Why don't people like IC2 anymore?

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KingTriaxx

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Jul 27, 2013
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I don't have a problem with IC2. Even considering things like accidentally blowing up a line of machines because even though I did everything right, including painting the cables, it only disconnected visually and by the time I placed the machine the painting rubber-banded and destroyed the entire setup and me with it. I mean, I play Dwarf Fortress, Losing is Fun.

But for the cost in time and materials, IC2 equipment is not worth it. Yes, I can fly around invincible and superfast with the Gravichestplate. I can also do that with Modular Powersuits, and while the cost is nearly as expensive, the end product feels more worth it, because I can charge from any power container in my inventory. I can have a diamond drill, that punches rapidly through rock, but I can also have a Tinker's Construct Pick that can charge with IC2 energy and mines faster and also has fortune or silk touch on it. Or I can make a hammer which runs on IC2, that has no equivalent from IC2 itself.

It all comes down to the fact that, by the time I've gotten to all the good stuff in IC2, there's no point to having it. I could go fight a wither, but there's no reason, the only use for a Wither Star is a beacon and I've got stuff that's more useful than the buff. I could make a portal gun, but I can also just fly there, and probably get there with only a few seconds lost. And on top of that, once you have that stuff, what do you need more resources for?

IC2 holds a special place because it's the first mod I learned, but I've gone to the top of the pile with it, and now I don't need to do it again, because the view isn't as nice as i thought.
 

Mevansuto

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Jul 29, 2019
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that's what i'm saying.

don't get me wrong, love TE, but lately people are waving it's flag while giving ic2 a lot of hate that i don't think it deserves. the quote on page 1 that says ic2 "lacks content" really hit that nail on the head.

people's children... :(

Wow. I'll retract lacks content and replace it with lacks unique content (it has crops at least) I made it very clear I don't see TE as an IC2 replacement (I see the UE family of mods that though). I feel this a personal jab and I'm kinda offended. If you felt this way too you should of flat out said it like I did instead of continuing to point trivial things. Also I said time and time again I don't hate IC2, there are just so many better alternatives out there.

Just as proof
Personally, I enjoy the Greglike changes, but I know lots of people who don't. I think it's the concept of GregTech that's a turnoff. If you take the concept and only implement it halfway you still turn those people off. I don't use IC2 as the alternatives do mostly the same thing and do it in a more fun way. I don't consider TE3 to be an alternative, the only similarities are power, macerator and powered furnace, however those things that TE shares, it does in a much more enjoyable way. I feel the UE family of mods is what IC2 should have been like. It's reactors are more fun, it's ore sorting system is more fun, it has more content (can you go to space in IC2?). IC2 honestly has poor compatibility with other mods. It uses a power system that out side of minor addons and GregTech is only used in UE (which went out of it's way to cover everything).
[DOUBLEPOST=1388934017][/DOUBLEPOST]
Maybe you ARE cursed and it turned out bad (in your eyes) because YOU commented on it. Thought about that? :p

Maybe it's all just my fault. Maybe I should just never touch IC2 again. Perhaps that'll fix things.
 
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Skyqula

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I never liked IC2 and I never will. The reason is simple: its energy system. Its not realistic and its not intiutive. I dont mind spending time to learn a power system that resambles reality kind of like bluetricity (even though its close, it still isnt fully realistic). I dont minding spending that time because some of the things I learn can help me IRL. Now if IC2's power system was intuitive I woudnt mind it either, try this, try that, some small adjustments and wee got it to work. But thats not going to work, ever. Because IC2 will go and say: you did it wrong, kaboom. Back to the crafting table with you. And if there is annything I dislike its standing at a crafting table for ages.

TE gets it right, it doesnt try to be realistic, it doesnt try to force perfect on you. It gives you room to just try stuff. Still plenty of ways to do it wrong, but never will it send you back to square one. Heck back in 1.4 TE had this mechanic that if something did go wrong, your engines would overheat and get stuck, needing a wrench to continue. Thats a brilliant way of saying: hey, your doing it wrong! without sending you back to square one.

That said, the only way IC2 becomes almost enjoyable for me is with Dartcraft. Takes care of this whole "You better do it perfect or... kaboom!" deal. But we dont have dartcraft on anny 1.6 modpack, besides, its almost enoyable. There is still the entire cable mess.

