[IC2 Exp][1.7.10] Advanced Machines 1.1.6

    Quote from AtomicStryker

    A redstone Signal keeps an Advanced Machine running (to not lose the Momentum), so YES.

    The concept was though, that when idling it wasn't losing momentum but it also wasn't processing so thus wasn't using it's full power needed to run. Induction furnace does the same as this, it idles on less power (It's like 1 eu/t, looking at the current use of an induction with redstone signal.) but doesn't use the full power required (16eu/t at 100% heat). As these machines are basically the "induction furnaces" of the other machines, should they not also follow the same logic as the induction furnace in this regard?


    To put it in a real world (yes I know it's a game) example, my car when idling burns far less fuel then when it's actually moving the vehicle. Not the best example I know, but to keep something at momentum when it's not working against anything, or has no friction to go against, uses less power than when it is pushing/grinding against something. A lot of machines use this principle to save time and power in RL industry.


    EDIT: I will say, I am grateful for the work you have done in upgrading this. I just do feel this does miss the point of the advanced machines idling, considering that with upgrades the spin up speed is pretty tiny anyway.

    Hmm seems to work better than last time. Tested it and Singularity compressor and centrifuge extractor works. The macerator keeps crashing my minecraft. I've tested changing the gui ids with no such luck. I'vent seen any particles but I bet thats just me. On servers when you first put a lever next to a Adv machine it starts building up heat but doesn't show it's activated stage until you either turn off the lever and then its shows the activated state. You can then turn on the lever build up heat and it'll show. Thanks for making some of it work for servers! Also how do you change texture and sounds?

    Quote from AtomicStryker

    You disregard where their development is pointing to, i expect the Induction Furnace to either be removed or changed completely in the next patches. Then it will probably become part of Advanced Machines instead.

    My main issue is that currently the advanced machines and induction furnace are so different, so I'm avoiding this update for now. Based on what you say though, I'll have no issues in the near future, and will definitely use this if the induction furnace comes with it.

    Think I'm gonna be testing this soon. I've been missing the advanced machines for some time now.


    Though it seens there might still be a few issues to be dealt with, however I like the changes so far. Though I would like, that the idle state only consumes 1EU/t


    but overall thumps up ! :Industrial Diamond:


    /MG0

    Weird bug, place rot/ macerator on isolated fibre cable run, put in two transformer upgrades, plug into MFSU and it blows up. Have three others running on the run with no problems, each with two transformer upgrades.


    EDIT: Tried with 4 transformer upgrades, still explodes. Issue with advanced machines using transformer upgrades?

    Quote from Solymr

    Weird bug, place rot/ macerator on isolated fibre cable run, put in two transformer upgrades, plug into MFSU and it blows up. Have three others running on the run with no problems, each with two transformer upgrades.


    EDIT: Tried with 4 transformer upgrades, still explodes. Issue with advanced machines using transformer upgrades?

    Currently an issue.

    Quote from pwnedgod

    Currently an issue.

    I'd say it was something in 3.4, because the ones I placed in 3.3 worked fine with the 512eu packet current and the transformer upgrades. I still have two of the ones I placed on there with that.

    Updated to 3.5, fixed some of those issues you reported aswell as some mechanic changes.



    The change to Low Voltage was necessary to give Transformers a reason to exist. A non-Upgraded Advanced Machine is still a lot faster and more efficient than a standard machine, assuming you put a full stack of whatever in.

    I really appreciate the update and fixes, but to be honest, I think the nerfs and recent changes really have taken this concept far from the mod as it was before the current string of updates for it. I personally felt they were fine as was, no upgrades or speed changes. To be honest, it feels to me as if we're just getting these so watered down now that we'll just stick to the standard machines and no longer care. I do understand the need to change as IC2 changes, but the recent changes to this mod rather sadden me. This is all my personal opinion and do feel free to disregard, but I think at the end of the day people just wanted Advanced Machines, no upgrade modules or nerfs/changes. It just doesn't feel the same anymore to me.

    For someone playing a modification massively changing the feel and flow of Minecraft, you sure whine a lot about changes ;)
    I'm actively adding to this mod, allowing people to have more control over their machines. How much energy they eat in the end is a secondary concern to most, at best.

    Quote from AtomicStryker

    For someone playing a modification massively changing the feel and flow of Minecraft, you sure whine a lot about changes ;)
    I'm actively adding to this mod, allowing people to have more control over their machines. How much energy they eat in the end is a secondary concern to most, at best.

