting the Geothermal code, changing Lava to Water and then playing around with the numbers a bit to get a balanced result. Sure IC2 hasn't had much content upgrades, but something like this definitely could've been implemented years ago.

I've also posted it as a suggestion on the IC2 boards, the newer people there were open minded and some agreed with me. Some of the older members however went "oh this again, it's OP and the dev doesn't like it, shut up and get lost", without even considering it, let alone talk about ways it could be implemented in a balanced way.

Personally I just think it's stupid when you've got Wind turbines and Solar panels that create power out of thin air. How is a power source that runs of off infinite water OP then?

Those were expressly nerfed because the buildcraft developers don't want any passive/free generation.

I know that, that's kinda why I added the "I don't mind" part. To me it's pretty obvious that was a balance change and I completely understand it.

 

[jnads]

IC2 Benefits:

-Construction Foam..... moderately cheap creeper-proof building block in the game (all you need is redstone, coal dust, and clay).... the other option is Xychoridite Plates (warded stone is pretty expensive... and can still be broken by a Vajra).... contrary to popular belief, you don't need a CF Sprayer to use CF Foam.
-Tools (Chainsaw / Drill)
-Early-Game Jetpack
-Solar Power (Electrical Eninges to convert to MJ)
-Scaffold is better than ladders
-No other mod has a Personal Safe (a lot of the griefing stuff has been fixed, but a few remain.... on non-griefing servers you can protect your stuff).... closest thing is a TC3 warded room with a warded door
-Trade-O-Mats are awesome for trading. Your friend does Bees but you Mine? Want Silky Comb for Woven bags? Set up a trading station! Then as he produces it, you can facilitate trades even when you're not around.


Everything else is disputable, but I don't think anyone can argue with the above facts.

 

[esotericist]

I've also posted it as a suggestion on the IC2 boards, the newer people there were open minded and some agreed with me. Some of the older members however went "oh this again, it's OP and the dev doesn't like it, shut up and get lost", without even considering it, let alone talk about ways it could be implemented in a balanced way.

Yeah, try asking them for a server-side option to disable "lossy" wrenching and you'll get basically the same kind of reaction. It's really unfortunate.

 

[KirinDave]

IC2 Benefits:

-Construction Foam..... moderately creeper-proof building block in the game (all you need is clay).... the other option is Xychoridite Plates (warded stone is pretty expensive... and can still be broken by a Vajra)
-Tools (Chainsaw / Drill)
-Early-Game Jetpack
-Solar Power (Electrical Eninges to convert to MJ)
-Scaffold is better than ladders
-No other mod has a Personal Safe (a lot of the griefing stuff has been fixed, but a few remain.... on non-griefing servers you can protect your stuff).... closest thing is a TC3 warded room with a warded door
-Trade-O-Mats are awesome for trading. Your friend does Bees but you Mine? Want Silky Comb for Woven bags? Set up a trading station! Then as he produces it, you can facilitate trades even when you're not around.


Everything else is disputable, but I don't think anyone can argue with the above facts.

I think the only thing I'd dispute is that the multi-tool is probably a better option than the saw and drill, I think you have a slight resource savings there and you don't have to suffer the saw's abysmal internal power store.And then your next purchase can be a weapon upgrade to add max knockback to give you time to switch to a real weapon.

But yeah, the personal safe and Trade-O-Mat are awesome, as is scaffolding.

 

[whythisname]

Yeah, try asking them for a server-side option to disable "lossy" wrenching and you'll get basically the same kind of reaction. It's really unfortunate.

oh yeah, the lossy wrenching mechanic, another of those arbitrary "balancing" features I really dislike about IC2. Thankfully we have the Omni Wrench now though

@jnads: I agree with you on the CF and Scaffolding. I mostly play solo however so I don't have much use for Safes or Trading machines, I dislike Solar power (feels too cheaty to me) and Modular Powersuits does pretty much everything the tools and Jetpack can do. So for me it comes down to CF, Scaffolding and the add-ons there are for IC2, which I (and probably others) think is not be enough worth to keep it around.
It's a matter of taste and preference though, even if the tools/jetpack/etc are better according to the "facts" people can still prefer something worse. I mean there are many people who prefer inefficient roundabout ways to generate power over Solar panels or Lava pumping from the Nether.

 

[Guswut]

Well a more prudent man would have tested in a test world or bought the 100% fall negation upgrade first. I do not appear to be that man.

Prudence is for prudes. We've got resources to spare!

 

[jnads]

It's a matter of taste and preference though, even if the tools/jetpack/etc are better according to the "facts" people can still prefer something worse.

Of course. All of Minecraft is about preference.

I will say, the MPS Multi-Tool is probably just as good as the IC2 tools . But the tools are pretty good in their own right (the Chainsaw is a pretty darn good weapon.... and you can shift+right-click to use it as a Shears for wool... little known fact).

As for Solar.... yeah, it's cheaty to some. Teleport pipes / tesseracts are cheaty to others. Or nether lava. Again, preference. Solar + Electrical Engines does make Quarries easier to set up.