The rebirth of IC2 ?

Siro

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For the most part there's no need to automate reinforced stone. There's, what, 8 required in recipes? Beyond that one will be using far more of it as a building material by placing the scaffolds and using the sprayer on them in place rather than creating the reinforced stone elsewhere, breaking it and then building with it.
 
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SonOfABirch

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For the most part there's no need to automate reinforced stone. There's, what, 8 required in recipes? Beyond that one will be using far more of it as a building material by placing the scaffolds and using the sprayer on them in place rather than creating the reinforced stone elsewhere, breaking it and then building with it.
except the modded minecraft meta has become "automate ALL THE THINGS!"
 

MigukNamja

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Yeah, the episodes have been extraordinarily boring since the void age bit. He has dropped some juicy details about Thaumcraft, though, so it's not all bad. :)


I get the minimalism of the Void Age and why it's technically the best place to build a base, i.e. server and client don't have to worry about entity/block updates outside your base. However, it's also the dullest setting you can possibly pick to build a base. Most efficient and most dull. The gray cobblestone blocks don't help, either. After watching my first DW20 'Nexus' video, I started doing something similar in all of my worlds, but I also picked the most attractive setting I could, entity and chunk/block updates outside my base be damned. I also try to build a nice-looking base, not necessarily the most efficient.

If I'm going to spend a lot of time there, it better look nice !

However, the TC4 stuff has been very cool. I loved it when Azanor himself was helping with building the Infusion Alter upstairs. How many of us have the mod developer of one of the most beloved MC mods on our server, building stuff from their own mod, troubleshooting, answering questions, and offering advice ?
 
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MigukNamja

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except the modded minecraft meta has become "automate ALL THE THINGS!"


DW20's influence is strong, yes. However, not everything has to be automated to be fun or worth doing. Thaumcraft and MystCraft are great examples. Sure, you can automate the minor, trivial stuff like keeping research tables full of their components, but that's just scratching the surface and not the core.

In general, Tech == Automated, Magic == Anti-Automated

What gets under people's skin is when dull, tedious, repetitive stuff that has no good reason to be manual is forced as manual. Grinding has long since ceased being a 'fun' mechanic in games.
 

twisto51

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I get the minimalism of the Void Age and why it's technically the best place to build a base, i.e. server and client don't have to worry about entity/block updates outside your base. However, it's also the dullest setting you can possibly pick to build a base. Most efficient and most dull. The gray cobblestone blocks don't help, either. After watching my first DW20 'Nexus' video, I started doing something similar in all of my worlds, but I also picked the most attractive setting I could, entity and chunk/block updates outside my base be damned. I also try to build a nice-looking base, not necessarily the most efficient.

If I'm going to spend a lot of time there, it better look nice !


Seems to me there is nothing stopping people from doing both. What I do is spread my stuff out into multiple bases. With access to spot loaders, powerconverters, tesseracts, linkbooks, and quantum chambers I don't feel any need to concentrate all of my industry in any one spot. I've got installations in the Nether, the Promised Land, a void age, and a few in the overworld, etc.
 

MigukNamja

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Seems to me there is nothing stopping people from doing both. What I do is spread my stuff out into multiple bases. With access to spot loaders, powerconverters, tesseracts, linkbooks, and quantum chambers I don't feel any need to concentrate all of my industry in any one spot. I've got installations in the Nether, the Promised Land, a void age, and a few in the overworld, etc.


I do the same thing, aye. It keeps my framerate at an acceptable rate and helps me to organize. Popping back and forth via linkbooks and Portal Gun portals doesn't take much time at all.

My 'main' base, however, where I spend the most time, which is usually Bees and Thaumcraft, is in a nice setting and is built to look nice. My "power" room/area is my most utilitarian and least attractive.
 

SpitefulFox

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I get the minimalism of the Void Age and why it's technically the best place to build a base, i.e. server and client don't have to worry about entity/block updates outside your base. However, it's also the dullest setting you can possibly pick to build a base. Most efficient and most dull.

Actually, my complaint about the void age portion of the series has been more with how mind-numbingly boring it is to watch Dire play with Computercraft and MFFS instead of show off new mod content or build something new and unusual.

I think the appeal of building in a void age is having open space to build whatever you want instead of having to fight with or against the terrain. The other appeal being "I LIVE IN SPAAAAAACE!" :p
 
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Antice

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Actually, my complaint about the void age portion of the series has been more with how mind-numbingly boring it is to watch Dire play with Computercraft and MFFS instead of show off new mod content or build something new and unusual.

