Posts by abculatter_2

Are you tired of staring at your crops for HOURS and HOURS on end, punching hundreds of weeds, and struggling to make those plants breed, leaving for a small excursion to relieve the monotony... Only to then witness an entire field of weeds destroying all you worked so hard to accomplish?

Then what YOU need, my friend, is our NEWEST product; FERTILIZER-X!

Using the most advanced in plant-nutrition science- mixed with just a pinch of uranium!- your plants will be multiplying and mutating right before your eyes*!

You'll never have to spend hours waiting for those plants to crossbreed again!

ORDER NOW!

*Due to the highly random nature of radiation mutation, actual plant produced may vary. We do not take responsibility for any plants lost or loss of life from radiation-empowered super weeds, nor for any permanent damage to your soil or environment from unintended side-effects of radiation exposure.

(Summary: Mix uranium dust or a uranium ingot with a bunch of fertilizer, and it will make a super fertilizer which, although it will NOT affect plant growth, it will cause the cropstick its placed on to permanently become 'radiated'. Radiated crops crossbreed VERY readily, and have a much greater random element to crop statistics, though for the sake of balance, this should probably occasionally make inferior crops, with better ones being rarer then usual but having much more potential of increasing a lot in one or two stats in one generation. Also, causes weeds to be much more likely to grow in that plot, and these weeds will occasionally have unusual traits, such as super-growth, unusual spread mechanics, or even poison like venomilia. Rare radiation poisoning while near the plot might also be cool, but at the same time, not really...)

Would you be willing to add the symbiosis crop card collection to this one? Or update said mod?

What is this about 'steam mode' in nuclear reactors? It sounds intriguing...

Do you have plans for an upgraded version of the generator? With the way things currently are, methane burning seems like it can get rather space-consuming rather quickly... Not to mention the logistics of keeping all those generators supplied.

Do you have any plans for adding the new electric mining tools you've added to the list of acceptable tools for the miner?
Or, perhaps, adding your own version of the miner?

Could you give Apatite some kind of use beyond Forestry fertilizing? As it is, there are just so many better and easier alternatives to apatite added by Forestry, that it's made apatite pretty much useless.

Unless you're sending mail...

Well, there's a reason I said "and other desirable characteristics"...

Since, obviously, people don't like the wood colors idea...
What about oak trees with a percentage chance to drop an extra log, maybe (if possible) having this percentage based on the crop's 'gain' stat?
Or just really large/tall trees, which provide a lot of wood, or are useful for structures?
Or tin and copper trees/bushes, which, if they grow on a dirt block above a 3x3 chunk of copper or tin ore, they have a small chance of their leaves or logs growing as Tin Leaves or Copper Leaves, which would give Small Pile of Copper/Tin, similar to Small Piles of Iron? With the amount it yields possibly related to the crop's Gain stat somehow, if possible?

Actually, now that I think about it... How possible would it be to have saplings grow out of crops like normal saplings, though obviously without the direct benefit of bonemeal? This might open the door to tree breeding in IC2, which might provide varying benefits based on stats and species. Growth and Gain should be obvious; Growth causes the sapling to go from crop to tree faster, while Gain increases the number of logs are put on that tree. No idea what Resistance would provide to the tree after it's grown, though, if anything.

Still no idea what these trees could provide beyond more wood, though...

I had an idea earlier to the effect of this, which makes the process a little more based on reality, (not that that's ever been very important in Minecraft) as well as allowing wood to be used in this process as well.

Instead of using straight plantballs, you would instead be able to burn plantballs for some amount of charcoal. (perhaps configurable in the config, by default, let's say you get 3 per plantball) You'd then have to macerate charcoal into charcoal dust (maybe integrate into charcoal dust mod?) and craft nine of these in a crafting table, to receive a Big Pile of Charcoal Dust. Compressing this yields a Charcoal Ball, and after that, the recipes are completely configurable in the config, with around 4-5 items added by this mod, to represent ever larger amounts of compressed charcoal (Not all of which are used by default).
By default, the recipes go: 8 charcoal dust + 1 Charcoal Ball (9 charcoal) = 1 Lump of Charcoal (17 charcoal), which is then compressed into 1 coal. This may sound OP at first, but consider that it would take 1088 (17 stacks of) pieces of wood to make one diamond in this way, slightly more then the total number of plant material currently needed, and 2901.3 (45.3 stacks) of other plant material, which should be reduced... buuuut, the plantballs to charcoal ratio above already provides over TWICE as much EU per plant versus biofuel cans... Maybe if it instead directly gave charcoal dust, it could be a higher plants to charcoal ratio?

Also, if you really wanted to be a hippie sustainability advocate, you could also add recipes which allow you to use more charcoal/coal to replace flint and bricks/iron/obsidian in the later steps.

