RedPower Replacements?

[KirinDave]

KirinDave, the issue of compatibility is besides the point.

I am not so sure.

However the system itself was superior to the made up stuff we have today and if IC2/BC/etc suddenly went with that system and remained open it would be an improvement.

Would it though? I mean, are you assuming a bunch of extra dev work got done? Because as it stood in the last drops I played before moving to 1.5, RP2 was a fire-and-forget power source which had a fair number of bugs involving power drain (very small drains to batteries often got ignored, which is why huge sorting systems often ran off one thermopile even when the numbers suggested they'd go dry under load) and who's model actually failed to scale correctly for long-distance power transmission.

I mean, if we imagine an idealized world where Elo & others finished the system, ironed out the bugs, and then altered the model such that any attempt at moving large amounts of power didn't demand a wire which removed effective all resistance and that ALSO was not such a cpu killer for looped networks?

That's a lot of ifs. And a fundamental change to the wire modeling. And some elegant and as of yet unproposed fix to the rather hard problem of modeling real world electrical networks with lots of crosstalk. Is that even Blutricity 1.0 anymore?

All systems have shortcomings, you cant just disregard one based on one disadvantage, you study it, remove the disadvantage and produce positive progress.

Well, all open systems. Eloraam's disdain for her peers and the modding community was so pronounced and pernicious, she oped to kill the project rather than pass it on. She respects us so little and is so loss averse she couldn't even be bothered to abandon the project in a gpl license. Because evidently there was mega awesome stuff in there that was going to be for another game! Except not, I guess.

 

[MagusUnion]

Well, all open systems. Eloraam's disdain for her peers and the modding community was so pronounced and pernicious, she oped to kill the project rather than pass it on. She respects us so little and is so loss averse she couldn't even be bothered to abandon the project in a gpl license.

You act as if she was required to give up her work to the community, as if the mod devs of any mod are required to sign some contract that states that "should you fail to update in a timely manner, we get your shit". Clearly, no one in their right mind would agree to that. But of course, de-obfuscating RP2 isn't beyond some people, so creating copycat mods will probably still be prevalent for years to come..

I'm actually blaming Mojang, NOT the copycats, for this error in our community...

Because evidently there was mega awesome stuff in there that was going to be for another game! Except not, I guess.

Just because something in planning phase does not reach the floor does not mean she was withholding features. Eloraam wanted to do alot with her mod, and cover a wide range of applications at one time. Redpower 2 was a highly ambitious project, more that she may care to admit. So I honestly doubt she was going to finish everything she wanted to do in-between updates as they occurred. It also didn't help that Mojang wanted to break various parts of their code on certain updates that crippled RP2 right off the bat as far as updating in general was concerned...

 

[Dereck Napacho]

Not on your list, but what about replacement lights?
Aside from the Glowstone Illuminator (which comes in one flavour out of the box) I seem to struggle to find decent lighting blocks in the main packs.

I found a uniqe method of lighitng if you are using unleashed. place liquiducts about 2 blocks apart and repeat through your whole ceiling, then melt 1 glowstone dust in a magma crucible that ios set to output liquid into a bc tank. Then connect two liquiducts to it. set one to extraction mode and connect it to a redstone signal. when you flip the lever, viola! "fluorescent" lighing!!! Want to turn it off? just turn off the lever!

 

[KirinDave]

You act as if she was required to give up her work to the community, as if the mod devs of any mod are required to sign some contract that states that "should you fail to update in a timely manner, we get your shit". Clearly, no one in their right mind would agree to that. But of course, de-obfuscating RP2 isn't beyond some people, so creating copycat mods will probably still be prevalent for years to come..

I'm actually blaming Mojang, NOT the copycats, for this error in our community...

I blame people who do not take Mojang's spirit in kind. I know a lot of developers. I have strong opinions about developer ethics. I've worked at famously closed-source software developers and still found ways to give back to the community.

But in general, I prefer visible source (and better still open source) mods to closed ones. And I get to have an opinion on this, and judge people in kind. If Notch took Eloraam's attitude, not only would modded Minecraft not exist, but it would never have gotten to be the phenomenon in vanilla that it did.

I don't think modders "owe" me work. But I think that they have a moral obligation to recognize the contributions of the community that help make their mod great, and realize they're part of a bigger ecosystem. And there is strong evidence that works great. Look at one of the most popular, well-loved and consistently available mods in the ecosystem today: MineFactory Reloaded. Its openness keeps it going strong even when its creator is taking a break. Users win, the developer wins, we all win.