    Like I said, just personal opinion. I'm sure a lot of people probably disagree with me, and I admit I could even be wrong. I don't mind the upgrade modules at all, as opposed to when first reading about them thinking they weren't worth the time of day. I suppose what I was expecting was just Advanced Machines, working on 1.71, but then I don't have a right to expect such from someone doing it as a hobby.


    I would make one request, in that the base max speed of the machines be configurable in the config file. That way if one server/person wants them to run faster or slower, its a matter of personal taste and choice. If it's too much work/effort, totally understand, would just be a nice thing.


    EDIT: It does seem to me though, it is cheaper now to just run a macerator upgraded than a rot. macerator in turns of Eu/T to achieve the same speed. Not sure if this was intended balance wise and since it's 2am in the morning I'm falling asleep and don't have exact figures but I'll see if I can do some comparisons before I go to work tomorrow. My main concern is if it's cheaper to run a macerator at the same speed as a rot. macerator, does that make the double output (or triple for the extractor) the only tangible benefit?


    2ND EDIT: Still using 3.4, however I did a test with a macerator and a rot. mace to grind 64 charcoal, both units had 13 OC upgrades, 2 transformer upgrades (rot. mace was placed in 3.3 before 3.4 upgrade) each running on 512eu fibre with about 14 MFSU's feeding in series and 5 energy storage upgrades each.


    Macerator: 13.29 seconds, about 900eu/t power use
    Rot. Macerator: 19.95, 1300-1400eu/t power use. This was already at full speed with a redstone signal, from 0 speed it took 21 seconds, as with OC upgrades the speedup time is greatly reduced.


    As these are figures from 3.4, they obviously are now outdated. However, looking at them its clear that the Rot. Macerator has no gain at all over a standard macerator with the same upgrades, in fact it takes longer and uses almost double the power. As the notes for 3.5 read, these use even more power and the speed increase is less per upgrade as well as the base speed being lower, I can only imagine the difference between the two to be greater and in favour of a the standard macerator. With the figures above, at least in the case of the macerator, these changes have pretty much rendered Advanced Machines impotent and far behind their smaller, supposed less advanced units in regards to power efficiency, but as well as speed which was one of the key points of using Advanced Machines in my opinion.


    Sorry if this comes across as complaining, I'm just putting the facts up there now. Anyone is welcome to draw their own conclusion from this. I'll be upgrading to 3.5 tomorrow and doing this test again, as well as testing the Compressor and Extractor against their Advanced counterparts.


    3RD EDIT: Just downloaded 3.5, full stack of charcoal on rot. ace with same upgrades took in excess of 35 seconds. I couldn't measure power use, however, as with a redstone signal being fed into it it didn't appear to use any at all? But if we take the update notes into account, we are looking at extra power use on top of longer speeds. 35+ seconds as compared to 13-14 seconds, and intended to have more power use. Results with the compressor and extractors were identical with the above upgrades used.


    Base machines with 13 upgrades, 2 transformer upgrades and 5 energy storage upgrades: Approx 13 seconds to process a full stack, approx 900eu/t used.
    Advanced machines with same upgrades as above in 3.5: 35-36 seconds to process a full stack (redstone signal had machine sped up to full speed already). Cannot get reading on power use, very small amounts from 50-120 were seen pulled perodically, this is believed to be a bug as the update notes indicate energy use should be greater than seen in 3.4 with this setup.


    Conclusion: In 3.4, using the upgrades outlined above, base machines were faster on average by 6 seconds and used around 900eu/t, while Advanced Machines used 1400eu/t and took (as mentioned) 6 seconds longer. As it stood, the multiple outputs of the advanced Extractor and Macerator made them somewhat useful to use still, if only marginally. However, the Singularty Compressor has no advantage at all and is difficient in every way from the base Compressor machine making it useless.


    In 3.5, these shortcomings are made more profound. Base machines (again using the above upgrades) taking only 13 seconds on average as compared to the Advanced machines taking 35-36 seconds on average. The difference in speed seen in 3.4 is now far larger, with Advanced machines taking near triple the amount of time to process a full stack. If we take power use per upgrade to be increased further for the Advanced machines, the double amount of power used in 3.4 becomes much more in 3.5. Even with the multiple outputs, the Advanced machines are near useless in comparison. Using BC or RP pipes makes the multiple output a moot factor. In my opinion, there is no point to use an Advanced machine as it is outclassed heavily by the base units. It seems to me this "nerf stick" was applied rather like using a club instead of a scalpel, in fact rather than be nerfed, it was clear with the 3.4 results that Advanced Machines needed a boost to be rebalanced and given purpose again.


