Modern Retro Project - Impossibru?

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Inaeo

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RF is a great system, but since it ends up relying on a third-party API it means if you're running RF and aren't the original devs, you're basically stuffed if the new version isn't ready when you are. Which is why IE has IF, which is RF with the serial numbers filed off, and let's IE run independant of the RF API.

I thought Forge was packaging it's own universal energy system these days, which was basically just the RF API built in. From what I understood, his was supposed to eliminate the need for mods to wait on the third party developer (since they will need Forge any way), while making it easier for mods who insist on keeping their own energy system to not get lost in conversions (since all they have to do is equate X units of my power = Y units of Forge Energy, which other mods also equate to, then let Forge handle the math). Maybe I misunderstood some or even all of this.

As much as I like the idea of different power systems, I hate the idea of different power systems. When they were so totally different that it was impossible to confuse them (RF vs Rotarycraft Shaft Power, for instance), it becomes easier for my suspension of disbelief, but a pack with more than two energy systems running just seems sloppy to me. The only way my brain has justified RF and EU coexisting has been treating it like American and European electricity - does the same thing, but won't work on things not designed for it without jumping through hoops. Not a perfect analogy by any means, but it lets me not focus on it and keep playing.

Having each mod have it's own power system and units of measure seems like a step backwards to me. Like or hate how RF changed the landscape, it allowed a great deal of tech mods to play nicely together without the need for petty squabbling about who's energy was unsupported by who, and who's conversions were broken and OP, and so on. Moving back to that seems silly.
 

Drbretto

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IMO, there's just no need for more than one power system unless the additional power system actually plays out differently. If it's nothing more than a multiplicative conversion, then you're not making your own power system, you're just renaming the units.

Except, obviously, for technical reasons. But if forge has the RF api built in, I frankly don't want to see another power system again unless it actually brings something new to the table. Grid power, which I have not had a chance to actually play with yet so I don't know if it's any good or not, would be a good example because it plays out completely differently from RF. That can add something new to the gameplay. Converting RF to EU or whatever just doesn't add anything to the experience, IMO.
 

asiekierka

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IMO, there's just no need for more than one power system unless the additional power system actually plays out differently. If it's nothing more than a multiplicative conversion, then you're not making your own power system, you're just renaming the units.

I'll try to give a brief summary of what's been happening in the BuildCraft land in regards to this.

The decision to move to RF came from a few things. For one, there was a large amount of issues with the attempted rewrite of MJ in BuildCraft 6; at the same time, BuildCraft was no longer in a position of being a "staple" mod to which other mods are willing to adapt. (I also won't deny a lot of the players on the server I initially ported BuildCraft to RF for wanted to play with Thermal Expansion alongside BC, but it wasn't a major factor in the decision.) Do keep in mind, also, that SpaceToad and CovertJaguar's opinion on how important MJ was to BuildCraft differ - the latter saw it as an important part of BC's balance, while the former added it in the first place mostly to replace the very laggy redstone pulses.

Now, the move to RF has meant some compromises for us. MJ was a two-dimensional system - it relied on pulses sent out periodically; therefore, both strength and time were usable values. (Admittedly, only the extraction pipes used time in a meaningful way at that time in BuildCraft's development.) RF is in practice one-dimensional; while there's nothing stopping you from using time as a factor yourself, most mods limit energy in terms of RF sent per tick as a form of balance, which makes this infeasible - it effectively creates RF which works very inefficiently with other RF machines, and that's not good for any side of the debate.

For a long time, I have been experimenting with ways to make RF in BuildCraft more interesting. I have added an option to restore power loss (even though I believe that distance-based power loss is a terrible solution to the problem and that TE2's extraction-based, constant power loss was far better). I have also been evaluating simulating idle (or, to be more specific, per-connected-machine) power draw on top of the RF API to try and bring back the old concept of "perdition", as well as conveting from one RF form to another - sadly, none of these solutions proved fun or interesting and they either only added meaningless difficulty or were too confusing/unreliable in practice.

There still remains the issue of what other mods do in regards to BuildCraft. For instance, one of the key balancing points of the "old guard trifecta", as I sometimes call it (BuildCraft, Forestry and Railcraft), has been to not allow long-term, lossless power storage in the form of batteries or energy cells. (Unfortunately, Railcraft has by now added an RF storage cart.) While I see nothing wrong in people adding a battery mod to BuildCraft myself (and, in fact, CovertJaguar, allaryin and I have been talking about various concepts for a short-term, lossy "capacitor" inside BuildCraft itself), there are probably people out there who are bothered by this.

