Oil Mystcraft Page

[hotblack desiato]

additionally, I see another situation

one bucket of oil generates 60k MJ in a combustion engine.

one bucket of fuel generates 600k MJ in a combustion engine.

but one bucket of oil gereates 64k heat in a boiler.

one bucke of fuel generates 96k heat in a boiler.

and suddenly, the bucket of oil generates as many MJ in a boiler as a bucket of fuel in a combustion engine.

of course, fuel is the most efficient source, but oil isn't so much worse...

 

[brujon]

In average at 40 chunks. You forgot about that. While exploring in my newest FTB Multiplayer server, i found one Quintuple Oil Well 50~blocks apart of each other, and one quadruple, where one of the Oil Wells was 30+ blocks high. Like i said, if you set up in an island in the middle of the ocean, you sure can get enough oil to keep running it for QUITE a while before you ever need to go looking for it... Unless you use Boilers, because those take a lot of fuel to heat up.

 

[MagusUnion]

In average at 40 chunks. You forgot about that.

Taken from source code. Open Source rules allow for me to post it here...

private void doPopulate(World world, Random random, int x, int z) {
 
// A spring will be generated every 40th chunk.
if(random.nextFloat() > 0.025f)
return;
 
// Do not generate water in the End or the Nether
BiomeGenBase biomegenbase = world.getWorldChunkManager().getBiomeGenAt(x, z);
if (biomegenbase.biomeID == BiomeGenBase.sky.biomeID || biomegenbase.biomeID == BiomeGenBase.hell.biomeID)
return;

 

[brujon]

Yeah, it's on Average, one Oil Well per 40 chunks. My comment was to show that it's not that you will have precisely one Oil Well per 40 chunks. I have found 5 Oil Wells who were less than 50 blocks apart from eachother, with the central oil spill being 30+ blocks high. All the others were the smallish common ones with 5 or 6 blocks above sea level. I also found another concentration of those smaller ones, 4 very close together, and several times in Oceans you see double oil spills. Not uncommon to see those 10+ rare ones, too. Oil is definitely plentiful in certain biomes, Ocean being the one with the highest concentration.

The way you worded it seemed to indicate that the Oil Wells only generated every 40 chunks, which would definitely make it a pain to obtain it, but that's not the case. While you can, naturally, spawn somewhere where there are absolutely NO Oil Wells for 100's of blocks in every direction, it's basically guaranteed by the Algorithm that as soon as you explore more, you will find these oil motherlodes. Which, you know, is the whole POINT of Oil. You search, and you search, and you search, until you finally get to those massive Oil spills that go 30+ blocks high in the air, and get you more than 4000 buckets worth of Oil, enough to last you for quite a while after you turn it into fuel. It's also always a good idea, to keep searching for more Oil Wells as you continue exploring, and marking the coordinates down so that you already know where to go later. Of course, most of the people who play FTB end up giving up Oil and going Biomass/Biofuel, because it's easier to automate and produce.

What this means is... Yes, it's sometimes a pain to get enough oil. But it was intended, so as to balance it. Mystcraft oil page... Not a terribly good idea. Someone already said that the world corruption is pretty high when you use it, which balances it to some degree, but personally, i really don't think it's enough... Infinite Oil, right off the bat... No pain involved.

 

[MagusUnion]

You search, and you search, and you search, until you finally get to those massive Oil spills that go 30+ blocks high in the air, and get you more than 4000 buckets worth of Oil, enough to last you for quite a while after you turn it into fuel. It's also always a good idea, to keep searching for more Oil Wells as you continue exploring, and marking the coordinates down so that you already know where to go later. Of course, most of the people who play FTB end up giving up Oil and going Biomass/Biofuel, because it's easier to automate and produce.

Well, yeah, not all oil sites are going to be massive springs. Some of the 'overlooked' veins are the crap pools that have less than 20 blocks of oil. But still, it is realisitic to have situations where 'crap oil' is apart of your geology. On Earth, 'Sweet crude' is mostly found in the Middle East, where it has the lowest acidity of oil pools in the world. I know of some thin shale pockets of oil in the Dakota States, but the Oil there (imo) is hardly worth the investment...

Things like Oil Fabs and Oil worlds seem overpowered because it tips all energy generation back towards Oil/Fuel, and causes over-reliance. I'll agree that the same can be said about lava, because of derpy Minecraft mechanics, but not much on that front can be helped without altering the base nature of Minecraft itself (removing the Nether, flat burn nerfs to lava, etc). Reason being why people don't agree with such methods is the overuse it causes on Oil/Fuel because of how 'good' it is. For some, that kind of play style can be boring and cookie cutter. And ironically, it creates a jarring depiction of our current over-dependency in hydro carbons in real life...

