Jed1314

Wow, college started like 2 or 3 weeks ago here in Florida. Will you even be out by christmas?

I think we get out beginning of December? But I don't think we get nearly as many vacations. Do you get any at thanksgiving or something?

I still haven't gone back (and don't until the 21'st September ). I also get long ass holidays

Take a look at the "getting started" section of the wiki

You know that you can't break trees by hand in this mod right ?

And that wolves are now hostile if you stay around them too much ?

Did you try leaving the forest to see if the wolves stopped following you ?

-Snip-

Yay ! Economics ! .. Can I play ?

I'm afraid it is not the US alone, it is almost all western nations.

Most of what you said is very true. I would probably argue that America also benefited from the war in that they actually produced a lot of the kit that was used throughout. The fact that the US was fighting the war far from home soil meant that there was little of the destruction caused by bombing etc. that there was elsewhere. This stacked with the fact that the US still reaped many of the rewards which the war bore by joining in Europe. Access to fairly advanced Nazi technology (without which the moon landing would never have happened when it did) combined with the rise of mass production (a technique which was only just reaching out of adolescence pre the war, but was developed speedily during to increase the volumes producible in a space of time. Standardization was pioneered by Henry Ford and was also dragged into the mainstream by the events of WW2.

After the war, many nations who had bought equipment etc. off of America were left indebted to them (both financially and in terms of an attitude of "we owe them, they saved our asses" (which is debatable)). The UK once had something of an empire, which was slowly let go in order to pay these debts.

Post the war, the economy developed quickly. Once rationing had ended, people were once again opened up to the excess of the western world. Suddenly you weren't limited in what you could buy. This prompted a change in banking culture. Once, you had to have an interview with the branch manager of a bank to take out a mortgage, and even then you were lucky to get one. The banks, seeing the potential for making money from the less wealthy with longer term mortgages, effectively locking them into a life of debt, began lending more freely. As we progressed into the early 70's there was a huge shift in economic priorities. The rising quality of living and levels of education in the west led to an increasing feeling of entitlement and aloofness in the general populace. Menial labour jobs and manufacture positions became increasingly stigmatized, the sign of an uneducated or lower class background to many. Coinciding with this, countries such as China, Brazil and many other nations began to emerge from their own assorted internal struggles. In the late 70's, the PRC was finally recognized as the official government of China and they began to open the doors to their nation (and huge, cheap, exploitable labour force) to western investors who began to move their labour sources away from the west, where workers were less efficient, with greater protection from exploitation and far higher wage prices. This is what sparked the exodus of manufacture from the west.

Eastern nations began to embrace the principles of efficiency and "just in time" manufacture far earlier than the now shrinking western manufacture sectors (who were stuck in the old ways and were bogged down by inefficient practice and high labour costs). This prompted a huge increase in the availability of almost all goods, and at lower prices. This sparked a frenzy of consumption amongst the populace. These "baby boomers" had grown up with the austerity of war and now were faced with a huge range of choice and many new technologies, such as gaming systems, colour televisions, microwaves and more.

Soon, consumer expenditure was holding the economy afloat almost by itself. The focus of western economies shifted from the old way of making goods to the modern primarily service based economies we have today. Banks began making large sums of money from investment banking, the market for stock trading was increasingly de-regulated (leading to higher and higher profit margins as investment banks risked all and seemingly won).

The late 70's - early 90's was the golden age of the city. Banks and other service firms were generating huge sums of money for the governments of the world and, almost as a reward, the governments further loosened the restriction which bound these firms. However, slowly at first, cracks began to appear. The .com bubble of the late 90's finally burst in the early 2000's. Thousands of investors (many of whom were regular consumers as investment in stocks had spread to even the general public) lost their money practically overnight. Speculation had devastated the economy (a pattern we have seen repeat in the more recent depression of 2007 onwards).

Many countries only avoided recession in the early 2000's through massive consumer expenditure from debt. This continued the illusion of the "golden age". The chancellor exchequer of the Uk at the time (Gordon Brown) even foolishly declared this period "The end of boom and bust". Sadly, he was wrong. As we entered the latter half of the 2000's, the biggest bubble in history perhaps (the housing bubble, based on the foolish assumption that the price of houses would rise forever, thus ensuring the security of the banks assets) burst. The banks had lent money to people who couldn't afford the repayments, or could barely afford them. An increase in interest rates in 2006 forced many of these people into bankruptcy. By the time the banks had repossessed these peoples houses, the prices had fallen, meaning the banks couldn't reclaim all of the money they had lent. This was especially pertinent for the fabled 110%+ mortgages, which were particularly sore for these organisations.

All of this would have been bad by itself, but the true implications of these events would be revealed with the collapse of the Lehman Brothers. Many investment firms had been "trading" these peoples debts. The banks who had originally lent the money no longer received the repayments. Instead, investment firms had "sold" this debt to investors, packaging the bad debt with the good.

