Lower the EMC for inifinty catalyst

[oliverjanik]

As the the owner of this repo politely suggested here: https://github.com/Sunekaer/stoneBlock/issues/358#issuecomment-434222563

I'm opening this issue to lower the EMC of infinity catalyst. Whoever suggested 7 billion has not finished the pack with that value. This value has not been tested and it's broken the balance.

The logic used in that issue is adding up EMC of all ingredients should add up to the result. However there are many other examples in the pack where values do not add up (e.g. Transmutation tablet).

Here are my current numbers:

With 700 emerald chicken roosts (16x 10/10/10 chickens) I'm generating 5mil EMC/s.

That means infinity catalyst every 30 mins.

To finish the pack I'll need upwards of 2000 catalysts. So with current setup i'm looking at 1000 hours AFK. How is that fun?

Even if I had 2000 chicken roosts it would still take 330 hours of AFK.

You do want people to actually finish this pack, right? Looking at the prospect of a lot of chicken placing and still waiting weeks most will just move on.

[NoAimy]

i got 6 Infinity ingots from the Fluid Spheres from Chance Cubes :D, and yes, it's insane, i just started to make 1 Catalyst manually and placed in the EMC flower thing ^^

[WhyNotCthulhu]

I first came here to argue with you but then realized the pack has been updated and the cost of infinity catalysts has been increased by 1000 times. I agree that this is unfeasible. The extreme cost of the catalyst should be a gating mechanism for the first one only. Subsequent catalysts should be cheaper and made with EMC rather than extreme crafting. I understand that some people think EMC should always equal the components but I absolutely disagree. The idea of endgame items is that the cost is offset by the used of other high end items and machines. But in this circumstance there's no real way to offset the cost.

[oliverjanik]

Thank you for reading & comprehending. So many people jump the gun too quickly on these forums.

Yeah the cost went up 1000x in version 1.0.23

[WhyNotCthulhu]

I beat the pack in 80 hours with the old cost. And 20 of that was waiting on my massive Fluxed Electrum and Neutronium farms. Now 80 hours is pretty fast. Lots of intermod workarounds and heavily focused on using the acceleration wand. But at a leisurely pace i'd imagine it'd take the average experienced player around 100 to 150 hours to complete all the quests. With this new cost of infinity catalysts I'd expect it to take well over 1000 hours. And that would be singleplayer. I don't think it'd be possible to complete the pack on a server without heavily taxing the tps to the point where it would unplayable for every other player.

[WhyNotCthulhu]

https://github.com/Sunekaer/stoneBlock/issues/358#issuecomment-429676773

This guy seems to imply some sort of exploit with the old values. But the issue with this is that: Transmutation Table requires the first catalyst to be made before one can be removed. That emc has to be generated from an outside source ie (emerald chicken farm, void miner) So by the time you've the ingredients to make an infinity catalyst you could have made 1000 catalysts with the emc they're worth. You can't uncraft them back into the more expensive components.

[Sunekaer]

ill half the cost of the catalyst, i wont make it lower then that

[NoAimy]

Filled a 9x9 Compaction Room now with 4.608 Emerald Chickens. had one before for Coal Chicken too, just to speed up the process for Dark Matter and Red Matter :D Now it's just time to wait and look where can speed up the processes for the lasts of the quests.

[OfficialStamper]

Hi @Sunekaer

Just wanted to add my tuppence worth. If you are going to lower the EMC cost then the crafting recipe should also be changed to reflect the cost. My reason for mentioning this is; that players will just craft one catalyst, learn the item into the transmutation tablet/table and use the cheaper EMC value from then on.

Equivalent exchange should be equivalent. Of course, you have the final word ;)

BTW, great pack, most fun I have had in ages. Keep up the great work. Awesome.

[WhyNotCthulhu]

"players will just craft one catalyst, learn the item into the transmutation tablet/table and use the cheaper EMC value from then on."

That's the point... The recipe should be a gating mechanism, not a time sink. Progress shouldn't be a constant uphill battle. It should plateau at some point.

[OfficialStamper]

@WhyNotCthulhu please do not quote one line in my comment when my actual comment is suggesting to lower the crafting recipe to make it balanced. I am NOT suggesting to make it an uphill battle, in fact I am suggesting the very opposite. Please read my entire post before making irrelevant statements. Thanks.

Personally, I would rather the Infinity Catalyst didn't have an EMC value at all and thus can then only be crafted, much like Draconic Evolution, of which nothing has an EMC value. You want it, go kill Dragons, Chaos Guardians etc. before you become OP.

The original Equivalent Exchange mod was removed and banned from most servers because it was unbalanced and unfair. I would rather the MC Community saw StoneBlock as a fun, fair and balanced mod and gets respect from the community without a cheap mechanic that gives you God Mode Avaritia with only a few hours work. Avaritia was designed as a beyond End Game mod, as a joke. It was designed to take months to reach that point. You have the mechanics to automate its creation, IMO, exchanging for a handful of emeralds is very very wrong. I would hate to see players boycott this otherwise excellent mod pack.

