Modern Retro Project - Impossibru?

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Okay, so I had an idea. Basically, I would make a 'Modern Retro' pack. Basically, all the old mods back in the day that so captivated my attention, updated to 1.10.2. A blend of nostaliga and modern resources.

Unfortunately, it isn't possible.

You see, back in the day, you used ML/MLMP/Forge to set up your instance (never forgetting to delete the meta.inf file), then you installed IC2 and BC, then decided on what addons to use. Common addons were things like Forestry (at the time, a Buildcraft addon), Logistical Pipes, some IC2 addons for things like compact solars so you didn't need to spam solar flowers as badly... that sort of thing.

Unfortunately, BC apparently Didn't Get The Memo, and isn't bothering with 1.10.2. They've got an unstable alpha for 1.11 but have explicitly stated that they aren't 'backporting' to 1.10.2.

So... that kinda kills that idea. Mind you, I haven't really been a big fan of what IC2 and BC have done lately, but this was my opportunity to really test it out and see for myself if it is as unfun as I thought it was.

This is a rather... unusual update progression. I mean, sure... 1.7.10 -> 1.10.2 was a huge update, but the only real mod that hasn't done that jump yet is Thaumcraft, which I believe does have an unstable alpha available to Patreon members. 1.10.2 has been the 'industry standard' for a while now. And they're just going to skip it?

Well, I suppose it isn't the worst design decision the BC team has ever made. And to be fair, backporting is a royal PITA. So if you think that 1.11 is going to be the next 'industry standard', it makes a certain sort of sense to build for it. But... it kind of feels like Sony's decision to set up Playstation 4 'Pro' as 'VR Ready', betting that VR is going to be the next 'thing', when it really hasn't been shown to be all that popular yet.

Yes, I could backport to 1.7.10, but if I'm going to do that, why not just go back to 1.2.5 and go full-nostalgia mode?

I dunno, I feel very frustrated. I was trying to give it the old College Try, to put my money where my mouth is, to produce an entire Let's Play series on it... only to find out that they just didn't want me to.

And people wonder why I haven't really done much with BC since 1.4.7...

 

[Drbretto]

I think honestly right now that Direwolf20 and Beyond, which don't seem to be that far from each other, is the closest thing you're going to find right now. And I'm guessing that's because those are the best collections of what IS available so far already. Hell, a lot of them are just other people filling in those blanks for the old mods that haven't been updated yet.

Here's the problem. From what I understand 1.7.10 ended up being what it was because Minecraft itself stalled on that version for quite a long time. That we're getting something of a new era with 1.10.2 is great for progress, but this is going to be short lived because Mojang is cranking things out quickly and will continue to do so for a while.

I agree that 1.10.2 should sort of be the next 1.7.10 for a while anyway, though. I just don't see the real value in going crazy trying to keep up with each incremental upgrade right now when 1.10.2 seems to be a perfectly stable platform with a similar fundamental base that should be the way of things for a while, so I am also disappointed in BC's author not being on board with 1.10.2. But, the thing is, these mods are probably made by people on the side of their real jobs and real lives, so it's up to them to decide what is and isn't worth working on.

I'd suggest right now if you want to play the old mods, you will have no real choice but to play a 1.7.10 game. Personally, I think the performance and functionality that comes with 1.10.2 is completely worth abandoning 1.7.10 entirely, and I'll just stick with Beyond until the next natural plateau that will inevitably end up being the platform everyone settles on.

I'm also still hoping that either BC gets on board with 1.10 afterall, or that at least the more popular mods make the 1.11.2 jump quickly, but I'm not really getting my hopes up for much more than what we have now until the next legitimate plateau.

 

[ShneekeyTheLost]

I think honestly right now that Direwolf20 and Beyond, which don't seem to be that far from each other, is the closest thing you're going to find right now. And I'm guessing that's because those are the best collections of what IS available so far already. Hell, a lot of them are just other people filling in those blanks for the old mods that haven't been updated yet.

