To have EE or not to have EE

[DantexPain]

Alright, so I know this argument has been going on for a long time, and that a lot of people have different opinions on the matter, but I really want someone to try to convince me that EE is actually not over powered and that it is actually good for a server. I'm not trying to attack the tekkit staff or the modder who created it, as it really is an awesome mod, but I'm concerned that it of sets the balance of the mod pack.

Here are my arguments against EE:

1. Its destructive nature - A lot of the items in EE are very powerful and possibly give players on a server the abilities to destroy massive amounts of blocks in a short period of time for little cost when you consider how much resources they are getting from the items abilities.

2. The Nature of Equivalent Exchange - The fact that a player can obtain just about any item from the transmutation table has always scared me. It is terrible for Economies because what is the point of an economy when you can obtain any resource you want whenever you want it just by sacrificing a few high valued resources.

3. The glitches - Basically with every version of EE, there is some type of glitch that allows the duplication of items. Now I'm not attacking the creator of EE, as no one is perfect and the Crafting Table II glitch in 2.1.1 can hardly be blamed on either modder, but what I am trying to say is that there is almost always a glitch in EE the can be exploited.

4. Doesn't play nice with other mods - In just about every server that I have been on that has EE enabled with tekkit, most of the other mods lose their value, by a lot. Because EE is so simple and powerful, most other mods seem kind of pointless. For instance, why would you travel by rail when you can just fly using the Swift Wolfs rending Gale? Or use a mining drill when you can use a Dark matter pick axe that is indestructible and can mine much faster with little to no cost?

5. Can get something from nothing - With the energy collectors in combination with condensers and relays, one can obtain end game items very quickly and effectively.

Once again I am looking for counter arguments and reasons to back them up. Examples, facts, hell, even statistics if some one is crazy enough to have made, make or find some. I really would not prefer to have mindless ranting on how "boss" EE is and how it is a really awesome mod. Also, I would also prefer that we stay away from the "it gives useless materials purpose" argument as that really isn't a good reason. Why? Because you could always use them as economy tools, or currency, rather then use them as EE materials.

I appreciate all arguments and valid points, this will help determine the future of my server.

[msknight]

For me, I don't have that much time in my gaming day, so it helps me achieve in a realistic time, what would otherwise take me so long to achieve that I would probably get dispirited.

Plus I still have to work to get many of the original items I want to replicate, anyway, so I still have to do some hard work; like battling a ghast to get a tear, etc. and as these things are used in potions, it would tie me up a lot, lot more in areas which would, again, dispirit me.

[johnny walker]

EE is cool, but it doesn't really fit into Tekkit imo - it trivializes the challenges of the other mods. It's resource input is so great that obtaining the best items from the other mods is trivial, and actually pointless - I can use a kit from EE (the 3x3x64 crystal, Alc bag, black hole band, gem of infinite density) to mine up more resources than a quarry can give me in a fraction of the time, and I can then make the exact items I want from it, rather than having to use what it gives me. What's the point of the quarry?

I see EE as a fantastic PvP server mod on its own, if it had a few more items added - say, force fields that run on EMC to keep your base safe for example. The armor from EE is not as overpowered as Quantum armor is, seems like its a good fit for that type of environment.

[Sp0nge]

After running a server with EE from it got added till the 3.0.4 update we kinda faced the same stuff that you have covered in your arguments.

We had a huge base of players that only played for EE, since what they wanted, is what you stated, in all those 5 arguments. Eighter it was the simplicity of the collectors/condensors, or it was items like destructioncatalyst, evertide and similar to greif with, the glitches (there is some in the current one that isnt that nice) that allowed players to combine some of the mods to gain an insane amount of EMC, even as fast as the collectors, if not faster. Deployer + bonemeal + dark room = alot of EMC (and potential huge lag (even crashed due to that one time) if the chests goes full).

And what i consider what was most important for us, the other mods were hardly used. 95% of the ingamechat were about EE, a few were about macerating items and power (in the cases new players were actually trying to get that to work as they wanted it to).

