PowerConverters OP EU Generation in FTB Ultimate

[Shirkit]

Hello everyone,

I came here to report something I spotted that I think it should be noticed by the FTB Team that cares care of the Ultimate Pack. I run all my MJ part of the base with Fuel, since it's fairly easy to get it and generates good amount MJ. I took a look at the PowerConverters mod, and I spotted a problem regarding the output. The only way you can use Fuel to generate EU is using a Diesel Generator from GregTech, and that outputs 384kEU in total. The Combustion Engine can produce 600kMJ, and if you hook it into the PowerConverters, you can generate 1.4MEU per bucket of fuel. That's a 400% gain just by converting MJ to EU. This feels wrong, and I wanted to share with you.

 

[jumpfight5]

http://forum.feed-the-beast.com/forums/the-mod-pack-bugs.26/

 

[Shirkit]

I'm sorry, I didn't think of this as a bug. Can a moderator move this topic, or should I re-create it over there?

 

[jumpfight5]

Well, I'm not exactly sure
Leave it here for now, and maybe talk to powercrystals about it, he made the mod. People don't really care, but if someone complains a mod will remove it.
There's also another glitch here where you can use an oil fab and turn it to steam and then turn it back into EU to power the oil fab again that gets you some energy. Not nearly as much as yours there, but still, a good amount.

 

[danidas]

That is a long term known issue and has to do with the formula built into power converters. It is not a bug and in fact is a feature due to the nature of converting one thing to another with out a stable baseline.

Here check the power converters thread pay close attention to the math section. Basically all the conversion ratios are based on the cost to smelt one ore via each energy systems normal powered furnace. Now the problem occurs when different mods have different values for each fuel source which throws the conversion ratios into chaos. As shown by the issue with fuel and a few other power sources.

In other words the issue is not with power converts and is in fact with the mods your trying to convert the power from.

 

[jumpfight5]

Now, can you change it back from EU to MJ and make an infinite loop?
If so, then it'd be an issue with Powerconverters and not GregTech.

 

[ILoveGregTech]

First, just don't abuse it...
That's the problem. Report it to powercrystals and he may change it.
Second, try transformers mod lol THAT'S OP

 

[jumpfight5]

First, just don't abuse it...
That's the problem. Report it to powercrystals and he may change it.
Second, try transformers mod lol THAT'S OP

Not abusing it? It's a bug, he's just pointing it out. He didn't know about "The Mod Pack Bugs" section, but that's where...bugs go in. And some people will always abuse something, no matter what, so just saying don't use it could work for some people, but in the end, people won't just "not abuse" it.
Reading that post made me sound angry, I'm not angry The problem is not abusing it, the problem is it existing in the first place. Yeah, there's a config file, but, still.

 

[RedBoss]

anything that nets you greater energy for use in gregtech isn't a bug, its a feature

 

[danidas]

This is not really a bug and in fact is simply a issue due to fuel getting a buff in the recent versions of build craft to make combustion engines stronger.

 

[Peppe]

It is not quite 400% off. As the best option to convert MJ to EU is magma crucible for lava and run that in a thermal generator. Which scales from 1:1.5 (cobble) to 1:2.5 (netherrack).


Right now 1 MJ = 2.4 EU
And 1 EU = .4 MJ

EU to MJ is actually equal to the best conversion ratio you can get using Electric engines, so that is well balanced to available options.

Looking at the configs looks like the best you could do is drop the EU output 50% or more. I think that will make MJ -> EU be 50% less and more inline with magma crucible conversion method, while not affecting EU -> MJ ratio.

The problem is that will also drop any other conversions from UE/Steam/Factorization to EU as well. Seems to get messy quick. Maybe get the conversions ratios pretty close and then nerf all the outputs as a cost to convert.

Edit:
To drop the EU output you have to increase the energy required for each EU output.

Playing with it a bit I think the best balance is to take steam to EU as a base. Which is 3.2 steam = 1 EU (320 steam = 100 EU in a turbine).

Best fit:
ratios {
I:BuildCraftInternalEnergyPerEachInput=1000
I:BuildCraftInternalEnergyPerEachOutput=1000
I:FactorizationInternalEnergyPerEachInput=80
I:FactorizationInternalEnergyPerEachOutput=80
I:IndustrialCraftInternalEnergyPerEachInput=400
I:IndustrialCraftInternalEnergyPerEachOutput=400
I:SteamInternalEnergyPerEachInput=200
I:SteamInternalEnergyPerEachOutput=200
I:UniversalElectricityInternalEnergyPerEachInput=10
I:UniversalElectricityInternalEnergyPerEachOutput=10
}

EU to MJ 5:2
MJ to EU 1:1.56 (A little high, but this is balanced dependent on the steam to EU ratio being right).

Steam to MJ 5:1 (Same as running a boiler + railcraft engines)
Steam to EU 3.2:1 (Same as running a boiler + turbine)

Never used charge or UE, but scaled them relative to original mod's numbers.