These practices meant that the impact of the crisis was felt far beyond the city. Many other companies (and even nations) had invested in these trades. The collapse harmed these companies, leading to redundancies. The collapse also harmed market confidence, leading to lower expenditure and far fewer loans. Suddenly (like a hangover staved off with more alcohol) the consequences hit us all at once. The growth which we had achieved through the expenditure of debt began to reverse. More and more companies went under, leading to higher unemployment and lower confidence which reduced expenditure shutting down more firms in a vicious and relentless cycle.

This is where we come into the present. With a legacy of debt and irresponsible expenditure, combined with a hereditary culture of excess and a dependence on cheap labour to continue our lifestyles, our generation, and that of our parents, have been left to clean up the mess. Unfortunately, it is not as simple as "stop sending money".

Reversing such a deep recession is a case of carefully managing expenditure and balancing that with increased taxes and reduced interest rates. We need to spend money to encourage growth in the economy, but we are spending money which is borrowed. We can't see the patterns repeating themselves once again. Despite our banging headache, we are opening our next bottle of vodka.

I, personally, feel that our floundering attempts at recovery are misguided. We have been living a lie for many, many years. For some reason, we have spent our entire lives aiming to have economic growth. Tell me, what happens when you put something that expands into a limited space ? It has to stop growing eventually. Our world is essentially a slowly expanding enclosed space. Many of our resources (e.g. Land, Labour) are limited. I feel it is totally ridiculous to continue chasing economic growth. It is futile. Instead, we should focus on consolidating the growth we have now and ensuring that any growth we have in the future is sustainable, actual growth and not false growth, fuelled by debt and irresponsible behaviour

... Well that was long

They may not be famous or likeable, but smoked eel tastes great.

You really like eels, don't you ?

-snip-

Excellent post mate !

I study the heat treatment of metal at university myself

The system I described in the post earlier was a (very) simplified version of the principles of metal heat treatment. I didn't want to go too in depth at risk of alienating too much of the community.

I like the idea of glass tempering being made available though

I am (obviously) for it !

-snip-

I had that very idea about the 3D shapable metal last night, but quickly realized it wasn't viable for TFC. I also had an idea about wood carving in 3D with material removal, the quality of the item would be dictated by it's similarity to a predefined shape

I feel like I have some really creative ideas for a more resource intensive TFC like game, but then again everyone feels their ideas are creative and good

yay <3

means my idea was actually good

Haha I'm flattered !

How would the sconces be crafted ? Anvil and 1 ingot I presume ?

Did i just read i get plenty of FPS in reply to the server is going to require more bandwidth? Bandwidth has nothing at all to do with FPS, and 1kb every time a block is changed with one person on may not be much, but what if you have 40 people on. 1 person changing 1 block in range of 40 people is 1 extra kb going out to every person who is in load range of that block, so 40k extra. Now lets say 10 people are carving away at their own things in range of 40 people, now its 400k per second assuming everyone is just chipping away at their blocks with 1 change a second. What if all 40 are in range and carving away, there goes 1.2 megs per second of extra bandwidth.

This is largely an unlikely scenario that 40 blocks will be changed consistently in the range of 40 people at once, but hopefully this illustrates that it doesn't just send 1k when a block is changed, it sends 1k per character in range. It really isnt going to lag the server, but it will quite easily lag out connections to servers, and minecraft already uses 50-300k per second per connection. I believe this is much more streamlined in 1.3 though.

Another thing is, without caching, i believe this will also increase bandwidth every time a chunk with these is loaded, with a chunk with a statue for instance this could quickly become a meg or more to load the chunk. Its not just the change to the block that has an effect, its that the block is now 1000 bits once it becomes this carve-able entity as apposed to being the, i think, 4 bits it use to be.

I like the idea, and the customization level allowed by this would be great, but understand that its not just a little bandwidth, it could quite quickly turn into a lot of bandwidth under certain conditions.

This could in fact be enough bandwidth to make the ability for private home servers to exists with tfc quite difficult, what with most non business isp connections having monthly bandwidth caps. Perhaps a toggle in config would alleviate this issue, and those wishing to avoid this problem could simply turn it off.

EDIT: Ehh my math is doofy in there, but oh well, its late and i have a migraine and cant sleep. Still, lots of potential extra bandwidth.

It has been confirmed as a feature, I can see where your concern lies though. We'll see how it goes

-poke-

Oy you, I want your opinion on the post I made of chandeliers

Hmm.. I like it It makes chandeliers suitably complex and costly. They are so ornate that sticking 4 torches together just wouldn't do, so I'm a fan

the man without a face game of thrones =)

Oooooooohhh .. Are you a reader or a watcher of the series ?

I've read all the books myself, but I am actually yet to watch the TV series

The cubit thing is already confirmed

Not enough like buttons >.<

-snip-

To be fair, your comment about the "We are #1" thing seems to be true to me.. Over here, you would never hear someone saying that

The closest we get is "Man, Kilts make it easy to get laid in America" National pride at it's finest !

