Posts by psionic

Well thanks for clarifying some things to me, I have some small amount of programming knowledge, I am not completely clueless about what JAVA is. I asked this question to see what is the best course for me to set up things - where to start and so on... I wanted some feedback on scala, since I heard that it's a bit easier and cleaner in the terms of it's syntax than JAVA, so I though - why not... I used to code simple stuff in C#, I am sure I can manage switching to JAVA somehow (never actually got to like it, maybe I didn't put too much effort in it) but the thing is - this game is already fully built project, someone should have been there from the start, to know all the stuff and the way the program works and "thinks"... and the minecraft API (forge) looks easy enough, but when you go deeper, it's just... Yeah - the right course right now would be getting some other's mod api and messing around with it...
So - plain JAVA in Eclipse is the way things are done around here, right ? ...assuming I know some basics about java programming...

The thing is - I do not learn JAVA or any other programming language at my school (machine engineering, stuff not related to computers at all - like CNC code, Pro Engineer, some basic C# course and similar nonsense)... So it's all up to me, I guess...

EDIT: Thanks BillJoehobo, I previously read your post wrongly,I understood that you were learning some "Pahimar" distribution or something, so I just skipped further, but after that, I actually saw you posted a link where this guy named Pahimar explains a lot of stuff that actually are of interest to me - working with GitHub and such... He basically answered my question about how to set-up the things, what to use, how to use, etc... From here, I have a better picture of what to do.

Hi, I have a rather personal question about some stuff. Don't worry it's nothing inapropriate, I just can't find the right thing using google. I mean - it bombs you with all kind of $hit, and you have to have some previous knowledge, to know what to look for...

My question is - how do you code MC mods ?
I found a lot of step-by-step tutorials, but they are quite narrow, straightforward, limited and... outdated. For example, I saw some people using Scala to code JAVA, some use Groovy... Some use Notepad++ to simple enter the plain java code... (I would if I'd mastered JAVA that good) Can you drop a few lines of text on what tools should I use, where do I begin ? For example, I know I have to get MC API, open eclipse and start tweaking using tutorials. I even managed to make a simple block. But these mods do so much more, how do you guys know where and what to do with the offered API ? I find very tedious task to use plain and simple JAVA (for example eclipse env, like they showed in the tutorials), because JAVA is so confusing language for begginers to learn. I saw some Scala examples and thought it may be easier that way - And then - there's Jenkins, Github, ANT... things I don't know a thing about... It's not JUST about coding, there's plethora of different things sitting aside, which help one guy to achieve his programming goal. I just want to know your coding setup, if it is not too much to ask for ?

Quote from Chocohead

The kinetic generator is amazing, reminds me of the Redpower ones

Multiblock rotor... a nice touch

No, I mean regular conductivity like in vanilla minecraft. You don't get rails of redstone signal if you power up a row of dirt for example - just the first cube gets affected, right ?
But - when you place this kind of IC2 block, it doesn't conduct the signal, so you end up making complicated and robust designs, dodging the cables all the time, just to power down your reactor when the MFE unit gets filled.

I don't really know if this is a feature request or a bug, but cables covered in foam, do not transfer the red stone signal. It may be usable if the foamed cable would act as a normal stone block regarding the redstone signal, since it would simplify networks a bit. I will post a picture so you can see for yourself what do I mean:

Even better: build some kind of redstone signal cable transfer system

Quote from Chocohead

Optifine only causes visual glitches, so unless it was rendering the explosion which optifine didn't like, it wouldn't have affected it.

Well it happened at the same time as the explosion. I saw a white light and that was it. My soul went to desktop I don't want entirely to blame OF for that, but second attempt was ok, nothing crashed... Will look some more, of course.

Quote

...not really Fluid Heat Exchanger have input buffer of 1000mB... only a limited Cooling rate

...and that's where fluid regulator comes in handy... you can easily refill the coolant which is lost.

I got a CTD (crash to desktop) again, after my ingenious contraption blew up. I will investigate some more, then I will post about my findings.

EDIT: It worked fine this time. I've just blew it up again altogether with the machines I've previously used, and got a nice healthy hole in the ground Must be some small glitch, I have Optifine too, so...

