Is there an objectively best power source?

[Shakie666]

You know, all they have to do for mid-tier eu production is buff nuclear reactors (something they should do anyway). Uranium isn't particularly rare, and with a silk-touch pick & a breeder you can get 16 uranium cells per ore. Or, with GT you can thorium super-easily with an industrial grinder - each coal ore gives 1 tiny pile of thorium dust. Reactors aren't even that hard to set up. They just need to give more power

 

[Poppycocks]

You know, all they have to do for mid-tier eu production is buff nuclear reactors (something they should do anyway). Uranium isn't particularly rare, and with a silk-touch pick & a breeder you can get 16 uranium cells per ore. Or, with GT you can thorium super-easily with an industrial grinder - each coal ore gives 1 tiny pile of thorium dust. Reactors aren't even that hard to set up. They just need to give more power

I completely agree with this. But to be honest, I'd pop nuclear to high tier as fussion is at elite imo. For a nice smooth progression. I'd probably rework nuclear completely and buff it to 1k with fairly simple setups(although way more complicated that it is at the moment - radioactive water, several cooling circuits - that kinda stuff). I'd make uranium much much rarer, the refining process way more complicated but cell life much much longer.

 

[Shakie666]

I completely agree with this. But to be honest, I'd pop nuclear to high tier as fussion is at elite imo. For a nice smooth progression. I'd probably rework nuclear completely and buff it to 1k with fairly simple setups(although way more complicated that it is at the moment - radioactive water, several cooling circuits - that kinda stuff). I'd make uranium much much rarer, the refining process way more complicated but cell life much much longer.

You know, this might be necessary now that fusion has gone from elite-tier to super-ultra-mega-elite-tier with the latest version of GT. Its a shame greg doesn't work on core IC2, this seems like the kind of thing he'd do.

 

[GPuzzle]

I've actually found out that IC2 mid-tier production comes from interconnecting mods or making several generators to produce powers. For example, a default generator and a bunch of water mills connected to a MFE might not be the gretatest idea, but connect it to an automated system with Thaumcraft and RedPower 2 to produce mass Alumentum and automatically give the equivalent of 4 charcoal by 3 charcoal and 3 cobblestone. Combine this with the fact that they are renewable and you got mass production.
Anyway, mid-tier IC2/GregTech energy production bases itself in inovation and creativity. That's why I love it.

 

[Poppycocks]

I've actually found out that IC2 mid-tier production comes from interconnecting mods or making several generators to produce powers. For example, a default generator and a bunch of water mills connected to a MFE might not be the gretatest idea, but connect it to an automated system with Thaumcraft and RedPower 2 to produce mass Alumentum and automatically give the equivalent of 4 charcoal by 3 charcoal and 3 cobblestone. Combine this with the fact that they are renewable and you got mass production.
Anyway, mid-tier IC2/GregTech energy production bases itself in inovation and creativity. That's why I love it.

I do not really like spamming hundredths of 10eu/t generators and calling it mid tier. I like what you say mid tier should be, but I don't think that what you said it is should be it.

For example, (and I've said this before) nitro-diesel is a rather hard to make fuel which absolutely requires several different mods to interact. I like that a lot and I would really welcome a 128 eu/t generator using that or something similar.

 

[Quesenek]

Pretty much this.

The beautiful thing about Minecraft is you can ALWAYS build more. Sure, it'll take more time and effort to fuel a base off of a less efficient fuel source, but I guarantee you'll feel more accomplished for it.

This is pretty much why I rather run my bases off of diesel generators or nuclear reactors for EU (or even simple generators depending on if I want it to be really cool lmao) then a bank of solar panels. Sure solar panels take a ton of resources that take a lot of time to make to get the solar panels but free power is boring. I would much rather take the time to figure out how I'm going to incorporate a SC tree farm into the equation to make charcoal to fuel a part of the fuel making process, but that's just me. I love to make things look super complicated with tons of wires and pipes and machines going every which way.

 

[Chocorate]

Why fusion reactors? You're harnessing the same kind of energy generation that the frakking sun uses to power your stuff. It doesn't get much more awesome than that.

I use solar panels. I'm using the sun's power. :3

 

[KirinDave]

I do not really like spamming hundredths of 10eu/t generators and calling it mid tier. I like what you say mid tier should be, but I don't think that what you said it is should be it.

For example, (and I've said this before) nitro-diesel is a rather hard to make fuel which absolutely requires several different mods to interact. I like that a lot and I would really welcome a 128 eu/t generator using that or something similar.

Yeah I agree with you that it sucks that mid-tier is just "a lot more low tier." Sadly, this seems very much by-design in IC2 and GT. It's bizarre to me that Thermal generators are like, the best generators despite everyone in the world having ways to slurp lava from the nether. It's almost like Greg hates fuel and likes lava. It's weird. And the IC2 design is... positively ancient and feels very cramped compared to the steam ecosystem we're seeing.

