Let's talk about IC2
- Thread starter ShneekeyTheLost
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Oops. My apologies, I don't like spouting false information. Glad its addressed.
Choco, where's the best changelog? I went to http://wiki.industrial-craft.net/index.php?title=Updates but I don't see anything in there about changes to wrenches.
Celestialphoenix
Too Much Free Time
It may have been a design limitation given what modding involved all those years ago. Adding a bunch of buggered blocks will take up more block IDs, and would be a far more complex system to implement.
even though many would consider it a more interesting mechanic it may not have been viable. (though some may argue that collecting the damage unit and then replacing is more work then just replacing).
Personally I like the idea of different damage levels depending on how badly one screws up;
going a few volts over for a short length of time- just replace a circuit board/fuse. (right click with correct component(, get damaged one back??))
run way too much power through- may need some new parts [motor], this'll need picking up and recrafting- but all of the metal can be reclaimed.
did something stupid- explodes/destructively melts. Awesomely fun to play with in test worlds.
run way too much power through- may need some new parts [motor], this'll need picking up and recrafting- but all of the metal can be reclaimed.
did something stupid- explodes/destructively melts. Awesomely fun to play with in test worlds.
Actually, what I'd like to see happen is if a machine gets too much energy, it reverts to a machine block which can then be picked up and re-crafted into an actual machine.
just want to comment on this issue:
probably the time I got into mods was when forge was in its early states and Modloader reigns the mod market.(got into MC at 1.8.1 beta) fun times... and one if the mods I played is IC2. Kinda sad that they removed the explosion feature and the worst thing is thry removed the (reinforeced?) iron ingot that is made when smelting iron again... One of the most favourite features at that time is the overclockers and transfroer upgrades.
(ps there is always IC2 Classic and uncomplication mod for it.)
To wrap up... after 1.0 dropped, I kinda miss mc when it is at it's golden days of 1.8.1 beta.. and probably the mods that went with it.
Sent from a phone running tapatalk OS
probably the time I got into mods was when forge was in its early states and Modloader reigns the mod market.(got into MC at 1.8.1 beta) fun times... and one if the mods I played is IC2. Kinda sad that they removed the explosion feature and the worst thing is thry removed the (reinforeced?) iron ingot that is made when smelting iron again... One of the most favourite features at that time is the overclockers and transfroer upgrades.
(ps there is always IC2 Classic and uncomplication mod for it.)
To wrap up... after 1.0 dropped, I kinda miss mc when it is at it's golden days of 1.8.1 beta.. and probably the mods that went with it.
Sent from a phone running tapatalk OS
I think I'd have just made it a slightly more expensive wrench. Say four bronze and two refined iron/steel. Either way, I guess it's good that it's gone, but I'm glad it's still a config option.
Your plain and simple obfuscates things.
Not all elements of ic2-exp are bad. Not all elements of IC2 were good.
Not all elements of ic2-exp are bad. Not all elements of IC2 were good.
The changes there are just the Jenkins ones expanded and explained if necessary, so if there's missing versions going to the Jenkins changes is the best place. I've added a bunch of recent ones into it now.
I went and checked, I've been playing MC since (at least) early 2012 (I have a backup minecraft folder dated late January 2012). I played vanilla for a while, then played with Buildcraft and IC2. As the OP said, they were the first sort of mods that existed.
I would say that mods are the reason why I continue to play MC. It's a bit of a goto game for me. Every now and again, I will get into it and play it, and then one day be bored and I won't touch it for months.
I think that it was Jadedcat that put it best with the later versions of IC2, it just became tedium. It was hard to automate certain tasks so there was a lot of building to get anywhere. Plus the wrenching (which as per earlier posts, has now been fixed).
I think that the OPs point about the hammer/cutters was a good one. I personally prefer the Mariculture way (I've only used it in Regrowth), the hammer/anvil has good durability, but you put a block of aluminium and get 8 plates, so the resource loss is to do with the input vs output rather than the hammer. I know that the rolling machine for the wire cutting does give an advantage, but I found it annoying as I would end up with iron wires or something as I forgot to change the mode.
