Posts by TheSilverHammer

I really do not like the fact that the basic advanced solar panel now requires "matter". It is hard enough to get decent power from arrays of hybrids (that is a lot of materials) to get decent matter generation. Now even the 1 step up from the very basic solars requires one of the most advanced machines in IC2. I would ask that you change the recipe to not require matter. Just require a diamond or so per panel. That alone would still be a huge cost to get a large amount of EU from arrays of advanced solars.

Fortunately I am still playing the 1.4.7 version which doesn't require matter. No reason to upgrade now.

I build the miner and started it to mining. It was using a lot of pipes. I put in stack of 64, then another stack of 64 which got down to like 10 pipes. This was on world level 72. Anyway it finishes, i remove the drill and it starts to withdraw. I get some pipes back, but no where near the amount I fed it.

Is this a bug, or is this a new mechanic, that the miner is supposed to eat pipes?

I found this url on the Buildcraft forum:
http://pastebin.com/fehMssgu

It is a buildcraft cfg. It crashed if I used the entire cfg, but just copying the item ID section only worked.

Good idea. However is a complete list of item or block of IDs for both buildcraft and industrial craft? I was looking for the ID for the saplings, but couldn't find it in the ic2.cfg. I do see the red pipe wire in the main.conf for buildcraft. However I have no idea what to change it to other than some random number.

Yeah I was just going to post, I removed buildcraft and then when I came back, I had a sapling in my inventory. So I need to wait for a BC update or is there a workaround anyone can suggest?

I also sometimes get green pipe wires. I have no idea why this is, has anyone else had this problem?

The mods I am running are:
forge universal 6.4.1.411
Optifine for 1.4.5

Treecapitator
buildcraft
additional Pipes mod
IC2 1.109.113
Millianrie Village mod

Any ideas or work arounds if there isn't a simple solution?

Does this work in the latest IC2 mod? And from what I understand, this only works on the electric wrench in a special mode?

I was looking at the main recipe page and then clicking on the silver bar which brings you to a stub page. So I need another mod. Oh well. Not gonna mess with it and I do not do anything with redstone circuts.

The wiki has silver ingots in a recipe for glass fiber cable, but there is no silver ore. Is this a mistake or is there a way to get silver ingots? If so, mind telling me how?

I wish dirt was renewable. I am playing with that Millairie mod and I need to make a lot of bricks, which requires dirt. I have started two quarries (Build craft) just to get more dirt for the effort. It would be nice for an IC recipie for the stuff, but I can't think of anything that would make dirt and make sense. Maybe putting planks into a maceator to make mulch and combining that with sand to make dirt... A bit of a stretch, but at least it is something.

I was going to start a new thread to ask this simple question, but I deiced there was no need to start another thread that could start another solar power thread war.

Anyway, so solars do not work during the rain. So i am in the desert and it is not raining. It is day time. My solars do not work. I walk to a nearby swamp biome. It raining there.

So is this a bug? Or is it working as intended. IE: There is bad weather somewhere, therefor all solars planet-wide shut down. You know, game balance and all that...

Quote from FreedomFighter

geez, do we still talking about Solar Panel or what? it's seem OP gone from his own topic like 2-3 pages now.

you guy keep drag up your own logic and try to make other people accept your logic while they not accept it and want you to accept them too.
if OP doesn't happy about SPanel being nerf in this patch, can't we point him to how to fix the file so he can edit his own output to his pleasure?

I am still reading this thread. My opinion has not changed and I still think this so-called nerf was way over the top in terms of cost. I do not even think this nerf was warranted and have even gone through with some alternate suggestions to try and appease people who think the nerf is needed (which I still have not seen a strong case for yet, beyond simple "It causes lag" issues). I have even made some lag reduction suggestions. What else is there for me to say on this topic?

I have said what I wanted and I do not wish to get dragged into personal arguments so I stopped posting.

I didn't say everything sucked. In fact my complaint was only about the solars. That is just one thing. Overall this is a great mod.

Ok, some miners are immune. You still failed to answer the question I asked about how you are supposed to power them. Miners do not run themselves. With respect to this non-nonsensical machine breaking thing, how are you supposed to power miners given that they are meant to be mobile? How much EU is consumed during a complete mining operation? I know its well over 100,000, probably over a 1,000,000.

Quote

That happens to any advanced machine you dismantle. You are not supposed to move machines after they are set up and if you have to do so then you run the risk of breaking something while dismantling them. The same way you run a risk of breaking something while taking an engine out of your 15 year old rusty car.

