Non-renewable Items?

[fyj]

But that'd be a totally subjective statement. I could go to silly extents of "I don't plan to build anything so everything's sustainable", but even without taking it to that extreme my supply of dragon eggs is sustainable because I'm using it for a gregtech power generator which doesn't use up the dragon egg I don't think anyone here really is willing to put "Dragon eggs" in the renewable category so I'd challenge you to come up with a definition I can't apply to a dragon egg but can to a princess

PS: I don't mind the clarifier on the front page - I just find it interesting that people distinguish these & I wonder whyw hen as far as I can tell the only real difference is the rarity of the non-infinite resource.

 

[bwillb]

Well sustainable implies that it's being consumed and replenished. If something isn't being used it's neither sustainable nor non-sustainable, it just exists. Princesses are sustainable because when they are used they create a replacement. Dragon eggs are non-sustainable if used in a crafting recipe, while neither sustainable nor non-sustainable if not consumed.

 

[MrCervelo]

Personally, I think that there are some items that, despite being non-renewable, are effectively unlimited. First of all, let's assume that you're playing Vanilla. Then cobblestone is infinite as you can create a cobblestone generator, but off the top of my head, you can't create dirt. So on that basis, dirt is a non-renewable resource.

But the minecraft world is 16,383x16,383 blocks in size, which is about 250,000,000 blocks in area. Assume that only about 10% of that has a layer of dirt, and that it's about 3 blocks deep, that means that you have a mere 75,000,000 blocks of dirt, and that doesn't include the dirt that you can find underground while mining. Things like sand are scarcer, but still effectively unlimited.

I agree with the points with things like the Dragon Egg of which there are exactly one, and anything that is in the strongholds, but apart from that, I think that the point is moot.

 

[jumpfight5]

Ahhh!!! You've all out-logicised me! I don't know who's arguing for or against me anymore! D:

The dragon egg produces a product (EU)
The queen produces a product (Combs)
The dragon egg has an infinite charge
The queen is not infinitely charged, and must be charged with a drone.
hmm...
...
...
I got it!!!
A dragon egg is like a Solar Panel!
It gives me an MV current. The energy it produces is, indeed, unlimited, but the solar panel itself is not unlimited. Yet the solar panel is not used up.
So, the bees:
It gives me combs. The combs it produces is, indeed, unlimited, but the bees themselves are not unlimited. Yet the bees are not used up.

There is no other use for the egg, and the other uses for bees (Beeanalyzer, that genetic thing that turns a bee into DNA) use up the bee.
So only in some cases is the bee renewable.
And even then, it's just a solar panel (that you can't create anymore of).

So, now I can convert the question into a bit easier terms (cause I'm getting lost )

If you have a Solar Panel (with no advanced or compact solar arrays, pretend our admin thought they were OP), is that renewable?
All it does is produce energy, which can be unlimited in other ways, no crafting recipes.
Like ores! Barring Iron and Gold ores (which are used in IC2 crops), ores are useless. Take Tin ore for example. Tin dust has a UU matter configuration, and bees to make tin dust.
Is Tin Ore renewable? Or is it pointless because the only thing that it's useful for is getting Tin Ingots (tin dust can be used to make bronze, but so can the ingots).

 

[bwillb]

If you have a Solar Panel (with no advanced or compact solar arrays, pretend our admin thought they were OP), is that renewable?

The solar energy is renewable, but the the solar panel is not because it is neither consumed nor replenished

 

[fyj]

So bwilb, the key distinction is that the princess is destroyed and recreated where the dragon egg stayed a dragon egg? So hypothetically if they let you macerate a Dragon Egg into Dragon Egg Dust then recompress it back into a Dragon Egg this would make Dragon Eggs a sustainable resource? What about end stone? I can macerate and recombine that... is it sustainable?

I'd agree, the combs are unlimited and so are the drones, the princesses though, if you use that argument you have to lump a whole pile of other stuff in.

jump: Yep - I'd agree with you 100% on most of that, though to be pedantic your solar panel analogy fails a little on a technicality cause all the resources to make one are renewable so solar panels themselves are renewable since you can get all the parts to make more I'd say the vast majority of ores are actually non-renewable (In their silk-touched non-dust non-ingot form), I guess they're really just a boring case since you can renew everything they're used to make them but technically you're right

 

[bwillb]

So bwilb, the key distinction is that the princess is destroyed and recreated where the dragon egg stayed a dragon egg? So hypothetically if they let you macerate a Dragon Egg into Dragon Egg Dust then recompress it back into a Dragon Egg this would make Dragon Eggs a sustainable resource? What about end stone? I can macerate and recombine that... is it sustainable?

Sustainable for the purpose of maceration, sure But if you wanted to, say, centrifuge that endstone dust, that would mean you're consuming more endstone than you're creating, making it non-sustainable.

 

[jumpfight5]

Which is similar to the point I brought up! *yes!!*

When I put a princess into the genetic recombiner thingy from ExtraBees that allows bees to turn into Liquid DNA, I can't bring them back, it's non-reversible (like centrifuging Endstone dust). So, you could say that.

Actually, a lot of ores are renewable. Iron, Gold, Bauxite, and Silver are just a few I can name off the top of my head. UU-Matter will allow infinite amounts of these items, and probably more ores.

And for the renewable-ness of a solar, pretend they aren't

 

[Exedra]

A couple wrong things there. Mystcraft crystals are infinite, and why is ironwood on the list?

