Electricity to EMC, is it possible?

[gavjenks]

Filters can only suck items out of an inventory directly, not through connected tubes. So if you want to hook up multiple water mills, you need to have a retriever.

Edit: The blobfish ninjaed me

You don't NEED to. You can simply build a filter for every water mill. (and then just one for the deployer)

Which design happens to be more convenient has nothing to do with this conversation. The point is: it doesn't require bluetricity. AND, even if you use bluetricity, you don't get any more power out of the mills. So therefore, it's clearly not "converting bluetricity to EUs." Which means it is, in fact, getting more energy from falling water than it takes to lift the water.

Which makes it dumb and magical and nonsensical, and therefore exactly the same as macerating blaze rods.

(Note: there's nothing wrong with allowing people to macerate blaze rods if that's what you want on a server, along with magical infinite water mills. I am simply arguing that it makes no sense to ban blaze rod macerating, but ALSO to allow any other exploit that works the exact same way. That's just arbitrary and hypocritical.)

[Xylord]

You don't NEED to. You can simply build a filter for every water mill.

Which design happens to be more convenient has nothing to do with this conversation. The point is: it doesn't require bluetricity (and even if you use bluetricity, you don't get any more power out of the mills!), so therefore, it's not "converting bluetricity to EUs." Which means it is, in fact, getting more energy from falling water than it takes to lift the water.

Which makes it dumb and magical and nonsensical, and therefore exactly the same as macerating blaze rods.

(Note: there's nothing wrong with allowing people to macerate blaze rods if that's what you want on a server, along with magical infinite water mills. I am simply arguing that it makes no sense to ban blaze rod macerating, but ALSO to allow any other exploit that works the exact same way. That's just arbitrary and hypocritical.)

Well, to be honest, I could understand why one could ban a machine that shits diamonds like a turquoise diarrhea and allow a system that makes a bit faster the "Farm solar panels/ find a lava lake" step. It isn't like the mills are game-breaking, they're just cheaper, better looking solar arrays.

[andrewdonshik]

You don't NEED to. You can simply build a filter for every water mill. (and then just one for the deployer)

Which design happens to be more convenient has nothing to do with this conversation. The point is: it doesn't require bluetricity. AND, even if you use bluetricity, you don't get any more power out of the mills. So therefore, it's clearly not "converting bluetricity to EUs." Which means it is, in fact, getting more energy from falling water than it takes to lift the water.

Which makes it dumb and magical and nonsensical, and therefore exactly the same as macerating blaze rods.

(Note: there's nothing wrong with allowing people to macerate blaze rods if that's what you want on a server, along with magical infinite water mills. I am simply arguing that it makes no sense to ban blaze rod macerating, but ALSO to allow any other exploit that works the exact same way. That's just arbitrary and hypocritical.)

I might change rules keeping that in mind.

[gavjenks]

They are pretty game breaking. For about 3/5 of the resources of a solar panel (same recipe but wood instead of circuits and coal), you get EIGHT TIMES the energy output.

5/3 cost factor * 2 water mills per recipe * 2x the operating time * 2xthe EU when they are operating = 13.3 times higher return on investment than solar panels.

I'd say that being able to increase your output by a factor of 13, entirely due to an unintentional exploit of mod interactions, is clearly imbalancing. It's pretty difficult to argue that 13x exploit benefit is "just a bit faster" or that it doesn't matter. It is massively faster.

[andrewdonshik]

They are pretty game breaking. For about 3/5 of the resources of a solar panel (same recipe but wood instead of circuits and coal), you get EIGHT TIMES the energy output.

5/3 cost factor * 2 water mills per recipe * 2x the operating time * 2xthe EU when they are operating = 13.3 times higher return on investment than solar panels.

I'd say that being able to increase your output by a factor of 13, entirely due to an unintentional exploit of mod interactions, is clearly imbalancing. It's pretty difficult to argue that 13x exploit benefit is "just a bit faster" or that it doesn't matter. It is massively faster.

Yes, but "gamebreaking" faster wouldn't be how much bigger, but how much period. It isn't like it spits out a stack of diamonds every second.

[gavjenks]

Yes, but "gamebreaking" faster wouldn't be how much bigger, but how much period. It isn't like it spits out a stack of diamonds every second.

Macerating blaze rods with a simple macerator doesn't spit out a diamond every second either. More like a diamond every 2 minutes or so. Pretty comparable to collectors.

It only spits out a diamond every second if you beef up your system to have like multiple fully spun up rotary macerators all going at once...

