Poll: RFTools Dimension Builder Penalties

[McJty]

Hi all,

Some of you may already know but I'm busy working on a new mechanic in RFTools with which you can create dimensions. A bit like Mystcraft but with a more technolgical feel to it (creating a dimension will require RF). there will be a few important differences with Mystcraft.

The first is that the basic 'pages' (they are called dimlets in my mod) will be craftable. I want people to be able to make simple void dimensions without having to travel for ages (like I'm now forced to do in my own world trying without success to find a void page). Of course, more advanced dimlets (like diamond ore blocks and so on) will require exploration.

The second difference is that I will not have instability in my dimensions. I don't really like that 'feature' of mystcraft although it fits very well with that mod so I wouldn't remove it at all.

Of course that brings me to the reason for this poll. With the removal of the instability difficulty I want to make the mod still balanced. One thing that I will do is to make the creation of complicated dimensions use a lot more energy and time. A dimension made only out of diamond blocks will require a huge amount of RF.

But is that enough? One mechanic that a few people already suggested to me (including my son) is to constantly use RF in order to 'maintain' a dimension. If power runs out the dimension simply becomes inaccessible (but doesn't disappear). A complicated dimension can then also need more power to keep running.

Of course that requires the power generator to be chunk loaded, otherwise you drop out of your dimension when your main base is not loaded.

So good idea or not? Other suggestions?

 

[Lumaceon]

There should be no such thing as a world made completely out of one type of ore. I recall finding a Mystcraft diamond ore block page and thinking "why does this even exist?"

As for the idea though, I really do like it. Especially the idea of constantly requiring power, that adds a very cool use to RF. Dense ores is a great alternative to having all the ores shoved in your face and taking as much as you can break before the instability destroys it all (or in this case, your RF buffer runs out).

My final suggestion is for you to add some ore that can only be found in your dimensions and making it a requirement for higher tiered stuff in your mod. That way, there's more incentive to go there and keep up the RF requirement.

 

[KiwiUSA]

What would happen if you were in a dimension that ran out of power?

 

[Bubbajr114]

I like the idea of having to power your mining worlds, the cost of gathering resources. I would only say that the void world should require no power since it gives you nothing but a building platform. I would also hate having to power a machine outside of my main base

 

[McJty]

What would happen if you were in a dimension that ran out of power?

There are several options. One is that the player dies, he returns to his spawn point in the overworld and he has to put back the power. After that he can try to go back and regain his items there.

The other option is that he is simply kicked out of the dimension and returns to his spawn point but with some added negative effects (wither, whatever).

But basically the player will return to the spawn point.

 

[McJty]

I like the idea of having to power your mining worlds, the cost of gathering resources. I would only say that the void world should require no power since it gives you nothing but a building platform. I would also hate having to power a machine outside of my main base

Well the cost of a void world could be minimal (say 50RF/tick or something like that). Also I can make it so that you can choose where you give the dimension power. Here is basically how it would work:

• Unknown dimlets (that you can find in chests and as a rare drop from enderman) can be researched to known dimlets of a given type (random) by the 'Dimlet Researcher'
• Some dimlets can be crafted.
• In a 'Dimension Enscriber' you will be able to combine various dimlets on an 'Empty Dimension Tab' and when done use that enscriber to create a 'Realized Dimension Tab'. This is basically equivalent to a age book in Mystcraft.
• This 'Realized Dimension Tab' must then be placed in a 'Dimension Builder'. That device will (depending on the complexity of the dimension) use RF and time to build the dimension. Once this is done you can remove the 'Realized Dimension Tab'.
• This 'Realized Dimension Tab' can then be placed in a 'Dimension Power Provider' where it will receive power. This power provider can basically be put everywhere as long as it is chunkloaded (but perhaps not allowing it to be placed in the dimension that it is powering). So you if you have several dimensions that you need to maintain you can put all the power providers in the same chunk.

These are just ideas. At this moment I only have the Dimlet Researcher actually implemented.

 

[McJty]

There should be no such thing as a world made completely out of one type of ore. I recall finding a Mystcraft diamond ore block page and thinking "why does this even exist?"

Actually the Mystcraft Diamond Ore block is not really overpowered as it adds a lot of instability and it doesn't make the age completely out of that block. It is just a more common ore as far as I know.
Also it was just an example.

