Mystified by Mystcraft

[HangingLotus]

i really need some help. i am trying to make a simple eternal day flat plains age. so far ive met with varying degrees of success. of the last 5 ages ive made 4 have come close to what i want. the biggest problem being no eternal day. the last age i made just now went completely wrong. i somehow ended up in an end biome despite NOT putting the corresponding symbol in the book. here is the order i put the symbols in:

Plains Biome
Single Biome
Flat
Zenith
Zero Length
Normal Sun
Zenith
Zero Length
Normal Moon
Normal Stars
No Weather
Normal Lighting
Blue
Sky Color
White
Cloud Color

am i doing something wrong?

 

[Tristam Izumi]

Things I think may help:
*** "Flat, Plains Biome, Single Biome" (I think the Flat being after Single Biome is screwing with things)
** "Zero Length, Zenith, Normal Sun"
* Don't try to stop the moon, it doesn't really make a difference and may cause instability
* Add colors for sun, moon, stars, and lighting (and fog color if you have it)
* Add 3+ features

The first two I think will fix most of your problems, the last three are just icing to help prevent instability.

 

[HangingLotus]

sadly the sun tip did not help as it just settled into another eternal night. do i need more than one copy of the symbol? do i need the clear modifiers page? this is really irritating as it should not be that hard to make an eternal day age. on a brighter note the first tip regarding the biome pages works.

 

[Gimply Goose]

Age generation varies greatly with the modpack you are playing on. In unleashed the age generation is a bit over zealous in adding pages you didn't put in, with the trade off of very few unstable ages.

Your page order looks fine for unleashed. If the age doesn't turn out right just put all the pages back in in the same order and try again. It may take something like 5 tries to get an acceptable age.

 

[neiromaru]

Goose is right. In more recent versions of mystcraft you wont get as many random pages added, but sadly we're stuck with this one for now.
To copy books quicker/easier you can place the descriptive book in the far left slots, place an empty notebook in the slot to the left of the black bar, fill the top slots with paper and ink vials, then right click each page from the descriptive book. It'll make a copy of each page and put them into the notebook in the order you right click them. Then you just drop the notebook into the book binder and it will transfer all the pages.

As for clear modifiers, I don't know if it's essential anymore, but I always add one, it can't hurt.

 

[HangingLotus]

i am using the dw20 modpack i think i have stumbled on to a solution. i reversed the order of the pages relating to the sun and that seems to have done the trick.

 

[HangingLotus]

since the edit function doesnt work at the moment - scratch what i said about reversing the page order. doesnt work.

 

[isnowcrash]

If you don't put something like water block, stone block or stone block, dirt block before the flat page you have a chance for it to pick something like end stone. You also need to put zero length, zenith, normal moon to get eternal day.

 

[HangingLotus]

isnowcrash, i have been doing that to no avail and it doesnt work.

 

[isnowcrash]

If you don't put something like water block, stone block or stone block, dirt block before the flat page you have a chance for it to pick something like end stone. You also need to put zero length, zenith, normal moon to get eternal day.

Sorry, I mean zero length, zenith, normal sun for eternal day...

 

[Trunks9809]

*** "Flat, Plains Biome, Single Biome" (I think the Flat being after Single Biome is screwing with things)

Actually, the order of the Biome Controller and Terrain Controller doesn't matter, I always write my ages with Flat\Normal after my biome choices.

* Add colors for sun, moon, stars, and lighting (and fog color if you have it)
* Add 3+ features

This, however, is probably the most important suggestion overall - Mystcraft expects a number of 'features' - Villages, Ravines, Lakes etc - and if these are not present, it will randomly add a number of pages (And these are NOT limited to just 'features') to make up the difference. Between features and colours, thats a lot of randomly selected pages...

Plains Biome
Single Biome
Flat
Zenith
Zero Length
Normal Sun
Zenith
Zero Length
Normal Moon
Normal Stars
No Weather
Normal Lighting
Blue
Sky Color
White
Cloud Color

Try this:
Plains Biome, Single Biome, Stone Block, Water Block, Flat
Zenith, Zero Length, Normal Sun, Normal Moon, Normal Stars
No Weather, Normal Lighting
Blue, Sky Colour, White, Cloud Colour, <Colour>, Fog Colour, <Colour>, Sun Colour, <Colour>, Moon Colour, <Colour>, Star Colour
Any combination of Villages, Ravines, Surface Lake, Deep Lake (Note both lakes require a block modifier for the type of fluid, so Water, Lava or Oil). You can go for more exotic ones like Spheres or Tendrils, these also require a block modifier so be aware of which one you use as several add to instability.

 

[HangingLotus]

trunks, your solution works! the moon is movin but the sun is holdin steady.

 

[UnionCraft]

Age generation varies greatly with the modpack you are playing on. In unleashed the age generation is a bit over zealous in adding pages you didn't put in, with the trade off of very few unstable ages.

Your page order looks fine for unleashed. If the age doesn't turn out right just put all the pages back in in the same order and try again. It may take something like 5 tries to get an acceptable age.

By over Zealous, what they mean is bugged. Unleashed version of Mystcraft will add random amount of pages into the age, most usually excessive gradient and colours resulting in worlds that look nothing like what you want, there is a rather involving method of fixing it via na NBT editor but the best option is to use around 60 pages (double up on colours, eg {Blue}{Blue}{Blue}{Blue}{Blue}{Blue}{Blue}{Blue}{Blue}{Blue}{SkyColor}) to cut down on some of the randomness but due to the buggy version it still may not turn out the way you want.

