Is energy from lava appropriate?

[raiju]

Ok so it's been happening more and more recently, comments about processing energy from lava are spilling in to a lot of threads (especially about gregtech)

Now I will note that while I want this thread to apply to all the relevant FTB packs as much as possible - I do play mindcrack with gregtech on hardmode so my knowledge of the non-gregtech information may be out of date or plain incorrect!

Anyway, personally I feel that lava generation is out of hand and all round the board it needs to be made more complex. I admit I am not very good at polls but I feel it would be an easy way for possible lurkers to throw in their opinion too as the like system isn't used too often.

Your opinions? All opinions are valid even if your knowledge will is incomplete! I have made the poll public for the purposes of separating gregtech where required from the crowd - it would be helpful if you could add what pack/mods you are playing and any relevant config changes.

 

[Sphinx2k]

I think [Something else] needs changing (please specify in your post)

So. I personally see lava from the nether as to overpowered. On its own if you drain a normal lava lake underground it is fine i think. You need the relocate your pumpe if the small amount is drained. But with Enderchest/Mystcraft mass Lava movement from the Nether it is a to cheap and easy to get source of energie.

 

[MavericK96]

It is a pretty ridiculously easy way to get a TON of energy, even early-game...but I don't think it's completely broken. Lava isn't completely infinite, after all...

...well...I guess it kind of is, you can just expand your Nether world indefinitely. But you still have to move around your pumping system after awhile.

 

[nevakanezah]

It is a pretty ridiculously easy way to get a TON of energy, even early-game...but I don't think it's completely broken. Lava isn't completely infinite, after all...

...well...I guess it kind of is, you can just expand your Nether world indefinitely. But you still have to move around your pumping system after awhile.

Id say that the biggest downside is that it's a "set and forget" system for generation of very significant amounts of energy. I'm not necessarily against lava use for power, but it's kind of hard to justify being able to take it from the nether. Lava is very high energy, compared to other fuel sources, and in the overworld, it's limited enough that acquiring large volumes is still a significant task.

 

[FBI]

Yah, it's probably an easy way to gather a lot of energy, but you have to spend some time/resources to set up your machines/pumps/conduits etc.
And obviously, like any other things in MC, you aren't forced to use it. if you don't like it...

 

[Malkuth]

Hmmmm... You do know that there are other easy options other then lava.. The thing about lava is that its really the only source of fuel other then coal that works for both EU and MJ.. So I think your overthinking this way to much.

Lava from the nether is not easy.. Its in the nether.. In Minecrack you have to use Redpower to get it from there automatically... Or TE.. In DW version you have the added option of mystcraft portals and railcraft..

All system need to be set up.. All system cost Resources.

Just because people are doing it all the time means nothing.. It works.. Because you can use it for just about everything.

Greg Tech is not hard.. What it does is adds extra hurdles to your expansion. But the same outcome applies in the end.. You get it built... Game over... Lets not even talk about some of the power generation you can do with GT... End content... Once you hit the Hurdle... Its still game over.

Then it comes down to this.. What does it matter what others do? Why not play your game your way.. And let others do the things they want to do.. Really.

And if you think the power generation is the only overpowered thing in any of these packs... Then I think you need to expand to some of the other overpowered mods.

GT and TE= GT Useless hurdles to IC2 Lame... Since TE makes it easy...

Come on...

 

[Malkuth]

Oh one last thing... Sorry if I come off Hostile thats not my intention. If they nerf lava for whatever reason... Still won't stop me from easy energy.

Because? Next thing I build for maintenance free energy.... Forestry Tree Farm..... Logs to any engine that works.... = same thing.. Yeah I might need to double the amount of engines... But oh well thats the fun part.

Wanna nerf that too? Guess what I have 5 other ways of doing it different.


Man I got a billion of them.. No more lava from nether... So sad.. Ill just use TE to make the lava instead and run magma engines.... Nuff said.