Not really. Both of those are 'kitchen sink packs', one suited to DW20's tastes since, yanno, his pack... the other is just 'okay, let's see how many mods we can cram into a pack and not crash everyone'. Mind you, that's not necessarily an insult. Kitchen sink packs are apparently what everyone wants, because they have an order of magnitude more downloads than packs with more... discerning tastes. But it is by no means anything close to a retro pack.

Here's the problem. From what I understand 1.7.10 ended up being what it was because Minecraft itself stalled on that version for quite a long time. That we're getting something of a new era with 1.10.2 is great for progress, but this is going to be short lived because Mojang is cranking things out quickly and will continue to do so for a while.

Not really. Mojang came out with 1.8 and 1.9 and 1.10 on their regular schedule. The difference was that 1.8 was so f**king hard to update to that the mod developers, including Forge itself, kinda stalled out. Not Minecraft or Mojang. So by the time they cracked going to 1.8... 1.9 was already out and 1.10 was very close to release.

This is why most of the mods in 1.8 that were released (other than Thaumcraft, because Azanor is made of win and awesome and put a CRAZY number of hours into the project) seem unfinished. Because, largely, they were. Most of them were still in testing when everyone shifted over.

I agree that 1.10.2 should sort of be the next 1.7.10 for a while anyway, though. I just don't see the real value in going crazy trying to keep up with each incremental upgrade right now when 1.10.2 seems to be a perfectly stable platform with a similar fundamental base that should be the way of things for a while, so I am also disappointed in BC's author not being on board with 1.10.2. But, the thing is, these mods are probably made by people on the side of their real jobs and real lives, so it's up to them to decide what is and isn't worth working on.

Point of note: I'm not saying that 1.10.2 *should* be the industry standard, I'm saying it already *IS*. While some people still play 1.7.10 because it has their favorite suite of mods of they don't like the combat update or are just afraid of change or whatever, 1.10.2 is the current standard that everyone is developing mod packs for and the majority of the modded minecraft community are actively playing. To NOT put your mod out for that release is kinda... shooting yourself in the foot. And pushing people away.

Mind you, it's their mod, they have the sole and absolute right to decide what version to work with and when, and I absolutely will not dispute that. But... it seems like a very strange decision to make. 'Let's skip the one that everyone is using and go straight to a version that we don't know if anyone will actually use, like 1.9 was'. I'm sure there was SOME logic behind the choice, and I feel I'm probably at least close the mark with respect to them assuming that by the time their development cycle is done that 1.11 will have become the next stable version. It just... feels like a reach to me.

I'd suggest right now if you want to play the old mods, you will have no real choice but to play a 1.7.10 game. Personally, I think the performance and functionality that comes with 1.10.2 is completely worth abandoning 1.7.10 entirely, and I'll just stick with Beyond until the next natural plateau that will inevitably end up being the platform everyone settles on.

I've never really been all that big with playing kitchen sink packs. They've always felt... bloated, hoping to appeal to the lowest common denominator by saying 'I don't care what your favorite mod is, it is probably in here somewhere', with absolutely zero effort given to try and balance them or mitigate 'unintended synergies' between mods, or pretty much anything other than 'make sure it doesn't crash, then release'.

Mind you, the sheer amount of work-hours involved in that sort of project is still absolutely enormous, as in hundreds, plural, of work hours. Which is why I'm sort of wondering why they didn't tack on an extra dozen or so hours working with config files to make the damn thing feel more homogeneous and not just a bunch of separate things that kinda got thrown in together and stuck with duct tape and glue. Or maybe the force that the rolly-thing from that game that incorporates things it rolls over uses? I dunno.

I'm also still hoping that either BC gets on board with 1.10 afterall, or that at least the more popular mods make the 1.11.2 jump quickly, but I'm not really getting my hopes up for much more than what we have now until the next legitimate plateau.