Noone made any fancy sortingsystems with RP, or huge cool factories with IC. There ofc were some, but compared to the playerbase, it was miles between them.

Sadly, trying to tell players why parts of EE is removed is in most cases met by a rage, then quitting. Some that played from when we added EE (actually almost all of them) wanted EE gone, as they had no real reason to continue playing, they kinda got bored.

But its doable to allow some parts of EE, and rule out the EMC section, so taht those that really want to, are able to get items like the Swiftwolf, lifestone etc, like a perk for theyre hard work. We are atleast using that instead of putting it like donorperks and all that stuff.

[jerrbear616]

For my server, All I want from EE is the Alchemical Bag. Since the introduction of Iron Chests, I don't want to even have the Alchemical Chest, since It's much more interesting (and harder work) for someone to upgrade chests from wood->copper------->crystal. Awesome mod.

However, I have been looking and I haven't found a good explanation of how to shut down access to the majority of EE features, yet allow access to the bags. For instance, I allow players to buy using the economy feature of Essentials starting equipment from a mart. If I could just shut down crafting permissions for all EE items, that would make my life easier.

[The_DarthMoogle]

EE has some excellent items, that I couldn't imagine Technic without.

On SSP, that's fine. You can play the game how you damn well want. I have zero problems with that.

On SMP, however, I have two problems.

1) Resources are nullified. No more mining. No more chests. No more resource management. It's an inconvenient creative mode.

Which leads to...

2) People playing the game in a silly order. So many people spam EE in the early stages of the game. Then they build machines.

But why build cool machines when you have all the resources you could ever need?

No need for complex cactus farms, sorting machines connected to dozens of quarries, intensive animal farms...

Just bloody 'ZOMG-DIAMINDS' machines everywhere.

Notice a trend. 6/6 Deluxe servers do not have EE condensors...

[VideoBoy]

NOT to have EE.

/thread

[Torezu]

Solution: Remove collectors, condensers, all red matter tools and armor, most of the rings and both of the amulets, and especially the transmutation tablet. Now, the only way you can use the dark matter tools is a relay and feeding items into it. Dark matter tools aren't so overpowered, in my opinion. Most of the rest of EE is.

The items you're left with are the DM tools, alchemical bags/chests (way too handy to get rid of, at least for me), and a few of the more useful items like the black hole band (maybe, can be used for griefing with the liquid removal), zero ring, harvest goddess band, possibly pedestals, klein stars, and maybe a couple of other things if the server admins feel they aren't overpowered.

[arctichenry]

My personal opinion is to have most of the overpowered items, such as RM and DM tools disabled, along with most if not all of the rings, but allow items such as the energy condenser, but not the energy collectors or relays. This allows for players to be able to use all of their worthless materiel, but on a more level playing feald.

Allowing alchimacal chests allows for players to have a more integrated storage system, with more storage. However, with the new chests, this could be removed, but is at the discression of the server owner.

I would also say that certain items that can take glowstone or a equivalent, such as the swiftwolfs rendering gale, be enabled, but have klin stars disabled, making it much harder to obtain flight.

Theres my little rant about EE.

[DevilDude]

I think there's a misconception about EE that's pretty prevalent. It is not overpowered compared to the other tekkit mods, truth be told you'll get more millage out of IC2 equipment than anything else once you've taken the time to work up to it. The combination of IC2 Buildcraft and Redpower2 can be stupidly overpowered in its own right if you're clever about using them together. Using RP2 to make an automated cobblestone generator and then hooking that up to a mass fab on a sufficient power source (try using the RP2/IC2 water mill array for massive amounts of renewable power) and you get just as much resources as you can generate with a big array of collectors, and the stuff you’re making is better.

The first problem is ease of use, and the investment required. Building up using buildcraft/IC2 takes huge amounts of work. Large scale automated operations take planning and forethought, and no small amount of simple intelligence. Equivelent exchange on the other hand does not. It doesn’t take nearly as much space either, you can build a top tier EE setup in a fraction of the volume needed for doing similar stuff with IC2.

