IC2 wrench

[darzavor]

Lossless mode or not, it pisses me off to no end! You either are gambling with your machines when trying to pick them or, or in lossless mode you have to recharge the wrench every bloody single time after you remove a machine! Moving solar panels is a pain because of this. it also drains a lappack really fast.

Who else runs a server and happily spawns in a new machine for a player who fucked up with the ic2 wrench? I give them 2 for the price of 1 if they are really unlucky.

Apart from that I love IC2 mod though. But the ic2 wrench mechanic is pure evil!

[Neowulf]

Preaching to the choir brutha.

In the past there was a mod in place that removed the chance of loss, until alblaka added the lossless mode. Before lossless more people were losing mass fabs and other expensive machines to a completely unavoidable game mechanic.

[darzavor]

Wouldn't be so bad if there was an option in the config to disable the chance on loss.

[Neowulf]

Yeah, it's a popular suggestion, but alblaka has his vision and a chance of loss is part of it.

[darzavor]

I'm trying to fit that vision in the rest of the mod that actually makes sense. So maybe he is just one of those people who tries to move a telly without pulling the power cord from the socket first :p

[Xastabus]

I can see some value in breaking machines to recycle the machine blocks but it would be nice if there were either a dedicated lossless tool, such as a diamond tipped wrench someone suggested in another thread, or some kind of feedback to let you know what mode the electric wrench is set to.

[Torezu]

Electric wrench mode carries between games, so I just leave mine on all the time.

[Xastabus]

That's nice to know, but it doesn't change the fact that I have no idea how to tell what mode the electric wrench is in when I equip it or press M. There should be a message at the very least.

[Torezu]

There's a message on mine...anyway, you hold M and right-click, not just press M.

[bwillb]

There's a message on mine...anyway, you hold M and right-click, not just press M.

I have a feeling someone just face-palmed quite heavily at that realization ;)

[darzavor]

I understand the need for loss too to recycle parts. But imo it is in the wrong gameplay mechanic. It just doesnt make sense to have a chance on loss when moving machines that you crafted yourself. As crafter of those machines you are the expert and mechanic in this game. And is also the reason why losing machines when moving them is kind of silly.This is why it annoys me, it just doesn't fit in this mod at all. Mechanics don't wreck machines because they have to move them.

If he wants machine loss, why not make machines with limited durability? So that they slowly break down on use. That would fit more into this mod then the current wrench mechanic. With options to use better resources to make machines more durable, or cooling upgrades for this.

Another problem with the wrench is that players don't know about this until they start breaking machines. It is not intuitive to lose machines in this way. Because all the bloody other mods or vanilla doesn't work this way.

[Xastabus]

@darzavor, you are absoluetly right. The machine breaking makes no sense whatsoever unless the player intends to break it. It would be much better if the wrench would drop the complete machine but a pickaxe would drop a machine block. Better yet have using the pickaxe drop the machine block and the other components used to build the machine. That's the way I would have designed it.

@bwillb

I have a feeling someone just face-palmed quite heavily at that realization

Facepalm? Yes, but not for realizing anything. IndustrialCraft shows a severe lack of planning for user friendliness. There is no in-game instruction that would ever indicate the electric wrench has a second mode, let alone that a player has to hold down a key and right-click to switch between them.

The only reason I knew about lossless mode was because I went searching for a mod to fix this machine breaking annoyance. I found several, "how could you not know that," style posts similar to bwillb's and some mention of pressing the M key to switch modes. Nobody except Torezu has bothered to explain how to do it properly. Not even the IC2 Official Wiki page for the electric wrench has any instruction on how to switch modes. http://wiki.industrial-craft.net/index.php?title=Electric_Wrench

So before you mock people consider this; Where would a server full of new users go to get complete and accurate information about all the tools and machines in IC2? Certainly not in game and certainly not the IC2 official web site or official wiki. Even The Tekkit Wiki, informative as it is, has left me scratching my head on several occasions.

Users shouldn't have to go hunting for poorly explained information on the Internet because something the plug-in does pisses them off and wastes their resources simply because they didn't know and had no reasonable way to expect this nonsense. Server admins shouldn't have to dedicate a building full of sign walls to explaining the nuances of plug-ins on their server. Chances are players aren't going to read more than a few signs before they get bored and go find something else to do.

This is ridiculous!

