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

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Zjarek_S

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Jul 29, 2019
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Crossbreeding isn't that bad if you go for plants stats, not species. Crops are also powerful early game, specially for pumpkins and melons. They were great in FTB map, you can get pumpkins early on from seeds and it was a lot better for early game EMC generation than darkroom. I use them also as a source of ink sacs, a lot easier to farm than squids.
 

KirinDave

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Jul 29, 2019
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I really really hope they stay away from Thaumcraft... I HATE Thaumcraft because of those darn wisps that are so annoying. I should not be forced to make a part of my base 50 miles away from my house that I apparently will need often. Also vis charging on wands needs to be fixed I believe still, haven't tried in my new ssp world.

I... I don't know why people think this. You can make anything in thaumcraft, at any stage, without significant risk of wisps. And wisps? Most are just benign balls of light that despawn. And once you learn to make alembics, you need never release excess aspects into the environment if you don't want to.

It's just that not many people do a very good job of showing off how to do this. Direwolf20, for example, is really bad about ruining his environment. He gets yelled at a lot in his comments for it.
 

DoctorOr

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Jul 29, 2019
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As somebody who has, relatively recently (since the release on MindCrack pack) cross bred every IC2 crop, I can firmly say they're not worth it.

The weed mechanism means you have to babysit the crops everytime you crossbreed, or be at risk of losing _everything_ in the field. There is absolutely no harvesting automation in base IC2 and while GregTech adds some it's only a single block of crops for every harvesting machine.

If you were playing a game with _only_ IC2 and GregTech, I could see working up some iron plants, gold plants, and redstone wheat. The output isn't bad of those three plants, but without automation it's limited. With any other mod installed there are better ways to farm stuff - or without GT the crops are just too pointless. Terra Wart had potential, but would probably be pretty pointless even limited to just those two mods installed. Coffee is just low duration and silly, and hops is for the type of people that ...ugh...roleplay.

I suppose they were spectacular when they let you grow Nether Wart in the overworld, but get with the updates.
 

jumpfight5

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Jul 29, 2019
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But there are ways to automate the growth, yes harvesting is Gregtech only, but with a few things, one can (somewhat complexly) automate everything completely.

Yes, I'll use an Igneous Extruder and a Magma Crucible to make Lava to make Tin through an Industrial Centrifuge. I hate how Tin Cells are used up. The extra cobble can be scrapped and turned into fertilizer. Two scrap plus a fertilizer makes 2 fertilizer. So it's easy to automate that. Then, redstone can be gotten from the plants themselves, while a spider spawner and a macerator will get you grin powder. Double extract water cells, and you're good to go! You don't even need the fertilizer or the Hydration cells, though it will take a bit longer to grow.

So you're using 64 eu/t to power the Crop Matron and the Crop Harvestor (why'd he spell it wrong D:)
32 eu/t for the Centrifuge (and extra goodies!)
And you'll need a bit of EU for the macerator and extractors. It's somewhere around 128 eu/t for full automation.

Since squids can't Soul Shard, Blackthorn is really useful, especially if you're one of those people who like to have dyes on them.

Yes, hops are stupid, on the tekkit server I used to play on, everyone was obsessed with them. HV solar arrays? $400. Hops? $500.
Terrawart's easier to hold than Milk, but a lot harder to get.
Iron and Gold are renewable in other, less maintenance ways, while redstone is common enough that some automatic mining should be able to handle it quite nicely.
IC2 is one of those "base mods" for me, though. It wouldn't be the same without something ridiculously expensive to get in the end. If Mass fabs required more energy (due to chunkloading), it would be better.
But IC2 crops are an underdocumented overlooked source of materials. People are complaining they don't add anything new, and crops seem like a great thing to add updates to (besides everything else).

A lot of this "No IC2 thinking" would probably not have happened if it weren't for Thermal Expansion. I love the mod, KingLemming did a great job, and I use it often, but the Pulverizer and Induction Smelter take away from IC2's Macerator, especially in early game. In late game, there's that whole debate going on, but I just use the Industrial Grinder.
 