Similarly, of course 13 EU vs. 1 EU is trivial, but when you scale it up (just like scaling up the macerating), it becomes 1300 EU/tick instead of 100 EU/tick... Which is a diamond every 20 seconds or so I think, if you use your UU to make glowstone. All for the resources of approximately 1 MV solar array.

[andrewdonshik]

Macerating blaze rods with a simple macerator doesn't spit out a diamond every second either. More like a diamond every 2 minutes or so. Pretty comparable to collectors.

It only spits out a diamond every second if you beef up your system to have like multiple fully spun up rotary macerators all going at once...

Similarly, of course 13 EU vs. 1 EU is trivial, but when you scale it up (just like scaling up the macerating), it becomes 1300 EU/tick instead of 100 EU/tick...

And if I make loads of solars, I get loads of EU too. Point irrelevant.

[Xylord]

They are pretty game breaking. For about 3/5 of the resources of a solar panel (same recipe but wood instead of circuits and coal), you get EIGHT TIMES the energy output.

5/3 cost factor * 2 water mills per recipe * 2x the operating time * 2xthe EU when they are operating = 13.3 times higher return on investment than solar panels.

I'd say that being able to increase your output by a factor of 13, entirely due to an unintentional exploit of mod interactions, is clearly imbalancing. It's pretty difficult to argue that 13x exploit benefit is "just a bit faster" or that it doesn't matter. It is massively faster.

To be honest, you didn't calculate any of the redpower machinery in this. A retriever is pretty expensive, with the two ender pearls, and if you go the no-blutricity way, you'll still need two gold ingots for each filter.

Even then, it's probably still advantageous to solar panels, but what I meant is that the level of advantage one exploit gives compared to another is ridiculous. For example, you can't power a mass fabricator with those watermills.

[gavjenks]

And if I make loads of solars, I get loads of EU too. Point irrelevant.

No, my point is that the benefit gained from the water exploit itself is responsible for 92% of your diamond making power. If you scale it up, then pretty much all your diamonds are exploited diamonds.

When macerating blaze rods, the benefit gained from the macerating exploit is responsible for probably about 98-99% of the diamond making power (it costs you a little EU to keep them running, which is an external cost).

In either case, the exploit is pretty much doing all of the work, and giving you all of the benefit. Saying "Oh 92% of your income coming from exploits is totally okay, but 98% is unacceptable!" would be really silly.

To be honest, you didn't calculate any of the redpower machinery in this. A retriever is pretty expensive, with the two ender pearls, and if you go the no-blutricity way, you'll still need two gold ingots for each filter.

A blaze rod macerating setup requires either a filter for every macerator, or a retriever for all of them + two filters for the condensers, etc. I see absolutely no difference here in terms of redpower machinery costs.

you can't power a mass fabricator with those watermills.

Um, yes you can... It would be really easy to build 400 of these things (just plop it down and attach one RP tube and one tin cable each) in no time at all, and be generating UU every few seconds.

[andrewdonshik]

No, my point is that the benefit gained from the water exploit itself is responsible for 92% of your diamond making power. If you scale it up, then pretty much all your diamonds are exploited diamonds.

When macerating blaze rods, the benefit gained from the macerating exploit is responsible for probably about 98-99% of the diamond making power (it costs you a little EU to keep them running, which is an external cost).

In either case, the exploit is pretty much doing all of the work, and giving you all of the benefit. Saying "Oh 92% of your income coming from exploits is totally okay, but 98% is unacceptable!" would be really silly

A blaze rod macerating setup requires either a filter for every macerator, or a retriever for all of them + two filters for the condensers, etc. I see absolutely no difference here in terms of redpower machinery costs.

Um, yes you can...

So? You can run a mass fab off solars, and in this case, the exploit is using what the deployer was designed to do.

[gavjenks]

So? You can run a mass fab off solars

I'm not understanding your argument at all. If you use solars, then you are paying full price for them, not 1/13th of the price due to an exploit.

With solars, therefore, 0% of the diamonds you're making come from an exploit.

Thus, if you want to ban exploits on a given server, it would be completely consistent and reasonable to allow solar panels, but ban water mills and blaze rods. Because one has no exploited benefit, and the other two are almost entirely exploit-driven

[gavjenks]

the exploit is using what the deployer was designed to do.

So your logic is that as long as each block in each mod is doing its job as defined by that mod alone, it's not an exploit?