Really do hope that Pollution becomes a game mechanic soon, even though people will 'require' a config. option for/against it...

 

[brujon]

Yeah, but the Oil Fabricator isn't OP in any way, except when you use Boilers and their more-efficient than normal MJ generation for Fuel, to create an energy positive loop to generate infinite oil. Used as intended, it's nothing more than a MJ Battery, meant to help you store MJ. The problem is when you use advantageous EU->MJ conversions, or MJ generation setups that are more efficient than 1 mB of Fuel = 600k MJ. Truly, the Oil Fab is a nice idea, but frankly, i think it causes more harm than good, because it's obvious people are going to exploit that. Then the nerfs come to the rescue, and things end up worse than they were before the problematic block arrived.

:|

 

[MagusUnion]

Yeah, but the Oil Fabricator isn't OP in any way, except when you use Boilers and their more-efficient than normal MJ generation for Fuel, to create an energy positive loop to generate infinite oil. Used as intended, it's nothing more than a MJ Battery, meant to help you store MJ. The problem is when you use advantageous EU->MJ conversions, or MJ generation setups that are more efficient than 1 mB of Fuel = 600k MJ. Truly, the Oil Fab is a nice idea, but frankly, i think it causes more harm than good, because it's obvious people are going to exploit that. Then the nerfs come to the rescue, and things end up worse than they were before the problematic block arrived.

All that really sounds like is "don't nerf my block, bro." In which case, I honestly have no sympathy for you...

Especially when you use a tiered energy production system, where you use low renewable energy systems to mitigate high energy systems costs...
(My personal favorite is Wind/Water Mills powering Fermenters+Refineries to create Biofuel. Another use I like is Wood/Charcoal to Lava via TE)

 

[brujon]

Then you completely missed my point. My point is that the Oil Fabricator by itself is not OP, but it's a block that's made to be exploited. Because of that, it's probably going to cause nerfs all around which is bad. To eliminate the issues that arise, you have a couple of options, none of which is good. 1) Nerf the Oil Fab, which defeats it's purpose as an efficient way of storing MJ. 2) Nerf fuel in Boilers, which breaks a lot of power rooms. It's not "don't nerf my block", it's, i don't want this block even if it's a nice thing, because it creates more problems than it solves.

 

[MagusUnion]

Then you completely missed my point. My point is that the Oil Fabricator by itself is not OP, but it's a block that's made to be exploited. Because of that, it's probably going to cause nerfs all around which is bad. To eliminate the issues that arise, you have a couple of options, none of which is good. 1) Nerf the Oil Fab, which defeats it's purpose as an efficient way of storing MJ. 2) Nerf fuel in Boilers, which breaks a lot of power rooms. It's not "don't nerf my block", it's, i don't want this block even if it's a nice thing, because it creates more problems than it solves.

made to be exploited = OP (for me, at least)

Well, last I checked, Power Crystals was in favor for infinite loops, so the Oil Fab won't get changed anytime soon. So it's not going to be nerfed. Also, there are config. options for it, so you can 'self nerf/buff' it on your own. And, again last I checked, not many 'big named' mod authors regard Power Converters as being balanced, by any stretch of the imagination. So it's unlikely that they would nerf Oil/Fuel because of that mod...

Contrary to popular belief, I don't think mod authors (except crazy ass Greg) design around the meta-game. There are a few exceptions, where features or attributes are clearly exploited (CASUC's and Scrap Generators come to mind). I don't foresee Oil getting changed soon over two mods that make said resource renewable. Could be wrong, but I don't think that Krapt or Sengir would punish BC users over Mystcraft or Power Converters. Mostly because, I think, they understand that not everyone plays with those mods, so it would be senseless to nerf something that, for many, is still nonrenewable. Plus, this isn't something that a Oil/Fuel nerf can fix. They most likely won't nerf that feature out of BC just because of exploits, because it's impossible to catch them all...

Exploits are the consequence to mod compatibility. Personally, I think that's a small price to pay for getting mods to pay together...

 

[brujon]

You make fair enough points. And the reason Power Converters is so prone to infinite energy loops, is because they used coal generator as a baseline comparison to define their ratio for EU/MJ/Joules. They took the most basic engines for each mod, the ones that burn coal, and saw how much energy 1 piece of coal produced during the entirety of the time, and used that as a basis for converting energy to and from each mod's kind of energy. Thing is, this might be OK if you're only talking about coal generators, but each mod scales it's energy differently with other forms of fuel. The ratio is different when you compare Magmatic vs Geothermal, and it changes again with gregtech's Thermal Generator. Changes yet again if you burn coal in a Boiler.

