What would YOU change about BuildCraft?

DriftinFool

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One thing I wouldn't mind see added to BC would be upgrades for the engines. While I love complex systems, I'd rather not have to spam tons of engines. A mid to late game way of upgrading them for more power instead of just adding tons more of them would be nice while keeping there base values the same at entry level. I don't use a whole lot of TE because it is so simple and I prefer to engineer things a little more, but the augments they added for dynamos were an excellent idea. Upgrades for the quarry similar to what Quarry+ added would be nice to. Fortune or Silk Touch are very useful on a quarry.

Some of the changes, like the filler letting you choose what pattern you want instead of placing certain blocks in it was a great change. I haven't played with robots yet, but from the videos I have seen on them, they look very interesting. Looking forward to trying them out. I also really like the how you have given gates the ability to read so many different things. They are one of the most useful things ever added by BC and do many things that no other mods can.

Then what exactly do you want me to do? Seems like nothing will ever make you happy.
Please don't do anything other than what you already are doing. I am not a fan of magical mods. I actually remove everyone of them from packs I play. But Botania stays. The book is one of the most intuitive ways I have seen for understanding a mod I have played with. The sashes, rings, and pendants are amazing. You also have some of the most amazing textures and animations while things are working. I have always been into tech mods, but recently Botania has become my favorite mod. Keep up the great work.
 

Golrith

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OK, thinking from a BC only point of view (the issue about being in modpacks is always going to be present, BC has a certain way of doing things, and it tends to require more planning and bigger builds. I loved BC pipes back in 1.2.5 when I first started, oh the memories of getting things going to the right places, dealing with overflow into machines, trying to squeeze obsidian pipes into the pipe system, etc As long as there are sufficient config options, then combined with minetweaker, I don't see there any issues with getting BC/other mods "balanced" within a pack, that's down to the mod pack dev, not the modders)

1) Pipes - Love them, not keen on how many different variations there are now. Seems to have been made excessively complex compared to the "good old days". My mind just goes "Nope, don't want to understand" when I've seen vids of all the new pipes. (I think part of the problem is all the multi-colours turns me off, feels less "industrial" with rainbow colour pipes)
2) Quarry - would love to see some sort of upgrade system that can (depending on upgrade), destroy or harvest liquids while the quarry munches up the world.
3) Further harvest options based on quarry tech - I'm sure the quarry system could be adapted for tree farms and normal farms. With the arm travelling around picking and planting seeds/saplings.
4) Autocrafting options - I'd love for the autocrafter (crafting table and 4 cogs) to be able to pull from inventories again. Made heavy use of that in 1.2.5. Perhaps as an intermediate upgrade between the laser assembly system, as at the moment there is a massive tech gap, between wood and a mass of obsidian, diamonds & power to craft. Needs to be something in the middle.
5) I dislike the autaric gate requiring enderpearls. Since at it's basic level it's a redstone engine in the same block space as a pipe, enderpearls can be a rare item for such a basic use.
6) in game books giving an overview of advanced systems, such as gates, robots. I dislike breaking my "immersion" in a game by having to consult a wiki
7) Core tech - I think at some level BC needs to add it's own version of core technology, such as a smelter and ore doubling (can be disabled in configs)
8) More power gen options - lots of improvements/additions within BC, but there are still the same 3 basic engines.
 