Yusunoha

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Jul 29, 2019
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I see no one has even mentioned IC2 crops

true, I forgot about the crops. crossbreeding crops in IC2 is a joke, it's purely random and it's meant as an endgame thing (which is hilarious, because you'd have built all kinds of awesome things, and your endgame is some gambling with plants) but crops are very, and I mean very useful for manual maintaining your farms. for example cocoa, you don't need any trees, making your cocoa farm a whole lot more compact (you do need however 3 layers of dirt below your tilled ground) or for example netherwart, you can plant a netherwart crop on normal tilted dirt, and don't need any pesky soul sand. it's also great for a compact sugarcane farm because you don't need to directly place the sugarcane crop next to a water source. and then there's also melon and pumkin crops which give you multiple drops instead of a standard vanilla farm. though crops is still a bit of a gamble, because a crop may also not drop anything, the best way to solve this is to just plant a bunch of them. for each manual farm I have a 3x9 area.
 

Lambert2191

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Jul 29, 2019
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true, I forgot about the crops. crossbreeding crops in IC2 is a joke, it's purely random and it's meant as an endgame thing
I used to play on a large public tekkit server. In around November/December time, the map had to be reset due to some rather fatal crashes happening with the server, along with the servers economy being pretty much destroyed thanks to UU matter(EE was disabled on this server) After the map reset, a couple of people (as in 2 people) started out with IC2 crops, and within a week had brought the economy to it's knees once more with selling cheap rubber, cheap redstone, cheap iron. once they had their perfect stat seeds (which is not random, and takes quite a lot of skill to get to, perfect stats is something like 20-31-10 iirc) they made huge fields of them and would get upwards of 10 stacks of each kind every harvest. And with those perfect stats, those plants would grow to harvesting maturity in under 2 minutes. Once you have finished harvesting the last plant, the first will have grown again.

IC2 crops are a pain to get into, but once you do it is a very powerful form of resources, and again, just because you aren't into it (such as myself) doesn't mean you should dismiss it. Yes, other mods are doing things that IC2 does and doing it better... but you're kinda dismissing one of the only truly unique things about IC2 just because it's not to your taste.
 

baw179

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Jul 29, 2019
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Firstly, let's please not devolve into a macerator vs. pulverizer argument again. Please. That said, onward:

Direwolf20's pack seems to be slowly but surely drifting away from needing IC2. The big benefit of that tech tree used to be that it had flat out superior armor, tools and energy storagr. But now MFFS works on MJ, Thermal Expansion has given us lots more ways to generate, store, and move power. We also have Modular Powersuits which on the next DW20 pack update will not only have flight equal to a gravity suit (it's already nearly as good, it just needs the Flight Control) but a MJ-compatible power system and TE-based recipes.

It seems like in DW20 once that update gets pushed, IC2 will be firmly an odd-man out in the pack:
  1. Thaumcraft gives great tools, weapons and armor that work well with enchants. Its ore detector is different from IC2's but arguably a lot more useful, the mining laser is closely matched by the Wand of Excavation and Wand of Equal Trade, and investing in that tree also gives you really powerful automation tools.
  2. Modular Powersuits gives a Gravity Suit competitor (that also has early-game options similar to or superior to the jetpacks) that takes less extreme resources (but a lot more mundane resources) and a pretty amazing tool. Please note, these can be book enchanted, and the author knows about this and doesn't seem to mind. If you can get haste onto your MPS boots they are incredibly good.
  3. Steves Carts and Buildcraft give really amazing auto-mining options. Thaumcraft has one that is unique and powerful (though very, very expensive) as well. The mining well and OD/OV Detector seem somewhat anemic by comparison.
  4. TE and Railcraft give amazing power generation and storage options.
Am I missing something? At this point it seems like the only really neat thing IC2 offers is cheap, explosion resistant building materials and very convenient tools for making complex structures. Its autominer is nice, but not super necessary. The IC2 machines can be faster but they're obviously not "necessary". What's left for it in the DW20 pack?

As daft as it may sound I actually like IC2 machines for their efficiency and ease of use and automation. "WHAT?!" I hear you scream, but yes I am serious. I know you are going to think I am crazy and point out that TE machines are so much better on the 'ease of use' and 'automation' aspects, but personally I don't agree. I just cannot get on with TE ore processing. I find it to be cumbersome, slow and having to deal with extra ores being spewed out when the machines feel like it just annoys me.

Maybe it's because I "grew up" with IC2 from starting with Tekkit where none of this TE stuff existed so I got to know IC2 very well and its (few) limitations, but there is something satisfying about chucking everything from a mining expedition into a remote ender chest and then by the time you've teleported back to your factory everything has been processed, cooked/recycled and is all sitting nicely in their respective barrels waiting to be used.

