Major changes for 0.4.0

[NielsPilgaard]

Mod Removals:

• [x] Extra Discs (Replaced by ExtraStorage)
• [x] Bad Wither No Cookie Reloaded (Replaced by Extreme Sound Muffler)
• [x] Useful Backpacks (Replaced by Sophisticated Backpacks)
• [x] Ensorcelled (Turns out CoFH Ensorcellation has a similar enchant)
• [x] Biomes O' Plenty (Not needed)
• [x] Fishing Real (Less point without Aquaculture): Removed early.
• [x] Tinkers Mechworks (Content overlap)
• [x] QuantumStorage (Replaced by Industrial Foregoing Black Hole Tanks/Units)
• [x] Rare Ice (It annoys me because it keeps it's config open at all times)
• [x] Angel Ring (Many other ways to fly in a more balanced way)
• [x] Additional Bars? (Doesn't add much uniqueness)
• [x] Dangerous Stonecutter (More annoyance than fun feature)
• [x] Snow Under Trees

Mods to investigate:

• [x] BetterEnd Forge [#812]

Mod Additions:

• [x] TerraForged

Datapack Changes:

• [x] Move all non-Vanilla Tetra Datapack materials into a compat subfolder, to correctly override Tetra's own.

Script Changes:

• [x] remove.js
  • remove section that removes ExtraStorage disc recipes
• [x] Remove outcommented scripts (marked with //TODO: Remove

Config Changes:

• [x] Update default keybindings Lost Trinkets disabling will no longer happen, as the ones we deem too powerful no longer unlock randomly. This allows us to use them as rewards and the like.

[TemperedFool]

As a balance suggestion, maybe require a high-end metal for the hopping pots. I was tossing around shadow metal from create, alfsteel, and similar; Boo had a better idea: set up an "endgame material" tag so most mods can get them (and similar things) at their endgames.

[r-mc2]

If I can throw my 2 cents in on Botany Pots as well, a lot of it sounds like it is boiling down to players saying

"We like them because they allow us to define our own personal play style and obtain resources in the way we want to do so."

While the pack authors are saying

"We don't like them because they don't allow the player to define their own personal play style in the way we want them to define it."

It sounds like your minds are fairly made up already.

Do they make resource gathering easier? Yes. Are they game breakingly OP? Depends on what you're using them for. As an example, try getting a Botany Pot to feed a Bioreactor with the 9 unique plant varieties. They're slow as molasses. You'll have to set up a better farming method if that's your goal; cloches, IF farms, etc. I personally set up an Astral ritual to make plants grow faster + IF machines to harvest and plant to keep up with the machine's demand. And I feel I should mention it before someone else does, yes, I could have set up a bank of pots to grow more, but that didn't fit my personal choice in play style so I didn't use them and setting up the in-world farm was more fun.

Their existence does not deny the option of doing something else. Removing them does though.

As for them being ugly? Yes, that is purely subjective and not a reason to remove them 😆 (granted I agree they are ugly compared to their inspiration the Bonzai pots lol)

[MuteTiefling]

I was thinking earlier that removing hopping pots would probably suffice. That keeps them available for decorative use, but makes them harder to automate.

That said, I've been working on overhauling some scripts over the last few days and some relatively recent changes to kjs make it possible to easily control the rates of pots. Their growth rate could now be easily put on par with standard crops, or slower considering you don't even need light or water nearby.

Output rates are also considerably easier to modify now.

So maybe they stay but get severely nerfed to make other methods more interesting to explore.

[TemperedFool]

Another idea then; leave them in while significantly nerfing growth rates - that way they're useful for the stated goals of people who like them, but useless from an industrial POV unless you make hundreds of them (I know, some people will). Then make a special dirt with a big speed/yield bonus, gated as previously suggested by high-end materials.

Thoughts?

