Tinkerer's construct balance ideas

[PierceSG]

OP should just remove TiCo and be done with it, and stick with vanilla tools.

 

[Democretes]

No. The main resultant (as opposed to intended) purpose is to make metal tool parts artificially harder to work with.
Other than some sense of "tech level" in the form of gold or aluminum brass to make casts, there's no reason for it.
And it has a painful time sink and tedium aspect to it.

You mean like sitting at a mob grinder or running around killing mobs for xp to slightly upgrade you're tool a bit further?

 

[Poppycocks]

Guys, guys, guys, news flash, he's here to argue. Ignore it till it goes away.

 

[Symmetryc]

Why the smeltery, and not the furnace? Because it never occurred to me that the furnace would work.

TiC's smeltery doesn't like ingots, except for vanilla's gold ingots. None of the other ingots are native (I think they come from Thaumcraft's infernal furnace). Sine oreberries are (as I understand it) Natura, and Natura and TiC are two halves of the same mod, if I could furnace an oreberry into an ingot, then I should be able to smelt that ingot.

Since TiC's smeltery knows about oreberries, knows that they are nugget-sized, and knows about Natura, the idea that Natura would let you furnace an oreberry into a nugget, and then have that nugget be useless for TiC ... that's just a "don't even think about something that crazy" idea. Heck, you can't even get a nugget cast to save the last little bits. So yea, that I can smelt a berry into a nugget's worth of stuff, and not be able to do anything with it, why would I think that I could furnace a berry into a nugget, if I would not be able to anything with that nugget?

So it never even occurred to me to test for that. Why should it?

You do get two nuggets from smelting ore berries in the smeltery (last time I checked, the version has changed but I doubt its different). Nuggets can be used to create ingots, they have a purpose. Ore berries aren't even from Natura by the way, they're from Tinker's Construct...

 

[Antice]

You do get two nuggets from smelting ore berries in the smeltery (last time I checked, the version has changed but I doubt its different). Nuggets can be used to create ingots, they have a purpose. Ore berries aren't even from Natura by the way, they're from Tinker's Construct...

what version was that? the one in unleashed 1.1.3 has a 1 to 1 ratio on oreberries.
I tested it thoroughly by letting a furnace and a smeltery compete while melting multiples of 9 oreberries. the smeltery is just a lot faster, the output was exactly the same.

 

[Symmetryc]

what version was that? the one in unleashed 1.1.3 has a 1 to 1 ratio on oreberries.
I tested it thoroughly by letting a furnace and a smeltery compete while melting multiples of 9 oreberries. the smeltery is just a lot faster, the output was exactly the same.

Maybe the version change thing that I was talking about happened, I can bet that's a bug though.

 

[draeath]

Since we're talking about it - you can pour from drain spouts directly into portable tanks (place the tank as if it was a casting table). This way you can save all the 'leavings' from sub-ingot sized melts.

To get the liquid back in, install a drain backwards in the smeltery and hook up liquiduct or waterproof pipe or whatever. You can then get the liquid back in however you'd like. I like portable tanks, since you can just slap it on top of said pipe and whack it with a wrench, and it self-drains into the smelter.

 

[Antice]

Maybe the version change thing that I was talking about happened, I can bet that's a bug though.

sounds more like a rebalance. oreberries are something for nothing devices after all. and with MFR harvesters being able to harvest them it becomes a true something for nothing device. fuel is something for nothing capable trough the biofuel bootstrap process, so once you have a decent number of oreberry bushes in a farm you basically have unlimited free copper, tin, iron, and gold.

 

[Antice]

Since we're talking about it - you can pour from drain spouts directly into portable tanks (place the tank as if it was a casting table). This way you can save all the 'leavings' from sub-ingot sized melts.

To get the liquid back in, install a drain backwards in the smeltery and hook up liquiduct or waterproof pipe or whatever. You can then get the liquid back in however you'd like. I like portable tanks, since you can just slap it on top of said pipe and whack it with a wrench, and it self-drains into the smelter.

I did not know that was possible. you can make some nice storage walls with that. just pipe it back into the smeltery when needed again. that is cool.