Offtopic: Also, TE is not a simplistic IC2. The fact its basicly ore processing that has some simularities aside, TE has alot of machines with secondary outputs and synergetic outputs. For example the induction furnace can turn dust + sand into ingots + slag. Slag can be used to make rockwool or clay. Since you can pulverize dust you can effective make a slag factory. Given you have enough dirt you could make clay with it. Heck, you can effectively make a block production facility with TE that can produce thigs like: cobble/mossy cobble/stone/obsidian/stonebricks/mossy stonebricks/cracked stone bricks/gravel/sand/sandstone/fitted sandstone/chiseled sandstone/clay/hardenend clay/rockwool/ice/snow aswell as be able to turn most into slab/stair/wall variants. Can IC2 do that? Yeah, sure. Takke annything + power ==> scrap ==> UU ==> annything. Thats a single production line, kinda boring. While each of the blocks TE makes have different production lines. Considering the amount of blocks we can make with just TE (add railcraft amd some mobdrops and you got a bunch more) thats going to be alot more complex doing it with TE then IC2.
 

Algester

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Jul 29, 2019
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and if done right a single cobble generator can give you sand, stone, stone brick, cobble, flint, gravel, glass thats TE for you and I'll tell you this these stuff can go a long long way in terms of emergency building

in a very ironic twist I normally end up with a cobblegen the first thing I start expanding my build 1 igneous extruder, 2 pulverizer, 2 redstone furnace, cyclic assembler, barrels (JABBA barrels if possible) and pipes and conduits with steam dynamos/wind turbine (if mekanism generators are present)
 

Dee_Twenty

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Jul 29, 2019
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Simply put, I don't like the direction I see the mod heading in, the old tech tree progressed in a natural manner, you start off taking five iron ingots and a furnace, you make an iron furnace, you use the furnace to cook some rubber and the metals you'll need for the next tier, get your generator, extractor, and macerator going, etc. Now you have to waste time and resources hammering ingots into plates just to make a simple iron furnace, the most basic "machine" in the entire mod, something you'll need to craft before you can even get the machine you'll need to be able to get those plates without throwing away resources on hammers. What's the difference between this and the extractor and macerator, you may ask? Simple, with those machines you never felt like you were throwing away resources before you got them, they simply increased the output you'd get from them, you could easily go out and find enough iron, tin, copper, and rubber to get you through the entire tech tree without feeling forced to use the macerator and extractor on them.

With the tedium added to the mod in the new version the rewards simply aren't worth the hassle anymore, Machinemuse does armour better than IC2, it's better looking, I can use any power source I want, and I can configure it based on what I plan on doing. T-Con does tools and ore processing better, it may not be the most efficient ore processing available, but it's the most fun to me, so no more reason to bother with the macerator or power tools, just throw some moss on my pick and I'm good to go. What's left after that? The macerator is the only machine that really has any use outside of crafting other machines, power tools, and armour, there's industrial diamonds, sure, but why bother making those? A few jungle saplings, a lumber axe, and a minium stone I've got all the iron, gold, and diamonds I'll ever need. There are the crops, but they need to be updated badly, add some mod support, Natura, Witchery, BoP, etc.

The solution? I'd say two options, an IC2 Classic branch that makes minimum changes, none of this hammering plate nonsense, keep the old power system, etc. that focuses on simply updating IC2 to remain compatible and IC2 Experimental, alternate option, make the changes configurable, give the devil his due at least Greg generally has enough courtesy to do that much, make it so players can disable and enable whatever changes they want.
 

Dee_Twenty

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Jul 29, 2019
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Nope, the last non-experiment IC2 was for 1.5.2, so your choices are play 1.5.2 forever, put up with the changes, or drop IC2.
 

accapulco

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Jul 29, 2019
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I was a die hard IC fan as soon as I met the mod and back in the day my minecraft experience was basically IC & BC since those were the main mods the game had. However the mod had a lot of down times in development and was picked up and continued by different people. In the previous version it looked like a bundled mess, all patched up trying to do many things at once while providing convenience. You guys remember beta when you couldn't stack food? If you wanted to carry around 4 bread you had to put them in 4 different slots, so IC gave us a canning machine which made stackable food from bread. Those features still remained even though they were outdated, whoever picked up the mod didn't bother changing or remaking it but just added their own ideas and recipes and processes to these essentially useless machines. Has anyone ever made a fuel powered jetpack? No. Its a piece of crap even if you make it and fuel it, it doesn't even fly properly as the electric one does.

So I just got into IC2 experimental the other day.. I can see that there trying to modernize the mod, get rid of some of the junk while improving mechanics, but its extremely tedious to play with the mod, it just isn't fun anymore. I hate crafting in this mod with a passion! Here is a fictional comparison of making a machine in IC2exp vs making a machine in TE, lets say both machines require exactly the same amount of resources.
TE: Make a machine core (tier 1 recipe, meaning its just basic resources to make), slap on some ingots and materials in a certain pattern > boom machine made.
IC2: Make a machine core.. but for that we first need to make a hammer and a wire cutter that take 5 iron each and create about 3 machines before they break, smash the iron with the hammer and get 1 iron plate, smash some tin now for the tin plate and then again for the half plate things. Now take those 2 and some redstone and make the machine core, next up you need.. surprise! more tin half plate so go though that double craft process to do that and oh you need 2 piece of copper wire too so make copper half things and cut them with wire cutters, which chest did I put those back into again? There you go now plug that machine right into a system that could blow it up with 0 return rate if you forgot to be careful. Oh you want another machine?
Each time you craft it puts you through a tedious time wasting and annoying process where in the end you still spend the same 10 iron but with a bunch of copper+tin mini craft processes in between, so you're constantly running all over your inventory all the time trying to get 1 stupid piece of copper you forgot because you need to make a little copper bearing with it and stick it in the side of the recipe.