[merlerm]

Endgame items certainly aren't the solution: this is still a kitchen sink pack where everything pretty much goes, and gating stuff arbitrarily is even worse than removing imo. Here's why the argument for "if you don't like it don't use it" doesn't work for me: even if I have more fun with other options that aren't pots, how can I use them knowing that a far cheaper and objectively better alternative exists?

The problem is all about balance here: they simply are too good and overshadow any other interesting and complex idea other mods have and new players especially that don't know any of these will never feel compelled to explore new ways to farm those materials if they already have a perfect solution in their laps.

Removing the hopping pot works fine for me, since this is an automation problem after all, and even tweaking the rates heavily could work. The point is the more complex and expensive alternatives should feel rewarding and actually provide a significant upgrade. If you sink a ton of resources in an IF farm and it's just slower than three magic pots you just feel like an idiot

[r-mc2]

I could see up to a 50% reduction in growth speed on the hopping variants and maybe a 25% reduction on the non-hopping variants. It still gives you some passive generation without having to remember to go harvest it like growing them in-world, but doesn't lead to a full storage drawer overnight (IRL). And the non-hopping will still require setup for automation purposes or if people want speed they can automate the non-hopping or wait til they can earn some higher tier version of material to make better dirt. Although I could see it leading down the path of adding all kinds of dirt types similar to that pack back in 1.12 I can't recall the name of off the top of my head who's early-game was all around the various trees, bonzai pots, and special dirts.

But some options for "better dirt" could be using the fertilizers from CFBH + the tilled farmland variants available with the recipes that use the hoe. I'd be hesitant to think of taking from another mod that isn't food/farming related as it could feel like a "gate" in a non-expert version of the pack, a means to force someone to go down a road they were never gonna touch and risk turning them off the mod entirely if they have to begrudgingly go through it.

But some other options to combine with the tilled farmlands:

• A bucket of biofuel or liquid meat from IF
• Those overgrowth seeds from Botania (or whichever is the non-dungeon loot variant you get from tall grass)
• An Aevitas attuned rock crystal from Astral
• Phytogrow from Thermal
• I'm sure there's something in PNC related to crop growth but I've not gone through the mod myself yet
• Totem of Joy from Nature's Aura (or something more plant related, but happy plants == fast plants, ya?)
• A full jar of mana from Ars (since the jars fill from plants growing nearby)
• A Carbuncle charm from Ars (to imply the carbuncle is automating your crop within the dirt making it faster?)
• A Speed upgrades from any the mods that add them

I imagine we could think of others, but this is a small list for now.

[merlerm]

I'm not sure I see the point of giving the option to combine that stuff with farmland. You came all that way for an interesting and fun treefarm, why would you want to go back to a pot, even if it was faster? It doesn't make sense to me

[r-mc2]

even if I have more fun with other options that aren't pots, how can I use them knowing that a far cheaper and objectively better alternative exists?

Not to be rude, but in the words of another, "That sounds like a you problem" 😄 Not all of us are gonna be chasing efficiencies and the "best" option. I may fall into that category, but there's also something I enjoy about seeing a variety of things in my worlds so I'd use them for one farm but not for another.

If the concern is teaching new players and worrying that they won't explore other options unless you hold their hand and walk them down the path you want are you really letting them explore and learn? A lot of what I'm also hearing comes across as:

I'm bored of botany/bonzai pots. They're bland and I want to see something nicer in everyone's worlds cause I've done them to death.

But back to these new players, they've never seen a large portion of any of the mods or at least haven't seen something like a Botany Pot, so what's the harm in letting them explore the pots and coming to a similar level of "over it" with them that others have? I feel like removing them denies that experience altogether for the player.

Why go the route of providing better dirt options? For those players that were never gonna explore Thermal, Create, IF, Ars, or the half-dozen other ways to automate a farm and gives them something to help with output but, the faster options are something you earn later while still giving that gentle nudge of "sure you don't wanna give the IF Plant Sower another look?"

