Update on the Future of FTB Modpacks in 1.7

[mr10movie]

Idk about the EU modpack, gregtech is pretty much it's own thing now, often addons don't play well with it. Gregtech actually uses it's own E-net as of 1.7, although it still uses ic2 for some stuff.

Besides, I called the hard-level Gregtech in 1.6

To further explain, Greg has had his own E-net in place for a while, which is used by the machines internally, but it has 1:1 conversion from regular EU. Greg is now making that more prominent in 1.7, and adding many many different types of cables to interact with this, each with their own specific properties.

Also, I wouldn't say this is entirely true that addons don't play well. Unidye, Frogcraft, Nuclear control, and many more that I can't remember all work well with GT (but Greg is incorporating stuff like compact solars into his mod, so fair enough).

 

[eashonk]

you people are crazy. play the game how you like, if you don't like this completely free awesome stuff that the ftb team makes, don't use it. go make your own and listen to people bi*@h and moan about "overpowered this, and overpowered that, and this is too easy, or this is too difficult, or this doesn't add anything to the game". what a bunch of freaking natzi's. What do you care if i have an overpowered farm feeding a steam boiler hooked up to a shit ton of Steam Dynamo's? As much as those of you who stream bitch about backseat gaming, you'd think you'd let people play their game however they want. Sometimes, I don't want to fiddle around with power and worry about balance in the game, I just want to make some cool shit with out stuff crashing. Segregating the mods is a good idea. I am going to stick with Dw20 because I like all the things, but I'm not going around moaning about how anyone else wants to play this GAME! If you don't like the packs, change them, if you don't want to change them, don't use what you don't like, but don't go around being a stick in the mud because other people don't have the same scruples about the "rules" of modded minecraft, balanced packs, blah blah blah, it's all a bunch of ego feeding b.s. if you ask me.

 

[Jadedcat]

Will MFR, AE, Mekanism, Mad Science, Galacticraft, Resonant Induction, ICBM, MFFS, Atomic Science, MMPS and MPSA be included in both RF And EU modpacks?

MFR and AE yes. The others will go where they fit. We won't be doing this : 6 modpacks with practically the same mods except for one or 2 thing. Instead we will be making packs where only a few mods repeat across packs. And the packs can easily be recombined into one large pack by people wanting that. This puts the more intricate mods in packs where they aren't up against easier to learn/use mods.

Now what we do about BC. For the first time in many, many versions they're adding something interesting, yet we'll miss out on that. Don't forget all of Railcraft's rails, and bee lovers are going to be disappointed.

It'll a shame to lose these mods and for them not to get their own pack.

RC and BC will be somewhere. Forestry on the other hand... I love bees, bees are the only modded thing I have added code for. Bees are amazing. However Sir S hasn't been doing Forestry since the start of 1.6. Myst and CJ were maintaining it in 1.6. Player updated it for 1.7. Development on Forestry has halted which makes me incredibly sad. BC is starting to get some changes and new content but there is very little it can do that can't be done by quite a few other mods at this point.

For 1.6- 1.7 the mods in question are maintained by:

IC2 - Player
Forestry - Player (1.7), Mysterious Ages (1.6) Covert Jaguar
BC - Covert Jaguar, SpaceToad (1.7)
RC- Covert Jaguar
Magic Bees and Extra Bees are unlikely to be updated ( I hope they are but its unlikely)

It is very concerning that the original devs of all but RC have seemed to lose interest. Honestly if SirS or Mysterious Ages was to come back/maintain Forestry there would be less concern about it but CJ is now responsible for several very different code bases. SpaceToad is back now but he may disappear again. Putting that much faith and basing our packs off 4 major mods maintained by 2 people just doesn't make sense. If I knew Java better I would volunteer to maintain the bees mods. I love them. I would still volunteer to try if SirS was crazy enough to let me . If something goes wrong Forestry is going to take second fiddle to RC for development. If SpaceToad leaves again we'll have the same problem with BC.

 

[Pokefenn]

MFR and AE yes. The others will go where they fit. We won't be doing this : 6 modpacks with practically the same mods except for one or 2 thing. Instead we will be making packs where only a few mods repeat across packs. And the packs can easily be recombined into one large pack by people wanting that. This puts the more intricate mods in packs where they aren't up against easier to learn/use mods.



RC and BC will be somewhere. Forestry on the other hand... I love bees, bees are the only modded thing I have added code for. Bees are amazing. However Sir S hasn't been doing Forestry since the start of 1.6. Myst and CJ were maintaining it in 1.6. Player updated it for 1.7. Development on Forestry has halted which makes me incredibly sad. BC is starting to get some changes and new content but there is very little it can do that can't be done by quite a few other mods at this point.

