Posts by YX33A

Solar is nice, as a backup. They cost a lot to craft for a small output, but that's because they run for free and are truly a "set and forget" energy source.
When I'm starting up, I usually build solars. Even if they only work for about half a day, they still are passive EU which is nice.
Though without CompactSolars they tend to cause massive amounts of lag from eNet updates from crossed wires(which is easy enough to fix, just paint them different colors, assuming you aren't using tin[thus you'd pretty much need glass fiber cables since no other cable has low enough EU loss to allow for big solar flowers]), but the same can happen WITH CompactSolars, it's just less likely as you reduce the amount of blocks needed to get the same amount of power, thus reducing the eNet load. If one builds a solar flower with CompactSolars, they quite clearly need to be shot, though.

But with Redpower and Nuclear Control, one can build some amazingly good reactors. Add Thermal Expansion and you can make a compact yet efficient Ice CASUC design, even without compressors(though it is a good idea to use compressors, makes it faster to get the ice, but it isn't really needed). Add ComputerCraft and the CCSensors addon and you can build a computer which can controls the whole reactor, no switches or buttons.(though one might be able to do that with RedPower Computers) One could even use the Force Field Generator mod(the old version, anyway) to automate the cooling and heating system and allow for one to prevent massive explosions from reactors. The new version doesn't have that feature, but at least someone is maintaining it.
Mix those together, and you'll have a super powerful reactor which you can turn on with the press of a button, and generate enough power to fill as many MSFUs as you want/have, and it'll automatically shut down when it has filled them. And it's still cheaper then enough solars to generate enough power to match the average EU.(keep in mind solars work for about 50% of the day, so even if you get 2000/EU a tick from your solar plant, you really need to bring in 4000EU/tick to compete since solars don't work at night, thus driving the cost up)

As for geothermal, well shit, it's basically free anyway(there's more then enough lava in the world, even without draining the nether), and it works great.
If only geothermal power was realistic in how it works in IC2, one could say "It's worth the risk" and not have to bite your cheek. Mind you, if IC2 was realistic, that would kind of beat the point of using it.

Quote from kainorg

Solar/wind/water farms have specific advantages in renewability/'free' energy -- in that regard they make fine 'endgame' targets.

Nukes however, have the crown in energy/block density, and in material investment. In that regard, nukes are definitely king for speed-of-deployment, at least until you've build Alblaka's solar spamatron.

The solar spamatron was a challenge, not something one should actually use. Plus getting all the UU-Matter to build it all would, again, require Nuclear Reactors.
Honestly, you seem to have your endgame plans a *bit* backwards. One uses "free" energy since it doesn't consume resources to keep running, which means it's great for when you're starting a base. Endgame power generation is about simply having a massive amount of power at your fingertips, which while one doesn't has to balance input resources against output power, one does need to look at output power and see what works best, which coincidently, over a thousand EU/tick from a small system which one could quite easily just build a few more of and still not spend as much as a "free energy" system of comparable output to the first system.

"Green Energy" is a good idea. But so is Communism. Both really only work on paper, though. Green energy can't output more EU then a well built nuclear reactor, unless one wants to waste inordinate amounts of resources in a desperate attempt to prove "It's just as useful". A ultimately futile decision since the power one gets from it does not compensate the cost or size of it's construction.

"Free Energy" is what you use in a tiny part of your base. Such as, say, powering your luminators.

The reason for nuclear engineering is "Risk vs Reward". It's cheaper to run 70 solar panels for god knows how long, and without a doubt safer(even if nuclear power is safe enough if you aren't a idiot and decide to jam it full of Uranium and hope for the best), but solar power has no risk, thus the reward is lower.
One can make a CASUC reactor which will output over a thousand EU PER TICK. To do that with solars, you need over a thousand solar panels, something you would either need to mine for a month real time to build, use EE2 to get the resources needed via "passive" EMC generation or just chuck tons of other resources into the right machines to get, or, have a decent CASUC Nuclear Reactor powering a Mass-Generator for a few minecraft days. Scrap wouldn't hurt, but it wouldn't be needed.(scrapboxes work better anyway, and it's only slightly harder to make one then it is to get 9 scrap)

It's true, the passive EU from solars is nice, and without a doubt safer then even a Mk1 reactor. But it costs so much more to generate enough power to edge out Nuclear Reactors with solars then a sane person would argue is "better".
Just because it's safer, doesn't mean it's better. Dance the razors edge! The rewards you reap are much nicer, not just because they are better, but also because you enjoy them more, as you truly EARNED THEM.
edit: Oh, I completely forgot to mention, you must have been lurking on a different site, because if you've been here for a few months looking for good reactor designs, then you must lack eyes. I mean, it's not like there's a STICKED THREAD FULL OF GOOD REACTOR DESIGNS on this forum. Nope, most certainly not a thing which anyone who has eyes to see with could notice within "a few month of lurking". But if one has eyes and can read, then yeah, there is a sticked thread full of good designs just WAITING to enter your world. Including several NEUTRAL BREEDERS, something which, if I remember correctly, Alakazam(what? I suck at names), decried as a myth when he released breeder reactors.
As for getting the uranium needed to generate the power, you'd be surprised how easy it is to find if you just go spelunking. Or set up a decent sized quarry, frame or otherwise.