As for the idea though, I really do like it. Especially the idea of constantly requiring power, that adds a very cool use to RF. Dense ores is a great alternative to having all the ores shoved in your face and taking as much as you can break before the instability destroys it all (or in this case, your RF buffer runs out).

My final suggestion is for you to add some ore that can only be found in your dimensions and making it a requirement for higher tiered stuff in your mod. That way, there's more incentive to go there and keep up the RF requirement.

That's an interesting idea. I can indeed consider that. Might add for some nice progression.

 

[McJty]

BTW, Some progress. Two of the machines for this dimension builder system are implemented and (mostly) working:

The first is the dimlet researcher. This is the device that you will need to research the unknown dimlets that you find in dungeon chests. It will return a random dimlet that you can later use to build dimensions:

The second device is the dimension enscriber. This machine will allow you to craft your dimensions by combining dimlets and putting them in a dimension tab (item on the bottom left). The final dimension tab will be the thing you need to put in various machines to create your dimension and also to maintain the power to it:

 

[Wagon153]

More power for more complex dimensions. I need something to spend my gobs of power on. Perhaps make it a config option(multiplier)?

 

[McJty]

More power for more complex dimensions. I need something to spend my gobs of power on. Perhaps make it a config option(multiplier)?

Yes sure. I make almost everything in my mod configurable so that's no problem

 

[kaovalin]

Yes sure. I make almost everything in my mod configurable so that's no problem

Especially important for mod intereaction. Some stuff is more unbalanced in different packs.

How about page for creating a void level with a single dungeon that generates around you at the start. This way you can have high reward pages, but you still have to work for them. Also give you the ability to have people "find" rare and valuable dimlets while using the mod to do it.

Ability to add mod blocks/items to potential loot and pages would be helpful too.

Would it be too much like instability to require portals to be powered or the world starts to zero out chunks? I feel like I would only power portals for a short time if the world remained even with the portal shut down.

How about the ability to create maps of the created world by inserting blank map pages into the block maintaining the portal? Sort've like a scouting ability for those looking for specific biome or geography configurations.

 

[McJty]

Especially important for mod intereaction. Some stuff is more unbalanced in different packs.

How about page for creating a void level with a single dungeon that generates around you at the start. This way you can have high reward pages, but you still have to work for them. Also give you the ability to have people "find" rare and valuable dimlets while using the mod to do it.

Ability to add mod blocks/items to potential loot and pages would be helpful too.

Would it be too much like instability to require portals to be powered or the world starts to zero out chunks? I feel like I would only power portals for a short time if the world remained even with the portal shut down.

How about the ability to create maps of the created world by inserting blank map pages into the block maintaining the portal? Sort've like a scouting ability for those looking for specific biome or geography configurations.

Zeroing out chunks is too destructive IMHO. The only thing that I am planning to do is to make sure that with insufficient power you will not be able to access your dimension. But it is too catastrophic if you build a large base in a dimension and due to an accident you get out of power or something.

The idea about map creation sounds interesting. But that will be for later. First need the basics

 

[Wagon153]

Also, will this system be like Mystcraft, where if you don't put the pages in the right order, you don't get what you want? Because I hate that mechanic.

 

[McJty]

Also, will this system be like Mystcraft, where if you don't put the pages in the right order, you don't get what you want? Because I hate that mechanic.

No. I haven't 100% decided how the grammer system will work but I don't want to make it as strict as in Mystcraft. Here is in summary how I see it working:

• Order of dimlets (mostly) doesn't matter. The dimension builder will simply gather all relevant dimlets for a given thing (like gather all biome dimlets to see which biomes it needs to create).
• Dimlets that act as modifiers for something will have to be put before the dimlet they affect. That's to be expected as you need some way to indicate what it is modifying (i.e. think color and such)
• There will be no instability if you do it wrong. In fact it will be hard to do it wrong.
• If some feature is missing (i.e. you don't specify a biome) then that feature will be random (this is like Mystcraft). I want to keep some randomness because I actually like the random dimensions that you sometimes get in Mystcraft.
• To offset this there will be a craftable basic dimlet for almost all features so that you can at the start eliminate most randomness.
• If an age doesn't interest you anymore you will be able to deconstruct the dimension tab (this is the item that represents the dimension) into its individual dimlets. Doing that will not remove the actual dimension but it will become inaccessible since you also need that dimension tab to power up the dimension. However, you can then reuse the dimlets for other dimensions.

