[GregTech-5][1.7.10-FORGE-1355+][Unofficial but approved Port][Stable] Even GT5 Experimental is slowly getting stable.

I violently believe that Gregtech should not be designed in a way that catours to other mods to such a level that it limits itself to THEIR parameters, because other mods do not have the same implementation, goals, or spirit as Gregtech, and this is thusly a flawed and very damaging mindset.

I understand that other mods add broken, cheaty water-generators. That should be irrelevent to Gregtech because Gregtech is Gregtech, not EnderIO or Railcraft. Furthermore, those who insist on having those mods probably aren't as interested in Gregtech in the first place, so it's another case of 'why cater?' Lastly, those who really want to 'greg up' mods can and will. If water pollution is implemented as I suggested, I will disable Railcraft watertanks (which I currently use!) and other potential pure-water-generators, which is very easy to do with Minetweaker. My players won't be significantly affected installation-wise because it's just a script to add. Alternatively, one could simply make raintanks and such harder to craft- I've considered making it require sealed wood and steel or iron screws instead of just wood and iron plates. This would add some obstacle and discouragement but not remove them.

I feel that limiting Gregtech's capabilities just because 'other mods are easier' is a devaluable position that will destroy it's development and spirit both. If you remove capabilities or never implement them, you are not giving users the chocie of whether or not to use them, you are denying the choice. If you add the capabilities but allow them to be toggled, this is entirely different- They either will or won't and noone misses out. Since I feel most users would not use the simplified 'pollution = less efficiency' variable idea Pyure initially suggested, it would be a waste of time to implement which he or Asp could spend on something more productive and valuable to the community. Whereas with my idea, it would be more work but would be toggleable at master and configureable with the appeal to those who want realistic pollution, and the option to be avoided by those who would rather not use it. After all, just 'disable it' is what they would be doing if they circumvent it using another mod anyway. And if that's the route they are going to go... why are they even installing Gregtech at all?

Edit:
Also, you could perhaps just have Pwater go into a centrifuge or electrolyzer or some pre-existing machine and output normal or distilled water. That would not require a whole new machine, just a new recipe. MUCh easier than my initial idea.

Quote from Pyure

Well obviously some people do, or we wouldn't have assembled that design in the first place.

All of that is the standard "wishlist" stuff people would like to see involved with pollution. None of it is counterproductive. Some of it may be tricky to implement. None of it is "Day 1 out the door" stuff if I'm doing the implementation.

Its open-source guys. If you want to fork the project or do a pull request, go for it. If it doesn't break anything else, it will probably be accepted.

I started writing some changes that I would like to see (really minor, superficial stuff) but then I wasn't sure if my style fit in with existing GT5 code conventions and if I was doing things the "right" way. I don't want to end up making the code hideous and have a bunch of special cases that only exist because I didn't understand the code.

And i'm not a programmer, tried once and failed, don't have the mental acuity for it. Nor are any of my server's players. I don't even know what a fork or pull request IS, much less how to do them. So... I really have no option here but to give suggestions and present arguments and debate. So the 'it's open source, if you don't like it go make your own' mentality is kind of insulting and doesn't really help anyone. So I just do what Axle do: Come up with ideas and work out the logistics.

Hi guys!

After reading your points of view and suggestions about pollution and avoiding spam lava boilers for steam (and EU generation) I have an idea but I don't know if it can fit in the GT philosophy. If the lava boilers could have some kind of a cooldown mechanism, could it solve the spamming of them for energy generation? I mean, the lava boilers could work during a certain amount of time and after that, they automatically shut themselves off in order to avoid a meltdown (because lava) or a explosion (or some kind of effect) or Steve must shut them off (using a soft hammer, for example) to avoid the catastrophe. It could serve to enforce the player moving to other generators.

Edit: After reading Sapient's post below this one: We also can put a recipe for the next tier machines using the previous one as a part of the crafting, I mean, if I am going to make a MV macerator, I can make it from scratch or I can use the LV macerator as a part of the recipe for the new one.

I just want to remind you all, that simplest way to "preventing low-tech-spam" is to change recipe overclock mechanics.
It should eat 4x more energy and work 4x faster on each tier. So total energy/item value would be same for all tiers and players will upgrade they machines asap just to work faster.

I also changed in my config (thx BloodAsp for this ability) efficiency of generators. I think it should increasing any next tier (up to tier 3) and than all low-tech would be replaced by next-tech just asap.

Personally, i'm fine with the overclocking mechanics as-is. But I leave that to you. It's just the pollution that concerns me. The static variable is just a chore. The dynamic effects I suggested adds a clear penalty/reward system, has a logistical GT-oriented solution, encourages green energy, discourages high-yield powerspam options, and has realistic implementation and mechanics. Maybe i'm biased, but I can't see how anyone could disagree and say it's not better than a worldwide 'pollution slows everything' variable.

