Excited about BuildCraft 3.7.1!

[theMij]

Heya! I just noticed this yesterday: http://www.mod-buildcraft.com/2013/06/22/buildcraft-3-7-1-for-minecraft-1-5-2/

From the wiki:

The behaviour of conductive pipes has changed drastically in version 3.70. Pipes can no longer explode, and have no loss. Instead various pipes can handle different power levels, e.g. cobblestone can only handle 8MJ/t, while diamond can handle 1024MJ/t, enough to carry power from 178 Combustion engines.

The gist of it, as I understand it, is that they're overhauling the way conductive pipes work. If there's a loop, it's not a critical issue anymore (although I think it still traps power in there, from what it looked like in the video on it by CovertJaguar here:

). Also, the horrible loss of power from using conductive pipes is no longer a thing. Instead, we have tiers for each of the power types. According to the wiki they are:

8    Cobblestone

16   Stone

64   Quartz

256  Gold

1024 Diamond

This refers to the max MJ/t that can flow through them. The really cool thing about this is that it lets us do all number of clever things with our system. For example, your main power cores can output to a diamond pipe that holds all the power you can produce. You can then segment it off with gold pipes to make sure half your power goes to one area and half to another. When you get closer to a machine, you can switch from gold down to Quartz or Stone to throttle the power and conserve resources.

Personally, I've been frustrated in how redstone conduits have been basically our only functional option for power transfer. I'm interested to see how this interacts now. I suppose some balance aspects are out now, as the 5% per connection thing is now unmatched by BC. Anyway, I'm really excited about this update, and can't wait until it's in Tekkit Main. Just wanted to share the thingy I noticed in case some of you haven't noticed.

[Karaktar]

the 5% loss only occurs when you attch to a machine you dont lose anything in the network like from conduit to cell or vice versa

[plowmanplow]

Well, if you wanted to run the new BC (and other companion BC pipes mods that are available), you might as well run the new version of TE which has no conduit loss. But then, why not upgrade Galacticraft, AE, and all the other mods that have huge 1.5.2 updates? You gotta pick your poison. My personal poison is a custom, public modpack with all of that and a lot more tossed in, but to each their own.

[theMij]

the 5% loss only occurs when you attch to a machine you dont lose anything in the network like from conduit to cell or vice versa

You know, it took me a long time to figure that out because the source I used to learn the mod wasn't worded very clearly. My first power networks with conduits were all about maximum efficiency for no practical purpose hehe.

Well, if you wanted to run the new BC (and other companion BC pipes mods that are available), you might as well run the new version of TE which has no conduit loss. But then, why not upgrade Galacticraft, AE, and all the other mods that have huge 1.5.2 updates? You gotta pick your poison. My personal poison is a custom, public modpack with all of that and a lot more tossed in, but to each their own.

I'm not really sure what you're getting at here. I too like Tekkit. I'm not encouraging people to not use it, I'm just looking forward to when this update gets added to it.

It's gonna be a fairly dramatic change for how people set up networks now, as BC appears to have noticed that people move away from conductive pipes asap in older versions. Now it'll be a more viable option for established players. In fact, since you can use lower tier pipes to limit power without losing any, I can easily see this mechanic being fairly heavily used in the end game as a core part of designs.

[plowmanplow]

Not really getting at anything other than variety being the spice of life (even in Tekkit/platform).

Also, you might want to do some experimentation with machines in the new BC. My testing so far indicates that some machines might be "leaking" power regardless of what is being used to power them or transfer that power. For instance, it seems that lasers constantly "leak" power when not in use where before they did not when using RS conduits.

[theMij]

Yeah, I messed with it a little bit and noticed that as well. From the CJ's video on the new conductive pipes system I think he said something along the lines that the balance was that machines require higher maintenance now. It could be an intentional thing. *shrugs* Hopefully it's configurable as that seems like it was going a bit too quickly for my tastes.

[miniboxer]

Not really getting at anything other than variety being the spice of life (even in Tekkit/platform).

Also, you might want to do some experimentation with machines in the new BC. My testing so far indicates that some machines might be "leaking" power regardless of what is being used to power them or transfer that power. For instance, it seems that lasers constantly "leak" power when not in use where before they did not when using RS conduits.

That may be to encourage the use of gates.

[plowmanplow]

That may be to encourage the use of gates.

Exactly. As soon as I saw that the lasers were consuming power even when not active I remembered that bit about the additional "maintenance", but also that there were more triggers. I kinda, sorta like the idea of having to regulate the sections of the network. One could easily attach a gate to the assembly table with a configuration that turns off an energy cell when there is no work to do. Sounds fun!

[weirleader]

Exactly. As soon as I saw that the lasers were consuming power even when not active I remembered that bit about the additional "maintenance", but also that there were more triggers. I kinda, sorta like the idea of having to regulate the sections of the network. One could easily attach a gate to the assembly table with a configuration that turns off an energy cell when there is no work to do. Sounds fun!

How did you discover the lasers were consuming power? Were you just doing some random checking? Or did something tip you off? I'm always interested in the ways people are monitoring their systems.

[Industrial Miner]

How did you discover the lasers were consuming power? Were you just doing some random checking? Or did something tip you off? I'm always interested in the ways people are monitoring their systems.

You could use a Gate to detect if power is flowing...

[plowmanplow]

I tend to watch things pretty closely, especially before and after I add a new machine to the network (until I am confident in my knowledge concerning its power usage) both when powered and unpowered.

Lasers are kind of a special case though. They have an internal buffer, but they don't "fill up" (send out a positive "Energy Full" or negative "Can Store Energy" trigger) so I tend to watch them pretty closely. In the 1.4.x version of the mods the lasers would stop consuming power when connected through conduits. With the change to BC conductive pipes, I didn't pay close enough attention to the "maintenance" comment until I saw the leakage. The trigger behavior may have changed with the new BC but I haven't tested it yet.