Just because something in planning phase does not reach the floor does not mean she was withholding features.

I make no judgement about why the features were not there. I simply refuse to pretend they were for the sake of lionizing Blutricity.

It also didn't help that Mojang wanted to break various parts of their code on certain updates that crippled RP2 right off the bat as far as updating in general was concerned...

Maybe if she took help from the numerous, experienced people who offered to help her. People she knew and was close to. Alas, she elected not to.

 

[casilleroatr]

Its not my intention to speak for Kirindave but I would argue that "Ecosystem" is a useful concept in modded minecraft, especially if you are involved in making mod packs like Dave has done. I made one in 1.5 as well (privately) so that is why I think I know why he would have used the word (I am sure he can correct me if I am wrong about that).

A lot of mods these days are very compatible and all fit into a neat and tidy forge based ecosystem. It is just an analogy, and I am pretty sure you know that MagusUnion. I like Redpower and I used to enjoy playing with it. But the way it was put together was quite insular, so that a lot of times when you wanted to interact with another mod you would likely have to craft a relay, or a filter or a timer. I really don't mind one way or the other what Eloraam or any modder chooses to do with their mod but just purely as an end user, I like how so many mods these days are really interoperable. There is more room to do stuff with a mod that the author didn't anticipate and I think thats a good thing. And if anyone chooses to reply to this a would prefer it if they didn't put a who gives a whosawatsit gif in that reply.

Edit: I just realised how Mary Whitehousey that last bit sounded, and I usually hate that sort of thing. In my defense, its late over here so perhaps I am feeling over sensitive. But this thread was started with good intentions so lets try to keep it open anyway

 

[KirinDave]

What ecosystem? What is the nebulous entity you speak of? Is it the community? Is it Minecraft in general? Do you honestly think that this 'group' of video game players is the equivalent of a closed environment that must be properly watered, fed, and 'nurtured' in such that by not doing so would harbor diseases, pestilence, or toxicity?

You, me, and everyone who plays and contributes the community. People who come, go, and stick around.

Now that's a strongly bias opinion if I ever saw one. You're going to champion a broken monkey-fest hodgepodge of a mod as a counterargument to RP2?

Annnnnnd blocked. Useless discussion. You and Enig can go off and have your purity party together. I'm uninviting myself. I'm busy giving back to the community.

P.S., I have 0 sympathy for Eloraam not wanting to open source code. She was wrong. Categorically an absolutely, and history shows this. Her work failed, others have carried on. There is no more objective and fair measure than this.

 

[DZCreeper]

She was wrong. Categorically an absolutely, and history shows this. Her work failed, others have carried on. There is no more objective and fair measure than this.

Depends on your definition of failed. In her eyes I bet it was a success, she got some donations, a bit (a lot) of attention and made a mod that she used herself.
You seem to think failed means that other mods did what she did but better, but that is actually a huge success. She paved the way to a whole new generation of mods.

 

[KirinDave]

Depends on your definition of failed. In her eyes I bet it was a success, she got some donations, a bit (a lot) of attention and made a mod that she used herself.
You seem to think failed means that other mods did what she did but better, but that is actually a huge success. She paved the way to a whole new generation of mods.

I think if want to give Eloraam credit for that, wasn't she basically the driving force behind the forge ore dictionary? That's a big deal. Fantastic work. Party poppers all around!

I didn't say *she* failed, I'm saying she was wrong to handle her mod the way she did, because her project failed. You can say this is a value judgement and I will not disagree, but project longevity is a pretty objective measure of things.

 

[MagusUnion]

objective

You've not said a single objective thing in any of your posts...

 

[WayofTime]

You've not said a single objective thing in any of your posts...

Apologies ahead of time, since I like to be very conservative with my posts, but I don't think trying to talk to someone who has since ignored you is a good way to make a point. I've known Eloraam slightly, mainly 2nd handedly and through a server I played with her and ShadwDrgn, and I did know her mod VERY well, however I do wish that there was more inter-play between her mod and other mods. Sure, it didn't need to be perfect, and it was a different environment in the modded community back then, but I think not opening up to others in the later months really helped to pour the concrete on the coffin of RP2.

The memory can still live on, however it doesn't mean we have to dig up the corpse and traipse it around the square.

 

[MagusUnion]

I don't think trying to talk to someone who has since ignored you is a good way to make a point.

My "point" wasn't for him, but for other's reading...

