Posts by X-Heiko

Thanks! I personally find that, by the time you have nuclear power, you don't need much more power or can afford bigger green plants.
As for wind mills, yeah, I guess you can argue about my specific examples a lot, but I find that plains and extreme hills are relevant opposites. Which one's good and which one's bad is, of course, up to discussion. I haven't looked into the realistic aspect here, to be honest.

I mainly think decisions should be made with gameplay in mind: A biome where everything works would make the idea pointless. If offshore windmills are good, then doing everything offshore will be the main way, thus not leaving the player with real freedom to decide where to settle down. I figured if people want to live in large heights, they'd usually go for wind power as their height is already large to begin with. It'd be a "themed decision", so to speak.

I think that, as long as the player doesn't feel it's less fun due to lack of realism, it's fine. We should just be careful not to give out too many bonuses.

Solar panels work with sun, but they tend to overheat. I don't know what technology is used in the Mojave desert, but roof-mounted home solar panels... I've heard in the radio that lots of people here in Germany complained about them functioning at 30% of their assumed power when summer was really hot. They'd overheat and produce less power, which is, if you think about it, a big weakness. I don't know what Steve builds, but I don't suppose it's heat-resistant high-tech.

I liked Greg's idea very much. If solar panels get covered in snow every now and then, it's okay for them to have a bigger power output since they lose their "set and forget" attribute.

It'd be an additional challenge if the biomes where rubber trees spawn were not suitable for any generator (except maybe the regular generator because they contain much wood)

Quote from GregoriusT

Dont forget to give Wind a Bonus in Ocean. And to add Code to prevent Solars with Snow on it to produce Energy.

That is a marvelous idea! That way, you get a bonus but have to check for snow every now and then!

That'd be because the winds are weaker to begin with. In a canyon, however...

In advance, sorry if I didn't find this topic already! I used the search function to no success.

Rationale: The ongoing discussion about different "green" generators being overpowered still stands at a point where solar energy is basically still hated by hardcore players, mainly for its "zero need for maintenance" policy, while other generators are not worthwhile for the beginner.

Idea: Make generatos biome-dependent. Alternatively, re-formulate the biome criteria into fine-granular, block-based ones. This post will try to stick to a "good-neutral-bad" biome policy and to suggest block-based alternatives.

Examples:

Solar panels tend to be very inefficient when it's hot. Therefore, how about a 50% malus in desert biomes, making them not viable for use there. If desired, a 25% bonus in snow biomes can apply. A block-based criterion could include proximity to lava, working machines, each other or world height, although I personally would like to discourage making solar panels more efficient at higher levels because that would put it in direct competition to wind mills.
(Solar: -50% desert, +25% snow, proximity to hot blocks)

Wind mills already have a block-based world height criterion in place, but the more topographical differences a terrain has, the stronger winds become there. Therefore, plains biomes would almost be still, making wind mills work at only 50% of their efficiency. Placed in an extreme hills biome, though, they may yield an extra 50% power. Be warned: This also means they break more easily in extreme hill biomes. Although no additional block-based criteria are really needed, cave winds will only rarely be as strong as winds on the surface. Sunlight is detectable I think, so one criterion could be to check whether the wind mill can be sunlit. This could cause problems with glass-encased wind mills, however.
(Wind: -50% plains, +50% extreme hills, no additional suggestions)

Water mills operate finer and thus, a biome criterion seems strange, but to encourage offshore plants and facilitate early game play, ocean and river biomes could give a 50% and 25% bonus, respectively. However, due to high evaporation, water mills are nearly useless in desert biomes. Also, the high amount of organic matter in swamp water makes it difficult for the blades to rotate, so that these two biomes suffer a -50% penalty each. Block-based criteria include whether the water is flowing (this was suggested before), whether it's organic water, whether the surrounding water is surrounded by water, solid blocks or grainy blocks that let water through easily (such as sand or gravel). An additional idea would be the "gulf stream scenario": in ocean biomes, if a water mill is submerged deeply enough, it catches a constant underwater stream that gives it an additional bonus, encouraging deep-sea energy stations that are difficult to build and use, yet cheap to procure. None of this applies to manned mills.
(Water:-50% desert, -50% swamp, +50% ocean, +25% river, depth of submerging, water flow)

Finally, geothermal generators are very strong as of now, but why not consider making them 50% more powerful when in the Nether? You will either have to move your base to the Nether or to transport the energy by hand. Generators will not work when no player is in the Nether, so it's not a big buff to me. In turn, snow biomes could have the opposite effect. Block-based criteria include proximity to lava, similarly to water mills.
(Geothermal: +50% Nether, -50% snow, proximity to lava)

While regular generator keep their universality, I feel nuclear reactors are still less practical than solar panels. That is a good thing, though: Safe nuclear reactors aren't what you're supposed to do, are they? Also, I can't think of a biome-based criterion.

Summary: Generators have biome-dependent efficiency. Choosing a place to settle down influences choice of generators and vice versa. There is a "best choice" for almost every place. If biome basedness is bad, block proximities and height can influence efficiency as well, or in addition. In addition, the "neutral" value can be lower than the generators' current efficiencies (config file!).

All percentages, constants, literals and criteria are examples. If 50% is too little, make it 80%. Thanks for reading!

