Millenaire Let's Play episode 5

Block ID problem solved, next episode will be uploaded in five days or so but will have IC2, Zeldo's pipes and Railcraft and Forestry!

And I hope we will (Finally!) finish the damn Haarlock Trilogy from Dark Heresy. My Mechanicus Secutor (rank: Magos Militant) is bored of all that waiting! XD

Millenaire Let's Play episode 4

First visit to the nether. It doesn't goes well, sadly. Also, Merry Christmas!

Millenaire Let's Play episode 3

I still didn't sort the block ID problems in here... (sideeffects of recording with a buffer of two episodes ^^).

Redpower 2 pr4b & Railcraft updates

First the good news: Redpower 2 Prerrelease 4b has been released. It only includes bug fixes (Nikolite and Flax bugs come to mind here). The bad news? It requires a new Forge version (1.2.3) that right now is not "official", just Eloraam's. So be warned that strange things can happen for some mods if they are not ready for Forge 1.2.3 and something they needed has been changed. Also there seems to be another official MCForge 1.2.3... so chaos ensures. Personally, while I don't see anything wrong with what she did in pr3b (just one file updated), I find this release of two versions of the Forge as a mistake on Eloraam's part. Let's hope this get solved soon :S.

Also, Buildcraft 2.2.9 has been released, again only hotfixes have been included.

Finally, I noticed in my latest update of Railcraft (a mod I'm having a look at) that there is a new machine, the Tunnel Bore. So I checked how it works and made one for the lulz.
It doesn't mine Marble by default, but I think you can add it easy enough to the config file.

I know to compare is something a little horrible, but I need to do it between Railcraft and Steve's Carts: Railcraft provides great, well, rails, and two extra minecarts (a tank for BC and a TNT one), and the Tunel Bore (which you can see herein action). However, if you have Equivalent Exchange, then it is quicker to just take the catalytic lens (or the destruction catalyst) and make a large 3x3 tunnel, and then use Steve's Carts to send two waves of minecarts: one that will place rails, and other that will place torches. Sadly, there is currently no way to have both mods, but the authors are working on it.

Edit: I will be out for a few days, but rest assured, I have programmed the release of up to episode 5 (and I am right now enconding a 6 minutes "episode" that I will release on the 3rd of January or so, with a longer show of evrything I'll be playing till now to the 31st of december or so.

Mods updated

Ok, first goes first: Industrialcraft 2 has been ported to Minecraft 1.0. However, expect it to have bugs & problems, since it is a direct port. Also, for those of you playing SMP, this port has tons of problems (including a messed GUI crossing with the new alchemical block used to turn water-filled bottles into awesome stuff). There has been no new additions from the 1.337 version, and regarding Enchantment of IC2 items, it will be blocked (there is a function in the MCforge code that allows that).

The second thing, while Zeldo's Additional Pipes (also called Zeldo's Teleporting Pipes) have not been updated officially, he has given permission for a new guy to release a ported version for BC 2.2.7 on Minecraft 1.0, until Zeldo releases an updated version himself. You can find this updated version here.

Also, about Millenaire and some bugs: rest easy guys, I tracked the error and solved the situation. It was simply some sort of code oversight somewhere so when the ID resolver changed Millenaire's blocks IDs there were problems with the upgrade of the civilizations with custom blocks. Deleting the config file of the ID resolver and raising the priority of Millenaire to 1 solved the issue, and fortunately it only costed me a crowbar from Railcraft, all the mineral for Forestry, and some minor stuff. And I will be testing IC2 tomorrow, but I bet I will be forced to remove one mod to make room for Alblaka's work. Most likely I would remove Forestry (and increase the size of the cactus farm).

Stay tuned, and remember to backup your game before adding/upgrading anything!

Millenaire Let's Play episode 2

Second video, and a tour under my base.

Millenaire Let's Play episode 1

Yeah, another Let's play. However, I will record only the really relevant stuff this time. I know I said the same thing before, but I mean it!!!!

The map's seed is -4393627488466079777 but remember I'm using Minecraft 1.0 AND Eloraam's Redpower 2 "world" plugin.

Also you better won't miss the next episode, I found a dungeon (zombie spawner... figures) in the surface!

Lava factory Mk IV

This is a new update for the lava production facility (for using Lava with Combustion Engines in Buildcraft) using Equivalent Exchange, Redpower 2 and Buildcraft 2. As I say in the video, I'm not using Buildcraft pipes (aside from the wooden pipes) because without Zeldo's distribution pipe I cannot control how the redstone will distribute itself in the system.

