Suggestion: Accepting crystal power sources for more machines

  • I've had a burning thought for a while. Since the introduction of all this new charging and discharging of batteries and crystals, why not let machines make use of them?


    Here's what I'm thinking...


    -Crystal chargers can discharge their products into any sort of machines that's connected to them now. While the machines are active, energy drains.
    -Crystals will not lose power while machines are idle, much like the MFE/MFSU machines.

    • Official Post

    I've had a burning thought for a while. Since the introduction of all this new charging and discharging of batteries and crystals, why not let machines make use of them?


    Here's what I'm thinking...


    -Crystal chargers can discharge their products into any sort of machines that's connected to them now. While the machines are active, energy drains.
    -Crystals will not lose power while machines are idle, much like the MFE/MFSU machines.


    Crystal + MFE = Win?


    By the time you get to Energy Crystals, you should have wiring along your workshop either way, not?

  • It would be nice to be able to charge Miners using Energy Crys... oh who am I kidding, it will never be implemented for "balance reasons". Meanwhile I'll have to muck around with cables all over the place just to wire up a miner.

  • It would be nice to be able to charge Miners using Energy Crys... oh who am I kidding, it will never be implemented for "balance reasons". Meanwhile I'll have to muck around with cables all over the place just to wire up a miner.

    Thing is, I had a dedicated MFE for my Miner back in IC1, which I charged using an Energy Crystal because I hated mucking about with batteries.

  • The thing is, once IC2 gets updated, a chance to destroy machines will likely be implemented for the wrench again. So you run a risk of losing 8 diamonds because of an unsuccessful MFE dismantling. Which will make this matter even worse.

  • Nooo, please! I really hate this... Wrench is the only tool for removing machines, and it is awful, when you trying to move som solar panels (for example - from your temporary shelter to the new permament power plant) And what about miner? You cannot move it without moving a set of transformers...

    Cutiemark crusaders - engineers, Yay!
    Blown up: Industrial Blast Furnace, Industrial Wiremill, Singularity compressor, Extractor.

  • I know that in the Ic1, certain objects were claified as *mobile* such as Geothermal generators and miners, which means they never break when useing a wrench to dismount. Assuming we get an *E-wrench* at some point, that will never break a machine it dismounts, albiet using energy.

  • Crystal + MFE = Win?


    By the time you get to Energy Crystals, you should have wiring along your workshop either way, not?


    Crystal + MFE which will have a possibility of being destroyed with a wrench = lose.


    This is especially a case because it's impossible to craft MFSUs without having to cheat (at least, I can't think of any way else to craft them legitly). Why? It requires them being fully charged (I know it's a bug and it's fixed for the next patch so this bit is more of a temporary thing) and I for one cannot think for the life of me on any other alternatives to charging up a lapotron crystal, since an MFE won't do it.


    And no. I didn't have wiring set up for my workshop, because I was hard-pressed to find gold. Not to mention I used my diamonds either making my drill or setting up energy crystals so I couldn't craft fibre cables either.


    (Now that I think about the last sentence I could just dive straight into making a mass fabricator and some solar panels after the basic machines are set up and let it work slowly... It'd be better than nothing at all.)


    ---------------------------------


    Back on topic: The crystal chargers... Really, they are extremely useful. Could you please, kindly put them back in? Perhaps make a tier 3 version that can (dis)charge lapotron crystals into normal machinery (though it'll be expensive) and at a low voltage too?

  • Way too much required if you want to transfer power far away from the base. Also, impractical if you want to utilize the power far enough from the base that its chunks unload.


    Just asking why Gold or Fibre was needed to wire the workshop.

  • No. There is a reason why HV was implemented. Yes it costs lots and lots of iron, but I'm afraid you can't have your cake and eat it too. Of if you must, attach the MFE to whatever, and after unloading the cyrstal, use a wrench to pick up the MFE.


    Now then, if bronze wrenches have a chance of not giving the machine back, I propose more tiers or bronze wrench, such as refined iron, obsidan, diamond etc.