However, there is an addon in the addons section that gives you 100% wrench rate. Use that if breaking machines is such a big deal.

Why is this logical? Why is logical when moving machines there is some real chance to break it? Yes, if you were using a pick-axe or mining drill I could see that. But a wrench which is designed for the job? There is no sound logic for this kind of action. It is just an arbitrary game design rule that was not very well thought out.

How am I supposed to power miners? I solar array? Or do I make one of those outrageously expensive MFS units and then power them with lapton crystals. Only when I move it, my MFS might be destroyed. Yes, maybe I need to check the mods section for this mod for mods that get rid of silly rules.

It even gets better. Not only are solars really expensive to make, but now when you dismantle them with a wrench, you get a chance to get a generator instead. This is just grand... I know this happened in old-school IC, but I know for a fact this did not happen in IC2 version 1.15. I really should just go back to that version although this is upgraded for 1.0 support Ill be screwed since I want to go to 1.0.

Seriously why did anything think it was a good idea to have what is now a very expensive machine get destroyed when using the special tool designed specifically to dismantle these machines. I was using the power wrench and out of 24 panels it turned two of them into basic generators. Maybe Ill just forgo this nerf by using an inventory editor to just make me a few 100 solars. I really hate to do stuff like this, but this is just too much on top of everything else.

If it really is simply a lag issue due to their being so many of them, then nerfing them isn't going to help much. You want people to use less solar panels. So make these new solar panels generate 2 EU (new and improved with circuits) and you have a 50% reduction in the number being used. Or make them generate 3 EU and have a 66% reduction.

The basic idea is to increase the cost while increasing the efficiency. The problem is they drastically increased the cost, but not their efficiency. I still need the same number of panels, it is just costing me a lot more. Do you think I would be complaining if the addition of two circuits in leu of two wires made the solars generate 3 EU / tick? No I wouldn't.

If that isn't enough then they can reduce the number of solars being placed in the world by allowing you to construct a solar flower (as a single item). Lets say these advanced solars do 3 EU a tick. Lets say a solar flower blueprint combines 4 advanced solar panels. Normally this would produce 12 EU, but since you want to encourage players to use this single solar flower opposed to 4 individual solars (thus reducing lag even more ) increase the efficiency such that the solar flower produces 16 EU.

The above is simply a solution to concerns from Lag due to all the solar panels. The above would be a 16:1 reduction in solars used on SMP servers. Is that good enough?

With regards to the comments about one power type to rule them all type of thing, each power type should have it's advantages and disadvantages so they are all desirable:

1. Water / Tidal power: If you are near an ocean (not a lake) then yes, this should be King. It should not be beaten by most other power sources. The big disadvantage is, You need to be near an ocean.

2. Wind: Are you near tall mountains? Is the elevation of your base high? Then this is your power choice. Sure you can build a tall tower from a desert, but other choices would be more efficient here.

3. Solar: Only works in the day time, and has reduced efficiency during storms (50%). Does it rain a lot where you are? Not such a good choice. In the desert, however, it doesn't rain often so solar power is ideal here.

4. Geothermal: Do you have access to lots of lava? Are you in a place with no wind, sun, or oceans? Do you want power in the Nether? Then these are your best choice.

See? All these power systems can be made very useful under the right circumstances. No one power need become obsolete with a few changes. Buffing other power types will not make solar pointless, nor will re-working solar make other types pointless. All types of power systems should be very viable in the right circumstances. No single power source should ever be the right choice in all situations.

The numbers for the tidal were a guess. Yes if its something ridiculous it will have to be adjusted. Whatever the end result is, it should produce good power considering it is geographically limited in its application. The point is that a lake or pond should not provide much power, where as an ocean would.

Yes the wind generator itself makes good power. That isn't the problem. However you want it near the top of the world right? So lets say it needs to travel 64 units. Each packet of power between 1 and 4 will quickly disappear due to EU loss. The only way to prevent it to be loss is to step up the power. That is the problem, not the generator itself. Its the distance from the generators to wherever you are going to use the power. Glass cables would be ideal, but that would require a lot of diamonds. Even if we could turn charcole into coal dust, that is a lot of trees. Currently with the few diamonds I have, I have other uses for them. I do wonder if the wind generators still have the feature from the original IC. That is, when there was a storm, they generated crazy amounts of power.

