Yes, I'm making a simpler sky-block pack.

[MacAisling]

If I manage to finish it, I might even try to figure out how to share (I know there are published guidelines, but it is still a somewhat involved process, especially if people expect it to be maintained and updated afterwards).

I am a casual gamer with a preference for a smaller pack with 1-2 good choices instead of 12 choices ranging from "why bother when you can do better just as easily" to "is it really worth the extra effort to get the extra result", and with smaller mods that focus on doing a few things well instead of trying to do all the things. I also prefer moderate risk, some convenience, some complexity, a bit less grinding, and a bit less trolling.

Right now, I am thinking about balancing resource gathering to provide enough material to progress at a reasonable pace without drowning in material of more limited use, and to make tiered systems a little more meaningful. For instance, do I really want to be able to build beacon bases out of cobalt before I can build the beacon block? Should I add yellorium and charged certus quartz to the sieves, or should I have to go mining in the deep dark? Should some things only come from sifting compressed materials?

I'd like to discuss specifics of what should come from where. Here is the full pack list, sorted into categories to aid discussion. I've listed the file names, but have added either the mod dev or common name in () where I thought clarification was necessary.

MOD LIST (keeping this updated by hand is beginning to feel silly, so...)
https://modlister.com/user/StrangeThistle

 

[GamerwithnoGame]

This really piqued my interest, I must say! When you say simpler, you're thinking in terms of being leaner in terms of unnecessary choice, rather than being aimed towards perhaps lower performance computers, right? Unfortunately for me, that's been the biggest barrier to entry so far I've been able to run a very small custom 1.10 pack (about 30 mods) but I can't for hide nor hair seem to get Refined Storage to play ball (in which I suspect my low RAM has a large part to play), and I would assume that would be a necessity for any simpler skyblock pack!

I'd be happy to try and have a go at whatever you come up with, and give feedback if I can get it running.

 

[MacAisling]

This really piqued my interest, I must say! When you say simpler, you're thinking in terms of being leaner in terms of unnecessary choice, rather than being aimed towards perhaps lower performance computers, right? Unfortunately for me, that's been the biggest barrier to entry so far I've been able to run a very small custom 1.10 pack (about 30 mods) but I can't for hide nor hair seem to get Refined Storage to play ball (in which I suspect my low RAM has a large part to play), and I would assume that would be a necessity for any simpler skyblock pack!

I'd be happy to try and have a go at whatever you come up with, and give feedback if I can get it running.

I feel your pain. I was playing on an old laptop that shipped with 2 gig ram and maxed out at 4. In 1.7.10, IC2exp dropped my tick rate down to completely unplayable --I could create and log into new worlds, but could barely move & you could watch the stars tick away the seconds. With up to date OSs using 1.5 gig by themselves you may eventually have to give in and get a better computer. In the meantime, my hope is that this will be both leaner & easier on performance, but I don't know enough to benchmark it and I know even less about optimizing Java performance. My road to custom pack dev started by disabling half the DW20 packs.

I'm currently using Iron Chests for early storage and AE2 for advanced storage. I am open to finding an in between option that gives bigger storage without harming performance. Also, Ender IO's inventory panel can be used to get that 1 stop search function with a wall of chests, if necessary. I'll work on getting the complete mod list up.

 

[GamerwithnoGame]

@MacAisling Awesome, sounds good! Storage Drawers can be nice and not too evil on performance if you use the key that disables the icons on the front, I think - not sure how it behaves with the drawers that you can customise the colours on though, so don't quote me on that.

I started from the other direction Suuuuper basic, with just some QoL mods (WAILA, JEI and a few others), a couple of simple ones like Iron Chests and the Stargate mod (SGCraft - a fixture for me for a long time) and then Actually Additions for the meat. After that I started adding mods in to see how it affected performance; Roots, ExtraUtils2 (which I've rapidly grown to love), Dark Utilities, Storage Drawers. Got a couple more in mind I want to try and add, including the ChickenChunks-based chunk loader mod and Enderstorage.

 

[Pyure]

MacAisling, just wanted to mention that I don't have a lot to contribute to the thread but I am watching it because I find the topic interesting.

Probably unrelated: I'd like to see a skyblock one day that focused primarily on ore-multipliers, in conjunction with some mechanic to slowly generate ores.

I'm thinking something like Botania orchids in combination with stuff like Infitech2-style bees (which multiply rather than create resources), RoC extractors, and so forth.

