Suggstion: Block Counter

    I'm working on building a city with a utilities center - I'd like to see a block which keeps an active count of units of energy which pass through it - perhaps a cable piece - which can be reset. This would allow a person in multiplayer to "sell" power. Just an idea.

    What I'm asking myself right now is this: "Application-specific and easy" or "universal and hard"? Consider these two examples:


    a) A machine which lets you specify an amount of EU you can "buy" per IC2 coin you put in. The coins are then only accessable by you. You are to provide the energy infrastructure behind it, but it's pay-per-EU for the customer. Of course, a pickaxe will let a griefer bypass that block easily, so the question about "what domain of people are we talking about" arises, but that's a different story.


    b) A cable which blocks EU transmission when under redstone current and a cable that sends an ultra-short pulse per single EU per packet that traverses it, intended for use with RedPower's counters. Of course, this brings up the problem of a second only having 20 ticks. Without a special kind of redstone signal bus, you'd have a problem. Were you to take the 16bit bundled cable, though, you'd be able to analyze the energy usage of up to around 32MEU/t. That would require mod interaction with RedPower, which is neither going to happen, nor very helpful.


    If you want to create an application-specific machine, the question is: Is the application relevant? In the case of SMP servers getting power from "the city government", I'd say "Yes, for newcomers." These could just buy charged RE batteries and get a big portion of their money back if they return the empty ones. But then, another question arises: Since anyone can craft money, how do you deal with inflation?


    It seems to me that, with the current "economic" component of IC2, your goal, however sensible, is not well achieveable :(

    Ahem... Al is currently working the bugs out on a machine from IC1: the Energy-o-Mat. Owner can set EU prices, and once the EoM recieves payment it "closes" the circuit to say, a MFSU and allowing the buyer to insert say a battery, Energy Crystal or Lapotron.

    Still, Industrial Credits are easy to craft, resource-wise. You'd need a special license system to knowingly balance this out, or am I wrong?

    Quote from X-Heiko

    Still, Industrial Credits are easy to craft, resource-wise. You'd need a special license system to knowingly balance this out, or am I wrong?

    No, I get what you mean. I was just stating that Al and the Devs do have a machine for this. I suppose on a server, someone could be appointed "banker" or something along those lines and only they could create the Industrial Credits or give everyone a certain amount to begin with.

    The IC credits are supposed to be craftable. The idea is to force the use of a lossful trading of commodities in exchange for services. A trade-o-mat could be used to 'convert' other objects in to IC2 currency. Also, this explains why the energy-o-mat isn't in the wiki items area...

    Another thing to look at - when dealing with prices or such there are already other mods and such out there such as permissions which restricts the destruction of blocks within an area or the such - and the power grid suppling the power could be protected all the way to the end user. Also, plugins like iConomy which have a built in currency could be used which would allow for a controled use of currency. All I would need is a block which only counts the amount of EU which has passed through it, and which can be reset. There is already a way to close the circuit if needed which means if they don't pay for the power they use, it gets shut off.


    Another thing that might be really fun is setting up the block to allow only so much EU to pass through it before it closes itself. Same idea as above but expanded, allowing people to pre-purchase power and then use up to the amount they paid for.


    Also I'd like to give that Mat block a try mentioned above. Might be interesting and fun to play with.