I like TE a lot, I just don't like the energy generation as it relies on other mods' machines also once you have a TE setup there's practically no need to change anything as there are no expanding or upgrading options and you just don't make any more machinery which is a bit sad :(. I wish Builtcraft would remove all those engines & the quarry and we can just keep the dynamos and maybe GT can make a clean, non world messing way for mining automation. Now I just want GregTech to go finish and go standalone so we can have a proper exclusively industrial based crafting mod. Eventually GT will have its own "electrical age" generation-usage like IC2 level wont be where you start, but the mid game point or your first big upgrade so you could have enough automation set up at that point (with AE ofc) to not make everything so tedious.

My general idea on the direction of mods:
Back in the day any other mod, not BC/IC, wasn't very big and generally added something like colorable ice cream & cones. Being so focused on these mods today make us miss out on a lot of other good mods out there that do what this mod does but better. There are however still problems, everyone now it seems is trying to push out their own version of energy production and ore processing. I also hate how mods try to branch out in every direction now. Guy makes mod that adds extra apples and pears to grow on trees, next version we get there's a new ore that does something. This screws up the world generation and as these mods stack up you just see crap everywhere and it gets annoying. When I'm mining I want to focus on getting ores and minerals and not get distracted by these magical ores and neon glowing crystals. All of these things also provide inconvenience to use texture packs as their textures are missing, now I just use Faithful since its defaultx2 so anything untextured is just slightly blurry and not something completely different.
 
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Bagman817

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<snip>
I like TE a lot, I just don't like the energy generation as it relies on other mods' machines also once you have a TE setup there's practically no need to change anything as there are no expanding or upgrading options and you just don't make any more machinery which is a bit sad :(. I wish Builtcraft would remove all those engines & the quarry and we can just keep the dynamos and maybe GT can make a clean, non world messing way for mining automation.
<snip>
Wait, what? You don't need Buildcraft engines for anything. For that matter, if you can live without the Filler, you can uninstall BC all together, as there are superior alternatives to everything else in the mod.
 

ScorpioOld

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Jul 29, 2019
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and maybe GT can make a clean, non world messing way for mining automation.

[/offtop]
Are you sure you have seen latest FTB packs? There are so many modern alternatives: boring machines, Arcane bores, MFFS/AE, MFR lasers, Steve's cars, Magic trees, and probably a bunch of alternatives from magic based mods which I am not aware of. Finally, you can always place Quarry+ 256x256 a few levels below ground. In reality with RC ore processing after one quarry run you will never need another quarry again.

At the end I guess it is time to look at other mods beyond "godly" GT or welcome to the deep dark where nobody will know about your death:)
 
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ShneekeyTheLost

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First, I'd like to post this very informative Extra Credits episode that Penny Arcade did on the difference between Difficulty and Punishing.


IC2 is Punishing and Punitive, not entertaining. There is nothing fun in a block exploding simply because you put it next to the wrong wire accidentally and blowing up half your manufactorum. That's not 'difficult', that's punishing. There is nothing difficult in the IC2-EX mechanics. It does, however, harshly punish any mistakes made.

It has nothing to do with level of difficulty, it has zero to do with how 'hardcore' a player is, it has jack squat to do with skill level required. It is simply that it is punishing rather than challenging.
 

Lathanael

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Jul 29, 2019
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Wow. I'll retract lacks content and replace it with lacks unique content (it has crops at least) I made it very clear I don't see TE as an IC2 replacement (I see the UE family of mods that though). I feel this a personal jab and I'm kinda offended. If you felt this way too you should of flat out said it like I did instead of continuing to point trivial things. Also I said time and time again I don't hate IC2, there are just so many better alternatives out there.
Now i am a bit lost. You accuse IC2 not beeing unique...
IC2 was one of the first big mods for minecraft. I'd rather say many mods "copied" stuff from IC2 and added their own flavor on the way. IC2 exists for a really long time now and there isn't much left it could add. It also always had a rather tedious tiered crafting system.
The only thing i currently would complain about is the new energy system. While it is a lot more predictable now the IC2 missed to adjust the machines and add new ones to compensate for the changes.
 
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