For 1.6- 1.7 the mods in question are maintained by:

IC2 - Player
Forestry - Player (1.7), Mysterious Ages (1.6) Covert Jaguar
BC - Covert Jaguar, SpaceToad (1.7)
RC- Covert Jaguar
Magic Bees and Extra Bees are unlikely to be updated ( I hope they are but its unlikely)

It is very concerning that the original devs of all but RC have seemed to lose interest. Honestly if SirS or Mysterious Ages was to come back/maintain Forestry there would be less concern about it but CJ is now responsible for several very different code bases. SpaceToad is back now but he may disappear again. Putting that much faith and basing our packs off 4 major mods maintained by 2 people just doesn't make sense. If I knew Java better I would volunteer to maintain the bees mods. I love them. I would still volunteer to try if SirS was crazy enough to let me . If something goes wrong Forestry is going to take second fiddle to RC for development. If SpaceToad leaves again we'll have the same problem with BC.

I thought minalien updated magic bees to 1.7?
If not, we can always find someone to take it over
If they can handle the amount of enums myst uses >.>

 

[AlCapella]

*snip*
Forestry on the other hand... I love bees, bees are the only modded thing I have added code for. Bees are amazing. However Sir S hasn't been doing Forestry since the start of 1.6. Myst and CJ were maintaining it in 1.6. Player updated it for 1.7. Development on Forestry has halted which makes me incredibly sad. BC is starting to get some changes and new content but there is very little it can do that can't be done by quite a few other mods at this point.

*snip*

*groan* There goes any hopes I had of having a trees and bees themed mod pack Awww. Pretty please, with some sugar and spice and everything else nice. :-|

 

[Mevansuto]

MFR and AE yes. The others will go where they fit. We won't be doing this : 6 modpacks with practically the same mods except for one or 2 thing. Instead we will be making packs where only a few mods repeat across packs. And the packs can easily be recombined into one large pack by people wanting that. This puts the more intricate mods in packs where they aren't up against easier to learn/use mods.



RC and BC will be somewhere. Forestry on the other hand... I love bees, bees are the only modded thing I have added code for. Bees are amazing. However Sir S hasn't been doing Forestry since the start of 1.6. Myst and CJ were maintaining it in 1.6. Player updated it for 1.7. Development on Forestry has halted which makes me incredibly sad. BC is starting to get some changes and new content but there is very little it can do that can't be done by quite a few other mods at this point.

For 1.6- 1.7 the mods in question are maintained by:

IC2 - Player
Forestry - Player (1.7), Mysterious Ages (1.6) Covert Jaguar
BC - Covert Jaguar, SpaceToad (1.7)
RC- Covert Jaguar
Magic Bees and Extra Bees are unlikely to be updated ( I hope they are but its unlikely)

It is very concerning that the original devs of all but RC have seemed to lose interest. Honestly if SirS or Mysterious Ages was to come back/maintain Forestry there would be less concern about it but CJ is now responsible for several very different code bases. SpaceToad is back now but he may disappear again. Putting that much faith and basing our packs off 4 major mods maintained by 2 people just doesn't make sense. If I knew Java better I would volunteer to maintain the bees mods. I love them. I would still volunteer to try if SirS was crazy enough to let me . If something goes wrong Forestry is going to take second fiddle to RC for development. If SpaceToad leaves again we'll have the same problem with BC.

Maybe it'd be nice if CJ merged the 3 mods he's maintaining and made them Open Source. Then I'd be pretty satisfied with the state of Forestry. Just the addition of the 3 major bee mods being updated and I'd no longer have concerns about Bees at all.[DOUBLEPOST=1398524477][/DOUBLEPOST]

you people are crazy. play the game how you like, if you don't like this completely free awesome stuff that the ftb team makes, don't use it. go make your own and listen to people bi*@h and moan about "overpowered this, and overpowered that, and this is too easy, or this is too difficult, or this doesn't add anything to the game". what a bunch of freaking natzi's. What do you care if i have an overpowered farm feeding a steam boiler hooked up to a shit ton of Steam Dynamo's? As much as those of you who stream bitch about backseat gaming, you'd think you'd let people play their game however they want. Sometimes, I don't want to fiddle around with power and worry about balance in the game, I just want to make some cool shit with out stuff crashing. Segregating the mods is a good idea. I am going to stick with Dw20 because I like all the things, but I'm not going around moaning about how anyone else wants to play this GAME! If you don't like the packs, change them, if you don't want to change them, don't use what you don't like, but don't go around being a stick in the mud because other people don't have the same scruples about the "rules" of modded minecraft, balanced packs, blah blah blah, it's all a bunch of ego feeding b.s. if you ask me.

I love how you mention "natzis" as I really want to Grammar Nazi all over this.