 

[Vauthil]

To get the liquid back in, install a drain backwards in the smeltery and hook up liquiduct or waterproof pipe or whatever. You can then get the liquid back in however you'd like. I like portable tanks, since you can just slap it on top of said pipe and whack it with a wrench, and it self-drains into the smelter.

This answers a question I kept having (and promptly forgetting) on how to go about this but kept forgetting to check. Thanks. =)

 

[draeath]

I got lucky and asked the right person right after he had replied to someone else. It's funny - it's so intuitive... intuitive enough that you wouldn't expect it to work!

EDIT: also look here, this is interesting!

 

[Symmetryc]

Since we're talking about it - you can pour from drain spouts directly into portable tanks (place the tank as if it was a casting table). This way you can save all the 'leavings' from sub-ingot sized melts.

To get the liquid back in, install a drain backwards in the smeltery and hook up liquiduct or waterproof pipe or whatever. You can then get the liquid back in however you'd like. I like portable tanks, since you can just slap it on top of said pipe and whack it with a wrench, and it self-drains into the smelter.

I believe you can also position a drain upwards and have a seared glass above it with a faucet on it and put the metal into the seared glass and then right click the faucet. I haven't tested it though, it's just from hearsay. If it works I believe it is the only Vanilla Tinker's Construct method out there.

 

[tedyhere]

http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic/1953828-162152-iguana-tweaks-for-tinkers-construct/

 

[Skyqula]

<Sigh>. Why, why, does everyone assume that you are comparing the top-of-the-line vanilla tool that most likely won't be used?

So you have a cobalt (nether material, speed 11, reinforced 2) (or ardite, speed 8, stonebound 2) head, thaumium handle, paper binding; that's 5 slots. Or instead of ardite (speed 8, nether material, stonebound 2), you use alumite (speed 8, reinforced 2) Diamond and gold, 6 slots. 3 slots for redstone, and your speed is done. Or 2 slots for redstone, and keep it at low durability for the stonebound bonus of ardite. Now add in a diamond or emerald for durability (not sure which would give that tool more durability), some lapis for fortune. One (or two) slot left.

And ... when all is said and done, what's your point?

Why assume that an E5 pick is what you want, anyways?

Near a haste beacon, sure, an e5 diamond pick mines instantly. But E3 or e4 mines as fast as you walk, and the truth is when I'm doing mass mining with e4 diamond picks I'm making errors and digging out stuff I did not want to dig.

And if you want mass mining, the pick-axe is the wrong tool. Compare that E5 vanilla diamond pick to a hammer.

Because thats what I use in vanilla, considering I can rename my pick and repair it forever. No, this is NOT a bug. This is an INTENDED feature. Additionally, I find eff 4 to be increadably slow....

Your vanilla pick will need to be repaired with levels, and constantly cost more. Eventually you'll have to remake it.
Your iron-headed hammer with modifiers only needs iron to repair.
And even an alumite head is fairly easy to get the parts for (obsidian is the only thing you have to look for, aluminum and iron are too common to worry about.)

Still think vanilla is the better deal?

Yes, because your thinking an intended feature is a bug. Additionally, you still seem to think diamonds are rare or have much of a value (in vanilla play). They realy dont, because once you got all your tools you just need a few to keep up with repairs. In a single mining trip you can get a stack of diamonds and repair your gear for IRL days.... Have you played much on a vanilla server? After a while there are always people happely willing to trade diamonds for something as simple as a stack of sand...

Now in modded minecraft diamonds have alot more uses. While the vanilla application of diamonds gets practicly phased out by things like IC2 armor and tools or modular power suits or in this case TiC. Unlike IC2/MPS, TiC actually has quite a high cost partially because it still has upkeep costs. So if annything, you should realy be cheering at TiC for that...

Silk touch's primary use is decoration. It has no business being a rare level 30; it should be a level 15.

The point of silk touch:
1. Moving ender chests (most powerful/abuseable function).
2. Getting grass for transplanting.
3. Getting Mycelium from a mushroom biome for transplanting.
4. Collecting ice to make stackable water, or for making skid pads.
5. Collecting ore blocks to move them for decorating something, or moving redstone ore blocks for some sort of block detector/odd lighting system.
Abilities 2-5 don't qualify as being worth level 30. Abilities 2-3 can be done on a shovel.