Anyhow, as it stands, BuildCraft has chosen to create their own power system with some design changes as opposed to RF. One of them is that the internal unit is micro-MJs, or 1/100000th of an RF. This was requested by other modders who wanted to add things such as ultra-low-power (but not free) light sources which could be controlled by power and gates alone, without requiring an additional redstone signal due to energy buffering. Another change is that redstone engines are no longer a hack requiring you to implement a BuildCraft interface in addition to RF's own. Other things include passive (extracted from) and active (pushing into) power sources being differentiated in the source code and unifying particle effects for power consumption across the (hypothetical) BuildCraft ecosystem. As far as I am concerned, I had little say in the decision myself.

After I left BuildCraft, I designed some concepts of alternate power systems for Charset - sadly, it is unlikely they will see an implementation.
 

Drbretto

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Most of that went over my head, so forgive me, lol. But While I noticed that the BC engines would send their energy in pulses, and I'm guessing that's kind of what you mean by the two dimensional system?

I feel like the real world difference between that and RF/tick is kind of superficial, to be honest. And, coming from a non-modder mind you so forgive my ignorance if that is the case, it seems like it would be a lot easier at this point in time to just jump in on the existing RF system. I can see how MJ was important in the beginning, but if there's a shared, almost built-in API for RF/t, I just don't see any real-world value to going away from that, especially if the result ultimately still ends up being x energy over y time. Wouldn't tacking on to the existing platform not only promote stability but be faster and easier to implement and update anyway?

Edit: BTW, if you had anything to do with BC's development, thank you. That was my first taste of modded minecraft and it's still my favorite thing to this day. Buildcraft was the mod that made me fall in love with modded minecraft.
 
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asiekierka

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I feel like the real world difference between that and RF/tick is kind of superficial, to be honest. And, coming from a non-modder mind you so forgive my ignorance if that is the case, it seems like it would be a lot easier at this point in time to just jump in on the existing RF system. I can see how MJ was important in the beginning, but if there's a shared, almost built-in API for RF/t, I just don't see any real-world value to going away from that, especially if the result ultimately still ends up being x energy over y time. Wouldn't tacking on to the existing platform not only promote stability but be faster and easier to implement and update anyway?

Okay, let's answer that step by step.

1. It doesn't have to be superficial! There are probably many things one can do with a two-dimensional system of the sort, it's just that BuildCraft only had one use for it that worked really well.

2. It is literally built-in with Forge's Forge Units/Forge Energy thing - which is literally a very slightly improved version of the RF API.

3. Power system APIs tend to not break with updates of Minecraft, being somewhat detached from the engine's builtin content - it's not a huge concern from a developer perspective. The bigger concern is whether a power system offers enough interesting content to the player to "defend" its own reason to exist, so to say.

4. As for your questions on the value of BuildCraft's decision, I can't answer that, unfortunately - I have not been involved in the new team's decisions. All I can say is that if I had something interesting to offer in terms of gameplay that could not be adequately done with RF or RF-like power systems, I would not hesitate creating my own power system myself, and vice versa.

Edit: BTW, if you had anything to do with BC's development, thank you. That was my first taste of modded minecraft and it's still my favorite thing to this day. Buildcraft was the mod that made me fall in love with modded minecraft.

In late 2014-early 2016, I was the lead developer of BuildCraft, yes. However, that's unlikely to be when you had your first taste of modded Minecraft! Heh. (I've also maintained the 1.7.10 version until last month.)
 

gattsuru

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For an example of the two-dimensional aspects, in 1.6.4 BuildCraft, the rate you could push items through an Extraction Pipe was dependent on overall power, but the exact expression would vary based on how that power came in. Two different engines might both put out an average of 6 MJ/t, but one might express that in 120 MJ pulses once-a-second, while the other would do so in 12 MJ pulses ten times a second. Hooking the former up to an extraction pipe would have it move most of a stack at a time, while the second send items down the pipe as a steady stream of smaller groups (and maybe at different speeds to their location?).

For other examples of two-dimensional power systems, IC2's probably the best-known: you have to care not only about total power, but also packet size. RotaryCraft has you care about torque and speed as much as actual output power, and indeed you can get similar behavior depending on how you power item pumps acts kinda like BC pipes did. These all have conversion multipliers, but the internal behavior of the systems are radically different.

There's also just the general issue that the RF ecosystem was a polluted mess by the end of 1.7.10. That's not the fault of any one coder, but it's a strong argument to avoid shared powersystems even if there's not much implementation difference.
 

