Mekanism: Feature Request Thread

[Vaygrim]

I actually DO like the idea of being able to upgrade the machine to Silktouch. That really would be a great feature!

 

[Yusunoha]

I actually DO like the idea of being able to upgrade the machine to Silktouch. That really would be a great feature!

though I hope there won't be an option for auto-fortune. that would feel just a bit too.... easy plus it'd make other machines kind of useless...

I wouldn't mind it either if it's silk-touch certain ores like coal and redstone, but produce an ore that needs to be cleaned or purified to get the resources from it

 

[Vaygrim]

though I hope there won't be an option for auto-fortune. that would feel just a bit too.... easy plus it'd make other machines kind of useless...

I wouldn't mind it either if it's silk-touch certain ores like coal and redstone, but produce an ore that needs to be cleaned or purified to get the resources from it

I'm .. not sure you know how Silk Touch works. That or you just asked for something.. then 'un-asked' for it. I'm confused..

See.. Silk Touch only affects Coal, Redstone, Diamonds, Emeralds and similar blocks. Basically anything that would drop individual items and not a block when you NORMALLY broke it, returns a silk touched "ore block" for that so you can break it later using Fortune. Silk Touch actually has no effect on Copper Ore, Iron Ore, Gold Ore, Silver Ore, Tin Ore or blocks like that.. specifically because those blocks ALREADY return a full ore block when you break them.

So.. you asked for a Silk Touch upgrade, but then you don't want Auto-Silk Touch because that would be too "easy"? Can you please elaborate?

 

[ShneekeyTheLost]

though I hope there won't be an option for auto-fortune. that would feel just a bit too.... easy plus it'd make other machines kind of useless...

I wouldn't mind it either if it's silk-touch certain ores like coal and redstone, but produce an ore that needs to be cleaned or purified to get the resources from it

I'm .. not sure you know how Silk Touch works. That or you just asked for something.. then 'un-asked' for it. I'm confused..

See.. Silk Touch only affects Coal, Redstone, Diamonds, Emeralds and similar blocks. Basically anything that would drop individual items and not a block when you NORMALLY broke it, returns a silk touched "ore block" for that so you can break it later using Fortune. Silk Touch actually has no effect on Copper Ore, Iron Ore, Gold Ore, Silver Ore, Tin Ore or blocks like that.. specifically because those blocks ALREADY return a full ore block when you break them.

So.. you asked for a Silk Touch upgrade, but then you don't want Auto-Silk Touch because that would be too "easy"? Can you please elaborate?

If I am understanding him correctly, I believe he is asking for a way for the silk-touched ores to be processed, such as using the usual Mekanism setup of four other machines to turn it into the final product.

Personally, I have an idea, although I would like to add a refinement.

If you have a silk-touched ore, breaking it will return (x) items from it (depending on what the block in question is, you are likely to get multiple redstone, but only one diamond). If you then smelt the ore in the smeltery, you get effectively Fortune 1 output, for the hassle of silk-touching. If you run it through the Enrichment Chamber before smelting, you get the effect of Fortune 2. If you run it through the four-machine process (Purification Chamber -> Crusher -> Enrichment Chamber -> Energized Smelter), you get your Fortune 3 effect.

This gives you bonuses for setting up your ore processing process and using it, requiring a significant investment in resources and infrastructure, yielding better rewards.

 

[Vaygrim]

I not really sure I see the point of rolling ore processing into the mining system, especially since Mekanism already has great ore processing (which even includes TRIPLING of several kinds of ore). Just get the MekMiner to Silk Touch everything, then take it back and process it with the machines you already have back at your base? That seems just.. excessive and redundant. In order to progress to the point in a game when I can actually afford to make an auto-mining mechanism, I am already going to have ore processing machinery anyway. (shrug)

Also.. just for those participants in this thread that obviously do not already use Mekanism: If you take Silk Touched emeralds, diamonds, redstone or lapis lazuli blocks and run them thru Mekanism's Enriching Chamber it will process them as if they were being broken by a Fortune 3 pick. So.. that feature is already IN Mekanism.

 

[Greylocke]

Cost v Benefit is a real big issue for me. So although I like the idea of being able to upgrade your MekMiner, my opinion is that, in addition to the initial cost of creating the upgrade, if you're getting an ongoing benefit from the upgrade there should be an ongoing cost.