 

[Henry Link]

I also like the idea of needing something special from your dimensions in order to make higher tier dimensions or maybe reduce power requirements. It could also be used to eliminate power requirements for void ages. Also, I think the power requirements should be tied to ores and other special block/liquid types. For example a dense ore world should require 10 to 20 times more power than just a standard terrain gen. Something like an oil ocean world should be similar. If it is supposed to be rare like a UU matter ocean then up the power usage even more. That last one should be almost impossible to supply the power for.

 

[Henry Link]

• If some feature is missing (i.e. you don't specify a biome) then that feature will be random (this is like Mystcraft). I want to keep some randomness because I actually like the random dimensions that you sometimes get in Mystcraft.
• To offset this there will be a craftable basic dimlet for almost all features so that you can at the start eliminate most randomness.
• If an age doesn't interest you anymore you will be able to deconstruct the dimension tab (this is the item that represents the dimension) into its individual dimlets. Doing that will not remove the actual dimension but it will become inaccessible since you also need that dimension tab to power up the dimension. However, you can then reuse the dimlets for other dimensions.

I don't mind a random item being added for something that is completely missing. But, one of my big beefs with Mystcraft is the addition of things even though I did specify what I wanted. For example, I specify a sun normal postion and movement. Then when I travel to the age I have two suns one is what I specified the other is moving at a different speed from another direction. This is not acceptable.

There should also be a way for game ops or systems admins to use a command line to remove the files for unused dimensions. Hard drive space on some servers is limited. I know mine only has 240 GB available and with backups running I sometimes run a little lean on the free space.

 

[McJty]

I also like the idea of needing something special from your dimensions in order to make higher tier dimensions or maybe reduce power requirements. It could also be used to eliminate power requirements for void ages. Also, I think the power requirements should be tied to ores and other special block/liquid types. For example a dense ore world should require 10 to 20 times more power than just a standard terrain gen. Something like an oil ocean world should be similar. If it is supposed to be rare like a UU matter ocean then up the power usage even more. That last one should be almost impossible to supply the power for.

Yes, that's the basic idea. And indeed. Having some kind of ore specific to RFTools which can be used to upgrade my machines (not only the dimension stuff but also some of my other machines) sounds like a very nice idea.

 

[McJty]

I don't mind a random item being added for something that is completely missing. But, one of my big beefs with Mystcraft is the addition of things even though I did specify what I wanted. For example, I specify a sun normal postion and movement. Then when I travel to the age I have two suns one is what I specified the other is moving at a different speed from another direction. This is not acceptable.

There should also be a way for game ops or systems admins to use a command line to remove the files for unused dimensions. Hard drive space on some servers is limited. I know mine only has 240 GB available and with backups running I sometimes run a little lean on the free space.

I might possibly also provide an in-game way to destroy dimensions. Not sure if that's possible but I can certainly consider it.

 

[Henry Link]

I might possibly also provide an in-game way to destroy dimensions. Not sure if that's possible but I can certainly consider it.

If it isn't possible due to way forge works, could you maybe provide a log of deactivated worlds that contains when the link to that world was removed? That way as a server admin I can get an idea of how old a world is and when I can delete it manually. I assume it would similar to mystcraft where I have delete the world files plus the dat file that describes that age.

Right now this is a little bit a of a manual process for me. My players put the age book in a chest in our nexus. Every few weeks I go to that chest manually write down all of the age numbers (dimension IDs) then destroy the books bring the server down, delete the files for those dimensions then bring the server back up.

 

[egor66]

Personally its a bit of a moot point as most players hit a point that any amount of power requirements is of little consequence, like in old ic2 & the mass fab factory setups, so the amount of rf required is not really a penalty for most players, & with the huge output & very easy setup of big reactors, that mod alone defeats the whole idea of power requirements.

Sorry I dont have any helpful ideas & can only critic & point out flaws, but sounds interesting & hope to test it out in a future pack.