Thermal Expansion Status
- Thread starter King Lemming
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Once IC2 stabilizes a bit, we'll see. I don't have any real objection with providing conversion to EU. I'm hesitant to allow for bidirectional conversion on both of them, since that effectively recreates Power Converters, which isn't the goal.
Kinetic and Electric Flux Inverters are probably something that's going in, though.
I wouldn't mind an EU/MJ > RF but not the other way around since as KL stated, it would be like recreating Power Converters.
Though I would also like to add that maybe adding in some engines and/or generators that consumes destabilised redstone and/or energised glowstone to generate MJ/EU.
Though I would also like to add that maybe adding in some engines and/or generators that consumes destabilised redstone and/or energised glowstone to generate MJ/EU.
From. RF -> other stuff. Inverter feels more appropriate than rectifier here, despite "flux" having a traditionally AC connotation.
Hey KL, this might not be the right site/forum/thread/mechanism for this discussion, I'd be happy to be pointed in the right spot to do so, but it is related to a previous discussion in this thread. I am curious on your thoughts on UE from a technical perspective -- why hasn't the adoption been wider and is it something you even considered when it was clear you were going to go away from BC power.
As a longtime software professional, I find the history of minecraft modding fascinating - how Forge came about and became adopted and mostly used widespread (reading about the BTW conflict added to the history enjoyment), for example - and wonder if UE was just too late to the scene, if power is just too integral to a mod's 'philosophy' that a standard just isn't feasible, if there are technical flaws in its design, if it's a whole lot of NIH, or some combination thereof.
As a player, I would enjoy better standardization. I know some folks think it's fun 'solving' the powergrid problem differently for different types of power, but I for one think that if power was a bit more standard, mod dev's could focus more on content (and unique content, how many macerators do we need?) and less on mechanics, giving players more opportunity to solve different problems as opposed to the same problem with different parameters.
Anyway, after reading this thread and some other things you've written, I've found you to be very logical and articulate, and so I'd love to hear your perspective on it.
As a longtime software professional, I find the history of minecraft modding fascinating - how Forge came about and became adopted and mostly used widespread (reading about the BTW conflict added to the history enjoyment), for example - and wonder if UE was just too late to the scene, if power is just too integral to a mod's 'philosophy' that a standard just isn't feasible, if there are technical flaws in its design, if it's a whole lot of NIH, or some combination thereof.
As a player, I would enjoy better standardization. I know some folks think it's fun 'solving' the powergrid problem differently for different types of power, but I for one think that if power was a bit more standard, mod dev's could focus more on content (and unique content, how many macerators do we need?) and less on mechanics, giving players more opportunity to solve different problems as opposed to the same problem with different parameters.
Anyway, after reading this thread and some other things you've written, I've found you to be very logical and articulate, and so I'd love to hear your perspective on it.
Hmm. If the conversion will be more RF > MJ/EU, then there will need to be lots of power generation added to mod. As you don't want to basically recreate Power Converters have you considered a RF 'steam engine' equivalent to utilize boilers?
You know, all this talk about steam has made me realize that Steam might well be the universal energy transmission system everyone wants. You can generate any of the energy network power from steam, and there are several ways to generate it. Plugging into it, finding a way to generate steam using RF and being able to generate RF via steam, might be the easiest means of conversion for everyone involved.
Which, to be honest, is fairly realistic. 99% of the world's power is 'generate heat to create steam to spin a turbine to generate power'. Nuclear power plants use radioactive material, most things just burn stuff... be it oil, coal, natural gas... about the only ones that don't are water and solar. And for Water... well, it is still using water to spin a turbine, it's just using gravity to push it rather than heat to turn it into steam, it's still the same basic concept. Wind is the same thing... using wind to spin a turbine, yadda yadda. Solar is the only one that doesn't rely on spinning a turbine somewhere.
