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Deez

Early power systems

107 posts in this topic

I have 1 problem with this.

IRL, animal-driven farm equipment (like plows) were a huge advantage because doing it by hand was tiring and may I say backbreaking work (I had to help my dad dig up the topsoil in our back yard the other week and I STILL have the blisters); using animals eased that burden. However, Steve can till an entire square meter of earth in just a split second with no effort or forethought, so what need does he have of an animal driven plow?

A stamina/fatigue mechanic could serve to emulate this. As long as it were implemented in a not-so obtrusive way... Greater susceptibility to illnesses...? Faster hunger loss? I don't know.

I'm totally for animal-driven progression for TFC (as opposed to more sophisticated tech) as it would be vastly more interesting than what everyone else has done, but it's impossible not to acknowledge that setting up your equipment and stuff might end up taking longer than just doing it by hand as long as Steve remains so resilient.

You could always balance the animal tools by giving them a greater yield, but that just seems like a lazy solution.

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Hermmm... I'm going to throw a huge generalization out there, so just let me know if I sound crazy. Players primarily use redstone (in the context of survival mode) to create automatic farms. ...Right?

That wasn't really a thing before pistons. Redstone was added so that you could open doors from far away, basically (and blowing up TNT). I think the idea of redstone was to easily simulate the dungeon-style pull-lever-to-unlock-door etc. Pistons did a great deal to expand the capacity for this, even though it's main motivator was the use as a water-gate.

That said, I would also like TFC to stay within medieval technologies.

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Im thinking about the actual abilty to create a mechaniczam in the mod itself by placing blocks , steam power energy , and hydro , geothermal , geo , bio energy of course all VERY HARD TO GET TO , the thought is to create and evolve from a caveman that is smashing rocks to a modern human being , i sugest using coper if it is inplemented or planing to be , as a curant conductor also gold and silver and every other metal but with its own coductability , i sugest also for 1block things (gage , ....) or 1block things that are supose to work together to be crafted using a wrench or a screwdriver made from any metal inside a workbench literally using it to screw every single thing or blot it , if its to tight'li screwed the item should break and could be smelted back , also making screws and bolts to conect things , pipes made by placing blocks and ciseling them , bolts to run wires up top blocks of course the block with the wire should have a slightly higher chance to fall(depending on the mass and dencity of that metal in the wire) , making transformators to carry curent from a far ways away , the curant is suposed to be used to automize the smelting or mining a little or to create light . I might be going overboard but this is my opinion , still i would like redstone to be kept.

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Im thinking about the actual abilty to create a mechaniczam in the mod itself by placing blocks , steam power energy , and hydro , geothermal , geo , bio energy of course all VERY HARD TO GET TO , the thought is to create and evolve from a caveman that is smashing rocks to a modern human being , i sugest using coper if it is inplemented or planing to be , as a curant conductor also gold and silver and every other metal but with its own coductability , i sugest also for 1block things (gage , ....) or 1block things that are supose to work together to be crafted using a wrench or a screwdriver made from any metal inside a workbench literally using it to screw every single thing or blot it , if its to tight'li screwed the item should break and could be smelted back , also making screws and bolts to conect things , pipes made by placing blocks and ciseling them , bolts to run wires up top blocks of course the block with the wire should have a slightly higher chance to fall(depending on the mass and dencity of that metal in the wire) , making transformators to carry curent from a far ways away , the curant is suposed to be used to automize the smelting or mining a little or to create light . I might be going overboard but this is my opinion , still i would like redstone to be kept.

sir, can we try and keep the walls of text to a minimum?

and i'm pretty sure any form of electricity is out. Also, all those mechanical parts seem way too advanced to be within our timeframe which I believe ends around the 1500s

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Just a few more uses for the mechanical power that I don't think anyone has suggested yet

-need power for minecart booster tracks

-spinner, to turn wool into bolts of wool or string

-winch with claw at other end of rope, to lift carts, platforms, animals, and maybe even the player

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severe necro, wall of text, useless idea (why do we need power in any form? what does it add to the game beyond completely overpowered and overly complex redstone-type stuff?)

me no gusta this post :(

also william, use the search function, mechanical power has been mentioned a WHOLE ASS LOT OF TIMES ALREADY :D

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severe necro, wall of text, useless idea (why do we need power in any form? what does it add to the game beyond completely overpowered and overly complex redstone-type stuff?)

me no gusta this post :(

also william, use the search function, mechanical power has been mentioned a WHOLE ASS LOT OF TIMES ALREADY :D

no clue what severe necro means

it was a list, but i guess your right

and over complicated? this mod has 21 different metals, and complexity could be a balance instead of rarity of resources

and ya, this is under a post called early power systems talking about guess what? early power systems such as mechanical power....

not trying to be rude, just don't see the validity of what your saying....