I dunno, I don't. I use LV only if the energy cost is extreme. But for like, washing? Macerating? Especially centrifuge? Double especially sifting? I'm working on going from 128v to 512v because that shit took me 3 RL days! I was processing 8 stacks of lazurite, 5 stakcs of sodalite, and 2 stacks of lapis. That crap is nuts.

But I do get what you're saying. Which is why I don't really feel strongly about changing the OC mechanics. I'm just content as-is.

Quote from SpwnX

would be just about 20% faster and 10% higher energy cost

Numbers does not matter. Main idea is "better should be better". Higher-tier machines cost more (or rarer) materials to craft, need higher voltage, better wires, so they should be better by all parameters (not only faster) than previous. And they should not be worse by anything.
Its very simple logic and its very strange for me we have it different now.

I think the current OC system is a core mechanic of GT5 and shouldn't be changed. It makes energy expensive. You can argue that you'll always make LV multimachine arrays but is that what anyone really ends up doing for anything beyond ore processing? At the end of the day if you want fast on demand crafting you need a lot of very fast machines. Parallelization only goes so far. Removing the OC energy nerf would throw the entire balance out of whack and honestly make energy crises a thing of the past. While playing (almost to fusion age) the entire game is one long energy crisis. 2x lower tier machines do not equal one higher tier machine. One takes more EU to be able to process serially.

Also
"how do you want to make your fusion fuel?"
"Well
I could make 96 LV electrolyzers OR
I could make 48 MV electrolyzers OR
I could make 24 HV electrolyzers OR
I could make 12 EV electrolyzers OR
I could make 06 IV electrolyzers OR
I could make 3 LuV electrolyzers"
those don't exist lol

Do the material costs. It just doesn't add up.

As a suggestion on how to implement 'Pwater', without making other mods 'cheaty' is to just assume all "fluid.water" is dirty and have everything use purified water, or a 'semi-purified water'. And I somewhat think would work as a 'semi-purifier', as it seems to have a psudo-water-permiable membrane and dirts/dusts would get stuck in it, however one would need some machine to remove them, centrifuge?.

Sounds tasty.

Quote from Pyure

No hard limits. I believe in soft controls in game design rather than strict ones.

Short verison:

• Machines will produce varying amounts of pollution per cycle into the chunk and dimension. Stuff like Lava Boilers will be big offenders.
• The air will cleanse itself of Y pollution per cycle. This way you can always produce SOME pollution and it has zero impact.
• Chunks will dissipate Z pollution per cycle into adjacent chunks.
• Machines (possibly any GT machine in your base) will regularly check the pollution level and if its too high, have a chance to "miss" a tick production wise. So energy will be spent, but nothing will happen during that tick.
• Higher tier machines will generally produce far less pollution than lower tech machines!!

After that I'll entertain all the usual requests about dying crops and acid rain and health impacts, etc etc. Tech balance first though.

[edit adding tldr]

tldr; Adding pollution for progression == bad, adding pollution on enhance realism and immersion into the GT theme == great

While pollution is a good subject to address, "pollution" simply doesn't effect all machines the same way. Using "pollution" to force tier advancement is equally contentious (my first thought is, "ya, no") Using it to broadly impact machine performance is simply not reasonable.

Simply a single "pollution" wont address the subject correctly. Air pollution should lead to smog -> acid rain -> water pollution -> ground pollution. "Pollution" Broadly should would mostly impact biological entities. Pollution should not be singularly to encourage tier progression. In fact properly laid out, it can encourage both progression, machine selection, and ecological awareness. Progression of energy generation may be driven by reducing air pollution, while higher tier production machines should make more of it. Lending to ecological thoughtful building, including cleaning the pollution up properly before it makes it into the ecosystem

Pollution creation:
* Air pollution for the most part should only be created by machines that burn (high emission) and melt (medium - low) emission
* Water pollution would be further produced by machines that consume water. washers (high emission), chemical reactors (high emission), furnace boilers (low)
* Ground pollution could be generated by storage or presence of hazardous materials, this also lends to contaminated biomes

Impact to machinery:
* Air pollution would impact machines that require clean air to operate: solar machines (high), burning generators (low-med), chip fabricators (high), melting (low)
* Water pollution would impact machines that expect clean water to operate: washers (med-high), steam (from not distilled water) (very high)
* Ground pollution would mostly not impact machines as it leads to air / water pollution levels
* Machines that don't have these requirements should be un-impacted by respective pollution

Impact to bio(me):
* Air pollution at lower levels (smog) should lead to quicker exhaustion and slow plant growth. At higher levels it should lead to acid rain that should damage any entity out side
* Water pollution at lower levels should reduce air capacity under water, and slow plant growth. At higher levels young animals should not grow up, it should increase the chance of having acid rain, submerging in water should cause damage, including rapid loss of breath under water.
* Ground pollution at low levels should impact movement speed. At high levels animals cant breed, ground should be visibly tainted, dangerous and require manual cleanup, mobs should spawn during the day. later mutated and / or aggressive passive mobs should occur including angry cows that attack player and other passives (killing off the heard).