 

[keybounce]

Not that I'm trying to confuse the issue any further, but RC's power system is significantly different from "traditional" stick-coal-in-a-box-and-voila power systems. It adds way more stuff for way more effort; many n00bs will probably not understand it; in short, adding it to a flagship pack would likely cause a lot more issues and tech support to deal with...

There is only one real problem with RC's power system.

https://www.examtime.com/p/772405-RotaryCraft-Knowledge-Test-quizzes

You have to get a passing grade over there .

(Seriously, try it -- and then realize that people complain in Reika's thread that can't handle that.)

 

[malicious_bloke]

The possibility of the bee mods disappearing saddens me.

Maybe the future isn't apiarism but mustelidism, where you breed otters to produce resources. Get coding, people

 

[Hambeau]

There is only 1 flagship pack in any version of MC. There are several "backwater" packs that have as much if not more players. We cannot keep putting every mod in as many packs as possible. It leads to way too many bugs and issues.[DOUBLEPOST=1398481113][/DOUBLEPOST]

It will have whatever Dire puts on the list.

...And identical packs.

 

[keybounce]

... My personal view is that the two words "balance" and "overpowered" are bandied about in the MC community a little too much. What about the simple and oft neglected fact that mods simply extend the game in a way you hadn't thought of before. John Carmack tweeted about this. Notch has acknowledged this simple but powerful point. Even Paul soares Jr. has started playing with mods finally.
Most people who play mods, are subliminally feeding that one thought. "Ooh, what a totally new way to use XXXXXXXX from vaniall MC"

This is true. Lets not forget Direwolf's spotlight on a new mod he put out at the beginning of April. It featured all sorts of things to build with, including a blue block with a strange texture, I don't remember the name. But he was able to show off a bunch of new ways to build his 9x9's.

Yes, adding mods lets you use things in a new way. That is a very good point.

Extending the game? You have two choices:

1. Drag the early game on slower/longer. Do this in a way that is fun and not a repetitive grind. TFC does this with a total conversion; magic farm does this with an 80% conversion. Some people don't like TiC + Iguana (repetitive); Jaded's baby here is just about the right level of "Curse you Perry the platypus!".
2. Extend the late game. Rotary/Reactor craft are currently the best examples I know of in this class.

3. Add side-quests to give the middle game more things to do. But this is really what most mods do, and it has nothing to do with extending the game, just giving other side quests/ side goals.

And the idea of themed packs is simply a linear progression of this idea - game extension. All humans form mental narratives, and a themed mod pack helps this narrative along.

The issue here is simple: You are going from a "do anything, sandbox" game to a "Follow this path" story. Now, maybe that's part of what you want to do -- see Skyblock / Ocean Block / Pancake / Agrarian Skies. (NB: I'm still waiting for a fire themed survivial world map ... hmm, mystcraft island world with a lava sea as your starting spot ...)

 

[Not_Steve]

I'm still waiting for a fire themed survivial world map ... hmm, mystcraft island world with a lava sea as your starting spot ...

Or in the tinkers construct config do
Superfunmode=true

 

[keybounce]

Super fun mode?!? ...

 

[Not_Steve]

Super fun mode?!? ...

Super fun mode!
Trees made of netherrack and lava, dirt is soul sand, ran for my life!

 

[Hambeau]

Can any of the modpack devs tell me what category MineFactory Reloaded (MFR) will be placed in? It both adds a lot of very useful harvesting and farming blocks and from what I can tell on available information about it does have one machine that outputs in MJ but is otherwise almost totally RF-based.

While I like EU-based systems, and MJ-based systems, and RF-based systems, what I would like to see is a mod author willing to build conversion mods for all of these different energy and fuel types we have. We have a plethora of energy and fuel types most of which aren't related to what energy provider they come from but what mod adds it in. There are many different fuel and energy types out there and I don't think limiting us solely to RF-based energy or fuel types will be sufficient.

Limiting packs to RF or MJ or whatever just won't cut it for me - if you want to make things simpler please consider making a mainstream pack with a few very simple and easy to maintain fuel types so I don't have to sift through several dozen fuel types and machines just to pick one to get started with.

Cheers ...

BrickVoid

As I see things, if a dev wants his mod included in an FtB pack, and is going to have to rewrite to work with 1.7.x anyway, now is a great time to convert to RF power or at least add RF as a parallel source to whatever they use now.

If they don't want to do that, all they lose is inclusion in a few new FtB packs. By the way, FtB isn't the only group making packs in the world, nor do they dictate Vanilla MC.

 

[Siigari]

I don't understand why there aren't only four specific FTB "products":

FTB Flagship pack
Magic pack
Lite pack
Experimental pack

The flagship pack can contain all the best of everything - tried and true with cutting edge extras, and the mod with the power stuff. Magic will focus on magic-themed stuff. Lite should focus on resource-hog-free mods. And the experimental pack should be a mixture of popular mods plus bleeding edge mods.

