Where is the line between contraption and exploit?

[DoctorOr]

You shouldn't get a diamond out of uncrafting a Vile Sword, but the vile ingots you used to craft it. If it's giving diamonds, it's a bug.

You clearly have no grasp of the process being discussed.

And intentional designs DO make something cease to be an exploit. If it's intentional, then by DEFINITION it isn't an exploit

Wrong, by definition. An exploit is whatever somebody who has the power to remove you from the gameworld says it is.[DOUBLEPOST=1364311684][/DOUBLEPOST]

So, woohoo, infinite shards of minium... For as long as you stand there and punch the 0,5 heart monsters. Don't recall if mobs still drop shards when killed by melee turtles or not, since they count as player kills for the purposes of rare drops and experience. If they do, then there's your answer right there.

They don't, but they do drop from soulshard spawners and the _intent_ is that they do not. Thus clearly, receiving loot from mob kills is an exploit.

 

[RetroGamer1224]

They are convenient tools. I made eight diamonds a few nights ago and my stone nearly is dead. The first two diamonds took out my first stone. It was sixteen full stacks of logs, thirty two total, just to make eight diamonds. I am thankful my friend's tree farm has a major surplus but the fact remains that it is a major resource sink. Which is why I said it is more viable later on then at the start so went you do make use of the stone you may have a nice surplus of resources. Especially if you are on a server where everyone sleeps at night so it is not easy to go monster hunting before you have any shards. As for a mob grinder I haven't built one yet so I don't have infinite shards But I do see your point.

 

[DoctorOr]

Before someone says "Make multiple stones" that still is a major chunk of resources to invest in each stone

Other than shards, its no resources at all. You should test how many inert stones you can make before a stone breaks using only logs and cobble as input

 

[brujon]

It's you who hasn't grasped simple linguistics and word definitions.

From Merriam Webster online:
Definition of EXPLOIT

1​

: to make productive use of : utilize <exploiting your talents><exploit your opponent's weakness>

2​

: to make use of meanly or unfairly for one's own advantage<exploiting migrant farm workers>

The second definition is the one we'r discussing. To make use of meanly or unfairly for one's own advantage. How can using a feature that was made by intentional design, classify as unfair for one's own advantage? If it's intentional, then by definition it can't be an exploit, and the word you are looking for is another word...

Definition of UNBALANCED

: not balanced: as

a : not in equilibrium

b : mentally disordered or deranged
c : not adjusted so as to make credits equal to debits <anunbalanced account>
In the first definition. I.E not in equilibrium with the context in which it's inserted in, in this case, modded minecraft.

 

[RetroGamer1224]

Maybe it is me but with my current resources I can make maybe 15 inert stones. From those maybe 2 full Minium stones. From the iron left over I may make two gold but that would leave me dry of iron. Again I see you point and am only going by my experience.

 

[DoctorOr]

The second definition is the one we'r discussing. To make use of meanly or unfairly for one's own advantage. How can using a feature that was made by intentional design, classify as unfair for one's own advantage?

Simple. When somebody with the power to remove you from the gameworld says it is. This really isn't difficult to grasp. The intent of the mod author doesn't even matter, as in most games they don't have the power to remove you from the gameworld.

 

[OmegaJasam]

Unless you wilfully avoiding it, using the stone will accelerate you. Honestly the /obsidian/, /pearls/ /iorn/ and /gold/ recipies make the most difference, not the diamonds. 4 gold becomes a lot of gold, iorn and obsidion. These become early enchantment tables, early chunk loaders, early TE machines, early grinders, early cart systems, early quarrys ((all together, rather then choosing between) And most people get enough shards for one around about the time they are just finding the gold to make it.

It changes a choice between things to having it all. It means access to extra dimensional barrels on mass quicker. It greatly accelerates certain thaumcraft reserch. (The first major theory, needing clocks for the temporis aspect, and anything requiring the alianus aspect of of pearls e.t.c.)

It meant being able to finish the modular powersuit on the iorn hungry IC recpies a lot faster (gold/diamond DOWN to iron).

For some people this is skipping to the good stuff. Some people enjoy these stages the most. (Deciding between modules, research, caving, early choices and infrastructure)

It's not even a matter of it being 'OP' or not. It's a matter of it does enough to majorly change a playstyle. For a server I personally would probably want it disabled or less durable(less gain per stone, since the shards are too easy to get. The redwater may fix this in the future) . Or it's effects split into multiple items. (The in place cobble->grass e.t.c. remove a lot of grindy feeling stuff, portable crafting table is nice too).

When applyed in context, you can have an exploit thats not 'OP' (Soul stealer on other weapons via uncrafting). You can have something that isn't that is 'OP'(minum stone). At the end of the day everything is in the context of what makes the experiance more fun for certain types of people.

 

[Guswut]

Honestly the /obsidian/, /pearls/ /iorn (SIC)/ and /gold/ recipies

Assuming you are using the slashes in context of italic, why didn't you just use the italics functionality that this forum provides? Otherwise, if you did not mean to use them in that regard, why, exactly, did you put slashes around those? Thanks.