[Torezu]

Directly from the wiki page you linked to: "Switch through modes by pressing M and right-click." You may just need to read better. Tbh, even Minecraft has no in-game tutorial. I've lost track of the number of times I've heard of people getting frustrated by trying to click repeatedly to harvest wood from punching a tree. By that standard, these mods are practically self-explanatory.

[Xastabus]

>_< BAH! Now I see it squished in there between two bold headings. Perhaps it should have a heading of its own to make it more visible.

Please excuse my previous rant... well, part of it anyway. I still stand by the opinion that the current machine breakage mechanic makes no sense and the wrenches should have been handled differently.

[BuccaneerRex]

It wouldn't be too bad if you got all your mats back, and just had to recraft it. I'd actually be more OK with something that broke it all the way back down to components. Like you broke the machine, but you get the iron/copper wires back.

[Torezu]

It wouldn't be too bad if you got all your mats back, and just had to recraft it. I'd actually be more OK with something that broke it all the way back down to components. Like you broke the machine, but you get the iron/copper wires back.

Especially with a wrench. Now, if you were using a blowtorch to remove the machine... :twisted:

[BuccaneerRex]

Perhaps some sort of tradeoff of time/energy to guarantee a successful decomissioning? Like a wrench that had some sort of storage and cost energy to use, but made sure you wouldn't lose the item?

edit:

SARCASM FACE

[Torezu]

Ummm...it does.

[BuccaneerRex]

Let me edit that post to add a sarcasm face.

[Torezu]

Let me edit that post to add a sarcasm face.

Sorry, my sarcasm detector was broken. :blush:

[darzavor]

Perhaps some sort of tradeoff of time/energy to guarantee a successful decomissioning? Like a wrench that had some sort of storage and cost energy to use, but made sure you wouldn't lose the item?

edit:

SARCASM FACE

I guess you didn't read the OP. I know about the lossless mode. That is besides the point however. My point was that this item loss is in the wrong place. It just doesn't make sense to use this mechanic when you are trying to move machines. You as player are the builder of those machines. So you are the expert. What idiot of an expert wrecks his own machines when trying to move them? (Hence my sarcastic comment about moving a telly with the power cable still plugged in)

I know you can avoid the loss of the machine and exchange it for running around to recharge the bloody wrench every time (I know about lappacks too, but the huge solar panel farms don't care), but why do you have to do this in the first place?

The blowing up machines when feeding them too high voltage, that actually is a cool mechanic because it makes sense in that mod. Same goes for the reactor meltdowns. But the wrench is just nothing but a silly nuisance.

[BuccaneerRex]

I think it's just an incentive to upgrade the tools to electric, and build the higher tier storage/charging devices.

Stretching the metaphor doesn't make it more useful. Anyway, what kind of expert beats his machines with a wrench until they come loose from their mountings? No wonder they sometimes break.

As I said, I'd be fine with a break down back to components, or a more elaborate teardown mechanic. But I'm fine with it as it stands. If you're tearing down 40 solar panels, you should expect to have to recharge tools.

[Xastabus]

Stretching the metaphor doesn't make it more useful. Anyway, what kind of expert beats his machines with a wrench until they come loose from their mountings? No wonder they sometimes break.

o_O... I think you're doing it wrong. Right-click, ratchet noise, block drop, job's done - drink coffee.

As for 40 solar panels, use solar arrays instead. I have 4 LV Solar Arays connected to a MFE in my testing world. Provides plenty of power to charge Lappacks and run my machines. Granted, I'm pretty small scale right now but I put it together quickly after I got tired of spending more time managing charcoal than doing anything else.

On the other hand, why bother with it at all when you can condense materials out of thin air? I've switched to alchemy, much more fun for me.

[The Merchant of Menace]

It's a retardedly bullshit mechanic. I assembled each part of that machine, and then assembled the machine itself. Are you telling me that, despite having literally built the thing from scratch, I'm somehow incapable of moving it without half of the components vanishing into hammerspace for no reason? If I have a machine that breaks when I lift it, I damn well cheat a new one in.

[KakerMix]

I'm not a fan of it at all either. It doesn't make sense in the context of the mod itself (hey guys I totally assembled microchips and nuclear chambers on a work bench! I am carrying 64 uranium ingots too!), and it is annoying. Whoops, I placed my washing machine that I built by hand a meter away from where I really wanted it, whoops looks like it completely broke and lost materials somehow when I picked it back up. Whoops.

You'd think that jumping in the water with an inventory full of radioactive, explosive, and electrical things on you would cause more problems, but, welp I guess not!