I think the appeal of building in a void age is having open space to build whatever you want instead of having to fight with or against the terrain. The other appeal being "I LIVE IN SPAAAAAACE!" :p



void ages can be very very cool. especially if you can get one with wooden tendrils or something similar. and a nice sky color. DW20 is using the most featureless voidage possible i think.
The other thing making his bases look so sterile is that he just isn't capable of building a nice house even if his life depended on it. he's a tinkerer, not builder. Lot's of tinkerer personalities seem to play modded minecraft, so i guess that comes with the territory, myself however. I want to build nice, and often skip on automation in favour of looks. I also often abandon worlds because i am too unhappy about the end result, as well as becoming frustrated at how hard it is to actually make automation look nice and proper. (hiding everything doesn't count. that is easy, but looks boring)

As for this latest reveal being too tedious. meh. it's no worse than some of the magic mods. seriously. have you guys looked into the Ars magica stuff? It's cool yeah, but i did notice that the techtree/skilltree requires an enormous amount of boss grinding. you can only murder a boss so many times before it becomes a chore you know.
 

ICountFrom0

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So, I'm watching the "extra credit" ... and the question comes to me... it's amazing that they are so GOOD at explaining people in relation to games and our relationships WITH games, but they suck so amazingly hard at actually understanding people.

Then I turned, looked at the major mods and found myself wondering, "If these didn't really understand us, as players, would they be so stable a platform" ... they must know something about us, or they wouldn't still be here.

These are the same people who never finished the set of advanced machines. They didn't have to, somebody else is doing that work for them.

There is some genius there.
 
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Blackmoore

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Am I off base, or does the direction on IC2 seem to indicate that you HAVE to build a reactor? nevermind the consumption that's required by the UU Matter, or the new machines to take the UU and synthesize matter. The new mechanics seem to press you into building a huge supply of power just to keep the wall of machines running.
 

Antice

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Am I off base, or does the direction on IC2 seem to indicate that you HAVE to build a reactor? nevermind the consumption that's required by the UU Matter, or the new machines to take the UU and synthesize matter. The new mechanics seem to press you into building a huge supply of power just to keep the wall of machines running.


Yes. it does indeed. the lack of consumption was the biggest issue with IC2. a couple of geotherms could keep anything short of a matter fab running continuously.
couple that with near infinite nether lava and solars, and well.. the coolness factor of most IC2 builds just plummet.
With more consumers being in the nuclear range of consumption, using nuclear power becomes more sensible. so instead of uranium just gathering dust in a corner someplace it becomes a valuable and quite useful resource. also. RTG's from processed spent fuel? yes please. Direwolf20 is using them wrong imho tho. should be powering miners with em instead of tearing up the landscape with quarries.[DOUBLEPOST=1380643697][/DOUBLEPOST]
No, a dispenser dispenses items, but has specific overrides to the "drop the item on the ground" behaviour for certain items such as buckets and arrows.


Sometimes i miss RP2 deployers. A LOT.
 
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MigukNamja

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Seems to be, yes. While one *can* generate EU using lava or biofuel, that requires engine spam. But, MJ power is currently engine spam-my as well, so it's no worse than MJ power. The only ways I know to avoid engine spam are CompactSolars and PowerConvertors, but they have no shortage of valid criticism for other reasons.

At least with MJ power, we have engines that *move* and change color. IC2 machines and engines are white cubes with a minimum of markings to be different. Good enough for tinkerers, I guess, but 0 pts for appearance. The IC2 dev team sorely needs a texturer and better multi-block structures. The 6-chamber nuke reactor is technically a multi-block, yes, but it doesn't look like one.

If/when I create a mod, one idea is to have upgradeable and customizable power production, for example:

  1. Inexpensive early-game engines that produce either MJ, IC2, or some other (like Redstone Flux !). Have to decide at build-time that kind of power production. Think of the different kind of TE "coils" you use at the bottom middle of the recipe.
  2. Mid-game upgrades for those engines that expand what fuels/inputs they can accept, the amount of power they produce, how efficient they are, etc.,. The Forestry Electric Engine is a good example of the concept.
  3. Late-game multi-block structure that uses those engines in the recipe. The kind of power produced can be upgraded (changed), but at a cost. Closest example I can think of are boilers if there was a good EU option and you didn't need 18 engines to get 144 MJ/t.
The late-game structures will/should produce between 100 to 200 MJ/t each. The benchmark is a 36HP boiler with all 18 engines directly attached, minus the client display lag from the moving parts, steam particles, and sound, but one may be able to upgrade/change the animation if one so wishes ;-)

I would not want to replace the boiler - I love, love boilers. I would rather want to provide an alternative that is more end-game friendly and - ideally - can/should be used alongside/with a boiler. For instance, a 36HP boiler feeding steam into one flavor of my multi-block would produce close to 300 MJ/t for roughly the material cost that 2x 36HP boilers + 36 engines would require.