The memory can still live on, however it doesn't mean we have to dig up the corpse and traipse it around the square.

Perhaps, but she made her choices as she saw fit. They were her choices, and I don't see any reason to scrutinize things that were all beyond our control. I do believe, however, that there were other factors other than coding that pushed her away from the community (specifically, the cyber attacks against her). I wouldn't be inclined to continue a project in a community that I was being bullied in, let alone "open myself up to" others if I was suffering said attacks. And really, can you blame her?

 

[WayofTime]

-snip-

True, we can't exactly rewrite history here, however you can probably see that the choices that were made were not the ones that were needed to be made to keep RP around.

 

[MagusUnion]

True, we can't exactly rewrite history here, however you can probably see that the choices that were made were not the ones that were needed to be made to keep RP around.

But I don't find it necessary for it to have needed to perpetually exist. Yes, I wish RP2 was up-to-date, but nothing stops me from using an old version of Minecraft to keep playing it. And of course, I don't need Redpower to enjoy Minecraft in general. I would rather Eloraam not have undue emotional stress from this community than to have Redpower be current all the time. People have lives, lives outside of Minecraft. I don't think it's fair to her for us to patronize her for having to give something up that she neither wanted the continuous stress for, or the over-hyped fame.

 

[Vauthil]

Please note that moderators are on hand with large mallets to whap moles on the head if the hyperbole continues escalating. Discuss ideas and opinions, not each other.

Also, it's not against the forum rules to hold a subjective opinion. It is against the rules to engage in personal attacks. Respect that distinction when crafting your replies.

Thank you.

 

[Physicist]

I didn't see Frames on the OPs list. They're slow for some applications, sure, but I don't see why they couldn't be sped up with another tier of tech or something. Is there a replacement for that?

 

[casilleroatr]

Calclavia's MFFS mod has a block called the force manipulator which does the same thing as frames but in a different way. Instead of having physical frames that things move on, this force manipulator uses a forcefield to move stuff. Its like frameless frames. Its quite confusing though and I haven't had much luck getting anything decent to work with it, although I haven't tried that hard. It is also rather power hungry.

I don't know how reliable it is at moving tile entities it is but I know it can move a lot. You can make functional tunnel bores using a combination of MFFS and applied Energistics apparently.

Edit: In addition, they can move other force manipulators so you can make inchworm machines (obviously the tunnel bore I mentioned is an example).

 

[whizzball1]

I didn't see Frames on the OPs list. They're slow for some applications, sure, but I don't see why they couldn't be sped up with another tier of tech or something. Is there a replacement for that?

Redstone in Motion (by jakj) does this job quite well.

 

[groundhog]

The memory can still live on, however it doesn't mean we have to dig up the corpse and traipse it around the square.

Why not, when there are lessons to be learnt from that debarcle?

On the upside, this modding community is constantly evolving and continues to thrive. RP2 was a fantastic mod, but sadly its the empty promises that many will remember. Sad.

Yet we are fortunate that so many mods have successfully forked or been handed-over and their legacy lives on. Overall, we continue to enjoy a strong stable of mods and a dedicated comminity of users. Happy days.

 

[KirinDave]

Calclavia's MFFS mod has a block called the force manipulator which does the same thing as frames but in a different way. Instead of having physical frames that things move on, this force manipulator uses a forcefield to move stuff. Its like frameless frames. Its quite confusing though and I haven't had much luck getting anything decent to work with it, although I haven't tried that hard. It is also rather power hungry.

I don't know how reliable it is at moving tile entities it is but I know it can move a lot. You can make functional tunnel bores using a combination of MFFS and applied Energistics apparently.

More than functional, they're incredibly powerful. Moreso than older block-breaker systems ever wore.

Right now the only frame-like mods really worth mentioning are MFFS3 (which, excitingly, Calclavia has started to maintain again) and WayOfTime's teleposers. They're the only things I've found that don't have trivially absurd crash bugs and that behave in a reasonable way when a player is standing on them. Truss and RiM are... sub optimal from this perspective. And even if RiM didn't have some really weird issues, its author has burnt bridges with most of the community and has shown himself to be a very difficult to deal with.

MFFS3 is a frame mod that can move almost any multiblock without breaking. Way's teleposers should not be underestimated. They can do things that basically no one else can do and while they do not make airships, they're often much better for automation tasks that would otherwise be completely impossible.

 

[Bigpak]

so has there been an official statement from eloraam? Has she said she is done with the project? I'm just confused and dazzled is all