IC2 Needs to do a Buildcraft

Very good points. I know the team is working hard but people are more and more forgetting that IC2 exists and scorning it for very little good reasons. The problem is that those people, the Community, is necessary for healthy development.

-Overhauled crops system. They could replace bee breeding and have insane potential. Making them more user friendly and relying on mods such as gregtech or even configs (like forestry) to balance them.
-CropMatron also needs a bit of help.
-Terraformer revamp, just something to stimulate the masses and get them excited about IC2
-Pipes, or an equivalent. Conveyors, pneumatic tubes, different hoppers, minecarts, whatever. Something to let people use Ic2 Standalone.

Kind of a shitty list, incomplete, but just my two cents.

I enjoy playing with crops since I did a sugar cane farm a while ago with crops, and I acciddently put one more crop to another one, and I waited. It made wheat. So I tried with different things and it was nice.
I just want to see one major change to crops : MAKE THEY DON'T BREAK WHEN YOU BREATH ABOVE THEIR HEADS.
And a way to increase the chance to get one new crop. I usually do one trick : Let's say I have one withereed in my farm, surrounded by blazereed. I'll take down all the blazereed but one in diagonal, and I'll crossbreed the blazereed and the withereed, because IC2 makes that it will eventually create something at a so low percent chance that it'll either plant one blazereed or one withereed. When I have a bunch of withereed, I harvest the first one, and I replant some crops.

I support this message.

I support most things except Yet another transport system.
Nothing annoys me more than seeing another piping system that I have to try and disable.

Buildcraft - Possibly the strongest piping system if you use it right (LP Makes it insanely good)
AE - Basicly LP with magic blocks and turned up to 11
RP2 - Slow and clunky only good for systems with no though
PR - A Shitty logistics pipes
MFR - Interesting has limitations and some of the best enchantment handling sorting
GT - Simple pipes some handy sorting machines.

Thats just off the top of my head but I can almost bet there are more.

I support this idea also

I hate multiple piping systems, but I think that IC2 needs one with just a giant switch in the config that says: yetAnotherPipeSystemGodammit: True/False for those who dont want the AE/BC/EU/GT/Etc.
I've had an idea for a mod for a while that would never work but would be awesome. The mod would contain every type of pipe and power network imaginable. Modders contribute to it and what the user would do is install the one mod and select their power system of choice.

Not sure if modders would cooperate and it would be impossible to manage.

Lulz. I'll try to work-out some concepts later when I'm done making a *special* model in Blender... Then I'll actually *TRY* to make this addon. Why doesn't the IC2 forum software call me whenever I or my threads are mentioned?

Quote from SpwnX

cause you need to make the thread "favorite" or so in your profile.

Lame. :\

Personnaly, about pipes systems, here is my opinion : I'm ok with ALL pipe systems, it's like tech mods, I'm ok if there's many.

More opinions :

@LP : It's an awsome mod, I agree
@AE : Also awsome, mainly because if you make it compatible with LP, sorting is not a problem anymore
@AE2 : Same as above, but for purely personnal reasons, I prefered AE1 ( the same way I prefer the old GT over the new one, even if the new is better )
@PR : I'm purely ok with project red pipes, they are quite cool actually, but still have a few bugs in it, and needs to be compatible with LP and AE2 ( the mod author working on it )

Also, my mod I'm making with VirMan ( we are making 2 mods together atm ) will include an autocrafting/storage part, I hope you won't hate me for that but I had my reasons for including it, and I must admit, I inspired myself with a bit of RP2 and LP/AE

Though I agree with crops being made better for people, but that topic has been brought up so many times.
And honestly BC robots, I just couldn't care less, I already have amazing OpenComputers with my recipes overhaul, for making an interesting contraptions with. Though would be great if OpenComputers robots could also see at distance, rather then what right in front of them.
So I don't think "Doing a BC" would be a good thing, as BC just added robots, which people will use, but disjointly from the rest of mod.
Like RailCraft Tanks, Rain Tanks and blast furnaces. People use them disjointly from the rest of mod, for a good reason. As RailCraft rails just not that exiting any more to most people. (Though I still use them my self)

So I believe IC2 is going a right direction, but they need a better master plan and they need to publish it, so we as players can help them with guidance. (And publish obviously here, if it would be published on reddit for example it would devolve quickly).
Currently it lacks balance and interesting interactions, since most if IC2 machines are for the sake of IC2 machines, as it doesn't give a substantial bonus to player.
Thats really armors at fault, so IC2 can introduce a more interesting modular armors for each tier, so not only machines change, but player direct benefit.
Also a better tier system would be nice, since currently there are only two effective tiers, before steel production and after steel production. And thats not much.

