In Defense of Equivalent Exchange

[Valkon]

You should think of it like a renewable recourse farm, but way easier.

I never said I didn't like it, just that that's what it does.

[OmegaJasam]

So long as I can turn my ton of pumkins into diamonds, EE wil be gamechanging. Or my suger, string, flesh, cobble e.t.c.

EE is /unbalanceable/ in it's own right. No matter what you change, there will be the geometric progression from the collectors. You can remove that, but then it just becomes a matter of feeding collectors with farms instead. You can remove /that/ but then your down to the very base mechanics of 1 item to anouther.

And THAT game mechanic is what makes EE impossable to balance with technic. So long as the transmuation table provides you with /renewable diamonds/ it's broken. Not to mention all the other resources in the meantime for setting up your diamond machine. (The UU matter machine from IC2 is at leats equiped to a much more limited system, but even that is iffy)

There are config files to adjust collectors, but you /cannot/ make EE into something that drasticaly alters the gameplay without disabling most of it. If you want a lower progression, change those setting yourself.

Love EE for what it is, which is something fun to mess around with untill you get super-creative mode. Wouldn't expect to see it in a lot of servers as a result. Don't think the current machanics can chnage that.

[epixpivotmaster]

I think this is so complex I can't even think a way to nerf stuff up... Jesus... Minecraft Engineering and Modding should be listed in curriculums! XD

I guess if there was a configuration file containing almost everything for EE, like Energy Collector eficiency on getting the so wanted EMC, or EMC costs and possibly losses; that would solve the problems: everyone would make it the way they like. However, would be kinda difficult to program the mod to read all these configuration files O.o

[xardas]

I started a server with EE on, and within 2hours players had 20 diamonds and portals to the nether.

Yes EE has an extremely fast build curve, yes it makes most other mods redundant. But it is not stopping you from building farms, quarrys and whatever else. Collector Arrays just remove the need to mine for hours on end. If you like mining for hours on end, don't build an array.

The most you'll get out of IC2 is a jetpack and a quarry that mines tonnes of random resources and it always seems to not be the resources that you need. My biggest criticism is that EE end game, is creative mode.

For all the diehard fans of EE please enlighten me to the difference between endgame EE and creative?

[jakj]

EE endgame is creative. I like to restrict myself to charging klein stars for tool fuel.

[hunter712]

I have seen some servers claim that there are dupe bugs pertaining to the transmutation table, and some servers even claim that you can dupe items with a Red Matter furnace (That's on purpose, you know. That's the whole point of the item).

I'm going to touch up on this since nobody here has said anything about it, RM Furnaces do have massive duplication glitch. If you shift-click on any item in the bottom right hand corner of your inventory, the item will multiply itself, have only one of the item and you click it once? You get two, click it again? You get four, and so on. The server I play on just banned it recently for that specific purpose.

[Valkon]

I started a server with EE on, and within 2hours players had 20 diamonds and portals to the nether.

Portals aren't hard to make, all you need is buckets and patience.

[jakj]

Portals aren't hard to make, all you need is buckets and patience.

One of the best things IC2 ever did for Minecraft was make the mining of obsidian obsolete.

[AlphA]

EE dupe method:

1. Pre-req: have some lag, so that when you remove your left hand item the emc value and items on the right don't dissappear right away.

2. Put in your klein star or any other item of value to the left.

3. Wait until the emc value is displayed and the items on the right appear.

4. Shift-click ur left hand item to remove it into your inventory.

5. click any item on the right before they go away.

6. Voila - now you have ur still charged klein star and the new item and the surplus emc value still in the table.

So the instant rich method on a table enabled server:

1. Make a table and a klein star

2. Charge the klein star and put it in the table

3. Remove your klein star and click the klein star on the right

4. Move the on-mouse klein star to the left of the table

5. Remove that klein star and click a diamond

6. Put your klein star back and burn the diamond, now ur klein star is charged

7. Reapet until you have 4 and make a klein star 2

8. Repeat all again to make an Omega

9. Repeat again until you have 10 charged Omegas

10. Build a RM and diamond house 1 hour after you first joined the server

You may hear this techinque first time but believe me, where i have played, alot of people were already using this.

The lag that is required for this is enough with around 600ms or when the server is saving its world or someone has a leaky machine and the server is lagging like hell. All these work.

[The Merchant of Menace]

One of the best things IC2 ever did for Minecraft was make the mining of obsidian obsolete.

Yeah. 12 tin and you've got a Nether Portal

[hoho]

EE endgame is creative. I like to restrict myself to charging klein stars for tool fuel.

So far I've only used the transmutation tablet for converting the mountains I've dug up with 64x64 quarries into something usable. Not quite balanced, sure, but still I'm having tons more fun with that than when I popped down some machines that generated stuff out of nothing. I want everything I create and use to be taken from the environment. I even avoid using solar power as much as possible and am currently trying to figure out how to make water not endless (yes, I know about the mod). Obviously it's a personal choice and not everyone will like the same.

Though I do wonder if it would be possible to take out the "equivalent" part out from EE and have the transmutation table to have losses when doing conversions. While it's somewhat fun to empty a few chests of cobble to get a couple of diamonds I would probably have even more fun if I simply couldn't "compact" everything to diamonds and "break them up" to cheaper stuff as needed. Yeah, I could set myself imaginary limits of what I can or can't convert but simply having losses would feel much better.

[OmegaJasam]

You could take out the 'exchange part' thus making EMC useful only for the super-tools.

Might have to rebalance red matter stuff if you want to use it though

[jakj]

My idea is to create a series of interesting chains of macerator/compressor/extractor recipes with a couple new machines (blender and separator) to do transmuation using EU/MJ. I also have an idea for using solar panels not to produce energy but as consumable fuel in a machine that regenerates chunks so they can be re-mined.