Generally the more toxic the environment the more hostile and visibly disgusting it should become.

Pollution progression
starting with air pollution by burning things we should start to see smog generate in the environment and slight impact to water pollution levels and even lesser impact to ground pollution. As the player starts using machines that have higher impact to water pollution (or heavy air-pollution over time) we start to see impact into the water system, sustained pollution here creates high impact to ground contamination and the relationship between air and water pollution should be maintained (A high water pollution will result in air pollution). A similar relationship would exist between ground pollution and water pollution, and by extension air pollution. For example an air index of 100 might result in water pollution of 10 and ground of 1 (random numbers to show some relation) (after some time of it saying at 100) if we have a ground pollution of 10, eventually water and air would become 100 and 1000 if not abated by controlling measures.

Distribution, containment
Distribution similar to your prior note makes sense. The source of pollution should spread at some rate at some logarithmic rate. (similar to the reactor heat exchanger) Chunks not creating pollution should absorb some of it naturally (not very much) however would still be impacted by progression noted above. Pollution should be containable with the right tools, IRL we can minimize the production of air, water and ground contamination and there for the same should apply. For instance we can limit the amount of emissions by adding catalytic converters to ensure that pollution particulates are converted to more inter substances before emission.

Pushing tech tier
So now putting this all together in the stone age we should only see pushing in the air contamination and little in the way of impact. Starting in the bronze age we should see increased impact into the air system and some into the water system. Steel by carbon burning should see massive air pollution. Starting in the electric age we should start to see massive water pollution, mostly from ore washing and chemical reaction. and So on. Higher tier machines of the same variety should actually produce more pollution. So how do we encourage moving forward? Abatement and containment tools should only become available with products from higher tier machines. Things like simple carbon filters may help marginally with water pollution but something like a catalytic converter requires expensive and rare materials that we can only produce in quantity from pollution crating processing. So if you want to live in that wasteland you created from only using a tree farm and charcoal, you can, but it's going to be hard.

Note to above: Catalyst purification mostly uses palladium, which is AFAIK useless in GT otherwise.

Quote from Xarses

Simply a single "pollution" wont address the subject correctly. Air pollution should lead to smog -> acid rain -> water pollution -> ground pollution. "Pollution" Broadly should would mostly impact biological entities. Pollution should not be singularly to encourage tier progression. In fact properly laid out, it can encourage both progression, machine selection, and ecological awareness. Progression of energy generation may be driven by reducing air pollution, while higher tier production machines should make more of it. Lending to ecological thoughtful building, including cleaning the pollution up properly before it makes it into the ecosystem

I would note that higher tiers don't really create more pollution per say. All machines of the class should create the same amount of pollution per operation, but higher tier machines process materials faster so they can create more pollution per minute than a lower tier machine.

Quote from GregoriusT

In GT6 overclocking will be changed too. Since new Machines will accept +100% packet Size (for reference: +300% would be a tier change) and therefore run a bit faster on some Recipes if you for example dump more Energy into the adjacent Electric Motor of a Machine, it will simply run faster without loosing Efficiency (unlike a Machine of the higher Tier would).

Every time I learn something new about GT6 the same thought enters my head: "sounds complicated"

It sounds like the old GT4 upgrade module/overclocker module method, but limited to 1 (+100%), else go to a new tier (+300%).

Quote from axlegear

I violently believe that Gregtech should not be designed in a way that catours to other mods to such a level that it limits itself to THEIR parameters, because other mods do not have the same implementation, goals, or spirit as Gregtech, and this is thusly a flawed and very damaging mindset.

Good, me too. I hope you didn't misunderstand anything I said to imply that I would cater to the occasional lame parameters of other mods.
However, just so we're clear: infinite water is omni-present in modpacks. Perfect finite water is so absolutely rare that I will not cater to that limited crowd. Even without RC, EnderIO, Thaumcraft, Thermal dynamics, etc etc etc you still need to have vanilla infinite water itself disabled. Ignoring reality isn't a solution.

For the record, you tossed around some rhetoric about "broken, cheaty water generators". I agree with it despite the rhetoric. You're also really passionate about this topic. You ranted in detail. For clarity: So am I. I despise lowering GT to the level of another mod. BUT: I told you that the problem with the idea was cost/benefit analysis. Your idea is NOT stupid. Its just NOT something I am willing to commit myself to based purely on the amount of gain vs the amount of effort. Is the idea dead forever? Certainly not. But I personally won't code it in the short term, and probably not in the long term unless other variables change things.

