Making solars less OP

Quote from passinglurker

actually lets not nerf nukes the level of power you are talking about requires resources, skill, and risk equal to how powerful it is (that and you can BREED 8 cells from 1 ore not craft 9 cells from 1 ore breeding is even riskier cause it requires you to almost overheat your reactor to make it worth it so don't go calling for nerfs on things you know nothing about) in fact lets not play kingmaker with the generators at all the adjustments are so small and the effects so great we should just leave generator balance to alblaka and stick to suggesting concepts and ideas. let the devs handle the hard numbers

Nice, it seems you didn't read my post at all and you have clearly never used nuclear power so don't try to say that I don't know anything about reactors. You CAN get 9 uranium cells from one uranium by first making it into eight near-depleted cells and breeding those. Then you use those uranium cells, preferably in a casuc, and after the cycle has finished at least 25% of the cells should turn back into those near-depleted cells. 8*1,25=10 and some of the uranium goes to breed more power producing uranium cells. Of course you need a few starting uranium to do that but once you get going that cost is pretty much nonexistent. And breeding isn't hard, at least that is how I see it. It just requires some starting resources just like any other nuclear power anyway.
Now, read my post again with the (minor) changes I made to it around five minutes after posting it, just in case someone misunderstood something or didn't get my sarcasm(like you, clearly). And I would go as far as to say that the only real unbalanced generators are solars, they simply have a too low output/cost ratio, I would never use them myself.
I agree with the fact that devs should decide about how much the generators produce and how much they cost, because otherwise all of the green generators would already require constant replacing of stuff so that they would be quite useless/pain in the a** to maintain or their output would be 0,1EU/t from every 8 iron.

Quote from jppk1

Nice, it seems you didn't read my post at all and you have clearly never used nuclear power so don't try to say that I don't know anything about reactors. You CAN get 9 uranium cells from one uranium by first making it into eight near-depleted cells and breeding those. Then you use those uranium cells, preferably in a casuc, and after the cycle has finished at least 25% of the cells should turn back into those near-depleted cells. 8*1,25=10 and some of the uranium goes to breed more power producing uranium cells. Of course you need a few starting uranium to do that but once you get going that cost is pretty much nonexistent. And breeding isn't hard, at least that is how I see it. It just requires some starting resources just like any other nuclear power anyway.
Now, read my post again with the (minor) changes I made to it around five minutes after posting it, just in case someone misunderstood something or didn't get my sarcasm(like you, clearly). And I would go as far as to say that the only real unbalanced generators are solars, they simply have a too low output/cost ratio, I would never use them myself.
I agree with the fact that devs should decide about how much the generators produce and how much they cost, because otherwise all of the green generators would already require constant replacing of stuff so that they would be quite useless/pain in the a** to maintain or their output would be 0,1EU/t from every 8 iron.

big wall-o-text here so i only skimmed it but i get the feeling you are mad at me so here is me saying sorry for being rash and aggressive about something in the wrong place and time and distorting what you said

If you consider the 2 circuit used to craft the solar pannel, it needs 10 Refined Iron to craft.
But the cost is high too in Redstone (2 for the battery, 2*2 for the circuits) if you consider there's strangely less redstone with IC² (only my, maybe, but it happen me with more than 20 worlds) than without.
And last but not least (If you don't have tons of rubber Tree, for example at the begining), it cost you 13 Rubber ...
I don't think it's a good Idea to decrease the output of solar panel, when Windmill are easier to get, produce more EU, with or without sun.
Solar panel are just easier to use, considering that a 512 EU/t solar station is easier (but not cheaper) to build, even if there are means to make the same with windmill.

And for 0.1 EU ... it's ... just 30 solar panel for 1 windmill (assuming you use it very high and in good biomes, and of course because it works day AND night) ?
I don't speak about Nuclear reactor, of course ...

Maybe you understood it, but I love using Solar Panel: in big farm to produce UU matter

Summary of conclusions resulting from this thread's discussion:

- solar is OP

- If solar is OP so are all renewable's

- If renewables become worthless, forestry, duh?

- If anything nuclear is OP, but people are retarded

- Solar is UP, but people are retarded

- HELLO?!? Config file = win?

- leave it to the devs

Anything I missed?

People seems to missunderstand.