Though BC lacks tier system completely at the core, as Laser Assembler from it is not a very good thing, it looks cool though. But with no power loss now set up challenge for it is minimal, and contraption became boring. Only preventing you from making gates and robots before it. Though you can classify it as tier system, it doesn't unlock any more pipes or extends a base idea, it unlocks a separate one.
Though gates are useful they used by minority of people, due to fact that they clunky and BC pipes aren't smart enough to manage basic interactions without crazy amount of wiring and gating and usually just to slow.

In conclusion.
IC2 needs to bring something completely new to the table, or extend it self more in depth. Also just making a more armor tiers and making them modular and expensive would work.
Since existing Modular Power Suites Mod aren't that interesting due to fact that upgrading aren't challenging. Your base suite is suitable for everything and every upgrade, you don't have to replace much and that causes a very little depth in mod.
Though overheating and slowing down due to armor is interesting, it can be easily negated. Or just completely ignored with some upgrades.
Another option is bring huge multi blocks for machines, that could be interesting. Since all other mods which offer similar functionality (besides GregTech for obvious reasons) are rather OP and forgot to balance them against sanity.
Or perhaps more intricate upgrades and machines assembly?
Really there is a lot of options, but making crops slightly easier won't cut it as they don't really do much(besides giving you easy resources occasionally) compare just to exploring. It isn't like it gonna make player reasonably faster for a prolonged amount of time. It is very disjointed.

Quote from Chocohead

I think you're expecting too much from essentially 2 people who have apparently busy lives, and just don't have the large amount of time to add so much more past the occasional break like Thunderdark had a few weeks after I wrote this originally.

Well to be honest, I don't expect anything, it is all up to them, but I just wanted to add to a topic.
I don't really play IC2 in it's vanilla form anyway, as I have GregTech.

Quote from Chocohead

The main issue is what mods you have dictates what you make of how useful something is. If you drop TE, GT and MFR, you're left with Buildcraft to move stuff, IC2 to process it and Forestry to automate farming (providing you don't have anything like Flaxbeard's Steam Power or Rotary Craft). You missed the main message I was trying to get at anyway, I was trying to say IC2 needed a change of direction in order for something new and different in the way Buildcraft did, which did happen, we got the Heat and Kinetic mechanics. Based of disjointed conversations with various people, it seems eventually, heat machines will replace normal EU generating generators, or at least the basic tier ones. Claiming IC2 only has a tier below steel and after seems wrong anyway, as that was the difference between a normal Machine Block and an Advanced Machine Block before. Tiering is as much down to how the player uses the mod as it is the mod itself. Buildcraft has tiering through gears, the higher tier machines needing better gears. You just skipped over this, expecting a rigid definition the way a mod like Gregtech does it.

That is an excellent point, I wanted to talk about a value of a mod compare to other content offered, but I though my post was getting to big.
Though BC pipes can be very intricate, it is retardly difficult to do a precise automations. (Try to keep exactly 3 items in one inventory without having your supplier build getting stupid big).
But this Gears from BuildCraft aren't real tiers IMHO, as one tier of them doesn't really unlock next, they just crafting requisite. It is my personal opinion of cause.

Quote from Chocohead

Interactions with other mods never really was IC2's thing too, Forestry added the electric engine, and past a few addons that did the same thing, that was all that was needed. The issue with interactions is that if you suddenly let RF power IC2 machines, you've lost the entire power generation mechanic to another much simpler, cheaper system. EU -> RF is less bad, but with the simpler and cheaper RF generators, few people would use that easier. There just isn't a way to make it work out IMO without completely breaking IC2's more balanced nature and go all out 1 EU = 1000 RF or something equally crazy to let it compete. Buildcraft pipes have the same thing, they are very well balanced and logical with Buildcraft and it's addons, but compare it to RedPower's tubes or Thermal Dynamics (that's the new item duct one right?) they suddenly seem worse. The interesting way you wire things up with Buildcraft make it interesting, not clunky, so again it's down to how the user uses the mod that determines how useful it is.