That it hurts you when mining some ores doesn't help it either.

Exactly, decorative use, can be gotten at lvl 18 and once you have a tool with it youll never need another. And ill repeat myself: it should not be common as in turn it would make fortune incredibly rare. And fortune is pretty much a mandatory mining enchant.

Wha??? Are you thinking of vanilla diamond tools? Iron tools seem about the same (I haven't paid exact attention, there's too much potential variation), and you certainly can get multiple-thousand durability TiC tools.

Unbreaking. Couple of thousand on a TiC tool? Great, still does not compare to unbreaking. The only thing that does are the tier 2 tools with 10k+ durability.

Or thaumium, or paper. Nether star is just pointless -- don't bother.
No, with a vanilla enchanted tool, you need the diamonds, plus an anvil, plus levels.
No, you toss it at a repair station. Yes, you can use moss. I did, at first; now, unless the head is manyullym, I say why bother.
So far, no problem. Granted, the cobalt headed one has moss, but as I said, plenty of space left.
TiC does have choices. But there still gets down to "best". You don't have just "one ultimate", but you do have only a few potential choices. No one will use cactus on the "best pick", for example; while a good argument can be made for iron or stone as the head, the rest will be of only a very few possible choices

I like how your single line quoting makes your quotes from my post look completly out of context. Likewise your responses look all over the place and contradicting. Tip: Quote paragraphs and respond with paragraphs. Make your arguments against the entire argument someone makes and dont nitpick at single lines.

No the adress your points: Thaumium and paper have there own drawbacks. They work great on some tools/slots and are terrible on others. They are far from making a nether star pointless. What are you even trying to say here? That a paper pick is great? It greatly gives in on either durability or mining speed at the gain of what? A mod slot that cannot possibly make up for the loss? For weapons, sure. Everything outside of the blade is paper because youll never put a weapon to heavy use so a single moss will easely repair it and mods are so increadible at increasing damage that its almost better to make an antire paper weapon....

Vanilla tools can be repaired just like TiC tools can. Ill repeat myself here but whatever: Vanilla costs XP and diamonds. The only use for diamonds in vanilla is tools/armor, you will therefor build up a good stock of them by the simple fact that tools last way longer then it takes for them to break finding said diamonds. XP is increadibly easy to get duo to mob grinders and even without, the XP gained from mining/fighting mobs is greater then the actual durability damage you take. TiC tools on the otherhand require significantly more materials per repair and can require you to go to unfavorable mining area's. Like for example cobalt/ardite/manylian because the resources found in the nether a vastly different from the overworld. Ontop of the nether being much harder to navigate because of fire/lava/ghasts/terrain. This adds an antire now gameplay level: take the best materials durability/speed/mining level wise and deal with nether mining, or take a weaker material thats easyer to repair? Can you live with the lower speed/durability? Can you work around it with modifiers? And thats the entire point behind TiC. You get choice.

As for cactus, its for weapons. Just like stonebound is for tools (they are litteraly opposides in what they do). Thats the entire point. Not all materials work for every tool/weapon, but the amount of available meterials is so high that you always have a choice. Just like your starting tools can vary all the time depending on what you have on hand. (bone? Cactus? Flint? Stone? wood? iron? bronze?) What does vanilla have? A set progress path of wood (a pick for 3 stone) ==> stone (untill you get 8 stone and 3 iron >.>) ==> iron ==> diamond. Where the endgame choice is: Diamond.

So don't play with mob grinders.

So dont play with TiC? Nice argument eh? Vanilla knows so manny unbalances that sooner or later this argument always seems to come up.... Its such a bad one, please dont use it

It's an RNG mechanic, yes. It's also a probability mechanic if you toss large numbers at it, and the book/anvil system lets you do just that. Suddenly you are no longer going for luck, you are going for relative distribution. (Granted, that won't work unless you are working at the level where all the enchantments you want have a base form. Silk touch is still pointlessly a pain.)

