Recent Events Discussion (RED) Thread

[Reika]

You're against RF because it allows for easy generation and transmission of energy* and yet for EIO because it trivializes transportation and removes logistics effort for literally everything? Some days you confuse me, Reika.

*entirely depending on what mods you put in your sandbox

I am not against RF, I am against the design ethic that is usually associated with it (plug and play and complete lack of consequence for misuse), and even then mostly because it indirectly leads to many, many people who get accustomed to that (or, who just started playing modded MC, as anything else was too complex for them) getting very angry when others do not follow suit. A user on my thread just put it best:

when you dedicate such professionalism into your work making something so great that only the niche few appreciate it because its not fisher price you be ready and (bitter if it was me) willing to cure any ignorance or misconceptions over your work

This is doubly true for something like my mods, where consequences of misuse can be particularly disastrous (just ask the people overspinning solenoids, melting down BWRs, or getting sucked into jet engines), and it is very much antithetical to the idea of plug and play (though, contrary to popular opinion, an engineering degree is not a prerequisite ).

I like EiO because of the cable bundling. Minus that, its conduits are not dramatically different from most others - though I suppose they are generally somewhat more powerful - but with the bundling ability comes a lot more flexibility for machine setups, where otherwise you have 11 parallel cables that very quickly occupy an entire room. With as many piping systems as a lot of my machines tend to use, this is very much a desirable feature. The ability to bundle cables also means I can hide them discreetly in walls (a 2x2 or 3x3 of cable is much more difficult to do) without making the walls excessively thick.

It is also a bit more conducive to centralized fluid storage, as I can then "link back" all the piping to the tanks:

Can we get rotarycraft power shafts to bundle too?

Were it not borderline impossible to do (given the need for bevel gears and shaft junctions at splits, as well as GUI access to these blocks, plus of course all the normal difficulties of multipart), I would not be against it.

 

[TomeWyrm]

It's still a bit... odd.

RF's draw is the convenience of power transmission. Any RF capable cable can carry RF in any way it wants, and any RF Generator can produce RF any way it wants. The interface between the two can get a bit dicey when one system expects push-from-source and the other expects pull-from-source (*cough* TE Dynamos + Extra Utilities Pipes), but generally once you get RF into a transfer method it behaves however the system makes it behaves and then comes out the other end in a way you can use.

EIO's draw is the convenience of cabling. Also they're actually quite a bit more powerful than most piping solutions, the item conduits especially. The only thing they particularly fail at compared to any other mod is raw throughput. They trump everything else I've seen for sheer power... Plus I/O on one face is unique to EIO as far as I'm aware.

It's just RF is convenient power, EIO is convenient cable... the similarities between the two are massive and you're a vocal critic of one and a vocal supporter of the other.

Hence KingLemming's confusion, and my own confusion and amusement.

 

[Reika]

It's still a bit... odd.

RF's draw is the convenience of power transmission. Any RF capable cable can carry RF in any way it wants, and any RF Generator can produce RF any way it wants. The interface between the two can get a bit dicey when one system expects push-from-source and the other expects pull-from-source (*cough* TE Dynamos + Extra Utilities Pipes), but generally once you get RF into a transfer method it behaves however the system makes it behaves and then comes out the other end in a way you can use.

EIO's draw is the convenience of cabling. Also they're actually quite a bit more powerful than most piping solutions, the item conduits especially. The only thing they particularly fail at compared to any other mod is raw throughput. They trump everything else I've seen for sheer power... Plus I/O on one face is unique to EIO as far as I'm aware.

It's just RF is convenient power, EIO is convenient cable... the similarities between the two are massive and you're a vocal critic of one and a vocal supporter of the other.

Hence KingLemming's confusion, and my own confusion and amusement.

Again, I have no problems with the RF transfer system. My problem is with things like machines that are basically impossible to fail at using (no minimum power requirement, extremely generous slot restrictions, no consequence for pumping massive power into something not designed to handle it, no consequence for poor designs, et cetera).

That is, with things like RC or IC2, if you fail to meet the machine's criteria, it will simply not work. At all. With things like EiO, TE3, and BigReactors machines (MFR kind of straddles the line), it is literally impossible to make a machine not work assuming it is connected at all; at worst, it will perform inoptimally. Similarly, no matter how bad your design is, the worst consequence you will ever see is an inefficiency penalty. Additionally, essentially all the machines in those mods are "magic boxes", i.e., you pump items, power, and fluid in, and you magically get the products or effects out. How they work is glossed over, as are any nuances such a machine might normally have.

