[Suggestion]: Overclockers and More for Generators

1st Official Post

    Ok, not exactly like using an overclocker inside the generator, but an item that would increase energy output of generators. For example, each upgrade could increase generator efficiency by something like 10% stacking, up to a maximum of 64. This would help to improve current energy generators while also helping to save build space. Another possible function would be to add transformers (to increase output from the devices) as well as being able to add storage devices to generators themselves. As for the recipe for an efficiency chip, as I'll call it for now, I can't say anything solid since I'm not sure of all the implications behind trying to balance it to keep it useful, but it would most likely have to include glass, insulated copper cables, and an Electronic Circuit. It would also most likely need something like a cooling or lava cell to craft.


    After doing a few calculations it would either have to have a lower than 64 stack limit, cost even more than that, or have a lower efficiency return, since with 10% at a 64 stack it would turn out to be 44579% as efficient as the base machine (or the equivalent of just shy of 446 machines). This would make the solar generators slightly less efficient than the Advanced Machines addon, but make all the other generators more efficient. To keep it a bit more balanced probably make the efficiency chips limited to solar, wind, and water generators.


    Maybe make the chip something like:
    :Bronze Dust: :Intergrated Plating: :Coolant Cell:
    :Cable: :Electronic Circuit: :Cable:
    :Coolant Cell: :Intergrated Plating: :Bronze Dust:


    Where :Bronze Dust: is redstone dust and :Intergrated Plating: is glass.


    Anyway, this is just something I'm throwing out there that seems like it would be an interesting idea that would help keep power plant sizes manageable within the addon itself, while adding another dimension to keep people interested. And I can't wait to see what you guys have in the works, especially with MC 1.2 in the works with Jungles and the new crop system ^^

    Well that's why I would want to try to find a way to make it balanced in both how much energy it helps the machine produce with the mats it takes to add these items to the machines. Another possibility would probably be able to compress a machine, such as a solar panel or water mill, and turn it into a chip of that machine type that will add a flat (non-stacking) 70% more energy efficiency to the machine it's added to, so you could compress other machines into one machine to increase space efficiency at the cost of energy efficiency. If nothing else I think the idea of improving generators in and of itself kinda fits with the idea of advanced tech, but it would be to find a way to balance it while keeping it interesting.

    It's hard, if not impossible, to make any type of upgrade that would work in all types of the Generators without being overpowered in one or more.

    ...What? There's no pineapples here.


    GENERATION Pineapple: The first pineapple you see, copy it into your sig on any forum and add sqrt(-1) to the generation. Pineapple experiment.

    I don't think you quite understand how generators work: They obtain a 'fuel' and convert it into EU. That fuel can either be flowing water, coal/charcoal, lava, sunlight, biomass (Forestry addon), heat from nuclear fission, heat from Nuclear Fusion (Rocket Science add-on) or any other Forge Mod items that apply as a fuel in the Forge API... You CAN NOT increase the gain you receive from these fuels because of the mechanics behind them. (You can, however, tinker with the output settings in the config. file)...


    But no, a 'generator overclocker' makes no sense. You can't get more energy out of a fuel by adding a device to a machine manufacturing EU. You can get more energy out of a fuel by readjusting the nature of a fuel, but that's something different entirely...

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    Quote

    this isn't about arrogance or ego, I have a block that I put a lot of freaking work into


    Every Mod Author, in existence. And yet, you STILL say otherwise.

    So what you're suggesting is that you also can't get more energy out of a fuel by making the machine more efficient at converting one form of energy into another? So I'm guessing solar panels in real life will never be viable, car engines will never get more powerful or efficient, and wind turbines will never be able to harness all of the winds power either. The whole idea behind this concept is that your'e making a technological improvement to the machine that makes it use the energy input more efficiently, not that the fuel suddenly has more energy contained within.


    And yes, I realize it would be something that, as a single item, would probably be hard to balance if it affected all types of generators, but that why it's a very loose suggestion rather than something a more rock solid "it has to be this" kind of suggestion. I just saw an opportunity with the additional items and gui changes to throw out a suggestion that could possibly make the add-on more space efficient as well as a bit more technical, which is why some people use the Adv Machine add-on for the HV solar array, though that said that one is a lot more balanced in terms of mats and output.