asiekierka

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1) Pipes - Love them, not keen on how many different variations there are now. Seems to have been made excessively complex compared to the "good old days". My mind just goes "Nope, don't want to understand" when I've seen vids of all the new pipes. (I think part of the problem is all the multi-colours turns me off, feels less "industrial" with rainbow colour pipes)
2) Quarry - would love to see some sort of upgrade system that can (depending on upgrade), destroy or harvest liquids while the quarry munches up the world.
3) Further harvest options based on quarry tech - I'm sure the quarry system could be adapted for tree farms and normal farms. With the arm travelling around picking and planting seeds/saplings.
4) Autocrafting options - I'd love for the autocrafter (crafting table and 4 cogs) to be able to pull from inventories again. Made heavy use of that in 1.2.5. Perhaps as an intermediate upgrade between the laser assembly system, as at the moment there is a massive tech gap, between wood and a mass of obsidian, diamonds & power to craft. Needs to be something in the middle.
5) I dislike the autaric gate requiring enderpearls. Since at it's basic level it's a redstone engine in the same block space as a pipe, enderpearls can be a rare item for such a basic use.
6) in game books giving an overview of advanced systems, such as gates, robots. I dislike breaking my "immersion" in a game by having to consult a wiki
7) Core tech - I think at some level BC needs to add it's own version of core technology, such as a smelter and ore doubling (can be disabled in configs)
8) More power gen options - lots of improvements/additions within BC, but there are still the same 3 basic engines.

1) You don't need to use them.
3) BuildCraft Robots
4) I am considering a crafting table in the middle, adding fluid tanks to the laser crafting table and making a better crafting table in the middle.
5) That's a good notion and I'll look into changing that. I hate End materials and emeralds, really.
6) Planned!
7) No! We don't need ore processing! Nobody needs ore processing! (BuildCraft Additions adds a BC-centric duster and smelter, though.)
8) Done so well by Forestry and RailCraft that we just don't bother.
 

Golrith

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1) You don't need to use them.
3) BuildCraft Robots
4) I am considering a crafting table in the middle, adding fluid tanks to the laser crafting table and making a better crafting table in the middle.
5) That's a good notion and I'll look into changing that. I hate End materials and emeralds, really.
6) Planned!
7) No! We don't need ore processing! Nobody needs ore processing! (BuildCraft Additions adds a BC-centric duster and smelter, though.)
8) Done so well by Forestry and RailCraft that we just don't bother.
You missed #2 :p

on 5) there are so many new blocks/resources available within MC, makes sense to give them a review. Perhaps a solid redtone block for 1 aut gate? Emeralds are one of those resources that are really controlled heavily by RNG. You need either the right biome, or to find a village (or go through the hassle of curing zombie villagers). Since (if I recall correctly) emerald pipes are basically wooden pipes with filters, that can really hobble any BC player who has RNG against them.

On default settings, I actually agree with #7. The vanilla world is so full of ore resources, you don't really need any ore doubling. In my personal pack I've changed the ore system by generating mainly poor ores with occasional normal (and dense ores), so being able to double (or more) your ores becomes a requirement as you advance into the ever more expensive tech systems.
At the very least I think a powered smelter is needed, just to make things a bit easier than automating vanilla furnaces in a pure BC environment.
 

KingTriaxx

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It actually didn't. I just didn't reply as I was busy implementing the feature into BC7.

New favorite dev. Sorry Azanor.

Funny thing, everyone complains about the quarry, but my system lags a lot, and I find the quarry is the only automated miner that doesn't break after a while. The Ender Quarry seems to skip blocks, and turtles just give up and complain about not responding. The Quarry just keeps going until it hits bedrock.
 

RedBoss

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I tried in the latest Resonant Rise, to use the filler and quarries today. I admittedly don't have the newest machine, but I can run RR3 at 40fps even with machine buildup. I dropped a default size quarry and I lost half of my frames. I tried the filler and not only did I lose 75% of my frames, but I had to force stop the client just to access inventories.

I haven't used BC in a while, but especially with the filler, it seems the flying blocks deal or the general update itself, is killing performance. I've seen people flat out crash using the Builder in their LPs. Based on my experience today with other items, I'm averse to even trying it.

I agree with Shneeky as well. Oil is basically useless. It'd be nice if it had other uses.

I'd love it if the building machines worked well and at least as resource friendly as they were in previous versions. I don't use the pipes at all not the logic so I can't help you there. I just prefer the options offered in other mods.
 

asiekierka

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I tried in the latest Resonant Rise, to use the filler and quarries today. I admittedly don't have the newest machine, but I can run RR3 at 40fps even with machine buildup. I dropped a default size quarry and I lost half of my frames. I tried the filler and not only did I lose 75% of my frames, but I had to force stop the client just to access inventories.

