Early power systems

[Lumireaver 101]

Agreed. But... redstone is still obtainable in-game. Unless bioxx plans to remove it, I think a baghdad battery - or SOME kind of placable but limited power source - should be implemented in place of the eternal thermodynamics-defying redstone torch

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? Auto-farms are most likely on the chopping block considering the work going into agriculture. Before electricity people would use animals to make farming easier. They would rig ploughs, threshing stones, and reapers onto horses or similar. I think it might be more interesting and fun if we TFC went along this route.

Second to that, people also use redstone (in the context of multiplayer survival) to build security mechanisms. Locks, secret doors, and things along those lines. I believe these niches would be better filled by actual mechanisms. If interested, I would elaborate using the Roman Colosseum as an example, but people have been making trap doors, elevators, and other large-scale mechanism long before the rise of electric power.

It's also more ambitious to something like this, which I like.

Learned on Wikipedia: Apparently people used to bury clay pots filled with water to irrigate land over a long period of time.

[Paragon83 10]

I also would prefer if TFC stuck with more priitive mechanisms instead od delving into more modern technologies. Mechanisms centered on water, weight, and things like cranks, pulleys, and/or levers would be better and more interesting.

[Peffern 94]

Love the cave johnson reference. I want to go back to what someone said about BTW. This mod is a successor to BTW to me in many ways (surprisingly, all the ways that RedPower is NOT a successor to BTW are ways the TFC is a successor to BTW and vice versa. But that's a discussion for another time)

I think that with rope and cloth on the horizon due to agriculture, wind and eventually water power (i don't mean electricity, i think that's a time for much later) could be used. i think that mills and foundries could be created, for advanced smithing, and oh my god i just had an awesome idea:

Blast Furnace.

Mechanically powered blast furnace

awwwwwwwwww YEA!

but anyways i think mills are a good idea. I think that once the metallurgy tech tree is complete it's time to enter the age of steampunk.

Gears anyone?

[bsb23 303]

Love the steam punk, gears and so forth but following in BTW's footsteps doesn't excite me one bit there is a reason it failed. I think we should try to keep as far away from it as possible so we can't be compared.

[Peffern 94]

Sorry. In my opinion the reason BTW failed was because the coder had some very strange ideas about how code should work. There is nothing wrong with a mechanically powered system, the fact that i used BTW as an example was simply because I didn't want to be grasping at straws.

EDIT:In terms of redstone, while i agree that it totally defies thermodynamics, don't think of it as electricity, think of it as more of a "signal" while it still doesn't make any sense, it is no longer overpowered. See what i did there?

[EternalUndeath 1,208]

EDIT:In terms of redstone, while i agree that it totally defies thermodynamics, don't think of it as electricity, think of it as more of a "signal" while it still doesn't make any sense, it is no longer overpowered. See what i did there?

Yeah, like a radio signal or a laser signal - just something that carries on-off state information and doesn't actually propagate energy. Here's the thing though - it DOES propagate energy. redstone can open doors and other mechanical things requiring physical force, as well as lighting glowstone lamps - it therefore MUST utilize energy. And if it utilizes energy, then torches are therefore necessarily an infinite source of said energy. Even if it's only emitted at a slow rate and low frequency, an infinite energy source must also by proxy have infinite mass. Since the universe 'spawned' with a finite amount of mass, an infinite energy source is therefore impossible without violation of thermodynamics, conservation of energy and mass, and special relativity.

tl;dr - there is no context you can logically take redstone torches in that makes them scientifically viable

[Peffern 94]

Oh of course. They defy all physics. They just aren't game breaking. Now if something like (this is an example don't hate me for saying this) IC2 energy ran on redstone. Oh boy that would suck. Also I like to think of it like redpower (the pump in redpower requires electricty to run, however it also requires a redstone signal to turn on and off. that is all) so the problem is not that redstone can turn things on an off, the problem is that things like doors have a free supply of potential energy. So a torch is just a signal propagator (while still defying physics, the energy required is so little that the difference between effectively infinite and actually infinite is a non-issue). Really the problem is with the things on the receiving end.

[Peffern 94]

So to go along with the steampunk idea, how about gears + axels that require actual energy to turn, the only difference is that they could be disable using redstone. So to open your door, you would have gears connected and your button/pressureplate would open the gears and let the door open

[yord 1]

Sorry if I'm repeating some stuff, only skimmed through this...

Considering that mods like redpower, IC2 and so on go more and more in a direction where you can pretty much automate EVERYTHING that is going on... no. I think TFC should stick with mechanical power, like using the power from a water wheel DIRECTLY on a mill for example. I don't think having stuff like generators and batteries is a good idea for two main reasons:

1) I don't see how the idea of TFC and IC2 should combine without creating a mess which would happen if bioxx would add generators and other power stuff like IC2 does.

2) It opens a WHOLE new level of new stuff, which would mean that's the focus for bioxx for a while if he starts it. I'd rather prefer him to work on better farming, more plants / flowers, more realistic looting (or whatever you call dealing with what you killed) and so on.

Just to make sure I'm not getting misunderstood: This is only my take on stuff, if bioxx has awesome plans for it, I will happily try it out and I'm sure IF he does it, he does it well, I just can't see how.

Love this community <3

[cevkiv 156]

I like TFC because it feels like what would happen if Notch et al. weren't lazy bastards and really liked Dwarf Fortress. I am totally on board for hooking up a windmill to a blast furnace, or using a water wheel to turn a grindstone.

Electricity, and red stone, just don't "feel" right, although I do think we need some sort of "bright enough for mobs to not spawn, but not bright enough to stop mushrooms from growing" lighting option.