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no clue what severe necro means

it was a list, but i guess your right

and over complicated? this mod has 21 different metals, and complexity could be a balance instead of rarity of resources

and ya, this is under a post called early power systems talking about guess what? early power systems such as mechanical power....

not trying to be rude, just don't see the validity of what your saying....

a Necro, is when someone bumps an old dead thread to the top with something useless like "HAY GUISE I LIEK DIS STUHF"

your post wasnt a necro, but a legitimate revival of the thread because it was relevant to the original idea.

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hmm, to me a necro is reviving a dead topic with information less than crucial to allow discussion to be opened again. if its important enough, sure, go ahead but if there is nothing of incredibly added value, might be better off creating a new thread where you can go in depth on your particular view on the idea and allow us to look at THAT

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hmm, to me a necro is reviving a dead topic with information less than crucial to allow discussion to be opened again. if its important enough, sure, go ahead but if there is nothing of incredibly added value, might be better off creating a new thread where you can go in depth on your particular view on the idea and allow us to look at THAT

And then they get in trouble for creating a new thread because everyone flips a tit "USE THE SEARCH BAR!!!!1!!!!!1!!!!!one!!!1!!!".

You are wrong. Using a existing thread was the proper thing to do.

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And then they get in trouble for creating a new thread because everyone flips a tit "USE THE SEARCH BAR!!!!1!!!!!1!!!!!one!!!1!!!".

You are wrong. Using a existing thread was the proper thing to do.

wow, late response is late?
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...because everyone flips a tit...

I'm gonna have to use this in casual conversation sometime soon now.

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Yes this is a necro, but I know people don't like it when people make new threads about old ideas, and hopefully I'll add enough content for this to be worth-while...

First off, I personally think that electrical power and 16th-21st century technology has a lot of potential in this mod... As either a modmod or as an optional add-on, made by the developers after they have more or less finished TFC. (Which seems unlikely any time soon.)

However, if it is implemented, with it should be added a way to limit it from the player early-on, through the addition of some system or mini-game which represents gained knowledge about the work around you. Basically, a research system. This neatly avoids the unbelievability of both letting and of NOT letting the player be able to hammer out a crude copper wire with his first forge, and other such actions which though they may be relatively simple acts, they require massive leaps of knowledge which the player isn't supposed to have right off the bat.

I also think that some kind of research system (which I unfortunately can't think of at the moment) would be a great way to add more progression to TFC, and the sharing of knowledge gained could give more incentive to join towns and form communities.

But, anyway, my main suggestion is my own fleshed-out version of what I think would be a nice power system and progression to see in TFC;

(I'm probably going to re-iterate a lot of ideas which have been come up with before, but oh well)

Tier 0: The Age of Wood (and work)

This era of the game really should not be about automation, in my opinion. This should be an era of hard work, and fully-manual or animal-driven systems. Hand-crank querns are already implemented, which I feel should be the extent of this tier's automation, with possibly animal harnesses being used as quern power as well.

As an additional note, if some kind of research system is implemented, then perhaps some very crude, slow, and low-power systems could be devised at this level. Manual and maybe animal-driven winches, pulleys, lifts, and maybe (as a more advanced idea, made after doing a considerable amount of research) short conveyor belts using cloth, with the pinnacle of technology at this stage probably being a very slow, manual or animal-driven ball mill, which would provide a bit of extra ore yields.

More ideas which could be implemented as research ideas: Boxes and baskets, which would simply act as open-top chests which take in any items on top of them, at the cost of less storage space, and possibly with an extrapolation of this idea being a bucket attached to a manual pulley. Chutes, which would be similar to baskets/boxes, but with a sliding bottom which can be manually removed and replaced to drop items out of it, and slopes, which should be a mostly self-explanatory block for guiding items short distances in a particular direction.