I'll give you a first episode and a peek on my next Let's Play on Friday ^^.

A small hiatus

As I said before, I've been terribly busy this past days. Also, I expect to be equally busy this weekend, and I'm currently down with a cold. I expect to release a video before Friday, however.

In the meantime, I am testing interactions between Redpower, Buildcraft, Railcraft, Minefactory, Forestry, Mo's Creatures and Equivalent Exchange, at least until Industrialcraft is released (and depending on the number of IDs he will require).

Mind you, I'd like to see soomething similar to the Ore Dictionary for other blocks aswell (for example, having Bluetricity and IC seems redundant in regards to cables and solar panels). Oh, I also tried to play Better Than Wolves with at least Redpower or Buildcraft (not the 3.0 alpha), but Minecraft crashed horribly, so I'd say that BTW is now mostly incompatible with anything Forge related. Which is sad, since I liked a lot of stuff from BTW (but not the use of water currents for transport, for that I prefer pipes or tubes).

Well, I hope to see you all in a few days. Stay tuned!

Tale of kingdoms finale

Sorry for the "filtered emission" of this last chapter a few days ago, but here you have it.

Once the Tier 4 of the Tale of Kingdoms mod is released I will make a quick video (there is no need to show you all how do I reach the Tier 3 level again, after all XD), possibly mixing it in the game world where I'm playing with Millenaire.

Tale of Kingdoms Episode 13: Production Facility (II)

I will stop playing this map, since the amount of bugs & errors is reaching epic proportions (essentially, I have tons of lag almost anywhere but on top of the nuclear reactor...), but I will share another video showing you all the stuff, using some SPC so you can see it all quickly.

Redpower 2 + Quarry

First, scumbag youtube messed up everything  I was uploading yesterday thanks to "maintenance mode"...

Second, I made a quick and small video of BC's quarry with steam engines supported by Eloraam's Redpower 2 stuff. The result is quite amazing.

Now, diamond pipe Vs sorting machine: the diamond pipes don't require electric cables, can be easily chained and have a bigger "inventory", while the sorting machine allows us to do really nice stuff. I'd like the pneumatic tubes to be able to directly interact with BC pipes and machines, but I doubt that will happen.

Also, I find kinda funny the new redstone tubes because I sent Spacetoad a message some days ago when he released the video of his pipes with redstone cabling, and in that message I asked him if it was possible to add recipes with the pipes and the cables so whe were able to place a pipe with 1 to 4 cables already placed (instead of needing to place cables on already placed pipes). Of course, breaking those pipes would produce the relevant pipe and the cables, separated. Eloraam's version only has one redstone channel per pipe (but using paint we can run them adjacent without signal mixing, I think), but the tube, once broken, loses the paint, not the redstone.

Finally, I suggested to add some Equivalent Exchange support to the feeding line of the engines for this contraption, but I didn't add it in the video. No need to complicate a demo, after all ^^.

Minecraft 1.0 & Redpower 2 PR4

So I found that some hours ago Redpower 2 had been updated for Minecraft 1.0, and thus I proceeded to download and update all my usual set of mods.
Since Industrialcraft is still in 1.8.1, and will take some time to update (Alblaka's words) I will proceed to make the following stuff without IC, for the moment. In the meantime, I made a small and quick video updating the status of RP2 and TooManyItems. If you want a really complete and throrought video with recipes, shows and the like (instead of just a head's up), then I suggest to watch Direwolf20's review of RP2 pr4 in youtube.

Also, please remember that I will be really busy from Thursday to Sunday, but you will still get the two remaining episodes of Tale of Kingdoms at the promised time.

Have fun!

Tale of Kingdoms Episode 12: Production Facility (I)

I expanded the base, added a sorting system for incoming items and a BC2 engine room, and I finished making the items that require red matter (but for the Klein Sphere, of course). Some automated crafting factories have also been prepared for the most common items I require, like pistons, redstone engines, batteries, solar panels and fiberglass cables.