What about adding tree saplings as a crop? Most of the vanilla trees would be purely decorative (such as birch and jungle trees) with a small chance of dropping saplings if harvested when fully grown. Oak trees could drop apples at a low rate as well, but that's not really the point of this suggestion.

The point is, what about adding new trees, available only through IC2 agriculture cross-breeding? I can't think of any at the moment, but new wood colors, higher wood yield, or other desirable attributes would be cool.

Quote from YX33A

Extra slots for items from upgrades? Sounds... odd. Not only on the idea of it adding more storage by placing something in which obviously takes up space, but also because it sounds hard to code. Can one make a machine which checks how many of item X it has and then increases storage space without exiting the GUI? Best bet is a Multi-block style. Need more storage? Make it bigger. Easy to explain, and easy enough to code, because one isn't likely to place a block while using a GUI.

Unless it used Ender pearls and stuff. But that would rely on Magic. *snort snort* And we all know how well that would go over...

Damn it, I hate how correct all your points are... >3>
I still think it's a good idea, though, and I see no reason why having to exit the GUI to update storage space should be seen as a major detractor. It is, at worst, a minor annoyance, in my opinion.

Explaining it without getting into multi-block machines, though, would be hard... What about simply making machines take items out of adjacent chests?

Quote from RawCode

on breakdown machines shoud explode, as TNT or a bit stronger.

lol

Also, many people (myself included) don't like breakdown mechanics on any machines, so probably not in the main mod.

You can do whatever you want with addons, though.

Quote from Zudguard

On the subject of Balance........ simplicity in itself, IC2 already has a mechanic that would keep this idea balanced. Upgrades. Then the IC2 team can make the upgrade as expensive (item AND/OR energy cost) or cheap as they want to keep everything balanced.

An upgrade for expanded capacity.
I would absolutely LOVE to have this added to the main mod, I'd FINALLY have an upgrade I'll actually USE! ;P (I have this thing for efficiency, you see...)

Quote from Alblaka

Nothing WE can do. Mojang would need to improve TileEntity efficiency.

That's what I thought...

Quote from Alblaka

Not worth the time needed to code this.
Don't be mistaken, sending 1 or 40 packets over a defined energynet, both is pretty much neglectible in regards to CPU usage.

CPU usage comes from sunlight checks, TileEntity blocks in general and the altering of Enet (adding/removing cables or panels).

Oooh, okay. I was afraid of that...

EDIT: What would be a way to reduce that lag, without taking away huge solar farms, then? Or is there a way?

Either for an add-on or as an addition to the main mod;

Make solar panels 'connect to each other (with the limitation that it can only go 40 blocks, then new connections are made) and emit their eu through only one output face, with all connected solar panels contributing to a single calculation, then either sending it along as a packet or as many 1-eu packets.

Or, make a new block which is able to accomplish this, or add the functionality to energy storage and/or transformer blocks. Or perhaps add both this and the above, with the above having the detraction that it will only emit 1-eu packets?

This would maintain both of the original intended costs of solars; The actual material costs, AND the cost of requiring huge solar farms to accomplish real production.

Quote from RockRaiderZulu

It is a java applet. Just download it and it will work.

What are you supposed to do with the jar after you download it, though?

I just see a blank box whenever I go through that link...

Not quite sure what may be the problem? Any thoughts, or any more info I could provide?

Quote from F4113nb34st

don't worry about the fact that there is no addon suggestion section, most addon makers look to suggestions forum for ideas when they can't think of any
also, if no one picks this up, I might take it up in the future
(note: I mean distant future, right now I got alot of things I gotta make, so I would be a month or two min)

Mkay, cool, good to know.
And I would, personally, not consider a month to be "distant future", but cool that you're interested.

And also, an additional addendum for the chutes; Gravity and diagonals are intended to be what sets them apart from other pipe-like systems, and allowing as many diagonal connections as is practically possible, without making things awkward or difficult, or impossible to code would be best, in my opinion.
They would also probably require painting to make things easier in this regard.

And now, to finally get into...

Multi-Tile Energy Storage:

This one may be difficult to make non-laggy, and/or very difficult to code, but here it is anyway;

Basically, every mineral storage block (or at least, most/some of them) would have a Conductivity and Capacity value, as well (maybe) a Wavelength value. Conductivity is how much EU can be transferred in to or out of that block at any given tick, and capacity is how much EU can be stored in that block. Exactly how things will work in regards to conductivity/EU storage, I don't know, but maybe it could work similarly to how things are now, where storage mediums will 'suck up' as much as is not being used at any given time? Then just give out as much as they can when necessary.
Wavelength affects how easily energy can transfer between two different materials. Having a Wavelength close to that of another material, will allow that material to transfer power at or nearly at the lower of the two block's maximums. Having a Wavelength which is distant from another material, however, would cause those two materials to transfer only a trickle of power, if any at all. (Note: there should be a way for the game to detect when two mineral blocks have 0 conductivity with eachother, so it knows not to try doing so constantly, and this should get updated at block updates.)
Also, any mineral faces with EU in them which are in direct contact with air or any block without a conductivity/wavelength rating, would constantly destroy 1/4 of the block's conductivity worth of EU from the block's storage, making insulation important for storage blocks.

