Update on the Future of FTB Modpacks in 1.7

[Padfoote]

And I dont really get what do a mod packer have to balance in terms of energy systems...

Fuel consumption rates, power usage, power storage, and so much more vary by mod. If one gives 100 of a unit worth of power per coal, and another gives 300 power unit for the same amount of coal, the mod pack team ends up having to balance that in whatever way possible, and I'm sure it's an absolute nightmare to do so. Reducing packs to a single power type eliminates this balancing aspect and lets them focus on other issues at hand.

 

[Flipz]

Why setup a rail system with tank carts when I can run nearly free opaque fluiducts

Because the rail system looks cooler?

 

[TheCupcakeisaLie]

Because the rail system looks cooler?

While a small few will do this, people who are new to mods and packs will see how the only thing people use (90%) is fluiducts, itemducts, and conduits all which do the same thing other mods did possibly more expensively but 90% will gravitate to the easiest option by which would be reinforced.





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[Mevansuto]

While a small few will do this, people who are new to mods and packs will see how the only thing people use (90%) is fluiducts, itemducts, and conduits all which do the same thing other mods did possibly more expensively but 90% will gravitate to the easiest option by which would be reinforced.


They're not the easiest option, though. Just the most efficient.



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[Padfoote]

While a small few will do this, people who are new to mods and packs will see how the only thing people use (90%) is fluiducts, itemducts, and conduits all which do the same thing other mods did possibly more expensively but 90% will gravitate to the easiest option by which would be reinforced.





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People will use whatever options that they have available and wish to use. If they want to use itemducts over rail systems, then that's their choice to make for themselves, not ours.

 

[Ldog]

Fuel consumption rates, power usage, power storage, and so much more vary by mod. If one gives 100 of a unit worth of power per coal, and another gives 300 power unit for the same amount of coal, the mod pack team ends up having to balance that in whatever way possible, and I'm sure it's an absolute nightmare to do so. Reducing packs to a single power type eliminates this balancing aspect and lets them focus on other issues at hand.

On top of that, mods that generate resources out of power also need balancing. Take MFR oil and lava fabs. There's a reason the default values are what they are (or used to be at least); PowerCrystals and I had a lot of discussions about mod-balance when he came back and re-reloaded it. Because the cost to make oil and lava was the same as what you would gain from them (actually I think the oil cost was based around what you would get after you made it into fuel...that was the best solution we could come up with since PC was adamant about keeping the oil fab in) so they were useful as a form of energy storage for BC (not the most useful, but if you didn't have a mod that added batterys it was something) but you couldn't create a feedback loop for free energy.

Now if you changed those values to make it cheaper, you could get free energy. If you made it involve a loss, it wouldn't be useful for storage. Of course this is just based around BC & IC2 and the old 2:5 standard. RF didn't exist yet. UE was just a nightmare to try to balance around (which is not saying UE is bad, but it is a good argument for UE being in it's own pack). So default was based around that balance, you had the option to change it if it didn't suit your own idea of balanced or if the other mods involved made a change to the balance.

That's just 1 small example and that was longwinded.

TLDR Version: Yeah, it's a lot of effort.

Oh, and I heard from a reliable source that "Curse tweeted that Jadedcat is too vanilla"
http://asie.pl/drama.php

 

[RavynousHunter]

People will use whatever options that they have available and wish to use. If they want to use itemducts over rail systems, then that's their choice to make for themselves, not ours.

Hell, you could compromise and use both item ducts and rail systems, if you just wanted to do so. Though, I have a hard time now playing with TE without EnderIO...yes, I was foolish enough to try it, and not being able to put ALL THE PIPES in a single block just makes everything so very, very tangled and complicated and ugly. I don't mind having cables running all over the place, but even I prefer having them take up as little space as possible.

 

[Arron Syaoran]

@Jadedcat - I will probably try Agrarian Skies. If I die often, then it's too easy and I'll probably try Magic Farm 2 instead. Whichever has EE3 and TC4 would suit my best interests.

Edit: Voiceover from Quest Log kinda scared me into quitting minecraft. Will come back in a few hours to it.

@Mod Balancing - I think all power systems should have some form of energy loss whenever converted or transfered long distance.
Good Power Conversion: 32 EU yields 5 RF. 5 RF yields 8 EU. 8 EU yields 1.25 RF.
Bad Power Conversion: 32 EU yields 5 RF. 5 RF yields 32 EU.
I also think that Equivalent Exchange should include a Transmutation Penalty Cost(like 9 Iron gives 1 Gold but 1 Gold gives 7 Iron), to pay for the energy needed to cause the Transmutation to occur. An EMC based system with equivalent values and percentage-based EMC loss per transaction would be perfect.