ONE Solar is UP.

a HUNDRED solar and up is OP.

Theres is power in the fudging numbers motherfudgers.

Free energy gens are OP because you only need to make and place them, when you make a FRIGGING lot of them its when things become OP. If people are sensible enough with that shit placing less than 20 or so its regular. (Price of these gens are bullshit, because nothing in this fudging game is limited, you just need to walk a few chunks away to find more)

Non-Free energy gens don't have this problem because:

A) Either the process to make the energy source to feed them its too annoying or something for the abuser in particular.

B) The energy source to feed them isn't particularly easy to find and/or impossible to make (Lava and Uranium(Insert failed URanus joke here) fits here)

C) Automatically feeding these generators can be either lag inducing or rage inducing.

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Free energy gens are OP because you only need to make and place them, when you make a FRIGGING lot of them its when things become OP. If people are sensible enough with that shit placing less than 20 or so its regular. (Price of these gens are bullshit, because nothing in this fudging game is limited, you just need to walk a few chunks away to find more)

Hence why my standing argument has, and always will be: If you don't understand why the technology does exist, then don't bitch about it being in the game...

MINECRAFT may be an infinitely generating world... But THIS world isn't... And if you want to blame someone for the existence of Renewable energy in the game, then blame Alba for simulating our current energy generation means from this world into Minecraft...

THAT's the main reason why arguments about Solar and Renewable OP'ness is, above anything else, dumb and retarded. Industrialcraft simulates some of the technology that we have available to us in real world industry. Solar, Wind, and Water ARE available to us in real life. Hell, go buy a DIY book about how to set up your own solar or wind power. It's not terribly hard, and really pays for itself if your project is small scale...

So anyone who wants to complain about how OP solar or renewable power is, obviously doesn't understand the reasoning behind its existence. Minecraft may be just a 'game', but the technology is real, and has a greater purpose. Just because you can't think outside of the game to understand that purpose, doesn't mean you have the right to deny the existence of that technology within the game...

After reading this thread i felt the burning need to register an account, just so i can toss out here an idea for a compromise that would add a little lasting inconvenience WITHOUT having to make solar units break, or permanently nerfing their EU output into irrelevance.

now on one side of this coin there is the fact that solar panels in real life typically last a very long time, as long as they are not damaged or defective, on the other side of this coin people arguing to have them nerfed seem primarily annoyed with "solar spammers" riding the easy train with massive solar farms that lag SMP servers to hell, and require no further effort after being built.

what i have not heard in any of this is anyone considering a very real downside to Photovoltaic Arrays in real life, they accumulate dirt and dust, depending on the local environment they can get very dirty, this saps their output, sometimes a little, sometimes a lot, when this happens there is only two things that can help, rainstorms, or manual cleaning.

now before anyone argues against this idea with something like: "but the spammers will simply take advantage of the rainstorms in Minecraft." that wouldn't guarantee them anything, besides being random, rain rarely cleans all the dirt off of solar panels in real life (why should it be any more effective in Minecraft), and it doesn't help them in deserts where their no rain at all, or worse in the cold biomes where they get to add snowfall to their headaches.

so then spammers using 100+ unit solar arrays would have a huge headache of cleaning all those solar panels, otherwise the bottom will fall out on the arrays efficiency, thus they get left with a choice of periodically cleaning a massive number of arrays, or they have to settle for greatly diminished returns on their laziness, even a loss as little as 10-20% would add up quickly on large arrays, visually it could be as simple as having the actual cells on the top of the block become darker as dirt builds up.

as an added bonus, certain tradeoffs can be worked in, such as say having solar panels produce 50% more power in desert biomes, with the tradeoff being both they get dirty 50% faster, and lack of rainfall would necessitate manual cleaning.

plus having certain other biomes such as swamps make them get dirty quicker without any upside, making them a less desirable option there.