The thing I currently like so much about recycling is that it works with everything, from every mod, the same way. If we were to have weighted recycling, we could only give weights != 1 to vanilla and IC items. Also, you usually only recycle leaves, dirt, cobblestone... stuff that you don't need and that's not worth a ton anyway.

I'd rather see a way to do something specifically designed for making scrap. Something that needs a little extra work but yields more scrap. Something like "dirt + cobblestone + gravel + sticky resin = 1 scrap for sure", give or take some maceration, extraction etc. on the way. I don't know, but it's sound fishy to me to have 4 scrap because I gave it a diamond.

I could also imagine an upgrade module that logarithmically/asymptotically increases scrapping chances in a recycler.

Unless every feature is costlier the more features are included. I know the idea is denied, but let's analyze a little thought here:

We basically have energy storage, mobility, CF pack and armor. To decrease the number of new items, let's ignore the CF pack (you really don't need that at all times) and stay within tier, leaving only two sets of combinable chestplates: {batpack, jetpack, nanoplate} and {lappack, electric jetpack, quantum suit plate}. That'd give us "only" 8 new items, which is much but not out of this world.

Now, let's assume we combine an electric jetpack with a qplate. I don't know how much energy flying costs, but let's call it "x". Let's also call how much energy getting hit costs if the plate is to ignore one point of damage "y". Now, with the "Quantum Flying Pack", flying costs 3x, absorbing damage costs 3y, plus the max height is 15% lower and the damage reduction is not 100%. I don't know what value would be good, but let's think about that.

Now, if we are to combine the third feature, the lappack, what do we get? Flying costs 9x, absorbing damage costs 9y, max height is 30% lower, the armor is "good" but no impenetrable qSuit anymore plus the lappack stores 30% less EU. It just becomes inefficient on all ends.

I see one problem with this, however. Combining the fuel-based jetpack with a batpack will make the damage value ambiguous. Maybe it's best to exclude the fuel-based jetpack from this idea altogether.

The exponential cost factor "3.0" and the generally linear percentage decrease of 15 percentage points are, of course, only examples. Maybe 5 and 20 points would work better. You know what, I actually think that'd make for a good game mechanic. If you have an over-abundance of energy and can trade efficiency for universality, why not? Especially making the qSuit plate not impenetrable, in my opinion, takes out a lot of OP-ness of an "everything chestplate". As for crafting recipes, just glue the packs together with UUM and glass fibre cable for the high-tier recipes and sticky resin with copper wire for the low-tier ones? I don't know!

I am, however, preeeeeeeetty sure I've heard the goo idea before.

Waterproof iron pipes are not from IndustrialCraft, and I highly doubt we'll see a pipe system (or a necessity of them) in IC2.

My bad, sorry!

Quote from FenixR

Limitations for what can be disassembled and what not can be put in place, so everything you say its actually a non-issue.

Losing universality and extra programming work are issues to me.

Quote from dambalon

Just like the name implies - a machine that will disassemble a block or an item down to its components. [...]

I think I changed threads... Wait... Nope, these actually are different threads discussing the same idea. If you're not going to use the search function, it'd be very kind of you to at least check the front page.

Quote from NinjaRoy100

i think that a decrafter of any kind would be OP, and also, many things have multiple ways to craft them, which would it choose? if that worked, u could decraft a diamond into either 9 UUM which would be OP in my opinion, but also into a stack of coal, an obsidian, and 8 flint. OP

-1

That's what I said, although I admit, in retrospective, that I might have worded that unnecessarily... "domain-specifically".

Speak not of equivalent solutions to your problem found elsewhere! If you do so, especially with your post count, all you will get in exchange is flames!

Green goo! Common liquid! Way deadlier than lava! Could the code for un-insulated wires damaging you be used for them? Obviously, a simple bucket wouldn't suffice to clean it up. Also, I think it'd be a nice challenge if the goo had crafting uses: Deliberately blow up to get goo.

But what could you need cliche, radioactive goo for (besides decoration)? Plutonium-based weaponry? Idk!

The relationship between "recipe" and "output" has the cardinality "1:N" (Chen). This means that "output" does not functionally determine the recipe. That means complication, "dirty hack" solutions or "vanilla and IC2 items only"-like support.

Have you tried the mod whose name shall not be named in this forums?

This kind of triggers an idea with me, but I already don't like it. "Some compressor recipes need so much energy in one tick that, without upgrades, it can't be done, and make industrial diamond one of these." That'd just make things more complicated, and as higher-tier machines are denied, higher-tier recipes make no sense. After all, we have UUM.

However, if I put UUM in a compressor... I figure it'd be cool if it exploded big time.

Volumyand, mazeeh-gai 'nem other languages, nishik-matah tres everyone. Masren, amiresh English. (Und das sage ich nicht, weil ich euch nicht verstehe )

I don't think a diamond chainsaw fits IC2's style. A tree-cutting robot, maybe, but I imagine it to be too cumbersome to use unless it could chop down huge jungle trees almost instantly. There's treecapitator and ComputerCraft already, and the chainsaw is, in my opinion, fine.

As much as I try to think of a use for UUM blocks, I can only come up with "gooey translucent block" which is probably impossible, or a jump pad for use with qSuit boots. As for the aesthetics of a pink goo glob... I don't know, maaan...

Come to think of it, energy storage is a bit easy. It's almost impossible in real life and one MFSU usually is enough for almost everything you need.