Mod Feedback Thermal Series Design/Feedback
- Thread starter King Lemming
- Start date
-
The FTB Forum is now read-only, and is here as an archive. To participate in our community discussions, please join our Discord! https://ftb.team/discord
In that case. Mind fixing this little issue so that Buildcraft is more uniform with the Thermal Series.
In that case. Mind fixing this little issue so that Buildcraft is more uniform with the Thermal Series.
Someone's not using BuildCraftCompat...
Ok, Im lost. I'm using 6.4.11. As far as I can tell the mod has yet to be divided up. Am I missing something?
-_______________-
I've been actively following this mod since before TE split from MJ. How on earth did I miss this.
We didn't bring that much attention to it. But it is on our download page, and has been since release, just below BC
You want feedback. I have feedback.
I've used Thermal Expansion since 1.4.7. I have always, and always will, use it in conjunction with Build-craft, Railcraft, and Forestry. The initial move to move RF sucked for me, but now that everyone is back on the same system, things are getting better. Unlike many others in this community, I don't find joy in becoming an all powerful, flying, indestructable, voxel god. I like my gameplay to be a gradual but rewarding progression. As such, I prefer my technology to require thought, and make room of the numerous amount of in game space minecraft provides. I strongly dislike blocks that simplify already simplified tech tasks. I could care less if they are less server intensive, single block OP machines are boring.
What I like
-the split into multiple mods
-RF's simplicity makes it easy to teach new users.
-Use of tabs to control and explain machines
-I can always rely on your mods to be stable, and monitored for lag.
-Textures are beautiful
What I dislike
-Long update times
-RF's simplicity is rather dull for long term players.
-All mods lack challenge and risk. Yes some people whine when faced with a risk, threat, or consequence. However, if I'm playing survival, I expect it. For exaple, Buildcraft's engines all use to blow when misused. This required players to design saftey systems using redstone, and gate conditions. Yes, some people cry, but a challenge isn't unfair if it can be solved with a little brainpower. In a game focused on exploration and design, I expect some sort of challenge that involves either exploration and/or design.
-Some old features, new mod. Minecraft 1.5 was, in my opinion, when Thermal Expansion blended the most with other mods. Your mods, and other buildcraft inspired mods all felt like one big family of tech, offering transportation, farming, construction, and processing. Everyone kinda did what they did best with the only exception being buildcraft's buggy energy system which everyone rightfully would overlook for TE conduits. Now everyone has taken it on themselves to out do each other. The results are a whole bunch of RF powered mods that all, more or less, do the same thing. An example of this unneeded feature clone/creep in TE was the addition of Caches. Given how many barrel mods we already have, why on earth does anyone need another one. Heck, even other COFH mods like Minefactory Reloaded had deep storage units.
What I miss
-The old engines from the MJ days looked absolutely amazing and far more interesting than the new static dynamos.
-FMP integration. Yeah I get that you have your reasons, but lost unity across mods still sucks.
What I'd like to see in the future
- an expansion of functionality in cofh's friends overlay. Why not expand this into a party/clan system. Given that most other tech mods depend on COFH, it wouldn't be hard for the community to receive it as the standard party/permisions implementation.
-Better integration with non thermal mods. Yes, everyone uses RF these day and that is fantastic but more gameplay mechanic integration would be nice. For example, Thermal Expansion once had build-craft gate support. That was awesome.
-A use for RF outside crating. Right now, most tech mods generate tons or RF but have nothing to do with it.
-I'd ask that you add a mechanic that converted Build-Craft, and Ae2 Facades to TD facades on placement, but I get the vibe your team still doesn't like build-craft. (Pssst... the cold war is over. RF won
Love your mods. Thanks for the hard work.
Glad you like it.
I'll see if I can't address some of the concerns though.As far as update times go, that can't be helped. It truly can't be, sorry. Splitting the mods makes it a bit easier though, to be sure.
Caches are indeed a bit different. They're a low-latency barrel variant, something that doesn't exist. MFR isn't a traditional CoFH mod, it's sort of adopted. Both skyboy and I dislike the INT_MAX storage on the DSUs, but it's a holdover from powercrystals' days, hence - Caches. They don't have all of the bells and whistles of JABBA or any number of storage mods, but they fit and they're awesome for servers.