On a sidenote, I've finally finished playing more than a few hours to Space Marine and I must say that THQ's guys really do deliver... specially since I don't play any Games Workshop's miniatures games (I don't have the resources and space to afford a serious commitement... and there aren't a lot of places where to play here XD), but I had quite a lot of expectations from Fantasy Flight Game's WH40k RPG lines. In fact I'm wondering about buying First Founding right now or to wait a few weeks to see if there is a Christmas deal in DriveThroughRPG... (I'm in no hurry, since Deathwatch wasn't really that interesting to my group. Which is good, since I prefer Dark Heresy too. Techpriest power! xD).

Industrialcraft 1.3.37

 Edit: Solar panels working, but one of the recipes for the electric furnace is broken (confirmed as bug), to be specific the one using an iron furnace with a piece of refined iron and a RE battery.

Ok, alblaka released the latest version of IC2 a few hours ago. It took me about two hours to make the video, so you might have already seen some of the details in other channels, but here it is.

With more than 70 changes, this update still is for Minecraft Beta 1.8.1, but I advice against taking it for the time being. Essentially, the Solar Panels don't work. Also, Alblaka has promised a hot hotfix in a few hours, so have some patiente.

Grab the mod at his blog as always, and rest assured that he and Eloraam had a talk about the overlapping parts between IC2 and RP2 with a satisfactory conclussion for everybody (essentially, she included some parts of BC2 and IC2 in her mod because those are needed parts for her future projects, and were quite hard not to "copy": you can't make something that moves items like a pipe does without using a pipe, or making some electrical gizmos wihtout electricity).

Also, sorry for the video being as a link instead the usual, but the video it's actually uploading, it would need another 20 minutes and it's already 1 AM here (and tomorrow is monday...). Not to mention I spent about 7-8 hours with some friends cleaning and rearranging two rooms of our club, so they can be -somehow- used despite the unfinished job made by the workers that remodeled the place.
Let's leave it with the name of "The third Fungus battle in the epic war of The Forge against the evolution of things better left unmentioned". Yeah, the club's name is "La Forja", The Forge in english.

Finally, as a little "self ad" (even considering most of you live in USA), if any of you happen to be in northern Spain these next 8, 9, 10 & 11 of december, please consider to come to the Public School Teodoro Cuesta, in Mieres (Asturias), for the RPG Convention we will be holding.
Or the next weekend (17 and 18), in Oviedo, in the Calatrava shopping center there will be an anime-related "party", with cosplay, para-para, and other stuff.

See ya!

Tale of Kingdoms Episode 11: Klein Star, Tier 3

Today we charge a Klein Star Ein and reach the Tier 3 of the Tale of Kingdoms!

Tale of Kingdoms double episodes!

As I promised, here we have two episodes for the price of one!

Episode 9: Building... or the beginning of a kingdom!

And episode 10:

Better than Wolves review, MC Forge 1.0.0!

Minecrat Forge for Minecraft 1.0.0 has been released! Grab it at MCForum! But keep in mind that, while MC Forge and ModLoader might be up to date, the mods themselves might not. And make backups before any actualization! That includes the mincraft.jar file! And of the big mods that use MCForge, I thing only Buildcraft has been actualized, and it's a version 2.2.6 (not 3.0, which seems to still be on beta).


So I was a little "saturated" from the let's play (frankly, I don't know what the hell I'm doing wrong, but I tend to face heavy FPS losses every now and then... maybe it's the outrageous amount of engines I use, or the huge concentration of teleporting pipes, or...), and I decided to go check some of the new parts of Better Than Wolves I had missed the last time I was able to play it with other mods. It's a pain in the ass, by the way, because the mod has to be injected inside the minecraft.jar file and uses a lot of itemIDs, but it is also a great mod, with a lot of interactions between its components ouside of machines (kinda like Buildcraft 2's interactions between the engines and the blocks).

Anyway, I was looking some awesome videos made by Battosay52 and I really wanted to make an automated pottery "factory". Well, not really automated (but changing the button for a timer would have made it fully automated) but I liked the way it looked at the end. Hell, I even installed a second .minecraft folder and I've been playing around in a clean world trying some stuff. And truth be said, Redpower 2 is a lifesaver (aah, those gems that you can only use to craft diamond-level tools... sadly, they don't seem to be hooked at BTW, unlike the Nethercoal working into an alloy furnace, but oh well...). Anyway, I'll stop the rambling and show you the final product here, in two videos. Yes, I know FlowerChild (BTW's developer) has decided to drop out from the MC Forge project.

And don't worry, tomorrow you will have your dose of Tale of Kingdoms ^^

Tale of Kingdoms Episode 8: Against the Reficul!

