Thoughts on BuildCraft?

[xjjon88]

I was curious to see what other server operators thought of BuildCraft. What are your opinions and suggestions in regarding allowing/disabling BuildCraft on your server? And your reasons behind it?

[Nentify]

Well, in my opinion, there's two ways you can think about it.

In the server operators eyes, you'll dislike BuildCraft mainly because some of the issues it causes. That's it.

However, in the users eyes, most will first learn the basics of Tekkit through using BuildCraft pipes, only after I heard about RedPower tubes I was able to compare them and go "Wow.. I'm never using BuildCraft again!". It shouldn't really cause you many issues, maybe put a tutorial at spawn showcasing the benefits and drawbacks of BuildCraft compared to RedPower to get users to switch.

Lots of popular videos/tutorials start out using BuildCraft pipes, and it's one of the first items I learnt about in Tekkit, and I'm sure it's the same for many others. By all means, you could disable it and simple show the RedPower alternative at spawn and convince your users to switch over. I'm sure if I heard about RedPower first, I'm sure I would have learnt it first.

[xjjon88]

I think one of the main reasons so many users like to use BuildCraft is because of Yoggscast. Actually many people play Tekkit because they feel "inspired" by yoggscast, which is what my users tell me anyway. I've only watched parts of a few yoggscast episodes but I see they use a lot of BuildCraft and not much of anything else.

Do you think disabling BuildCraft completely is a large deterrent for new players looking for a server?

[Nentify]

Some users won't agree with your decision, that's for sure. Like you said, probably someone who watches the Yogscast. But you may bring in more experienced Tekkit users who know about RedPower. It depends how you do it. If you explain what alternatives there, how it works, what the benefits are and then at the end, say "so for this reason, we have disabled BuildCraft", I think users would be happy to try out RedPower and see how it goes. ^^

[matejdro]

Buildcraft is much more cheaper, which makes it very suitable at start of the game to make simple stuff like automatic maceration and cooking.

With RedPower, you have to make alloy furnace, then smelt brass (or even silicon wafers for more advanced stuff like filter) and then combine everything up. While in buildcraft you make pipes from cobble. Of course you have to make engine first, but then you can run how many piping you want, because cobble is very abundant compared to tin/copper/coal for brass and pneumatic tubes.

Also, how much more lag does BuildCraft cause than RedPower, item spills aside?

[xjjon88]

Buildcraft is much more cheaper, which makes it very suitable at start of the game to make simple stuff like automatic maceration and cooking.

With RedPower, you have to make alloy furnace, then smelt brass (or even silicon wafers for more advanced stuff like filter) and then combine everything up. While in buildcraft you make pipes from cobble. Of course you have to make engine first, but then you can run how many piping you want, because cobble is very abundant.

Also, how much more lag does BuildCraft cause than RedPower, item spills aside?

I feel as if it can cause a lot, I've noticed a lot of people leaving machines on, and when machines are left on, chests are filled, and items fall on the ground. There's really now way to manage this, especially when your server gets large. You can't effectively police everyone to shut off their machines / make sure they don't over flow.

BuildCraft is easier to use, has better documentation, and can be acquired with much less resources and earlier. Quarries are also extremely ugly.

Disabling BuildCraft will deter many players from joining, but at the same time keeps your server running smoother.

[matejdro]

I'm asking about lag difference if we ignore possibility of item spills.

[arctichenry]

Personaly, I keep buildcraft enabled only for the ability of new players to build basic logic systems. To counteract item drops, I use a plugin that deleates entitys in loaded chunks every 5 minutes, or when there is a excess of 200 entitys in a chunk.