I'll admit i don't know a whole lot about coding, but in theory the changes could work something like this:
so you have a single solar block in the desert at high noon, by being in a desert its EU output has increased 50% to 1.5EUT, but its built up enough dirt/dust to drop its effeciency 60%, so instead its putting out 0.6 EUT.

that loss in efficiency will only get worse until it gets cleaned, at which point its output will shoot back up to 1.5EUT, until inevitably it gets dirty again.

the dirt/dust variable doesn't even need to be all that complicated, this example assumes it can range from 0-4, with every level above 0 incurring a 20% loss, with each cell building up dirt at a rate of say 1-3 levels a day.

the basic cleaning tool could be a rag made from a cotton block and a bucket of water, with say each block yielding a couple of rags, and its electric counterpart could be some sort of power washer.

i know it would take a fair bit more coding to pull off (and i figure it would require two or three more data variables that each solar cell block has to keep track of), but this seems to me a fairly effective way to cut down on "solar spammers", by making solar power a little more involved.

Trying to compare the Real world with the Game world its like comparing Tomatoes with Potatoes.

In the real world things work that way for a reason.

In the minecraft world things work that way because of the dev team. The dev team could make gravity become gravy sauce if they want! Nerfing the Green Gens is NOT impossible and doing so would be a choice in design to make the game more enjoyable to everyone else. STOP trying to force feed that staying true to "Realistic" system because Realism its worth crap, we are playing a game and if stuff creates a rift that could make the game less enjoyable for the people then that stuff have to be dealt with, either by getting rid of it or making it less of what it actually is.

Once again, STOP with claiming realism every single turn for every potential nerf. If its OP it has to be dealt with realistic or not. If you have any other reason besides "Realism!" to not nerf the generators then im all hears, if that is the only excuse im going to keep hearing in every single post then i won't bother reading anymore of those either.

(And no before any genius think about it, i have never ever have defended realism to the point i would take a bullet for it, at best i have defended the point of making the game stay more industrialish which is the theme of this mod not frigging realism)

@Above: iirc making solar panel collect a opaque layer of something (snow, dirt, etc) have already been suggested several times as a possible solution to make worry free generators stop being worry free (At least in the case of solars)

I'm new to this forum so i was not aware it had been suggested before, though when you say that it has, do you mean to imply that its already been considered and rejected?

Quote from Misone

I'm new to this forum so i was not aware it had been suggested before, though when you say that it has, do you mean to imply that its already been considered and rejected?

well you read this thread and you probably notice how every one but cpy and fenixR basically said "not this again" it has been an on going debate for a while (last time it was brought up a couple of server admins wanted alblaka to merge part of the old advanced machines addon in to ic2 cause they depend on the advanced solars to cut down on lag but the addon's dev went inactive). really the op-ness of items only matter in smp so if someone believes something is OP they should contact their server admin who should have many options available to them such as.
1. config options to disable green gens
2. manually enforced laws and server rules that limit the number of green gens a player can use at once
3. compactsolars addon (ok this is a buff but it cuts down on lag)
4. plugins that delete all the green gen blocks every few weeks
5. when all else fails bring it up with the mod dev and ask for a config option

but it possible this is just a problem we are making up in our imaginations so raise of hands right now who here is or knows a genuine solar-spammer(i.e. an individual who relies completely on solar farms for power to the point that the server experiences lag, and despite the lag the individual will defend his supposed right to build solar farms)

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Nerfing the Green Gens is NOT impossible and doing so would be a choice in design to make the game more enjoyable to everyone else.

Nerfing them to unreasonable levels detracts from many player's (including mine) enjoyment. I'd like to know who that 'everyone else' party it is you are referring to. For you to sit there and claim that every EU generator needs consumable fuel makes quite the impracticality for even having said generator setups as, in many early game cases, your resources are quite low and fuel can be scare... Burning trees for charcoal only goes so far for so long, and can become stupidly repetitive and tedious. Plus, disallowing technology because it's 'OP' is also unreasonable, as that detracts from the industry that we do have, and the industrial feel that of minecraft that you claim to defend...

Plus, even if you went on to remove Renewables from the game, Geothermals would be next on your hit list as those are far more OP than Solars once you establish a presence in the Nether (which, btw, is not hard as you can do this with simply buckets and water/lava).

You want to make the game hard and remove the 'OP'-ness of certain power sources, yet you fail to see how many other sources of energy generation are easily 'exploitable' via various other means due to the limitness of Minecraft...

Give me a damn break...

