Where is the line between contraption and exploit?

[Bibble]

Ok, there are a large number of threads on this forum talking about OP, and unintended interactions between mods. My question is where do you, personally, draw the line?

Example:
Direwolf's new mining system.
For those that are unaware, this is a frame machine, moving a number of BC mining wells, powered by tesseract, connected to a RP boiler, supplied by a blaze farm, peat farm and SC2 tree farm (biofuel). It uses turtles to break and replace the miners each cycle, in order to move them.

The result is a continuous quarry system, with a 15ish long line going to bedrock in about 30 seconds.

This uses a number of mods with other mods, and there isn't any way that the system could have been envisaged when the mods were produced. Is this OP, or an exploit?

Contrast this to:
IC2 standard generators.
The ability to either run on scrap, or on scaffolding, producing amounts of energy disproportionate to the input (either positive feedback, or more energy than the raw wood) is often seen as an exploit, in spite of the fact that the offending aspects are contained within a single mod. There is no reason that the circumstances could not have been foreseen and designed around.


So, to pose the question again, where is your personal line that you try not to cross? Is it scaffolds? EE? SC2? Soul Shards?

Discuss.

 

[ApSciLiara]

I have no line.

 

[Molten]

Personally if you make a contraption that you thought up yourself and didn't copy then you deserve the rewards of your imagination and skill. And if it's not adversly affecting others then I see no problem.

On the other hand If your using known glitches / bugs etc, for example to dupe items, then you should go knee yourself in the groin for the good of all.

It's all subjective. For example do people concider placing a torch to break falling gravel an exploit ?
For me it always comes down to if it affects other people or not. And to a lesser extent if something is was clearly never intended to be.
Using a torch to break gravel imo doesb't affect the people I play with so I do it. Was it an intended mechanic ? who knows.

Also, at first glance I thought the title was "Where is the line between contraception and exploit".
Had to delete that post...

 

[Jeff Fisher]

I don't do lava pumping from the nether as I think its cheap and I also don't do large amounts of solar panels and I also think those are cheap. Not cost cheap but cheaty cheap. I keep all my gregtech settings on hard and even thought about upping the cost of uu matter in the matter fab but decided not to since the other guys on my server I think wouldn't like that.

Even tho I dont like doing these things I still let my friends on my server do what they want tho. Like two of the folks on my server are pumping the nether dry. On of them is pumping lava out of the nether to feed like over 30 thermal generators and that is his main energy production and for his uumater. I would never do something like this but everyone has there own style of play I guess.

I do use mystcraft ages to do my mining in tho but I don't use the dense ore symbol as I made a mining age for all of us on the server to use its just a plains flat land with caves. I didn't want people tearing up the overworld with quarries. But it had one side effect I dont like, When the mew mystcraft version came out the mining age I made made it incredibly easy to find the new pages and anything else that can be found in chests. Since it was a plains biome and flat there where thaumcraft totem things, librarys, Thaumcraft mounds and the trees with the chests under them everywhere. So we all have more then 1 portal gun since it was so easy to find them and we all have a bunch of mystcraft pages, etc. I regreted leaving that age up when I updated to the new mystcraft but w/e whats done is done. THe other folks on the server didn't mind lol, only I did because I have a weird playstyle I guess and I find some things cheaty that other people dont.

Like instead of using uu matter to make alot of stuff I plan on findind other ways to make things. I plan on using bees for alot of the stuff I would produce with uu mater. I think I will make a matter fab after I have alot of other stuff built as kind of a end game item. Even tho it takes a ton of power to make uu matter it still feels cheap to me since you can make the rarest stuff out of it easily. Yah it takes a ton of eu but really in the case of my friend on the server all he had to do was set up two pumps in the nether and make like 30 something thermal generators and was producing UU matter in no time so that is not much of a investment to be able to make iridium like that. I don't limit the others on the server to my playstyle tho, if they want to pump the nether dry thats fine i just wont do it myself is all. Maybe I am just silly when it comes to the game but I imagine there has to be others that feel the way I do about playing the game.

 

[Entropy]

It's a sandbox game where you can literally do whatever you want, there is no line. Instead, you can decide for yourself, because everybody has different definitions of "overpowered".

 

[Lambert2191]

The line in the sand is wherever you choose to draw it.

 

[ximan11]

You have to decide for yourself.

If you make a pretty neat contraption that gives you near infinite energy, it's not an exploit because of that. It's just a means to an end, but then it gets nerfed. For example, distilled bees. They used to put out oily combs every 5 minutes, just enough to fuel 2 36HP boilers if you refined the oil. Some people thought this was overpowered, so they figured out how to get it nerfed.

The whole back story to said bees is that you have to get quite in-depth in Extra Bees to even access distilled bees. Pairing this with the fact that you're going to need an alveary, this is a completely legitimate setup that took ages for people to build up to, only for it to be nerfed because "WAAH WAAH BEES EASY AND OP!!!!!1!!!1

The line is where you decide it to be because everybody has different opinions. So get out there and dupe blaze rods with macerator/minium stone all you like!