[daveris 6]

to be honest i like the idea of a simple generator just so we can make better looking light sources thats all

[yord 1]

to be honest i like the idea of a simple generator just so we can make better looking light sources thats all

What about something like an oil lamp then?

[daveris 6]

What about something like an oil lamp then?

dont mean to sound rude here (its hard to transfer emotions through the internet) thats fine and dandy for you id just like to see something a little more advanced, all the things we need are here. things that you see in IC2, no thanks but early power like the suggestion said would be nice plus oil lamps would require you hunt fatty animals or a new or which would make it harder and harder to get were as power from a windmill or watermill wouldn't be that bad.

continuing from watermills it would be nice to include that into the mod for founders and more advanced metal making

[bsb23 303]

Didn't we already have an oil lamp argument a while back. EternalUndeath your over-analyzing this torch thing it barely even supplies light it was just a block that was needed for redstone logic. I like the redstone system the way it is (but I do like redpower I have to admit) its very understandable for any application it can be easily used for binary code it makes fun machines and its not overpowered. I think it would do anything except take away from gameplay i don't see why we would take it out even if it doesn't make sense. And no I don't think something needs to be more advanced as TFC is not even close to the stage where we affect "advanced machines" With the whole hunting and degutting idea from a while back we probably are going to need a use for fat.

[bsb23 303]

Ya the topic "torches should burn out" had a long conversation about lighting and torches and lamps its on page 4

Edit: my bad forgot not to double post.

[Devlin 51]

ok anothe thread that is realy taking off and going way too far. realy electricity in terrafirmacraft? this mod feels more like a medieval times mod or atleast a before masive use of the light bulb era feel. im fine with going beyond, but solar power is a very recent power source. many of these are cool ideas but they just don't feel right, these feel more like suggestions for the technic pack. i could see wind and water power, even cranks and pistons and working pulley systems. hell im even willing to go as far as steam power, but thse are going to far. i know we are all enthusiastic but we need to realistic, not saying the mod needs to be i mean we need to be. these sound like long term goal ideas. like things that would be added well after the whole mod is finished, maybe we can even start up a little thread about mods for tfcraft. and these would all work wonderfully there but if we pile to many far out there ideas on bioxx not only will it take alot longer too code but it will also leave very little room for anything else. if we pile on a ton of ideas he will eventualy run out of usable ideas. one thing to keep in mind is that minecraft has a very limited number of available id's. and yes bioxx will probabaly not use all these suggestions or ideas but the more suggestions you add the more obligated he will feel to make this system, if impleneted, all the more interactive and intence. and i for one want to see mods for terrafirmacraft. as that would be cool in itself. that way you could have a diffrent experience then everytone else if you realy wanted too. so please people, think more practiacly with what would fit. i like the ideas, they just do not fit with the feel of this overhaul.

[Peffern 94]

I agree mechanical wind and water power for tech 1 and steam punk for tech 2.

And since bioxx is implementing small mods into minecraft, what's to say 4096 block IDs isn't next. And also you can write an entire comprehensive mod using under ten IDs (redpower)

[bsb23 303]

I agree with Devlin our ideas should be focused on changing whats in front of us not something that is unrelated. These will be good suggestions in the future though.

[daveris 6]

ok anothe thread that is realy taking off and going way too far, this mod feels more like a medieval times mod or atleast a before masive use of the light bulb era feel. i could see wind and water power, even cranks and pistons and working pulley systems. hell im even willing to go as far as steam power, but thse are going to far. like things that would be added well after the whole mod is finished. so please people, think more practiacly with what would fit. i like the ideas, they just do not fit with the feel of this overhaul.

i disagree about it not fitting the feel of the mod because i feel this mod is more about advancing through the ages of the world, however i do agree that this stuff is more longterm but thats the point of pointing this out maybe this person feels once you get to the high level steels whats the point with the progress we already made (im including if steam was added) this far power is only one small jump ahead and for people fearing the complexity of IC2 all i want is just water and wind with just some copper wires to create light.

plus i feel that this is not impracticle just further into the game

Edited 21 Jun 2012 by daveris

[Peffern 94]

steampunk! steampunk! steampunk!

[bsb23 303]

Daveris it may take longer than you think to make it that far.

[RogueHydra 32]

The mod's focus is NOT advancement, but survival. Advancement through the different ages is just a set of levels/tiers to give a sense of progression and accomplishment. Buuuuut, I won't say I don't want to get simple mechanical systems (no more than steam power - I think that'd be a good place to stop). And even then, I also think that this 'power' should be mainly for luxury items/blocks/etc. I don't really want to see fully automated farms and such.

[daveris 6]

Daveris it may take longer than you think to make it that far.

with what we current have, progressing form stone to steel in a few days on single player compared to how long it happened in real life so your telling me steam engines(the ones people want invented around the 1700s) and the when the first electromagnetic generators were made in the 1800s (Faraday and his laws and stuff never thought i would need physics class ) takes longer then i think

[daveris 6]

The mod's focus is NOT advancement, but survival. Advancement through the different ages is just a set of levels/tiers to give a sense of progression and accomplishment.

i know its about survival but it feels like advancement more then what they say it feels like

[EternalUndeath 1,208]

with what we current have, progressing form stone to steel in a few days on single player compared to how long it happened in real life so your telling me steam engines(the ones people want invented around the 1700s) and the when the first electromagnetic generators were made in the 1800s (Faraday and his laws and stuff never thought i would need physics class ) takes longer then i think

As I said in another thread, word from the top is that we won't get anything from the past 400 years.

So unless it was invented by 1600 AD, we ain't gonna see it here