    So, yes, I'm complaining. But this time I'm complaining with a buttload of facts. Take them as you will. :) My simple advice would be to have just upgraded them as they were in 1.64 and leave them as is. Not sure if that would have required less coding, but I'd imagine it would have been the easier path than adding upgrades.


    LAST EDIT: Found another bug, put in 20 OC upgrades to see if I could abuse to near to no power use of the advanced machines in 3.5, machine refused to power on at all after that even after removing the OC upgrades and was pulling everything it could out of my MFSU's while not showing any power or processing anything at all. This was an extractor, just to be specific.

    Yeowch, that is a crazy nasty speed for something as expensive as an advanced machine...I agree, while I do like the idea of putting upgrades in advanced machines, that ability is not worth the completely useless speed. These machines DO NOT need to be 'balanced' with their basic counterparts. Back when people loved these machines, they cost a shitload more, used a TON more power, and provided equivalent increases in productivity. Now that they can have upgrades, somehow people think they need to be slowed down so they are 'balanced' the balancing is the cost in creation and base energy cost, which should either stay that way and remove upgrade functionality, or just ramp up EXACTLY like basic machines with upgrades. Because the upgrades don't get more or less expensive depending on which machine they are in, the recipe stays the same, so why should they do such vastly different things? Oh, and low voltage is just insulting as the base voltage for these machines. Think about it, you use the old machine, and an advanced machine, plus whatever else for the upgrade, yet they are forced to low voltage? What's the point? Making transformers useful? They already are, no need to artificially increase the cost.

    Here, i wanted to try out Google Spreadsheets anyway so i made one


    https://docs.google.com/spread…d0Ymh5VlBxdkR3VWZBaDBFNUE



    All calculations are taken directly from the sourcecode.



    As you can see, the Advanced Macerator in v3.5 is quite superior in both speed and efficiency, if you pop in a full stack or had it fully running. The first Overclocker has the biggest improvement ... after that, the standard Macerator just declines in terms of Efficiency.


    .....


    Jesus whoever coded that really sucks at Math. Or perhaps i do.


    .....


    Also, you have to remember the java functions of IC2 and AdvancedMachines brutally cast double to int in this computation (no rounding), which means the underlying Math just breaks once you reach a certain amount of Overclockers (i think below or around 10).

    This is no longer 'Advanced Machines'.


    Not sure what to call it either. I was right to avoid updating, as the Avatar of the OP is totally accurate to what has happened to the mod...

    ...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.

    To me, the entire point of Advanced Machines was a much faster production time at greater power cost. In 3.4, if using no upgrades, essentially you have this. It's using 3.5, even without upgrades, it's just simply not worth it. As they stand now, they are a step backwards, not forwards. They stand a lot better as an alternative to upgrades, instead of trying to merge the two. That way you can just upgrade the base unit, but the power cost goes up dramatically or you can use the advanced machines which should be a set speed/power use but still a major step ahead an unupgraded base machine. I don't mind the transformer upgrades, if we can just go from 128 to 512 because I'm lazy and makes it easier than putting down MV transformers, but I don't mind giving that up for plain old advanced machines. At least then, they'd serve a purpose.


    Just to clarify, when I say set speed/power use I mean can't use upgrades. The whole spin up concept as was made perfect sense, it's exactly how RL electric dynamos work.


    AtomicStryker, what the source code says it SHOULD do is well and good. I'll test with varying amounts of OC upgrades tonight as I"m about to dash to work, but I will do an indepth analysis and post my results. I still strongly stand by my opinion that, in the current form, this mod is essentially pointless in that base machines are faster and use less power with upgrades. This might be proven wrong by my results tonight, but my gut tells me it won't be.


    I will say though, 3.4 advanced machines with no upgrades is essentially what Advanced Machines were, in regards to base speed and power use. 3.5, one word: Bleh. The issue with this is that to balance upgrades and the advanced machines and use them together will take an extensive amount of playtesting and tweaking. Essentially with 3.5, you have advanced machines that are half as fast, use more power when upgraded and to get near the speed of the old advanced machines, you need over 10 OC upgrades anyway, in which case you're burning through 1000eu/t and the base machine still clearly outclasses it in terms of speed and power use ratios with 10+ OC upgrades. But again, more details tonight.

    Generally, when a mod has been a certain way for a long while, and many people enjoyed how it was, the way for mod developers to make the greatest number of users happy is to make a change that they wish to implement configurable.


    Now, I'm not sure how viable this option is in this scenario, but if it's possible, it should be considered (or perhaps reconsidered, if it's already been thought over).