I haven't used BC in a while, but especially with the filler, it seems the flying blocks deal or the general update itself, is killing performance. I've seen people flat out crash using the Builder in their LPs. Based on my experience today with other items, I'm averse to even trying it.

I agree with Shneeky as well. Oil is basically useless. It'd be nice if it had other uses.

I'd love it if the building machines worked well and at least as resource friendly as they were in previous versions. I don't use the pipes at all not the logic so I can't help you there. I just prefer the options offered in other mods.
We could never reproduce the lag issues. Really. That is the main problem.
 

l3lackCalamity

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Here are my recommendations.

Background. In 1.6.4 I attempted to build a modpack centred around CJ's vision of Buildcraft. In the end, I decided to compromise and add TE to combat server lag. I disabled item ducts to force usage of buildcraft pipes, all while recommending players use te conduits as they could power RF and MJ devices. I ended up with a beutifully complex system of pipes, conduits, boilers, engines and dynamos.

Recommendations. (As constructive criticism goes, I will try to focus on what needs improving)

1. Don't try to turn build-craft into industrial-craft. Traditionally, Buildcraft's strengthens were its seamless integration with Railcraft and forestry. Sadly, since the RF transition these three staple mods have began to diverge. Work on reuniting the player bases. (I love meh engines <3) We don't need add-ons that do little but copy what already exists. Please focus on integration, not replication :)

2. Ditch BC's heritage of refusing to embrace other mod apis. This really is less of an issue ever since you came along. (thank you for RF support asie :) ) However, this is one thing that really bothered me about CJ's Buildcraft: other apis were not supported as buildcraft's team held an arrogant attitude of superiority. This negativity when placed against KL's charismatic attitude is what caused many BC's jump ship to the more "pleasant side".

3. Get NEI native integration and stop waiting on other plugins to do it for you. This really is a continuation from 2. BC has traditionally refused to support NEI despite the fact that almost everyone uses it. NEI is to minecraft what SKYUI is to Skyrim. If you love your users you will add this feature <3 If you REALLY love your users you will follow in AE2's footsteps and add Item Descriptions into NEI for buildcraft beginners.

4. Some of the textures need updating. Notice I only said some; many of the build-craft's textures are beautiful and should never be changed (<3 engines, item buffer textures). However, may textures such as the pump, and quarry really could use some love. Don't go overboard, but at-least bring them up to par with vanilla textures.

5.Focus on machines that add new mechanics instead of simplifying old. I know this point sounds dumb, but hear me out. In today's modded scene there are far to many mods that add machines that do nothing more then generate mass amounts of energy, or simply to remove any and all challenge. Building storage cells to store energy is not end game and it isn't fun. We need machines that give us new stuff to do. We don't need power for the sake of power, we need cool things to use it on. Machines like the builder actually give us new mechanics instead of just simplifying the old. Keep that up !!

6. Focus on code optimization. I have no idea how build-craft 1.7.10 runs compared to 1.6.4 (just about to switch over) However, above all else, a mod that runs smooth with few but optimized features is always preferred above mods that lag with many but unoptimized features. Quality of performance > Quantity of features


Keep up the good work.
 
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asiekierka

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Here are my recommendations.

Background. In 1.6.4 I attempted to build a modpack centred around CJ's vision of Buildcraft. In the end, I decided to compromise and add TE to combat server lag. I disabled item ducts to force usage of buildcraft pipes, all while recommending players use te conduits as they could power RF and MJ devices. I ended up with a beutifully complex system of pipes, conduits, boilers, engines and dynamos.