Here's an example;
Let's say you wanted to make a giant rechargeable battery, made of tin on the outside, redstone blocks on the inside, (which would be added with this) and copper blocks running down the center. Let's say redstone has a wavelength of 150, tin has a wavelength of 50, and copper has a wavelength of 100. Because the wavelengths between redstone and tin are so far away from eachother, they would have no conductivity between eachother at all, allowing tin to be an effective 'insulator' for redstone. However, if you were to stupidly connect your copper- which has a much higher conductivity then redstone, but much lower capacity- to the tin shell, then because copper has an intermediate wavelength between the two, it would constantly siphon off power from the redstone and into the tin, which would then in turn, since it's exposed to air, gradually destroy all your precious EU.
A way to avoid this might be to surround your copper with rubber blocks on the output/input face(s), which has a conductivity of 0, and a wavelength of 9001, which makes it non-conductive with all blocks.

Also, another additional tidbit, is that cables would ONLY link to the same mineral block which that cable is made out of, so copper cables will only link to copper, gold cables would only link to gold, fiber optics would only link to diamond, and iron cables would only link to iron or refined iron.

Alternatively, there could be recipes which create special "conductive [mineral here] block", which would function in the same way as above.

This system also gives the potential for high-capacity, but VERY expensive and space-consuming "mega-cables" made of various blocks, and surrounded by rubber.

Quote

Have a look for Advanced machine (I dislike it but ...). It already contains an advanced macerator.

This was just my take on what an advanced macerator should look like. And I just like the idea of this kind of multi-tile machine, working on physical item entities in the world, instead of just having an inventory.

Quote

According to the actual Overclocker upgrade system, increasing the speed by 20 would be 60 time more consuming, not 15 ...

The reason I said 15-16 is because, the way I, personally, increase production, is that I simply make MOAR MACERATORS, so the efficiency is the same, but your total items per second increases. This is why I said the EU/t amounts that I did.
Though, you're right that the overclocking system should not be ignored here, and I suppose at this stage of the game, EU is something you'd likely have a lot of... Especially if other suggestions I'll put here are implemented...
Buuut, at the same time, if the amount of EU/t is increased above 20 times the cost of one macerator, then what's the point of using this? Why not just make more macerators, when they're so much cheaper?

Quote

Machine giving extra loots are already denied/ignored ... I'like too
having machines more expensive, EU-consuming and working more slowly
that gives you extra-loots but ...

Damn... >->

I suppose, also, if anyone wants to make a add-on out of any of these ideas, please feel free to. These actually were originally ideas for an add-on, not the main mod itself, but I couldn't find an add-on suggestion forum...

Quote

Most of the people on this forum would probably answer you: IC² is not
for automation. But I simply don't understand the point on what you
suggested. I mean that I would like too a little part of automation, but
having advantages on BC/RP: it could be done inside your machines,
assuming you're able to manage others problems it can occured
(EU-consumption or more)

So far, that hasn't been mentioned, but I suppose I could agree if that's an official statement.
But still, I feel that this mod could really use its own, unique form of automation, which would have its own advantages/disadvantages. (Including, as you suggested, being able to be used in the multi-tile machines above.)
There are also other advantages to the chute system over BC/RP, a few of which I came up with after the above post;
Chutes would, on inclines, react to each other like minecart tracks, making diagonals much easier. This might also relate to the caveats, in that, if there is a junction, where chutes converge on the same tile, with one going up/down, then other chutes will always take a diagonal path down into that chute.
Chutes would be MUCH less expensive to go fast on, all you have to do is make a diagonal or straight up/down slope, and items will quickly speed up to at least the speed of a golden BC pipe. Though, I've never played RP, so I don't know how fast items usually go down tubes...
Additionally, chutes would be MUCH easier- and cheaper!- to work with, requiring no redstone, no pumps, no engines, no motors, no whatever-it-is-RP-has, the only force a chute needs to take items out of inventories and truck them over distances is gravity.
They would also automatically act like cheaper obsidian pipes whenever they are open on one end, allowing one to easily drop items straight into chutes, with the disadvantages that they can only pick up on one side, and they cannot pick up items from a distance.

Oh, and did I mention that chutes require NO power, save gravity, and that they are cheap? That's the biggest advantage of chutes, in my opinion, that and diagonals.