Quote from cpy

First of all, geothermals are NOT OP, you will eventually pump out nether in your area and need to move every few days/weeks/months? Depending on use.

first of all actually yes they are depending on your perspective and so are macerators, pickaxes, superfuel, nukes, and basically the entire contents of any mod besides TerraFirma craft. people will always complain and when green gets nerfed they will just move on to some thing else but the only place where any one gives a damn about OP and UP is SMP so take it up with your admin

Quote from cpy

Second solars dont get dusty or/and panels dont burn out, wind in real life is not blowing constantly same goes for water.
Real life solars pump water in day and during night water is used to generate power to create more stable environment, so yeah minecraft is not best place to simulate green energy.

ITS A GAME! if you want to maintain green generators then go outside and build a real one

Quote from cpy

And dont give me that LESS FUN thing, it would be much more fun if every gen required maintenance even from time to time like once a week/month due to very slow wear, but it would be there.

again stop trying to play king maker with the generators. AND I WILL GIVE YOU THE "ITS LESS FUN" ARGUMENT cause if i want to waste my time dusting my solars, oiling my windmills, and checking my water wheels for rot i'll go outside and build a real one when I play minecraft i want to do things i can't do for reals.

you want to play a hard realistic game of logistics and survival? then go play outside (or dwarffortress) and leave us to our fun.

Quote from cpy

First of all, geothermals are NOT OP, you will eventually pump out nether in your area and need to move every few days/weeks/months? Depending on use.
Second solars dont get dusty or/and panels dont burn out, wind in real life is not blowing constantly same goes for water.
Real life solars pump water in day and during night water is used to generate power to create more stable environment, so yeah minecraft is not best place to simulate green energy.
And dont give me that LESS FUN thing, it would be much more fun if every gen required maintenance even from time to time like once a week/month due to very slow wear, but it would be there.

I want to hire you as my solar panel cleaner then since i would not enjoy doing that.

Solar perk is being maintenance free. You cannot nerf it by taking away its perk why even use it then? Might aswell remove solars from IC2 then.

And for the ppl claiming it will reduce lag on server no it wont because of the following reasons:
-Nubs will make them without realising they need maintenance. End result is tons of solars lagging your server but not making any EU.
-Pro's will find another way and spam that. Most likely that other way produces alot more lag per EU.

Talk to your admin if you want to fix the lag dont ruin it for everyone.

There's a config setting in IC² to nerf solars, use that if you don't like their output. CompactSolars also has a config setting for Solars, use that to diminish the effectivity of compact solars. If you play online, take it up with your admin, but where do you get the audacity from to try and force everyone to play your way, when it's possible for you to enjoy yourself in your own way without imposing your will on others?

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First of all, geothermals are NOT OP, you will eventually pump out nether in your area and need to move every few days/weeks/months? Depending on use.

Like moving from chunk to chunk in the Nether is hard... yeah, right

1 stack of Maceated Tin Ore becomes 2 stacks of Tin.
2 stacks of Tin becomes 512 empty cells
512 lava cells translates into 10,240,000 EU... (512*20,000)

Lava is not that scarce... it lasts alot longer than Sun based energy, and All Geothermals have an inert 240k EU storage to them, which partly obsoletes the need for an MFE. That means you can skip directly into a MFSU with that kind of storage/power output.

You can't get that kind of results with solar power. Sure, a cluster of solars can match the EU/t output of GeoGens, but they don't have any EU capacity with them, and only generate EU half the time. Those are some glaring drawbacks against fuel that only cost a stack of ore plus Nether access...

Edit:

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but where do you get the audacity from to try and force everyone to play your way, when it's possible for you to enjoy yourself in your own way without imposing your will on others?

Good question, tbh...

"1 stack of Maceated Tin Ore becomes 2 stacks of Tin.
2 stacks of Tin becomes 512 empty cells
512 lava cells translates into 10,240,000 EU... (512*20,000)"

And with 10 000 000 EU, you can make a little bit more than 3*5=15 tin ore.
And wihtout the lava sources.
GeoGen are not OP, thinking that if they are more useful at the begining of the game because of amazing output, but at end it's not infinite.
It's good like that, why do some people want to change the system ? It's perfect! (I'm juste annoyed about windmill breaking ^^)

Everything in minecraft its infinite, but only some things are renewable.

The difference between renewable and not renewable is the amount of walking distance you need to do to find more of that material.