Recommendations. (As constructive criticism goes, I will try to focus on what needs improving)

1. Don't try to turn build-craft into industrial-craft. Traditionally, Buildcraft's strengthens were its seamless integration with Railcraft and forestry. Sadly, since the RF transition these three staple mods have began to diverge. Work on reuniting the player bases. (I love meh engines <3) We don't need add-ons that do little but copy what already exists. Please focus on integration, not replication :)

2. Ditch BC's heritage of refusing to embrace other mod apis. This really is less of an issue ever since you came along. (thank you for RF support asie :) ) However, this is one thing that really bothered me about CJ's Buildcraft: other apis were not supported as buildcraft's team held an arrogant attitude of superiority. This negativity when placed against KL's charismatic attitude is what caused many BC's jump ship to the more "pleasant side".

3. Get NEI native integration and stop waiting on other plugins to do it for you. This really is a continuation from 2. BC has traditionally refused to support NEI despite the fact that almost everyone uses it. NEI is to minecraft what SKYUI is to Skyrim. If you love your users you will add this feature <3 If you REALLY love your users you will follow in AE2's footsteps and add Item Descriptions into NEI for buildcraft beginners.

4. Some of the textures need updating. Notice I only said some; many of the build-craft's textures are beautiful and should never be changed (<3 engines, item buffer textures). However, may textures such as the pump, and quarry really could use some love. Don't go overboard, but at-least bring them up to par with vanilla textures.

5.Focus on machines that add new mechanics instead of simplifying old. I know this point sounds dumb, but hear me out. In today's modded scene there are far to many mods that add machines that do nothing more then generate mass amounts of energy, or simply to remove any and all challenge. Building storage cells to store energy is not end game and it isn't fun. We need machines that give us new stuff to do. We don't need power for the sake of power, we need cool things to use it on. Machines like the builder actually give us new mechanics instead of just simplifying the old. Keep that up !!

6. Focus on code optimization. I have no idea how build-craft 1.7.10 runs compared to 1.6.4 (just about to switch over) However, above all else, a mod that runs smooth with few but optimized features is always preferred above mods that lag with many but unoptimized features. Quality of performance > Quantity of features
Done, Done, BuildCraftCompat for recipes and descriptions in NEI I absolutely despise, Done, Agh, Done-ish. Heh.

EDIT2: Since this is not 6AM, I guess I could elaborate.

1. Sure, however if the mod authors of both want to move away from BC-centrism, we can't do anything about it. However, as far as I know, Forestry is not going away from us anytime soon and neither is RailCraft. Our point, however, is to add more mods which directly integrate with BuildCraft for things like computing, storage, etc.; while also having other redeeming qualities like great CPU efficiency, unique functionality and design, etc.

2. BuildCraftCompat has been made explicitly with cross-mod support in mind.

3. BuildCraftCompat has NEI recipes, NEI descriptions tend to be... bleh. NEI breaks immersion already, I don't need more immersion breaking!

4. We changed all of them anyway, but not heavily. Mostly to unify the visual style.

5. That's hard to do, you know? You need actual creativity for that.

6. We're trying as hard as possible (BuildCraft 7 pipes lag about as much as Thermal Dynamics tubes - including opaque ones, BuildCraft 6.4 is only 30% laggier; robots are fully multi-threaded and cache block information; etc.), but the codebase is huge (almost 100 thousand lines of code) and with only two devs (one of which mostly keeps himself to robots) it's really hard to get fast quick.

EDIT: Also, if any of you have builder/filler lag issues -> try http://asie.pl/bc645a.jar
 
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KingTriaxx

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I wouldn't necessarily agree with NEI not being immersive. I tend to treat it as these are the things Steve? knows. NEI just lets me rifle through his brain and find the information I want.

That said, aside from learning the mod, I've never actually used NEI to craft any BC stuff. The stuff is similar or intuitive enough to make them easy to remember, or workout. I do wish we had multi-block refineries. Then my oil rig would look much cooler than it does with stacks of refineries. Heck, even if just stacking refineries made them fuse together like the BC tanks. No change in cost or efficiency, just a single large structure instead of a bunch of small blocks. That's just me though.
 
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Tommerbob

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I haven't used BC much in a while, but here's a few thoughts:

I think there's at least two ways to look at it.