I KNOW that people will argue "but wait, you have x% chance of getting some silver/gold/slag/whatever" but you know what, who cares!!!! It's a very small handful of extra pieces per stack and frankly I couldn't care less for it. If you're that desperate for materials all the time then you're doing something wrong and need to adjust your play style imho. If I'm ever short of mats then it's never the 1 or 2 pieces that a TE machine would've provided me with, it's more like I'm needing another full stack of them so you just go and do some more mining for 15 mins and problem sorted.

It's a similar argument for me with FZ ore processing as well. People go on about being able to triple your ores like it's some sort of holy grail and anyone who doesn't use this method is stupid, but again I just don't see the point. By the time you've set up all the equipment and waited for 1 piece of iron ore to be turned into 3 iron ingots you could've mined out 10 stacks of iron ore from underneath your base and have 20 stacks of ingots already sitting in a barrel after being chucked through an OC'd macerator and oven.

And then there's the 'time' argument - "but what does it matter that TE takes 6 hours to pulverise a stack of iron ore?". It doesn't matter - assuming you already have an ample stock of iron already and don't need it straight away - but if I wanted to wait 6 hours for my ores to process I would just play vanilla minecraft. But I don't, I play FTB to automate stuff and have stuff happen quickly. I don't use the jetpack but I'm a big fan of the mining laser/drills, the nano suit (early game powerful armour), the quantum suit, the nano sabre, the energy storage systems and machines, so yes I will be "bothering" with IC2 in my future DW20 builds and would miss it a lot if it were no longer part of the mod pack.

It's horses for courses. As the saying goes, "one man's meat is another man's poison".

<awaits flaming for mentioning the pulveriser and macerator in the same paragraph>
 
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Dravarden

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Yeah, in my opinion I will remove IC2, I don't need another form of electricity, neither stuff that i can simply do with other mods that use MJ.
 

Yusunoha

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Jul 29, 2019
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I used to play on a large public tekkit server. In around November/December time, the map had to be reset due to some rather fatal crashes happening with the server, along with the servers economy being pretty much destroyed thanks to UU matter(EE was disabled on this server) After the map reset, a couple of people (as in 2 people) started out with IC2 crops, and within a week had brought the economy to it's knees once more with selling cheap rubber, cheap redstone, cheap iron. once they had their perfect stat seeds (which is not random, and takes quite a lot of skill to get to, perfect stats is something like 20/25/20 iirc) they made huge fields of them and would get upwards of 2 stacks of each kind every harvest. And with those perfect stats, those plants would grow to harvesting maturity in under 2 minutes. Once you have finished harvesting the last plant, the first will have grown again.

IC2 crops are a pain to get into, but once you do it is a very powerful form of resources, and again, just because you aren't into it (such as myself) doesn't mean you should dismiss it. Yes, other mods are doing things that IC2 does and doing it better... but you're kinda dismissing one of the only truly unique things about IC2 just because it's not to your taste.

my apologies, from what I knew it was mostly just pure randomness growing different crops, I did not know it was possible to crossbreed them like that. I tried doing the crossbreeding of crops a few times, but it was mostly just frustration and no idea how to succesfully do it.
 

Ember Quill

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Nov 2, 2012
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Maybe it's because I "grew up" with IC2 from starting with Tekkit where none of this TE stuff existed so I got to know IC2 very well and its (few) limitations, but there is something satisfying about chucking everything from a mining expedition into a remote ender chest and then by the time you've teleported back to your factory everything has been processed, cooked/recycled and is all sitting nicely in their respective barrels waiting to be used.
I also "grew up" with IC2. I've never played Tekkit, but I've been using IC2 for over a year now. Maybe that's why I love TE. I've built the same initial generator+batbox+macerator+furnace setup a whole bunch of times, and to be honest I'm bored of starting every single map the same way. TE is shiny and new and can be automated without using pipes or tubes. I fail to see how dealing with the occasional extra output can be troublesome at all. With TE's great input/output mechanics, you can set any extra dusts to output from any side, including the same side that the rest of the dust outputs from.

Also, speed has never been a huge concern for me. The only reason why I ever built advanced machines or overclocker upgrades for my ore processing was so that my quarry or tunnel bore wouldn't clog it up. But with TE, I can just build extra pulverizers and furnaces for a fraction of the cost. As for your "efficiency" and "ease of use" arguments, I honestly think you're referring only to the fact that IC2 machines are faster. TE machines are are both more efficient and easier to set up/automate, not to mention the fact that they're cheaper. IC2 machines may be faster, but only once you start building overclockers.

