Mod Mechanics you like/don't like

Pyure

Not Totally Useless
Aug 14, 2013
8,334
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Waterloo, Ontario
Aura Cascade is an example of emergent design/gameplay. Basically the developer gives you a bunch of low-level tools and says, look, see what you can do with this.

This can be amazing in terms of creativity, but requires a lot of foresight to ensure it doesn't get out of hand. If done right, the dev is always going to end up surprised at what people can accomplish. While I have no particular preference for or against aura cascade itself, I genuinely respect the thought that went into the mod.

The Endergenic Generator mentioned above is another excellent example.

@Reika's reactors in ReC are a decent example as well.

Edit: not sure why I felt it was necessary to page reika there... I think I just always do when I mention his name so I'm not talking about him behind his back :p
 

Lyra_Chan

New Member
Jul 29, 2019
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What do you mean by "floaty"? just inconsistent, unclear, literally floating around?
Floaty wasn't really the best word >.> What I meant was more awkward. At least I think it's awkward. I am not saying the mechanics are bad or anything, I just feel that they don't feel as definite, and the mod just feels awkward to me.

Edit: I said awkward more times in that sentence, then I should have >.>
 
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Pyure

Not Totally Useless
Aug 14, 2013
8,334
7,191
383
Waterloo, Ontario
Floaty wasn't really the best word >.> What I meant was more awkward. At least I think it's awkward. I am not saying the mechanics are bad or anything, I just feel that they don't feel as definite, and the mod just feels awkward to me.

Edit: I said awkward more times in that sentence, then I should have >.>
You like mods with well-defined rules and boundaries. If I put X fuel into an engine, Y power should come out, that sort of thing.
 

UberAffe

New Member
Jul 29, 2019
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Actually a mechanic that I haven't had the chance to play with yet but sounds like I would enjoy is the form of magic in Ars Magicka2, I plan on using it in my next pack but from my reading of it, it sounds like you can combine a bunch of different "runes" to make different kinds of spells with different effects. Kind of like a mystcraft version of spell creation.
 

Reika

RotaryCraft Dev
FTB Mod Dev
Sep 3, 2013
5,079
5,331
550
Toronto, Canada
sites.google.com
Aura Cascade is an example of emergent design/gameplay. Basically the developer gives you a bunch of low-level tools and says, look, see what you can do with this.

This can be amazing in terms of creativity, but requires a lot of foresight to ensure it doesn't get out of hand. If done right, the dev is always going to end up surprised at what people can accomplish. While I have no particular preference for or against aura cascade itself, I genuinely respect the thought that went into the mod.

The Endergenic Generator mentioned above is another excellent example.

@Reika's reactors in ReC are a decent example as well.

Edit: not sure why I felt it was necessary to page reika there... I think I just always do when I mention his name so I'm not talking about him behind his back :p
*furiously trying to fix RAM issues* :p
 
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ratchet freak

Well-Known Member
Nov 11, 2012
1,198
243
79
Aura Cascade is an example of emergent design/gameplay. Basically the developer gives you a bunch of low-level tools and says, look, see what you can do with this.

This can be amazing in terms of creativity, but requires a lot of foresight to ensure it doesn't get out of hand. If done right, the dev is always going to end up surprised at what people can accomplish. While I have no particular preference for or against aura cascade itself, I genuinely respect the thought that went into the mod.
But if there isn't enough foresight there will end up 1 method that will be considered superior to the detriment of all others, I can point to TiCo tools for examples, things you care about in a pick are mining, level speed and durability or repair/recharge and there is one set that has the best stats for that.
 

Pyure

Not Totally Useless
Aug 14, 2013
8,334
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Waterloo, Ontario
But if there isn't enough foresight there will end up 1 method that will be considered superior to the detriment of all others, I can point to TiCo tools for examples, things you care about in a pick are mining, level speed and durability or repair/recharge and there is one set that has the best stats for that.
If there's insufficient foresight, there's a billion things that can go wrong :p
 

GreenZombie

New Member
Jul 29, 2019
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Edit: not sure why I felt it was necessary to page reika there... I think I just always do when I mention his name so I'm not talking about him behind his back :p

I (also) try to ping mod authors when I have something positive to say about their mod.
 
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Lyra_Chan

New Member
Jul 29, 2019
376
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You like mods with well-defined rules and boundaries. If I put X fuel into an engine, Y power should come out, that sort of thing.
You are half right. I like mods with a set of rules, much like how you said, but I like using said rules to make cooler things just for the sake of being cool. For example, Cake. I can easily make it using AE alone, but what's the fun in that? I usually use mods like OpenBlock, Buildcraft, Thermal Expansion, Applied Energistics, and Ender IO just to accomplish that one task.
 
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lenscas

Over-Achiever
Jul 31, 2013
2,015
1,799
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You are half right. I like mods with a set of rules, much like how you said, but I like using said rules to make cooler things just for the sake of being cool. For example, Cake. I can easily make it using AE alone, but what's the fun in that? I usually use mods like OpenBlock, Buildcraft, Thermal Expansion, Applied Energistics, and Ender IO just to accomplish that one task.
Just like I made a cc script for crafting. Still need to hook it up to a database and make it able to craft crafting components.
 

KingTriaxx

Forum Addict
Jul 27, 2013
4,266
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Michigan
Exactly. Why use one mod when you can use six? Which is why my power system is a Railcraft Boiler feeding a Big Reactor turbine, with the power drawn out through an Extra Utilities Energy Transfer node feeding into Thermal Expansion energy cells, feeding EnderIO conduits to run forestry machines to make bio fuel to power the Forestry farm providing wood planks to run the boiler.
 

Lyra_Chan

New Member
Jul 29, 2019
376
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Exactly. Why use one mod when you can use six? Which is why my power system is a Railcraft Boiler feeding a Big Reactor turbine, with the power drawn out through an Extra Utilities Energy Transfer node feeding into Thermal Expansion energy cells, feeding EnderIO conduits to run forestry machines to make bio fuel to power the Forestry farm providing wood planks to run the boiler.
I like the way you think
 

RavynousHunter

New Member
Jul 29, 2019
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Aye, I'm rather fond of using multiple systems, myself. Project E, ChromatiCraft, Thermal Expansion, and RFTools make quite the ME drive-making combination, lemme tell ya.
 

Lyra_Chan

New Member
Jul 29, 2019
376
6
0
Aye, I'm rather fond of using multiple systems, myself. Project E, ChromatiCraft, Thermal Expansion, and RFTools make quite the ME drive-making combination, lemme tell ya.
How did you manage to get Project E to work with Reika's mods? .-. I seem to have a problem installing the two together.
 

ShneekeyTheLost

Too Much Free Time
Dec 8, 2012
3,728
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That reminds me of a mod mechanic I really dislike... 'do anything you want and get away with it' type mods, such as Project E/EE and Computercraft. CC lets you pretty much automate all the things for ridiculously cheap material cost and a single line of code called GetPastebin(). CC supposedly balances around player skill and being able to program in LUA, but then removes this balance point by being able to pastebin code. EE/Project E simply brought you to a post-scarcity point way too soon for my tastes. You didn't need to worry about automating anything, you simply taught your tablet how to make the completed final product and then produced an arbitrary number of them.