Tier 1: The Age of Wind and Water

This would be where automation would first take off, as the smithing of tier 0 metals and copper would allow one to reinforce wood enough to make wind and water mills, the most basic of non-living power. Pulleys can pull greater amounts of items and weight, represented by larger inventory spaces and platforms that the player can ride on. And, on top of this, these systems can now be (almost) automated, as player power is no longer absolutely necessary. (But still available nonetheless) However, the bigger and more powerful one makes such systems, the more strain it puts on it, represented by durability damage which increases exponentially with size and power. Also, although this should also be the tier of power transfer, this transfer should be subject to the same restrictions of size and power, with the addition of considerable power loss over even short distances.

Also, of the two power systems, wind is unpredictable and unreliable, with storms raising the system's power and thus durability loss unless somehow turned off, and normal days not always being very windy.

Water, on the other hand, is very reliable, but very low-yielding and, without red steel buckets, limited to lakes, rivers, and oceans.

This would be the tier of genuinely useful automation and contraptions, such as fully-auto pulley and elevator systems and querns and ball mills which don't require constantly holding down the right mouse button or keeping animals fed. Though, very little if any actual new functionality should be added, simply new ways of creating power and upgrades to previous systems.

Wind and water power at this stage would also be at the cost of considerable maintenance as components wear out and need to be either repaired, re-smelted, or simply replaced, depending on how the devs want to balance things. And on top of that, there should be no way to automatically take things out of inventories. One can make an automated pulley system take items to the top of a bloomery, for example, but they would still need to at least pull a string to get those items to dump out, and they will still need to take out the ingot themselves.

Tier 2: Real Automation Through Steam!

Now, with the advent of brass and bronze, the real fun can begin, as simple steam power becomes available! The working of brass, any of the bronzes, or even rose gold double sheets creates boiler sidings, while any of those plus lead can be used as piping for transporting the steam. Uses for this steam are almost endless, as the crafting of piping with additional components allows the creation of valves, pressure gauges, switches (which can be manual or pressure-sensing), pistons and doors, better ore grinding/processing, powered minecart rails, and of course upgraded metal tier pulleys, elevators, conveyor belts, baskets; the list goes on!

However, for all its shine and shimmer, steam is not free, and indeed should be complicated, dangerous, and coal/charoal hungry. Placing tank siding in the world allows one to make a multi-block steam tank, similar to the iron tanks of railcraft. This tank would accept water either from buckets or piping, (pumps should take a good amount of power from the system, encouraging people to instead trap condensate from pipes, pistons, valves, etc. to conserve it) and would be capable of detecting blocks underneath it. Firepits and forges can be used as simple fuel power, or one can spend considerable amounts of metal to construct a more specialized, heat-efficient metal firebox. Either way, however, it's going to be a coal-guzzler.

Heating up any of the above fuel boxes will contribute instead to the boiler's heat level, which will first require heating up to the boiling point of water, then spend this heat to produce greater and greater amounts of steam as its temperature rises. However, more steam isn't always a good thing, as too much steam causes dangerously high pressures, especially with weaker metals such as brass and rose gold. At a certain amount of pressure, which is dependent on metal composition, pipes and boilers have a chance to explode! This chance is low at first, but increasing exponentially as the pressure builds.

Additionally, heating an empty boiler not only wastes fuel, but if water is introduced to an empty, hot boiler, it has a chance to explode based on the temperature. Heating a boiler beyond its metal's melting point is also obviously not a good thing, either, which since boilers spend heat to boil water, this is really only possible in a dry boiler.

Oh, and did I mention that the steam and water share the tank? So continually piping in water (like certain other steam-powered mods) will simply flood the tank, leaving no room for the steam. Also, although larger tanks require more heating (and forges) to heat up, and more water to keep the pressure up, they are more resource-efficient and more heat-efficient per unit of steam produced.

Building large enough boilers can even allow the creation of enough energy to automate its own fuel insertion with excess for other systems, though it is of note that, no matter what you do, a completely closed system is never possible- At the very least, you will need to chop down trees to keep it powered. Plus, as powerful as steam logic is, it should be difficult for precise applications, especially over long periods of time, meaning that small mistakes the machine makes can build up over long periods of time. It should be fail-safe enough that you can leave a well-designed system alone at least while you go mining, but leaving a server running with a chunkloader might not be such a good idea...