I know some power loops exist with PowerConverters, but generating EU from the entire universe of power generation makes mid-tier EU gen feel a lot more flexible and fun than, you know, just having a lot of thermals.

 

[Exadi]

It's bizarre to me that Thermal generators are like, the best generators despite everyone in the world having ways to slurp lava from the nether. It's almost like Greg hates fuel and likes lava. It's weird.

This. It makes no sense that he chose to upgrade something that is already low effort, high reward when pretty much every other method of EU generation he introduces is high effort, low reward. I wanted to like Nitro-Coalfuel at one point, but when Biofuel has 75% more heat, is much easier to make and 100% renewable, even someone who really wants to try something different could be put off.

 

[Chocorate]

This. It makes no sense that he chose to upgrade something that is already low effort, high reward when pretty much every other method of EU generation he introduces is high effort, low reward. I wanted to like Nitro-Coalfuel at one point, but when Biofuel has 75% more heat, is much easier to make and 100% renewable, even someone who really wants to try something different could be put off.

Maybe we could have a generator that uses different fuels to augment your main source. So using nitro-coalfuel or biofuel by themselves would only give you ____ amount of power, but when you put them both in the generator, it'd give you much more. Perhaps something could be done to encourage the use of natural energy like solars/wind/water as an augment rather than a straight fuel source.

 

[KirinDave]

This. It makes no sense that he chose to upgrade something that is already low effort, high reward when pretty much every other method of EU generation he introduces is high effort, low reward. I wanted to like Nitro-Coalfuel at one point, but when Biofuel has 75% more heat, is much easier to make and 100% renewable, even someone who really wants to try something different could be put off.

I am actually pretty turned off on GT because of this problem and the addition of a lot of machines who's sole current purpose seems to be to slow building down by virtue of machine timers. Circuit Assembler, I'm looking at you. Greg was on such a roll for awhile, but now it seems like he may have lost his way.

From a game-design perspective, the only thing that stops IC2+GT from being steamrolled by Universal Electricity these days is that UE's only real endgame is blowing stuff up (or making a huge forcefield to stop having your missiles blown up before they can launch), whereas Greg has lots of neat high-cost parts that you can use to build custom stuff RP2-style. MineChem and Galacticraft may change this story soon; both are really cool mods with very interesting endgame possibilities.

I'm hoping that GT has some sort of cool tricks planned as soon as the dust from 1.5* transitions settle, because its high-end power generation is nowhere near as fun as Railcraft-family powergen or UE's amazing multiblock generators, and power generation is a big focus for GT.

 

[Exadi]

Maybe we could have a generator that uses different fuels to augment your main source. So using nitro-coalfuel or biofuel by themselves would only give you ____ amount of power, but when you put them both in the generator, it'd give you much more. Perhaps something could be done to encourage the use of natural energy like solars/wind/water as an augment rather than a straight fuel source.

Something like the MFR bioreactor, where each different liquid fuel you put in adds efficiency? Would be cool, but probably not underpowered enough for Greg.

I am actually pretty turned off on GT because of this problem and the addition of a lot of machines who's sole current purpose seems to be to slow building down by virtue of machine timers. Circuit Assembler, I'm looking at you. Greg was on such a roll for awhile, but now it seems like he may have lost his way.

Oh man, that thing. I actually like GregTech (enough to have made 3 fusion reactors in the server I used to play), aside from most of his EU generation being awful, but I am dreading those updates. Seriously, who wants to wait 80 seconds to use a more efficient circuit recipe?

 

[Zjarek_S]

Yeah I agree with you that it sucks that mid-tier is just "a lot more low tier." Sadly, this seems very much by-design in IC2 and GT. It's bizarre to me that Thermal generators are like, the best generators despite everyone in the world having ways to slurp lava from the nether. It's almost like Greg hates fuel and likes lava. It's weird. And the IC2 design is... positively ancient and feels very cramped compared to the steam ecosystem we're seeing.

Well, thermal generator are almost identical to geothermal powered by IC2 pump and you can just dispense bucket of lava under it or RP2 pump it. Thermal is just less laggy. Lava is just very powerful as a furnace fuel and easy to get from the nether, IC2 disables it as a generator fuel. I think that good balance of lava energy is in Buildcraft. You can use it and get full energy value in stirling/combustion engine, but you need a lot more engines than using fuel which makes oil a lot more viable option. IMO the biggest problem with IC2 is mass/matter fabricator, which changes energy production from good addition making useful things run to main focus in gameplay.

 

[Chocorate]

Something like the MFR bioreactor, where each different liquid fuel you put in adds efficiency? Would be cool, but probably not underpowered enough for Greg.

So you could put in some lava as well as coal, and having a steady constant supply of both of them would produce more energy than coal by itself or lava by itself, combined. The drawback would be constantly needing both fuel sources. Lava would be easy to pump, but the coal would have to be mined.