[WhyNotCthulhu]

So then you're saying that instead of just lowering the EMC value of the catalyst to go through the crafting recipe and reduce the value and cost of every singularity to reflect the final cost of the catalyst? I read your entire comment you also said "Equivalent exchange should be equivalent." Which means you think that the catalyst should cost exactly the same as the total of the ingredients used to craft it. This is not balanced as we have witnessed. If this is not what you meant then you should rephrase it.

[OfficialStamper]

@WhyNotCthulhu Yes, I am suggesting the recipe should match the new to be EMC value. Balanced = fair.

[WhyNotCthulhu]

That's a tremendous amount of work when the simpler solution is to leave the EMC values disproportionate. This is the same reason people hate Gregtech and FTB Continuum. Too much work and not enough gain. As it stands it's 100x times cheaper and faster to make a fully upgraded set of Draconic that essentially fills the same role as Infinity.

[OfficialStamper]

@WhyNotCthulhu Maths lesson........

The table below shows the total cost of one Infinity Catalyst as of the current version for items that have EMC values. There are additional items in the recipe that do not have EMC values, thus as such, the total cost is much more that that below.

Item                 per EMC  Amount    Total EMC
----------------------------------------------------
Diamond Latice         40960 x     1 =      40960
Crystal Matrix Ingot  442368 x     1 =     442368
Pile Of neutrons      No EMC        
Neutronium Nugget     No EMC        
Neutronium Ingot      No EMC        
Ultimate Stew              ?
Cosmic Meatballs           ?    
Endest Pearl               ?
Record Fragment          256 x     1 =        256
Iron Blocks             2304 x 27450 =   63244800
Gold Blocks            18432 x 25650 =  472780800
Lapis Blocks             144 x 25650 =    3693600
Redstone                 576 x 28350 =   16329600
Nether Quartz           1024 x 25650 =   26265600
Diamond Blocks         73728 x 26550 = 1957478400
Emerald Blocks        147456 x 25650 = 3782246400
Copper Blocks           1152 x 27450 =   31622400
Tin Blocks              2304 x 27450 =   63244800
Lead Blocks             4608 x 26550 =  122342400
Silver Blocks           4608 x 26550 =   22342400
Nickel Blocks           9216 x 27450 =  252979200
Fluxed Electron Block  25056 x 24750 =  620136000
Enderium               11529 x     1 =      11529
Block of Steel          3168 x     1 =       3168
Dark Steel Block        3168 x     1 =       3168
-------------------------------------------------
                                    7,535,207,849
-------------------------------------------------

[WhyNotCthulhu]

I already know the cost of the ingredients to make an infinity catalyst. I'm saying that the catalyst itself doesn't have to be the same. That's what I've been saying the whole time.

[WhyNotCthulhu]

What you are saying is that the cost of roughly 50,000 nether stars for a single infinity catalyst is completely fine. That's an estimated 48 million nether stars worth of EMC to craft the entire Infinity armor set and World Breaker. How can that be reasonable?

[OfficialStamper]

Then, I stress my point again, in suggesting that the crafting recipe also be changed (lowered) if the EMC value is to also be lowered. The original recipe in the Avaritia Mod is much lower than the recipe being used in this pack.

Equivalent should be Equivalent. Period.

Apologies Sunekear for these posts, please do not get me wrong, you have done an amazing job with this pack and I respect any decisions you make.

[WhyNotCthulhu]

"Equivalent should be Equivalent." Within the confines of ProjectE I agree. Avaritia is not ProjectE. It doesn't strictly follow equivalent exchange. And neither does hardly any other mod if you scratch the surface.

[OfficialStamper]

@WhyNotCthulhu Andrew, dear boy, happy that you suggest Avaritia is not ProjectE. Lets remove it's EMC value completely, just like the other 'scratch the surface' OP mods that dont have EMC (e.g. DE). You had better get crafting........

(Sorry again Sunekear, but I had to be sarcastic on that one :) ) This is my last post on this subject.

[WhyNotCthulhu]

Stop being condescending and have an actual factual discussion. The reason it has an EMC value in the first place was presumably to curb the use of large inefficient and server taxing crafting setups. That reasoning is lost if the player still has to build those same setups to gain the inflated amount of EMC to duplicate the catalyst through ProjectE.

[oliverjanik]

@OfficialStamper I'll ask you the same thing as other crusaders. Have you beat the pack with this setting? Have you road tested the setting?

If not then your crusade is meaningless. The point of any Minecraft pack is to have fun, not to pursue some unrealistic numbers that "make-sense".

There are plenty of examples in this pack where the EMC value does not add up. I ask you this: So What?

I very much agree with @WhyNotCthulhu that inifinity catalyst should be a gating mechanism and is already very good at that. But what comes afterwards is meaningless boring grind for weeks.

Again my current setup with 700 chicken roosts and watches of time is sends my TPS through the ground and I'm still weeks away form the result.