Also, placing a boiler directly above lava source blocks will create a small, constant amount heat, which can be useful for small systems if one is lucky enough to find a pool of lava. Compared to charcoal/coal, however, it really doesn't produce much, and plus since the heat can never be turned off, even such a small amount of heat can very easily overwhelm your steam system and either melt it or cause it to explode.

(For people who don't like infinite power, perhaps this could slowly cool the lava down to obsidian.)

Oh, and also, you should be able to also make upgraded wind and water mills out of any metal as well. Upgraded tiers of metal can withstand higher stresses, and thus can produce more energy before that exponential curve of breakage catches up to you, and the higher tiers can even maintain small, low-yielding systems indefinitely. Bronze, however, is not one of those higher-tier metals.

Tier 2.5: Iron and Steel

This isn't so much its own tier, but an upgrade of the previous one, as iron and the various steels add ever higher capacity. There isn't much more I can think of for this tier, except that blue steel's ability to pick up lava sources with red steel's ability to pick up water sources has the potential to make infinite energy anywhere. Perhaps steam power could be put in this tier instead, and the bronze/brass could just add more automation functionality and better durability?

Oh, and by the way, yes I was very bored for a long period of time.

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-and then Noodles was crushed by a massive wall of text-

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Now, thanks to abculatter_2, I have a concept of multiblock crusher that runs on steam power and built using one or two metalhead pistons (which is a tier-up from "default" vanilla woodenhead piston, and can be used to push blocks around as well, but why would you?).

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... , but why would you?).

I do not really see a benefit right now, either.

It would only make sense if ore processing is rewritten.

Crushed ore will give you up to 100% of metal (depending on the material used). Pure ore will only give you 40% or so (depending on the ore's tier).

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I do not really see a benefit right now, either.

Actually, that was about using metalhead pistons to push blocks while you totally can use woodenheads and net the same result.

It would only make sense if ore processing is rewritten.

Crushed ore will give you up to 100% of metal (depending on the material used). Pure ore will only give you 40% or so (depending on the ore's tier).

I'd rather we don't have that. Crushing ore results in ore "dust" that can be smelted more easily, saving time and fuel. Actual metal gain advantage I can't possibly see to go any higher than 10-15%, and even that doesn't make much sense.

Also, if we aren't afraid of breeding items, let's say that in another structure/machine you can filter crushed dust into refined dust, that smelts even better, saving even more fuel, while getting some flux as a byproduct, maybe in the form of limewater if that filter machine involves water.

The main idea is just that we don't have a crusher machine block or whatever, but an actual crusher multiblock structure where you can see moving parts.

And possibly fall in and get crushed yourself as a bonus.

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-and then Noodles was crushed by a massive wall of text-

It's Super Effective!!!

I do not really see a benefit right now, either.

It would only make sense if ore processing is rewritten.

Crushed ore will give you up to 100% of metal (depending on the material used). Pure ore will only give you 40% or so (depending on the ore's tier).

If ore processing does provide extra metal, this would probably be the best way to do it. Though, I think a higher base percentage would be better, something 50% or above.

Actually, that was about using metalhead pistons to push blocks while you totally can use woodenheads and net the same result.

I'd rather we don't have that. Crushing ore results in ore "dust" that can be smelted more easily, saving time and fuel. Actual metal gain advantage I can't possibly see to go any higher than 10-15%, and even that doesn't make much sense.

Also, if we aren't afraid of breeding items, let's say that in another structure/machine you can filter crushed dust into refined dust, that smelts even better, saving even more fuel, while getting some flux as a byproduct, maybe in the form of limewater if that filter machine involves water.

The main idea is just that we don't have a crusher machine block or whatever, but an actual crusher multiblock structure where you can see moving parts.

And possibly fall in and get crushed yourself as a bonus.

Now, that is a good idea, having the crushed versions of ores require less fuel to smelt, which would conveniently leave more fuel for the boilers!

How would that be done, though? Perhaps a metal forge that retains heat better, but requires the ore to be processed? Or just that it heats up faster in forges? (I like the idea of metal forges, though, maybe replacing the sides of a forge with some kind of metal plating allows better heat retention and, thus, saves on fuel?)

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How would that be done, though? Perhaps a metal forge that retains heat better, but requires the ore to be processed? Or just that it heats up faster in forges? (I like the idea of metal forges, though, maybe replacing the sides of a forge with some kind of metal plating allows better heat retention and, thus, saves on fuel?)