Drbretto

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OK, I see there are more practical applications then. Most of my experience with it is the quarry, pumps and item sorting, so all of those are pretty much power per time, except for pulling items from the chest, where it was dependent on the type of engine you used and could probably easily be converted into a function of RF/t quite easily.

But, then that's fine, IMO. If a different power system is bringing something different to the table, then it's worth it.


In late 2014-early 2016, I was the lead developer of BuildCraft, yes. However, that's unlikely to be when you had your first taste of modded Minecraft! Heh. (I've also maintained the 1.7.10 version until last month.)

Started on 1.7.10 about a year ago? Something like that anyway. Even if you weren't the guy then, I'm sure you've had some influence :p
 

asiekierka

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Started on 1.7.10 about a year ago? Something like that anyway. Even if you weren't the guy then, I'm sure you've had some influence :p

Oh, that was me then! Thanks - though I have to admit that, when maintaining BuildCraft, I was standing on the shoulders of giants in a sense...

pulling items from the chest [...] could probably easily be converted into a function of RF/t quite easily.

Quite easily? Oh no, I can't agree with that - I tried for a long time, but I could not find a way to do so adequately.
 

Drbretto

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Really? That seems like it could be a simple formula where the more RF/t you're putting into the wood pipe, more items would get sucked through. Then again, this is me with no actual experience talking about what seems and doesn't seem easy, lol.

I do miss buildcraft, though. I can't wait for it to be fully updated. There was just something about watching all my items going through this huge complicated sorting mechanism that storage drawers, while super convenient, just can't replicate. I started these mods super late in the game, but I started with the earliest ones out there (runecraft!) and worked my way up because I wanted to experience the evolution of it all. BC was, and still is, my favorite.

That seems to be a running theme with a lot of today's stuff compared to yesteryear. My item sorter never felt like a by the numbers construction for something that was always intended to be used that way. It felt more like I was using some ingenuity and taking existing working parts to build something new, while something like storage drawers (which is amazing, BTW. I don't want to trash it at all) just feels like it automates a little bit too much of it all. It's kind of like the difference between legos when I was a kid and legos today.
 

asiekierka

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Really? That seems like it could be a simple formula where the more RF/t you're putting into the wood pipe, more items would get sucked through. Then again, this is me with no actual experience talking about what seems and doesn't seem easy, lol.

The thing is, you could be extracting a stack every 3 seconds, or an item every tick. Same amount of energy required, but different timing and different uses.

I do miss buildcraft, though. I can't wait for it to be fully updated. There was just something about watching all my items going through this huge complicated sorting mechanism that storage drawers, while super convenient, just can't replicate. I started these mods super late in the game, but I started with the earliest ones out there (runecraft!) and worked my way up because I wanted to experience the evolution of it all. BC was, and still is, my favorite.

I'm glad you liked it!

That seems to be a running theme with a lot of today's stuff compared to yesteryear. My item sorter never felt like a by the numbers construction for something that was always intended to be used that way. It felt more like I was using some ingenuity and taking existing working parts to build something new, while something like storage drawers (which is amazing, BTW. I don't want to trash it at all) just feels like it automates a little bit too much of it all. It's kind of like the difference between legos when I was a kid and legos today.

Yes, I get your feeling. This is why I took up BuildCraft, but eventually I realized my design decisions evolved away from what BuildCraft should be - it's a mod with a beautiful legacy, known for being conservative with its changes and similar in function over the years, and I did not want to be one to take a hammer to it and radically change it. I decided to move on to making new mods of my own instead, such as (sadly rough and unstable at this point) Charset.
 
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Pyure

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Yes, I get your feeling. This is why I took up BuildCraft, but eventually I realized my design decisions evolved away from what BuildCraft should be - it's a mod with a beautiful legacy, known for being conservative with its changes and similar in function over the years, and I did not want to be one to take a hammer to it and radically change it. I decided to move on to making new mods of my own instead, such as (sadly rough and unstable at this point) Charset.
Offtopic, the big problem with charset is the name :p Its cute and clever but doesn't convey its use in any kind of way.
 

Drbretto

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Offtopic, the big problem with charset is the name :p Its cute and clever but doesn't convey its use in any kind of way.

I just read the description of the mod of his own site and I still have no idea :p

Edit: Though, it does a better job of explaining my gripe above about today's mods. Old school mods are like letters, and todays mods are words.
 

asiekierka

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Offtopic, the big problem with charset is the name :p Its cute and clever but doesn't convey its use in any kind of way.