Edited to fix the hostile part.. Sorry...

 

[raiju]

Oh one last thing... Sorry.. If you think your going to stop me from using lava.. As you say easy.. Go ahead get it done..

YOu know why? Next thing I build for maintance free energy.... Forestry Tree Farm..... Logs to any engine that works.... = same thing.. Yeah I might need to double the amount of engines... But oh well thats the fun part.

Wanna nerf that too? Guess what I have 5 other ways of doing it different.


Man I got a billion of them.. No more lava from nether... So sad.. Ill just use TE to make the lava instead and run magma engines.... Nuff said.

The hostility before anyones really said anything isn't really needed. I think lavas too easy and you don't, I am going to at least for a while avoid jumping into any discussions from this thread and allow more people to put their opinion in. It is just a thread I created because over the past few days a lot of comments have been "but lava from the nether is fine/infinite/makes this or that" as a response to something, and I feel instead of comments about it, why not one single thread to discuss it?

I also already mentioned magma crucibles (the things which make lava from netherrack)

 

[Wizaerd]

I use lava all the time, and I usually cart it through a Mystcraft portal. It is certainly plentiful, but it's still fairly resource intensive to get it up and going early game. I've played with the other energy gathering systems, and for the most part they either require more resources, or a much longer setup time which is why I usually fall back on lava. If it's was nerfed, making it more difficult I would be fairly disappointed.

Everytime I consider a different source of energy (such as biofuel), I start looking into what it takes to get up and going and becoming self-sustaining and I lose interest in it. Nope, lava is my go to, and I just like the way it looks/behaves.

 

[ATJ]

It's fine, leave it alone. Next you'll be saying the solars are OP and those need removing too. What next? Windmills? Water mills? Forestry power? Steam power? It's all "OP" when you use the yardstick that you're using.

 

[MavericK96]

I use lava all the time, and I usually cart it through a Mystcraft portal. It is certainly plentiful, but it's still fairly resource intensive to get it up and going early game.

I wouldn't say it's resource intensive. All you need are two sets of Liquid Transposer + Filter + Relay, along with Magmatic engines and/or Geothermals to power the Liquid Transposer, along with a BC Pump. Hook it all up to an Ender Chest and you're golden.

At the start of the game, I personally used the Water Mill + Retriever + Filter thing with buckets to generate a lot of free power indefinitely. To me that is almost more unbalanced since it can be almost infinitely expanded for very little cost, and it's zero maintenance.

My guess is that Magmatic Engines are going to get nerfed eventually...I keep hearing that you can use a Magma Crucible to generate lava and, using Netherrack, it makes more lava than it takes to power it with a Magmatic Engine. I don't really use that method since I have a Nether pump, but it sounds kind of unbalanced at the moment. I guess you have to keep a steady stream of Netherrack going, but it's not like that's hard to find in the Nether... Whereas my current system is zero maintenence...all you have to do is pack it up and move it if you run out of lava (which has happened to me once in a lava lake in the Nether, but I found one about 10x as big so it should be good for awhile now).

 

[Malkuth]

The hostility before anyones really said anything isn't really needed. I think lavas too easy and you don't, I am going to at least for a while avoid jumping into any discussions from this thread and allow more people to put their opinion in. It is just a thread I created because over the past few days a lot of comments have been "but lava from the nether is fine/infinite/makes this or that" as a response to something, and I feel instead of comments about it, why not one single thread to discuss it?

I also already mentioned magma crucibles (the things which make lava from netherrack)

Im not being hostile.. Im just saying.. The mod packs themselves since there are so many of them makes lots of things easy if you know how to mess with them... Ill change it up though.. Sorry.

 

[nevakanezah]

Oh one last thing... Sorry.. If you think your going to stop me from using lava.. As you say easy.. Go ahead get it done..