Yeah, gues what. Playing minecraft is not about playing a thousand hours to get a somewhat relative disribution. Wich is exactly why said mechanic is bad. You play for a couple of hours, you start a world, get something crap or get something good. If you get something good your progress at a immense rate while if you get something crap you are hunting mobs all night. Like wise, once you get what you needed once, youll never need it again because you can rename and repair. So this entire minigame you are seeing is not actually that relevant. You can play it if you like, but you never have to. Considering how RNG this minigame is alot of people dont like it. Wich is exactly why TiC is great, because the minigame is no longer the onnly available minigame. The alternative is no longer about a grindy XP system with RNG rewards but about planning what you want and going out into the world to collect what you need. While overall still requiring about the same time investment as your relatively distibuted results with the RNG system. It doesnt even phase out the RNG system because with luck it can still be better/faster. But if you dont like this kind of RNG, there is finally an alternative!

 

[keybounce]

First, an out-of-order response from page 6. This is the best TL;DR summary of what I'm saying that I can think of.

OP should just remove TiCo and be done with it, and stick with vanilla tools.

That's not the point.

I like the idea of TiC. You can make tools the vanilla way, with one set of benefits; or the TiC way, with another set of benefits.

I like the idea that the two sets of tools are different but equal. Neither is the clear-cut out-and-out winner. Both have uses, limitations, advantages, and disadvantages.

You could get that by limiting TiC tools to one slot by default.
You could make TiC work in a modpack like UHS by zero default slots.

But with three default slots, the only way that TiC is inferior to vanilla is when you have gobs and gobs of automatic XP-to-enchantment setups where you have rows and rows of chests stuffed full of enchanting books to the point where every vanilla item you use has the best possible max-enchant on it.

In other words, instead of a system where diamond plus random enchant that might be what you want, where it takes a long time to get what you want, where the "what you want" breaks over time, and the normal behavior is not "perfect", you have a system where "perfect" is the normal, dependable vanilla state.

So you break vanilla's balance, and then want TiC to be balanced against broken vanilla.

Now, back to page 5:

TiC tools have eff and unbreaking at the cost of more materials

guess what? a diamond pick is an iron pick with eff and unbreaking at the cost of more materials.

Not sure you understood me.

A "base" TiC pick-axe takes one metal for the head, and two sticks for the handle.
In comparison, a vanilla pick-axe takes three metal for the head, and two sticks for the handle.

I can use diamonds for "speed and unbreaking" -- really durability -- over iron. Cost is different materials.
Or, I can use the TiC metals/alloys for "speed" and durability as well.

Wood=2
Stone=4
Iron=6
Diamond=8

Those are "base" speeds.

Instead of diamond for speed 8, you have alumite, or Ardite, etc.
Instead of "efficiency", you have cobalt (speed 11), various "stonebound" (speed up), etc.
Instead of "unbreaking", you have various ways to improve durability, add reinforced, etc. And as pointed out, "reinforced" is not technically the same as "unbreaking". But when you compare a speed 8 diamond pick-axe's base durability to the high speed multi-thousand-usage ardite+slime+reinforced stuff+speed modifiers + keeping it in a damaged state, you are looking at the equivalent of efficiency plus unbreaking on a diamond vanilla tool -- it lasts a long, long time, and mines very, very fast. (In fairness, I never even thought of that "durability 1, electric, stonebound" trick until I saw it -- but I don't play with electricity either.)

TiC means that I can use the massive amounts of redstone, lapis, and nether quartz -- all of which are in large supply -- to make massive cheap upgrades to my equipment.

Have you considered, that Tinkers Construct might just not be the right mod for you? In my opinion, it fits perfectly well in some other mod packs (Unleashed for example) and is well balanced there. Ore doubling is a standard in those packs for example (and is somewhat balanced by the huge amount of resources all those mods require), something you seem to not like.

First, vanilla gives you gobs of resources. The ore distribution in vanilla is far too excessive. After you've collected enough diamond for armor, tools, and a spare set, you have nothing but surplus.