@Sunekaer the cost needs to come down 50-100 times. I suggest you test this.

[OfficialStamper]

@oliverjanik yes, I have beaten the pack with this setting. It sounds to me like your only goal is to get the Avartia Armour and tools and then you will move on to another pack. Thats your choice. For me, its not a grind, I automate what needs to be automated and whilst that churns away I move on to other things. I have an Immersive Engineering area with an Excavator, which can mine the void. I have 2 Extra Utilities Quantum Quarries, which can mine the void. I have 2 tier 6 Environment Tech Void Miners, which can mine the void. In addition I have many many Chickens and Myst Agg seeds producing Emeralds. I have a tier 8 Draconic Energy Core and 4 Draconic Reactors. 3 Env Tech Tier 6 Solar panels and a dozen Solar Flux Chaotic Solar Panels. I am about to embark on the RFTools Endergenic Generator to see how that works and make the Mekanism Induction storage to store the RF generated from it. And in the meantime I am enjoying the Avaritia Armour, although I switch to my fully upgraded draconic armour quite often as you can mine faster with it whilst flying. Plus many many other things in my base.

I own and run a private server and none of my players complain, they agree that it is currently balanced, although there are a few holes as you say, but So What!

If you want to join my server, I would be happy to show you around so you can have an idea how to play the pack efficiently whilst still having fun without a grind.

There are a number of YouTubers playing the pack, even Direwolf20 and they dont complain, in fact you may have already seen Direwolf laugh at the OP'ness of the Skullfire Sword.

This pack, IMO, is not about completing the quests, nor getting the Avaritia kit, its about playing Modded Minecraft in a fun and 'balanced' way. I plan on playing it for many more months to fully explore all the mods included as it is a very unique pack and makes a change from some of the others I have previously played. I have never previously built an underground base before of this size and complexity and it has been a real joy, yet challenging experience.

Let me know some way of contacting you privately and I will arrange for you to come explore my server. Email or some other social media account that you are comfortable with sharing will do.

And for the last time in this post, I will reiterate my original comment, that I would prefer things to remain balanced, so if the EMC value of the catalyst is to be reduced, the crafting recipe should also be reduced to maintain that balance. I am not adverse to the change for those who want to rush the pack and become gods in days instead of months, there are plenty of other things in this pack to keep me entertained.

[oliverjanik]

This is a begginer/medium pack, right? How many hours is appropriate to finish all quests? 100,1000,10000?

Is your server at 1.0.23 or greater? Because you come across as completely off base when it comes to actual numbers. It almost seems you got your avaritia armour before 1.0.23 and you don't seem to realise the difference between 7 mil and 7 bil.

The cost went up 1000x and at current rate I'm looking at weeks of AFK. my tps is already destroyed I can't do anything more to beat the pack. I have finished every other quest and Im over 100 hours in.

How much EMC/s do you produce? How many chickens? I'm at 12000 chickens and the rate not even close to make it bearable.

Which youtuber is past infinty catalyst and looking at EMC cost of it? DW20 is not even close.

How is maintaining the EMC of infinity catalyst with the ingrediences balanced? Forcing someone to afk for weeks is by definition the opposite of balance.

[Minyguy]

... Read his post ffs. He didn't say that the emc cost should be insanely high. He said the emc cost and crafting cost should be equal. He, and me aswell are fine with the reduced emc cost, aslong as the normal cost is equally low.

Either normal cost insanely high, and emc insanely high OR Less grindy emc cost (like the one before the 7 bill change) AND less grindy normal cost. Since the emc to normal cost is approx 1000x i suggest that if you want to keep the old emc cost, make all singularities require 1/1000 items to make, as they are the biggest grind in the normal crafting of the catalyst. I can comment my new suggested costs when i get home from work.

[WhyNotCthulhu]

By reducing the crafting cost to match the old EMC value you'd be reducing the time it takes to make the first catalyst from hours to minutes. You guys have this warped idea that balance means that the math equals out. But you fail to realize that the math hardly ever balances. Netherrack: Lava (64)+Redstone(64)=128 or Endstone: Lava (64)+Glowstone (384)=448 These are the default ProjectE values using ExNihilo which is the basis of StoneBlock. They are not equivalent It's cheaper to make them using emc than it is to craft them normally. This is how all things should be. That way the cost can not be exploited. You can't put 64 Endstone in the Transmutation Table and pull out 64 Glowstone dust. That wouldn't make sense. Item EMC value ≤ Ingredients EMC Value. Always. You're operating under the impression that Item EMC value = Ingredients EMC Value. This is simply not the case for many items outside of vanilla crafting mechanics.

[Sunekaer]

First of all, Avaritia has never been meant to be cheap, it is an extremely OP armor/tools. Material cost of Singularity´s will be lowered to about half the cost they are right now and so will the Catalyst´s EMC value. and no it won't be lowered any more than that.

[Sunekaer]

1.0.26