When I was talking about other mod interactions, I never though of having power supplied from other mods as it would indeed ruin any repaints of balance.
Though we getting a latest very sad trend where mods removing IC2 power from where it existed before(definitely not pointing fingers at MFR <.<)
RF power definitely ruined a lot things for me as it is to effortless and to plentiful to have a challenge.
Also about wiring in BuildCraft, it is very interesting indeed, but I found a base system lacking. Not having insertion pipes(though recently they did appear, which is a good thing) in base mod is rather sad, and keeping track of items in travel is difficult, without using other mods redstone(I just hate vanila redstone) controlling such systems can get difficult and items are easily lost within it.
The biggest fault of BuildCraft that each time you send an item through it, you have a risk of loosing it. Which upsets most(including me, I hate risking my items). If buffers are full items will start popping out and despawning if you don't pick up.
Would be good if item just would get stuck in pipe and could be recovered by player.

Quote from Chocohead

Just adding more armour to fix the problem wouldn't necessarily help anyway, since mods like Tinker's Construct are adding armour avoiding weapons, so unless you make the Quantum Suit bypass that bypass, you'll never get anywhere else just adding more things in the way to make. The gap between the nano-suit and Q-suit I do admit is too large, but Gravi-Suite was always there to fill that gap, or Combo Armours which does a similar thing to what you described.

[/quote]
Tinker's Construct not suppose to be taken seriously. It's balance is non exsistance compare to other mods.
Also I believe Gravi-Suite is rather extreme solution which also doesn't give much besides armor and protection. Having speed buffs would be nice.

Quote from Chocohead

Mutliblocks could too work, but they'd need a reason to. The Railcraft rockcrusher is literally useless past firestone smashing, as there's much cheaper and better solutions no matter where you go. Even someone who doesn't like IC2 any more would probably pick a macerator over it. Expensive things need purpose, which when machines can be upgraded to near instant processing, new multiblocks would need a new problem to solve that people would be willing to accept as necessary.

Rockcrusher is notoriously famous at being useless and poorly balanced against other mods so let's just leave it out.
By multiblocks I meant a more efficient versions of existing machines.

Quote from Chocohead

Making machines even more intricate to make would only upset people more, the masses have already turned on IC2 for changing how to craft stuff, making it harder would just make the problem worse, and so people would use IC2 less and thus be more counter-productive than the current update drought.

I meant operation of machines, wouldn't be interesting to be able to dynamically tweak speed/efficiency and maybe improve some chances. So for example maccerator would have multiple macerating heads so they can runs at different speeds/efficiency. And compressing engine for compressor.
And making crafting slightly more intricate would be nice.

Quote from Chocohead

Maybe the solution is to integrate crops more if they're disjointed for the rest of IC2. They never made much sense looking at the rest of the mod's theme and only the Crop Matron and the Crop Harvester can do anything useful with them EU wise, the only ever mod to contribute was Forestry allowing it's old single block farms to harvest IC2 crops back in 1.2.5 to 1.4.7 (that was a really good addon BTW). Forcing people to use them would again cause backlash with people complaining that they're boring and slow, but there must be some middle ground if they're to be used more by the masses. Thunderdark's crop overhaul might do that anyway, we've been waiting for it for months, meaning it's hard to suggest anything more decisive if it's going to clash with the internal builds that have changed crops enough already (probably).

Definitely a good idea, but I was giving my ideas as other ways IC2 can go.

It is a good to just have a conversation. It brings more potential ideas to light.

I personally find buildcraft pipes to be much easier and more fun to use then other pipes. That's just me though.

On another topic, I feel the drop of MF is better for IC2; supporting EU is more of a priority without it, since it's more or less moved from the third most popular power source to the second.

I'm all for adding multiblocks btw, a straight line of machines is way overrated and ugly. They need have some sort of special use though, like more advanced machines as Terr said.

for the multiblock machines: maybe adding tiered grinding heads/compressing pistons?engines?/ihavenoideawhattheextractoruses/heating coils to be able to process different stuff. like, yoou have a flint grinding head, for stuff like bonemeal and blazerods, an iron one for some ores, and a diamond one for everything/ most things and an iridium one for everything(or you make the different heads with different efficiencies and speeds, because no oredoubling for everything util you've got diamonds will scare of people again, i think). for the compressor: maybe an ironstone one for basic stuff, and a steel one for everything. for the extractor, maybe whateverituses in different tiers for different efficiency? and for the induction furnace wuld use different heating coils for different processing speeds and energy efficiencies. that's just what i thought of right now, so it might have to e balanced, but it would make sense.