 

[neiromaru]

By over Zealous, what they mean is bugged. Unleashed version of Mystcraft will add random amount of pages into the age, most usually excessive gradient and colours resulting in worlds that look nothing like what you want, there is a rather involving method of fixing it via na NBT editor but the best option is to use around 60 pages (double up on colours, eg {Blue}{Blue}{Blue}{Blue}{Blue}{Blue}{Blue}{Blue}{Blue}{Blue}{SkyColor}) to cut down on some of the randomness but due to the buggy version it still may not turn out the way you want.

It's not a bug. Mystcraft ages are intended to add some randomness. The version in unleashed is one of the first versions after the implementations of the modifier system when xcompwiz decided to start adding the randomness back in. (this is why randomness was absent in the version packed in FTB ultimate. That was the introduction of modifiers, and randomness was completely disabled to make sure modifiers worked properly) Obviously the randomness in unleashed's version is over the top, which is why in more recent versions of mystcraft the system has been refined.

 

[UnionCraft]

It's not a bug. Mystcraft ages are intended to add some randomness. The version in unleashed is one of the first versions after the implementations of the modifier system when xcompwiz decided to start adding the randomness back in. (this is why randomness was absent in the version packed in FTB ultimate. That was the introduction of modifiers, and randomness was completely disabled to make sure modifiers worked properly) Obviously the randomness in unleashed's version is over the top, which is why in more recent versions of mystcraft the system has been refined.

Its definately a bug, when you look at the NBT data you have things such as:

ModGradient
ModBlue
ModGradient
ModCyan
ModSkyColor
or
ModNoon
ModZero
ModNoon
ModRising
ModHalf
DarkSun

Its obviously not intended to state many multiple modifiers that overwrite each other multiple times, thats not randomness, thats bugs.

 

[neiromaru]

Its definately a bug, when you look at the NBT data you have things such as:
*[SNIP]*
Its obviously not intended to state many multiple modifiers that overwrite each other multiple times, thats not randomness, thats bugs.

A bug is something in the code that doesn't do what it's creator intended. Xcompwiz intended lot of randomly selected pages to be added randomly. Just because this doesn't result in a good outcome gameplay-wise doesn't mean the code is bugged, it means his goal was poorly implemented. He recognized this and implemented it differently in later versions.

Also, that sequence of pages is perfectly reasonable. Most multiple modifiers don't overwrite eachother, they combine. so putting "zenith" then "rising" will result in a sun that starts halfway between. That first example is also exactly the correct use of the gradient page, you need a copy of it after each color of the gradient.
This might also make it clearer for you why xcompwiz thought this implementation would work. It's not merely overwriting what you've written, with a bit of luck it just shifts things a bit. Especially if you've described the world with enough detail.

 

[UnionCraft]

A bug is something in the code that doesn't do what it's creator intended. Xcompwiz intended lot of randomly selected pages to be added randomly. Just because this doesn't result in a good outcome gameplay-wise doesn't mean the code is bugged, it means his goal was poorly implemented. He recognized this and implemented it differently in later versions.

Also, that sequence of pages is perfectly reasonable. Most multiple modifiers don't overwrite eachother, they combine. so putting "zenith" then "rising" will result in a sun that starts halfway between. That first example is also exactly the correct use of the gradient page, you need a copy of it after each color of the gradient.

Dark suns dont accept modifiers.

I admit i was pulling from memory so it was inaccurate on the first one, here is one directly quoted from one book:

ModGreen
ModGradient
ModZero
ModEnd
MoonDark < no modifiers

ModEast
ModWest < conflicting modifiers
StarsNormal

ModBlack
ModDouble
ModHalf
ModGradient
ModBlack
ModGradient < 2 black (invisible) gradients
ColorSky

ModGreen
ModBlack
ModDouble
ColorHorizon
NoHorizon < conflicting

Ravine
Ravine < duplicate
LakesDeep
Village
StarFissure
StarFissure < duplicate
MineShafts
MineShafts < duplicate
LakesSurface < conflict with LakesDeep

 

[Trunks9809]

Ravine
Ravine < duplicate
LakesDeep
Village
StarFissure
StarFissure < duplicate
MineShafts
MineShafts < duplicate
LakesSurface < conflict with LakesDeep

Most 'feature' pages can be added to increase the spawn rate of that selected feature, Mineshafts, Villages etc can all be doubled or tripled up without being invalid. I wouldn't suggest adding more than 3 unless you're prepared to deal with instability, however. Also you can have both surface lakes and deep lakes in the same world.

 

[UnionCraft]

Most 'feature' pages can be added to increase the spawn rate of that selected feature, Mineshafts, Villages etc can all be doubled or tripled up without being invalid. I wouldn't suggest adding more than 3 unless you're prepared to deal with instability, however. Also you can have both surface lakes and deep lakes in the same world.

Yes they can but why would they be added twice when there was only 1 page added anyways and with a clear modifiers page put at the end?

I was trying to point out, with limited success it seems, that the current version of unleashed mystcraft is buggy and unless players are willing to edit NBT data directly, they will spend many frustrating hours trying to create worlds that may or may not end up looking like the pages they used to try and create it in the first place, that was the point of this thread, the player was frustrated, i was attempting to explain why.

The above example had only 1 Ravines/Lakes/StarFissures/Mineshaft page added to the book and lets not even go into Clear Modifiers, but my point was, it is adding tons of unnecessary, conflicting, undefined modifiers that obviously were unintended. Its surprising that people seem to be more interested in demonstrating their familiarity with Mystcraft rather than taking a look at the NBT data themselves and seeing the perfectly obvious, if you take a look yourself you wouldn't have picked out a small section of my post and ignore the rest.