The premise would be that you have a very tiny trickle of ores coming in, but you could generate lots of resources via absurdly high ore-multiplication. 10x iron would be mediocre.

 

[MacAisling]

The mod list is up.

I keep considering SGCraft because it is so damn cool, but ultimately I want that functionality earlier and easier to use. Waystones is my current go to, but many would consider it too easy too early. consider it a cooler alternative to cheating with journeymap waypoints. I think I prefer Router Reborn over Storage Drawers for that type of system, but I'd rather go with a large crate, maybe bigger stack sizes that can multiblock for more stacks, and a sort button on the GUI that doesn't screw up other inventories. But it would have to be a stand alone mod, not part of a huge tech mod.

@Pyure Regardless of the mechanics, it ultimately comes down to how much material do you generate how fast, and how selective can you be in the process. That is what I really want to discuss in the context of the specific mods I'm using. Once you get some basic automation started, gameplay becomes having enough do do while you wait for what you need to progress.

This is my 1st time using Ex Nihilo, so I'm still figuring out what I can get through the default configs as well as what I need to need to add a way to get to progress.

 

[Rishenda]

Profiled.

I will keep an eye on this development. It sounds very interesting.

 

[MacAisling]

@ICountFrom0 you know you don't have to actually open any chance cubes you find, right? And you can disable the worst of the rewards in the configs.

By default, loot bags pull from the general loot tables that fill dungeon chests, and anything that comes out of a bag can be fed into a recycler to make more bags, allowing you to filter out just what you want to keep. As it is, I could automate a system to turn wheat into ender pearls and diamonds, but my plan is to try to customize it to be more generally useful with a more reliable distinction between tiers.

Journeymap IS in the list.

Hunger in peace would only punish those who always play in peaceful, as someone who routinely switches into peaceful when I want to concentrate on building without being interrupted by mobs, it is just business as usual, not a survival threatening hardship.

 

[GamerwithnoGame]

Probably unrelated: I'd like to see a skyblock one day that focused primarily on ore-multipliers, in conjunction with some mechanic to slowly generate ores.
---
The premise would be that you have a very tiny trickle of ores coming in, but you could generate lots of resources via absurdly high ore-multiplication. 10x iron would be mediocre.

@Pyure This sounds like an amazing idea; I would watch the heck out of that. I wonder if you could take Mekanism for the up to 5x ore multiplication, and then use Rotarycraft to take it up from there? Also, Botania orechids are a nice idea; could the Actually Additions ore lens work as a possibility? I don't know how tweakable that is though. What would be nice might be a slow ore generator that could be improved in terms of what ores you get further down the line...

@MacAisling Great mod list! I'm not familiar with a fair few on that list, so I'll look those up! I didn't see what @ICountFrom0 said re chance cubes, but if it is anything like I've observed from watching the odd Project Ozone series, its that the risk/reward is just too poor with default chance cubes; something that wasn't always the case from what I observed in Journey To The Core. I suspect that if set so the negatives, while common, are not world destroying; and the positives, when they occur, are not game breaking but provide a real help (perhaps resources that can't be found any other way) then it could be a real winner.

 

[MacAisling]

With Chance Cubes, I'll probably disable the rewards that unavoidably kill you or seriously screws with your inventory, also the wither boss. If the worst you could get was an invisible ghast, and the best was a nether star, would you take the risk? You can also make a scanner to see how bad it is likely to be and pendants to improve your luck. Smart people take them far away from their base and leave anything they can't replace behind.

Just organizing the info I need to adjust the sieves is going to take a couple days. I did use NEI to dump the itempanel list to a table. Next is to reduce it to the handful I need to look at out of thousands, then organize it in a useful manner.

A lot of the mods are minor tweaks or core/libs for other mods.

 

[MacAisling]

Here's an idea for loot bags: what if you had to craft them instead of getting them as mob drops? You'd have to farm a lot of something for a chance at something better.

 

[Lethosos]

Try considering mods like MooFluids, Hatchery, and Agricraft as alternative sources of resources. With some recipe tweaks and blacklisting, you can get some interesting results...

Sent from my Puzzle Box of Yogg-Saron using Tapatalk

 

[MacAisling]

Try considering mods like MooFluids, Hatchery, and Agricraft as alternative sources of resources. With some recipe tweaks and blacklisting, you can get some interesting results...