Quote from Sapient

I just want to remind you all, that simplest way to "preventing low-tech-spam" is to change recipe overclock mechanics.
It should eat 4x more energy and work 4x faster on each tier. So total energy/item value would be same for all tiers and players will upgrade they machines asap just to work faster.

Sapient, you've actually nailed the core problem right here. Overclocking vs upgrading is indeed one of the fundamental underlying issues. There's three reasons I can't address it directly:
1) Some people don't want their machines running any faster than they already do ( See axle's concerns below)
2) I looked at the numbers and in many cases I'd either have to a) drastically slow down low-tech processed, or b) figure out how to make multiple processes happen per tick at the high-tech level.
3) I'm hoping to be able to cause machines from other mods to emit pollution (such as coal coke ovens) which would be multiple birds with one stone.

Quote from axlegear

Personally, i'm fine with the overclocking mechanics as-is. But I leave that to you. It's just the pollution that concerns me. The static variable is just a chore. The dynamic effects I suggested adds a clear penalty/reward system, has a logistical GT-oriented solution, encourages green energy, discourages high-yield powerspam options, and has realistic implementation and mechanics. Maybe i'm biased, but I can't see how anyone could disagree and say it's not better than a worldwide 'pollution slows everything' variable.

There's a bit more rhetoric here. Your idea and mine share the exact same degree of vertical dynamicism. You just want way more flavour (broader impacts). Many of your ideas are good. I hope you understand that not all your ideas are absolutely perfect.

Quote from willis936

I think the current OC system is a core mechanic of GT5 and shouldn't be changed. It makes energy expensive. You can argue that you'll always make LV multimachine arrays but is that what anyone really ends up doing for anything beyond ore processing? At the end of the day if you want fast on demand crafting you need a lot of very fast machines. Parallelization only goes so far. Removing the OC energy nerf would throw the entire balance out of whack and honestly make energy crises a thing of the past. While playing (almost to fusion age) the entire game is one long energy crisis. 2x lower tier machines do not equal one higher tier machine. One takes more EU to be able to process serially.

There's room here for both your cake and the eating of it. Theoretically we should be allowing people to Upgrade while providing Overclocking as an option.
For instance, pretend theoretically that instead of the MV centrifuge being faster than the LV centrifuge, it instead provided more byproducts. Centrifuging dirty redstone dust at LV could provide 1 tiny dust, then 1.5, then 2, then 2.5 etc.
For Overclocking, it could be a cover you place on the machine or (since I'm told this is difficult to do) a crafted recipe with a cover and a centrifuge. It would, as expected, increase the energy cost by 3x (or whatever) and the speed by 2x. That's a proper OPTIONAL overclock.

Quote from axlegear

{Something about suggesting axle can code is insulting}

Dude, I'm going to be straight and civil with you. I'll pretend you're my bro and lay out the cards, and explain why you and I butt heads.

You can dish it out but you can't take it.

You have no problem extracting an insult due to pull requests, but you seem to be pretty comfortable describing someone else's ideas as, and I quote: "makes no sense and seems to be about making the implementation super-easy and not balanced, practical, or realistic".

Not "It doesn't make sense to me". Not "appropriate to my play style.". Just senseless, simple and poorly thought out.

Quote from Xarses

tldr; Adding pollution for progression == bad, adding pollution on enhance realism and immersion into the GT theme == great

While pollution is a good subject to address, "pollution" simply doesn't effect all machines the same way. Using "pollution" to force tier advancement is equally contentious (my first thought is, "ya, no") Using it to broadly impact machine performance is simply not reasonable.

Pyure's camp: Adding pollution for progression is great, adding pollution to enhance realism and immersion in the GT theme is bad.

You see the problem? You and I want completely different things from pollution. Your ideas are fine. But they add zero value to my game. I'm coding for me. I'll add the things that make my game happier and better.

Is that selfish? No. That's why I'm having these discussions instead of outright coding. But there's two major camps here: balance and theme, and I can't cater to both in the short term. Objective 1: balance. Objective 2: if I'm not completely disenchanted by the whole process, pick and choose some of these other ideas that I like (particularly axles's) which follow the same line of thought but broaden it. Objective 3: Add cutesy theme stuff.

All of your pollution items you then list: lots of fun things but way more than I'm willing to commit to.

Finally, and I can't be more clear about this: I'm doing this for fun. I'm doing this for the people who play my style, who like hardcore progression, who care more about difficulty than aesthetics. I can't please everyone. I can't incorporate all these ideas. I am going to start with what I want, and then go from there.