And again, it is not because that is necessarily bad design. It is because you get a large number of players who start expecting every mod to be that way, and freak out - and often call mods "greggy" - when they are not, especially if something fails on them. It also leads to a lot of bug reports; a great many of my bug reports - somewhat amusingly - include GUIs blatantly displaying insufficient power, temperature, or similar, and users posting them usually respond with something to the effect of "well, why doesn't it just work slower?".

It also tends to lead to a lot of people who imitate rather than understand - to this kind of degree.

 

[jordsta95]

And again, it is not because that is necessarily bad design. It is because you get a large number of players who start expecting every mod to be that way, and freak out - and often call mods "greggy"

You expect them to call them Reiky? Greggy/Gregified/Gregged sounds better, it rolls off the tongue

But I do like penalities for overdoing something? Too much power? BOOM! Too much fluid? Leaks. Etc. But for not enough, of something, it should be a little less "greg", if you have a lightbulb and give it too much power, it explodes, give it the right amount, it is fine. Give it too little, it will shine, but dimly. That is what I see RF machines like; lightbulbs. The machine is either on or off, and it is either getting the right amount or not enough... however it should have a boom threshold (if you want to call it that). However, the cables just don't allow for it, as everything (including the generators) have an internal buffer, so you see a machine at 95% and charging, it is pretty much doomed to explode[/QUOTE]

 

[Qazplm601]

Page 200! not active on the forums qaz steals the claim


I am not really a "easy item transport" guy, i like using buildcraft for all my transport/sorting needs

 

[jordsta95]

Page 200! not active on the forums qaz steals the claim


I am not really a "easy item transport" guy, i like using buildcraft for all my transport/sorting needs

I dunno, I don't like BC facades, that's the only thing I have against it. For that reason I use ExUtils

 

[ljfa]

I see myself moving away from EnderIO in favor of Thermal Dynamics lately.

 

[Reika]

You expect them to call them Reiky? Greggy/Gregified/Gregged sounds better, it rolls off the tongue

But I do like penalities for overdoing something? Too much power? BOOM! Too much fluid? Leaks. Etc. But for not enough, of something, it should be a little less "greg", if you have a lightbulb and give it too much power, it explodes, give it the right amount, it is fine. Give it too little, it will shine, but dimly. That is what I see RF machines like; lightbulbs. The machine is either on or off, and it is either getting the right amount or not enough... however it should have a boom threshold (if you want to call it that). However, the cables just don't allow for it, as everything (including the generators) have an internal buffer, so you see a machine at 95% and charging, it is pretty much doomed to explode

RF machines work off of energy, so they work as soon as the energy buffer is sufficient, which means you could run one at 1 RF/hour if you felt like waiting.

But I agree than underpower should not lead to explosions, as that is nonsensical. However, the "dim bulb" analogy is not very fitting; many things in real life have minimum currents, voltages, temperatures, torques, or so on to operate, and supplying less can actually be destructive (drive a kilometer in 1st gear and see what I mean, or do not if you do not have $4000 to waste).

 

[jordsta95]

RF machines work off of energy, so they work as soon as the energy buffer is sufficient, which means you could run one at 1 RF/hour if you felt like waiting.

But I agree than underpower should not lead to explosions, as that is nonsensical. However, the "dim bulb" analogy is not very fitting; many things in real life have minimum currents, voltages, temperatures, torques, or so on to operate, and supplying less can actually be destructive (drive a kilometer in 1st gear and see what I mean, or do not if you do not have $4000 to waste).

As long as you aren't over-revving the engine 1km in 1st isn't a bad thing at all... you will just take a lot longer to get there.
For example you have a drill, it drills through rock 1m thick and spins at a speed of 1,200RPM, I can understand that not being able to work at speeds of 700RPM, or speeds of 2,000RPM.
But a furnace could run by blasting 20c of hot air (which we will say uses 5watts) and wait for a minute and blast another 20c (instead of doing a continual 20c hot air a second). In that minute the furnace will not have lost 20c, heck it is unlikely to have dropped more than 1 or 2c. It isn't the best way to get the furnace to 200c (we are going to bake a nice cake) but it will do the job, although it may have taken 15 blasts of air, instead of the 10 seconds of continuous hot air.

And I agree the lightbulb is a bad example, but seeing as that is what most RF machines are like (on/off, nothing more to it, at face value) it was the first thing that came to mind.

 

[keybounce]

... users posting them usually respond with something to the effect of "well, why doesn't it just work slower?".

