Thermal Expansion Status

[ShneekeyTheLost]

While I'm a bit sad to see liquiducts and energy conduits fall behind, I can fully and completely understand why in terms of needing to be MultiPart compatible.

Honestly, I'm not too thrilled with the direction BC is currently going for my own reasons. If you implement your own energy API, then I will certainly take full advantage of it. However, implementing your own energy API will probably mean implementing something to run it, which returns us to the problem with Conduits.

Everything else is sounding amazingly awesome, though.

Update when you can. You can't rush decency.

 

[Emasher]

The sort of energy system being proposed here is extrememly exciting to me, as someone who had to remove features from his mod due to the recent changes to the BuildCraft system.

Provided all behaviour can be defined specifically for the side of a block that is being connected to, and it doesn't create a dependency on TE, I will strongly consider switching over Engineer's Toolbox to this system, and providing a method of converting back and forth to other systems.

 

[AlanEsh]

Energy conduits power ME, and Liquiducts carry my bodily fluids... how on earth will I ever survive the loss of those? :\

 

[King Lemming]

The sort of energy system being proposed here is extrememly exciting to me, as someone who had to remove features from his mod due to the recent changes to the BuildCraft system.

Provided all behaviour can be defined specifically for the side of a block that is being connected to, and it doesn't create a dependency on TE, I will strongly consider switching over Engineer's Toolbox to this system, and providing a method of converting back and forth to other systems.

Everything is Forge-direction capable, yes. Same as the Fluid system. The only dependency will be on CoFHLib, which we might be able to make an auto-download, CCLib style.

Energy conduits power ME, and Liquiducts carry my bodily fluids... how on earth will I ever survive the loss of those? :\

It would be a temporary loss, rest assured. However, FMP or not, some big rewrites are going to be required. If we do switch power systems, then as mentioned, we're going to need the conduits. So we'll see how that goes.

 

[KingTriaxx]

As long as it doesn't turn into Blutricity (IE: Confusing to work with and with no clear indication of what's stored) I'll be happy.

At this point I might learn Java just so I can make a mod for universal energy storage. Sheesh.

Great to hear TE is coming, but conduits and liquiducts are what I use it for. If those aren't in 1.6, I'll just wait for 1.7

 

[Vaygrim]

At this point I might learn Java just so I can make a mod for universal energy storage. Sheesh.

For the record, go look into PowerBox. It is precisely what you are looking for.

Now.. back to your regularly scheduled Thermal Expansion discussion.

 

[Zenthon_127]

Out of curiosity (and some noobness) what exactly changed with BC that has broken so much stuff?

 

[OmegaPython]

Out of curiosity (and some noobness) what exactly changed with BC that has broken so much stuff?

Nothing has broken anything, KL just wants to go in a different direction to BC as far as power goes.

 

[King Lemming]

Out of curiosity (and some noobness) what exactly changed with BC that has broken so much stuff?

The API used to be extensible - it was interface driven, so it allowed me to optimize out the parts that were less than efficient, and implement my own mechanics (% based loss on Tesseracts and the like).

The 1.6 port will have new Tesseracts, which people are probably going to like, but as far as energy transfer, it'll be lossless and limitless, simply because of the constraints of the new system. Sorry.

 

[Emasher]

Out of curiosity (and some noobness) what exactly changed with BC that has broken so much stuff?

Basically, a lot of the power management code in the BuildCraft API was 'closed off' making it difficult to customize the way power is handled. It made it very difficult to do anything out of the ordinary (and by ordinary, I mean the way BuildCraft machines and engines work) with MJs.

 

[SuperLuigi10]

I hope to see liquiducts back soon! They were my favorite liquid pipes by far!

 

[PierceSG]

Yay! Standalone TE!

 

[Malexion]

This is just sort of a sideline question, not really related to the topic all too much and for that I apologize.

The guys behind electrodynamics have talked about energy conversion between mods, its actually a part of their wiki site under the power section and I was more or less just curious if you have talked with them at all about their power system or interlinking in the future.

More or less interested on the communications end, and sort of hoping we get something a little better than the ic2 energy net again or a repeat of the ue power network. I suppose it's just a wonderful dream to get everything to play nice together without running servers into the ground.

 

[TheAtomicOption]

Thanks for the update. <3

Hearing news about my favorite mod's progress helps soothe my when-is-it-coming-itis and abandonment issues.

 

[sciguyryan]

Even when your personal times are hard you don't give up on us and allow one of the best mods in existence to fade into obscurity.

We will never stop showing our appreciation for that

 

[ShneekeyTheLost]

At this point I might learn Java just so I can make a mod for universal energy storage. Sheesh.

Someone did. They called it, unsurprisingly enough, Universal Energy.

See, this xkcd strip for the logical conclusion of this line of thought.

 

[Omicron]

Hmmm. New power system? Consider me interested. I've been rather dissatisfied with MJ lately - not with the code side, mind you, I have no insight in that, but with the ingame usability. Ever since we got lossless pipes, I am having more power loss / fuel waste than I ever had in my modded Minecraft career, simply because the new design paradigm is systematically eradicating all methods for power production other than "all engines always on". 4.0.2 even made combustion engines borderline unusable with Buildcraft's own "power requested" gate conditional.

My favorite power system remains Blutricity, because of the way it is founded entirely on mathematics, instead of hardcoded case-by-case idiosyncrasies like MJ and EU both have by the bucketload. Simple math too, just basic multiplication and division, which means that anyone who completed grade school can work with it. Now obviously it has its issues (complete lack of documentation, closed system, largely unsupported and lack of mod updates), but I'm hoping that your power model can take a page out of its book and function in a similarly logical and streamlined manner, where the implementation behavior can always reliably predicted just by knowing the basic operating principle. It would also be great if it followed the same "easy to pick up, hard to master" style of mechanics, because it makes engineering with it so rewarding, but I'll concede that sometimes the KISS principle is just as valid.

Something else I've wondered, though, KingLemming... I know you're sort-of-exiting the modding scene, but what are your thoughts on the under-the-hood changes in Minecraft 1.7?

 

[Trizoe]

All I can say is it's good to have you back and know that all is well in the TE universe.

 

[KingTriaxx]

UE is the opposite of what I had in mind. Though any system I build would use the coal standard for the mathematics of interchange. On topic: I'm glad TE is going to be back, though I'm curious if Tesseracts are going to be available still for moving items and liquids.

 

[SonOfABirch]

As long as it doesn't turn into Blutricity (IE: Confusing to work with and with no clear indication of what's stored) I'll be happy.

At this point I might learn Java just so I can make a mod for universal energy storage. Sheesh.

Great to hear TE is coming, but conduits and liquiducts are what I use it for. If those aren't in 1.6, I'll just wait for 1.7