I now have gear good enough to kick them without help, tricks or dying. Sadly, the Reficuls retaliate inmediately. Will the Guild survive?

On the good side... I will publish two episodes in two days! Yay!

Censorship day, take two

I received this email, so I thought it would be good to share it with you all.

The Internet Censorship Bill took a massive beating last week (yeah, you did that!) but drug companies, movie studios and the Chamber of Commerce do *not* go down easy.

Now-- get this-- they're telling Congress it's a "jobs" bill.

This is dangerous.  Everyone in Congress is desperate to do something to create jobs.  Now the most powerful lobbies in Washington are banging down their doors, saying "this is your (only) chance to pass a jobs bill."

Since Congress is away for the holiday, there's one priority: sign up  as many people as possible for a massive call-in day when Congress returns.

Click here to join in, by committing to call your Senator

Since the House's "SOPA" has such a bad name (yes, you did that) lobbyists are moving their weight behind the Senate version, PIPA ("The PROTECT IP Act"). The Senate's censorship bill is just as bad; it's only missing a few of SOPA's extra-crazy provisions, like the ones that could send you to jail for singing a pop song on YouTube.  The website blocking provisions are all there.  Still, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid thinks that with the attention on SOPA, he can sneak PIPA through quickly when Congress returns.

Reid needs to know this bill won't move forward without a fight.  That's why we're organizing a call-in day for Tuesday, using the same tools that our heroes at Tumblr used last week.  It's kind of perfect.  While Congress rests we've got 5 full days to sign up friends, colleagues, Twitter followers-- everybody.  Then on Tuesday we'll unleash a storm of phone calls.

Click here to sign up, and then get others signed up too.

This weekend, instead of nobly vegging out on the internet, you can fight for the future of the internet and freedom of speech.  Every ounce of time you spend counts.

Signups now, phone calls Tuesday.  Start your engines.

Holmes Wilson
Fight for the Future / AmericanCensorship.org

P.S. Are you a Tumblr user?  We just put up a special section with extra-easy instructions for Tumblr users to add a "Stop Censorship" button to their site:  http://americancensorship.org/#tumblr

I really do hope that this silly idea of censoring the internet won't come to pass. After all, America is a country of freedom, isn't it?

Tale of Kingdoms Episode 7: EEenergy

Now we place some Energy Collectors and Solar Panels. Things start to speed up!

Tale of Kingdoms Episode 6: Electricity and food

Sixth episode. Fortunately, soon I will get really good stuff...

Tale of Kingdoms Episode 5: diamond factory

Now let's make some diamonds. In case Steve? founds a girl to his liking...

Tale of Kingdoms episode 4: Cobblestone

And let's see how I make the the Diamond factory. Believe it or not, once you have enough Dark Matter to craft four Antimatter Relays and the Energy Collectors to keep them fed, then your cobblestone factory will become obsolete, sadly.

And no, I won't update Minecraft for this series even if the mods actualize. Once I finished the series, then yes.

Tale of Kingdoms Episode 3: hitting the industry

Let's place some Industrialcraft machines. And cabling...

Censorship day (scroll down to see the link)

Most of you visit this blog from America. While I do not reside there, I am a 100% against censorship, and I find quite shaming for a goverment claiming to protect "freedom" to do things like yesterday's police charge in New York. Words like "No right is absolute", as Mr. Bloomberg said, are quite correct: we lose what we don't protect.

I'm not someone who likes to talk about politics (but I tend to think almost all politicians would be better in the bottom of the sea, with weights attached to their knees...), but let me tell you something: a goverment whose only interest is to remain in the power (or to "have turns" with a second block, leaving every other possiblity without any chance of posing a threat to the status quo) fears freedom of speech; and Internet provides that.

Look at this past month's Middle East revolutions. Internet was used as a way to keep people organized against tyranny. Don't let a handfull of modern "Nobles" play everybody like this was the Middle Ages.

No right is absolute. That means that no right can protect itself- so to let our rights to protect us, we need to protect them.

Edit: As asked, I will keep this post until the censorship bill is dead. I ask you to talk with your friends, neighbours, and eveybody you know. After all, democracy is about the power of the people, isn't it?