And yes, you could argue that going half-way through a mod to reach, as an example, something like Ars' Carbuncle charm gets you 90% of the way to a farm with them, but what if I don't want to leave my farm up to some RNG pathfinding of Minecraft entities or the server's tickrate? Or what if I don't like Carbuncles in general? They could be "icky" or not what I was looking for once I experimented with them.

In the end I stick to leaving the decision on using them or not to the player, but do like the idea of exploring nerfing their base production rate.

[merlerm]

I like the nerf too, and that's because of what you said here:

something I enjoy about seeing a variety of things in my worlds

I'm all for this, but if they keep being so cheap and so much better than everything else you won't see variety, you'll only see botany pots :P Ideally I'd want them at a very basic stage where they can give you a bit but they can't reasonably be used for any complex automation and setup, forcing you to explore other options. Then if you want to keep using pots for all your life you can, but you're also pretty stupid. Fair?

[telemenar]

In general my interpretation of some of the current goals even in the Kitchen Sink open ended E6 pack are still around automation, and learning mods, even while trying to keep the mod pack from getting too heavy.

Botany pots are not really an automation to learn. If you know they are there they are a quick cheap way to get infinite wood/food/plants. They are unlikely to be included in the quests, meaning they don’t help the new people either. They are just a cheap alternative to doing something more thematically aligned with the pack goals.

[MuteTiefling]

And yes, you could argue that going half-way through a mod to reach, as an example, something like Ars' Carbuncle charm gets you 90% of the way to a farm with them

That's the thing though, most farming methods are very early game.

Ars nouveau takes a bit of exploring and a tiny amount of raw materials to do a sylph farm.

Pneumaticcraft, you can get a simple harvest drone running immediately after building a pressure chamber (first thing you do in the mod)

Create can do a lot of excellent farms for some pretty basic materials.

Cloches and Insolators take a bit more effort, but that's more because you need to make Rf than anything. The machines are cheap and available very early.

That's just a few of the more interesting ways to farm crops. There are a few more I just don't feel like laying out.

[r-mc2]

Well, we keep talking in circles on this:

Having options and variety are great! Try other things! No! Not like that! slaps botany pot out of players' hands

Maybe have something in the Welcome chapter of quests with some extra snarky language to say along the lines of: "Yes, we know these are here, but shouldn't you try something more interesting? There's so many more cool things to look at in the other mods. Try your best to move away from them as soon as possible. You don't wanna be a pothead do ya? 😄"

With some additional info that their production rates are nerfed to ensure they stay early game and/or are less effective options to other mods.

Insofar as making better dirt options for mid-to-late game? Sometimes you just want a "farm in a block" for your crazy contraption and these are perfect for them. Take for example automating Mek's biomass. Instead of having to figure out ender chests and export buses and regulator upgrades and pipes and on and on you can make it nice, neat, and compact with a hopping botany pot. It's just another option for those who want to go that route. No one is locking you into the need of using them. They're just there.

[merlerm]

The point is we're not saying you can't play with something, but every option must be at least a bit balanced in a pack like this, or it invalidates every other option. I can see the argument for the nerf over removing it which might've been drastic, but right now pots are objectively better than every other alternative, ans that's an issue, it doesn't simply lie in "I like to use them".

[TemperedFool]

Can we acknowledge that the pack makers (some of whom you're arguing with) also have their own vision for what they want the pack to be, even if it doesn't jive with how a few people want to play?

I'll also point out that your "you can just not play with them" argument rings hollow, because the corollary is true - if it's not there, you can add it to the pack. I mean, there are people adding AE2, and that's a bit more complicated as an add-on...

Maybe I can approach this from the other side. If botany pots weren't there from the beginning, and were suggested and rejected now for being unbalanced/not what Niller et al intend the pack to be, would there even be much more discussion? Being unable to throw out a mod "people like a lot" just means they will be VERY unlikely to add and try something as they develop the pack (and make no mistake, the pack is super early - they don't even have the worldgen they want yet). That means basically they can only get play test feedback from the small group of people messing with the develop branch.