I think that it was a pioneering mod, but I'm not a huge fan of the direction that it's taken, the idea behind the "make it a huge resource sink, but we'll give you all of these ways to get more resources" feels a bit pointless. It's no different to a game where say a house costs $5, but your yearly income is only $1, the economic scale is no different than if you multiplied each number by 100,000. They're giving you a way to get extra resources, but what one hand givethes, the other takesth away.
I would say that mods are the reason why I continue to play MC. It's a bit of a goto game for me. Every now and again, I will get into it and play it, and then one day be bored and I won't touch it for months.
I think that it was Jadedcat that put it best with the later versions of IC2, it just became tedium. It was hard to automate certain tasks so there was a lot of building to get anywhere. Plus the wrenching (which as per earlier posts, has now been fixed).
I think that the OPs point about the hammer/cutters was a good one. I personally prefer the Mariculture way (I've only used it in Regrowth), the hammer/anvil has good durability, but you put a block of aluminium and get 8 plates, so the resource loss is to do with the input vs output rather than the hammer. I know that the rolling machine for the wire cutting does give an advantage, but I found it annoying as I would end up with iron wires or something as I forgot to change the mode.
I think that it was a pioneering mod, but I'm not a huge fan of the direction that it's taken, the idea behind the "make it a huge resource sink, but we'll give you all of these ways to get more resources" feels a bit pointless. It's no different to a game where say a house costs $5, but your yearly income is only $1, the economic scale is no different than if you multiplied each number by 100,000. They're giving you a way to get extra resources, but what one hand givethes, the other takesth away.
I created a base in a Direwolf20 for 1.7.20 based map, that was 100% IC2exp based.
Other than the annoying wrench thing - which really just served to force me to make a batbox and machines to make a powered wrench a bit sooner than I otherwise might have I think the biggest drawback that modern IC2exp faces is the tools and armor. In a pure vanilla game they might be appreciated, but in modern modded minecraft they are so far behind other mods tools in capabilities that even if you push through and eventually make them they are still not worth using.
The chainsaw needs to work like axe of the stream / tree capitator / TiC Lumber axe and cut trees down.
The mining drill needs to have a silk touch option - and both silk touch and fortune need to be available pre-iridium mass production. A 3x3 mode would be nice. As well as speed upgrades - although a basic understanding of other mod blocks so it didn't slow down every time it encountered non vanilla stone would help a lot.
nano armor offers very poor protection and is unenchantable, the nanosword is nice, but without the ability to put some kind of looting on it, I never gave it any use.
The pump is very unobvious to use - having to dig underneath a lava lake to place it makes it somewhat triksy.
The mining devices are a pain - the basic miner has a slot for a power cell, but only accepts a small power cell, sufficient to perform 1 operation so thats entirely useless - a power device of some kind HAS to be placed adjacent (and a pump to clear lava), and the advanced miner - ah - the advanced miner I actually like - I used it to make some very large holes and think this thing doesn't get nearly enough love in Lets Plays. It needs a pump attachment however or some way to automagically clear liquids otherwise it leaves chaos behind. And it is distressingly slow compared to every other mods quarry / automated miner. It is, in fact, slower than just getting in there and mining yourself.
Really, the weirdest thing about the mod is the lack of a proper "item" mover (acknowledging the item router) and no water pipe at all despite *needing* water. This means that IC2 very much requires other mods that do supply things like item and water pipes - but every mod that does offer these things ALSO offers a different power system and/or easier to use machines that out-perform the IC2 ones. This just adds to the general feeling of disjointedness when using the mod.
PPS. I also don't understand watermills. I tried to use them as a early game power source and they are so out performed by a simple electric furnace or magmatic generator (do I have the right name for these) that I kept my set of pools with watermills for aesthetic purposes more than anything. If anything they server as an example of how passive flowers could have been implemented in botania such that no one would use them anyway.
