Change Ore processing to give more benefits to adding ore Washer and Thermal Centrifuge

zorn · Oct 28th 2018

I understand that the centrifuge gives some materials that you cant get otherwise (silver ore is not in default IC2, but needed to make glass cables, etc.) but in a modpack where it isnt necessary to get those materials that way, the balance of the three ore processing machines pushes players to *not* make the additional machines.

MAcerator: cheap to make, cheap to run, EASY to run, doubles ores.

Ore Washer: cheap to make and run, a bit more involved to run (water) and gives a few tiny dusts, which require auto crafting to make into full dusts. Overall maybe a 1.2x ore bonus?

Thermal Centrifuge: expensive to make and run, also just gives a few bonus dusts.

I am playing Enignatica 2 expert pack and the only reason to make the washer and centifuge is because I love IC2. Other than that, no player will go beyond the Macerator. Its a lot of work for just a bit more resources.

Suggestion would be to make the macerator give the smallest boost to ore processing, the washer a bit more, and finally the centrifuge the biggest boost. Unfortunately, if the macerator were downgraded, people would be annoyed with IC2 even more, and to just boost the washer and centifuge means, for purist IC2 players, ore production that is too OP. Personally id love if the macerator gave out 1 large dust and a few tiny, and then the ore washer did the same, and the centifuge actually doubled ores, or something like that. But again, i realize that most players wouldnt like that idea.

Chocohead · Oct 29th 2018

Nerfing the macerator opens up the possibility of pushing people away from the ore processing chain completely, there isn't much of an incentive to make two machines (one of which needing a water supply) when another mod's single one can also double ores with by-products. Your logic is certainly true how things would ideally work, but compared to other mods the macerator isn't cheap to make (nor especially simple with different the crafting components) so it just has being incredibly simple to use and fairly cheap to run. From the context of deciding what to make, unless you are IC2 inclined to be producing EU people might rule out the macerator even as is. When IC2 is the only option of course this changes, but this is a minority case of when IC2 is available (probably less so in terms of when it actually gets used but that's another problem).

The ore washing plant and thermal centrifuge have to offer something extra to justify being used rather than merely making the macerator alone a worse option. Like you mentioned for silver and especially for uranium they are necessarily when you've got IC2, and I don't think any other mod has replicated the thermal centrifuge's mixed uranium output yet either. Beyond that only the thermal centrifuge has other practical uses like for getting more CF powder directly without needing an ore washing plant too, but even these are limited beyond what you need the products for. Boosting their ore output would be a reasonable excuse to add some more expensive things at higher tiers (thus counterbalancing more OP production), but that doesn't get around them functioning as glorified macerators.

The thermal centrifuge has really needed to be connected to the heat system in some way for a long time, but without real heat pipes of any form there isn't anything creative that could be done with them (other than just needing both EU and HU at the same time). The ore washing plant could be connected to the kinetic system to tumble the ore inside as an excuse, but again there aren't axles so that would just be needing EU and KU. Perhaps these avenues at least could prompt them to do more (any suggestions what? ).

That's my point of view of it at least, hard to gauge opinion of the wider player base when you don't really see most of it any more.

Share