Three examples of possible costs for a Silk Touch upgrade (or any other upgrades, for that matter)
1) Wear. Each time the upgrade is used, it wears a little. Eventually it will need to be replaced or repaired.
2) Time. Using the upgrade means that it will take a little longer to process. In this case, only "Silk-able" blocks would take longer.
3) Consumables. Some relatively inexpensive resource gets consumed as the upgrade works. For example, extracting the entire block requires the consumption of manganese slurry, an abrasive compound that allows the cutting head to core out the block instead of grinding it.

 

[Vaygrim]

Cost v Benefit is a real big issue for me. So although I like the idea of being able to upgrade your MekMiner, my opinion is that, in addition to the initial cost of creating the upgrade, if you're getting an ongoing benefit from the upgrade there should be an ongoing cost.

Three examples of possible costs for a Silk Touch upgrade (or any other upgrades, for that matter)
1) Wear. Each time the upgrade is used, it wears a little. Eventually it will need to be replaced or repaired.
2) Time. Using the upgrade means that it will take a little longer to process. In this case, only "Silk-able" blocks would take longer.
3) Consumables. Some relatively inexpensive resource gets consumed as the upgrade works. For example, extracting the entire block requires the consumption of manganese slurry, an abrasive compound that allows the cutting head to core out the block instead of grinding it.

Wouldn't power requirements be considered a ongoing cost already?

 

[Greylocke]

Wouldn't power requirements be considered a ongoing cost already?

Agreed. There is already a power cost as the machine does its thing. I thought about suggesting "Power" as a 4th cost for an upgrade, but by the time a player is setting up automated mining and the infrastructure that goes along with it, power is so easy to come by that unless the upgrade sucked a TON of power, it really isn't much of a cost since power is so cheap.

 

[Vaygrim]

Agreed. There is already a power cost as the machine does its thing. I thought about suggesting "Power" as a 4th cost for an upgrade, but by the time a player is setting up automated mining and the infrastructure that goes along with it, power is so easy to come by that unless the upgrade sucked a TON of power, it really isn't much of a cost since power is so cheap.

What do you think about having a machine with an adjustable radius for mining.. and the larger the radius the greater the power required to function?

 

[Aidan]

I'm thinking a single block that has a defined radius - the radius which scans in a square-based pattern. It will run an initial search calculation to go through every single scannable block, and put all found ore locations into a set. It will then iterate through that set, and every tick, mine that ore in that specific location, replace it with a "replace" block (defined in GUI) and pull this replace block from an adjacent inventory. It will then also spit out the mined resources into an adjacent inventory. Sound good?

 

[Vaygrim]

I'm thinking a single block that has a defined radius - the radius which scans in a square-based pattern. It will run an initial search calculation to go through every single scannable block, and put all found ore locations into a set. It will then iterate through that set, and every tick, mine that ore in that specific location, replace it with a "replace" block (defined in GUI) and pull this replace block from an adjacent inventory. It will then also spit out the mined resources into an adjacent inventory. Sound good?

That sounds epic, Aidan!
What are your thoughts on upgradability?

 

[Greylocke]

What do you think about having a machine with an adjustable radius for mining.. and the larger the radius the greater the power required to function?

It depends upon how we're pretending that the machine works. If we say that the horizontals are drilled out mechanically, then there should be a fixed limit or maybe tiers: Hobbyist=3 block radius, Industrial=5 radius, Commercial=9 radius. But if the work is being done by force fields, lasers, or other electroMagick, then the power cost should increase exponentially with the radius.

Regarding radius, even though a 5 radius may not sound large, in actual use the IC2 Miner's 9x9 total area would usually fill most of a double chest. And since it was targeting only valued blocks, it wouldn't generate nearly as much cobble as a quarry would, so most of the chest was all good stuff.

@Aidan
Are you thinking of "pathing" the bore to the ores? Or does it do a teleporter thing to swap the target ore with a replacement block? I'm hoping for a path, it actually makes the miner all the more valuable.

 

[Aidan]

That sounds epic, Aidan!
What are your thoughts on upgradability?

I love the idea. Speed and Energy upgrades would work perfectly. I don't know if this is news to you, but Calclavia is merging Resonant Induction with Mekanism, and he is now a co-developer of Mekanism; prepare for a lot of new content in a short amount of time

 

[Not_Steve]

Perhaps a mining bot and it's tethered to the charge pad like the robit is...
also how about some way to autocraft items?