Another example would be a Mekanism Factorization reflective mirror --> boiler that heats up steam to put into a multi-block 'Steam Energy Producer', for the lack of a better description name. But, not sure about balance, though. I don't believe the Factorization boiler makes enough steam to justify the reflective mirror real estate required.

Another goal is to make the engines work with other mods as much as possible and maintain balance with those mods, i.e. no DC Forge Engine shenanigans. PowerConvertor stuff should be avoided as well. One must plan one's power production and change comes at a cost.

A trick will be making it "make sense" and not be a "magic solution in a box". The reason I love boilers is they "make sense".
 
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Yusunoha

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I kind of like the way IC2 is going towards, and nuclear is becoming much more interesting to use as a power source, but I just wish they would change the looks of the nuclear reactor... it's a multiblock, but it looks so.... boring
 
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MigukNamja

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There are RTGs, yes, but they are only slightly better than Solar Panels. They are single-block "set and forget" passive power. As for nuclear becoming more interesting, that's only because it's solving a problem that IC2 created with its new machines that require more power, but the purpose of those machines is not substantially different than the original IC2 machines : they process stuff. Same story, just different actors.

A, while UU-matter is now more involved and there is at least a liquid you can look at, the result is still the same. Energy gets converted into matter. Nothing really new there, either, just more mechanics for the same result.

Rather than focusing inward and creating solutions to self-created problems, IC2 would be better served if it worked more closely with other, major mods, to fill in the gaps and provide better interfaces. Teleporters, TE Tesseracting, Ender Storage bags and chests, Ender I/O, tools from various mods, OpenPeripherals, TC golems, much of MFR, the entire AE mod, food/crops, and anything to do with bees are great examples.

How about an IC2 robot that would be a cross between a CC Turtle and a Golem ?

How about an IC2 teleporting train track ? That would provide a nifty alternative to Ender Chests and Item Tesseracts and make TC, RC rails, and SC2 more attractive.

How about IC2 levitators that can be placed under blocks and slowly move them ?

Lots of interesting things that could have and can still be done.
 

RedBoss

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Lots of interesting things that could have and can still be done.
All those things you said I agree with. You also point out something interesting. There are very cool things in IC2 that just get ignored. This whole experimental build is just cold soup reheated. I see no reward in these things, nor the increased effort.

But I'd be willing to build a reactor for a nice teleport system. That actually makes sense that matter transport would cost a ton of energy. Even teleporting goods or mine carts would justify this.

What about those rubber sheets that never worked? I'd love to teleport up to my Natura redwood base and free fall to the bottom on my rubber landing pad.

None of the fun stuff is mentioned or addressed. Grrrrrr...
 

Antice

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All those things you said I agree with. You also point out something interesting. There are very cool things in IC2 that just get ignored. This whole experimental build is just cold soup reheated. I see no reward in these things, nor the increased effort.

But I'd be willing to build a reactor for a nice teleport system. That actually makes sense that matter transport would cost a ton of energy. Even teleporting goods or mine carts would justify this.

What about those rubber sheets that never worked? I'd love to teleport up to my Natura redwood base and free fall to the bottom on my rubber landing pad.

None of the fun stuff is mentioned or addressed. Grrrrrr...


definately. there are lots of cool stuff in IC2 that is just broken. not just the rubber sheets. there is also the sticky dynamite issue and on and on. problem is, if you are going to have to rebuild a mod, you have to do it from the inside out. They have to fix the core issues before even contemplating fixing the smaller issues.

as for teleportation costing energy. too bad there is at least 2 mods that does it for free. :/
seriously.
Mods that give you something for free also makes it impossible for other mods to give something functionally the same for a cost. even if that mod had the functionality first. that is a shame imho. since free teleportation is kinda ruining quite the number of mod's usefulness beyond the coolness factor.

Take railcraft trains for instance. why build a rail network when ender chests are free to use, and work between dimensions without any additional cost? In any form of competitive get the job done asap situation you always end up back with the damn chests. even as expensive as they are, they are free once made, so you never need to use anything else ever.
 

Antice

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I'd do it for the LOLZ

So do I. Trains are way awesome after all, but outside of creative building once i am already gone up the techladder and into quasi creative mode I rarely go with trains. despite the coolness. it just takes so much time to set up properly, and with quarries. damn. having to move the kit every time the quarry needs movin. I did use trains to move items from a set of ender chests to my base once. kinda just faked it for the lolz and looks.