Well scratch that, it's not completely lossless, especially when you heat it really good:

Coolant evaporates somewhere between the seams of the reactor, polluting the environment

I didn't wanted to bother you, since the error was the same as the Sirius'es... Now it's fixed in 505, no more empty hot tank How cool is that

I have built a kind of perpetuum mobile: Reactor feeds Fluid Heat Exchanger with the hot fluid, through it's Reactor Fluid Port - equipped with the ejector, at the same time, Heat Exchanger ejects the cold fluid back into reactor. It's heat is used to power the Stirling Generator. As a power consuming device, I placed one Mass Fabricator See the picture:

Yeah, I put two fluid reactor ports and two fluid heat exchangers, just to show it can be done...

But now, this config makes the Fluid Regulator a bit obsolete in this kind of reactor setup. I don't need to mess with the fluids, since they are circulating through the system (with no losses ) Once I feed the machine with the cold coolant, I don't have to worry about fluids anymore. it's self-sustaining.

I think that fluid regulator could use some more ports, for example to eject it's stuff. Maybe it needs an ejector ugrade slot, too.

Quote from Thunderdark

shift + wrench right click opposite face

Thanks, I just figured it out now But what about the other stuff ? Is it WIP or something else ?

EDIT: Yes, somehow it started working... It kept taking coolant liquid from the exchanger, devouring it constantly (?!) even after the internal cold tank was full. No hot coolant was transfered to the other tank, no fluid ejector. but in one moment it crashed to desktop. Will try another one with the fresh world. FML 1178, BTW
Bucket with water just filled it, but was completely ignored by the reactor (since water isn't the proper coolant)

I have liquid regulator working here - it even fills the ore washing plant with water - no crash at the moment. But - I have troubles orienting it's output slot towards the reactor's fluid port. It's impossible unless you play in creative
Another weird thing is... erm... how do you power up the new generator ? Before it was working as soon as I put some uranium rods. Tried with all kinds of crap, exchangers, valves, filled with the coolant... It just stays deaf to my commands. I routed the redstone to the redstone port, turned the lever on, but nothing happens. BTW what that redstone port is exacly for ?

EDIT - Oh, yeah. Build 504

Quote from GregoriusT

Another thing is, that you don't actually need Optifine anymore, the Settings of regular Minecraft are more than enough to boost your FPS.

Although I know that you are a mod designer, and I respect your great knowledge abut this matter, I can't believe that you posted this... If not for other things, optifine helps loading chunks more fluidly than without it. Game is 100x smoother on my i7 @4.2GHz with 16GB RAM, 6 giga allocated to the JAVA engine (xms, xmx) and GTX 580 GPU. It's all to bad optimisation on the Mojang's side.

If I am wrong, please explain how can I make the game load chunks without lagging too much ? and I am not trying to be ironic here, I really want to know if there is another way around this issue, than optifine...

BTW, I've already posted a message where I told how OptiFine 1.7.10 A4, Forge 1178 and IC2 b504 are finally working togehter. look here: [1.7.2]Crash with optifine

I may not be qualified anympore to submit IC2 bugs, since some may arise from optifine, but I will continue to keep an eye on things...

Optifine is surely most wanted plugin(mod) for anyone playing minecraft. That's a proven FACT.
Now, I don't want to discuss it - who want's to get both playing together (optifine and IC2), should get the latest (ATM it is build 504) of IC2 experimental, and the latest forge - ATM it is build 1178 for 1.7.10 MC. The latest optifine - ATM it is 1.7.10_HD_U_A4
I have a few other mods, Advanced Energetics 2, Extra Cells for AE2, NEI and OPTIFINE. All working happily together. Playing without OptiFine has been a nightmare. I hope they will continue supporting each other in the future, so for now, this set of the latest mods is working fine.

I should mention that everything fell together in place, after I installed that latest Forge 1178. Maybe the guy working on it, finally got the way to deal with the OptiFine... We will see in how are things in the future.

Here you can see how my lagometer stays at green all the time, while there is a mad chunk loading going on in the distance (see the FPS - I play it vsync-ed so no tearing appears):

The second picture is a proof that it's working with the IC2, along with the connected textures and stuff

I've just saw you updated it to 502
I was writing this for the build 500. Will test the new machine now !