 

[jumpfight5]

Kinda like people talk_like_this?
I don't get it either.

 

[Tabu]

I find it amusing that some of the same people who literally cried about EE2 being op are saying there is no line...

Turtles
RP quarries

Both are being exploited worse than EE2 ever was. It's a joke...

 

[Saice]

I find it amusing that some of the same people who literally cried about EE2 being op are saying there is no line...

Turtles
RP quarries

Both are being exploited worse than EE2 ever was. It's a joke...

I kind of have to agree.

RP quarries not so much there is a good deal of work in getting one up and running. But then again I know many people that just copy some how to and have no idea how or why it works and that to me is sort of sad.

Turtles on the other hand are getting a little silly it seems those little guys can laterally do anything these days even magic. and it is worse than the RP stuff because I know maybe one or two people that write there own code and maybe a handful that while copying other peoples code at lest understand how it works and will modify it to their own needs. I am fairly sure the large majority of Turtle users just pastebin their code. So for little more then a bit of iron, stone, redstone, glass, and a tool they get one of the most powerful tools ever to come in a single block.

 

[jumpfight5]

Well, people were talking about saying there was work put into both learning to program and creating an RP quarry. It's not a "set and forget" powerflower.

Yeah, if you download programs someone made online, then I can see people complaining, but if you learned to program, I see no problem whatsoever. RP2 frame quarries: if you followed something an LP'er did online, then, yes. But if you learned how to make the stuff yourself, then, no, I would not consider it as OP.

 

[brujon]

Nothing will ever be as powerful and broken as the setup in EE2. You can have thousands of turtles mining an absolutely disgusting amount of terrain, and it will still not even come close to the level of sillyness you had from EE2. EE2 made literally *every* resource in the game available from thin air, because of collectors and relays and condensers. All you ever needed was to teach your transmutation tablet the one resource once, and it was available, forever, to be made out of thin air, or from anything else that had an EMC value. Once you got your first collector/relay combo, and made a Klein Star, the game is basically over. Every resource goes into more EMC to make more collectors and relays and more power flowers and once you get Mk3 Collectors & Relays, there's nothing more to do in the game. Go to sleep, wake up with enough EMC to make enough red matter for the tools & armor. Which were also too powerful, wayyy waaaaaaay too powerful. Literally in less than a week, if you hadn't reached the point of self sufficiency, you weren't doing something right with EE2.

 

[Norfgarb]

after doing a EMC setup in EE2 once i pretty much stopped transmuting altogether and just used EE2 for some of it's items like the bags

 

[Neirin]

Turtles are decidedly OP for most people. I'll admit I've ended up using the OreQuarry program, but that was only after I made an honest attempt at writing my own quarry program. I actually had a mostly functional one that basically tripled the efficiency of the default excavate (mines 3 layers at a time) when I discovered the OreQuarry and its improvements. I could have gone and changed my program based on AustinKK's code, but that smells a bit too much like plagiarism for my taste, so I just use his program.

Frankly, I'm a little torn about the cost of turtles. The idea of CC is to get people to play around with lua, so making to barrier to entry higher is kinda counter-productive. However, it's hard to justify the power to resource cost when they're used as alternatives to super expensive items like quarries or arcane bores. The balancing point is theoretically that you code the program yourself, but that's not very effective when already written programs are just a forum thread or google search away for people who don't want to do it themselves.

The best solution I can think of would be to increase the fuel consumption of the turtles dramatically. Make taking actions require fuel, not just movement. Maybe the balancing point could be that the default excavate command should use as much coal as it would take to mine an equivalent area with a quarry running on stirling engines. Extrapolate fuel conversions from there. Custom coding would still offer a huge benefit (and turtles would still be super cheap), but at least it'd be a start and provide a framework for how things should proceed.

 

[Hoff]

EE2 broken.

EE2 was in no way broken, unless speaking in context of how you feel. EE2 was wonderful and balanced as far as I care to argue. Who gives a rats ass if you won the game in no time flat? Hell I used the insta reed growing bug + void ring + black hole ring and it generated more EMC than over 40 Power Flowers. Guess what? It was balanced as I see it. Hell I would have made the stuff stronger.

I kind of have to agree.

RP quarries not so much there is a good deal of work in getting one up and running. But then again I know many people that just copy some how to and have no idea how or why it works and that to me is sort of sad.

Turtles on the other hand are getting a little silly it seems those little guys can laterally do anything these days even magic. and it is worse than the RP stuff because I know maybe one or two people that write there own code and maybe a handful that while copying other peoples code at lest understand how it works and will modify it to their own needs. I am fairly sure the large majority of Turtle users just pastebin their code. So for little more then a bit of iron, stone, redstone, glass, and a tool they get one of the most powerful tools ever to come in a single block.

Don't be sad about it; those people would have likely gained nothing from learning to do it on their own anyway. Most of them find no value in the build-up and place all value in the climax. Think nothing of people using turtles. The last line I see as perfectly fine because it is up to the user to use it.

