Mechanics discussion: all about the grind

[epidemia78]

I actually kinda like manual mining as well, not only is it relaxing but it is also a good way to break up the monotony of standing around your base waiting for things to cook or crafting. I say "kinda" because it turns into a monotonous grind when looking specifically for rare ores such as gold and diamonds. I dont really care too much for quarries because you end up with more stuff than you could ever need which devalues the materials, makes extra ore processing mechanics unnecessary and overall feels like cheating, might as well just play in creative mode.

This is one of those situations where modtweaker is a total godsend. Instead of being forced to make a quarry, I made a thaumcraft crucible recipe to turn lead into gold and coal blocks into diamonds using praecantitio (netherwort) and lucrum (silver). Its an absolute guarantee that I can find silver, lead and coal in a matter of minutes so it makes mining rewarding and fun again. That it requires a steady stream of two specific types of essentia also encourages me to set up automated systems to extract it. That is the kind of automation that I like, the sort that takes place in your base where you can see it and not some machine somewhere far away eating up land and causing lag.

 

[Cptqrk]

Anyone got a good set up that they can show/explain a good way to keep esentia flowing into crystallizers? For now I'm just plunking jars under them and using a hopperhock to collect


Sent from my igloo using Canadian Goose Mesenger

 

[epidemia78]

Anyone got a good set up that they can show/explain a good way to keep esentia flowing into crystallizers? For now I'm just plunking jars under them and using a hopperhock to collect


Sent from my igloo using Canadian Goose Mesenger

Label your alembics and have them pipe directly into the crystalizers.

 

[KingTriaxx]

I enjoy manual mining, but at the same time, I also like quarries, because I actually can't automate manual mining. But run a train out to a quarry? That's fun. Setup the tracks manually, or work out how to make it occur automatically? That's a fun grind. Automatic loading and unloading? Complicated fun. Setting it up so I can run multiple trains on the same line and not have them destroy each other? Tons of fun. (And some frustration, but there's no fun without frustration.)

 

[Cptqrk]

Label your alembics and have them pipe directly into the crystalizers.

That would work for low load esentia, or if you are only breaking down one thing multiple times, but not quite what I'm looking for


Sent from my igloo using Canadian Goose Mesenger

 

[epidemia78]

That would work for low load esentia, or if you are only breaking down one thing multiple times, but not quite what I'm looking for


Sent from my igloo using Canadian Goose Mesenger

Maybe look into thaumic energistics?

 

[RedBoss]

Steve's Carts is actually the best example of the worse parts of the grind focused on in this post.

It has tiers just for the sake of "balance." In 1.4.7 SC eclipsed every other form of mod farming. Lower tier carts are now faster to make bit require maintenance. Top tier carts with just fuel requirements (unless solar) require no tool maintenance. The trade off is ridiculous material costs and time costs.

So the material grind. The Galgadorian drill requires diamonds, nested crafting materials that are wasteful, and odd things like that tears. In 1.5, I tried to make the top cart and just quit after an hour in the nether hunting ghasts. What the hell do ghast tears have to do with farming trees? Not only was I wasting time grinding mob drops, my immersion was broken.

Let's say you have the materials, it takes HOURS to bake a top tier cart. Sure you can go lower tier, but I don't like maintenance grinding. I'll just play vanilla if I want to mind the shop. And since I have work, family, and household duties, I just wanna play my game. Spending time and materials so that I can wait for my tree farming cart so that I can wait for it to farm trees is an unrewarding investment.

Time waiting, time gathering materials, crafting table time for nested materials. Steve's Carts is a great mod that has been needed into grind hell. Every other farming and mining method is easier and faster to setup. A noob can go from not knowing how vanilla works to automating a Forestry farm in less time than you'd craft the blades for a Galgadorian tool.

Grinding as a nerf balance point destroyed the fun of that mod.

