[Suggestion] Energy crystals only for craft items and for transfer energy use batbacks.

Empty RE batteries are stackable, why not just make empty energy crystals and empty lapotrons stackable? Wouldn't that make more sense? (And easier to code?)

I agree. No reason for uncharged items to be unstackable - but they still have that "empty bar" so it seems that it's coded such that an "uncharged" item is in a different state than an "empty" one somehow.

On an unrelated note, if you're crafting 8 MFSUs, cry me a river about the inventory space you need.

you need to replace fully discharged item with other item that can stack, due 16k itemindex limit this is not problem at all.

Quote from SeNtiMeL

Better if you separate items for craft and for use. Crystals for craft items and batpacks for use and transfer energy. In this case no need charge state in crystals and code be simple. It will be very useful.

But you see, crystals are expensive items, making the function they provide even more expensive doesn't make much sense at all. Rename and redraw crystals to batteries if that is the case. Still doesn't change a single thing.
Crystals are used for energy storage AND as a crafting ingredient.

All I can say is there is NO reason at all, to ever use energy crystals to store power. I cannot think of a single place where you would use them. Wanna keep your mining laser charged longer in the mines? How about your drill, Chainsaw, Nanosaber? And why would you use them for luminators, if they take just as long as batteries to recharge them, and in any reasonable place to use them, you would use cabling anyway?

Oh wait, One place to use them. I have a geothermal base in the nether, and I want to transfer some back to the overworld, which produces Tier-2 levels of power (not enough to fully charge a laptron/lack MFSU tech on both sides) and I will use energy crystals to transfer the power. This is a relatively short duration, after which laptrons will be used instead, since you take 10x as much power per trip, maximum.

Well, people DO use them for power transfer and like i said. Making them stackable when empty solves the problem without having to make any additions or changes to the recipes. RE batteries are stackable when empty thus it makes sense to allow the crystals to do the same. Why complicate things in a suggestion needlessly? It only means that suggestion is less likely to be included.

If however you had another good reason as to why all power transfer should be in bat packs instead then maybe the suggestion would make sense. But just FYI, the normal bat pack CANNOT be used to fill a batbox but a bat box can fill the batpack. This is by design!

I use an MFE to power my miner in the field. Because the amount of energy used in a dig depends on what it finds down there, I want power I can pull back out if it winds up unused. So a generator isn't going to suffice.
So, crystals are a necessary part of the operation.

Quote from HeadHunter67

I use an MFE to power my miner in the field. Because the amount of energy used in a dig depends on what it finds down there, I want power I can pull back out if it winds up unused. So a generator isn't going to suffice.
So, crystals are a necessary part of the operation.

Do you get butterflys when your about to wrench said MFE? I do.

Quote from dragonherald

Do you get butterflys when your about to wrench said MFE? I do.

That is a viable method, as long as you remember to install the Invaluable Working wrench addon, that prevents them from failing randomly.

Quote from dragonherald

Do you get butterflys when your about to wrench said MFE? I do.

Have you (or anyone else for that matter) had an MFE break on you when you wrench it?

As far as i can tell, looking over the source code, MFE's should not break from wrenching.

public float getWrenchDropRate()
    {
        return 1.0F;
    }

That is the default wrench drop rate.

if(world.rand.nextFloat() <= iwrenchable.getWrenchDropRate())
                    {
                        arraylist.set(0, new ItemStack(i1, 1, j1));
                    }

That is the code for when you wrench something. If a random float between 0 and 1 returns less than ore equal to "getWrenchDropRate()" the block is returned as normal.

Since the MFE doesn't implement IWrenchable, nor does it's base class TileElectricBlock, nor does that base class TileEntityMachine. The first class in that chain to implement IWrenchable is TileEntityBlock. (Used for all things IC2 pretty much)
The MFE uses the standard wrenchDropRate from TileEntityBlock (Which is 1.0F) and as such should NEVER break from wrenching. The same applies to bat boxes and MFSU's.

And before you go thinking that a random.nextFloat() <= 1.0 means there is a chance that the random.nextFloat will return 1.0 and this break the machine. If it could do that then all machines that shouldn't break from wrenching could break when doing so.
But yeah, random.nextFloat() cannot return a value of 1.0...

Quote from &quot;http://docs.oracle.com/javase/1.4.2/docs/api/java/util/Random.html#nextFloat()&quot;

The general contract of nextFloat is that one float value, chosen (approximately) uniformly from the range 0.0f (inclusive) to 1.0f (exclusive), is pseudorandomly generated and returned. All 224 possible float values of the form m x 2-24, where m is a positive integer less than 224 , are produced with (approximately) equal probability. The method nextFloat is implemented by class Random as follows:

Code

public float nextFloat() {
      return next(24) / ((float)(1 << 24));
 }

not every machine can be broken by wrench.
any machine that shoud be mobile have 100% wrench rate.

Quote from dragonherald

Do you get butterflys when your about to wrench said MFE? I do.

I use the 100% wrench success add-on, so no. My only worry is accidentally wrenching it when it still has energy in it.
I don't find random breakage of expensive equipment to "enhance" my fun in any way.

I use my foreign miners in a Fair. As used in mining the amount of energy that depends on what, where, I think I can pull back, if it does not use the power winding. Therefore, a generator is not enough.Therefore, the crystal is an integral part of the operation.