 

[Zelfana]

A couple wrong things there. Mystcraft crystals are infinite, and why is ironwood on the list?

Crystals can be gotten from an infinite amount of ages, true. But ironwood needs liveroot which is chest loot and a limited "ore" because it only spawns in Twilight Forest.

 

[fyj]

Sustainable for the purpose of maceration, sure But if you wanted to, say, centrifuge that endstone dust, that would mean you're consuming more endstone than you're creating, making it non-sustainable.

Well then ender dragon eggs are sustainable for the purpose of generating EU. And I don't overly feel like centrifiguing it today so does that mean it's renewable? (PS: I don't think we should, but just trying to point out the flaw in using "sustainable" cause I can argue anything is sustainable if I'm not using it which really makes it a pointless list ) And this is the same as princesses, cause if I feel like it I can genepool or isolate them or even trade them to a villager for emeralds! Just cause there's "better" ways to get all the outputs doesn't mean it's not an available use.

Not to mention my favourite use - throwing items in lava. I can happily do that with cobblestone & make more, I can't do it with dragon eggs or princesses. That's where I draw the line. If I can start with "X", take some process then finish with "X" + desired item, then it's renewable (e.g: start with an igneous extruder full of water & lava. Finish with that still intact & I now have cobblestone). No such trick exists for non-renewable items like princesses & dragon eggs - and it's far more definable than "If I don't feel like using it technically it's renewable as I have all I need"

PS: I didn't realize UU-matter had recipies for most ores in actual ore form, I always figured it'd skip to dust or ingots but admittedly I never tried to make any of those with it. Diamond ore at least I doubt it has cause I know it has one for diamond in non-ore form, most other stuff by the time you reach UU-matter you really don't care about those ores much

 

[bwillb]

I think we're agreeing, actually It's sustainable if you can consume it without depleting the net amount of available resource.

 

[fyj]

Well, so long as you produce more of it, yes If you use it to produce something else without consuming it, the thing you produced is renewable, not the thing you used

 

[Exedra]

Liveroot is everywhere, and if the twilight forest is infinite, so is ironwood.

 

[ThemsAllTook]

Liveroot is everywhere, and if the twilight forest is infinite, so is ironwood.

That's not the definition of renewable, though. Abundance is a different thing entirely. Netherrack is abundant, but nonrenewable (except now it is via the latest version of soul shards).

 

[Exedra]

Yes, but is the twilight forest infinite?

 

[ThemsAllTook]

No more so than the overworld or nether.

 

[Golrith]

That's not the definition of renewable, though. Abundance is a different thing entirely. Netherrack is abundant, but nonrenewable (except now it is via the latest version of soul shards).

It's renewable if used with default IC2 recyclers.

 

[jumpfight5]

Well then ender dragon eggs are sustainable for the purpose of generating EU. And I don't overly feel like centrifiguing it today so does that mean it's renewable? (PS: I don't think we should, but just trying to point out the flaw in using "sustainable" cause I can argue anything is sustainable if I'm not using it which really makes it a pointless list ) And this is the same as princesses, cause if I feel like it I can genepool or isolate them or even trade them to a villager for emeralds! Just cause there's "better" ways to get all the outputs doesn't mean it's not an available use.

Not to mention my favourite use - throwing items in lava. I can happily do that with cobblestone & make more, I can't do it with dragon eggs or princesses. That's where I draw the line. If I can start with "X", take some process then finish with "X" + desired item, then it's renewable (e.g: start with an igneous extruder full of water & lava. Finish with that still intact & I now have cobblestone). No such trick exists for non-renewable items like princesses & dragon eggs - and it's far more definable than "If I don't feel like using it technically it's renewable as I have all I need"

PS: I didn't realize UU-matter had recipies for most ores in actual ore form, I always figured it'd skip to dust or ingots but admittedly I never tried to make any of those with it. Diamond ore at least I doubt it has cause I know it has one for diamond in non-ore form, most other stuff by the time you reach UU-matter you really don't care about those ores much

I think we're agreeing, actually It's sustainable if you can consume it without depleting the net amount of available resource.

Yeah, this sounds like an agreement. So I don't have to remove everything and add a ton of stuff bees make that are now no longer renewable cause the princesses aren't. *phew*
It's like using a wrath igniter (The diamond shards are not infinite because they are not for these purposes D:<). It'll be fine in some recipies (Wrath light), but when it's used, it'll deplete very quickly (using it like a flint&steel). Though that's not the best example because they're used a little bit in a wrath light. If they weren't used at all, the light could be renewable, but not the fire it makes...I guess?
And, yeah, ores (except gold and iron) are pointless so I see how almost nobody cares about them. I sure don't!


About this "world is infinite", pretend it's not. This whole thread would have the Egg as it's only list....oh, with Mystcrack more Ender Dragons can spawn...so nevermind.
I wanted to see all items that can be made from other items infinitely. Trees. You can go find infinite trees in the infinite world, but you can make infinite trees in a limited world with a sapling and some dirt. Then you can get more saplings (if you didn't get more saplings, trees wouldn't be renewable).

 

[Abdiel]

I would define "renewable" as "it is possible to create a machine/setup that takes up a limited, fixed amount of space, and with no external inputs (other than possibly sunlight) is able to produce an arbitrary amount of the resource in a finite time".

We could argue back and forth what does "limited" mean in the context of a 64Mx64M world and Myst ages and your harddrive space, so I prefer to use the term "renewable" with the above definition.