Tale of Kingdoms Episode 2: Lava tycoon

There we go again, with the attack of the cobblestone generators. While interesting, however, a cobblestone generator is not as potent as Equivalent Exchange's collectors and an Energy condenser working together with a bunch of Antimatter Relays. But as a starting solution, is quite good.

Tale of Kingdoms episode 1: the nightmare begins!

As promised, here we have the first episode. I intend to make them between 15 and 25 minutes, and to release them rather quickly for the next two weeks. Also, on the first bunch of videos I will show the start of my development, before going around to fight against the different enemies.

Oh, and I intend to use all the tools at my disposal when facing enemies. Including my tendency to place a portal inside the Guild and send there the mobs to be minced XD.

Tale of Kingdoms: a start

Here you have it, a 25 minutes preview of my "test run" with Tale of Kingdoms, using the seed Paulosoaresjr shared about two weeks ago:  -7618727627503294865

I recorded this video at the end of the game, using the version 1.1.2 of the mod (version 1.2 with Tier 3 of the town has just been released!), and it will serve as a heads-up of what I hope to accomplish in the upcoming series. My objective would be to reach an endgame status where I can just sit an see how things manage themselves, getting the best equipment I can, and making a bigger IC2 "engineering room". Oh, and since I just succesfully updated my map (after making a full backup of the .minecraft folder, just to be on the safe side), we will discover the Tier 3 together.

Also, as a bonus for those loyal readers who come here, I will release the videos here first, and a few days later (three or so) I'll make them public in Youtube.

I hope you enjoy the video, and to see you around!

Buildcraft 3.0 Alpha released & tutorial

Yeah, that's true. Buildcraft 3.0 has been released as an alpha version (meaning you will find tons of bugs, unstable stuff, etc... and that previous mods won't work), and SpaceToad has released a new video with a tutorial on the new stuff.

You can download the mod in Buildcraft's page: http://www.mod-buildcraft.com/

And the video, here you have it:

I'm working on other stuff on my part, and I won't be updating to the new BC3 at least until next weekend. The projects I have running actually are two, one of them being Skyrim (my Breton is not the same now that the birthsigns have dissapeared... but I will end the game faster than usual, since now you cannot customize spells, a part of Morrowind and Oblivion I tend to spent more than 10 hours of working, preparing and such), and the other being a Tale of Kingdoms "Let's Play", with my usual collection of mods in support. It will be a short series, because I made a sort of test one that I will present as the first video and it took me less than 10 hours of playing (and about 5-6 of AFKing while stuff was being made by itself), but will cover the steps from a fresh game to a full Tier 2 ToK's town and Red Matter gear with Equivalent Exchange (which is "endgame").

Stay tuned!

Edit:
Spacetoad made a new video, with more detail and less rushing around the different concepts. Uou can see it in his channel, but I place here a link for your commodity.

Buildcraft 3.0

SpaceToad just released a video of the upcoming Buildcraft 3, with wiring and two logic gates integrated into the pipes (AND & OR). I sent him a message asking for ways to craft pipes with the wiring already in place (so if we wanna make a pipe system using the four avaiable colors, we wont need to walk & put stuff 5 times, but just put together the wiring and the pipes in a crafting table). Here you have the video:

I really like the part about being able to turn off the engines if they hit the red zone, since for some reason I always end running out of water to cool the engines XD.
I also found this thread in the Buildcraft forum about tips & tricks related to Buildcraft. Just one detail: I bet when they say "redstone engine" they refere to a hot engine (in the yellow level).

Finally, I'll be releasing some videos about Equivalent Exchange, BC2, Tale of Kingdoms, and all the other stuff I'm using. Because, to be truthful, I want to show my base before the next round of upgradings turns it to dust XD.

Updating the production lines

As promised, here you have it. a short video about two factory lines: one to produce diamonds and the other to produce lava.

Combustion Engines, infinite energy!

Ok, here we are. First of, this uses the Equivalent Exchange mod to turn cobblestone into lava (some intermediate steps are required XD). Second, it uses Redpower 2's Deployer to put that lava in a place where a Buildcraft 2's pump can gather it, put it into a deposit, and use it as fuel for combustion engines.

Notice the following points:

1. Lava is not as efficient as oil or refined oil (fuel), so don't complain because the pneumatic energy produced is not as good as you want.
2. Lava heats more the combustion engines, thus more water is required.
3. I advice against making the engine rows more than 8 engines in length. Usually, six is more than enough.
4. You can power several lava pumps if you want, and with that lots of engines. I'm presenting only a small setup, a prototype if you prefer.
5. This uses Equivalent Exchange version 4.x, the previous one to the current. I'm working in a new version, but I think it won't use the cobble generator as source.

