[Suggestion] Rename Splitter Cable to Relay and add a upgraded version call Contactor.

The splitter cable has a real world equivalent, a Relay for low current situations and a Contactor for high current situations. Due to everyone mistaking that a Splitter Cable is for splitting power to two lines, change it to the term used in the real world for the exact same devices.

Also I feel as of right now it is unbalanced, it gives you EU Loss the same as tin but carries the power of HV cable.

I recommend the following:

Modify the recipe slightly so now instead of HV cables it use coper, gold, or HV cables for tier 1, 2, and 3 power, using the same electrical properties as the source cable. You can give then the names:

Copper Cables - Relay
Gold Cables - Contactor
HV Cables - HV Contactor? (I can't think of a good name)

Ah, I do not really use fiber cable, so I did not know it had 512 capacity but with .025 loss. Even then, this is still a balance issue, it is like getting 1 fiber cable for very low cost (2 3xIns HV is worth a LOT less than 1/4 diamond IMHO, but maybe I am wrong).

I good solution could be make a 4th tier cable called "High Efficiency Contractor" (HFC) that used fiber cable for it's source and it would have the exact same properties as the current switch cable. You could convert all current switch cables to HFCs and not break anyone's current setup.

EDIT: While we are at it, make a "High Efficiency Relay" (HER) that has the same properties as tin so now we will have a complete 1:1 mapping from cables to "Switches"

Quote from raa1337

However, the EU lost should be increased.

I would disagree, I say keep it the same but make it require fiber cable to craft instead, as it matches fiber cable's properties perfectly. The main agrument for this is people may have built setups that require it to be .025 EU/b with 512EU so changing it could break their builds. I say just make the current version require fiber cable and then add versions for the rest of the cables (Or at least Copper, Gold and HV, Tin I could take or leave, but if you are making 4 out of the 5 types of cables, might as well be consistent.)

It should not take too much code to add the other types, if IC2 was open source I would do it myself, (if you want to PM me java for the current switch cable I would be willing to re-write it, I just don't have the time to commit to try out to be a full time developer so I never thew my hat in when Al was asking for people when IC2 started)

How I would do it is just to make sub items based off of the base swich cable that exists now and have it just change the texture to match the type of cable (Which would be the same texture just A different color dot to represent the cable type like current cables do) and change the

If you don't want to implement the new cables, please at least change the name from splitter cable to Contactor (or Relay if you are afraid too many people will not know what a Contactor is).

I just had a 2nd idea. I was thinking about BC's new AND and OR gates, and this would require a lot more code so I do not think (or expect) this would be implemented, make both the Detector cable and the Contractor items you put on existing cables instead of being cables themselves. Instead of having to make a different switch cable for each type tier of power you could make a single type and it would be applied on top of a existing cables, similar to how BC3's new AND and OR gates work.

However I doubt this is doable without a major rewrite of how cables work/render so I stick with my first suggestion as my main goal of how I think switch cables should be changed, I just wanted to put this out there too as food for thought and maybe something to put on the list for IC3

Quote from raa1337

I don't know of any lower tech that would require a lower splitter cable.

I will conceded that point. In fact I would be perfectly happy with nothing changing at all except the name, but it requiring fiber cables too would be good, fixes balance.

However I could see Extreme Voltage projects using them. So maybe the best solution would be rename Splitter Cable to Relay and make it use Fiber instead of 3xIns HV cable and then add a 2nd item with the current recipe that acts like 3xIns HV wire for EV projects and call it a Contactor (Which ironically was my original idea (except I did not know about fiber) that I based my original idea on. Everything old is new again.

Quote from raa1337

Not sure if having it require two Glass Fibre would be nice, either- Kind of expensive. Dunno how the recipe could look with it using one Glass Fibre.

Why not just have it give you 2 when you make it?

Quote from SpwnX

Changes v1.51 -> v1.60:
http://forum.industrial-craft.…page=Thread&threadID=3993
Check line 19 please.
Both Splitter and Detector cables EU loss have been increased to 0.5EU/b

Huh, I guess someone should go update the wiki then