 

[KingTriaxx]

Fair enough, except... Galgadorian was always there as a top tier indestructible option, but only for Mining Drills. It's meant to be difficult to get. I agree, I don't entirely approve of the changes, but then again, it's in far fewer packs now. But I don't always use it just for the attachments. One thing I use it for, is as a solar powered locomotive. It links up with other carts with Railcraft's Crowbar, and being solar powered, it can run continually without any further input on my part. Or they can be packed full of storage and move enormous quantities of goods along the rails. Even the basic iron cart can have a lot of internal storage strapped in. Whether it runs under it's own power, or gets towed by a locomotive, I can carry massive quantities of anything I might want to build anywhere I might want to build it.

Or I can make it a personal train car. Instead of having to use a Railcraft locomotive and minecart, I can carry it around in my inventory and run around the rail lines doing maintenance on any station I want. (The only downside being that it can't trip switch tracks.) It's surprisingly fast as well.

 

[Azzanine]

To clarify my previous point id rather use Forestry OVER just Steve's Carts for wood. In a large scale pack I lean to the staple MFR choice.

That's not to say forestry farms are bad, I mean in Infinity Expert mode it's the way to go as MFR and EIO is gated behind a lot of nonsense. Also that fertilizer lasts longer than I remember it.
I am just human, if I can I will achieve a goal no matter how trite in the path of least resistance every time. Even if say I challenged myself to not use EIO or MFR I'd still take the easiest path to goals.

Funny thing is I would make gadorian Steve's carts stuff if the recipy wasn't so bloody nested. Also if I didn't have to wait actual days. When modders make decisions like that I kind of think they do it purposely because they want to be less popular.

Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk

 

[splashblue]

I actually like hand mining, even straight line mining. Its not a mental challenge, but its oddly stress relieving.

And while something like a Cart assembler doesn't need to be watched, it is a butt load of boredom when I logged in to build a damned tree farm and now I have hours of wait time before I can use the item to build said tree farm. Time gates where you CAN do something else are fine, as long as doing something else is what you want to do. In that time, I usually consider the myriad other options to achieve the same goal and the time sink mod becomes useless in my pack. a severe and non engaging time gates leads me to consider dropping the mod in question instead of using it.

Give those carts a chance, I finished my tree farm setup yesterday and it works really well. With a solar module it's even independent from the rest of your power setup and just runs in the background.
However, I must admit I almost forgot to set it up... When the cart assembler had finished I was completely into other tasks

EDIT: Just noticed the forum didn't show me a few posts in between... dang. Have to catch up.

 

[KingTriaxx]

Forum does that sometimes.

I'm with you Azzanine, I get lazy myself sometimes. Or worse, I build myself into a corner, where the easy way is the only option. I built a very compact setup with Itemducts in Monster, and then found there was no way to get the fluid out where It could be carried on a train. So I plopped down a pair of Ender Tanks. It was the path of least resistance. I could have eventually worked it out so a tank cart could have done it but I was lazy. Of course when I finally upgraded to EIO conduits, it was even more compact, but that was more needing higher throughput than because they're easier to work with. I tend to want to prove it's possible to do it the hard way, then go easy.

The time to assemble a Galgadorian Wood Cutter is now down to a mere 3 hours. Two New Era upgrades will cut that to just under an hour. Of course those require efficiency V books. Yeah, no.

 

[RealKC]

Forum does that sometimes.

I'm with you Azzanine, I get lazy myself sometimes. Or worse, I build myself into a corner, where the easy way is the only option. I built a very compact setup with Itemducts in Monster, and then found there was no way to get the fluid out where It could be carried on a train. So I plopped down a pair of Ender Tanks. It was the path of least resistance. I could have eventually worked it out so a tank cart could have done it but I was lazy. Of course when I finally upgraded to EIO conduits, it was even more compact, but that was more needing higher throughput than because they're easier to work with. I tend to want to prove it's possible to do it the hard way, then go easy.

The time to assemble a Galgadorian Wood Cutter is now down to a mere 3 hours. Two New Era upgrades will cut that to just under an hour. Of course those require efficiency V books. Yeah, no.

