Requesting opinions on Equivalent Exchange

[VideoBoy]

I'm pretty sure there's been debate over this subject several times. But I can't find any recent threads so I'm starting one. I don't want this to turn into a long debate. I just want to understand why anybody likes Equivalent Exchange. I think it's a fun tool to play 'god' in singleplayer, but it takes away all the fun from multiplayer.

I think EE is too over-powered for Tekkit. I'm going to ignore the fact that it bypasses all protection and rollback plugins. I'm talking about the idea of the mod itself.

Example: I know it allows one to make machines that create stacks of diamonds per day with minimal maintenance. I haven't done it myself but I had one player do it in my server in under a day so I have to assume it's not that hard. How is having an infinite supply of diamond so easily obtainable not a complete insult to the mechanics of the rest of the mods in Tekkit and Minecraft itself? I know you can craft diamonds from IC2's UU-matter. I have used mass fabricators but it's not as easy as EE's method.

I'm not a big fan of economy but I've always had Essentials trade signs enabled in my servers for those who wish to trade items that way. Infinite diamonds kills any type of economy and I can't think of a counter-argument to this.

Thanks for posting!

[ZombieTwiglet]

People enjoy things in different ways and have different reasons, likes, and dislikes in MC/Tekkit. I avoid EE completely because it makes things easy when combined with BC machines in tekkit, my friend uses it because it reduces the amount of time he has to spend gathering materials and he can get on with building fancy structures or whatever while I'm off creating complicated machines/production lines.

[bonfire01]

EE isn't too bad if you turn collectors off. They're the big way to make loads of free stuff out of thin air. You can do it far far slower with cobble generators and unless someone makes a pretty hefty generator that's not going be as fast as using IC2 to generate uu matter from solar panels and recycling all the crap out of your quarries.

So kill the collector recipes and it's probably no worse than mass fabricators which you don't seem to mind.

[Forsakken]

EE is awesome! Yes i admit it is for newbs but then again all of the mods are in a way. Industrialized diamonds, 2 ingots for 1 ore, automated quarrying, etc. the thing about EE is that it is all about value, 8k Cobblestones and you got 1 diamond, seems fair.

[bigmageusa]

I can understand disliking EE, but in the end, it results in items of equivalent power. I enjoy using both in combination to get some great rigs working and have fun with all of the cool things available.

Equivalent Exchange might be a little bit faster than IC/BC to get diamonds, but it ends up being a discussion of what problem you have with your economies when people get to the state where they can produce immense amounts of diamonds, regardless of if they are IC/BC or EE. I currently enjoy playing without generators, so if you want to ban both UU Matter/Industrial Diamonds and Energy Collectors, go for it!

In the end, I question: what is your server doing for fun? Is it building and working together to advance? Then go both. Is it the journey of taming the environment slowly and working toward hard to get tools? Then go IC. If you are wanting some more casual SMP with some fun tools to build? Scrap IC and go EE!

In all of these mods, you will break an economy pretty easily, but also extend the end game and make new ways to build things.

[Zeric]

I found this a few pages in looking for other things:

http://forums.technicpack.net/index.php/topic,5824.0.html

My option is: EE is a supplement to the normal digging out the entire underground and leaving giant holes everywhere. If making other mods obsolete is a problem or if EE makes things "too easy" just turn it off or some parts of it.

Personally, I have had my very first experiences with EE on my current server and I use it as a means to skip the mining and smelting process as to speed up crafting other things. It can very easily lead to calls of OP, if you have a munchkin player and a newbie playing together. If everyone is on equal footing, as far as knowing how to use the things in EE, it is all fair.

I would say it really is a play style thing far more than an OP or newbie tool.

[slowpoke]

It's actually pretty balanced if you disable collectors completely.

[Ragnar Homsar]

It's actually pretty balanced if you disable collectors completely.

Collectors are far from the most imbalanced thing in EE.

[KarthGuyThat]

One can believe anything is over it's proper level of power, but in all honesty, I think the mod is fabulous for creating building supplies, and keeping my tools in good repair, without taxing me. that's not to say it's cheap, nearly cost me my other arm and leg too.

[Yuriy]

I found this a few pages in looking for other things:

http://forums.technicpack.net/index.php/topic,5824.0.html

My option is: EE is a supplement to the normal digging out the entire underground and leaving giant holes everywhere. If making other mods obsolete is a problem or if EE makes things "too easy" just turn it off or some parts of it.