As for conveyors, the main reason I suggested them, honestly, was for use inside of these machines that I was suggesting, as a way to move items without destroying blocks or just dropping stuff in. They may also have some application in traps, for pushing players and mobs around, but they have a disadvantage of not being able to take items out of inventories, and costing EU for every block traveled.
They would also have the advantage of being much easier to go diagonally up or down, but besides the above advantages of moving entities and being able to be used in machines, these don't have many advantages over pipes/tubes.

Quote

I would like these suggestions, maybe with a bit of refining though
(some things would be alot more practical or less laggy with slight
changes)

I find it funny that we ic2'ers are soooo advanced that we can make armor that makes you invincible,

but we still can't manage to get an item to fall into a chest without us there helping it along

Of course, these are far from set-in-stone ideas, and practical and ESPECIALLY lag concerns are more important then coolness factor.

And that little bit of funny oddness is exactly why I made the chutes.

And now, for an additional suggestion, which I actually particularly like;

Redstone Cabling:

Craft a piece of redstone with a cable, or simply place redstone on a cable, and it will become a redstone variant of that kind of cable, capable of conducting both a redstone and an EU current. This would be especially useful in my machine components suggestions, since most components require a redstone current for activation, but could also have applications for the creative, such as more easily using a distant splitter cable when an storage medium is full, or making a MFSU automatically turn on a reactor when it needs power.
Also, breaking one of these cables will drop both a normal variant of the cable, and a piece of redstone, allowing one to easily uncraft them if needs be.

If this has already been suggested/done, then this can simply be ignored.

EDIT:

Quote

Haven't
read yet, not that i have any honest intention on doing so, but its
fair to warn you that alblaka doesn't like Multi Blocks machine due to
the lag generating mess that it could become.

That, is
something I hadn't considered... I have no idea how much potential these
things have at becoming lag-fests, and I suppose only a modder or
Alblaka himself could tell me how feasible any of these are...

Chutes:

These would be slides for items, basically. any
item which comes into contact with an open side will pop into the
chutes, similar to how obsidian pipes work in BC, but will maintain
their momentum. Also, items will gradually loose momentum whenever they
are on a level plane in a chute, and will slow down rapidly if they ever
try to go up. sliding downward, on the other hand, will speed them up
rather rapidly, making chutes a simple, cheap, and effective way to move
items downward. (And sideways, if you're creative.)
These would also
connect to each other in a way similar to BC pipes, but items will
always move downward if they can, no matter what. the models should
reflect this, and maybe they could use a connection scheme something
like a blend between BC pipes and minecart tracks?

Also, personally, I think there should be windows on the sides of the chutes, so one could how items are passing through, though if not that'd be fine.

Example recipe:

T T
Where; T = Tin ingot
This would produce anywhere from 4-8 chutes, depending on what everyone else thinks is balanced.

Yeah, that's really all I can think of on chutes... They're basically just BC pipes that don't need power, and go down forever.
Oh, and maybe they should also, so long as they're on the side or bottom sides of a block, and their slope is downward from the block they are connected to, then they will continually draw whatever is in that block/machine/whatever's inventory as is appropriate, at a bit faster rate then a redstone engine from BC.

Chute Gates:

Chute gates would simply be doors which would block and hold back items from passing through them, until a certain condition was met.
The simplest gate would be tin, and would open whenever a redstone signal was applied.
More advanced gates would, of course, be made of more advanced materials, and be capable of detecting different input values, with the REALLY advanced ones requiring EU to run, but having an interface similar to BC gates.

Multi-Tile Machines Continued:
(because organization is for chumps)

(Okay, these compressors maybe aren't as great as I was intending them to be, but I dunno...)
Multi-tile Compressor:

What it says on the tin, this is intended as a fast, more effective, and obviously more expensive alternative to the compressor.
First, you have to craft two of the machines, then place them so that they both face oppositely on the same block. (Preferably, on top of a conveyer, but that's optional)
Then, whenever one of these compressors receive a redstone signal, they will both slam into each other, instantaneously expending their combined inner store of 2600 EU (may be more, if it feels needed) and detecting any item compression recipes in the items between them. If there are none, then the EU is simply wasted, but if there are any, then after 20 seconds, its pistons will slide back to reveal its products.

This compressor can, in this way, produce up to 4 recipes at once, allowing it to produce at greater efficiency and much greater speed, provided items are supplied in-bulk.

Example Recipe:
OOO
P
BCA
Where;
O = Obsidian
P = Piston
B = Advanced machine block
C = Compressor
A = Advanced circuit

Aaaand, now, I can't think anymore, for some reason... If these ideas aren't totally bashed to pieces by tomorrow, I'll continue this.