If your mods, or modpack, requires so much materials on top of that that you need to double your output beyond vanilla's supply, then I suggest that something is seriously out-of-wack with your mods/modpack.

TiC seems to be to way out of balance. Not only does it double the base ore supply, it adds more new metals for alloys, giving you even more of them, it reduces the amount of metals needed for tools, and then adds in two nether ores found in such small quantities that you need both the doubled output AND reduced consumption of them.

Think about that last paragraph for a moment.

TiC reduces the amount of minerals needed for tools.
TiC increases the amount of minerals available in the overworld.
And TiC adds in nether materials that are only in balanced supply given the doubled output plus reduced consumption rate.

TiC's balance does not match vanilla; not even close.
You are saying that TiC is balanced in comparison to modpacks where vanilla's huge oversupply is so insufficient that you need to double the vanilla mineral supply.

And I'm trying to point out that things are imbalanced, and you say I don't know what I'm talking about?

Yes. Clearly, anyone who doesn't play the exact way you enjoy playing the game is a big dirty cheater who should just play Creative. I always thought Minecraft was a Sandbox game with no goal and no right or wrong way to play, but you have shown me the light. The only two ways to play are your way or Creative.

No. You seem to have misunderstood. (Intentional or not, I can't tell).

You are still playing a sandbox game. You are playing a game with the minecraft engine.

But is it still minecraft?

You are playing a game where the limits of what can be done in minecraft are basically 80% removed. You are playing a game with gobs and gobs of resources, gobs and gobs of abilities, functions, etc.

I play FTB to automate all the things.
I want to build complex machine processes using as many different mods as possible to automate.
If something can be gathered, processed, stored, retrieved, re-processed, a anything, I want to automate every single step.
If there isn't a way to do it, I want to find a way to do it.
Whenever new mods are added (new updated modpack) I want to do it all again in a new way using different mods.

That's what I find fun. Coming up with new and creative solutions and then implementing those solutions starting with no resources and developing my plan as resources come in.
All of this being done with mobs doing their best to hinder my progress.

Ahh. So you clearly play a different game than I do.

Do I believe in automation? Since hoppers and comparators, yes. But what's the line?

How hard is it to build a sorting system with hoppers, storage minecarts, comparators, etc, without just duplicating the "glider rows" system? Could you come up with a new and different system using vanilla mechanics?

How easy is it using sorting pipes? Or buildcraft/Ic2 pipes? How much work does it take when the system does that much of the work for you?

You are using mods that go from "barely sufficient for it to work" (vanilla) to "90% of the work is done for you".

Developing your plan as resources come in?

Once you have frames (to move a complex setup, which pistons cannot), plus mining lasers, plus transportable energy, you have "flick switches to mine it all". Add in computer automation, and you have all the resources you need as easily as pulling it stack by stack from NEI.

Where's the work? Where's the risk?

When a mod that just wants to simplify stuff (extra utilities) adds in stuff to disable mob spawns in very large areas, what happens to risk again?

That's what I find fun. Coming up with new and creative solutions ...

Good. So you don't re-use the same solution. So you try to think of something different. So you use the parts in different ways each time. Good. (Note that's a different game than vanilla minecraft.)

I play for similar reasons. But with the serious handicaps of vanilla. Trains that are barely reliable enough to depend on. Pipes that are barely reliable to move stuff with a horrible starvation problem. Horrific filtration that isn't enough.

And the resultant systems are huge. Have to be. (OMG, when I sketched this last project out on paper... I may just do a proof of concept.)

More to the point: Once you've automated it all, then what? Have you reached an end-of-game state? Do you have a "what's next"? Or do you just restart and do different?

I don't have an end-goal.
I have things to do while playing.
I do want to avoid restart.

Can my "list of things" be exhausted? In theory; in practice it would take a long time.

Page 6:

You mean like sitting at a mob grinder or running around killing mobs for xp to slightly upgrade you're tool a bit further?

Which is why I don't do those. I don't have grinders. Heck, I get more XP from mining or farming than from killing.

Guys, guys, guys, news flash, he's here to argue. Ignore it till it goes away.

No. I'm trying to make a better system.