The other major issue with EE is griefing. Because of the way red matter and dark matter tools are programed, bukkit plugins have problems tracking their use. This means they can ignore block protections and don’t show up to on trackers like hawkeye when an op tries to determine who did what. This is a huge issue for public servers and it’s understandable that most admins just don’t want to deal with it. Though there’s a fix for this in one of the stickies where someone decompiled EE and added tags so that bukkit plugins would work again.

[/rant]

To answer the OP’s request, the best argument I can come up with is aesthetic. If you want people doing interesting builds having EE opens up new avenues to design and function. As an example I’ll compare and contrast some of my own plans.

Since about 1.8 I’ve been most interested in oceanic biomes and living in them, specifically building on the now deeper ocean floors. My builds tend to be functional, complete with biodomes, living spaces, industrial workshops and whatever else strikes me as cool. When I discovered tekkit, it just added a new dimension to these designs, the industrial concepts compliment the mostly tech inspired architecture I use in such builds. Doing IC2/BC/RP2 builds on the seafloor just fits, it’s awesome, but there are other builds that interest me.

Before I started tripping on ocean life, I was interested in floating islands, but couldn’t work in the scale I wanted to. Various mods like the Aether mod and certain world generators were interesting, but ultimately I wanted to play in SMP so I could share my creations with others. Aether has yet to achieve SMP support, and I don’t have time to use a worldgen and run my own server so I shelved the idea. Since then minecraft has evolved, and so have my ideas. With the advent of jungle biomes and the increased height of world I can start thinking about building islands in regular worlds. Imagine floating jungle islands, volcanos with lava flows dropping down to oceans below contrasted with water falls fed by lakes. I don’t see an industrial park fitting into this, but Mayan or Khmer architecture would look amazing. To stay stylistically in line and still remain functional EE and possibly thaumcraft or its planned successor (if they ever go multiplayer) are my best bet, truthfully doing all this might not be possible without EE, or at least require massive stripmining that would disrupt the build.

IMO the issues with EE can be worked around, and it opens stylistic options that can really add to a server’s diversity if managed right.

[ErusPrime]

This is why I think there needs to be an EE lite. the tools are awesome and make the simple stuff like mining and smelting easier and less tedious. I'm ok with the idea of the condensers if they operated at a much slower level. You should have to build a giant crazy machine to get enough EMC to make it worth it.

[Windoom]

I think EE has to go. Backpacks can be done by the actual Backpacks Mod, and Iron Chests is already there. Asides from that, its just a Simplifying idiot supporting pile of crap.

/oppinionated.

[Nentify]

I personally dislike EE, it makes the game far too quick. I like to call the economy on my server Equivalent Exchange Pro, where items will change value and we handle "transmution" with money. I find EE is far too destructive, far too easy to play, and I have so much more fun working out new combinations with the other really interesting mods, like RedPower and frames. There is so much more to Tekkit than grabbing your energy condensers, standing in your house all day with no exploration at all.

My alternatives to EE items:

• Transmution - Economy
  
• Flying - Quantum/Jetpacks
  
• Getting items "from nothing" - Recylcers/cobble generators/UU-matter (Of course it's much more limited, but it works for all the basic items, which you could then sell on and buy other items off users)
  

EE isn't a bad mod overall, the only reason I dislike it is the fact that it makes the game so fast, you have to put in no effort to get the items you need, you don't need to explore anything and the resources are at your finger tips. It's much harder to go mining yourself, but that's where machines come in. That's what Tekkit is about, building new contraptions and trying out new machines to get the resources you need. I feel the addition of frames will be very useful with their uses. Some of the items are good, but there are also alternatives, like enchanting for example.

The only reason to enable EE is if you don't have much time, or to take out some parts of it to reduce or remove the endgame items or items that make the game boring. I get on fine with a diamond drill, jetpack, quantum armour with gathering resources etc. I also like trying out new things in Tekkit with mods like RedPower since their recent updates which are actually really exciting to use and experiment with.

That's just my opinion on the matter.