1) What should Buildcraft do as a standalone mod, by itself?
2) Should Buildcraft fill a unique roll in a modpack with other tech mods like Thermal Expansion, EnderIO or IndustrialCraft? If so, how?

I heard about the possibility of a multiblock Refinery. I think that would be absolutely awesome. Oil/Fuel are one of the unique aspects that I always loved about Buildcraft.

If I asked myself, "What is Buildcraft? What makes it unique from other tech mods?" My answer would be, large scale building/crafting/tech-ing. The Builder, Filler, Quarry, etc. are the machines that make Buildcraft unique, they are designed for large-scale projects. Capitalize on that concept!

TL;DR: I think Buildcraft should be a mod about large-scale projects/building/crafting. I think that's a niche role that would make more people look at and say, "Wow that's awesome!"
 

Celestialphoenix

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Tartarus.. I mean at work. Same thing really.
I feel a full multiblock would lose a lot of the Buildcraft charm- the refinery looks cute with its little arms waving up and down.
Refinery stacking does sound interesting; you could be on to something (expanding the internal tank capacity?)​

I've only ever used it with oil and biomass [so I am out of date with this], but the 2 back/1 front tank setup allows for some interesting potential with 3 fluids. (both 2 fluids into 1 product, and refining with an additional byproduct- depends on what tank you pump into)
 

KingTriaxx

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I agree. The little arms are essential. A multi-block should either have lots of little arms moving in sync, or a few big arms.

With three tanks, you could either directly refine oil into fuel, or run through a multi-stage process where oil is pumped into the central tank, then broken into light and heavy oil. Then refine those into two different fuels. One that burns much longer, but produces less power per tick, and one that burns faster, but produces more per tick. So you'd have Fuel A, B, and C. A burns for 120% as long, but produces 60RF/t. B is normal fuel, producing 80RF/t, for the normal length of time. Finally, C produces 100RF/t, but each bucket only lasts 80% as long. That way oil and fuel get a little more life and variety, without losing that simple intuitive nature.
 

MuckingAbout

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I love seeing my items whiz around my base in BC Pipes, especially with Logistic Pipes. Other pipe transport systems are too cheap, too easy and just not as cool as BC pipe systems. What deterres me most from using it exclusively is the performance impact they have on the server. Some pipes from past modmods should really be stock by now, e.g. the Round Robin pipe.

I rarely hide my pipes, mainly because I can't be arsed to make facades. Multipart support would be great.

The Filler is a great tool for construction, but the patterns could be expanded; something along the line of the OpenBlocks Build Guide. The setup with landmarks is also very tedious. Generally I'd love to see more terraforming and building tools from BC.
 

TheLoneWolfling

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What would I, personally, change?

I would get rid of robots. For me, they don't fit with the rest of BC. Ditto with the tossed blocks with fillers/etc. (Or at the very least I would make it so that if you remove the filler after it's stopped tossing blocks it doesn't lose the blocks in the air). Ditto with RP-style colors in pipes. I would revert the autocrafting table to something akin to a cross between EasyCrafting's autocrafting table and LP's autocrafting table. Or perhaps add it as a mid-tier autocrafter. I would revert the filler to dropping blocks from the bottom up, and change it so that it removed the first items after dropping N (for a reasonably large value of N), instead of just having a short item delay. I would add opaque pipes that are as cheap as the transparent ones, mainly so that later on I could (try to) do some performance improvements with them. (My LP-based autocrafting setup currently uses ~1/2 of the total TE update time, and that's when idle). I'd make it so the pump can run on redstone engines again. I'd add an alternative recipe for autarchic gates that uses a redstone engine instead of ender pearls. More expensive, but easier to get before you've reached the end, and less RNG-heavy. And I'd try to remove facades and implement FMP support, but that's a bit of a pipe dream, unfortunately.

But I know that most of these won't be done. BC has diverged from my ideals. I liked BC working standalone, but that's not the direction BC has gone. (I'm still bummed about ChemDork's BC LP).
 