In the past (say, 164 creative testing, or early 1710 releases), it was possible to have a low-powered engine output to a coil, have that coil hooked up to a comparator, test against redstone level 2, activate output from that first coil to a second coil (fastest possible discharge rate of the first coil), and restore "charging" mode when redstone level 0 is reached.

This two-coil system acted as a power battery, permitting a low-powered engine to generate "occasional large bursts" to make that next machine "just work slower". And, from what I understand, it's not that far from what forestry and other engines' behavior was -- build up power, and then output a burst.

Currently, given the need for either 4 steam engines (plus something else to pump water into the steam engines), or gas engines before you can use coils, that is no longer nearly as practical.

 

[King Lemming]

Again, I have no problems with the RF transfer system. My problem is with things like machines that are basically impossible to fail at using (no minimum power requirement, extremely generous slot restrictions, no consequence for pumping massive power into something not designed to handle it, no consequence for poor designs, et cetera).

That is, with things like RC or IC2, if you fail to meet the machine's criteria, it will simply not work. At all. With things like EiO, TE3, and BigReactors machines (MFR kind of straddles the line), it is literally impossible to make a machine not work assuming it is connected at all; at worst, it will perform inoptimally. Similarly, no matter how bad your design is, the worst consequence you will ever see is an inefficiency penalty. Additionally, essentially all the machines in those mods are "magic boxes", i.e., you pump items, power, and fluid in, and you magically get the products or effects out. How they work is glossed over, as are any nuances such a machine might normally have.

And again, it is not because that is necessarily bad design. It is because you get a large number of players who start expecting every mod to be that way, and freak out - and often call mods "greggy" - when they are not, especially if something fails on them. It also leads to a lot of bug reports; a great many of my bug reports - somewhat amusingly - include GUIs blatantly displaying insufficient power, temperature, or similar, and users posting them usually respond with something to the effect of "well, why doesn't it just work slower?".

It also tends to lead to a lot of people who imitate rather than understand - to this kind of degree.

As far as how things work - it's Minecraft. At least with TE, the recipes are such that the operation of the machine is sort of explained. But don't start throwing the realism argument around too much here. Otherwise, I'd encourage you to check out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bedrock and then explain why exactly it's a super-material in RoC.

And people complaining about your stuff? No, that would pretty much happen even in the absence of other systems. That's because people have some fairly intrinsic ideas about how things should work, instilled by the vanilla game. A furnace takes fuel. Its operation is a binary - it either works or doesn't, there is no temperature level, things all cook in the same time, etc. This is Minecraft. This is the basis for comparison.

You can't fix stupid, and you can't blame it on the existence of systems which are easier to understand. That example you linked - that was going to happen regardless. That's not an issue of imitation, that's simply somebody not understanding anything about modded Minecraft. It's the digital equivalent of object permanence that they weren't getting. And who knows, that might have been a 10 year old. Remember the demographics for this game; it's not just college students and older. Also, when a system gets very "complex" and limiting, that is when you have people who imitate rather than understand. Take a look at how many people copy CC turtle programs instead of write their own. RoC wanders into this territory as well, since your machines offer "ridiculous" power if people "understand" them. Well, sort of. They offer ridiculous power if you hook up the blocks in a correct manner which can undoubtedly be done in a cookie cutter fashion.

Also, keep in mind that mods are balanced around different points. Yes, the machines in TE are fairly easy to use, but the logistics on a larger scale are a very interesting problem to solve, so long as you don't trivialize them outright. Thermal Dynamics provides solutions and they require some degree of thought. Logistics is one of the more interesting real-world problems to solve. Physics and number-matching is easy. I'm sort of surprised you aren't very on board with that.

 

[Reika]

As far as how things work - it's Minecraft. At least with TE, the recipes are such that the operation of the machine is sort of explained. But don't start throwing the realism argument around too much here. Otherwise, I'd encourage you to check out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bedrock and then explain why exactly it's a super-material in RoC.

For reference, I treat bedrock like a composite, whose (dust) strengthener is the real source of its hardness. It only shares a name with the real-world material due to it serving a similar purpose.

And people complaining about your stuff? No, that would pretty much happen even in the absence of other systems. That's because people have some fairly intrinsic ideas about how things should work, instilled by the vanilla game. A furnace takes fuel. Its operation is a binary - it either works or doesn't, there is no temperature level, things all cook in the same time, etc. This is Minecraft. This is the basis for comparison.