TLDR; I'm not even invested in seeing pots go, but making this kind of decision out like it's an attack on a play style (time limited style, one I very much have personally) will just stunt the team's ability to make the pack they envision. If they think pots need the nerf/kick hammer, I trust their judgement. I can always download the mod myself.

[NielsPilgaard]

Thanks for all your feedback on the matter of Botany Pots. I would like to stop the discussion here, as we've made the call:

• Botany Pots will be staying
• They will be made less efficient - Exact values are undetermined at this point.
• The recipe will be made slightly harder, to incoorporate some form of fertilizer and water
• The Hopping recipe will be made slightly harder-er, but not over the top.

[NielsPilgaard]

Aquaculture is also off the chopping block by the way, the benifts of it's inclusion outweighs the potential small benefits of removal. Thanks for your feedback again folks, without it Aquaculture would have gotten the axe :P

In the future we may look at making discussion threads for decisions like Botany Pots / Aquaculture.

[r-mc2]

(just as I was typing our a response lol...)

I can respect that choice. Thank you for letting us discuss it and I hope that, at least for my part, I did not come across as argumentative but trying to be involved in an open debate.

I love the packs you all create here ❤️

[Kinagh]

Thanks for even being open to a discussion.

This is a good compromise. And as r-mc2 said, I too love your packs. In these trying times they are a very welcome escape.

[merlerm]

Rare ice has a quest in adventure, it should be removed

[OneLemonyBoi]

Mantle should be kept as it adds stacked hearts.

[Zaakjin]

What about removing angel ring? It's very cheap and makes mekanism jetpack useless. Not requires any kind of mana or energy.

[NielsPilgaard]

We will be removing the Angel Ring, but a similar effect will be available.

[KrAzYGEEK32]

Petition to remove "dangerous stonecutter" mod XD, I feel like its sole purpose is to be a PITA for players lol, and there are way better mob farm alternatives to it . poor mason villagers also keep dying because of it.

[merlerm]

I would also remove snow under trees: it doesn't make much sense that snow gets under trees anyways, usually when it snows it stays on top of them anyways :P

Also you get this

[soepie7]

I would also remove snow under trees: it doesn't make much sense that snow gets under trees anyways, usually when it snows it stays on top of them anyways :P

First of all I would disagree here; wind blows snow under trees, and foliage isn't a waterproof cover, snow goes through. I am looking outside my window right now and am not seeing a snow-free patch under any tree.

If it bugs with that terrain gen mod; that's a different story.

[merlerm]

well my issues are more with how stuff looks in that screenshot, the rest was a bit of reasoning to say even if we have none under trees it wouldn't look so much out of place, or at least less than the lone trees with snow

also as someone who sees lots of snow this time of the year believe me, it does get underneath but you mostly see clearings under trees, or generally less snow anyways. It only increases when snow falls down from the branches and piles up underneath

[theboo]

And here I thought the snow under random trees in a snow free biome was a TF thing lol, didn't realize we had a whole ass mod for it.. it might just not work well with TF's temperature/terrain engine tbh so removal might be needed to not get stuff like from that screenshot

[Mang0z]

I really think some of the Abnormals mods should be revisited cause it adds so much more than v+ content to the game and alot of people seem to love the mods and plus the mods are highly configurable so if there are features that dont fit in the pack you guys can just disable them.

[StaticButton]

In regard to "Extra Discs (Replaced by ExtraStorage)"

During the upgrade to 0.4.0 when Extra Discs are going to be removed. Will all items be lost that are stored in any "Extra Discs" Will players need to remove all items and offload them onto "Refined Storage" discs before upgrading?

[TemperedFool]

Items will be lost @StaticButton but this will be a world-breaking update anyway, so you'll need to make a new world.

[Mang0z]

I really think some of the Abnormals mods should be revisited cause it adds so much more than v+ content to the game and alot of people seem to love the mods and plus the mods are highly configurable so if there are features that dont fit in the pack you guys can just disable them.

