Suggestion: UUM Converter

1st Official Post

    As you may know, UU Matter is a very helpful substance. However, there are not very many options for use of this expensive material, as it can only be used to create Iridium Plates or a small variety of usually non-renewable objects. But, the UUM Converter will allow more options for the use of this now useful matter. Previously you would use a crafting table to get items from UUM Matter, but not anymore. Now you just place an item in the template slot, insert some UU Matter in the bottom slot, and apply power to the machine. Different items would then require different amounts of UU Matter and energy, depending on the how rare/valuable the item is, preventing "cheating". Since you are no longer limited to a 3X3 crafting grid, there are a lot more options for use of UU Matter.


    My current idea for the crafting recipe is:
    :Advanced Circuit: :Recycler: :Advanced Circuit:
    :Advanced Machine: :MFS-Unit: :Advanced Machine:
    :Glass Fibre: :Compressor: :Glass Fibre:



    Yes, I know that it is expensive, but it is a very helpful and powerful machine.


    Please comment below with your ideas and sprite ideas!

    I like it, put UUM in the input slot and the material you want in the reference slot, and it pumps out product.


    Kind of like the new EE machines, except not super overpowered as fuck.

    Um, you may have not read the whole post. My idea was not to place a reference item, but to use a scroll list and slect from that list, making it so you can get a diamond without originally having a diamond. However, you would have to power the converter to convert the UUM Matter.

    Honestly I like 2nd poster's idea better. That way you have to provide a reference object that you yourself took the time/mats to make. Should allow you to put ANYTHING in the slot to be copied...that way I can deal with the gold/tin deficiency on my map.

    Quote from Krazygluon

    Honestly I like 2nd poster's idea better. That way you have to provide a reference object that you yourself took the time/mats to make. Should allow you to put ANYTHING in the slot to be copied...that way I can deal with the gold/tin deficiency on my map.

    Haha, actually when I look back on that, I agree, but you still should need to apply power.

    Ah, yeah, I did miss that bit.


    Either way works actually, just UUM is awkward as it is now, making you expend, for instance, 7 UUM if you want a single piece of gunpowder.


    And yes, power it. Power everything. I expect powered trees eventually.

    Of all the suggestions in the last few months, this one is my favorite to date. Great idea.


    It's such a good idea that I actually had to stop lurking and comment.

    Interesting, but wouldn't this make diamonds alot cheaper (and thus making industrial diamonds :Industrial Diamond: pointless)? I mean, without it it would take 9 million EU to create a diamond, unless u have lots of scrap. With this what do you plan for it to be? Apart from cheap diamonds seems like a decent idea though :)

    Quote from teknofreeck

    Interesting, but wouldn't this make diamonds alot cheaper (and thus making industrial diamonds :Industrial Diamond: pointless)? I mean, without it it would take 9 million EU to create a diamond, unless u have lots of scrap. With this what do you plan for it to be? Apart from cheap diamonds seems like a decent idea though :)

    You need regular diamonds for other mods that use diamonds. :3

    I might suggust renaming it to "Replicator". It adds a nod to Star Trek, and sounds cool. :) I personally like the idea, it makes it so that you can skip the whole need for a 3x3 grid. It also is better than the BC automatic crafting table since it only requires UUM, and it wouldn' get stuck on items that don't stack. I have noticed that crystals and other unstackable items make mass production on the automatic crafting table impossible. It may or may not be fixed in the future.


    Either way, this would make UUM useful, and add another cool machine, I am all for it. :)


    Oh, I would suggest having it be able to store energy for being able to create smaller/less costly items quickly.

    I've already created something like this with a complex system of redstone and bc pipes. All I have to do is pull a lever and it starts making whatever item I want, but this would be much better. Without bc 3 I can't let it just run. I have to stay close to the chests to make sure I don't run out of item X which would then start to waste resources.


    So :Industrial Diamond: for this idea!

    Hey, I finally got an account on the forums.


    As to the topic, I think this is a good idea but needs refinement. I think it should be an advanced workbench that, once you put a recipe in the crafting grid and put matter in a separate slot, it should be able to make more advanced things than a regular crafting bench, such as iridium plates. The recipes would vary from the regular crafting recipes.


    Alternatively, it could also make items that are obtainable elsewhere, for cheaper. For instance, it could make industrial diamonds from a single compressed coal ball and some coal dust, rather than 8 compressed coal balls and a piece of obsidian.


    As a cost to this amazing new technology, the Advanced Workbench would be difficult to craft, and it would also require resources each time you create something with it, taking a piece of matter and several hundred thousand EU to do the job.


    If I were to make this add-on, the hardest part would probably be the GUI for it.

    The only way I see this actually working is to assign every item possible an energy cost. Said energy cost would be based on the ingredients and permutations required to construct the item. For all of the normal minecraft and IC2 items this could be pre-calculated; I'd highly recommend adding buildcraft and RP2 items to the built in list too. For any other items it would have to work backwards through possible recipe paths until it hits known cost ingredients. The cheapest path should become the price.


    Said price could be paid directly in energy (built in UUM creator that never exposes it) or in energy and UUM (works sort of like scrap does in the mass-fabricator; but reflects the high power of UUM) (also at higher speed here).

    • Official Post
    Quote from MJEvans

    The only way I see this actually working is to assign every item possible an energy cost. Said energy cost would be based on the ingredients and permutations required to construct the item. For all of the normal minecraft and IC2 items this could be pre-calculated; I'd highly recommend adding buildcraft and RP2 items to the built in list too. For any other items it would have to work backwards through possible recipe paths until it hits known cost ingredients. The cheapest path should become the price.


    Said price could be paid directly in energy (built in UUM creator that never exposes it) or in energy and UUM (works sort of like scrap does in the mass-fabricator; but reflects the high power of UUM) (also at higher speed here).


    Ahem, if i write a recipe-reading code capable of calculating costs based on recipes, why don't i just use same one for the basic IC recipes as well? Redundancy much.
    Wouldn't work, however, because any sort of refillable item would instantly cause a lockup.

    I don't see your refillable item lockup case; refillable items only get more full; it might branch out a bit finding the cheapest cost, but at worst it's just a large number of paths that all have endpoints. Caching the cost at each recipe would also help a lot in these cases (and calculating the set before hand implicitly does that).


    The idea is that iterating over a potentially vast number of recipes (such as the ones RP2 adds for block manipulations) may be excessively time consuming.