[littleweseth]

Solution: Remove collectors, condensers, all red matter tools and armor, most of the rings and both of the amulets, and especially the transmutation tablet. Now, the only way you can use the dark matter tools is a relay and feeding items into it. Dark matter tools aren't so overpowered, in my opinion. Most of the rest of EE is.

The items you're left with are the DM tools, alchemical bags/chests (way too handy to get rid of, at least for me), and a few of the more useful items like the black hole band (maybe, can be used for griefing with the liquid removal), zero ring, harvest goddess band, possibly pedestals, klein stars, and maybe a couple of other things if the server admins feel they aren't overpowered.

This is what I wanted to do, but I couldn't work out the implementation details. The Equivalent Exchange config file `mod_EE.props` lets you disable most things, but doesn't include a flag for disabling the Transmutation Tablet or Philosopher's Stone.

Apparently WorldGuard can blacklist placement of certain blocks, but because the transmutation tablet can be used from the hotbar, that's not a sufficient condition to prevent usage of the transmutation tablet.

Also apparently PermissionsEX can do this out-of-the-box, but I've been advised that PermissionsEX is a flaming train-wreck and I'd be better off with the "officially-blessed" PermissionsBukkit plugin.

Any ideas on how to make this work?

[xxmikegigsxx]

I feel that is you have a large open server, it is wise to turn off some (or all) or EE. For personal servers or smaller servers I think that it is fine because if it is a small amount of people they wont grief or use duping bugs, or at least that is what I have seen. When saying it is OP that is only true at the end game. Starting out EE is somewhat difficult because you need four diamonds, a decent amount. As for"not playing nice with other mods" I think that doesn't make sense. Red power and buildcraft both have pipes and industrial craft and buildcraft have miners. When putting any "big" mods together there will be overlap that makes things obsolete. Then for getting every item from a transmutaion table, well first you need the item. That might not seem like much but finding some blocks/items is difficult.

[Last_Lonley_Spirit]

That is weird??

[Minecraft_Nick]

ee is gay

[darzavor]

We use part of EE. Collectors, furnaces, DM/RM gear and tools are disabled. But using condensors for recycling and transmutating crap into usefull stuff is something we don't want to play without. Oh and destruction catalyst is disabled too I think. Have to check to be sure. But it is nice to see that some of our players are noob again now that they can't use collectors :p

[megamanheroful]

to be honest the only thing you need from ee is the condenser, philosophers stone, alchemy bag/chest,tailsmen of repair, dm tools,klien stars (not furnace) and a (dark matter relay for the klien star) as then you can also disable recipes such as 4 gold for a diamond and you can certaintly disable tungsten ore.This leaves players with no choice but to use industrial craft and buildcraft to achieve what they want using the condenser to change things

[Mooseman9]

So this guy can make a thread about EE, with a mod replying on it, not telling him that it has been done before and that there is a whole section of the forums for it, but I can't? Assholish on all fronts here.

[Torezu]

So this guy can make a thread about EE, with a mod replying on it, not telling him that it has been done before and that there is a whole section of the forums for it, but I can't? Assholish on all fronts here.

Negative on that. Your last post on EE was combative. You can argue and debate (though I'd recommend a bunch of reading first), but you're not allowed to backtalk the mods. It's in the rules. Besides, if you'd looked at the first post and most of the rest, you'd have noticed that they were added long before you started your EE thread. That...doesn't lend anything to your post here.

[Chase_1159]

For me I play Minecraft for fun, for the sound of the blocks under my pick. I think people should play Tekkit the way THEY want to. If they disable it from a server, good for them, but don't let them ruin it for all of us. EE may be over powered but why not make it harder to make. Even if they don't, I'll still make rails: for fun not for (Insert Whatever you are doing here).

[Somark28]

For me I play Minecraft for fun, for the sound of the blocks under my pick. I think people should play Tekkit the way THEY want to. If they disable it from a server, good for them, but don't let them ruin it for all of us. EE may be over powered but why not make it harder to make. Even if they don't, I'll still make rails: for fun not for (Insert Whatever you are doing here).

Bad necromancer!

[freakachu]

and now the thread is dead forever