Now with the explanations. The conversion chain up to the lava buckets you all know from the video: cobble from the cobble generators gets turned into redstone blocks, that in turn are transformed into redstone (dust), after which 3 redstone are turned into 2 coal and 2 redstone remain unchanged. Then the last step is to create a lava-filled bucket.
Redpower 2's deployer then puts the lava in a predefined place where a BC2's pump can take it. Meanwhile, the advanced wooden pipe takes away the empty buckets for reutilization.

Since lava can be used as fuel by the combustion engines, we can now power as many engines as we want, for as long as we want, andif we make the rows of six or seven engines in depth (for a total of 12 or 14 engines) it won't explode as long as we have an active water pump.

I hope you enjoyed the video!

Tale of Kingdoms & off-topic comments

First the off-topic (yeah, I'm that kind of self-centered man XD). I just ended playing the last DLC for Dragon Age 2, Legacy (I got it by error... I thought it was the other one XD) and Mark of the Assasin (the one I really wanted). I have that little mod that allows you to run at twice the normal speed when you are out of combat. It took me little less than 4 hours to end both DLCs (hearing all the dialogues and watching all the movies, but ignoring the sidequests)... The good points is that each DLC has three or four different maps (which is more in % compared with the main game...), some new mechanics have been implemented (I hate the sneaking in MotA... but anyway it's good to see new stuff), and both endgame bosses are scripted (meaning it takes more than 2 minutes to kill them). In fact, the final boss from legacy is quite hard, I had to ress my henchmen three or four times... (yeah, I was playing without controlling them or hitting the pause button XD).
About Tallis (Felicia Day's character), I'd say she is overpowered being able to jump in the introduction! Aside from that, my mage Hawke is more quick killing stuff... XD

Leaving the wall of text and small rant behind, I watched the latest video from Paulosoaresjr, the one devoted to the Tale of Kingdoms mod, and I decided to give it a try.
Good news, it takes no Item ID, and works fine with my heavy-modded version of Minecraft. Meaning you can also check if it works with yours (it's as simple as going here and download the file, place it in your mods folder -I am assuming you have modloader installed, of course!- and play the game), remember to make a backup of the whole game before!

Of course, I doubt the mod is balanced with Industrialcraft or Buildcraft in mind, but it is compatible with Equivalent Exchange (which has the more overpowered items I ever saw), so...

Ah, a small piece of advice regarding the use of the Teleporting Pipes mod (called Advanced Pipes): use always the same frequency distribution. Personally, I use the same frequencies for power and liquids (so if I make a oil refinery, the refinery blocks will get power using the same frequency the oil uses to get into them, namely the #401; or water pumps using the Frequency #200 to get energy, and sending the water using the liquid frequency #200). I reserve the first 20 item frequencies for basic stuff (sorting, send to the grinding machines, or the furnaces, or extracting the rubber, or the compressors, etc...), and from the #21 to the last for specific machinery (for example, #21 is to make pistons, #22 redstone engines, etc...). Oh, I also use the #10 as a storage, and the #1 goes directly to sorting.
This last two means I can go adventuring carrying a teleporting pipe and an obsidian pipe, dial #1 in the teleporting pipe, and start throwing stuff in my sorting system (or dial #10 and send the stuff to a chest, in case it's something I don't have sorted).

I suppose I'll make a video of my base once it's a little more finished (and I will include the map for download, with the itemID file for the ID resolver mod). It will take a while, however.

Have fun!

Fully automated Wheat Farm

Here we are again, revising an old concept. We already have an wheat farm with automated harvesting options, but the planting process is a nightmare. Ok, there is this mod called Minefactory Reloaded (llok for it in the sidebar) which gives us a "planter" block; a block that will put a seed or sapling on the prepared dirt block over itself when it receives a redstone pulse.

With this and Buildcraft pipes we can make this:

EDIT: New version of the video, with fixed audio and better quality.