 

[LatinBsnDude]

I love this idea.

 

[Propinquity]

I really think Carpenter's Block and Small Boats (When it's updated) should be a part of FTB.

 

[ariosos]

Well, this is disappointing, but I kind of saw it coming, seeing that TE3 pretty much has its' own independent power source now, and is practically its' own mod, rather than an "expansion" (I think to Buildcraft?). I guess I'm a bit of a traditionalist in this, but IC2, BC, Forestry and RailCraft either going, or possibly going, to me, takes a bit of fun out of it. Sure, IC2 and TE have different power systems (IC2 and BC even had different power systems from the early days - EU and MJ) - they can be converted with the power crystals mod (just saw some controversy surrounding that today, though...).

Anyway, I liked having the option of using TE early game for the extra ores, and then moving on to IC2 for faster ore production (overclocker upgrades) as I get into more late-game ore extraction - or at least trying (like BC Mining Drills). Hopefully, the other 3 don't go. I enjoyed having different types of systems in a modpack for different styles of play (early industrial tech based, like Railcraft, modern tech based - IC2/Forestry, Future-tech - AE2 automation, magic based, etc.).

 

[Padfoote]

I really think Carpenter's Block and Small Boats (When it's updated) should be a part of FTB.

That's up to the modpack team and what they feel is needed in a pack.

Anyway, I liked having the option of using TE early game for the extra ores, and then moving on to IC2 for faster ore production (overclocker upgrades) as I get into more late-game ore extraction - or at least trying (like BC Mining Drills). Hopefully, the other 3 don't go. I enjoyed having different types of systems in a modpack for different styles of play (early industrial tech based, like Railcraft, modern tech based - IC2/Forestry, Future-tech - AE2 automation, magic based, etc.).

This is where either customizing packs comes into play, or a massive "all the things" pack comes in, which DW20 will most likely end up being going off of previous packs.

 

[ariosos]

This is where either customizing packs comes into play, or a massive "all the things" pack comes in, which DW20 will most likely end up being going off of previous packs.

Yeah, that's what I've been doing (using another launcher just to get a base vanilla build against Forge - couldn't find an option on the FTB launcher). Save for the 9x9s, I seem to have the same play-style as Direwolf20, choosing different mods for different purposes throughout the lifecycle of that particular game, rather than a "one size fits all".

Granted, I also prefer Ultimate Solars over Compact solars, which DW20 uses - I enjoy the challenge of getting forestry bees up to uranium bees to produce ores for more ultimate solars. Compact Solars seem to just use the same coal/cobble/glass/iron ores about 50,000 times over, which to me is too easy once you have a few TE cobble gens and quarries going (or a Mystcraft age with coal tendrils and iron spheres). Getting 64 uranium and just as much Iridium (without GregTech)? Whole 'nother story!

 

[AlCapella]

Well technically only 2 use IC2. Tech 2 currently is just Monster with the magic mods removed. Only 1 FTB official pack currently uses IC2: Monster. Same with BC, and RailCraft. Current 1.6.4 official FTB packs only 1 has those mods. Magic 2 and Tech 2 are basically Monster clones with either tech or magic mods removed. DW20 is the Direwolf youtube pack. That leaves: FTBLite2 , Horizons and Monster as the FTB Official packs, with DW20, BloodNBones, AgSkies and MF2 as the packs made by the FTB team that are no full FTB packs. If you look at all of those packs 2 have BC,RC and IC2, if you remove the 3rd party packs maintained by FTB team members only 1 has BC,IC2 or RC. Which is one of the reasons I am surprised at people being upset. The main thing changing is instead of Magic and Tech being clones of the all in one pack they will have their own mod list and separate feel.

@Jadedcat, +1 for perspective! There's an old idiom that goes "iron fist in a velvet glove" and this reply falls in that idiomatic expression.

 

[Nefroz]

Well technically only 2 use IC2. Tech 2 currently is just Monster with the magic mods removed. Only 1 FTB official pack currently uses IC2: Monster. Same with BC, and RailCraft. Current 1.6.4 official FTB packs only 1 has those mods. Magic 2 and Tech 2 are basically Monster clones with either tech or magic mods removed. DW20 is the Direwolf youtube pack. That leaves: FTBLite2 , Horizons and Monster as the FTB Official packs, with DW20, BloodNBones, AgSkies and MF2 as the packs made by the FTB team that are no full FTB packs. If you look at all of those packs 2 have BC,RC and IC2, if you remove the 3rd party packs maintained by FTB team members only 1 has BC,IC2 or RC. Which is one of the reasons I am surprised at people being upset. The main thing changing is instead of Magic and Tech being clones of the all in one pack they will have their own mod list and separate feel.