If so, then blaze rod macerating is not an exploit by that logic. Because the macerator is doing exactly what it's supposed to do, macerating blaze rods into 5 powder. And the condenser is also doing exactly what it is supposed to do: condensing powder into blaze rods.

If you want to go and change your definitions, that's fine. But you have to change them equally for both situations, which still doesn't let you get around the fact that blaze rod macerating and auo bucket water mills should be treated equally under server rules. Changing the definitions and logic to allow water mills also will end up allowing blaze rods.

[andrewdonshik]

So your logic is that as long as each block in each mod is doing its job as defined by that mod alone, it's not an exploit?

If so, then blaze rod macerating is not an exploit by that logic. Because the macerator is doing exactly what it's supposed to do, macerating blaze rods into 5 powder. And the condenser is also doing exactly what it is supposed to do: condensing powder into blaze rods.

If you want to go and change your definitions, that's fine. But you have to change them equally for both situations, which still doesn't let you get around the fact that blaze rod macerating and auo bucket water mills should be treated equally under server rules. Changing the definitions and logic to allow water mills also will end up allowing blaze rods.

Whatever.. I'm just trying to say that it is all free energy, exploit or no.

[gavjenks]

Whatever.. I'm just trying to say that it is all free energy, exploit or no.

If that's your point of view (that "free energy" whatever you mean by that, is what matters, and not exploitativeness), then all three methods (solar, auto water mills, blaze rods) should all be either allowed or disallowed on the server, all together.

There is still no apparent argument here for banning blaze rods and allowing auto water mills.

[andrewdonshik]

If that's your point of view (that "free energy" whatever you mean by that, is what matters, and not exploitativeness), then all three methods (solar, auto water mills, blaze rods) should all be either allowed or disallowed on the server.

There is still no apparent argument here for banning blaze rods and allowing auto water mills.

That was my point at the beginning, I was considering changing it.

[gavjenks]

You're going to ban solar panels on your server?

[andrewdonshik]

You're going to ban solar panels on your server?

Nooooo, the other way around.

[gavjenks]

Oh, but you already changed the rules to allow EMC exploits...

[andrewdonshik]

Oh, but you already changed the rules to allow EMC exploits...

Nah, I only allowed some.

[Frog81]

Um hell yeah I consider that an exploit, if any of the others are.

Automated water mills are one of the stupidest things in tekkit. If you look on the IC2 official wiki, it clearly says "manned" and "unmanned" operational output. Making it pretty obvious that it was intended to provide 2 EU/tick only if somebody is standing there feeding buckets into it.

Which they would have to do, if not for the redpower mod being installed alongside IC2.

By automating it with redpower, you are making a completely nonsensical machine (lifts water using less energy than the water provides by falling???), that exploits an unintentional relationship between mods, and distorts what used to be a realistic machine (humans lifting buckets makes the energy come from the food you eat in game, which makes sense)

It is no more realistic and no less "cheaty" than taking advantage of the blaze rod recipes.

Also I don't really care if it's "generally accepted" to not be an exploit or not, and neither should you. What matters is if there is actually a good argument for why it is and something else isn't, and I don't see one here.

Water mills can also get water buckets from BC if set up correctly. And BC and IC2 did have some merging mods added to tekkit, so they are meant to be together. Although, if you're going to use BC, water strainers are better. If you just want mass-EMC anyway, there is a way to mass-gen EMC with vanilla items and EE alone, although RP2 red alloy wire/timers make it much faster, and a BC obsidian pipe is needed to make it full auto. How? Pistons on a timer harvesting sugarcane, pushing it into water, dropping it into obsidian pipe.

[andrewdonshik]

Water mills can also get water buckets from BC if set up correctly. And BC and IC2 did have some merging mods added to tekkit, so they are meant to be together. Although, if you're going to use BC, water strainers are better. If you just want mass-EMC anyway, there is a way to mass-gen EMC with vanilla items and EE alone, although RP2 red alloy wire/timers make it much faster, and a BC obsidian pipe is needed to make it full auto. How? Pistons on a timer harvesting sugarcane, pushing it into water, dropping it into obsidian pipe.

OK, that means EE is just bad in general..

[GreenWolf13]

Water mills are actually not generating more energy from "falling" water than it takes to "lift" it. You could think of it as getting power from a falling spring, like the hoover dam produces electricity from river water going through turbines. I don't see you calling the hoover damn an "exploit". And the whole problem really comes from minecraft mechanics and physics being stupid, as if it was coded properly, there would be finite water. And speaking of minecraft physics, there is no rule in minecraft that says that energy must be conserved. Trying to apply the law of thermodynamics to minecraft is like trying to drink liquid nitrogen. It's stupid.