I like using MJ to power my ore production, as there are many other machines I use later on that also require MJ. It really helps when I already have the beginnings of a power network to support them.
 

KirinDave

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Jul 29, 2019
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As daft as it may sound I actually like IC2 machines for their efficiency and ease of use and automation.

I get the ease of use part, but TE machines are just flat out easier to automate. It's not really a matter of opinion. Flexibility on which sides you connect to (and not requiring item extraction energy) mean they remove the annoying and typically fiddly part of automation. It's not really like... debatable? I don't mean to invalidate your feelings but it's very difficult to imagine a build where TE machines do not produce a more compact and easier-to-understand result. I'd love to see one.

I KNOW that people will argue "but wait, you have x% chance of getting some silver/gold/slag/whatever" but you know what, who cares!!!! It's a very small handful of extra pieces per stack and frankly I couldn't care less for it. If you're that desperate for materials all the time then you're doing something wrong and need to adjust your play style imho. If I'm ever short of mats then it's never the 1 or 2 pieces that a TE machine would've provided me with, it's more like I'm needing another full stack of them so you just go and do some more mining for 15 mins and problem sorted.

But doesn't this very same argument work to say, "You don't need any ore machines at all!" You could easily set up an ore processing pipeline using just lots of furnaces and it'd be plenty fast and if you needed 2x the ores, "you just go and do some more mining for 15 mins and problem sorted." For me, I really want the diversity bonus because of the way DW20 and Mindcrack have changed mining. If I need copper I'm mining in an area utterly devoid of gold, if I need tin I'm usually not near the silver layers, and bonuses on iron are always welcome (because let's face it, who doesn't want more invar with lava being one of the premiere storage mediums for energy right now).[/quote]

It's a similar argument for me with FZ ore processing as well. People go on about being able to triple your ores like it's some sort of holy grail and anyone who doesn't use this method is stupid, but again I just don't see the point. By the time you've set up all the equipment and waited for 1 piece of iron ore to be turned into 3 iron ingots you could've mined out 10 stacks of iron ore from underneath your base and have 20 stacks of ingots already sitting in a barrel after being chucked through an OC'd macerator and oven.

Again, this attitude is strange because its argument applies equally to IC2.

And then there's the 'time' argument - "but what does it matter that TE takes 6 hours to pulverise a stack of iron ore?". It doesn't matter - assuming you already have an ample stock of iron already and don't need it straight away - but if I wanted to wait 6 hours for my ores to process I would just play vanilla minecraft. But I don't, I play FTB to automate stuff and have stuff happen quickly.

But... but... you just said... and then you said... so like...

I think what you're saying is, "I feel more comfortable with IC2 machines." Which is fine, but you probably shouldn't then proceed to make arguments as if they're objective. No one is going to say, "You can't feel that way."
 

baw179

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I think what you're saying is, "I feel more comfortable with IC2 machines." Which is fine, but you probably shouldn't then proceed to make arguments as if they're objective. No one is going to say, "You can't feel that way."

My "argument" is in response to your own argument in your OP essentially stating that IC2 is redundant because x other mods can do the same job and therefore IC2 no longer has any place in the mod pack. As I have stated in my OP above, it is horses for courses. You don't like IC2, I do. I'm not a fan of TE processing (or FZ for that matter), you clearly are. Compactness is a high priority for you, but it isn't for me. Processing speed isn't a concern for you, but it is for me, and that is why I (and I've no doubt many others) like IC2 and would be rather unhappy to see it get removed.

I don't mean to invalidate your feelings but it's very difficult to imagine a build where TE machines do not produce a more compact and easier-to-understand result. I'd love to see one.

Also re the compactness argument, as far as I can see you only need 1 extra block space per IC2 machine over TE machines (a pipe with an autarchic gate to pull items out) so I'm afraid I don't buy that one at all. I mean how much more compact do you want it to be?

http://imgur.com/KR4TLD7
 

King Lemming

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Not sure if anyone has caught a glimpse of my own house on ForgeCraft, but I have way more IC2 stuff than TE stuff.