YOu know why? Next thing I build for maintance free energy.... Forestry Tree Farm..... Logs to any engine that works.... = same thing.. Yeah I might need to double the amount of engines... But oh well thats the fun part.

Wanna nerf that too? Guess what I have 5 other ways of doing it different.

True, a forestry tree farm has about the same set-up cost of a nether lava system, but the important distinction is that a tree farm might require user input (read: humus input, log removal, energy input) maybe once every couple days, less if you automate it somewhat. A lava pipe is something i can set up, and leave alone for more than two weeks without needing to touch it. And i could totally go on about continuing user input as a balancing factor, but i'm having so much difficulty with the fact that you wrote three whole paragraphs without a single comma that the importance of that argument is lost to me now.

Spoiler

Ellipses are not commas... they makes your words... sound much... much... slower...

 

[Malkuth]

I wouldn't say it's resource intensive. All you need are two sets of Liquid Transposer + Filter + Relay, along with Magmatic engines and/or Geothermals to power the Liquid Transposer, along with a BC Pump. Hook it all up to an Ender Chest and you're golden.

At the start of the game, I personally used the Water Mill + Retriever + Filter thing with buckets to generate a lot of free power indefinitely. To me that is almost more unbalanced since it can be almost infinitely expanded for very little cost, and it's zero maintenance.

My guess is that Magmatic Engines are going to get nerfed eventually...I keep hearing that you can use a Magma Crucible to generate lava and, using Netherrack, it makes more lava than it takes to power it with a Magmatic Engine. I don't really use that method since I have a Nether pump, but it sounds kind of unbalanced at the moment. I guess you have to keep a steady stream of Netherrack going, but it's not like that's hard to find in the Nether... Whereas my current system is zero maintenence...all you have to do is pack it up and move it if you run out of lava (which has happened to me once in a lava lake in the Nether, but I found one about 10x as big so it should be good for awhile now).

Thats a popular one too... But I don't think enderchest are all the cheap... They are almost on par with GregTechs version of hard mode. Enderpearls and all that... Don't know about you but I don't get a whole lot of enders from the Men anymore... I have to use Minium stone to get them..[DOUBLEPOST=1357755287][/DOUBLEPOST]

True, a forestry tree farm has about the same set-up cost of a nether lava system, but the important distinction is that a tree farm might require user input (read: humus input, log removal, energy input) maybe once every couple days, less if you automate it somewhat. A lava pipe is something i can set up, and leave alone for more than two weeks without needing to touch it. And i could totally go on about continuing user input as a balancing factor, but i'm having so much difficulty with the fact that you wrote three whole paragraphs without a single comma that the importance of that argument is lost to me now.

Spoiler

Ellipses are not commas... they makes your words... sound much... much... slower...

Nope you can totally automate it.. Well... Maybe not the Humus part... You got me on that one... But You can run the whole system on itself really.. Power the Farm with the power the farm is making...

Actually you can automate the Humus... Redpower Tubes... Automated Table.... Having a sorting system that loads the automated table that builds the humus... That then feeds the Farm...

Really not all the expensive if you think about it... You can do an automation system with redpower tubes, and Factorization Barrels... Easy.

 

[nevakanezah]

Really not all the expensive if you think about it... You can do an automation system with redpower tubes, and Factorization Barrels... Easy.

Indeed; but the automation is moreso a setup cost of the system, neither of which are what i would call "terribly expensive". The difference is that you still eventually need an input of materials (in this case, sand, dirt) rather than the 0 material input needed to sustain a lava pump. In addition, the energetic output of a single forestry farm for the setup and maintenance cost is significantly lower than that value for a lava pump.

All in all, its the difference between keeping energy generation as an up-front concern on most of your projects, or hooking yourself into the pipe network for worry-free power.

 

[raiju]

Just going to add on another question or two for those interested:

Do you feel lava is a go-to resource generator for you or do you generally use others (such as tree farms) more for your early-midgame gameplay? If you do use lava - do you think other generator methods should be made more attractive options?