People hate change even if its better for them in the long run. People have been using and still are using ic2, when imo there are far far better options now days that are less tedious, more intuitive, and better designed except for a few niche things (mass fab, quantum armor with gravichest). Most you can do is hope the vocal minority is actually a vocal minority and that most of us will like the singular power source, I will I already almost exclusivly use rf anyway.

Edit: I saw someone mentioned BC possibly being removed? Doubtful, it seems to have RF support as my RF always seems to run my BC machines just fine. Unles I'm missing something of course.

 

[SandGrainOne]

This post is mostly a copy of something I posted on reddit 5 days ago:

Different games and mods tries to put game play into different places. BuildCraft tries to make power into an element of concern not only in the choice of fuel, but also with production and distribution. By having loss in machines and control in the pipes, BC tries to add a need for creativity and knowledge about the mechanics. (We could probably do better though.)

The RF vs MJ "conflict" is a little bit like Applied Energistics 1 vs Applied Energistics 2. When AE 1 was released, a lot of the feedback was that it simplified automation a little bit too much, that it took away many interesting design problems when it came to resource distribution. AlgorithmX2 agreed and we now see the answer to that. The simple cables are being replaced with the channel system. A change that adds depth and more problem solving into the game play.

When that is said, AlgorithmX2 can't prevent players from using Thermal Expansion for automation for then to simply import the end products to the ME system. And in the same manner I don't think we behind BuildCraft can prevent players from producing and distributing power as they see fit. There will always be at least one mod that can bridge the gap between the two systems and a substantial part of the player base seems to prefer the easy work around.

The problems arise then large and very popular mod packs go so far to suggest a certain game play or work around for mechanics introduced by a mod. I wonder how many more "RF-mods" with IC2 features we'll get the next couple of months. We now have "Simple Jetpacks" and someone recently released "Quantum Armor". Although that has been taken down again, someone will create an acceptable "port" soon enough. The way this has been announced is creating a shift and we are slowly loosing out on diversity.

 

[Mevansuto]

Well, this is disappointing, but I kind of saw it coming, seeing that TE3 pretty much has its' own independent power source now, and is practically its' own mod, rather than an "expansion" (I think to Buildcraft?). I guess I'm a bit of a traditionalist in this, but IC2, BC, Forestry and RailCraft either going, or possibly going, to me, takes a bit of fun out of it. Sure, IC2 and TE have different power systems (IC2 and BC even had different power systems from the early days - EU and MJ) - they can be converted with the power crystals mod (just saw some controversy surrounding that today, though...).

Anyway, I liked having the option of using TE early game for the extra ores, and then moving on to IC2 for faster ore production (overclocker upgrades) as I get into more late-game ore extraction - or at least trying (like BC Mining Drills). Hopefully, the other 3 don't go. I enjoyed having different types of systems in a modpack for different styles of play (early industrial tech based, like Railcraft, modern tech based - IC2/Forestry, Future-tech - AE2 automation, magic based, etc.).

Ahh, new members. Most of you have made it clear your mod list barely changed and the fact that the change is RF-only, not TE-only. For that late game ore processing look over in @aidencbrady direction. His Mekanism mod shares a lot of content with IC2 and has great compatibility with RF (as well as EU and MJ). Late game ore extraction has more options than ever, arcane bores, digital miners, ender quarries, Blood Magic rituals. Two of these are magic based. Also Mining Drills are IC2, are you using Mining Wells?

I too might miss Railcraft and Forestry, but the direction of their mods will still be there in other mods. Not quite sure how Forestry is Future Tech, but a mod such as Mekanism may have that covered. Also AE2 is already compatible with RF so it is unlikely to be going anywhere.

 

[imfabby]

Well i have a q, maybe it sounds stupid and does not deal with RF discussion, but I'm a big fan of Pam's, do you have any plan with it?

 

[Mevansuto]

Well i have a q, maybe it sounds stupid and does not deal with RF discussion, but I'm a big fan of Pam's, do you have any plan with it?

That's up to the modpack makers in 1.6 to decide, but a true successor to AS, MF2 or BnB would likely have it.

 

[Celestialphoenix]

The problems arise then large and very popular mod packs go so far to suggest a certain game play or work around for mechanics introduced by a mod. I wonder how many more "RF-mods" with IC2 features we'll get the next couple of months. We now have "Simple Jetpacks" and someone recently released "Quantum Armor". Although that has been taken down again, someone will create an acceptable "port" soon enough. The way this has been announced is creating a shift and we are slowly losing out on diversity.

Well that, and how many mod designs will be compromised by being shoehorned into using RF instead of developing their own unique system?