I'm trying to point out that TiC -- which I got introduced to from the FTB UHS modback -- is badly imbalanced compared to vanilla minecraft, and way overpowered for something like UHS.

I try to suggest a simple way to bring TiC back into balance for vanilla, and make it fit better in "nasty" packs like UHS. And the response I'm getting is that other FTB modpacks that are even more out-of-balance in terms of resource consumption is the measuring stick for comparison.

You do get two nuggets from smelting ore berries in the smeltery (last time I checked, the version has changed but I doubt its different). Nuggets can be used to create ingots, they have a purpose. Ore berries aren't even from Natura by the way, they're from Tinker's Construct...

So ... I could turn those ore berries into nuggets, and nuggets into ingots, all from TiC; yet TiC's smeltery cannot work with those nuggets. Gee, that sounds like a bug .

I thought Natura was the worldgen side of TiC, and responsible for all the new trees, plants, etc; and oreberries were plants. Thank you for letting me know that I'm mistaken.

Now tell me why I can't smelt a TiC nugget in a TiC smeltery?

[Long one, incoming walls]

Because thats what I use in vanilla, considering I can rename my pick and repair it forever. No, this is NOT a bug. This is an INTENDED feature. Additionally, I find eff 4 to be incredibly slow....

This is in regard to a method in vanilla to be able to repeatedly repair an enchanted tool in the anvil, without having to pay the extra two levels each time, and without ever running into the "too expensive to repair" mechanic.

First: You say that this is intended. Can you please point to anything from any Mojang-person to show this as intended?

Every other usage of the anvil has increased cost. I think this is more likely oversight or bug than intended.

Second: Can you please post the exact details of this process? I'm willing to toss it at Mojira and see if it is closed as "works as intended", but I need to know the details first.

Finally: Efficiency 4 is slow???

Yes, because your thinking an intended feature is a bug. Additionally, you still seem to think diamonds are rare or have much of a value (in vanilla play). They realy dont, because once you got all your tools you just need a few to keep up with repairs. In a single mining trip you can get a stack of diamonds and repair your gear for IRL days.... Have you played much on a vanilla server? After a while there are always people happely willing to trade diamonds for something as simple as a stack of sand...

So I am misunderstood here.

At the beginning of play, you have a demand of diamond for armor: 24 pieces if I counted correctly. You have a demand for tools: pick (3), axe (3), shovel (1), sword (2) -- 9. A spare set -- another 33. That's 66, and then replacing the pick on a regular basis.

By the time you've gotten 72 diamonds (includes 2 replacement picks), you've gotten all your "demand" satisfied, and then you have surplus.

72 iron is found very, very quickly; there is no shortage of iron in vanilla.
72 diamond is found fairly fast, as you pointed out; there is only a shortage at world start.

Diamonds are NOT very valuable in vanilla (unless you want the blocks for building). Heck, trade them to villagers for emeralds.

Silk Touch:

Exactly, decorative use, can be gotten at lvl 18 and once you have a tool with it youll never need another. And ill repeat myself: it should not be common as in turn it would make fortune incredibly rare. And fortune is pretty much a mandatory mining enchant.

http://www.minecraftwiki.net/wiki/Enchanting/Levels

Silk touch is currently defined as level 15-65.
Consider what would happen if it were defined as 15-22? Then a high level enchant would have NO chance of getting it.

Suddenly, it can be a relatively easy to get mid-range item.

http://pernsteiner.org/minecraft/enchant/tables/Silk_1.html

Silk touch, on diamond, has best chances at level 15; on other materials, even lower. You mentioned 18; that's high.

Sadly, since Silk Touch still needs the tool quality, only iron and diamond are choices for it. And an iron one is expected to wear out from use (although, anvil repair might be reasonable).

Now to adress your points: Thaumium and paper have there own drawbacks. They work great on some tools/slots and are terrible on others. They are far from making a nether star pointless. What are you even trying to say here? That a paper pick is great? It greatly gives in on either durability or mining speed at the gain of what? A mod slot that cannot possibly make up for the loss? For weapons, sure. Everything outside of the blade is paper because youll never put a weapon to heavy use so a single moss will easely repair it and mods are so increadible at increasing damage that its almost better to make an antire paper weapon....