Sent from my Puzzle Box of Yogg-Saron using Tapatalk

But those are just the kinds of mods I'm making my own pack to avoid. No growing or breeding for ores, and if you need a mining dimension, the Deep Dark is easy enough to get into these days, if not to survive. No Botania or Blood Magic, either, although I will add Thaumcraft when Azanor manages to get it done. And minimal duplication of function unless it includes some really cool and useful toys that no one else has. The goal here isn't to automate all the things to generate an infinite amount of material you will never use while bypassing the progression of your chosen tech mods. The goal is to start with a single block of dirt and conquer the galaxy.

Also, no quest book. If you need someone to hold your hand and help you get started, try the achievement menu. Several of the mods add their own.

I have a world gen replacement in ex nihilo. If you have an interesting replacement for ex nihilo that no one seems to have noticed yet, I would consider switching. The 2 big differences between what I'm doing and all the other packs out there are Advanced Rocketry and that huge clump of big mods that I am NOT adding.

If you have an interesting alternative to loot bags to give a random chance of getting something good or useful, I'd consider that, too.

 

[MacAisling]

I'm removing Clay Buckets (they won't pull lava out of crucibles). I'll just give the players an iron bucket to start.

I'm adding Actually Additions, Inventory Tweaks, Mike Dongles, and Packing Tape. This adds a little more overlap than I really want, but enough new to be worth it while still fitting in with the early to mid game flavor I'm going for, I hope.

 

[MacAisling]

I like the Water Strainer in normal packs as a source of clay for getting a smeltery going early when swamp biomes are hard to find. With Ex Nihilo, it is largely redundant, but can still save you a little grinding over time before you get around to automating everything. It could also be used to feed loot bag crafting if I set up loot bags that way.

As this mod looks like the least amount of work to rebalance and add to, let's start with it. There are 4 types of strainer with separate loot tables. The fisherman's strainer is unbreakable but requires bait, the other 3 have 3 durability levels that share the same loot table for each type, but could be configured to use separate loot tables.

The default loot is listed below. to start, I plan on adding sponge (wet, 3%), prismarine shards and crystals (5% each), and removing leather armor from the fisherman's strainer. Is there anything here you'd like to see more or less of, or anything else you'd like to add to this source mechanic?

Spoiler

Water Strainer loot list

Basic: sand 20% / dirt 18% / stick 16% / gravel 13% / clay ball 12% / stone 10% / wood planks 8% (any type) / gold nugget 3%

Tight: sand 40% / dirt 30% / gravel 25% / gold nugget 5%

Wide: stick 35% / clay ball 25% / stone 25% / wood planks 15% (any type)

Fisherman: fish 50% (any type) / leather armor 15% (each type) / stick 15% / string 15% bowl 15% / bone 15% / vine 15% / water lily 15% / enchanted book 1%

 

[MacAisling]

I'm adding Recurrent Complex as a way of adding a custom spawn platform. I'm using Mike Dongles to set the player's beginning inventory, but I don't know if I can make it a charged magnet, as the RF is handled with NBT data and not the simple meta data used in the configs.

potential spawn platform design

Spoiler

 

[MacAisling]

I've gone through JEI to determine what the sieves will drop under the default configs, list below and up in the op. Any changes I make will be updated in the op, but not here. Did I miss any material that can be used in the sieves?

Right now the heavy sieves (for compressed materials) gives the same drops as the regular sieves, but at a slight loss. since you can multiblock the regular sieves, this ends up being pointless. I think they should drop something you can't get from the regular ones, even if it is just the vanilla block versions of the ores (stone types instead of pebbles, for example). Any thoughts?

What should I be adding or moving to different materials? I'm thinking things like:
Crushed Endstone: chorus fruit, chorus flowers, ender pearls, ender lily seeds.

If you want to suggest % drop chances, please do.

SIEVE DROP LIST (WIP status: default)

Spoiler

MATERIAL
[mesh type]
drop (#x%) [#x% compressed in heavy sieve]

DIRT
[string]
stone pebble (2x100, 2x50, 2x10) [14x100, 14x50, 14x10]
granite pebble (1x50, 1x10) [7x50, 7x10]
diorite pebble (1x50, 1x10) [7x50, 7x10]
andesite pebble (1x50, 1x10) [7x50, 7x10]
seeds (1x70) [7x70]
melon seeds (1x35) [7x35]
pumpkin seeds (1x35) [7x35]
oak seed (1x5) [7x5]
spruce seed (1x5) [7x5]
birch seed (1x5) [7x5]
jungle seed (1x5) [7x5]
acacia seed (1x5) [7x5]
dark oak seed (1x5) [7x5]
cactus seeds (1x5) [7x5]
sugar cane seeds (1x5) [7x5]
carrot seeds (1x5) [7x5]
potato seeds (1x5) [7x5]
ancient spores (1x5) [7x5]
grass seeds (1x5) [7x5]
[flint]
[iron]
[diamond]