I don't think I'm able to come up with a better one, I'm afraid - possibly because Charset is a lot of things: in its current state it contains types of features associated with tech mods, utility mods and even small tweak mods.
 

Pyure

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I don't think I'm able to come up with a better one, I'm afraid - possibly because Charset is a lot of things: in its current state it contains types of features associated with tech mods, utility mods and even small tweak mods.
Lots of things you say? Several mods are really popular because they decided to name them stuff like "Extra Utilities" or "Random Things" or, say, "Lots of Things".

Lots of Things is literally more accurate than "Charset" since, at a glance, I would imagine charset would do something like, say, change my in-game fonts.
 

Inaeo

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I don't think I'm able to come up with a better one, I'm afraid - possibly because Charset is a lot of things: in its current state it contains types of features associated with tech mods, utility mods and even small tweak mods.

Lots of things you say? Several mods are really popular because they decided to name them stuff like "Extra Utilities" or "Random Things" or, say, "Lots of Things".

Lots of Things is literally more accurate than "Charset" since, at a glance, I would imagine charset would do something like, say, change my in-game fonts.
I have to admit, my first exposure to Charset was simply browsing through the Curse repository. Unfortunately, I was looking for mods to make better signs and displays, and was confused about the mod's purpose when it wasn't in that vein.

Thank you for your insight into the evolution of BC (and the modding scene in general). This has been a great read, with some fantastic information. I'm not big on social media besides being a forum junkie, so I rarely get perspective into that side of things unless the mod developers frequent the forums. It's refreshing to hear from devs about the choices they make (for better or worse) and the struggle to maintain balance between game/mod balance, theme, fresh design, and stable execution. For what it's worth, what you people do with your spare time makes me better enjoy mine - you have my thanks.
 

asiekierka

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I have to admit, my first exposure to Charset was simply browsing through the Curse repository. Unfortunately, I was looking for mods to make better signs and displays, and was confused about the mod's purpose when it wasn't in that vein.

Thank you for your insight into the evolution of BC (and the modding scene in general). This has been a great read, with some fantastic information. I'm not big on social media besides being a forum junkie, so I rarely get perspective into that side of things unless the mod developers frequent the forums. It's refreshing to hear from devs about the choices they make (for better or worse) and the struggle to maintain balance between game/mod balance, theme, fresh design, and stable execution. For what it's worth, what you people do with your spare time makes me better enjoy mine - you have my thanks.

The only reason Charset was on Curse, for a brief period of time, is because Vazkii wanted his fork there. Also, I am aware Charset is not exactly the most searchable name, don't worry - however, I feel it's a name which, despite its quirkiness, best explains the design decisions I'm making with the mod.

Also, thank you! If you have any other questions, or ever wants to discuss something, I'll be happy to answer.
 
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ShneekeyTheLost

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Lost as always
And today, a mainstay Minecraft Mod has reached a final close...

Azanor announces he is discontinuing work on Thaumcraft.

First off, I entirely support his decision to work on his studies which will get him a job and a life. I just hope he releases the unstable alpha he had for 1.10.2 for someone else to finish up and release for at least the next couple of versions.

This... is a sad, sad day. Maybe I need to go make myself a 1.8 instance just to play with the latest, and many claim to be greatest, version that I never got a chance to work with because I was waiting for the 1.10 release.
 
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KingTriaxx

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That's... depressing... honestly, I'd assumed him to be past the going to college stage, but I guess it proves voices are no indicator.

Though it's at least only 'hiatus' rather than a complete end. Though it may be a hiatus like Xycraft. :p
 

Inaeo

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A sad announcement indeed. I joined the modded community in 1.6.4, and TC4 is one of the most polished and content heavy mods I've ever experienced. TC6 represented in my heart the mod which would help determine what the active modding platform was. So many times I had heard the mantra stated that where Thaumcraft goes the players go. It's presence will be sorely missed.

I, too, understand how quickly life can consume your free time. The realization that the hobbies you have indulged are no longer getting the time and attention needed to keep them viable is a hard pill to swallow - moreso when your hobby influences as many people as his hobby does. I agree that real life comes before Minecraft, and I wish him the best in his studies and beyond.

My hope now is that in the shadows of giants, new flowers shall bloom.
 

KingTriaxx

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Indeed. Maybe someone will manage to either pick up the mantle or create a worthy successor. Like the mod that shall not be named spawned Project Red.