 

[Vaygrim]

I love the idea. Speed and Energy upgrades would work perfectly. I don't know if this is news to you, but Calclavia is merging Resonant Induction with Mekanism, and he is now a co-developer of Mekanism; prepare for a lot of new content in a short amount of time

I saw some notes being exchanged about Resonant Induction getting merged into Mekanism, yes.. and I think it's great idea! Maybe Calclavia will like some of the ideas I'm pitching as well?

 

[Yusunoha]

If I am understanding him correctly, I believe he is asking for a way for the silk-touched ores to be processed, such as using the usual Mekanism setup of four other machines to turn it into the final product.

Personally, I have an idea, although I would like to add a refinement.

If you have a silk-touched ore, breaking it will return (x) items from it (depending on what the block in question is, you are likely to get multiple redstone, but only one diamond). If you then smelt the ore in the smeltery, you get effectively Fortune 1 output, for the hassle of silk-touching. If you run it through the Enrichment Chamber before smelting, you get the effect of Fortune 2. If you run it through the four-machine process (Purification Chamber -> Crusher -> Enrichment Chamber -> Energized Smelter), you get your Fortune 3 effect.

This gives you bonuses for setting up your ore processing process and using it, requiring a significant investment in resources and infrastructure, yielding better rewards.

pretty much this. but seeing as there's also a way for metallic ores to be processed, I was more thinking towards the mineral ores such as coal, diamond, redstone, lapiz etcetcetc
the mining machine would silk touch these mineral ores, but give a version of the ores that need to be purified for more resources.
the method that shneekey mentioned is about what i was thinking, but only instead of the fortune effect, which is quite random as with fortune 3 the amount of drops you can get from a mineral block is random, this method will instead give you the highest resource amount that you'd be able to get with the fortune level you're using

 

[Steel]

pretty much this. but seeing as there's also a way for metallic ores to be processed, I was more thinking towards the mineral ores such as coal, diamond, redstone, lapiz etcetcetc
the mining machine would silk touch these mineral ores, but give a version of the ores that need to be purified for more resources.
the method that shneekey mentioned is about what i was thinking, but only instead of the fortune effect, which is quite random as with fortune 3 the amount of drops you can get from a mineral block is random, this method will instead give you the highest resource amount that you'd be able to get with the fortune level you're using

I don't see why it would need to have a different version of the ore that needs to be purified. If it returns the basic ore that you get using silktouch, then most ore processing methods get extra resources from it that tends to be on par with Fortune. I used an Industrial Grinder from GT on my last server for silktouched ores, but I believe that the Mekanism ore processing change already has support for it too. Going past this just seems unnecessary.

 

[Yusunoha]

I don't see why it would need to have a different version of the ore that needs to be purified. If it returns the basic ore that you get using silktouch, then most ore processing methods get extra resources from it that tends to be on par with Fortune. I used an Industrial Grinder from GT on my last server for silktouched ores, but I believe that the Mekanism ore processing change already has support for it too. Going past this just seems unnecessary.

yea... I guess that's true. I was just trying to think of a way to make the mining machine a bit more unique, but I guess that's quite hard to do as there's already so many mods these days that have their own processing of ores in all kinds of ways

 

[Vaygrim]

pretty much this. but seeing as there's also a way for metallic ores to be processed, I was more thinking towards the mineral ores such as coal, diamond, redstone, lapiz etcetcetc
the mining machine would silk touch these mineral ores, but give a version of the ores that need to be purified for more resources.
the method that shneekey mentioned is about what i was thinking, but only instead of the fortune effect, which is quite random as with fortune 3 the amount of drops you can get from a mineral block is random, this method will instead give you the highest resource amount that you'd be able to get with the fortune level you're using

I feel like I am going slightly crazy during the course of this conversation, have you never run a silk touched 'mineral' (as you put it) ore block through an ore processing machine already?

Silk touch already behaves that way. If you run silk touched Redstone Ore through a Mekanism Enricher, or IC2 Macerator, or Thermal Expansion Pulverizer... you get back something like 18 Redstone. A fixed maximum amount equal to the absolute best results of Fortune 3. It always does the same amount maximum amount as well. This goes for Redstone, Diamond, Emerald and Lapis Lazuli Ore Blocks from silk touch, It has been this way since at least the mods for Minecraft 1.4.6 as far as I am aware, too.

So.. we really do not need this suggestion of yours... as we already have that functionality in silk touch with Mekanism (and MANY other mods).

 

[Ripley]

Someone has probably already asked but could we get Forge Multipart support for the universal cables, that would be awesome!

edit:
Oh and nice for the resonant induction & mekanism merge!