I think with those four mods you have MUCH LESS "dw20 vs Monster vs Tech World" etc. It's difficult to find GOOD populated servers where there is any kind of economy because all that winds up happening is 500 different servers pop up and a few people join each one. Everyone just runs their own economy.

 

[Mevansuto]

I don't understand why there aren't only four specific FTB "products":

FTB Flagship pack
Magic pack
Lite pack
Experimental pack

The flagship pack can contain all the best of everything - tried and true with cutting edge extras, and the mod with the power stuff. Magic will focus on magic-themed stuff. Lite should focus on resource-hog-free mods. And the experimental pack should be a mixture of popular mods plus bleeding edge mods.

I think with those four mods you have MUCH LESS "dw20 vs Monster vs Tech World" etc. It's difficult to find GOOD populated servers where there is any kind of economy because all that winds up happening is 500 different servers pop up and a few people join each one. Everyone just runs their own economy.

Don't forget next gens BnB and MF2.

 

[AlCapella]

I sagely nodded along with you, until I read this:

2. Extend the late game. Rotary/Reactor craft are currently the best examples I know of in this class.

Not going to lie. I did install Reika's mods into my mod pack to start playing and see what the fuss is all about. My computer gasped, wheezed, died, and buried itself. And this is the story of Solomon Grundy.

EDIT: Afterthought Just leaving Bevo's machine specs here. And IIRC, he plays a private pack which contains Reactor/rotarycraft.

3. Add side-quests to give the middle game more things to do. But this is really what most mods do, and it has nothing to do with extending the game, just giving other side quests/ side goals.

Won't lie. I do this. Doom-like dungeons and Greymerk's dungeons go in all my private packs and [zisteau's maniacal laugh erupts for the ensuing 4 hours] dungeon raiding FTW!

The issue here is simple: You are going from a "do anything, sandbox" game to a "Follow this path" story. Now, maybe that's part of what you want to do -- see Skyblock / Ocean Block / Pancake / Agrarian Skies. (NB: I'm still waiting for a fire themed survivial world map ... hmm, mystcraft island world with a lava sea as your starting spot ...)

Maps are an entirely different beast. My name is Vechs Eyamaz Jaded TikaroHD Cuban Pete, and I am here to ensure that pitiful "you" dies in every possible horrible way... Muahahahahaha!

So, basically, you are following the narrative someone else designed for you: tl;dr Do not destroy wool, do not destroy blocks, do not take the ender chests... take this HQM book and do its bidding, you unworthy so and so, yadda yadda....

I was still speaking of "do anything sandbox" with a bunch of mods in them, and you are like Alice in wonderland, tumbling along, discovering interesting gameplay dynamics as you go tumbling down the rabbit hole.

 

[Siigari]

Don't forget next gens BnB and MF2.

Story mods and other challenging packs can have their own place. I'm just saying we don't need 30 packs with things that have only a handful of mod removals/additions from other packs.

 

[Naquada]

There's to much focus on energy systems in my opinion and not on the content and fun.

I use Thermal Expansion because of some of the fancy content/items/machines it has.
I use MFFS because i enjoy the forcefield content.
I use factorization because of the fun and unique complicated content it has.
I use rotarycraft because of the realistic content it has.
I use Buildcraft because of some of the fancy content/items/machines it has.
I use railcraft because i enjoy creating advanced trains and tracks.
I use IC2 because of some of the fancy content/items/machines it has.
I use Forestry because of some of the bees and content around it has.

Some of these mods are old and they have complicated ways of doing stuff. That is fun. Several new mods are to simple, but there comes the choice right? so why same pack? Because of how you can combine the mods in fun ways.

Energy systems is not everything. I choose whatever i like in times to times and combining them. Even if several mods add similar content, thats just part of the fun. The choices and how one choose to combine them. You mentioned that you have to rebalance all the packs all the time. Can you atleast have 1 "all in one pack"?

 

[eashonk]

Maybe it'd be nice if CJ merged the 3 mods he's maintaining and made them Open Source. Then I'd be pretty satisfied with the state of Forestry. Just the addition of the 3 major bee mods being updated and I'd no longer have concerns about Bees at all.[DOUBLEPOST=1398524477][/DOUBLEPOST]

I love how you mention "natzis" as I really want to Grammar Nazi all over this.

I have such little respect for them, not only do I not capitalize the term I will never bother to spell it properly. Honestly, most grammar nawtzi's are really just anal retentive human spell checkers. Proper "Grammar" has nothing to do with it.

Back to topic, can't wait for 1.7 mods, don't let the pack makers dictate your creativity. make it good and bug free & the pack makers will come to you along with the players.