FMP is gone, sorry, but at least you know it and get why.
The problem with RF is that I can't control other mods. CoFH stuff has a certain level of power generation and consumption, but since it's an open API, people have already turned the dial to 37. It's not a sandbox I want to play in, and I can't justify making new things that use billions of RF when I don't have a generator that makes that much. (No plans to, either.) But yeah, I want to branch out the uses a bit.
Historically, when we integrated closely with the old BC API, we got screwed for our troubles, necessitating RF. There are some APIs I can trust, and we'll add things when the mods in question are stable, reliable, and the devs don't have it out for us. We've already added some of the new BC stuff, but I need to investigate the gate system a bit before committing to that. It used to suffer from ID conflicts.
Cross-facade support is a big maybe - it just depends how the facades are designed fundamentally. TD's covers use NBT and are absurdly flexible. I'm not sure what facades and AE2's things do now. As far as the cold war...there never was one really, and I'm fine with the BuildCraft team. I think the mods play very well together. The current team is doing good things with it now, and I have no real ill will towards them. There's no reason to.
Dynamos are something I'd like to do, but the way that textures work in MC, it'd be a hideous waste of sheet space as they are right now. An animated model is a maybe, though it absolutely must have a client-side config.
We don't really use plates in our stuff, so I'm hesitant to do this simply because I don't like throwing a bunch of work at Cynycal without a reason. I'll ponder on it though.
And I know that the metal thing bothers people, but I'm trying to stick with the 7 metals of antiquity. Gold, Silver, Iron, Copper, Tin, Lead, and Mercury. Anything outside of that feels new and specific. Not super Minecrafty. But I'll see if I can provide a config option possibly.
Fact is, Nickel and Iron are hard to tell apart, Platinum has no real obvious properties other than being shiny and heavy, and the blend that we've traditionally used as Bronze in MC just isn't - it's closer to a bell metal.
Thanks for the feedback.
Keep it coming and I'll see what can be done with some of this stuff.I'm glad to see so much community interaction here, I've been a fan since as far back as I can remember, and it's good to see the mod still going strong. Thanks for the countless hours of enjoyment .
One thing I would like to point out, I see a lot of complaints about mods adding the same content... caches, covers, etc.. I might be the only one, but I completely disagree that these blocks are "useless"; I happen to be someone who focuses a lot on aesthetics, what if I don't want wooden barrels in my space station? I think having options is fantastic, provided those options offer something, and performance / aesthetic differences are certainly something.
This may already be a thing, but I'd like to see the Phytogenic Insolator accept other types of fertilizers as a replacement for phyto-grow, (not rich phyto-grow) such as Forestry fertilizer, or the Metallurgy variant, not sure if they're ore-dictionary, but they should be. (Btw, love that you added a farming machine that isn't identical to all the other farming machines.)
I know other people have mentioned this but I think some level of support for pack creators is going to be the most requested thing over the next year for all mod devs.. Modded MC has changed vastly, and the "Questing" or "Hardcore" side of things is growing more and more. Little things would be great, like the ability to multiply (x2, x4, etc) the power requirements for for augments, but like lots of others said, the ability to add and remove recipes is high on the wish list. Sadly the current versions of Modtweaker have some "hiccups".
It might be nice to see something like Ender IO's recipe config, although I imagine that being a headache to add, and even more-so to troubleshoot. Adding functional Minetweaker/Modtweaker support isn't your job, and I certainly don't expect it. We should all be complaining to them, (and believe me, people already have). As I said, its a "wishlist" thing; like a pony, a Ferrari, or Scarlett Johansson
Finally, one last thing...
Primal Mana Fluid. wtf
jk
.One thing I would like to point out, I see a lot of complaints about mods adding the same content... caches, covers, etc.. I might be the only one, but I completely disagree that these blocks are "useless"; I happen to be someone who focuses a lot on aesthetics, what if I don't want wooden barrels in my space station? I think having options is fantastic, provided those options offer something, and performance / aesthetic differences are certainly something.
This may already be a thing, but I'd like to see the Phytogenic Insolator accept other types of fertilizers as a replacement for phyto-grow, (not rich phyto-grow) such as Forestry fertilizer, or the Metallurgy variant, not sure if they're ore-dictionary, but they should be.