...

This!

First, hit up that thread, it's the best EE discussion I've seen of late.

Second, Zeric makes a great point; some people like to build quarries and mine the hell out of everything and that's fine. I, however, prefer to leave as much of my landscape untouched as possible (for aesthetics) and instead build crazy structures, underground automated sorting warehouses, and other such things. In short, I'd rather spend my time building than mining (I am not one of those people that goes to diamond layer with that thing that just mines 16+ blocks in every direction on multiple layers...not that there's anything wrong with that). I spend the first couple of days teching and then building for the rest of the map (I start new maps frequently because sometimes I miss some of that early fight-for-you-life time).

In the end, it depends entirely on what kind of server you want and what kind of crowd you want, economics and otherwise. You can assemble a group that wants to grind endlessly for every resource with minimal automation and resource generation or a group that builds epic structures and monuments with little regard for grinding diamonds out of the earth (hell, maybe both). It's your call, mate.

It's actually pretty balanced if you disable collectors completely.

Might as well disable solar panels and geothermal generators too since anything that gathers power without direct intervention may be refered to as 'imbalanced' even if it's entirely balanced in a different manner than other machines. It's balanced around EE end-game which is a different balancing curve than most other mods (which is why people complain it's imbalanced). If you're against machines gathering power from sunlight or without the user's direct intervention don't forget to hit several of the IC2 machines as well as RP solar panels and thermopiles (oh no, what will you use for blutricity now?).

In short, everyone considers balance differently. If you don't like EE, fine, disable it or the parts of it you disagree with...this is a sandbox after all.

[KarthGuyThat]

This!

First, hit up that thread, it's the best EE discussion I've seen of late.

Second, Zeric makes a great point; some people like to build quarries and mine the hell out of everything and that's fine. I, however, prefer to leave as much of my landscape untouched as possible (for aesthetics) and instead build crazy structures, underground automated sorting warehouses, and other such things. In short, I'd rather spend my time building than mining (I am not one of those people that goes to diamond layer with that thing that just mines 16+ blocks in every direction on multiple layers...not that there's anything wrong with that). I spend the first couple of days teching and then building for the rest of the map (I start new maps frequently because sometimes I miss some of that early fight-for-you-life time).

In the end, it depends entirely on what kind of server you want and what kind of crowd you want, economics and otherwise. You can assemble a group that wants to grind endlessly for every resource with minimal automation and resource generation or a group that builds epic structures and monuments with little regard for grinding diamonds out of the earth. It's your call, mate.

Alas, why are there not more people like this gentleman? Destroying the landscape, unorganized chests... such a pity.

[poryy]

EE2 is the most incredibly epically awesome thing in tekkit. If a server disables it, I don't play on that server. EE2 is what most players start with and it also enables you to start more easily with mods such as IC2 or buildcraft. It is not as op as some people think. The only item that is truly OP is the destruction catalyst.

[Torezu]

EE2 is the most incredibly epically awesome thing in tekkit. If a server disables it, I don't play on that server. EE2 is what most players start with and it also enables you to start more easily with mods such as IC2 or buildcraft. It is not as op as some people think. The only item that is truly OP is the destruction catalyst.

Way to overgeneralize. Some people think that not needing to mine in Minecraft kind of ruins part of the point of the game.

[Jay?]

I like the Idea. I've even retracted my previous statements about it being OP.

I still am not a fan, however. I loved it back in the old days of Aggregators, when dark matter was the highest you could go, and you had to carry a sackful of fuel with you to progress in any meaningful fashion. I mean, you could automate things if you played with buildcraft alongside it, but then you had to engineer everything. It just seems like EE2 took all the engineering fun out of the mod.

[Lite-Bite]

Disable collectors and armors and its much better imo. The armor makes you effectively immortal and once you start building collector arrays, you're well on your way to near infinite EMC. The tablet makes transmuting a bit too flexible for my tastes, but that's another issue entirely.

[danidas]

To me the main thing that makes EE2 op is the flowers which generate emc out of nothing but light. If you take them out of the mod than it becomes far more balanced as you have to burn items as fuel to generate all your emc. Which basically means disabling collectors and possibly relays so your forced to mine all your resources.