 

[whythisname]

Personally I think they should leave it alone, generating power from lava isn't the issue. In fact, in the Nether it's the only way to really generate power in an affordable manner.

I think there are 2 issues though, the MJ to EU ratio in lava isn't right I think and the fact you can transport it so easily out of the Nether is also an issue. Though that's one of the main reasons I don't use Ender chests and I don't use Mystcraft either.

I don't hate Ender chests or Mystcraft, but I do think they are cheaty and make the game too easy. Do they need to be changed though? I think not. If you don't like it just disable it, like I do. If you do like it then use it, I really don't care if your Nether pump is more efficient than my Biofuel farm.

As for "infinite free power", pretty much all power in this mod pack is infinite and free. Biofuel? Infinite. Wind power? Infinite. Solar Power? Infinite. Water power? Infinite. Wood/charcoal/peat/any other solid fuel? Infinite. Nuclear power? Pretty sure that's also infinite, or close to it at least. BC fuel? Infinite if you get the right bees.

The issue isn't with the fact a power source is infinite or free, the issue is: at what rate do I get infinite power? and how many resources does that cost me compared to other infinite power sources? For example, Wind and Water power usually isn't considered OP because the issue is that even if they are infinite and free you just need so many of them you're still better off with other setups.
So if they really want to balance it they should either increase the cost of the machines that makes lava power generation possible, or they should simply nerf the energy per tick to the point lava is basically such a slow burning resource that you need lots of generators/engines to get a decent amount of power per tick out of it. Personally I think the last one would be the best option, just nerf lava to a low but very long power generation. That doesn't make it less useful early game, but it will make it less viable for high power applications (like the making of UU).

 

[Malkuth]

Just going to add on another question or two for those interested:

Do you feel lava is a go-to resource generator for you or do you generally use others (such as tree farms) more for your early-midgame gameplay? If you do use lava - do you think other generator methods should be made more attractive options?

Well its hard to set up the system at first cause you have to get to the nether.. You need diamonds.

It much easier to set up a Tree Farm=Biomass fuel early game then the nether for sure... Biomass is how I ran my base for most of the time... I just started upgrading to Magma Engines... And Im pretty late game stuff... Just need to get the lava running non stop and its not as easy as some say.. I have 5 Magma Engines running MJ + 6 Biomass engines for all my MJ.. And TE Energy Cells storing extra power..

I have 20 Thermal Generators running 300+ EU into my IC2 stuff.. Mass fab... Ore Processing etc... All that takes a massive amount of lava.. And the lava I pipe in using Mystcraft portals and railcraft.. .And none of those are easy things to start off with... Railcraft is pretty slow going.. And you need crystals for the Mystcraft portals.. Which is like trying to find diamonds.. only your making ages.. And thats a lot harder.

I don't think the bucket system would keep up to be honest with what I have running.. So I would need more....

 

[Phycoz]

So many ellipsis... not hating, though.

I think it's mostly fine. There are others way to produce a lot of power nearly infinitely, such as right now I have a TE and Forestry with a bit of RP power setup where I have a sugar cane harvester at what it most likely maximum amount of sugar cane it can harvest. All the sugar cane is sent through RP tubes into a fermenter where it gets turned into Biomass.

The Biomass is then put into some Bio engines which powers everything in my base. I'm getting way more biomass than I can use. All I have to do is put in some fertilizer into the fermenter, which isn't very often. I could automate that as well. No need to ever move it either. There's always a steady supply of sugar cane coming in. Two harvesters would be amazing.

There are other ways as well, but lava seems to be one of the most popular.

 

[nevakanezah]

IMO, you can basically balance out lava production in one step:

When you unload lava in a transposer, you lose the cell/can/bucket.

Lava in vanilla is the highest power fuel source, but using it consistently gets expensive. For the rate of return, i'd figure losing the container applies well here, also.