 

[hotblack desiato]

okay, regarding exploits, I'd say, an exploit is a way to generate something out of itself.

like a setup currently available in ultimate: set up a 36-boiler (LP or HP), a bunch of steam engines, a couple of oil fabricators and some refineries.

and then watch the system generating steam, which generates BC energy, which generates oil and fuel.

and that at a rate of 1,39. meaning, for every consumed bucket of fuel, it generates 0,39 buckets of fuel extra.

or the classical energy out of thin air setup with magma crucibles, igneous extruders and so on, which was nerfed because it just was necessary to do so.

or another system, that might be interesting in ultimate: a minefactory reloaded farm, which also generates "sludge". the plants are quite nice (standard way of processing) but the really interesting part is the sludge. the sludge boiler turns it into sand, dirt, clay, soulsand, cracked sand and quicksand.

so the sand is irrelevant, but the dirt can be turned into plantballs and clay.

the clay can be turned into aluminium, silicon, lithium (liquid boiler fuel) and sodium (semifluid generator)

soulsand gives oil, coaldust, saltpeter (usable for fertilizer) and sand

cracked sand also fills an IC2 fuelcan, gives sand and a ton of saltpeter.

the oil cell (from the soulsand) can either be turned into fuel by a buildcraft refinery or by a gregtech distillation tower. the GT-machine gives sulfuric acit and nitroglyceryl, which can be further processed to nitro coal fuel. electrolyzing the sulfuric acid cells gives sulfur and hydrogen, and the sulfur can be processed with the sodium to the sodium persulfate cell, a very useful component for the grinder...

the system would be even more insane, if greg hadn't changed a centrifuge recipe, that allowed turning coal dust into thorium.


so, the silly thing is now: this setup allows growing a bunch of metals (like aluminium) out of plants. and it generates it's own fertilizer, and as a bonus, it also generates oil (real one, not biofuel).

 

[brujon]

The problem is, that's not the only thing that turtles do. So, unless you code different fuel requirements for different actions, you're going to break CC. Honestly, the fact that they're fuel efficient is not so bad. Not like fuel is something so hard to come by... They nerfed Blaze Rods because it was too cheap to acquire, but that was basically it. Way back when, they didn't even require fuel to run. What could and maybe, should definitely change, is the crafting recipe. It's way, WAY too cheap for what they're capable of doing, even by themselves with no other mods around. It's balancing point is a bit off. It's not an exploit per se, but it's on a very different balancing point than every single one of the other mods in the packs. The turtles are basically like programmable macro programs on MMORPG's, you program the turtles to do stuff for you that you don't want to do yourself, like those various Runescape programs that mindlessly level up the more boring skills... The difference being that they're not limited to simple tasks, and Misc. Peripherals give them the ability to do almost anything.

Turtle sorting system: Check
Turtle Quarry: Check
Turtle Mob Trap: Check
Turtle Base Builder: Check
Turtle Perimeter Clearer: Check
Turtle Base Defender: Check
Turtle Trap Activator: Check
Turtle Bee Breeder: Check
Turtle Enchanting: Check
Turtle Crafting: Check
Turtle Farm: Check
Turtle Animal Farm: Check
Even turtle nuclear reactor controllers.

I seriously believe that there isn't anything that can't be done by turtles in minecraft. ComputerCraft is a seriously powerful tool, seriously, seriously powerful. It's a really neat, really cool mod, that gives you powerful tools, that compliment and work together with every mod, due to it's modular nature. It's one of the best mods out there today. Maintaining and debugging all that code to work together, though? It's simply a PAIN. Turtles get lost while mining all the time. Nearly all resume functionalities don't work 100% of the time. GPS and Rednet is not perfect. One wrong line and it could end up destroying stuff. Sure, there are a lot of well written programs out there, but every single one of them will have bugs, and you will have to keep up with your reading and LUA debugging skills to be actually able to maintain it all. Plus, every time CC changes, it usually breaks something. And by something, i mean it changes how most programs fundamentally work, and you'll now need to manually update the code for all your turtles. Yay.

With all that said, they could be a bit more expensive to craft, so that you wouldn't be able to craft one in the first 10 minutes of game or so. Do that, and every single one of the disadvantages i outlined i think, balance it all out.

 

[Whovian]

The line is:

If Greg nerfs it, it's an exploit.

If Greg doesn't use it because it's OP, it's a contraption.

 

[hotblack desiato]

there is a "kill a player in full quantum suit" turtle script somewhere floating around... (there was a thread in the tekkit-board).

basically, by having over 110 hv-transformers set to emit 2048EU-packages to a single macerator (with proper upgrades) this electrical shock kills the player instantanously.

so the setup is: a turtle with a chunkloader-module sets up the trap (a noobish-looking house with the entry to a mine), and when the victim triggers the trap, the dropped items (including the quantum armor) are collected by obsidian pipes, sent through an enderchest, and so they are gone. and then, the little turtle dismantles the trap, and either sends it away or stores it, and sets up the same trap somewhere else.

so, even if the killed player is back to the site of the trap, he'd just find a hole in the ground.

oh, and I follow gregs thread in the IC2 forum. he mentioned a bug that computercraft just opens every machine interface available, generating a ton of lag. they even posted a simple script capable of killing a server...