As for "not outputting nearly as much EU as a decent sized solar farm", I'm pretty sure all those 2k EU/tick CASUC Reactors shit all over that lie. Because a "decent sized solar farm" still doesn't output 2k EU/tick 24/7, perfectly, immune to weather screwing up my power supplies, able to work anywhere in the world(including at my bedrock FCS, where I have the launch codes for all my ICBMs stored and ready to be entered into my mainframe to destroy the world, and at my End base, where I farm pearls and mock dead dragons), and it works in all my Mystcraft Ages, including my stormworld hell age where I go for vacation.

I'm on the "decorate ALL the blocks!" boat here, Nikolite storage blocks would be cool. I mean, can't you just pull the id of nikolite from redpower's config?
Then use that detected id as part of the recipe?

I saw someone else posting such a technique. Avoids any real Redpower stuff in your code. Id Reflection, was it?

DayumDamn that's cool. I thought that reactors and frames still had issues, but since they don't, I'm going to try setting up my mobile base.
It'll be built similarly to a Vogon Space Tower, complete with a world destroyer beam(AKA a high powered array of TC2 diggers with a nuke dropper in the center).

Crab fishing will not be present on this ship, though, due to lack of space crabs.

Quote from Keserian

RP2 based auto charging and discharging with lapotron crystals isn't too hard to set up, and with enderchest works great for providing power to mystcraft ages and ender/nether bases. Works just as well with standard crystals, RE batteries, and RP2 batteries. I'm actually using a version to power my horizontal RP2 quarry in one of my SSP worlds. All you need is a charging side with a filter pulling depleted !powerstorage out of a chest, with the tubes going into the top of your charging system. Then, a retriever that pulls only fully charged medium out if the machines, with the retriever output going back into the chest.

Then you reverse everything on the discharge side. The filter pulls fully charged medium out of the chest, with the pipes going into the bottom of your energy storage or machines. The retriever pulls depleted medium out and puts it back into the chest to be recharged. Works really well on SMP where the different worlds stay loaded. There is an upper limit on energy transfer per enderchest "channel" but I really have never run into it.

Which is all fine and dandy for SMP since you can have different dimensions loaded at once(more so with the new chunkloader from Chicken_Bones, which can load Mystcraft ages as well, allowing one to have my old Skyfarm loaded while I'm on a mining world), but I usually play SSP since Thaumcraft2 is SSP.
That set up would allow for one to transfer energy between ages just fine, but without the ability to keep separate dimensions loaded as well, one can only transfer so much energy per trip, which means for me, a power station for each age is best, with a large power supply in the overworld, both with lots of Vis and Energy from different mods ready for transportation(only BC energy is impossible to transfer this way, but there are plenty of mods to allow one to turn MJ into EU and back, so that's not a issue for me).

I use small power stations for each "base" I make, since I tend to have Mystcraft ages for specific things(a eternal day bright skyland was my choice for agriculture, but I ended up spitting the farms between my main base and the skyfarm). I usually just throw down a few solars when I can afford it and walk away, since I prefer easy and renewable energy(hint: I suck at redstone stuff and automation), but if that's not enough, I have a Thaumcraft2 Vis Generator to power big things(which I have at my main base). Just a basic obsidian generator fueling a Thaumic Generator. The vis is split between it and a duplicator making redstone.
I plan on adding a mob farm to bring in passive vis, but alas, not my zone of expertise. I should try, though. I mean, I have enough time and space to make one. Might as well, right?

Gems and that blue stuff from UU matter would be a nice feature for a later update.
No rush, but it would be nice.

Quote from Deuxtan

Really, they're completely random?
Agriculture isn't that complicated after all then. Only three rules that I've found really matter.

1. The tier of your crossbreed is limited by the sum of their parents' tier +1.

2. Crossbreeding is completely random. You can get anything if it's in the tier range.

3. A plant can only successfully be crossbred if the conditions are right.

Going to stick with random Stickreed breeding for the hops then, since mine have a growth stat of 18 and will save me some time and their tier is enough to get anything.

Is that all correct?

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If all these differing reports of what people bred to get what means anything, yeah, it's pretty random. Maybe not COMPLETELY random, you have to jump some hoops to get some things(netherwart for one, requires you to first get terrawart, it seems), but largely random. Though keep the nutrition on the crossed crop up. Helps with drop rates I hear. Which obviously helps when you want to get the seeds.