Other than the annoying wrench thing - which really just served to force me to make a batbox and machines to make a powered wrench a bit sooner than I otherwise might have I think the biggest drawback that modern IC2exp faces is the tools and armor. In a pure vanilla game they might be appreciated, but in modern modded minecraft they are so far behind other mods tools in capabilities that even if you push through and eventually make them they are still not worth using.
The chainsaw needs to work like axe of the stream / tree capitator / TiC Lumber axe and cut trees down.
The mining drill needs to have a silk touch option - and both silk touch and fortune need to be available pre-iridium mass production. A 3x3 mode would be nice. As well as speed upgrades - although a basic understanding of other mod blocks so it didn't slow down every time it encountered non vanilla stone would help a lot.
nano armor offers very poor protection and is unenchantable, the nanosword is nice, but without the ability to put some kind of looting on it, I never gave it any use.
The pump is very unobvious to use - having to dig underneath a lava lake to place it makes it somewhat triksy.
The mining devices are a pain - the basic miner has a slot for a power cell, but only accepts a small power cell, sufficient to perform 1 operation so thats entirely useless - a power device of some kind HAS to be placed adjacent (and a pump to clear lava), and the advanced miner - ah - the advanced miner I actually like - I used it to make some very large holes and think this thing doesn't get nearly enough love in Lets Plays. It needs a pump attachment however or some way to automagically clear liquids otherwise it leaves chaos behind. And it is distressingly slow compared to every other mods quarry / automated miner. It is, in fact, slower than just getting in there and mining yourself.
Really, the weirdest thing about the mod is the lack of a proper "item" mover (acknowledging the item router) and no water pipe at all despite *needing* water. This means that IC2 very much requires other mods that do supply things like item and water pipes - but every mod that does offer these things ALSO offers a different power system and/or easier to use machines that out-perform the IC2 ones. This just adds to the general feeling of disjointedness when using the mod.
PPS. I also don't understand watermills. I tried to use them as a early game power source and they are so out performed by a simple electric furnace or magmatic generator (do I have the right name for these) that I kept my set of pools with watermills for aesthetic purposes more than anything. If anything they server as an example of how passive flowers could have been implemented in botania such that no one would use them anyway.
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A minor thing, but the only 2 major mods I know (mekanism & Rotarycraft) that provide x5 require an absolutely colossal amount of material for their endgame stuff. This is only really an issue here is the cross mod interaction, but I feel that could be alleviated if both methods of x3 are a little more effort to setup.
Oh no, I am not saying that IC2 was the best mod ever with no fault, and IC2-exp is the spawn of satan.
However, what I am saying is IC2 had nothing inherently wrong with it, just that it was losing popularity as it was reluctant in its move in unification (will talk about this later). And I personally feel everything added in each iteration of IC2 exp made it worse and worse.
I thoroughly enjoyed Gregtech as an addon for IC2, in 1.4. It overhauled IC2's difficulty, but didn't mess with any other mods (which is why I don't like the newer versions). However, even in the early days of IC2-exp (which really needs to be IC3, as it is nothing like IC2 was) I could see it leaning more towards the difficulty levels of Gregtech over the original IC2. Now, I know it is nowhere near as hard as GT, even back in 1.4 when GT wasn't too hard compared to today's releases, however its difficulty and tedium levels are a lot higher than IC2 ever was, or I ever wished it would go.
As for the unification. As of 1.6 it was obvious that IC2 was only being kept alive via modpacks that force its usage, and people who actually like the mod more than the RF equivalents. The problem with IC2 was, as soon as RF started to rise to power, that EU wasn't compatible. Buildcraft/Railcraft/Forestry all took a hit to popularity as they used MJ, but were still widely used due to MJ being compatible with RF, meaning people could power all of their machines, apart from IC2 (when looking at the "big mods"; not mods that were generally excluded from packs such as Reika's mods) from their RF generators. Not to mention RF generators were plentiful. IC2 was quite limiting in how you could produce your power, whereas RF could be water or wind, sun or heat, and as 1.6 became more stable (about 1 year before FTB released unstable for 1.7) you could even have reactors, potions, PINK STUFF, and more powering your generators. So even if IC2 had the better machines, which from a user point of view, the only good one was the induction furnace - and equivalent with the IC2 addons, as they were faster than the RF equivalents.