The mods play well together. I use TE for ore processing, because frankly it doesn't take 6 hours to pulverize a stack of ore - it takes about 5 minutes. I use IC2 for all of the crazy OP stuff that it adds - power generation, UU matter, tools, and armor. With that setup, I need more IC2 than TE, since a couple of TE machines and a tiny bit of automation works.
 

baw179

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Not sure if anyone has caught a glimpse of my own house on ForgeCraft, but I have way more IC2 stuff than TE stuff.

The mods play well together. I use TE for ore processing, because frankly it doesn't take 6 hours to pulverize a stack of ore - it takes about 5 minutes.

;) Heh, I had a feeling you wouldn't let that comment slip by without commenting :p. It was of course a complete overexaggeration and sarcastic comment but that's what it felt like after coming straight from my overclocked macerator. If in the unlikely event that you're feeling a bit unloved for me not loving your machines, I'd just like to say that I love the RECs, tesseracts, liquiducts, conduit and hardened glass about 10x as much and have them EVERYWHERE in my base. :D
 

Ember Quill

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Nov 2, 2012
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I (and I've no doubt many others) like IC2 and would be rather unhappy to see it get removed.
Oddly enough, nobody has mentioned removing the mod except for the people saying "please don't remove it!" Nobody who thinks IC2 is becoming redundant has ever mentioned wanting it removed altogether. We all love having multiple options. That's why we play FTB in the first place. The OP just wanted to know if there were any obvious benefits to IC2 that couldn't be duplicated with other mods. And there are a few items that are unique, or better than their alternatives in certain ways. Whether those benefits are worth the drawbacks of choosing IC2 over other options is a subjective decision, so there isn't just one definitive answer. Which is good, because we all love having options.

Unfortunately, all debates about any duplicated mod functionality seem to devolve pretty quickly into arguing over which mod should be removed from the pack. Which is stupid, because removing mods means, you guessed it, less options.
 

baw179

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Unfortunately, all debates about any duplicated mod functionality seem to devolve pretty quickly into arguing over which mod should be removed from the pack. Which is stupid, because removing mods means, you guessed it, less options.

Well quite, and that's the reason I don't get involved in any of the weekly "nether lava/solars should be removed" threads.
 

KirinDave

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My "argument" is in response to your own argument in your OP essentially stating that IC2 is redundant because x other mods can do the same job and therefore IC2 no longer has any place in the mod pack.

All I'm saying is that IC2 is definitely less integrated into the DW20 pack than other packs maintained. Most every other mod works with a unified power system and has superior automation mechanics.

You don't like IC2, I do.

Even barring the question why this matters, it's not true. I wish you'd stop putting words in my mouth. IC2 is great, and in Mindcrack with Advanced Machines & Gregtech I think you get something really amazing. Something I'm considering integrating into a fork of DW20 just to balance it out a little on my server.

I'm not a fan of TE processing (or FZ for that matter), you clearly are. Compactness is a high priority for you, but it isn't for me. Processing speed isn't a concern for you, but it is for me,

Please stop with the myth that IC2 processing pipelines are always faster than TE/TC/FZ processing pipelines. It is distracting and immaterial to this conversation. Please. Just stop it. Given sufficient resource investment all 4 methods can be fast enough to handle any amount of incoming material without jamming or backing up. And while IC2 machines can achieve speed with slightly less investment; by the time you actually have the 3+ large area quarries or extra-tall frame bore running nonstop, resource allocation is not an issue and you can build your ore processing pipeline to arbitrary specifications anyways.

Also re the compactness argument, as far as I can see you only need 1 extra block space per IC2 machine over TE machines (a pipe with an autarchic gate to pull items out) so I'm afraid I don't buy that one at all. I mean how much more compact do you want it to be?

Well, it's not just the 1 extra gate. You also need to be careful to keep your machines aligned on the same grid because if you stagger them a wooden extract pipe could connect to two machines inadvertently. And you're constrained on which sides to connect to. You basically get less freedom in the design.

Your answer to the question is, "No. I like IC2 and I am glad it is in the DW20 pack." Saying all this other stuff that's just obviously not true only serves to turn this thread into the Macerator v. Pulverizer thread. We don't need 2 of those.
 

whythisname

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@baw179: Did you ever try the TE Induction Smelter? It's very fast at full power and it doubles your ores while smelting them at the same time.

You can then also use the Rich Slag it produces to triple your ores every once in a while, but if you're not interested in that you can always void pipe that stuff.

I'm not trying to say TE is superior or anything, I'm just saying that there is a faster alternative to the Pulverizer + furnace way of doubling ores in TE.