If you just want to change one line in your config you can just change this bold line:
ratios {
I:BuildCraftInternalEnergyPerEachInput=4375
I:BuildCraftInternalEnergyPerEachOutput=4375
I:FactorizationInternalEnergyPerEachInput=1458
I:FactorizationInternalEnergyPerEachOutput=1458
I:IndustrialCraftInternalEnergyPerEachInput=1800
I:IndustrialCraftInternalEnergyPerEachOutput=2800
I:SteamInternalEnergyPerEachInput=875
I:SteamInternalEnergyPerEachOutput=875
I:UniversalElectricityInternalEnergyPerEachInput=10
I:UniversalElectricityInternalEnergyPerEachOutput=10
}

I thought it was cleaner to work with full numbers.

 

[TangentialThreat]

Railcraft is the mod most "unbalanced" by PowerConverters. You no longer need to craft banks of steam engines to turn all that steam into MJ. The steam turbine is also now obsolete for steam to EU conversion, as steam to EU is more than twice as efficient and maintenance-free with PowerConverters.

I tried the Enron Mathematics approach of converting steam to EU to oil to steam but the power gain insignificant for the costs. Enron Math does make it MUCH more efficient to heat up a boiler if it can bootstrap it by making it feed a trickle of fuel into itself as soon as it reaches 100 C. You can also help light a second boiler with the first one etc.

It isn't really broken though. Steam turbines were not really worth it anyway, and heating up a boiler was really hard.

 

[jumpfight5]

Heating up a boiler was hard because of the high efficiency/high MJ/t you got later.
I don't like steam turbines, I made one just to make sure I didn't hate it just to hate it, and I don't think they're worth it, either. You already spent your steel on that boiler, why more? I'm going to use PC eventually. It's pretty simple from the looks of it.

 

[Dravarden]

this op that op, don't like it don't use it and stop complaining.

 

[TangentialThreat]

this op that op, don't like it don't use it and stop complaining.

Agreed. FTB is not balanced. It might not be a bad thing if it were, but there are too many different mod authors. Not all of them even like eachother.

So, screw balance. Play it as a sandbox. Find ways to break the game. Build ridiculous huge things.

 

[power crystals]

As someone above said, this is due to how I derived the math. The problem is that because there's like 20 different ways to assign "equality" between any two mods' power systems, that means there's 20 ways where somebody might do things different and wind up with an unbalanced ratio (in the sense of "too heavy on one side", not OP/UP). There isn't a lot I can really do about this, but that's why the ratios are configurable - if you as an admin (or pack creator) are worried about one of the infinite power loop exploits, just run the ratios downward until the conversion is lossy enough that it doesn't work anymore.

Or just slap your players if they build one of those things.

 

[KirinDave]

Ha Peppe beat me days ago. I had this tab sitting open and never hit send. Sorry, disregard this slow old man.

 

[quantumllama]

I wonder how long will it take for people to realize we wouldn't have these problems if we didn't have Mass/Matter fabricators that make everything depend on exactly how much energy you can produce. Since everything has a energy cost attached to it and everything can be achieved with energy ( especially even more energy, since the logical next step is making stuff with energy that is going to get you more energy to make more stuff that makes you energy ) which makes it practically money.

That's what Marx calls value-form. Some easy to understand passage I nicked from wikipedia ( yeah they don't teach anything in that way in academia let me tell you ):

"Marx's concept is introduced in the first chapter of Das Kapital where Marx argues economic value becomes manifest in an objectified way only through the form of value established by the exchange of products. People know very well that any product represents a value, i.e. there is an economic cost of supply for the product. But how much value? What something is economically "worth" can be expressed only relatively, by relating, weighing, comparing and equating it to amounts of other tradeable objects (or to the labour effort or sum of money those objects represent). The value of products is expressed by their exchange-value, by what they can trade for.

Because value is expressed as exchange-value, it seems to the ordinary observer that value and exchange-value are simply the same thing. And since exchange-value is most often expressed by a money-price, it seems that "value" and "money" are the same thing."

Marx doesn't think they are the same thing but that's beside the point. What makes people complain about fuel or other power conversion systems is pretty much everything depends on energy in the late late game, especially if you gave Gregtech installed. When you're playing on a server "don't do it" doesn't cut it, because people who use the more efficient system will always have better and more things and you'll be willingly putting yourself in a bad position just to make a point. Sounds similar to how our current economic system plays?


I don't want to hijack the thread too much, but if you'd like to complain, argue further or just discuss the similarities of Minecraft to economic models feel free to send me a pm.

 

[MachineMuse]

the number 3 is higher than the number 2!!!! The number 3 is OP!!!

FTB has always been about testing your knowledge of Minecraft mods and finding the best way to do things...

 

[Summit]

Hello everyone,

I came here to report something I spotted that I think it should be noticed by the FTB Team that cares care of the Ultimate Pack. I run all my MJ part of the base with Fuel, since it's fairly easy to get it and generates good amount MJ. I took a look at the PowerConverters mod, and I spotted a problem regarding the output. The only way you can use Fuel to generate EU is using a Diesel Generator from GregTech, and that outputs 384kEU in total. The Combustion Engine can produce 600kMJ, and if you hook it into the PowerConverters, you can generate 1.4MEU per bucket of fuel. That's a 400% gain just by converting MJ to EU. This feels wrong, and I wanted to share with you.

Wow. If you can get 4X's your energy from using crummy combustion engines I wonder what kind of energy multiplication you could get using a liquid fueled boiler?