I'm not going to hold my breath. I've never seen that dev team give a fig about user feedback yet, so I have zero hopes they will start now. Besides, it's their project, they can do what they like. I was just... I dunno. I feel like I was trying to reach across the isle, only to get slapped down for the effort.

 

[Drbretto]

ve never really been all that big with playing kitchen sink packs. They've always felt... bloated

Just to clarify, I'm not suggesting that you necessarily play the kitchen sink packs. I'm saying the kitchen sink packs already contain the closest there is to the old stuff right now. I've poured through the 1.10 mods I can find everywhere and the vast majority of the good ones are already in Beyond, and the big ones are almost ALL in there already (and also in Direwolf). That's because 1.10.2 is a temporary resting point, I think.

But we agree that it totally SHOULD be a longer term resting point, and I'm still hoping that BC follows because I really think that's a key player here. BC skipping 1.11, I think, actually contributes to the lack of stability with the rest of the mods because it's a major staple that's not on board. I think it'll be a good solid while before the next plateau and 1.10.2 should be the focus rather than continued instability and constantly having to update everything for future versions with only minor gains, and hoping your other favorite mods follow suit.

Especially since the nature of the recent and near-future updates appears to be smaller content things that could well be represented by another Et Futurum style mod. It's not like the difference between 1.7.10 and 1.8, which as I understand it was a pretty large fundamental, mod-breaking platform update that I don't think we're going to see again for quite some time.

 

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Just to clarify, I'm not suggesting that you necessarily play the kitchen sink packs. I'm saying the kitchen sink packs already contain the closest there is to the old stuff right now. I've poured through the 1.10 mods I can find everywhere and the vast majority of the good ones are already in Beyond, and the big ones are almost ALL in there already (and also in Direwolf). That's because 1.10.2 is a temporary resting point, I think.

Perhaps I should clarify: It's not that it doesn't have the mods I am looking for, it is that it has a few hundred OTHER mods that I DON'T want. Besides, I'm an old hand at pack development at this point, I can make my own packs to do what I specifically want to do. And I am not able to use the Curse/Twitch launcher anyway since I run Linux and don't feel like setting up a compatibility layer through WINE, so I can't play Beyond even if I wanted to, at least not without downloading the pack and running it through MultiMC.

But we agree that it totally SHOULD be a longer term resting point, and I'm still hoping that BC follows because I really think that's a key player here. BC skipping 1.11, I think, actually contributes to the lack of stability with the rest of the mods because it's a major staple that's not on board. I think it'll be a good solid while before the next plateau and 1.10.2 should be the focus rather than continued instability and constantly having to update everything for future versions with only minor gains, and hoping your other favorite mods follow suit.

I feel the point is being missed again. I'm not saying what should, I'm stating what IS. And currently, 1.10.2 *IS* the industry standard. What should or should not be is irrelevant to the discussion. BC is betting on 1.11 being the next industry standard, and it makes sense for them to not backport to 1.10 after having made that decision. I just think it's a rather silly decision on their part.

However, I would strongly disagree that Buildcraft is a major staple anymore. Once upon a time, it was. But that was years ago. These days? I wonder how many people actually *play* with it anymore. I mean, sure, it has the downloads, but that means almost zero these days with kitchen sink packs.

In other words, kitchen sink packs give false positives for popularity of mods that really aren't popular anymore by packaging them with more relevant and used mods. Remove Buildcraft from all the 1.7.10 kitchen sink packs, for example, and I really doubt anyone still playing them would actually notice.

 

[Drbretto]

Perhaps I should clarify: It's not that it doesn't have the mods I am looking for, it is that it has a few hundred OTHER mods that I DON'T want.

I know why you're not interested in them. That's why I clarified. I'm not suggesting you use those packs. I'm saying those packs happen to contain all there is yet. Meaning all those old ones you're talking about simply don't exist yet and probably won't any time soon.

I feel the point is being missed again. I'm not saying what should, I'm stating what IS. And currently, 1.10.2 *IS* the industry standard.