I used the distribution pipes from Additional Pipes mod (previously called Teleport Pipes). As you can see, I added a small part on the end of the video about using Redpower 2 logic blocks to make it fully automated (so we won't need to do anything but receive the stuff). However, I left a mistake on the video and put a comment on the description telling the people to come here and look at the fully functional version. I know, I'm evil... or a little annoyed with the people who don't bother looking the description. So here it is, the solution to the enigma:

As you can see, I added two logic blocks and some cabling between the piston control and the planting control. The toggle latch will allow the timer to start working once the pistons unpower (and release the water), so that timer needs a value equal to the time it takes for the water to take all the wheat and seeds to reach the collecting channel and dissapear (it will be different for each farm, depending on how long they are). That new timer will repower the toggle latch (blocking itself) and start the planting process.

And for my next update, I promise you an infinite source of pneumatic power using combustion engines. Equivalent Exchange and lava are involved, and the release will be first in this blog (with a video, of course), and some time later in my youtube channel.

Have fun!

Edit: Since I had a crash in the game, I can put a full list of my mods, here you have it ^^


modLoader Beta 1.8.1
mod_AdditionalBuildcraftObjects 0.5b (MC 1.8.1, BC 2.2.4)
mod_BuildCraftCore 2.2.5
mod_BuildCraftBuilders 2.2.5
mod_BuildCraftEnergy 2.2.5
mod_BuildCraftFactory 2.2.5
mod_BuildCraftTransport 2.2.5
mod_EE 1.8.1
mod_IC2 v1.23
mod_IC2_AdvMachine v2.1 modded by CPW
mod_MineFactory 1.8.1R1.3.1
mod_MineFactoryCompat_Grass 1.3.0B
mod_MineFactoryReloaded_Compat_IndustrialCraft 1.0.0
mod_mocreatures v2.13 (MC 1.8_1)
mod_PortalGun 1.8.1v1
mod_PowerConverters 1.8.1R1.0.1
mod_RedPowerArray 2.0pr3b
mod_RedPowerCore 2.0pr3b
mod_RedPowerLighting 2.0pr3b
mod_RedPowerLogic 2.0pr3b
mod_RedPowerMachine 2.0pr3b
mod_RedPowerWiring 2.0pr3b
mod_RedPowerWorld 2.0pr3b
mod_HeroesGuild 1.8.1
mod_zAdditionalPipes Rev26
mod_WirelessRemote 0.4
mod_WirelessRedstone 1.4
mod_IDResolver 1.8.1 - Update 0
mod_TooManyItems 1.8.1 2011-09-27
mod_FCBetterThanWolves 2.95
mod_WorldEditCUI v0.9.1 for mc1.8
mod_RecipeBook Beta 1.8

Weird dreams, great ideas

Ok, sorry for the quick update, byproduct of a random mind in a hellish speed thanks to too many hours toying with Minecraft...

Anyway, I was making automatic factories in my new base, in a new world, and enjoying the speed you can build stuff with Equivalent Exchange installed (the destruction catalyst allows me to make a room in the mountain quite quickly ^^), when I realized something (two somethings, actually... One being that I need the rotary macerator from the IC2 Advanced Machines' addon XD). That something was that a solar power station is not enough to cover my hunger for energy, so nuclear power should be harnessed! However, Mark 1 and Mark 2 reactors are too bad at producing energy at the levels I want it, so... I want to make a Mk III. And that means a reactor that needs babysitting... theoretically.

Let's have a look at a screenshot I made with a small circuit as a proof of concept, shall we?

You can expand the image, by the way XD.

I'm using Redpower 2 here, the parts that didn't changed much (if at all) from 1.7.3. You can see a big, glowing block, that is a placeholder for the nuclear reactor. The rest? Two clocks, a toggle latch and a counter.
The idea behind the contraption is to make a clock that will activate and then deactivate something for a given amount of time, once every X time. In the screen:

• Clock connected to green cable ("long Clock"): this marks the time between activations, for example once every 30 seconds it will tick.
• Counter connected to a clock, a green cable and a white cable: the counter is connected by the substraction side (set at "2") to the long clock using the green cable, this acts as resetting. The white cable blocks the short clock from ticking (unless the counter is "reset"), and the adding part is directly connected to the short clock (maximun count: "2").
• Clock connected to counter and white cables ("short Clock"): This one activates and deactivates the target device by moving the setting of the toggle latch twice.
• Toggle Latch: this keeps the device on/off.

How does this works?

