Xycraft/Soaryn Thoughts

[Chimpy]

So, to begin with... I really do love Xycraft and where it is heading thus far. The tanks make a great tier 1 so to speak liquid storage till iron becomes more readily available later on in game. Another great item I love in game from Xycraft is the crystals. Now most people right now are thinking, are you crazy they don't have much use and tend to clog storage. To these people I just have to say one thing... Lighting. When I go tunnel mining, mining a single width by three high, I use the crystals to light up the walkway as torches get in the way and can't hang from a ceiling, not to mention since they are plentiful in most cases it makes a rather easy inexpensive way to light up the tunnel. Another great side note for those using REI's minimap, when you switch to cave mode you can see your entire tunnel, granted this works with torches too but looks cooler with crystals.

Now on to my thought/idea... I know Direwolf20 is not a fan of crystals but perhaps his mind can be changed... I had a thought about crystals and how to... increase their usefulness as a light source while also creating a better looking light. If we had the ability to craft crystals into a lamp, like that of a wrath lamp but with crystals inside instead. Also perhaps adding a "stacking" function, where one crafts several crystals together before shoving them into a lamp structure to increase light output. It would provide a good looking light source that would be hopefully inexpensive to manufacture for lighting tunnels and such. Also, if one would be ambitious enough, perhaps adding a "fancy" texture animation where after crafting the light one could add a piece of string to it so when hung from the ceiling the lamp could slowly swing side to side as if wind was hitting it. Again, that would be something for a fancy style rather than a necessity.

Thanks for reading and happy digging/modding to all

 

[NTaylor]

Same as you I do often use the crystals in place of torches early game while mining the only problem with them is a little later in the game they can become a bit of a pain but then again for what I save on torches early game they are never the item that clogs any of my sorting systems. I know at the minute they have virtually no use late game short of liquid detectors which I have never actually used and am not quite sure what they even do. The thing is however it is so easy to dispose of them in a sorting system (I use applied energistics for my sorting system which makes keeping only 1 ED barrel of an item very easy) so for their usefullness early on I personally don't see them as a big problem.

 

[Drakefyre27]

I'm not sure if I like them or not, this is even more true with the recent poking crystals.

Sure, the extra light they give out can be handy from time to time (I mine in the dark), but it's kind of frustrating when you lose valuables to their poking ability (like cactus). It's a rare occasion but it's happened to me when I accidently threw something at a crystal, only to see it go poof.

As for storing them... They're a pain, since I'm usually one of the late guys into tech, sticking with normals chest and iron chests' chests for a good while.

So, I'd prefer them without the poking ability, and if they had an actual use...

 

[NTaylor]

I'm not sure if I like them or not, this is even more true with the recent poking crystals.

Sure, the extra light they give out can be handy from time to time (I mine in the dark), but it's kind of frustrating when you lose valuables to their poking ability (like cactus). It's a rare occasion but it's happened to me when I accidently threw something at a crystal, only to see it go poof.

As for storing them... They're a pain, since I'm usually one of the late guys into tech, sticking with normals chest and iron chests' chests for a good while.

So, I'd prefer them without the poking ability, and if they had an actual use...

I also often stick to chests as well for a fair while but normally build a couple of barrels and if I can afford it ED barrels just to store things like Cobble/Dirt/crystals so that I dont run into major storage problems.

 

[AlanEsh]

I hate the thousands of render-me! air pockets they create.

 

[DylanP]

I like them, my mobs hate them too, but I care little about their needs.
They make really fancy mob grinders too.

 

[Chimpy]

The poking ability of the crystals is both good and bad... Usually I use them right outside my door during early stages so that mobs don't try and beat down my door. And their destructive qualities are a huge pain... I could see things like paper or rotten flesh getting destroyed by them but iron ingots or other dense items... ya not so much.

 

[vineet]

I find crystals to lag my computer, so that is why I used worldedit to remove them.