GRAVEL
[string]
[flint]
flint (1x25) [7x25]
coal (1x12) [7x12]
lapis lazuli (1x5) [7x5]
copper ore piece (1x20) [7x20]
iron ore piece (1x20) [7x20]
aluminium ore piece (1x20) [7x20]
cobalt ore piece (1x20) [7x20]
tin ore piece (1x20) [7x20]
gold ore piece (1x20) [7x20]
ardite ore piece (1x20) [7x20]
[iron]
diamond (1x0.8) [7x0.8]
emerald (1x0.8) [7x0.8]
copper ore piece (1x20) [7x20]
iron ore piece (1x20) [7x20]
aluminium ore piece (1x20) [7x20]
cobalt ore piece (1x20) [7x20]
tin ore piece (1x20) [7x20]
gold ore piece (1x20) [7x20]
ardite ore piece (1x20) [7x20]
[diamond]
diamond (1x1) [7x1]
emerald (1x1) [7x1]
copper ore piece (1x10) [7x10]
iron ore piece (1x10) [7x10]
aluminium ore piece (1x10) [7x10]
cobalt ore piece (1x10) [7x10]
tin ore piece (1x10) [7x10]
gold ore piece (1x10) [7x10]
ardite ore piece (1x10) [7x10]

SAND
[string]
cocoa beans (1x3) [7x3]
[flint]
[iron]
[diamond]

DUST
[string]
bone meal (1x20) [7x20]
gunpowder (1x7) [7x7]
[flint]
[iron]
redstone (1x12) [7x12]
glowstone dust (1x6) [7x6]
blaze powder (1x5) [7x5]
[diamond]
redstone (1x25) [7x25]

SOUL SAND
[string]
nether wart (1x10) [7x10]
[flint]
nether quartz (1x100, 1x33) [7x33, 7x100]
[iron]
[diamond]
ghast tear (1x2) [7x2]
nether quartz (1x80, 1x100) [7x100, 7x80]

CRUSHED NETHERRACK
[string]
[flint]
[iron]
[diamond]

CRUSHED ENDSTONE
[string]
[flint]
[iron]
[diamond]

 

[MacAisling]

Ender IO has quietly added mass storage, with 9 tiers ranging from "tiny" to "extended warehouse". Bye, bye, AE2! (and AE2 stuff & bdlib) Sorry, but part of the intent of this pack is smaller with fewer overlapping functions, and actually additions has potion rings to go with it's unpowered intermediate storage option.

Speaking of, is it time to set TiCo aside in favor of the AA drill? What the heck, let's give it a go.

 

[MacAisling]

Damn, removing those 2 mods did half my work for me. It also complicated what is left to do, as there is less you need to spread around and make everything useful and to balance against.

Dirt has stone pebble types, seeds, & trees: add flowers & more decorative stone pebble types, narrowing down to the more desirable pebble types, with compressed getting cobblestone & gravel.

Gravel has flint, coal, & all the metal ores: rebalance the metals with compressed getting ores instead of pieces. Maybe mix in a little sand.

Sand: move diamond & emerald here, add silicon, prismarine shards & crystals, & some dust. Use compressed to narrow it down to just diamond & emerald.

Dust: All the dye types including lapis, and any dust type that doesn't belong in the nether, including redstone. Use compressed to narrow it down more and earlier.

Soul sand & crushed netherrack: all the nether materials & some mob drops, maybe use compressed for an exceedingly rare chance at a nether star.

Crushed endstone: any end materials I can think of (most listed in an earlier post).

Well, there's 11% of a plan.

 

[MacAisling]

I'm really not that keen on Accually Addition's infusion mechanic. Now that I know Ender IO can cover the storage, I'm thinking of trading it in for something that just adds baubles for some cool toys.

While I am at it, should I really focus down and pull extra utilities 2? It would mean no mining age or world gen to explore until you get to space. A mining age isn't really necessary, but sometimes it is nice to get out and explore. If I pull EU2, I might as well pull Extreme Reactors as well. Maybe even Super Circuit Maker.

Thoughts? Opinions? Am I going for too small a pack?