(Basically, I believe Minecraft is most fun when you never get something out of nothing, so passive solar panels and energy collectors just need to be made not passive anymore. Also, the biggest problem with transmutation is its quickness and ease, because making diamonds out of coal with IC2 doesn't feel like cheating, so it just needs to be a longer and more complex process and it will be cool again.)

[hoho]

Yes, what jakj said is pretty much exactly what I'd want to see. Conversion from less useful stuff to more useful is good but it shouldn't come for free (except for waiting time). Using some form of energy to do it would be very nice and then I'd probably accept 1:1 conversion ratios. Something like N EU and M ticks per 1EMC converted -> 8196*N = EU to compress 8198 cobble to a single diamond. N should probably be around 1-128, M can probably be at less than 1 tick.

If I didn't have my hands full with work and personal life I'd probably code something up myself. Unfortunately last time I actually had time to play MC was about 3 weeks ago. Damn hot weather and girlfriend :(

[MektonZero]

I started a server with EE on, and within 2hours players had 20 diamonds and portals to the nether.

This isn't that hard of a trick to pull off in vanilla. A good sized cave can get you 1/2 those diamonds and a decent branch mine will get you the rest in short order. Sure, a Divining Rod helps, but isn't required.

A nether portal requires one flint and steel, a single bucket, a few dirt and 8 lava lying around somewhere. It's entirely possible to get to the Nether within 5 minutes of world creation if you start near surface lava, a cave with some exposed iron ore and one tree; none of which are exactly rare in this game.

Also keep in mind that item duplication is also a feature of Thaumcraft. Dump junk in, use a Thaumic Duplicator to get Diamonds, or whatever you want, out. Set up in the Nether to avoid any issues with Taint and use a cobble generator and pipes to feed your Crucibles; unlimited free diamonds with a rate limited by how big of a setup you want to create. Bit more of a startup curve, but the end result is is pretty much the same.

[Turtlicious]

Solution :

1. Slow down the collector arrays. The problem is geometric growth : the collector arrays make enough EMC to double themselves every 4.5 hours (per the author of equivalent exchange in IRC). If they took say, 96 hours to make enough EMC for a doubling, they would not be so stupidly overpowered. You'd have to run quarries to mine enough materials to make more collector arrays rather than creating them from their own EMC.

That means slowing them down by a factor of at least 20 times.

2. Add losses when you liquify items to get EMC (using antimatter relays, etc). If you lost ~50% of the potential EMC when you "burn" an item to get EMC, many of the imbalances of this mod would be fixed. Now, you could choose to convert iron to diamond, or diamond to iron...but you lose resources in the conversion, so it's more efficient to find the resources you need directly. Conversions are just there for the convenience factor when you have a huge surplus of one resource and a shortage of another.

In fact, making the losses 75% or even 90% would still make conversions to EMC a good idea when it's a junk resource, but it would actually make finding expensive resources still worthwhile.

Granted, this does change the mod's title to Equivalent* Exchange

*Some taxes and fees may apply

Good god Bricked, will you ever learn to stop your constant bitching?

Oh he's banned.

[Sp0nge]

http://youtu.be/eBgla9VH1ZI

Give EE enough time, and you will end up with this ... Throw in a few players aswell, and voila, ur server is slow, crashes etc? This might be one of several issues ur server might have ...

[Yuriy]

http://youtu.be/eBgla9VH1ZI

Give EE enough time, and you will end up with this ... Throw in a few players aswell, and voila, ur server is slow, crashes etc? This might be one of several issues ur server might have ...

Do normal people really build hundreds of EE flowers each? I mean I like having my factories automated but the most I've ever build was 8 flowers on a server and that supported all the EMC needs of the entire server.

Really, who needs more than a couple stacks of RM furnaces unless you're going to build a castle with them or something.

The HV solar panel factory, however, is definitely something I've done because building them by hand takes way too long.

[Sp0nge]

Some of these players have played since early feb, so they do have alot of stuff. When played long enough, well, you migth be interested in doing other stuff, but still play on the same server.

And yeah, we had flowers that was larger than those on that vid, and another thing that ppl tend to forget, any player AFK`ing, loades alot more chunks than a chunkloader. Ppl tend to forget that issue. And whats in that vid, is a result of a older map. Only option is to reset, but do ppl wanna risk playing somewhere that is in the risk of resetting at "random"?

[Yuriy]

I'm not a programer but how many calls and calculations occur as a result of the flowers and how many as a result of the super fast timers, BC pipes, crafting tables, and all the machinery? I can see EE in that quantity being a drain on a slower to medium server (because it's [expletive]-ing excessive lol), but I think that the automated machinery running constantly may be worse.

That's the thing, I can understand people wanting to go creative mode after awhile by using EE but would one really need to build flowers bedrock to the sky? What are they trying to build that requires that much EMC? Hell, I build with DM, RM, diamond, gold blocks all the time and I've never needed a tenth of what I saw in that video.

[Sp0nge]

Point of vid is, thats the max you can "nerf" the speed of it, and still retain all items that dont bypasses protections if set up correct that is) on a highly populated server (we are talking about 50+ players during any day of the week).

[kingck]

i know there is a way to "nutter" EE and have it so certain items wont stay in a inv im just not sure how

[Yuriy]

i know there is a way to "nutter" EE and have it so certain items wont stay in a inv im just not sure how

Do you mean neuter?

[Neowulf]

Do you mean neuter?

Dunno, kicking EE in the balls would be a funny alternative.

[kingck]

woops yea neuter but ether thats what i did on my server to remain balance the morning star is a mess for one