A Collection of Suggestions for IC2 Experimental

Since the mod is still heavily in development, I feel like this is the best time to make suggestions. They are provided as-is, based on my opinion and playing experience. For all suggestions made, I aim to provide an example of how I would do it; but if you like the suggestion but not my example, that's fine as well. They are mostly aimed at improving the nebulous concept of "user experience" - improving accessibility, simplifying uneccessarily confusing things, improving the fun factor and modernizing outdated mechanics to today's accepted modding standards.

1.) Replace all references to "voltage" with "power". Only EU/t remains under the new e-net; talking about anything else only confuses the player. Thankfully, only few instances remain ingame. A lot of them are replaced with either "tier x" or an EU/t figure already. What remains are mostly transformers. Instead of "LV transformer", for example, we should maybe have a "LP transformer", or a "tier 1 transformer".

2.) Remove step-up functionality from transformers. Stepping up is performed automatically by the e-net, by simply connecting multiple sources to the same cable. Setting them to fixed step down mode by default and removing access to the transformer GUI will do it. (Right now, the transformer GUI is only an invitation for user error.)

3.) Rework the crop system. Yes, potentially big change, but you can do a lot to make it more usable with very little effort. The biggest issue with it currently lies in the cryptic and counter-intuitive mechanics related to biome choice and elevation dependency. Simply removing that, and basing performance completely on the current biome's temperature and humidity, will instantly result in the whole system becoming vastly more accessible and logical. As another change, making the crops compatible with Forestry farms (again, they used to be but are not anymore) could provide an automation solution. Players can put crop-matrons just above the plants on a multifarm in order to provide water, fertilizer and weed-ex as needed.

Here's a more detailed collection of ideas on how things could work:

4.) Add iridium ore to all loot chest types. Currently, there is a chance of 4.5% to discover iridium ore in a dungeon loot chest - a roughly 1 in 22 chance on average. However, dungeon loot chests are only a small subset of the loot chests the player can find in the world. Currently you cannot find any iridium ore in abandoned mineshafts, in nether fortresses, in strongholds, in desert temples, in jungle ruins or in NPC villages. As a result, it's a perfectly realistic expectation to have to open over 50 chests without finding any iridium ore at all. I would know, I opened 60 chests without luck and then gave up and cheated some ore in.

Content gating by random number generator is a really, really bad idea. For example, you won't find any MMOs where, upon creation of a guild, the game randomly decides that the guild will be allowed to raid boss X but not boss Y or boss Z. Unfortunately, IC2 currently does exactly this - a fair number of players will be locked out of the entire endgame of the mod through no fault of their own, simply because of bad luck streaks in both world generation and loot list population. Adding equal ~5% chances for iridium ore to all chest loot types will still result in streaks of 30+ unlucky chests with regularity, but at least the player will have a chance to discover some ore regardless of which types of loot chests the world generator decides to give them.

5.) Re-tune the UU-matter system. The division by six when using scrap always results in terrible numbers that are hard to memorize and unintuitive to handle; in addition, the value of scrap is so low that making UU-matter to replicate a single item takes entire quarries' worths of recycleable blocks. This promotes (or even enforces) the cannibalizing the landscape and creating hundreds of laggy automatic cobble generators by the player, both of which are things that make the player extremely unpopular in the eyes of server admins.

I made this suggestion before in a discussion thread; I have replicated the details in the spoiler here for convenience.

Quote from RawCode

there is no voltage, Alabaka never stated that V part inside LV HV EV is voltage.
current implementation is "frame in tick" there is no power.

Power is energy over time. EU/t is energy over time. Therefore EU/t is power. But let's not argue semantics on a suggestion post, okay?

Quote from RawCode

stepup is frame limiter, removing it will make energy net unmanageble

The energy net automatically steps up by adding all power per tick together. You don't need transformers to do it if the capapbility is already inherent in the network. Transformers stepping up have no usecase that cannot be replicated 1:1 without the transformer, just by connecting the cables.

Quote from RawCode

for scrap, just change UUM cost from 10kk to something lower in config.

The energy cost is not the issue. The uselessness of scrap and the silly division of 10 by 6 is. The point in my suggestion is that it doesn't actually change total energy need all that much, and the details can be ironed out later.

6.) Remove or modernize the legacy "biofuel" mechanics. AKA the stuff made with plantballs in a compressor/extractor/canning machine row. I've seen multiple people both here and on the FTB forums being completely confused by it, because they all expect the "filled fuel can" to be filled with a Forge fluid, like MFR biofuel or Forestry ethanol.

IC2's biofuel probably stems from a time when mod-added liquids did not yet exist; this biofuel is not a canned liquid, but rather a solid fuel item, like a piece of coal (except that it returns the empty can). It's an anachronism in today's modding scene, much like watching a Ford Model T trying to merge onto a modern highway. As a result, its usage is completely unintuitive and the result is not what people expect to be getting out ot it. From a usability standpoint, it needs to go. I expect that this is one of those low-priority systems that is slated to be looked at when all the important stuff is taken care of, but have a suggestion anyway:

Option one - conveniently enough, nothing in IC2 actually creates plantballs other than the player's handcrafting. So simply removing it outright breaks nothing and doesn't hurt anyone.

Option two - IC2 could maybe make the "biofuel cell" that is produced as an intermediary step a real, liquid holding cell that can be emptied to receive a fluid dictionary compatible liquid - something that's equal to for example Forestry biomass (it's green! and made out of plants!), and/or automatically becomes Forestry biomass if Forestry is actually installed. If such a thing is possible to code, that is, I'm just making stuff up here. Anyway, this liquid could be burned in the semifluid generator at the same rate as Forestry biomass, or used with the fluid capable canning machine to turn it back into a "filled fuel can" to be able to use them in solid fuel burning generators, like before.

Quote from RawCode

If your energy net have multiple energy sources all machines will request power from every device and burn up in process, placing transformer limit number of request to 1, your suggestion to remove transformers remove energy tiers completely.

Please quote me where I suggested to remove transformers? I have in no way, shape or form suggested anything like that anywhere in this thread.

Quote from RawCode

Some people can's think at all, this is not reason to make everything casual.

...Nevermind, you just disqualified yourself from any intelligent discussion.

Quote from Hallow XIII

I do like your suggestions, but I think you may have gotten a little mixed up with your crop mechanics. Especially the part where you propose to fix too much water with more water.

Hmmm... mixed up, you say?

"If desired humidity is higher than what the biome offers"
--> plant desires wet but biome is dry
--> lack of water, not too much water

This really isn't on topic of my thread though. I'm trying to suggest user experience improvements. If you want to protest the Ethanol changes, you should probably do so 1.) in a thread actually on that topic 2.) to CovertJaguar, who made the change.

Quote from Player

It's not that hard to find iridium or dungeons btw.

Then how have I not found a single piece in two RL months worth of gameplay and over 60 chests opened, enough to get a full collection of music discs... three times over? The point is that the setup as is only works "on the average". But in individual cases, low percentage values like that are incredibly streaky, and that's exactly what happened to me. And it will happen to others and frustrate them and drive them away from using the mod.

As for the rest... I'm aware it's not finished. That's precisely why I am making suggestions now, as opposed to after it is finished Maybe my lack of insight into internal plans will render most of them unusable, but I've hopes that somewhere in my brainstorming there will be a few usable bits and pieces.

Thanks for the insight on the plans for voltage, though - playing with power systems is one of my favorite parts, so I'm looking forward to seeing the final implementation down the line!