Generally speaking, crushed ore heats up faster. Because of the way stuff melts, it doesn't really start to melt before all bulk of it reached melting temperature. Heat transfer goes, obviously, through the surface, and smaller pieces usually have "more surface per volume unit" than bigger ones.

Now, there's no emulation of real-life melting mechanics in TFC - stuff melts when it reaches certain temperature, without requirement of additional energy to actually melt it, and there's, obviously, no simulation of the fact that hot piece of something can be either cooler or hotter inside. But "dust heats up faster" is easy to apply, I think.

What am I even talking about.

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The spared fuel, when melting crushed ores, should be more than the fuel keeping an engine running. Else it would not be worth it. I doubt that this can be balanced - only in a huge smithery on a multiplayer server it would make sense.

Warming up an engine to run a quern (lol) or a crusher is a waste of fuel when only used for a single player. Thatswhy I suggested the less realistic more output of ore.

At least as long as there is no way to store energy ... and there shouldn't.

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Well, remember that you can use windmills and watermills for mechanical power as well. If you have enough torque, I don't see what you can't turn a metal/diamond grinding head (which I imagine would be the highest, most expensive ore grinding method there can possibly be in TFC) with windmills. Though, such a high-energy system should require a lot of maintenance.

Also, to me, the point of steam is more for automation and logic then for machines like ore crushers and querns. In my above suggestion, the only way to take items out of and into inventories not specifically designed for that task is with steam; probably some kind of steam blaster which would build up pressure to a certain point, then use it to blast items out of an inventory, possibly giving the player some degree of control over how much is taken out. This means that they only way to truly automate things like bloomeries or forges would be through steam. Which may not seem like such a great thing, but you'd be surprised how many people would build such a system just because of how awesome it is.

Also, I feel that whenever/however steam is eventually introduced some way to produce a small amount of it forever should be implemented, (my suggestion for this was lava pools) just for automation and security and logic and such. Powering machines with this infinite power would be impractical, requiring an enormous, dedicated system to keep them running at any reasonable rate, and plus it should have other disadvantages to encourage people not to use it excessively.

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i feel as though steam engines are probably the only automation that should be added to the game at any rate.

and to clarify, this is a steam turbine fueled by coal to heat water. (many make wise quips about the technical truth that most power sources are steam power and that steam power doesnt preclude the use of fission and such, which i dismiss as pointlessly argumentative)

anyways i imagine steam being applied to this game mainly in the form of travel. like steam boats and trains. legit trains though that are enterable and not just vanilla minecarts. and also boats, like trains, large scale enterable boats.

if its not possible to make the big contraptions to utilize the steam power, then i think its kind of a pointless direction to go really. since it shouldn't be a simple matter of putting furnace + boat together and then you have a steamboat.

same goes for factorization, i guess a good example is a sawmill. where the machine takes logs and spits out planks. (obviously more per log than by hand.) or bricks and whatnot. anyways thats just me

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How about we keep it pretty much the same as it is now and instead of adding new teirs or whatever we simply add things like a windmill that you build and it helps you grind flour more swiftly. a pump made of steel and pipes for liquids made of glass and steel. you know believable medieval machines that don't seem like much now but would make the little things much easier to manage? imagine if you had the option to either move bucket after bucket of water to your ponds and wells or simply build a pump that you can either hand crank or something to move the water for you. obviously it would be much more expensive to make, like building a bunch of individual parts and putting them together in the crafting bench or setting it up piece by piece next to a water source, hooking up a pipe to the intake and one to the out take. regular steel for water but blue or red steel for lava. something like this. instead of adding in a whole new system, simply add in buildable and craftable medieval tech. only ones that come to mind are windmills, basic pumps, watermills, clockworks, crane, ext... i think I am starting to ramble so i will leave this here. no teirs, no having to build this before you can build that, just hard work and engineering, if you can make it then go a head and do, but having a systems where they eventually need maintenance would balance them out a bit, so it take a ton of materials to build and then depending on how well it was put together it may need more or less maintenance.

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The last three posts ... I understand now, my brain was stuck to the steam-age processing, only.

Of course my brain is going ways to complicate things. And I keep my brain where it is right now :)

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i like the idea of having windmills in terrafirmacraft, but this can be, a better than wolves addon for tfc

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