Edit:

OK, that means EE is just bad in general..

Of course EE is stupid and OP, haven't you read this yet?

[gavjenks]

Water mills can also get water buckets from BC if set up correctly. And BC and IC2 did have some merging mods added to tekkit, so they are meant to be together. Although, if you're going to use BC, water strainers are better. If you just want mass-EMC anyway, there is a way to mass-gen EMC with vanilla items and EE alone, although RP2 red alloy wire/timers make it much faster, and a BC obsidian pipe is needed to make it full auto. How? Pistons on a timer harvesting sugarcane, pushing it into water, dropping it into obsidian pipe.

Obsidian pipes are not EE or vanilla items, I am sorry to say. Just like everything else, this requires at least two mods that were not written with each other in mind.

As for IC and BC, the fact that somebody went off and coded energy links, etc. as a third party does not mean that the mods were "meant to be together." No more than somebody writing a fanfiction romance between Spiderman and Arwen from LOTR means that Stan Lee and Tolkien had each other in mind when they were writing their respective stories...

Water mills are actually not generating more energy from "falling" water than it takes to "lift" it. You could think of it as getting power from a falling spring, like the hoover dam produces electricity from river water going through turbines.

No I can't think of it like that. The bucket of water does not flow into the ocean, evaporate, and fall back down as rain, therefore lifted by solar energy. It's the SAME DAMN BUCKET that moves through a tube and then gets poured in the top again.

You can make a water mill with redpower run forever and produce energy forever inside of an airtight, pitch black room with force fields all around it...

Try making the Hoover Dam work if you build an airtight box around it. Not gonna work out very well for you.

[GreenWolf13]

Gavjenks, if you had read his entire post, you would have seen that he said that using obsidian pipes was optional, as well as the timers. You could do the reed farm in vanilla minecraft (I actually have a friend on a vanilla server who made a semi automatic reed, melon, pumpkin, cactus, and wheat farm). As for IC and BC, one of the developers of BC (SirSengir) has made a mod (Forestry) that is meant to combine IC2 and BC, so I think that the BC devs want the mods to work together flawlessly. As for your Hoover damn comments, you're right, the hoover damn wouldn't work inside an airtight box. But you forget that Minecraft physics and real world physics are not the same. And, according to your logic that "generating more power than was used in the process of generating", redstone engines are an exploit, as they generate MJs out of nothing. And if your argument is that they convert redstone power to MJs, then don't auto water mills do the same, since you need a redstone signal to get the filters to pull items. Redstone itself defies the (real world) laws of physics, as it generates power out of nothing. That's why eloraam made blutricity, to have a power system that works like real world power does.

Edit: The forums automatically convert Sir Sengir (without the space) into sir buttivere of dumbtable. What happened to this?

[gavjenks]

?? I did read the full post. I don't see where he mentioned anything that would get reeds into a chest automatically without obsidian pipes or RP. AFAIK it is impossible to make an automatic reed farm in vanilla. You can have items flow to you, but you'd still have to stuff them into the condenser yourself, which makes it nearly impossible to scale it up to any level that will be seriously competitive with other EMC methods at all.

But you forget that Minecraft physics and real world physics are not the same.

I wasn't making the argument that it wasnt fun because it was unrealistic. Lots of unrealistic things can be fun. I was arguing that since most of IndustrialCraft is in fact clearly meant to be realistic (or plausible at least), including water mills, using another mod to make something blatantly ridiculously unrealistic is a very clear sign that it was not in the spirit of the original mod and was not an intended interaction between mods.

In other words, I don't care about it being realistic: it's just that that is a strong clue as to the intentions of the modders and whether or not it is therefore a feature or an exploitative side effect.

And, according to your logic that "generating more power than was used in the process of generating", redstone engines are an exploit, as they generate MJs out of nothing.

No, that is not an exploit, because it is obviously a central and intended mechanic within BC itself. See above paragraph (its not a reason for exploit in itself. It was a logical clue with regard to IC in particular)

As for how redstone relates to IC via engine generators:

A) it is not very effective, and costwise, is balanced with other IC2 methods, AND

You might easily interpret redstone as a realistic source of nearly infinite small amounts of energy. Radioactive sources in real life that size could easily be imagined to produce the level of tiny power that redstone does (mostly signals), for hundreds of years straight.

Weak, well-balanced, plausible... not seeing huge exploit potential there, no matter how you slice it.