 

[ApSciLiara]

I would say that something similar to Project Arcturus (basically an attempt to extract zero-point energy from our own spacetime instead of an artificial one like ZPMs do) from Stargate Atlantis, but that's more a post-fusion power source than something mid-game. Still a cool idea, though.

 

[Uristqwerty]

Oh man, that thing. I actually like GregTech (enough to have made 3 fusion reactors in the server I used to play), aside from most of his EU generation being awful, but I am dreading those updates. Seriously, who wants to wait 80 seconds to use a more efficient circuit recipe?

40 seconds (800 ticks; 20 ticks/second; 1 EU/t)

And there are also overclocker upgrades for machines now (right click machine with it, machine is permanently upgraded) which double the speed of the machine, and quadruple the EU cost.

So...
0 overclockers -> 1 EU/t; 800 EU total; 40 seconds
1 overclockers -> 2 EU/t; 1600 EU total; 20 seconds
2 overclockers -> 4 EU/t; 3200 EU total; 10 seconds
3 overclockers -> 8 EU/t; 6400 EU total; 5 seconds
4 overclockers -> 16 EU/t; 12800 EU total; 2.5 seconds
5 overclockers -> not possible (max is 4).

Later on, you would probably just toss a stack of materials in and leave it to produce extra circuits for the next time you need them, or, if you have an automatic crafting system that can handle it, set it up to keep a buffer of finished circuits so that any crafting finishes immediately.

 

[KirinDave]

40 seconds (800 ticks; 20 ticks/second; 1 EU/t)

And there are also overclocker upgrades for machines now (right click machine with it, machine is permanently upgraded) which double the speed of the machine, and quadruple the EU cost.

So...
0 overclockers -> 1 EU/t; 800 EU total; 40 seconds
1 overclockers -> 2 EU/t; 1600 EU total; 20 seconds
2 overclockers -> 4 EU/t; 3200 EU total; 10 seconds
3 overclockers -> 8 EU/t; 6400 EU total; 5 seconds
4 overclockers -> 16 EU/t; 12800 EU total; 2.5 seconds
5 overclockers -> not possible (max is 4).

Later on, you would probably just toss a stack of materials in and leave it to produce extra circuits for the next time you need them, or, if you have an automatic crafting system that can handle it, set it up to keep a buffer of finished circuits so that any crafting finishes immediately.

I feel like these numbers do not line up with the words you used above them. One's gotta be wrong. Did you say "quadruple" and mean "double?" or did you say 1600EU and mean 3200EU?

 

[Exadi]

I don't know where you're getting those numbers; NEI states 80 seconds and 1600 EU for 1 Electronic Circuit, 80 seconds and 3200 EU for 1 advanced, and I don't see anything in the changelog for the 1.5.1 versions to suggest it got better. Also, the recipes it replaces gave 2 circuits, so even if your numbers were correct for 1 circuit it would be 80 seconds to get both of them, plus 40 seconds to get the 2 circuit boards (I guess that's where you got 40 seconds from but that's only step 1, which I forgot about in my other post), plus a little bit of time making plates.

EDIT: What used to be a simple crafting table recipe has been replaced with...

2 Electrum Plate = 2000 EU and 4 seconds (Plate Bending Machine)
1 Refined Iron Plate = 1000 EU and 2 seconds (Plate Bending Machine)
2 Basic Circuit Board = 800 EU and 40 seconds (Assembling Machine)
2 Electronic Circuit = 3200 EU and 160 seconds (Assembling Machine)
Total: 7000 EU and 206 seconds, requiring 2 different machines.

 

[KirinDave]

You know, all they have to do for mid-tier eu production is buff nuclear reactors (something they should do anyway). Uranium isn't particularly rare, and with a silk-touch pick & a breeder you can get 16 uranium cells per ore. Or, with GT you can thorium super-easily with an industrial grinder - each coal ore gives 1 tiny pile of thorium dust. Reactors aren't even that hard to set up. They just need to give more power

On this, we did this on AdvancingCraft and I have only ever run tiny thorium reactors. Mainly because automating them is extremely difficult right now without going hard into computercraft. Supposedly the GT regulator can do it, but I could never get that machine to do anything. It was even less useful than the RP2 regulator was for me.

 

[Peppe]

On this, we did this on AdvancingCraft and I have only ever run tiny thorium reactors. Mainly because automating them is extremely difficult right now without going hard into computercraft. Supposedly the GT regulator can do it, but I could never get that machine to do anything. It was even less useful than the RP2 regulator was for me.

Only weird thing i found on managing reactors at the slot level was the slots are numbered based on the full 6 chambers, so even with 0 chambers the first slot in the second row is 9.

Advanced regulator is just a buffer inventory on the left. Then in the middle grid you put up to 9 ghost items. In the right grid you select the slot that the item in the middle grid should get placed in. Compared to the rest of gregtech's machines the regulator is pretty straight forward.