New Forestry 2.0 Farm Blocks aare a PITA

[Carrington]

There's an inherent problem with the concept of "OP" in a sandbox game like Minecraft, since there are a lot of different ways and reasons to play it.

I get what your entire point is here, and for the most part I think the loss of the overall forestry interaction system is lamentable, but this notion keeps popping up in various threads and it's bothering the crap out of me. Defining something as OP is eminently possible by any number of heuristics.

1) For a give unit of time-effort value, does a particular mod feature reduce or eliminate that time-effort without either: a) logarithmically expanding resource necessities to generate that feature (true for many forestry features, most RP machines) and/or b) a requisite set of new learned skills (true for RP2 logic gates/FORTH, ComputerCraft sans pastebin).

If you look at matters from this perspective it becomes immediately clear that some mod features are OP, either due to undercosting (XyCraft) or by their very nature (EE). If a mod violates these constraints, the game degenerates toward Creative mode in a certain sense, and you have to begin looking for accomplishment in the artistry of the structures being built. That playstyle has intrinsic merit, to be sure - in the same way art for art's sake has intrinsic merit - but it's worth noting that's it's fundamentally different from the technical/survival roots in which the game is based. You are going from living in a world of digital legos to simply building with them.

 

[Yeraze]

Ah, so glad to see that changelog with a recipe from Old-style machines to the new Blocks. Once that goes live, I just might go ahead and convert my 2 peatbogs & treefarm over. As it stands now, they work and I'm not inclined to change them.

 

[Hydra]

Looks like this is done and already in the next version:
- Added: Config option to switch farms to using a square layout instead of a diamond shaped one. Server side config controls it.

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/44760587/forestry/changelog/2.0.0.4

We might not see it in FTB for a week at the earliest.

I don't like everything stuffed away in configs. Most rented servers will only allow you to have a base pack. Why not just let whoever creates the farm decide?

 

[Xakthos]

I don't like everything stuffed away in configs. Most rented servers will only allow you to have a base pack. Why not just let whoever creates the farm decide?

It may not be ideal but I gotta be honest, I'll take it and run. It looks like the next version will let me integrate them into my building system with minimal issues now. It's just a matter of doing something about the monolith in the center. Perhaps with the right block choice it'll look like a column or something.

 

[Celestialphoenix]

It may not be ideal but I gotta be honest, I'll take it and run. It looks like the next version will let me integrate them into my building system with minimal issues now. It's just a matter of doing something about the monolith in the center. Perhaps with the right block choice it'll look like a column or something.

You can sink it into the ground, so the top is at the same level as your farm.

Makes hooking in all your pipes ect a lot easier as you have 3 blocks of space under the farmed area.​

 

[Xakthos]

You can sink it into the ground, so the top is at the same level as your farm.

Makes hooking in all your pipes ect a lot easier as you have 3 blocks of space under the farmed area.​

Well yeah if you do just one that works out great. No argument there. It's when you want to stack of them that it's a bit of a problem. As I noted earlier in the thread I tend to build huge supply generation systems. Having 20 of the prior farms in 5 levels of 4 was not uncommon and considered a 'small' wheat farm for me.

 

[Celestialphoenix]

Well yeah if you do just one that works out great. No argument there. It's when you want to stack of them that it's a bit of a problem. As I noted earlier in the thread I tend to build huge supply generation systems. Having 20 of the prior farms in 5 levels of 4 was not uncommon and considered a 'small' wheat farm for me.

Stacking the farms like that is considered a massive exploit, and one of the reasons Sengir added the multifarms.

Besides- they look a lot better tiled horizontally.

 

[Yeraze]

Stacking the farms like that is considered a massive exploit, and one of the reasons Sengir added the multifarms.

Besides- they look a lot better tiled horizontally.

One reason I liked to "stack" farms was to reduce the number of loaded chunks.. What's better for a server: 1 busy chunk (multiple farms stacked), or several light chunks (which will have mob spawns, lighting, etc all going on as well)?

And I don't think Sengir really had any problem with stacking farms.. His beef was (and I agree) with people using say 2 or 3 peat farms, but only a single Turbary to harvest them all. You could do that with melons and wheat as well, and just drown in resources from only running a single combine.

 

[Celestialphoenix]

One reason I liked to "stack" farms was to reduce the number of loaded chunks.. What's better for a server: 1 busy chunk (multiple farms stacked), or several light chunks (which will have mob spawns, lighting, etc all going on as well)?

And I don't think Sengir really had any problem with stacking farms.. His beef was (and I agree) with people using say 2 or 3 peat farms, but only a single Turbary to harvest them all. You could do that with melons and wheat as well, and just drown in resources from only running a single combine.

