Suggestion: Chemical Engineering

Nice ideas. Never even though about how modern chemical plants condense gases out of the atmosphere using pressure and temperature.

Once enough brainstorming has taken place, I'll try and make a consolidated list of all proposed reactions/reactors/reagents/etc.

Quote from Sami06041991

Nice something like
https://sites.google.com/site/grimsmods/…Minechem-1.2.5-

I thought of perhaps using the Minechem as a base for this, but the mechanic of not having to mine for raw materials irks me a bit.
This is still meant as a suggestion for IC² though, so I'm not sure what the policy of introducing other mod dependencies are.

ejkozan:
Good suggestions. Thanks.

@Everyone:
I realised yesterday that the proposed idea (chemical engineering) lacks vision and goals at the moment.
As in. why should it be implemented at all? Why would a user spend effort in pursuing it?
Other than stating "Add some chemical reactions to IC²", it has no real goals, either general or specific.
(Kind of like we said that we want to go on a roadtrip, but haven't figured out where we want to go yet.)

To that end, I'm going to try and slap together a mission statement (I.e. what we want out of this mechanic/addon).

Chemical Engineering Addon Mission Statement
General Goals:

• Add simplified chemical reactions as a new mechanic to Minecraft (New Mechanic is essentially a balancing act of several values)
• Provide players with a means to supplement mining, throughout game.
• Provide players new content to game, throughout game.
• Provide players means of increasing output from mined/farmed blocks/items.
• Allow integration with redstone and other control mechanics (Reactors have redstone signals for high/low pH, Water, Heat, etc.)
• Allow integration with EU system (Heaters, coolers, agitators, etc.)
• Allow affecting of environment (Exploding tanks, poisoning entities, dissolving blocks, etc.)
• Supplement existing mechanics in IC² (In reactions make use of centrifuges, furnaces, etc.)
• {Uncertain} Redo existing ways of obtaining certain items to include some chemical engineering
• {Uncertain} Expand mining methods to include chemicals (like using super-acids to break blocks, etc.)
• -- Insert your idea for a goal here --

Specific Goals:

• Create mechanics to control heat (Heaters for EU to Heat+, Coolers for EU to Heat-,Heat Exchangers for Heat.average, etc.)
• Create items for manipulating pH (Bonemeal, Milk, items produced via reactions, etc.)
• Create food and beverage processes. (Automated baking, automated food-in-a-can, etc.)
• Create metal ores from large quantities of 'junk' blocks. (Copper/Tin/Iron/etc. from Dirt/Sand/Gravel/Cobble/etc.)
• Create fuel from plant matter (Bio-fuel from sugarcane, etc.)
• -- Insert your idea for a goal here --

Quote from Sebra

Should nearby reactors exchange heat?

Yes, definitely. Ever since you suggested it on page 1 I thougt that would be a neat mechanism.
I would make it so that you need heat-exchangers though (special blocks) that simply try to balance the heat of all adjacent blocks.
(Specific goals #1: Heat-Exchanger given quick mention.)

Quote from Sebra

Should they exchange heat with Nuclear Reactor, Metal blocks?
Should they gain/lose heat contacting with Lava/Water? With working processor, furnace, other mods furnaces?

Heat could be made a standard like EU, but you would still have to code it in.
I suspect given that one would have to code all such interactions it would take time to get total integration.

I'll assign in detail what mechanics/items/blocks/ideas have to do with what goal, once all goals are defined.
A shortened explanation of how a project works:

• Decide what you want (Goals)
• Decide how you are going to get what you want (How to)
• Decide who does what, when and exactly how (Detail plan)
• Do it (Work, work, work...)
• Celebrate (This step typically performed by management that had nothing to do with the project, but take all the praise. )

We are now in step 1.
(I'll avoid the whole 'Must', 'Should' and 'May' approach for goals, unless nobody can agree on order of implementation and importance.
What the bleep is Must, Should, May goals? )
So once we get to step 2, I'll consolidate all the ideas under each goal. That way we can easily see what goals we have no ideas for yet.

Note: Flying to Madagascar tomorrow, so may not be able to drive this until I get back. Hopefully I'll still get time.
If anyone else wants to give this a go (like trying to code it) in the meantime, feel free.

CrazyCrafter:
Well, that entirely depends on how you program them.
For example, why don't the dirt/sand/cobblestone/stone/etc. blocks create lag? There are thousands upon thousands of them! Why doesn't a large cobblestone house cause lag?
Simple answer? No iterative code running on each block.

Similarly, even if you made multiple chemical reactors, each a multi-block 'object', if you write it in such a manner than only one block does the processing, then no real issue.
Similarly, if you want to check for the reactor being 'broken' by a player mining a block from it, you can simply have a new block type, that has no "Execute on tick" code, but triggers some response upon the event of being 'broken'. This new block would make up the majority of the shell of the reactors.
On a multi-block reactor, typically only a few blocks would be executing code per tick. Likely these would be: Reagents input, Product output, Water input, Heat Regulation, Animation block (if any). So say between 4 and 8 blocks, depending on how many heat regulation (heat-sink) blocks you want a reactor to have. (Maybe even 3 only? If you define a reactor that you cannot control the heat of, except through reagents added.)

3Davideo:
A Massive bio-fuel refinery would be awesome.

BillJoehobo:
I doubt that the code will classify as 'difficult' (if you are talking in terms of technical complexity). It isn't much different than a recipe, or a furnace 'what-is-smeltable-into-what' table.
But if you are referring to the amount of effort and work, then yes, I have no misconceptions that it will be a lot of work to implement.

NuclearStudent:
Sure. Why don't you draw up some mock reactions? We can work from there.

MagusUnion:
I also hope someone will give this a bash. I certainly will once I have time again.
In the mean time I'll try and drive the design through the phases, so at least what it is we are aiming for is well defined.

3Davideo:
Why not? As long as it is balanced properly I see no reason why not.

Zjarek:
Well, no particular reason for pH. As stated with the bakery example, it probably does not make the world of sense.
The basic idea here is simply a gameplay element with three to four variables that you have to keep within their respective ranges to get it to succeed.
The closer you maintain the values to optimal, the more you get out. Arguably you could use the same basic idea to do potion mixing, or cauldron brewed spells, or anything really.

As for water, I purely suggested it given my experience in mining.
Water is often used as a transport medium (slurry = solid particles suspended in a liquid, typically water). And even when not directly used in the reaction, often used in other ways.
For instance, cooling for furnaces (transporting heat away), heating for distillation columns (bringing heat by means of steam), even dust supression.
Industry uses 22% of water consumption

Overall, I figured that a simplified version of chemistry would make it more accessable to the average player, given the sheer complexity that chemistry can entail.

So in short, I'd love to hear your suggestion for a replacement system, just don't make it unfathomable for the rest of us.