Hmmm.. You do have a better perspective on it than I do

-snip-

Haha I think that happens the world over (though on a smaller scale ). The intelligent folks tend to move to metropolitan areas because that's where all the best paid jobs are :L :L

As I said to Dunk, you guys have a much better perspective on it than I do, but this does surprise me. I always thought the opinion of the general American populace was tinged with the cynicism that most nations seem to view the US with :S

For my Marcy character, there might be a little cross gen due to her backstory being that of IC2-redpower.

For my Sam charicter, there will a little crossing due to the relation to Marcy via the 'Athena' ship and the whole lovers deal thing. Btw, anyone figure out anything between the two characters yet?

Initial skins will have the most lapse, where as time go's on subtle edits should be made. also, due to the lack of refracting limbs in MC, I wont get to show you all the leg :/

no promises on me doing this all though. Might just pick a skin for both off the net and stick by them.

Sadly, I have been so busy with work and other disappointing things that I have barely been able to keep on top of everything as it is :S

Fortunately, I will return to my life of sedation and occasional university after Friday, so I will be able to give it a proper read and find it out, please don't spoil it for me

There are a few issues I thought of yesterday we need to beat out eventually regarding factions and claiming land and such, but we can deal with that once the server is running and we see how well our rules will work

Im going to be making a "Steampunk Captain" casual style skin. And that dosent make me a steampunk captain - Just a style - Law freindly

Hmmm .. I can't see a big issue with that, just please make it reasonably "period"

Ooh ooh someone used "American" and "geography" in the same sentence!!!

http://xkcd.com/850/

Yayyyy

I've never seen that comic before !

It's a nice reversal on the typical "LOL LOOK HOW IGNORANT DEMS AMERICANS ARE HUR HUR" I am European and even I know that the "Ignorance" is not any more or less pervasive over there than it is here

And off-topic.

It's become sort of a rite of passage for any thread that takes itself seriously, hasn't it?

If it hasn't been de-railed, it isn't worth the bandwidth it's hosted on

+1 !

so conquering the enemys fields, holding these for several years to deplete the fields nutrition, very effective warfare i must say

Would still prefer salting It's way way way too abusable though :/

I think the global trade is a pretty cool idea, the way you're probably imagining it. But there's so much other stuff that has to be added to make it enjoyable...

You're right, there needs to be a lot of changes. Here are just a few of them (which I envision)

Carts to increase carry capacity to very large levels, meaning you can make efficient trade runs over long distances (the catch would be carts couldn't go up or down whole blocks so you would need to build roads)

Regional specific items, ores and other resources (e.g. whale oil in the north, fruit from the equator)

Increased difficulty in crafts (make skilled craftsmen more valuable and worth trading with)

The need for clothes (would encourage farmers to farm sheep, would be easier in northern areas etc.)

That is just a small part of my vision for trading. I would make a suggestion (maybe I should ?) but I'm not sure if it merits Dunk/Bioxx's attention as it involves a lot of changes :/

That's about as ridiculous as not putting the info about UU-Matter crafting on the IndustrialCraft wiki. :

It is to do with a simple fact: Bioxx (who was the one who forbid it, not Dunk) doesn't want this game turning into a "numbers game". It's no fun that way :S

I like the mystery, it gives the game a more immersive feel than old minecraft had where there was statistics about EVERYTHING.

Even on a server with 15 people, I've never heard of anyone living past 6k unless it was intentional, "I'm going to be where no one can find me and steal my stuff." Not "I'm feeling too crowded. I need to move farther away from people so I can find my own ore."

Heck, the server that I'm currently on treats anyone that's farther than 2k away 'too damned far' and not worth it.

Thats what I want to change though. I hope that eventually, people will say, "man, I really need to go to that town 5k away, better pack some provisions etc," .. I know this is a very specialist desire and not much of the community wants it, but I do feel it is in keeping with the direction the mod seems to be taking :/

So for a couple of ideas I get elected as early on? I DEMAND A RECOUNT-

wait... oh, thats good. mmk.

also, the idea i got i threw out. It would have been a pain in the ass. instead, I am hoping to come across a repository of era appropriate skins for both male and females. I'll probably make a few edits, then post them here for users to take. The main rule behind this will be 'you make the head, here is the clothes/body'

No promises though, as i could show you my style of skins... and its more sci-fi then anything. Like literally, my skin has about 64 variants and all are just... not in this mods style.

I'm not bad at skins, but I don't really have the time to make any :/ I am going to sort my own and would be happy to donate my current skin which is appropriate, but I doubt I could contribute much more than that.

On a related note, I was hoping to map the server periodically, but the only mapping programme I know of which I could adapt for TFC is Tectonicus and I don't have the time to write up a config for every single new TFC block :S

Too little time for anything useful it seems :S

Awsome!

Also - Im going to try and start am Empire Also would make creating new storys easyer, Just invent a Dynasty of Rulers lol.

No dynastys here yet .. The players will establish those as they play

If you can get people to follow you, starting an empire will be easy