Also I'm confused, if can one get seeds without breaking a crop? Or can I increase the drop rate from a crop to have more the one seed if the gain and nutrtion is high enough?

I know it's been suggested in the actual suggestions area, but how about a machine that generates food? Connect some cables, run some power at it, and it generates any of the basic vanilla foods(bread, steaks, chicken, melon slices, bacon, apples, or maybe even golden apples if it has enough energy). Put the food you want in the top slot, it copies it for EU. Melon slices would cost the least EU, and golden apples would cost the most, using enough energy that using it to make them would take days at low voltage.

I've not heard this, but rather know for a fact(and everyone here should by now), that the plants you crossbreed tend to create a random plant if they would create a new crop. So the whole thing about needing netherwart to get Hops is largely irrelevant, since it's mostly(if it actually) random what you get.
One guy says he got coffee from crossbreeding cocoa and wheat, another reeds and melons, and another Ferru and Hops!(all just random selections of plants, I don't know or care if anyone said these things)

If you want everything, crossbreed ALL the crops! Getting plants with high GGR isn't needed for crossbreeding success(in fact, a lower R value would be good in many cases, since if it gets too high it spreads weeds as well). Nutrition and Hydration on a empty crossing crop might increase the chance of getting a new crop, but it might not. It's largely random what you get when and how.

Quote from jerry1333

When regular electric engine gets too much power(512EU/t) it will keep blowing up and still working

Sounds like a anti-griefing mod messing up. I've had errors like that before, because I forgot to change a setting in one.
Now I don't use one, since I have Explosives+, and turn on Nuclear Creepers. Bit more interesting when you have walking penises that explode with the force of a nuclear fusion bomb in the game.

It's nice to see another cropcard addon. Not nearly enough people making them, even if they seem to be simple compared to normal IC2 addons, which often add new blocks with special features.
I was going to use Trees++, but it edits 9 base class files, and I don't think I should risk that with this install. So I guess I won't be using this addon right now.

I recall that before you can get Netherwart via IC2 crossbreeding, you need to get Terrawart.
All I can suggest is crossbreed like a madman. People are constantly saying how they got what kind of plant, but it's somewhat random, judging by the fact that everyone seems to say different things. I'd suggest starting with reeds, since they give themselves when harvested, and then you can add them to another crop. Or flowers, I suppose. Just has to be something which when harvested, can be replanted right away.

Quote from RealEyesRealLies

among the 100+ combinations, which kind of beer is the best?

In my opinion, rum is the best. Easy to make, useful effects for what I tend to do(resistance, which is like armor, and fire resist, which is really handy if you're like me and have lava all over your base).
Chuck in Sugar Canes, wait a few days, enjoy.

'course, I might change my mind once I get some hops. But I still prefer rum since it's easy to make.
Though some Thick Black DragonsBlood might change things a bit.

This mod is awesome, and sexy like Pamela Isley.
I can't wait for future upgrades to this mod. The idea of using IC2 and addons to build a decently automated ABSOLUTELY NOTHING ELSE farm interests me.

You know what would be a neat challenge? A Omni-directional Mining Bathycube. It would have to be able to mine in any direction, for a full size of the side. But you can't normally have a block breaker face two or three directions, so you'd need smaller mining heads.
Top it all off with a computer to run the whole thing and you're golden.

Gold drills sound neat, if useless. Gold has the mining power of wood, and less durability. The real upshot of gold is that it's good for enchanting. But that's hard to represent. Another use for gold is as a conductive material, which is also kinda hard to represent. So why not have gold dig slower, but dig all blocks surrounding it, and have more EU storage then normal drills? A balance would be to have it work at wood power(can't mine iron ore and above), so it would be more of a large scope drill.

As for the idea of a Iridium drill, making it a combat ready diamond drill would be awesome. Just make sure it can mine anything diamond can drill, at a higher speed. I mean, a diamond drill is fast, but once you're mining obsidian, you want more speed no matter what. Making it about as powerful as a actual vibrosaber(or whatever they are called, never made one myself) would make sense.

Though for a added treat, try to add the Iridium drill to the drills which can be used by the miner. As powerful as diamond, but faster and slightly cheaper.

Hehe, Torchweed.

As a long time use of Forestry, I know that some of the things in it are costly and slow, if able to be automated fully. This is a neat mod even for me, though Charcoal stuff isn't needed for me. I'd enjoy this more as a Cropcard addition myself, since that way I save blockIDs. Still, should be fun to use, even if the charcoal stuff isn't going to be used much by me.

You'll see near the bottom of the screen a crafting grid with just string in the upper right corner. I'll get a shot from NEI's crafting help as well, if you wish.