Unless you decide to farm miles away from your house, those chunks will stay loaded anyway- so a wider area wont effect too much for server load.
(given given that everyone runs a quarry)

As for stacking, the new ones can be piled on top of each other- with a farm layer every 6 blocks.​

 

[Darkness4910]

I just started getting into Forestry. Does that mean that all my newly made stuff will be deleted soon? Or can I still use the logger, etc. I just crafted in future versions of the mod?

 

[Yeraze]

Unless you decide to farm miles away from your house, those chunks will stay loaded anyway- so a wider area wont effect too much for server load.
(given given that everyone runs a quarry)

As for stacking, the new ones can be piled on top of each other- with a farm layer every 6 blocks.​

Stacking is still _kinda_ possible, but since the new system puts the farm right up against the blocks, it's much more difficult to route pipes around. It was nice when there was a 3-block air-gap around the machines, perfect for engines, pipes, autocrafting tables, etc.

Also, just fyi, I'm not running a quarry. Had several in my 1.2.5 world, but trying to do without a quarry in my 1.4 world, just manual mining so I spend lots of time "away from home", making chunkloaders important.

 

[DoctorOr]

And I don't think Sengir really had any problem with stacking farms.. His beef was (and I agree) with people using say 2 or 3 peat farms, but only a single Turbary to harvest them all. You could do that with melons and wheat as well, and just drown in resources from only running a single combine.

I do that with wheat, seven farms total, and 3 peat farms with a single turbary I later dismantled because I had three barrels full of peat and nothing to use them on.

The functional difference between a (farm+combine)*7 and farm*7 + combine is some irrelevantly small build materials (combines don't even take diamonds) and 6MJ/t....and ease of laying out transportation pipe or tubes. It's clear from the new farms that what Sengir was against is maintenance free farms. That wheat farm I mentioned, I never bothered to switch from my temporary buildcraft pipes to redpower. Since it has _no_input_whatsoever_, I just hooked the pipes into a relay and moved on with my life.

That's the nature of minecraft farms though, and creating false inputs will just cause lack of use. The fertilizer isn't being "used" to grow the farm, it's poofing into thin air, doing nothing. I think, on a mixed-mod FTB-style server with the old farms disabled or in the future when the code base has degraded to the point where they don't work, that people will continue to use Forestry farms for trees - except for vanilla trees - but when the product is a single flat plane of items "growing", then a number of zero-maintenance options present themselves, from turtles, to golems, to blockbreakers and deployers on frames.. The abundance of apitite won't change that either.

And of course orchards will be used with the farms, which is content entirely inside Forestry.

 

[Yeraze]

That's the nature of minecraft farms though, and creating false inputs will just cause lack of use. The fertilizer isn't being "used" to grow the farm, it's poofing into thin air, doing nothing. I think, on a mixed-mod FTB-style server with the old farms disabled or in the future when the code base has degraded to the point where they don't work, that people will continue to use Forestry farms for trees - except for vanilla trees - but when the product is a single flat plane of items "growing", then a number of zero-maintenance options present themselves, from turtles, to golems, to blockbreakers and deployers on frames.. The abundance of apitite won't change that either.

And of course orchards will be used with the farms, which is content entirely inside Forestry.

I agree 100%.. I've already found myself moving away from using Forestry for food farms, since a Redpower 2 sickle + seed bag and a small Carrot or Potato farm will feed me more than I can eat. The only thing I'm using Forestry for right now is Peat (still probably the easiest buildcraft renewable fuel source in the game) and a Rubber Tree farm. Although I use that farm for both wood logs/planks and rubber, which it seems isn't really an option anymore without building 2 separate farms.

I'm not bashing the new machines, it just means I'm going to have to rebuild some things moving forwards. And honestly, that probably means moving to steve carts or golems.

 

[Xakthos]

Stacking the farms like that is considered a massive exploit, and one of the reasons Sengir added the multifarms.

Besides- they look a lot better tiled horizontally.

I think you may have missed my point. I do that type of stacking with every crop. Now I did play fair in that each level had it's own farm/combine, I didn't have one handle multiples at least not deliberately they did overlap but that was just a side effect. Now when you think about all the crops and that scale it doesn't fit mathematically in the total number of loaded chunks around a player going horizontal. The math just doesn't work. Then add in the factory the storage warehouse system (I take great pride in a warehouse that can handle the influx of all the farms, factories, and 6 quarries at max speed without backup but it takes space to store all that), living quarters, magic research, a mystcraft portal network hub... well you get the idea. That's a lot to fit into a single area that has to stay loaded no matter where in my complex I am. Sure I can drop chunk loaders everywhere but I try to minimize my reliance on them.