  • It is kinda of weird when you think about it for a second though. You can create the machine from its base metals yet you are not skilled enough to demount it without breaking it using a special tool that is specifically designed to demount them?

    All people dream, but not equally. Those who dream by night in
    the dusty recesses of their mind, wake in the morning to find
    that it was vanity. But the dreamers of the day are dangerous people,
    for they dream their dreams with open eyes, and make them come true.
    --T.E. Lawrence

  • About the deconstructing with the wrench: I really hope this fail chance will NOT come back, it was the most hated thing for me in IC
    About mobility with crystals:
    SV
    CL
    CM
    S = MFSU
    V = MV Transformator
    L = LV Transformator
    C = Chest
    M = Miner
    Throw in a Lapotron and off it goes, when done simply charge it back and pack everything up.


    But about the mobile charging of other things: well there are crystals useless, some things aren't chargeable with batteries and nothing with crystals (laser, jetpack dunno what else) but I hope that changes :3

    On my install Mining Drill doesn't give off any sounds at all o.o
    Help! Somebody fix that please!
    Wait a sec... damnit.

    no idea if he was serious but either way that was damn funny xD

  • In IC1 i have an H-H shaped minefields. There is an MFS charged by Lapotrons in the middle of construction and 4 MFE's, one per row. Four rows contains four miners with chests and an MFE, so entire field contains 16 miners. The most annoing thing was to cut cables, remove machines and assembly this construction in a new place. There were no loses in MFS/MFE count while unmounting them.


    In IC2 I expect this job to be less annoying. I have three suggestions that can help:
    1. Energy crystals in miners. Today's crystals are practically useless for energy storing (due to easily built batbox arrays), their primary use is for crafting.
    2. Stand-alone electrolyser as a portable generator.
    3. A crazy idea. Batpack installation AS A BLOCK. In this mode batpack can only discharge itself like a portable generator. Something like a real life situation where road workers installs a safety lighting chain using a standard car accumulator.

  • Something wrong with copper and Iron wire?


    Yes. The fact that I destroyed half of my base out of sheer testing makes me cringe. I'm very slow at remembering what does what at times and it's quite painful to recall what all has happened. Also, iron is extremely lossy. If glass fibre can travel 20 blocks before losing 1 EU, I sure as hell am sticking with it because I never even think about beginning to set up a base until I have a full inventory's worth of raw mined materials.


    No. There is a reason why HV was implemented. Yes it costs lots and lots of iron, but I'm afraid you can't have your cake and eat it too. Of if you must, attach the MFE to whatever, and after unloading the cyrstal, use a wrench to pick up the MFE.


    Now then, if bronze wrenches have a chance of not giving the machine back, I propose more tiers or bronze wrench, such as refined iron, obsidan, diamond etc.


    Yes. I do not want to rely on HV. Considering how I destroyed half of my base as mentioned above due to lack of information at the time, I'm not fucking with HV again for a very long time. And I hate cake, cookies, soda pop, and all that junk.


    I do like your idea for uptier wrenches, should there be a chance in 1.00 for wrongful deconstruction in the bronze wrench.


    -----


    So here's the ideas in which I hope one occurs, at least.


    1. Wrenches will never break anything anymore.


    OR


    2. Wrench tiers


    OR


    3. Special crystal converters (the whole point of this thread from the getgo) that can be used to power machines, and can be upgraded to different tier levels.

    • Official Post


    Also, iron is extremely lossy. If glass fibre can travel 20 blocks before losing 1 EU, I sure as hell am sticking with it because I never even think about beginning to set up a base until I have a full inventory's worth of raw mined materials.

    Yes, Iron is very lossy, but it's really only for HV current. And seeing as no other cable can take it, it is still way more efficient to send large packets with high loss than small packets with small loss. Should do the math before criticising the system. :)

  • It is kinda of weird when you think about it for a second though. You can create the machine from its base metals yet you are not skilled enough to demount it without breaking it using a special tool that is specifically designed to demount them?

    If youve ever taken something apart and then put it back together you'll know that building something is much much easier than taking something apart in a manner that makes it possible to reconstruct it.