Again, your point isn't missed. I agreed that it is, but I pointed out that it appears to be a temporary stop. Where I agreed with you in spirit was that I think it should be more than temporary, but I am not convinced that is going to happen.

 

[Pyure]

I'm skimming this a bit, but out of curiosity, does hypothetical NostalgiaPack still have BC in it even though you feel its not currently a major staple anymore? (And I don't disagree on that point)

 

[ShneekeyTheLost]

I'm skimming this a bit, but out of curiosity, does hypothetical NostalgiaPack still have BC in it even though you feel its not currently a major staple anymore? (And I don't disagree on that point)

Yes, in fact that was rather the point. Put in BC, IC2, maybe Forestry and Gendustry (since I consider Gendustry a part of modern Forestry), Railcraft, and LP. Aaaaand... yanno, that's about it. Maybe some IC2 addons. Maybe something to replace RP2, maybe Project Red or something. But I was wanting to basically capture the modlist that captured my attention and kept me interested in Minecraft LONG after I would normally have lost my interest, and also to play with IC2 and BC again for the first time in a few years and really get an in-depth look at the changes. An opportunity to give BC a chance to prove that it is indeed relevant if you use it within the environment it was built to be in (i.e. without every other mod that makes it obsolete).

 

[Pyure]

Yes, in fact that was rather the point. Put in BC, IC2, maybe Forestry and Gendustry (since I consider Gendustry a part of modern Forestry), Railcraft, and LP. Aaaaand... yanno, that's about it. Maybe some IC2 addons. Maybe something to replace RP2, maybe Project Red or something. But I was wanting to basically capture the modlist that captured my attention and kept me interested in Minecraft LONG after I would normally have lost my interest, and also to play with IC2 and BC again for the first time in a few years and really get an in-depth look at the changes. An opportunity to give BC a chance to prove that it is indeed relevant if you use it within the environment it was built to be in (i.e. without every other mod that makes it obsolete).

Makes sense.

I'm going to annoy you further since I can probably answer this myself if I read everything above more carefully, but: what's the downside of doing your experiment in 1.11.2? Not everyone who does a 1.11 version backports to 1.10, but the reverse is generally true: people who do 1.10.2 versions do tend to make 1.11 versions as well since the transition is relatively low-effort.

My understanding is that there's a 1.11 for BC and IC2, so you already have your starting point. Notwithstanding that current IC2 is more broken now than it was in 1.4.7 days.

 

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Makes sense.

I'm going to annoy you further since I can probably answer this myself if I read everything above more carefully, but: what's the downside of doing your experiment in 1.11.2? Not everyone who does a 1.11 version backports to 1.10, but the reverse is generally true: people who do 1.10.2 versions do tend to make 1.11 versions as well since the transition is relatively low-effort.

My understanding is that there's a 1.11 for BC and IC2, so you already have your starting point. Notwithstanding that current IC2 is more broken now than it was in 1.4.7 days.

The fact that none of the other mods have updated to 1.11 yet. It probably won't be a big thing to do so, but it hasn't happened yet. Forestry is still in Alpha for 1.10.2, or at least that's what they've been calling it for several months now and what they are continuing to call it last I updated. Railcraft... I am not a patreon so I don't have access to the 1.10.2 version yet. Neither of these have updated to 1.11, and don't seem to show any particular inclination to yet either.

LP... is out for 1.7.10... sort of. But since BC isn't out yet for 1.10, neither is LP, and the author hasn't been particularly active lately so no promises that IT will update to 1.11 either.

Project Red isn't updated yet either. Nor Simple Circuit Maker, which is about as close as anyone is likely to get to RP2 these days. Thermal Dynamics hasn't even come out for 1.10.2 yet, much less 1.11, and is the other part of RP2 that can be simulated (since ducts are functionally very similar to the old Tubes).