Once the flowers are taken out than the only other thing that would be needed is all the free emc loops being closed/limited. For example darkroom seed generators, mooshroom soup bowl loop, cow milk loop, macerated bone loop, macerated blaze rod loop, and any I missed. I'm not saying to completely disabled them but instead to limit their effectiveness. Also most of these loops are not really the fault of EE2 but instead are caused by its interaction with other mods so it would be very hard to do much to limit them with out effecting other things.

Personally I like most of EE2 and I'm hoping it's author addresses some of the common issues with it in EE3 which he is currently working on. From what I've heard it is suppose to be more balanced and configurable. But we will probably have to wait for Tekkit 4 and minecraft 1.3 or latter for that.

[poryy]

Way to overgeneralize. Some people think that not needing to mine in Minecraft kind of ruins part of the point of the game.

You forgot that it is hard to START with EE2 and GET endgame. All of the stuff required to make a collector flower is extremely expensive.

[danidas]

You forgot that it is hard to START with EE2 and GET endgame. All of the stuff required to make a collector flower is extremely expensive.

However it is all a one time fee, as once you have a basic flower it will easily pay for it self many times over.

Also the resources to make one are really not that hard to get with these steps.

1) pouch trees to get wood

2) make crafting table and pick

3) get stone for a furnace and stone pick

4) build a tier 1 divining rod

5) Use rod to find iron

6) upgrade divining rod to tier 2 and make a iron pick

7) dig down to your favorite diamond layer

8) Use rod to find diamonds and red stone

9) Make a bucket

10) build a nether portal

11) travel to nether and mine some glow stone

12) make a philosopher's stone

13) build a transmutation table

14) burn all unneeded items in table to get any items your missing

15) build a collector

16) use collector to upgrade fuels

17) build another collector with the emc gained from the upgraded fuels and the burning of unneeded items

18) turn the extra collector into a relay

19) make a condenser and/or a Klein star

20) profit

If your lucky you can do all that in under a hour to maybe 2 to 3 if your unlucky and once you get the transmutation table the process becomes a cake walk. As you can burn unneeded items to make what ever you're needing and once you get the ball rolling it is all down hill from there.

[OmegaJasam]

The biggest problem with EE is that every other mod balances around /scarcity of certain resources/, while EE's basic mechanic is 'turn any resource into nay other resourse if you have enough'

It makes reaching all other mods endgames trivial (not limited by tin or diamonds) and it removes a lot of the engineering with condensers. Combine that with it's end game being 'super-creative-mode' and you have something that doesn't fit into a lot of playstyles. EE when enabled tends to dominate all else.

The individual mechanics have lots of problems too:

It removes a lot of risk of item loss (pouches)

It devaluates tool costs (dust)

It makes early diamond hunting /really/ quick (rod)

It has a lot of greifing portential

It changes the worlds asthetics (Quarrys everywhere vs being able to mass fill space easly)

It's early game can be accelerated by EE (macerators, industrial diamonds)

It's just a huge bundle of little things that mean a lot of the time people disable it. This isn't to say it's a bad mod, or has no place in tekkit, or even needs any changes. It's a great mod, but it really dominates the play style.

And it's not like the other mods don't have a few quirks. Personally I'm not a huge fan of the UU matter, or even at times how quarrys and EE quickly accelerate each other (solor panels + energy link way outclasses what you could do with buildcraft alone). And there are a few obvious combinations that don't work well, such as the redpower + water mils trick that outclasses reactors.

Personaly, collectors are about the only part of EE I find hard to call overpowered. Since you've already simplified a huge amount of the engineering, why /not/ have collectors and save everyone from building massive automated farms to make the EMC. By the point you cna start building a decent flower, the only thing you don't have enough emc to make whatever you want for is the end game EE armour.

Overall, intresting mod, but dominates the playstyle too easly, which almost every item having some kind of large implimentation on how people play.

Heck, try disabling teleport pipes and ender chests some time. It completely changes what people do and build. Some people even use /railcraft/

[Truculent]

For getting rolling in EE, t's much faster & cheaper to make a milk bucket -> EMC machine.

2 filters, 1 deployer cost <30K EMC including tools, and 1 energy condenser costs 42K EMC. Plus a little more for a redpower clock and redwire, definitely less than 75K EMC. And it makes 65 EMC per bucket, 200 EMC/sec roughly.