 

[Jeff Fisher]

It's a sandbox game where you can literally do whatever you want, there is no line. Instead, you can decide for yourself, because everybody has different definitions of "overpowered".

This is why I Don't enforce my playstyle on the poeple on my server I just play with my own style. I'm very picky about how I play the game and I like to play it kinda of "hardcore" for lack of a better word. It gives me a better sense of accomplishment when I build something. For me Throwing a pump in the nether and generating tons of EU from that does not give me the same satisfaction as trying to come up with a different solution to EU production and pulling it off. How op something is is relative to the each person and how they want to play the game. I personally like gregtech because it follows the same principles I do pretty much and fits my play style, but some people don't like gregtech.

For instance I use the Mindcrack pack and I have not switched to Ultimate because I think some of the mods in ultimate are to "Op" ( In my opinion) to be used together with some of the other mods. Like power converters, EE3, and Xenos reliq, and even some of the stuff in minefactory reloaded. I could uninstall these mods but it was easier for me to just keep the mindcrack pack and install any extra mods that Fit my playstyle.

I use mystcraft tho which is borderline OP in my idea of OP anyways, but I don't want people tearing up the overworld so I needed mystcraft for folks to quarry in.

 

[Molten]

Before this thread decends.
Just to point out the op is asking "where is your personal line that you try not to cross?" (if any)
He's pretty aware he can choose his own line.

 

[OmegaJasam]

Generaly, unless the line is pritty obvious, it's subjective/

Usulay it's only easy to draw in cases where it's worth considering.

Any infinate, exponential, easy to access energy/matter loop.
Say a crafting recipie that terned one wood plank into 20 wooden (burnable) items, IE, any exploit that massivly multiplys output/speed/gain
An exploit that allowed you to get infinate of something that's ment to be exceptionaly rare.
Something that allows access to things you shouldn't, or bypasses protections.

Dire's thing more shows you that turtles/frames/computer can allow for infinate resources on a much larger scale with a lot less resources then anything else.
At /this/ point you've moved beyond exploit and into raw balance. You would have to remove the mods period to prevent that effect in some shape or form.

 

[Chocorate]

Honestly, it's very hard for me to see any sort of line. For something to get anywhere on my radar it'd have to be something like EE2 (No, let's not argue about it, I loved that mod with all my heart) and even that's small.

I usually think if something is "Overpowered", we should buff other things rather than nerf that. Whatever's fun is better than balanced.

 

[Ripley]

Dire's machine requires 16 mining turtles, so 48 diamonds, a good supply of power already set up, coding the turtles, the computer to move the frame(of course you could just copy/paste dire's program but that's on you), setting up the frames, etc.
How is that more op than a quarry where you plonk it down, supply power and it's done?
It requires more efforts and is faster, I'm fine with that.

As for distilled bees, with 2 fastest production distilled bees in alvearies you have an excess when supplying a 36 HP boiler, seems a fine ratio to me.
On the other hand emerald bees production ratio is very low, I have tons(9 I think) of them in alvearies and they barely produce any emeralds, I think around 2 stacks every 24 hours for 9 bees in alvearies(I thought it was a good idea to manufacture emeralds to trade for mystcraft pages but I don't think I'll bother with it next time).

 

[DoctorOr]

I'd suggest that zero inputs into a process that isn't obviously designed for such creation (plants, solar, windmills, watermills, similar) would be a good start but still incomplete list of what is an "exploit".

However, as it boils down to "what the computer operator cares about" it doesn't matter. In a single player world, its all your choice. On a server, it's all the choice of the ops. It boils down to a lot of personal opinion, with only the opinions of those able to remove you from the game world really mattering. Of course, as is the nature of opinion, others express their own.

 

[whythisname]

Where I draw the line, eh? hmmm.

For me the line has to have some logic or sense for me. Centrifuging lava is lame, but logical enough that I don't consider it exploiting. A solar panel that provides power day and night however makes no sense to me (even if you use radioactive materials), so I consider it cheating/exploiting (besides that, it's just lame).

I consider EE and UU-matter exploiting because you can change materials in the blink of an eye and create almost anything out of nothing, but I have no problem with bees being able to provide even the rarest resources in the game.

I think Steve's Carts tree farms are cheating, but MFR's tree farms are fine with me (though I'm not sure if I like the fertilizer from animal waste mechanic, but I'm fine with Xycraft Soil).

AE's storage modules I like a lot and don't consider cheating, but Barrels from Factorization I consider OP and cheaty.

I also consider Ender chests to be OP, but I'm fine with Tesseracts.

So yeah, my line makes sense for me, but I can totally see other people might consider it to be very arbitrary. For me it doesn't have to do with the ability to do certain things, but with how much effort it takes (I don't mind huge storage, but it has cost something more than plain wood). And it has to rely on something other than "magic" to explain what it does.

 

[DoctorOr]

Dire's machine requires 16 mining turtles, so 48 diamonds

Or emeralds, or sapphires. The ability to collect obsidian is pretty inconsequential.