EDIT: Great stuff. Much more logical. It is better than I thought it would be ! Thanks for listening to us on this
I haven't tried canning machine yet, I remember it had a bit confusing way of dealing with it's filling job, but I guess it's taken care of by now. If not - the same way of thinking like this one here, should be applied.

Well this liquid exchanger works really weird, as ChocoHead already posted. If I put a stack of full hot coolant cells in the left slot, It will will fill up the machine with the heated liquid and it places one empty cell on the most right slot (output slot 2). Now if you take that empty (used up) cell and place it on the slot 1 (left slot of the output part), it will fill itself from the output tank and then it contains cold coolant. when it fills itself to 1000mB, it jumps in the slot 2, preventing the empty cell to be placed there, jamming the whole machine. No matter if I use Universal or plain empty cells. Also I didn't mix cell types.

This leads me to conclusion that on the output side of the machine, there is one input port for the empty liquid cells (slot 1) and one output port for the used (filled or emptied) cells on the slot 2.

I would code it differently so it is not jamming itself. Port 1 is always filled with the empty cells, used or manually placed ones, and the port 2 would contain only filled cells. Another slot (3) would serve as filling slot (if needed - for half-filled cells). So when the cell fills up - it goes into slot 2. When the cell is used up in the proccess of filling the machine (lava or hot coolant) it goes into slot 1. This way no jamming would occur. What do you think of this ? Is it even possible to code that this way (since port 1 would become out port for the used up - emptied bottles, also input port for the manually inserted empty bottles at the same time) ?

Thanks Thunderdark, I made that 5x5x5 cube. It was a bit unclear if it needs to be solid or hollow box. Earlier, I made it all around the reactor, filling all the gaps with the vessels. It was still 5x5x5, but it was a solid cube, not a hollow one... Now it works properly in fluid mode.

Also - where can I find some more info about how to work with this particular reactor ? I mean the new features, I know how to blow up the old one successfully

Now I will install AE and see what's that hU/t is all about

Ok, I haven't played this for a while, a lot of new stuff is going on, which is GREAT! Now - how do I build this thing ? I made 5x5x5 cube out of pressure vessels, right ? Inside is a reactor with 6 reactor chambers - so it's a full reactor. I placed access hatch, redstone port and fluid port. My question is - when I hover above green "i" sign (guess it's short for info) it says something like - "...in EU mode, throttle 50%". I can start that reactor with the switch on the redstone port, can access it trhough the access hatch, but how can I manage fluids (coolants) ? Do I need another mod (buildcraft for example) ? And how do you change modes ? What does EU mode even mean - I guess it's the old EU/t power generating system... So - what is the other mode, and how to get to it ? I think I didn't make this reactor of mine as it should, since it's stucked in that EU/t mode. Explosion is also very small, smaller than with the regular one. Nothing like SiriusKing's power blast

That's nice to hear. I know that there are new updates, I was looking at the changelog, saw something about the e-net api implementation and was pretty sad when I found out that the net isn't working yet. That's how I got the idea to write this post.
But, just knowing that it is being worked on, makes me happy. And especially if that information comes from the one of the developers I don't want this mod to die, I am also happy it's being ported on 1.7.10 with the latest forge.

Yeah, I am aware that ENET is still work in progress, but it's takig too much time. People may get bored with this mod and go away... As much as I love this mod and as much as I think it's the best one out there, I am getting tired of it, too - since many things which interact with the electric network , are not working. Too bad Player isn't available to finish this, I guess his interest in Minecraft declined a bit...

I agree that ENET should be kept simple, that's what I think when I say I can help with the practical advices about it. Some general real-life rules can be applied, making the grid compact and functional... Not that they will be implementing calculations of an inductance and magnetic force inside the coils of the machines

Ok, guys, I really lost all my patience. Please tell us a word about what the hell is going on with this IC2 mod ? It's not my place to demand anything, but I would really see the electricity melting down cables. I want to see machines blowing-up with the power overload! I want to use cables to make electric fences... What's that stall about E-Net ? Please tell a word or two about the topic. You seem to update and upgrade everything else but the CORE of this mod.
It's pretty pointless playing this mod without worrying about what cables will I use, what will I connect with what, and so on...

BTW - if you need a practical advice, I am an electro-technician, so I can help you with that a bit. Feel free to ask.