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    So what you're suggesting is that you also can't get more energy out of a fuel by making the machine more efficient at converting one form of energy into another? So I'm guessing solar panels in real life will never be viable, car engines will never get more powerful or efficient, and wind turbines will never be able to harness all of the winds power either. The whole idea behind this concept is that your'e making a technological improvement to the machine that makes it use the energy input more efficiently, not that the fuel suddenly has more energy contained within

    No, that's not what I'm saying... I'm saying that Overclockers can NOT influence the EU generation of a generator. Yes, you can make it more efficient, but that's a different aspect of technology that you are asking for. Overclockers actually are LESS efficient for their use as they over consume power to reduce time. As such, technology to make generators more efficient are not similar to the nature of time saving technology of overclockers...

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    Quote

    this isn't about arrogance or ego, I have a block that I put a lot of freaking work into


    Every Mod Author, in existence. And yet, you STILL say otherwise.

    How about using more of that generator as that the overclocker. Placing a solar panel (stack) in a mod slot and it operates as if there were that many independant solar panels operating, then you'd need the transformers to up the output voltage to match or it'd blow the cable up :) Given you could then make a single solar panel out 193 (so MV cable and one transformer) the cost is the same as if you made lots of them, and had a huge solar array. Maybe a depreciating return on stacks? That would balance the savings on the cables/batboxes. Or maybe make a 'mount' costing some tin or copper cables and maybe a circuit and some coolant cells that have a maximum stack size of 16. This way you can impliment it and limit it's use at the same time... How about maxing the stack at 4, and 'loosing' the power generated by the generator, so a single solar panel can output 16. Higher output gens would probably need transformers to allow for the higher cabling.

    193 is above MV.

    ...What? There's no pineapples here.


    GENERATION Pineapple: The first pineapple you see, copy it into your sig on any forum and add sqrt(-1) to the generation. Pineapple experiment.

    Well overclockers for fuel based generators would mean something like increase burn rate by 20% and increase output by 10%. Means your generator will output 11 EU/t, but one coal lasts only 80% of the normal time. For non-fuel-based generators it is doesn't really make sense and would be quite hard to balance. If you want to compress solar panels you can use the advanced machines, but the other free generators (wind and water) shouldn't be able to be compressed anyway, makes it overpowered as setting it up requires a lot less space now. Imagine a single windmill outputting 128 EU/t, as it consits out of 64 wind mills, day and night, while only requiring the space of one normal windmill. Same holds true for watermills.

    But in the case of windmills, having more of them will mean you'll most likely have some of them running while others are not, but if you focus on one windmill with the upgrades if it goes out you'd lose the function of the whole thing. So while a group of say 64 windmills could have a throughput of 128 E/t, you probably won't get that all the time, and while some windmills aren't running others might be running so you'd still get some energy since they cover a larger area. With a single windmill it's more susceptible to the winds since the area covered would be less. Now if you, say, made an area with 64 windmills that each had max upgrades, then yea that would probably produce a ton of energy, but I think that would also be well deserved considering how much mass production would be put into play for that kind of endeavor.


    Oh, and don't limit the ideas to straight overclockers, I just used that term in the title to grab attention. As stated in the first paragraph, it's more of an energy production efficiency addition. This is more of an idea to lower the space needed to produce lots of power to help supplement the raised power costs of machines with the overclocker upgrade (which can, with enough upgrades, eat up to 8k EU/t), as well as any future machines that may consume massive amounts of energy. I would hate to see the wind power plant that would be needed to produce that kind of energy :X


    Edit: Just saw the post above. The major difference between our suggestions would be the slot to put the item in (you suggest battery slot for the solar panel) and the range of generators that would get use of the items, but it sounds like a decent proposal in terms of the nuclear reactors and geothermals, not sure how efficient adding a "heat recycler" to a solar panel would be though, though it would be a form of improving the tech. As for the armor, while not being heat based, 1.70 did bring that solar panel helm and static boots.