To continue on this comment i think all abnormals mods add new content that makes and changes mechanics from the vanilla game seemlessly to list a few

Upgrade aquatic adds new aquatic life that can fight back and that actually creates and ecosystem and not only that it adds a new method to obtain tridents via thrashers which spawn in frozen oceans https://www.curseforge.com/minecraft/mc-mods/upgrade-aquatic

Neapolitan Adds new food methods that have new effects that are so much different to simple farming and farmers delight https://www.curseforge.com/minecraft/mc-mods/neapolitan

Endergetic adds a new unique way of mobility via booflos and the booflo vest and a new end biome which adds new building blocks https://www.curseforge.com/minecraft/mc-mods/endergetic

Savage and ravage adds reworks the whole raiding system and makes it more lively and fun it also reworks creepers (even tho this feature is annoying to some people and it can be disabled) https://www.curseforge.com/minecraft/mc-mods/savage-and-ravage

Buzzier bees adds new ways of gaining effects and making flower forests have meaning it also has integration with resourceful bees and apotheosis https://www.curseforge.com/minecraft/mc-mods/buzzier-bees

Atmospheric and autumnity add new biomes that have their own very amazing mechanics and they are very unique to the biomes that terraforged and byg add https://www.curseforge.com/minecraft/mc-mods/atmospheric https://www.curseforge.com/minecraft/mc-mods/autumnity

I rly hope that this has persuaded you guys into adding abnormals in 0.4 or in the future

[merlerm]

Here's my take on the various abnormals mods:

first of all, neapolitan, endergetic, savage and buzzier bees don't really do much for me, I feel like we already have equal or better mods that do the same thing in the pack and they'd just end up feeling like overlap. Aquatic is cool, the ocean could always use some more content especially now that we have big terraforged ones. The biome ones are pretty neat and I would like to see them, I feel like they'd integrate pretty well into our new worldgen and some of them have the potential of looking stunning with our new worldgen. On that note, I feel like https://www.curseforge.com/minecraft/mc-mods/bloomful this one is also a cool potential inclusion

They're all fairly small mods which helps to make their case for a few for me: they're realtively harmless and should be pretty easy to just plug into the pack. This is now or never to revisit them since most touch worldgen, and I feel like some could definitively be missed opportunities for cool additions

on another note, https://www.curseforge.com/minecraft/mc-mods/swamp-expansion this one adds cattails for @theboo and could help with some river decoration for our poor TF rivers without PVJ

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[Mang0z]

Here's my take on the various abnormals mods:

first of all, neapolitan, endergetic, savage and buzzier bees don't really do much for me, I feel like we already have equal or better mods that do the same thing in the pack and they'd just end up feeling like overlap. Aquatic is cool, the ocean could always use some more content especially now that we have big terraforged ones. The biome ones are pretty neat and I would like to see them, I feel like they'd integrate pretty well into our new worldgen and some of them have the potential of looking stunning with our new worldgen. On that note, I feel like https://www.curseforge.com/minecraft/mc-mods/bloomful this one is also a cool potential inclusion

They're all fairly small mods which helps to make their case for a few for me: they're realtively harmless and should be pretty easy to just plug into the pack. This is now or never to revisit them since most touch worldgen, and I feel like some could definitively be missed opportunities for cool additions

on another note, https://www.curseforge.com/minecraft/mc-mods/swamp-expansion this one adds cattails for @theboo and could help with some river decoration for our poor TF rivers without PVJ

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Well you guys are in luck Swamp expansion and bloomful are merging into one mod called environmental so yeah and also thats fair about the other mods but the only one i recommend that you guys should test is savage and ravage it adds so much more than what meets the eye other than that thank you for looking at my suggestion

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[NielsPilgaard]

Alright alright, more additions :P https://github.com/NillerMedDild/Enigmatica6/issues/1277