(Btw, love that you added a farming machine that isn't identical to all the other farming machines.)I know other people have mentioned this but I think some level of support for pack creators is going to be the most requested thing over the next year for all mod devs.. Modded MC has changed vastly, and the "Questing" or "Hardcore" side of things is growing more and more. Little things would be great, like the ability to multiply (x2, x4, etc) the power requirements for for augments, but like lots of others said, the ability to add and remove recipes is high on the wish list. Sadly the current versions of Modtweaker have some "hiccups".
It might be nice to see something like Ender IO's recipe config, although I imagine that being a headache to add, and even more-so to troubleshoot. Adding functional Minetweaker/Modtweaker support isn't your job, and I certainly don't expect it. We should all be complaining to them, (and believe me, people already have
). As I said, its a "wishlist" thing; like a pony, a Ferrari, or Scarlett JohanssonFinally, one last thing...
Primal Mana Fluid. wtf
jk
I totally didn't like it for the inclusion of Scarlett Johansson >.>
It was the mention of XML recipe parsing \o/
That would be one of the best things ever.
It was the mention of XML recipe parsing \o/
That would be one of the best things ever.
Nowadays, all you touch is names - IDs are assigned internally and taken care of.
(Also, a group which I unofficially call "the BC betatesters" have been playing with BC and TE4 for the last 5-6 months and they can testify as to the fun quality.)
Last edited:
A couple questions:
Use MT to rename via localization. It's the method I use and I've not yet found any issues with it.
- For Thermal Expansion, is there any way we could augment/enchant/upgrade caches to show the 'traditional' item count on the front?
- Also for Thermal Expansion, have you considered a 'tree' variant of the Phytogenic Insolator or some method of 'tree farming' aside from axes in an AA?
- For Thermal Dynamics, any thought as to your own implementation of an on-demand automated crafting system?
Use MT to rename via localization. It's the method I use and I've not yet found any issues with it.
I realise that re-reporting an issue I already filed is probably passe, but I reported an issue over at the FTB Infinity section where I couldn't close the tesseract GUI normally because I rebound the inventory key to TAB instead of E. I think that report was drowned out by all the other reports. I don't think this is a big issue, probably just an instance where the E key is accidentally hardcoded.
One idea for the Dynamics side is a conduit that emits a full redstone signal when an item passes through it. Miss this from the old Buildcraft redstone pipe as the functionality passed to gates and further in it's tech tree.
Doesn't one of the pipe mods re-add it?
Anyway, we're sticking with this particular decision.
Possibly add an endgame generator that actually gives a use for cryotheum-whatever-fluxducts. They're really useful once you get a large big reactor going (over 20k rf/t) or a turbine, but it's just relying on other mods with large power generation from other mods. I'm not saying, 'oh you should add a big reactor type machine' but possibly something that generates large amount of rf that actually gives a use for high end fluxducts. Possibly something that combines different liquids in a dynamo-type-thing but differs depending on the liquids used. Possibly 'hot' liquids (e.g. pyrotheum) will generate higher rf/t but is less fuel efficient, while cooler liquids will produce less rf/t but are more fuel efficient.
I think including higher-tier pipes so other mods can use them is reasonable. BuildCraft can produce up to 300 RF/t per input pipe at best, but we have an input pipe which takes in up to 2560 RF/t for that exact reason.
Here's the thing about power gen and why I believe neither BC nor TE have generators that make absurd amounts of power. Power is useless without something to utilize that power. Neither BC nor TE have crazy-high-end power consumers, therefore including crazy-high-end power generators is outside the needs of the mod itself.
I'm glad to see so much community interaction here, I've been a fan since as far back as I can remember, and it's good to see the mod still going strong. Thanks for the countless hours of enjoyment
One thing I would like to point out, I see a lot of complaints about mods adding the same content... caches, covers, etc.. I might be the only one, but I completely disagree that these blocks are "useless"; I happen to be someone who focuses a lot on aesthetics, what if I don't want wooden barrels in my space station? I think having options is fantastic, provided those options offer something, and performance / aesthetic differences are certainly something.