Then we come to 1.7, EnderIO and even Thermal Expansion both big players in the RF field, had ways to make all of your machines faster if you were willing to put in the effort to upgrade your machines (with EnderIO being the easier, and obvious choice, for most people), it meant that not even the high speed machines were exclusive to EU any more.
And the kicker for IC2 which means it is showing its age, and reluctance to make itself popular is the cables. As a lot of people already mentioned, they LIKED the fact that the cables blew up (or fizzled away would be better), etc. And they removed that, but they didn't thing to add in facades or multipart support. As someone who doesn't give a damn about looks, this wouldn't sway me, however there are people who make amazing builds, and covering cables is a necessity, and you can't really do that with IC2 without having a 3 thick wall (or having panels which look off).
Oh, and for the people who say there's no alternative to the drill in an RF mod, the draconic evolution huge pickaxe thingy works just like that, but works with wood and mobs too? (I dunno, I don't use DE).
The biggest issue with IC2, in terms of being a popular mod, is it doesn't cater to what the average user wants - less resources needed to use the mod, less time/effort for the user, easier than alternatives. And IC2 is going in the opposite direction; it takes more time and effort than ever before, it uses more resources with no apparent reason why, and it is a lot harder than any of the RF alternatives.
However, I understand there are people who like hard, and/or just like IC2, however, I feel it should go the way of Fz and stop being included in main FTB packs, as it isn't used by many people unless it is being forced unwantedly (such as in infinity: expert mode)
Watermills went through several iterations. Back in the day, you could pipe buckets of water into them and it would generate better power. So you set up an RP2 automation system of pulling empty buckets and providing full buckets to them. Then that was stopped, and they would produce passive EU based on the water blocks around them. This was useful because you could run Tin wiring, which had low max packet but very low loss (1 per 40 or 50 blocks, IIRC), so you could create quite a large water tower to passively generate power. IC2-ex killed this.
Also, the ratios are approximately the same ratios that the passive flowers in Botania use. Daybloom/Nightshade are effectively the watermills compared to the generator that the endoflame is. But without access to the actual numbers, people didn't seem to understand this.
Another drill equivalents are: RF Drills, Super Multi Drills, the IE Drill, the Ender IO Dark Pick.
I played with IC2exp in direwolf20 for 1.7.10 and, other than the "Broken" pump actually working, once you understood it needed to go *under* the liquid it needed to pump was the fact that IC2 cables can be covered. Sure - its not multipart support, but cables can be sprayed with construction foam which hardens around them into standard CF wall blocks - which can at least be painted for small variety.
There's a config to increase the tier limit if you'd rather use it with bigger batteries.
But can be overclocked so that people with more power can run it faster, but those that don't won't have to suffer.
There's item ejector and importer upgrades, as well as fluid counter parts. There is always the fluid regulator and fluid distributor if you want to move fluid around, or split/merge flows. It can move up to a bucket per tick too.
The old single block watermills were removed months ago and replaced with the Kinetic Water Generator, which outputs substantially more power than both a generator and a geothermal generator.
You can use it facing the side of a pool too
Using a CF Sprayer and an Obscurator you can paint IC2 cables to look pretty much like every block in the game, providing they don't use a custom renderer, which is in many ways nicer as you don't have to keep cutting up blocks or painting them.
Why should it have to? If you bend over backwards to match what someone else wants it becomes a chore to do rather than fun.
Factorization was excluded because it's license changed to be much more restrictive so the FTB couldn't include it, there was nothing to do with popularity, or lack of, that meant it was removed.