Picks have a binding slot, that has no effect except to permit the material special abilities. And yes, there are benefits and drawbacks. But Thaumium: other than a base durability of only 400, there is no drawback to it, and the large tools have 4 material slots, easily able to afford it.

The point? That while a generic TiC tool has 3 slots, most can easily get more: diamond (cheap) plus emerald (do I have that right) for a slot, or paper for a slot with low durability, or thaumium for a slot with moderate durability. 5 slots for most tools should be the norm (6 for the large tools).

Vanilla tools can be repaired just like TiC tools can. Ill repeat myself here but whatever: Vanilla costs XP and diamonds. The only use for diamonds in vanilla is tools/armor, you will therefor build up a good stock of them by the simple fact that tools last way longer then it takes for them to break finding said diamonds. XP is increadibly easy to get duo to mob grinders and even without, the XP gained from mining/fighting mobs is greater then the actual durability damage you take. TiC tools on the otherhand require significantly more materials per repair and can require you to go to unfavorable mining area's. Like for example cobalt/ardite/manylian because the resources found in the nether a vastly different from the overworld. Ontop of the nether being much harder to navigate because of fire/lava/ghasts/terrain. This adds an antire now gameplay level: take the best materials durability/speed/mining level wise and deal with nether mining, or take a weaker material thats easyer to repair? Can you live with the lower speed/durability? Can you work around it with modifiers? And thats the entire point behind TiC. You get choice.

TiC repair is determined by the head. So you don't use Ardite, or Cobalt, for the head. Now you are getting your over supplied overworld materials for head repair.

Vanilla repair on the anvil has ever increasing costs, and eventually becomes un-affordable. You method of renaming to avoid that seems broken; I want to see if that's actually considered "intended" or a bug.

That's the key difference.

As for cactus, its for weapons. Just like stonebound is for tools (they are litteraly opposides in what they do). Thats the entire point. Not all materials work for every tool/weapon, but the amount of available meterials is so high that you always have a choice. Just like your starting tools can vary all the time depending on what you have on hand. (bone? Cactus? Flint? Stone? wood? iron? bronze?) What does vanilla have? A set progress path of wood (a pick for 3 stone) ==> stone (untill you get 8 stone and 3 iron >.>) ==> iron ==> diamond. Where the endgame choice is: Diamond.

So I'm trying to understand your point here.
Sure, early game, access to supplies/materials is limited, TiC lets you make use of what you have.
Once you've gotten stuff? TiC has a "best" tool for each job. Just like Vanilla.

Does TiC's "best" pickaxe look like it's "best" shovel or it's "best" sword? No. Does it have those bests?

Maybe it has a different "best stone clearer" from "best resource gatherer".
Maybe it has a better "Best desert cleanup" than "best dirt remover". (Hmm, a vacuum versus a portable oven).

But beyond that?

the amount of available materials is so high that you always have a choice.

Except that in most cases, most of those materials won't be desirable for use.

So dont play with TiC? Nice argument eh? Vanilla knows so manny unbalances that sooner or later this argument always seems to come up.... Its such a bad one, please dont use it

The argument here dealt with mob grinders. The complaint was that mob grinders made aspects of vanilla pointless. I said don't use them. The response here is "Don't play with TiC".

My point, as I said in the OP, and at the top of this post: TiC would be a great, balanced mod if it defaulted to one slot. In hard packs, like UHS, default to zero slots. Defaulting to three slots is too many.

It's not: I don't want TiC at all.
It's: I want TiC to be better balanced to match vanilla.

That means:
1. No doubling of ores.
2. Tool heads need to use more materials, to match vanilla's tool ore consumption.
3. Nether ores need to generate significantly more to compensate -- if you are using 3 nuggets for a pick head instead of 1, and getting 1 per ore instead of 2, you need 6 times the nether ore gen to be the "same" as you are now. Adjust that up or down a little to tune the supply better.

And if you really, really need to double the supply because of excessively high demand mods, then let those mod deal with the doubling. TiC doesn't need it. (I think those mods should adjust their demand down.)