I understand that, but there was a definite uptick in the number of these sorts of reports when several mods went in this direction. You can also browse forums here and elsewhere to see that people are often explicitly aware of and complaining about the distinction.

And who knows, that might have been a 10 year old. Remember the demographics for this game; it's not just college students and older.

That is true, though it is a demographic I do not really cater to.

Also, when a system gets very "complex" and limiting, that is when you have people who imitate rather than understand. Take a look at how many people copy CC turtle programs instead of write their own. RoC wanders into this territory as well, since your machines offer "ridiculous" power if people "understand" them. Well, sort of. They offer ridiculous power if you hook up the blocks in a correct manner which can undoubtedly be done in a cookie cutter fashion.

I try quite hard to design against that, partly through intrinsic "traps" for those not understanding - the liquid nitrogen in the Tokamak was one such example - or nerfing designs that get overused, like the "+" HTGR design. Does it lead to complaints? Definitely. But the vast majority of RC users are mostly unfazed by it, and have little trouble adapting, as they do understand the underlying mechanics. The remainder literally do ask things like "this design doesn't work, how do I make it bigger?". Condescending as it is, someone who asks "how to make it bigger" cannot really be explained to; I see it as much the same as asking "how do I walk through the door (yes, someone actually asked that of me once)".

Also, keep in mind that mods are balanced around different points. Yes, the machines in TE are fairly easy to use, but the logistics on a larger scale are a very interesting problem to solve, so long as you don't trivialize them outright. Thermal Dynamics provides solutions and they require some degree of thought. Logistics is one of the more interesting real-world problems to solve. Physics and number-matching is easy. I'm sort of surprised you aren't very on board with that.

I am on board with it, but I do not see many elements of real-world logistics, such as scheduling or load balancing, being very necessary here; players tend to just hook up the machines and let them run. If it is horribly inefficient and backs up because the 4th of 5 stages is the slowest? "Who cares, I'm on a server and it will run overnight".

 

[asiekierka]

I dunno, I don't like BC facades, that's the only thing I have against it. For that reason I use ExUtils

What's wrong with them?

 

[jordsta95]

What's wrong with them?

I have nothing against them, but because I have to use BC facades and not FMP to hide pipes, it's just a lil bit of an "Ugh, I am too lazy to set up a lazer/assembly table just to hide a temporary sorting system" (until I get AE setup)
They are much better than FMP, in sense of what they do, but just a pain to do early game when the diamond supply is next to nothing

 

[Reika]

I have nothing against them, but because I have to use BC facades and not FMP to hide pipes, it's just a lil bit of an "Ugh, I am too lazy to set up a lazer/assembly table just to hide a temporary sorting system" (until I get AE setup)
They are much better than FMP, in sense of what they do, but just a pain to do early game when the diamond supply is next to nothing

I will agree that the cost of a laser table is somewhat exorbitant for what is essentially a cosmetic feature, which are generally cheaper.

 

[NJM1564]

I will agree that the cost of a laser table is somewhat exorbitant for what is essentially a cosmetic feature, which are generally cheaper.

Perhaps a cheaper low tier versionthat uses glass would work for crafting the cosmetic stuff. Though if it was using glass then it would need to be suitably limited. Perhaps have it ware out and need to have it's glass replaced every few uses would work. Then just combine it with glass in a crafting window to fix.

 

[ljfa]

Maybe just a more expensive recipe, like one structure pipe + one block -> one facade, so that you still have the incentive to make it more efficient when you get to lasers

 

[Celestialphoenix]

Thematically its a little weird that the assembly table slices blocks into thin covers (compared to what it normally does)

But the problem with having it just in the crafting grid lies in finding a standard crafting pattern that wont clash with other mods- though I do like the structure pipe idea @ljfa.

 

[jordsta95]

I will agree that the cost of a laser table is somewhat exorbitant for what is essentially a cosmetic feature, which are generally cheaper.

Perhaps a cheaper low tier versionthat uses glass would work for crafting the cosmetic stuff. Though if it was using glass then it would need to be suitably limited. Perhaps have it ware out and need to have it's glass replaced every few uses would work. Then just combine it with glass in a crafting window to fix.

Ones crafted like
xxx
xgx
xxx (x is material, g is glass) work like AE facades; the don't prevent connections.
Ones that are crafting in the assembly table do, maybe?

 

[ljfa]

Ones crafted like
xxx
xgx
xxx (x is material, g is glass) work like AE facades; the don't prevent connections.
Ones that are crafting in the assembly table do, maybe?

Facades normally don't prevent connections, for that you have pipe plugs