The fundamental problem isn't Solaris, but the lack of good alternatives. That is why people choose solars. It is not like there are many other good choices, but Solars are just so uber they are picked all the time. Like I said, i started with Windpower and only used solars initially to recharge batteries (and that aspect of them has been broken / nerfed or was never ported to IC2). They no longer take stacks of batteries that can be auto-ejected into chests anymore.

Anyway, if you want to "Fix" the whole situation, do this by looking at the power systems people DON'T use and make them competitive. This is what game designers do whenever they patch a game, such as WoW or RTS game and what not. They look at what ISN'T being used and try and buff it. It is a knee-jerk reaction to bring the nerf bat on what is being used instead of looking at why other things are not being used and fixing them.

Ill take this challenge and "Fix" each alternate power system so that they are more attractive and will compete with Solar (old style, not this nerfed crap).

Windpower:
The problem with wind-power is that by its very nature you need LONG DISTANCE power transfers. You need to move your EU's through a very long cable which means a lot of power loss. If this problem were solved, Windpower would be a great choice.

Problem 1: We need a way to convert LV to EV and back again cheaply. The current setup requires a lot of transformers to convert between the two as well a lot of highly lossy refined iron cable. Your best bet is the not even insulate it because that is a metric tun of rubber required to fully insulate it. You are also going to need a heck of a lot of this cable.

Possible solution: Make a transformer between LV and EV. Try bronze cables (and fix the bronze formula to yeild 4 dust. How does 4 dusts turn into 2 dusts? If you wanted to somewhat accurate on how bronze was really made it would be 8 copper to 1 tin (actually its should be 19:1 ratio but you can't do that in minecraft)). The EV transfer cost should be cheaper, if we are trying to be realistic. After all in the real world we do use EV to transfer power precisely because it is far more efficient.

Water Power:
This has never been a good choice. It just produces far to little power.
I purpose two new modes for this to make it a useful power option.

Mode 1: Tidal Generator. In this mode It generates 0.001 EU for each still water block within a 100 block radius. This a shallow pond will not give much power, but if you are actually on an ocean where the water gets deep really fast, it will add up. I have no idea how many still water blocks would be in that volume so these numbers are a guess. This should produce a lot of power. The big draw-back is that you need to be near an ocean.

Mode 2: Moving water. In a 1 block radius around it, it looks for moving water. It traces that water to its source and the delta in height from the source block to it represents the Power P in the water. For each block around it, the power can be P x 0.01. So a 64 height water fall will give you .64EU. With 4 faces covered it would be 2.56 EU. If you count the corners that could be 5.12 EU. If you stack the generators you might subtract 1 power from all of them for each generator in the stack.

Geo Thermal generator:
This is almost fine, but a small change is needed. It should eject empty cells into a box next to it to recover the empty cells.

Filling those cells should be automated although this is a finite resource because it requires lava source blocks. Pumps should operate without a miner and you should run a pipe to a lake. It should drain the entire lake filling lava cells. It should not require much power, but can be partnered with a generator (geo thermal would be a good choice). It should draw from the farthest connected source lava block to the closest. It would be even more ideal if it would draw empty cells from a chest and eject full cells into the same chest.

With the above changes, the lure of solars isn't so strong.

If you wanted to increase the challenge of solar power, they went way overboard. Two cables were replaced with two circuits. That is a HUGE change. Then add on top of that, it has to be day time with perfect weather.

While I do not want more challenge (I find my challenge from other sources), I can give you a much softer nerf to solar power.

When you make a solar panel you need a generator. You know a generator that burns coal or other things... Solar power is more electronic then this, so for the sake of something slightly more realistic, drop this component from the blueprint. Replace it with a single circuit. Add a machine and a cable on one side and you have your new blueprint for a solar panel. IE: The bottom row is a machine, cable and circuit, the top is the same.

The second, softer nerf. In real life, solar cells still operate during cloudy days (I worked at the florida solar energy center when I was younger). Yes they are not as efficient, but they do work quite well. So in this game when it is regular rain, they produce 0.5 EU / tick. If it is the thunder storm then you can say they drop to 0.25 or 0 EU.

This is a much more reasonable nerf. I still think it is unneeded, but I could live with this.

I still do not understand why people think it needed to be nerfed. So someone can build a giant solar array and get 1000s of EU. So what? Why do you care? How does it hurt you that someone else in another game is doing this? If you do not like it in your game, then don't build a giant solar array.