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GreenZombie

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What would I, personally, change?

I would get rid of robots. For me, they don't fit with the rest of BC. Ditto with the tossed blocks with fillers/etc. (Or at the very least I would make it so that if you remove the filler after it's stopped tossing blocks it doesn't lose the blocks in the air). Ditto with RP-style colors in pipes. I would revert the autocrafting table to something akin to a cross between EasyCrafting's autocrafting table and LP's autocrafting table. Or perhaps add it as a mid-tier autocrafter. I would revert the filler to dropping blocks from the bottom up, and change it so that it removed the first items after dropping N (for a reasonably large value of N), instead of just having a short item delay. I would add opaque pipes that are as cheap as the transparent ones, mainly so that later on I could (try to) do some performance improvements with them. (My LP-based autocrafting setup currently uses ~1/2 of the total TE update time, and that's when idle). I'd make it so the pump can run on redstone engines again. I'd add an alternative recipe for autarchic gates that uses a redstone engine instead of ender pearls. More expensive, but easier to get before you've reached the end, and less RNG-heavy. And I'd try to remove facades and implement FMP support, but that's a bit of a pipe dream, unfortunately.

But I know that most of these won't be done. BC has diverged from my ideals. I liked BC working standalone, but that's not the direction BC has gone. (I'm still bummed about ChemDork's BC LP).

Pipes should take their cue from Graphics: Fancy / Fast, and render opaque, with no items, when set to fast. Assuming that that actually is a performance bottleneck.
Getting players on high spec pcs to "opt in" to performance enhancements doesn't help low specced players on a server.
 

Skyqula

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I have 3 problems with Buildcraft.
  1. Limited troughput of pipes. They are great starter pipes and great "limiter" pipes. It has its niche role and it does it well. That said, some bigger trougput pipes would be very welcome.
  2. Cost. It starts out cheap with wood/stone. Fits realy good with the early game feel that is Buildcraft. Gates are to expensive for early game and quite a hassle to get. I think it would be great if BC got a cheap and simple way to make a basic gate in the early game. And then we get a quarry. A quarry is just way to cheap for the "power" (resource income) it provides. I mean, people rarely even use mining wells. And a fully automated solution shoudnt be cheaper then an enginering challange like a frame based mining platform (or robots). Infact, mining is one of the few challanges minecraft actually offers, a quarry just absoletes mining to fast without enough challange. I also think the quarry should be reworked to a more endgame (multiblock) structure. Its just to powerfull/cheap in its current form. A config option for a more expensive recipy would be great to.
  3. Needs more building oriented things. I think it would be great of Buildcraft got some building orientated tools. Like ExU's builder wand, a TiC excevator/hammer that doesnt work on ores and a block swapper like Thaumcrafts wand of equal trade (A machine version of this would also be great!). I would love to be able to just get Buildcraft and have all my building tools. Another thing that would be amazing is "new" type of builder. With a pattern that can only store a few block types and has a UI where each block can be replaced with a different block when rebuilding something. So that I could make a copy of a house and have it make the walls out of a different material, or a different decorative tint block, or a different floor etc.
 
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Sidorion

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I have 3 problems with Buildcraft.
I would love to be able to just get Buildcraft and hAnother thing that would be amazing is "new" type of builder. With a pattern that can only store a few block types and has a UI where each block can be replaced with a different block when rebuilding something. So that I could make a copy of a house and have it make the walls out of a different material, or a different decorative tint block, or a different floor etc.
There is already the builder doing that. Just use a template instead of a shematic in the architect table. (though you'd have to generate one template for each block type you want to use)

Stilts! BC needs stilts as a building aid. I really don't like the various flight options as they have the same issue as the vanilly creative flight: The sliding as if on ice. I'd like an option to raise steeve a few blocks w/o this drawback of the flight and the need of pillaring up.
Or maybe add a moveable building platform, a tile entity that can be moved via remote control and/or key commands.
 
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