    • Official Post
    Quote from Daemonblue

    But in the case of windmills, having more of them will mean you'll most likely have some of them running while others are not, but if you focus on one windmill with the upgrades if it goes out you'd lose the function of the whole thing. So while a group of say 64 windmills could have a throughput of 128 E/t, you probably won't get that all the time, and while some windmills aren't running others might be running so you'd still get some energy since they cover a larger area. With a single windmill it's more susceptible to the winds since the area covered would be less. Now if you, say, made an area with 64 windmills that each had max upgrades, then yea that would probably produce a ton of energy, but I think that would also be well deserved considering how much mass production would be put into play for that kind of endeavor.


    Oh, and don't limit the ideas to straight overclockers, I just used that term in the title to grab attention. As stated in the first paragraph, it's more of an energy production efficiency addition. This is more of an idea to lower the space needed to produce lots of power to help supplement the raised power costs of machines with the overclocker upgrade (which can, with enough upgrades, eat up to 8k EU/t), as well as any future machines that may consume massive amounts of energy. I would hate to see the wind power plant that would be needed to produce that kind of energy :X

    I can place 1600 wind mills using 32x20x32 (max height possible and space efficient design) and generate about 2000-6000EU/t
    Want a screenshot? i can post it here if you want

    That is pretty darn big, if I do say so myself, and I would very much like to see a screenshot of it, just to get a picture of how big it is and how much space it would take to produce enough power for several machines that are overclocked to the cap :O

    Quote from SpwnX

    Here it is :


    It is at server Inventioncraft [IC² server list] (play.inventioncraft.com)

    ...Well, that took my breath away.

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    GENERATION Pineapple: The first pineapple you see, copy it into your sig on any forum and add sqrt(-1) to the generation. Pineapple experiment.

    Quote from FenixR

    Overclocker Upgrades are valid in machines because you trade power consumption for Increased Process Speed.


    Something like that in generators would be too much of a broken feature because you only get beneficts without any kind of disadvantage for it.


    Still there is an option.


    You have two values:


    EU per Fuel-Unit
    EU per Tick


    Coal provides 4.000 EU per Unit at a rate of 10 EU/t. With one overclocker you could increase the second by 10% while reducing the first by 3%. So a piece of Coal will only give you 3.880 EU but at a rate of 11 EU/t. Although this is most likely balanced and would work quite well I doubt that many people would want to do it.

    If I'm not mistaken, fuel durations are fixed.
    On other side I want upgrades to be used on all IC machines, not processors only.

    first off..... good god, that is alot of wind turbines, second, you should set the up in a more effective array, you could get like 15 times more power out of those things. the best array i found is to have them at layer 125 in rows, each turbine in the row is spaced by 1 and each row is spaced by 2, then drop the tin cables down by 3 and fill the 2 wide gap at the bottom of the 3rd with solar panels, this is the most efficient array with wind turbines and a touch of solar panels you can create without worrying about your wind turbines destroying themselves in a thunderstorm.


    however, you also gave me a great idea if you have thousands of them and would rather have server stability instead of energy efficiency, instead of using cables in the middle, just have a column of MFSs with their outputs pointing down. this gives me a few new ideas, lol. that would also create some very rediculous mass energy storages for my Mass Fabrication plants.


    ok, however.. back to what i was originally going to post. how about we simply make something like a "Generator Array Block" for solar and wind turbines. these would be a single block that would react much like a Reaction Chamber on a nuclear power plant. however make the inventory only accept solar and wind turbines. the generators inside would still produce energy and function as they might outside of this Array Block, but basically you would use a Solar Panel or Wind Turbine AS the upgrade, so say if it have a 9by6 inventory inside and you filled it all with solar panels, then it would output 54 EU/t, and if you put a wind turbine in it then i suppose have set values, like (generator array block height)-1 per block inside of the inventory. so a max energy output as though the wind turbines were at layer 80. that way you wouldn;t have to worry about the Array Block destorying itself or coding that in as well.

    "the more people i kill, the better the chances are that i got the right one" ~Goblin Assassin: MtG