As for distilled bees, with 2 fastest production distilled bees in alvearies you have an excess when supplying a 36 HP boiler, seems a fine ratio to me.

That output changed, negatively, specifically because the author felt that it was not "a fine ratio"

 

[Golrith]

My personal line is effort vs reward. For example, now that I've used Barrels, i'm not going to use them in future. They trivalise the cost of a red power sorting system, and end up with a bigger floor space then having a series of diamond chests and either painted tubes or filters. I much prefer opening a chest to see what goodies my quarry system has dug up (or not!) compared with seeing a value on a container, then having to chase an item across the ground to pick it up.

DW20's frame quarry is fine. Heavy resource and time investment, plus he will have to do more work at his base to handle all those resources, which requires more time and resources.

 

[Jeff Fisher]

Where I draw the line, eh? hmmm.

For me the line has to have some logic or sense for me. Centrifuging lava is lame, but logical enough that I don't consider it exploiting. A solar panel that provides power day and night however makes no sense to me (even if you use radioactive materials), so I consider it cheating/exploiting (besides that, it's just lame).

I consider EE and UU-matter exploiting because you can change materials in the blink of an eye and create almost anything out of nothing, but I have no problem with bees being able to provide even the rarest resources in the game.

I think Steve's Carts tree farms are cheating, but MFR's tree farms are fine with me (though I'm not sure if I like the fertilizer from animal waste mechanic, but I'm fine with Xycraft Soil).

AE's storage modules I like a lot and don't consider cheating, but Barrels from Factorization I consider OP and cheaty.

I also consider Ender chests to be OP, but I'm fine with Tesseracts.

So yeah, my line makes sense for me, but I can totally see other people might consider it to be very arbitrary. For me it doesn't have to do with the ability to do certain things, but with how much effort it takes (I don't mind huge storage, but it has cost something more than plain wood). And it has to rely on something other than "magic" to explain what it does.

Alot of your views are on par with mine and how I like to play. Some of yours are alittle more extreme then my views but pretty similar overall. Like I use barrels ( never really thought about it but you have a point with them) and I use a steves cart tree farm. However I dont like UUmatter and I dont like lava pumping from the nether to power things. I also don't like solar panels and for me to really like them they would need to have some kind of maintenance requirements and of course not produce energy at night. I actually plan on Not using UUmatter and using bees to get my rare resources instead. Iridium tho Im not sure if you can get from bees I havnt checked.

But ya your views are very close to mine I may just be alittle less strict. But I like Yourplay style I think playing like that is more rewarding. ( to me anyways of course it isnt for some people)

 

[YX33A]

Where do I draw the line? Somewhere between "Von Neumann Mining" and EE2 Solar Flowers producing Redmatter from nothing at a prodigious rate. But both of those examples do not affect me, as I do not use mining systems capable of self replication, nor did I use EE2 Solar Flowers.(personally, I only used the condenser to get common materials for builds quickly, and quickly charging my klein star. I used the device which turns things to EMC for powering my Klein Star usually because it had a better conversion rate)

How does my line in the sand affect others? It doesn't. I hold only myself to my standards, and hope others can hold themselves to such a limit as to not impose their opinion on where we draw the line on me.

I like Direwolf20's builds, even if I haven't see his current frame quarry in action. He's using the BC Mining Well, which doesn't see much use, and is doing what he does best.(building insane devices to accomplish a simple goal, aka building Rube Goldberg machines)
Personally I think using turtles to collect the mining wells is somewhat silly, but again, I haven't seen the build, so it might have been the only feasible way.

Alot of your views are on par with mine and how I like to play. Some of yours are alittle more extreme then my views but pretty similar overall. Like I use barrels ( never really thought about it but you have a point with them) and I use a steves cart tree farm. However I dont like UUmatter and I dont like lava pumping from the nether to power things. I also don't like solar panels and for me to really like them they would need to have some kind of maintenance requirements and of course not produce energy at night. I actually plan on Not using UUmatter and using bees to get my rare resources instead. Iridium tho Im not sure if you can get from bees I havnt checked.

But ya your views are very close to mine I may just be alittle less strict. But I like Yourplay style I think playing like that is more rewarding. ( to me anyways of course it isnt for some people)

For getting Iridium from bees, you'd need to use GregTech and get Platinum bees, and centrifuge enough of it to get some iridium nuggets.

 

[whizzball1]

The line in the sand is wherever you choose to draw it.

Insightful as always, Lambert!

 

[brujon]

I like exploring unintended side effects of different mods working together. I think it's a neat way of going about doing things, and more importantly, one of the only ways of keeping the game fresh constantly. After a while, everyone had figured out the most efficient way of producing Biomass, but then Steve's Carts got updated, and bam, you had a new way of producing Saplings. ComputerCraft interacts with almost everything, especially after you install Misc. Peripherals, so there's nearly always some innovation on that end, and then combining everything you can have a much more efficient way of setting things up. But it requires you to learn and master a lot of different mods, and i think that's just fine, and very neat.