And this is when Enchanting+ isn't that OP

 

[RedBoss]

Give those carts a chance, I finished my tree farm setup yesterday and it works really well. With a solar module it's even independent from the rest of your power setup and just runs in the background.
However, I must admit I almost forgot to set it up... When the cart assembler had finished I was completely into other tasks

EDIT: Just noticed the forum didn't show me a few posts in between... dang. Have to catch up.

I know how good it is. I loved it in 1.4.7. The nerf hammer after that turned me off though.

 

[Tylor]

Manual mining with Thaumcraft tools is fun. You have Pickaxe of the Core and Portable Hole for finding stuff, Equal Trade focus for vein mining, several options for moving around and just digging faster etc.

I wish more mods were concentrating on providing useful/wearable gear instead of automation.

 

[RealKC]

Thaumcraft 4 and it's addons can do most of what tech mods can do and what TC4 and it's addons can't can be done by Blood Magic and Botania. Speaking of Botania, mining with a max rank Terra Shaterer is fun too.

 

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Going back on topic today, another example of a good inclusion of complexity: Applied Energistics 2

AE1 was flippin' amazing. Perhaps a bit TOO amazing. When you run AE and set up a couple of P2P tunnels just because it is easier and cheaper than running the appropriate duct... you know there's an issue somewhere.

AE2 was undoubtedly a nerf-bat, but it was an engaging one. It gave you a puzzle with the new channel system. It wasn't simply a resource and time sink (Steve's Carts...), it made you change the way you looked at networking. When it was originally introduced, it got a lukewarm reception at best. There were some... terse... comments on the new system when I posted my first guide.
However, by and large, it was accepted by the community. The only thing I had a complaint about, which I solved by using other mods, was the presses being unable to be crafted and needed to be found in the world. Which wouldn't be a problem if it wasn't so rare. Or it seemed like there was always That One Press that always took six or seven meteors to be able to find, when I was swimming in the others.

It gave an additional level of complexity which added further engagement to the player. Unlike IC2-ex, which just added a couple of consumable tools for pointless resource bleed and a couple of extra machines to stretch out the already existing processing chain, it added a whole new mechanic that had to be taken into consideration. In fact, at the earliest entry, it is actually somewhat easier, since you don't need a controller for an ad-hoc network. If you know how to wire it properly.

So to clarify... adding in a few extra steps into an already existing system? Easy to do, but not very engaging. Adding in a new mechanic that makes things more complex but also more engaging? Not as easy, but will generally result in a much better reception.

 

[KingTriaxx]

Thaumcraft has had a lot of this. Not all of them have been successful. See TC3 research. On the other hand, wand focii. Those replaced the wands of stuff, and turned out awesome. Then again, there was the piping system. Fortunately, that's been ditched for TC5.

 

[Pyure]

Then again, there was the piping system. Fortunately, that's been ditched for TC5.

I'd like more info on this without derailing the thread. Can you link me a reference?

 

[bigyihsuan]

Playing in a custom gen superflat world with Ex Nihilo and Ex Astris with 167 other mods, I'd say that the beginning is super grindy for this world in particular.

First you have to get wood, which is rare on a superflat world, then make tools, and go from there. It took me an hour to get my first flint tools compared to my usual few minutes because of the lack of trees. Then I had to farm up string to make a sifter to get metals and other materials. Took me even more time because of the grind, but in this case, it's worth it.

Now this is where it gets interesting. I have both ProjectE and EE3 installed (super cheaty I know), but both of those mods removes much of the grind once you have enough items to convert to EMC. It really helps with crafting sub-crafting components, like glass or gears. It really simplifies the crafting process because if I have the EMC and one of every material, then I have the machine.

So, I don't like grind, but if it's in a forced way that eventually disappears like in modded superflat survivals/skyblock maps, then it is a good grind.

 

[RealKC]

I'd like more info on this without derailing the thread. Can you link me a reference?

Thaumcraft 5 has a new block that replaces golems and send essentia to jars the way the infusion altar takes essentia