This may already be a thing, but I'd like to see the Phytogenic Insolator accept other types of fertilizers as a replacement for phyto-grow, (not rich phyto-grow) such as Forestry fertilizer, or the Metallurgy variant, not sure if they're ore-dictionary, but they should be.
I know other people have mentioned this but I think some level of support for pack creators is going to be the most requested thing over the next year for all mod devs.. Modded MC has changed vastly, and the "Questing" or "Hardcore" side of things is growing more and more. Little things would be great, like the ability to multiply (x2, x4, etc) the power requirements for for augments, but like lots of others said, the ability to add and remove recipes is high on the wish list. Sadly the current versions of Modtweaker have some "hiccups".
It might be nice to see something like Ender IO's recipe config, although I imagine that being a headache to add, and even more-so to troubleshoot. Adding functional Minetweaker/Modtweaker support isn't your job, and I certainly don't expect it. We should all be complaining to them, (and believe me, people already have
Finally, one last thing...
Primal Mana Fluid. wtf
jk
I'm willing to consider alternate fertilizers for the Insolator, but I'm trying not to trivialize it completely. If a mod adds a fertilizer that's way easier to get, ehh... :/
Currently, I'm working on a json recipe parser. It'll work a lot like our world gen when it's done. The tricky part is not screwing up when somebody gives it a bad file.
And yeah, more Fluids are coming. Zephyrean Aerotheum, Tectonic (or Seismic, haven't decided) Petrotheum, and Mana will eventually have a real use.
Doing that with Caches would ruin them. It'd defeat the entire point. I would prefer not, sorry.
I'm on the fence with doing tree harvesting, as it's just such an easy way of making renewable energy and I don't want to trivialize that.
Better logistics capabilities is something we'd like to do with TD, but it's not top priority right now.
Without top end consumers, I can't justify adding a large generator to TE. The ducts exist in TD because the mods are nominally separate.
The AA needs a bit of a rework in a few ways. It just hasn't been super high on the to-do list.
Here are some ideas you could do if you don’t use them no worries.
Currently Thermal Expansion doesn’t have an advanced way of making RF power. The Dynamos only do 80 RF/t with augment 320 RF/t. Granted that Thermal Expansion itself doesn't use much RF power but when you need 1000s of RF/t to power your machines, Quarrys, AE2, 320 RF/t doesn't go far so you have to spam lots of Dynamos or move onto a better source of RF i.e. Big Reactors. Could you add a muiltblock Dynamo generator that runs on fuels?
Maybe also have a end game FR reactor that use 2 fuels "hot" and "cold" to create steam. By mixing pyrotheum & cryotheum fuels they can generate high amounts of steam which can be used by other mods or have advanced steam turbine.
More use for liquids……liquids are fun!!
Thermal Dynamics could do with some high pressure fluid ducts that can move about 1000m/b to achieve the high flow rate they should be powered by RF.
Instead of having a simple crafting recipe for the Thermal Dynamics ducts maybe have a machine that creates them instead some sort of duct making machine. (Maybe have a config option to disable this)
Add a mining hammer or mining laser to Redstone Arsenal for hand mining.
I really like the idea of a TE RF chunk loader which I read in the thread.
Currently Thermal Expansion doesn’t have an advanced way of making RF power. The Dynamos only do 80 RF/t with augment 320 RF/t. Granted that Thermal Expansion itself doesn't use much RF power but when you need 1000s of RF/t to power your machines, Quarrys, AE2, 320 RF/t doesn't go far so you have to spam lots of Dynamos or move onto a better source of RF i.e. Big Reactors. Could you add a muiltblock Dynamo generator that runs on fuels?
Maybe also have a end game FR reactor that use 2 fuels "hot" and "cold" to create steam. By mixing pyrotheum & cryotheum fuels they can generate high amounts of steam which can be used by other mods or have advanced steam turbine.
More use for liquids……liquids are fun!!
Thermal Dynamics could do with some high pressure fluid ducts that can move about 1000m/b to achieve the high flow rate they should be powered by RF.
Instead of having a simple crafting recipe for the Thermal Dynamics ducts maybe have a machine that creates them instead some sort of duct making machine. (Maybe have a config option to disable this)
Add a mining hammer or mining laser to Redstone Arsenal for hand mining.
I really like the idea of a TE RF chunk loader which I read in the thread.