 

[RedBoss]

Xycraft is still not fully implemented. If you watched the DW20 mod spotlight, at the end he previews the energy network which most likely will use the crystals. I think Soaryn has big plans for them as it stands and his latest set of machines and tanks are very useful.

 

[Lambert2191]

the only problem I have with crystals is the fact they are rendered when not necassary, increasing lag by a huge amount. Soaryn is aware of it though and is aparently fixing that in 1.5, so no problems

 

[MagusUnion]

What's so bad about getting some extra Fractous, Imperito, Lux, and Iron nuggets?

 

[Norfgarb]

the only problem I have with crystals is the fact they are rendered when not necassary, increasing lag by a huge amount. Soaryn is aware of it though and is aparently fixing that in 1.5, so no problems

I have mixed feelings about this, It will be good when fixed but it does look cool while you are waiting for the graphics in the chunk to render. (like crystal stars, or something)

 

[brujon]

First, i think they look ugly. Secondly, they lag. Third, for a long time, they were unstackable/unsortable pain. Fourthly, random pokes when mining are scary. I dislike them in their current implementation. Even if they have functions added to them somewhere in the future, and the lag is fixed, i'd still dislike them if solely for the pokeyness and appearance. I think they stick out like a sore thumb anywhere and not really fit the feel of the rest of minecraft. The xychorium ore blocks as well. They ugly up world gen a lot, i'd really like them to be more integrated with the rest of the ore generation to at least some degree, or at least that they weren't as ugly as they are now. Seriously. The Xy blocks themselves... They're all rather nice and have a nice arcane tech feel to them, which i enjoy. The ore blocks and quartz crystal however... Urgh.

 

[Adragal]

originally used them as scenic walkway lighting until the poking began... might make for a nice spike trap or mob grinder floor

 

[un worry]

Has anyone developed a decent textures for the ore blocks ... one more in keeping with worldgen?

Hopefully the new 1.5 textures will make it easier to swap in and out to achieve your preferred feel. After two months in my current world, I have only now enabled XYcraft, because I just didnt like the textures - and dont have the skills to customize a texturepack.

 

[Yusunoha]

I hate them now that they act like cactus, they keep destroying my items when I manually mine, since you can't see where they are, when you dig an ore there might be one of those little buggers under the ore and destroy it when it drops.
this would be easily solved by making them deal damage like cactus, but not destroy items, doing this they actually become alot more useful.

 

[Lambert2191]

I hate them now that they act like cactus, they keep destroying my items when I manually mine, since you can't see where they are, when you dig an ore there might be one of those little buggers under the ore and destroy it when it drops.
this would be easily solved by making them deal damage like cactus, but not destroy items, doing this they actually become alot more useful.

I lost my first EVER emerald that way... like seriously never found one before, find one... BAM lurking crystal!

 

[Bickers]

thay just sit there in my sorting system for now be hey thay stack properly now so its not so bad

 

[13552]

They're supposed to be quartz crystal. I'd like to see them replace Applied Energistics' Quartz through the Forge Ore Dictionary, to make them more useful and reduce duplication (why have two separate, but incompatible, versions of quartz in the game?).

I also agree they shouldn't destroy items (I never knew about that until reading this post). Perhaps a solution is to have the crystals form inside of a standard ore block like in Applied Energistics, but have the block drop the Xycraft crystal as an item, which can then be placed in the world if desired. This would easily solve the rendering issue (the ore would just need a texture), and prevent most inadvertent item destruction, but keep the interesting model and mob trap functionality.

 

[brujon]

1.5 adds Nether Quartz so most mods that use any form of Quartz will probably switch over to that. Xycraft probably won't, because the crystals it uses are actual crystals, so Soaryn will probably just change the name, since the appearance is already remarkably different. AE Quartz is very different from Soaryn quartz, so i don't think they should be interchangeable, especially since one appears in veins where each block drop multiples, and the other in scattered but common single occurrences.