Abusing that is as easy as the Boiler Fuel loop, or any other kind of loop where a machine (EU or MJ) generates resources that burn for more energy than it took to produce them when used in a machine that produces a different kind of energy.

That's the price of convenience, of being able to use just one kind of energy production for your entire base, regardless of what they take. Without Gregtech, that usually means MJ to EU, with Gregtech, that usually means the opposite, EU to MJ when you need it.

And i agree with you, you've convinced me. If a nerf comes it will have to come from PowerCrystal's, the others won't nerf everything because of another mod's item. Greg might, though. Interestingly enough, even with the energy positive loop using Boilers, a full size 36 HP will take hours upon hours of running at max temperature to compensate for the fuel consumed during the heatup phase. For quite some time, Combustion Engine's are more efficient than Boilers, before the Boiler's finally catch up and then surpass them in efficiency.

 

[hotblack desiato]

but the oilfabricator-boiler loop can be stopped easily by setting the needed energy to create one bucket of oil to the value of one buckeet of fuel burnt in a 36-boiler at max temperature.

the problem with this loop is, that it needs just a few components (although 2 of them are quite expensive) and it has a good output.

 

[Adonis0]

but the oilfabricator-boiler loop can be stopped easily by setting the needed energy to create one bucket of oil to the value of one buckeet of fuel burnt in a 36-boiler at max temperature.

the problem with this loop is, that it needs just a few components (although 2 of them are quite expensive) and it has a good output.

Then that defeats using the block without the boiler, it's designed to be used as a complex, but high efficiency energy storage device, so if it requires a steam boiler, then it's not a balanced energy storage device without it.

 

[NTaylor]

One solution of a sort would be less to balance out the oil and instead to add a new property to it. Explosiveness!!

Make it so that if struck by lightning or set on fire a smallish area of oil simply explodes, or make it simply burn it away and unless contained the fire spreads burning away the oil.

A bit of a silly suggestion I know but it would potentially create a semblance of balance within the oil page if the amount of instability it caused was increased quite a bit and it was made so that it was likely to add a charged modifier to any world with it in a fair ammount of the oil could simply be destroyed. That way it would force anyone creating one of the oil ages to have to not only think about what world they writing so as to make it stable but also make them have to collect a fair few pages before they could create an oil age.

 

[AlanEsh]

... It's easier to find [oil spawns] in single biome deserts since the only critical factor you have to worry about is sand...

Just thought I'd point out that the oil spawns in desert biomes are (as far as I've seen) just one layer deep with no shaft and oil pocket. I've never found a desert oil deposit worth setting up a pump and tesseract to retrieve. Yes I do it anyway

 

[MagusUnion]

Just thought I'd point out that the oil spawns in desert biomes are (as far as I've seen) just one layer deep with no shaft and oil pocket. I've never found a desert oil deposit worth setting up a pump and tesseract to retrieve. Yes I do it anyway

I have on a few (but not every) occasions... that just sounds like shit luck...

 

[hotblack desiato]

at least you have a desert. I made the mistake that I've enabled large biomes. okay every biome is at least 1000x1000 blocks large. and with extra biomes XL, it takes a while to find a desert (I did not find one so far).

actually I found a way to get cactusgreen for waterproof pipes, but it's not for automatic farms. just those tiny cactus plants... which are "decorative blocks" in extra biomes. I currently use just liquiducts, but first, I really had to work with those little thingies.

 

[brujon]

You can get pipe waterproof from Beeswax, which all overworld bees naturally produce. 1 for 1. I figured this out after spawning too far away from a desert and having no immediate access to cactus... Another way is transmuting any dye in Cactus Green using the Minium Stone, and then turning that into pipe waterproofing. Minium Stone is awesome for when you want a particular dye, but you don't have it. It's awesome for those little things.

 

[hotblack desiato]

okay, I need to take a closer look on beeswax, since I already stole the apiaries from a few villages

but liquiducts work very well too, although it's a bit energy costing, that I melt netherrack by using biofuel... but it works

 

[NTaylor]

okay, I need to take a closer look on beeswax, since I already stole the apiaries from a few villages

but liquiducts work very well too, although it's a bit energy costing, that I melt netherrack by using biofuel... but it works

Could also just use a minium stone to get cactus green then turn that into the waterproofing.

 

[Adragal]

Honestly, how much more OP is an oil age than a lava one? Sure, oil generates a lot more MJ per bucket than lava, but you need to set up a refinery system; and to generate any useful amount of EU from it, you need to either use a huge array of diesel generators, or a steam boiler & turbine setup.

plenty of ways to convert it and lava? more or less the same deal in the end geothermals are terrible for lava, use a better machine or a dang magmatic feeding MJ into a converter of some sort