Yeah, gues what. Playing minecraft is not about playing a thousand hours to get a somewhat relative distribution. Which is exactly why said mechanic is bad. You play for a couple of hours, you start a world, get something crap or get something good. If you get something good your progress at a immense rate while if you get something crap you are hunting mobs all night. Like wise, once you get what you needed once, youll never need it again because you can rename and repair. So this entire minigame you are seeing is not actually that relevant. You can play it if you like, but you never have to. Considering how RNG this minigame is alot of people dont like it. Which is exactly why TiC is great, because the minigame is no longer the onnly available minigame. The alternative is no longer about a grindy XP system with RNG rewards but about planning what you want and going out into the world to collect what you need. While overall still requiring about the same time investment as your relatively distibuted results with the RNG system. It doesnt even phase out the RNG system because with luck it can still be better/faster. But if you dont like this kind of RNG, there is finally an alternative!

Note the section that I bolded.

TiC *IS* good because it has an alternative to Vanilla's enchanting system. I am not disputing that.

TiC *IS* overpowered, and renders Vanilla's system too weak. That is my claim.

The only way you can make vanilla on-par with TiC is by exploiting an issue with renames to reduce repair costs, and making the perfect set of books available for your tools.

Now do you understand me?

 

[SonOfABirch]

Right but here's the thing. Vanilla tools, vanilla enchanting and all of that gubbins... is shit. It's boring, it's tedious(enchanting) it's plain downright broken. It's shit. End of story.
So you can take your wall of text and eat it, it bores me, your entire philosophy on balance is garbage.
Tinkers Construct is a breath of fresh air, I mean... come on, when you put luck on your pickaxe YOU CAN SEE IT ON THE MODEL! What do you get when you put fortune on your boring vanilla diamond pickaxe? It glows... whoop-de-fucking doo!

You're right that TiCo doesn't balance for vanilla. You know why? Because vanilla sucks. TiCo replaces vanilla.

 

[draeath]

Wise words were once spoken: "if you don't like it, don't use it."

The best part about that philosophy is that those of us who do like it, can use it.

Heck, I would be happy if you couldn't craft anything better than stone tools vanilla, and had to use Tinker's Construct to get anything more sophisticated. Maybe some of the modifications are a bit overpowered, but that's easy to solve: reduce the number of modifications on "normal" materials or just... don't use them!

 

[Skyqula]

First: You say that this is intended. Can you please point to anything from any Mojang-person to show this as intended?

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=twitter+dinnerbone+rename+anvil

 

[Antice]

Wise words were once spoken: "if you don't like it, don't use it."

The best part about that philosophy is that those of us who do like it, can use it.

Heck, I would be happy if you couldn't craft anything better than stone tools vanilla, and had to use Tinker's Construct to get anything more sophisticated. Maybe some of the modifications are a bit overpowered, but that's easy to solve: reduce the number of modifications on "normal" materials or just... don't use them!

using TiCo to entirely replace the vanilla tools for anything but use in recipes is actually quite a bit of fun

 

[Antice]

//snipped wallO'text//
Now do you understand me?

No. we do not want to understand you. you are complaining to the wrong crowd. we play a different game than you do. simple as that. TiCo is well balanced when used alongside multiple tech mods that all add their own sets of tools with varying properties.
We do not want your version of balance. it would make TiCo extremely underpowered compared to the other mods.
Some of which are even more powerful than even the best tools from TiCo. (I'm looking at you MPS)
Ore doubling is not broken in FTB packs because FTB packs do not use vanilla ore gen in the first place. the ore gen has been rebalanced to take ore doubling and the relative beastly resource gobbling tendencies of your run of the mill techmod into account. it gives us reasons for setting up crazy rube goldberg devices for making what we want.
heck. we even have tonnes of extra decorative only blocks as well. ones that require lots and lots of resources to make.
this is what we want. a lego game with more lego blocks than vanilla. balancing against the restrictive crappy vanilla system is not in the cards. not when several of the mods in the packs also add mob's that make the vanilla ones look like pansies. (I'm looking at you mini poison spider from whatever mod that added you little evil thing)