 

[gattsuru]

May depend a lot on what mod devs are saying among themselves. Forestry got a build out for 1.11.2 before the New Year, and Binnie's stuff wasn't far behind (no, I don't know why the main page is pointing to a different github than the current CurseForge does). Azanor'd mentioned possibly getting the TC6 to 1.11 for release if Forge was ready, though that was before losing time to illness. A lot of other developers have been complaining about ItemStacks and daftly set up singletons, too. Given the current state of the github, Buildcraft's developers may be expecting to see more mods move to 1.11.x before they have a stable release available.

If you're thinking about in terms of personal use, it may be worth investigating McJty's CompatLayer. It'd not be trivial, but BuildCraft is visible-source and ... well, not as badly coded as Minecraft is. Dunno how ATLauncher would handle distribution of such a thing for a public pack, though, and compatibility with BuildCraft's MMPLv2 would be complicated.

 

[Drbretto]

OK, I see where I did misunderstand something. You're talking about actually building these mods, right? I thought you were trying to piece together a modpack from existing mods.

 

[KingTriaxx]

That's basically what I ended up doing with my 1.7.10 custom pack, was recreating the parts I liked of FTB Ultimate, which is still my second favorite pack of all time, falling just behind Modular Mayhem. I left IC2 out, because I didn't like what it had done, especially after using it in Space Astronomy, and since I didn't have that and GregTech had gone for a running leap off the cliffs of madness, I replaced them with Mekanism. But the feel of the pack was right. Without Project Red, I grabbed Engineer's Toolbox, which gave me movement and redstone capability.

On the other hand, the dev for Nuclear Craft has suggested it's much easier to back port from 1.11 to 1.10, than upgrade from 1.7 to 1.8+

 

[ShneekeyTheLost]

So, I may have to do this in 1.7.10, despite not really wanting to do so. However, I did find some good things.

There's a mod called 'IC2Classic' I found on the IC2 boards which basically turns the clock back to the 1.4 era, so before the -ex branch screwed things up. I also found 'legacy farms' which removes the multiblock farm and brings back all the little farming machines. So, this project might actually be possible after all...

 

[KingTriaxx]

I personally prefer the 1.4.7 style when both were available, but meh. Multi-farm is crazy good for rubber tree farming with the Portal/Gravity gun. Farming Blocks couldn't handle it to the best of my knowledge.

 

[ShneekeyTheLost]

I personally prefer the 1.4.7 style when both were available, but meh. Multi-farm is crazy good for rubber tree farming with the Portal/Gravity gun. Farming Blocks couldn't handle it to the best of my knowledge.

I just cross-bred stickyreeds and used a compatibility addon to let IC2 crops work with the Combine and called it a day. But there was a way to put a Tree Tapper (forestry machine) adjacent to the Logger to have it pump the rubber trees. However, it would spam-pump which would destroy the resin nodes, so there was no point in not chopping them down for the wood and the saplings.

 

[KingTriaxx]

I even attempted to learn computercraft to get a turtle to do the job, though it didn't work out. (I suck at coding.)

Sounds like was simpler just to feed the logs into an extractor.

 

[ShneekeyTheLost]

So, running into an interesting issue here.

In order to have something simulating the tubes of RP2, I was using Thermal Dynamics. However, my problem now is that some of them cannot be done without also having Thermal Expansion because the processes needed to create, for example, signalum, require TE machines to process. So, do I add in TE or do I just remove TD and use CoFH Core/Thermal Foundation as my ore dictionary and worldgen setup?

 

[LordPINE]

Couldn't you change the recipes with minetweaker to feel a bit more retro?

 

[KingTriaxx]

I know EnderIO had options to do it without the liquids in some versions, same with Tinker's being able to alloy. If neither works, nothing wrong with Minetweaking a process.

In FTB Ultimate, in order to make Mixed Metal Ingots, you had to lay them into a Railcraft Rolling Machine. (It was a GT change.) That could be an option. Compress the bits into a 'Signalum Blend Ingot', and then smelting that gives the ingot needed.