Why does pretty much every mod use MJ?

[Captain Neckbeard]

That's a whole other can of worms. I can deal with the idea of hidden internal components that aren't really addressed in crafting recipes, I didn't have to craft exhaust manifolds for my Combustion Engines or u-tubes for my Boilers. But energy conversion rates that speed by 100% and give thermodynamics the finger make me want to make an MJ-producing engine powered entirely by Newton's spinning corpse.

 

[Vovk]

the only energy conversion I can think of with that in mind is the EU to MJ to Lava to EU using netherrack as a fuel. This kind of makes sense to me as you have to spend netherrack to get this conversion, you can assume it takes only a small amount of energy to receive a lot of energy from the 'rack and then use that to melt more netherrack. instead of a newton defying device you've basically just built a netherrack engine out of other components.

EDIT: and a really shitty one at that. around 14000 EU gain over several long minutes to just about match a coal generator. Made extra funny by burning renewable peat in standard generators - a simpler, cheaper, and more extensible system than the lava loop.

 

[Captain Neckbeard]

Especially inefficient considering that each block of the meaty helldirt is a theoretically infinite source of thermal energy, normally burning eternally once sparked. It's what I use for my Thermopiles so I can maintain a shred of legitimacy. It's magic burnstuff from hell, I don't have to explain shit.

 

[Exasperation]

Especially inefficient considering that each block of the meaty helldirt is a theoretically infinite source of thermal energy, normally burning eternally once sparked. It's what I use for my Thermopiles so I can maintain a shred of legitimacy. It's magic burnstuff from hell, I don't have to explain shit.

Of course, the same thing applies to the advanced solar panels - they're being powered not by uranium, but by irradiated magic glowstuff from hell. But really, the reason for the advanced solar panels being so efficient in such a small package is that large arrays of solar panels were bringing people's servers to their knees, so there had to be a way to compress them to keep people's computers from melting with all the 1 EU/t updates.

 

[Captain Neckbeard]

I remember those days. Swearing off my own use of IC is better than constant server crashes.

 

[DriftinFool]

The gregtech industrial grinder can do 300% + extra small dust piles on some ores. It also gives you 2.5 coal from each coal ore. Mycelium/grass to dirt is hardly a feature to write home about. If you were desperate to convert a large number of those to dirt you could also use a RP block breaker and deployer on a timer or a button. Stone to gravel can be done in a rock crusher btw. None of these features are compelling enough to dedicate the space required for a factorization setup. It's mostly redundant functionality that you'll get from IC2/Gregtech/TC and those have multiple ways to generate power that don't require access to sunlight and a large area to set up mirrors. If Factorization used MJ, I might add a thing or two from it to my room but in it's current state it's a bit unwieldy compared to Thermal Expansion which doesn't require other mods to move items from one machine to the next for processing.

Perhaps if it had more unique things to offer that other mods aren't doing already. Thermal Expansion is a great example, it came onto the scene after IC2 already cornered the market on macerating ore for double yield but it offered new functionality for convenience. Pulverized ore could be moved into a furnace automatically just by placing them next to each other. BC had energy pipes, but TE added ones that don't lose energy and battery cubes for MJ storage.

I'm hopeful that Factorization will continue to add new things that set it apart.

You realize that routers from factorization can supply and remove items from any machine and and can make a much cleaner build than using pipes running everywhere. I'm just delving into them and am finding them extremely useful, but a little expensive. But they are very powerful so the cost seems fair. I have a small factorization setup that i throw in a few stacks of ores that I keep running out of. The tripling of ores is nice when you have the time to let it run.

 

[Bigglesworth]

The reason mods have their own power system is because the author probably felt the mod would be better off that way.

The exact reason you can only get by asking authors, but I think control and independence are the main reasons.

I doubt that. Its more lack of API standards in the early days, and now people are used to the power systems in each major mod so they stick with what they have. As long as their are power conversion engines none of this matters.

 

[Quesenek]

Talking about energy is there anything that is like the gregtech of buildcraft? Besides running a ton of things all at once I haven't seen a machine that takes a lot of MJ/t to work. I've tried lasers and they are cool but really don't take a lot of MJ to make a hit on my system.

 

[Captain Neckbeard]

I'm not averse to a hardmode cranking up the Quarry's energy requirement. Like two or three Industrial Steam Engines to get it going at full speed. I'm sure there's a ton of other things that could be done to ramp up the difficulty, but I can't think of them at the moment.

 

[HeffronCM]

Buildcraft and MJ is about resource gathering and automated building. Fillers and builders can use a LOT of power. Quarries run up to 50mj a tick. Most automated resource generation is built to run on fairly low power, but some of them can use a lot of juice.

I'm not averse to a hardmode cranking up the Quarry's energy requirement. Like two or three Industrial Steam Engines to get it going at full speed. I'm sure there's a ton of other things that could be done to ramp up the difficulty, but I can't think of them at the moment.

Three Industrial Steam Engines can't run a quarry at full speed in default Buildcraft. It would take six.

 

[Captain Neckbeard]

Three Industrial Steam Engines can't run a quarry at full speed in default Buildcraft. It would take six.

Oh, you're right, I'm derping. I think my brain is numb. Work stuff, browsing in-between tasks.