Which, to be honest, is fairly realistic. 99% of the world's power is 'generate heat to create steam to spin a turbine to generate power'. Nuclear power plants use radioactive material, most things just burn stuff... be it oil, coal, natural gas... about the only ones that don't are water and solar. And for Water... well, it is still using water to spin a turbine, it's just using gravity to push it rather than heat to turn it into steam, it's still the same basic concept. Wind is the same thing... using wind to spin a turbine, yadda yadda. Solar is the only one that doesn't rely on spinning a turbine somewhere.
No clue what Kinetic/Electric Flux Inverters are but I'll still give you a hooray since I'm sure it will be cool. That said I love the multiblock steam boiler.. just something about it..
Will have to get back to you on that. Not sure I have the time right this second to articulate all that. But the short of it is that there are a lot of reasons that UE didn't catch on, both technical and political.
I don't know about "a lot" of power generation. TE frankly doesn't use THAT much energy right now.
I'm not really sure about boilers - I can see how steam is definitely a semi-universal energy source, but it's kind of a boring one. That's sort of the confusing part about MJ - RailCraft adds this hugely powerful generation system and it goes largely unused by RailCraft itself. In fact, it goes largely unused in general. Without Tesseracts and Quarries, I don't even know what to do with that kind of power.
Not that steam is inherently bad - it's actually quite a brilliant mechanic, I'm just not sure if it's one I want to buy into quite yet.
I think what he's expressing is more about how people like variety in how they produce their power. I for instance hate using lava.. others hate solar.. and so on and so forth.
True. It doesn't. But without being able to create at least a modest surplus of power, the inverters would see little use as you won't have enough spare power to run other machines. They'd become about as used as RedPower's Blulectric engine, which while great in principle didn't hold up as the power generation in RP was insufficient to really run anything outside of RP.
That being said, I am highly looking forward to how RF turns out as I like the low server overhead concept behind it. I just hope it becomes feasible enough to be my primary power network.
If a PM would be better to avoid a discussion going off rails, feel free to PM me when you get a chance.
it actually seems like it would be a very interesting thing to read. the offrailsness of it isn't a problem at all, it's the issue of having the time to discuss it.
Very interesting idea. I think 'SteamPunk' is a genre that is kind of right there under the surface of minecraft gameplay that isn't explored as much as it could be with a lot of mods going to electrical tiers so quickly. I think it would fit well with Vanilla as kind of an 'Arcanum' flavor game that has mechanical and magic combined, whereas now it seems the blending of 'tech' and 'magic' mods seems strained at best. Buildcraft is close and even GregTech now has a steam tier. Is there a better named mod out there for exploring this than TE?
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I read 'political' as part of the reasoning and wondered if one of the factors contributing to it taking a while to comment on was the fact it might take some wordsmithing to avoid starting something that wasn't meant to be started. I don't know KL well enough to know if that's a concern.
I would like to remind everyone that there are actually still two lesser known methods for storing MJ's, via the mods Ender IO and Power Boxes. Ender IO allows for a multiblock capacitor bank that basically transforms into a massive battery array for MJ power storage. The larger the capacitor bank, the higher its storage limits AND power output threshold is. Power Boxes actually adds a single 'BatBox' style power storage block that is upgradable. It effortlessly converts both EU and MJ to a single third power metric, which it can then output as both EU and MJ, which ever is needed based upon whatever cabling is hooked up to which face.
I really feel that Power Boxes by LordMau5 may turn into a bit of a 'hero mod' if he ended up adding RF to his conversion system. This would allow you to have one single mod that provided all your power storage needs.
I really feel that Power Boxes by LordMau5 may turn into a bit of a 'hero mod' if he ended up adding RF to his conversion system. This would allow you to have one single mod that provided all your power storage needs.
Ender IO sounds interesting but unless the Unleashed or Direwolf20 pack pick it up it's not something I'll be seeing..
I'm curious about the answer (primarily because after trying the Ampz pack..slightly modified, I had a lot of fun with it and would like to see greater adoption), so I hope he will post it publicly.
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