So stacks of some form are a necessity. Either up or down but it's gotta go vertical in some form. I have to make the most of my zone while at same time trying to make it look kinda nice (and be resistant to massive explosions, never know when a neighbor may have set up a bad nuke plant or mine might have a bad day). The area around a player is actually not that big in the scheme of things. Especially when you further limit it by every block always loaded even if you move to one edge. That effectively limits you to 1/2 of the size otherwise available. You simply cannot go horizontal on stuff and function.

 

[Yeraze]

Kinda funny, but now that I think about it.. The "diamond" shape of the farm does at least mean you _could_ stack farms within a single chunk because the corners of the chunk are free. It's not as clean as in the center of hte chunk (next to the machines), but it's at least an option.. For not-tree farms anyway (the pipes would interfere with tree growth).

 

[Airship]

Looks like this is done and already in the next version:
- Added: Config option to switch farms to using a square layout instead of a diamond shaped one. Server side config controls it.

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/44760587/forestry/changelog/2.0.0.4

We might not see it in FTB for a week at the earliest.

Oh! That's great! isn't it possible to add the newest version of forestry to the modpack you're using yourself though? If you're playing singleplayer, that is.

 

[vKILLZ0NEv]

Okay, I've read all the posts and kinda see some of the points brought up. If I miss anything or get anything wrong please call me out on it. First off, when I first heard about the new farms I was very unhappy about it. But I learned a little bit more about them and started getting over it, then I read Sengir's first post here and that told me that Sengir really wasn't happy with the old farms, which was enough for me to be okay with the new ones. Now after reading even more about them I'm actually kind of happy about them. Sure, they can't compete with SC tree farms, but the old farms couldn't either. I was fairly unhappy with the shape, not that they planted in diamond shapes, but that the largest size isn't a perfect square. Which drives the OCD in me CRAZY. But that's a fairly small issue. I haven't used the new farms yet or the new tree system, but it looks like the new farms go very nicely with the new trees. Also I understand people are unhappy with the limit on vertically stacking the farms. What I don't understand is that you have at least 60 layers of dirt and stone you can bury your farms under. So it's not much of a limit IMO. And as far as the cost of the blocks, I absolutely don't mind. It should be very costly to have automatic infinite source of products. So I very much look forward to using the new farms.

 

[makeshiftwings]

Even putting aside the other mods that let you automate harvesting, I think it's important to remember that doing some of these things "manually" isn't exactly hard, so I don't think it makes sense to make an automatic machine require too much setup or manual maintenance. In the amount of time it takes to build the new farm, mine enough apatite to keep it running, and fill it with saplings and apatite, I could just run around and spam right-click with those saplings to plant them and then spam right-click with a pile of bonemeal on them. I'd even have enough time left over to chop down most of them with a plain old stone axe. Forestry also assumes you have Buildcraft installed, so I could plop down a quarry in a forest too. If I have to spend even a quarter of as much time futzing with the machine as it takes to just manually click out the saplings and bone meal, it doesn't feel like it's worth it to me.

 

[HeffronCM]

Even putting aside the other mods that let you automate harvesting, I think it's important to remember that doing some of these things "manually" isn't exactly hard, so I don't think it makes sense to make an automatic machine require too much setup or manual maintenance. In the amount of time it takes to build the new farm, mine enough apatite to keep it running, and fill it with saplings and apatite, I could just run around and spam right-click with those saplings to plant them and then spam right-click with a pile of bonemeal on them. I'd even have enough time left over to chop down most of them with a plain old stone axe. Forestry also assumes you have Buildcraft installed, so I could plop down a quarry in a forest too. If I have to spend even a quarter of as much time futzing with the machine as it takes to just manually click out the saplings and bone meal, it doesn't feel like it's worth it to me.

That's your opinion. Cutting down trees is one of the things I hate most in this game. Especially oaks and their g*@#$% @*#$* branches. Any alternative way to do it is good in my book. On top of that, the increased complexity and resource requirements just make it more interesting.

 

[Lambert2191]

If you look at matters from this perspective it becomes immediately clear that some mod features are OP, either due to undercosting (XyCraft)

ehh... where the hell do you get this from? All we have right now is some fancy looking blocks and annoying lag inducing quartz... If you're talking about what you've seen on forgecraft lets plays/streams, then hows about don't? Until you actually play the final version of Xycraft you have absolutely no ground to stand on when talking about it's supposed "OPness"