It's simple, really, if you have trouble understanding this is because I'm bad at explanations (I always got blamed for the missing cookies...). First, the long clock ticks, moving the counter's powered side and thus liberating the short clock. Then the short clock does one cycle and ticks, moving the Toggle Latch's powered side, which in this situation will stop sending redstone current (and allowing the nuclear reactor to start producing power for a full cycle of the short clock); the second tick of the short clock will take the counter to a position where it blocks the short clock from ticking, and at the same time it changes again the Toggle Latch, returning everything to the starting position.

Option two: I found this on the official Industrialcraft 2 forums here.

Obviously, I am NOT the author of this one, and it has a really clean and streamlined distribution (also, I have tested it and it works). The way it is settled, the upper clock is sets the time the reactor will be "on", and the lower clock will set the time it is "cooling down".

I also found an interesting java app that allows to test the time of your reactor's disposition. Again, in the official forums of IC2, in this thread, but you can go directly from here (I'll add soon a link in the sidebar).

My next project will be an attempt to exploit Equivalent Exchange capabilities to allow for an endless (and safe) BC2's Combustion engines power plant.

Ah, on a sidenote, I published a video a few days ago with how to make IC2's solar plants now that you don't need to use the solar flower disposition. Here you have it for reference.

See ya!

Redpower 2 prerelease 3, Minefactory revisited

Well, Eloraam made it again. I didn't install it yet (I'm currently downloading it), and you can get it at her blog. She also included a compact recipe list in there (or you can go directly to check it here).
I'm mostly interested in the ore dictionary support added to RP2, and how will it affect ore spawning rates (overflowing tin! And copper! Yay! XD). Because, frankly, using Risugami's recipebook was quite a nightmare, considering there are seven possible cuts of any block in the game (cobble, smooth stone, iron blocks, clay, wood...) multiplied for seven or so again (the saw, diamond saw, and the new gem-type saws...). She also added an item detection block, and I suppose I will look into the differences between this and the one in the BetterThanWolves mod (which is more an "entity detector" than an item).

Edit:

Ok, everything went better than expected. No crash, no weird stuff... or at least it looks like it (there was a file I had to put inside minecraft.jar that got me nervous, since I already had another of the same name XD). On the bad news, my recipebook now has 1209 entries (about 800 or so are different applications of saws to blocks...).

So new stuff... The detector block, is like her old redstone pipe for Buildcraft, but only for Redpower2 pipes. New stuff, hidden in the package? Yes, there is. Solar panels, electricity cables (take the red alloy wires, and change the red alloy bars for blue alloy bars), and an electric furnace. Aside from that, three icons I don't have the slightest idea of what are they used for, but by name and position might be related to the red and blue alloy bars in the future (silicon boule, and blue and red silicon wafers).

On a sidenote, my inifinitely supplied BC2 combustion engine seems to be working without any trouble, for more than 90 minutes without any overheating at all.Here you have a video with it:

Now on the Minefactory update... This mod has gone out of hand! No, really! They changed some stuff, and added compatibilities for BC2. And, not happy with that, new machines to convert power between BC2 and IC2!!! It also includes an Oil making machine (it takes 625.000 EU to craft a single bucket, however, so maybe it's better to just convert electricity to pneumatic power...).

Amazingly, however, I regained 3 free item ID's even installing the power converters, the IC2 addon and the mod itself ^^. Now it uses 1 ID per rail and another for the conveyor belt, one for all the basic "machines" and one for the all the power converters, for a total of 8.

Oh, I almost forgot, the IC2 addon allows, among other things, to transform refined iron into steel, which is a little exploit (because 1 steel takes 4 coal and 1 iron bar... it compensates itself, however, with the fact that coal is really needed by IC2 for coal dust, which you use to make the solar panels, artificial diamonds and other stuff).

Actualizations all across the board... more or less XD

Ok, so first: Buildcraft is now on version 2.23, but about 90% of the changes between this version and 2.22 are SMP fixes.

Second, new version of the teleporting pipes, and they now include a redstone pipe (the distribution pipe is no longer red, but now black). This redstone pipe, from what I looked in the forum, seems to NOT be a revision of Eloraam's, but a new one, daughter of the orginal redstone pipe and the telepoting pipes (in short, it seems to give a signal in a frequency). So now we seem to have 4 "channels" in the Teleporting pipes mod: items, liquids, power and detection. Add the fifth channel that would be Wireless Redstone... And in a big server I foresee more "radiation" from wireless signals than on Mercury's surface during a solar storm ^^.

Will check, anyway, and suggest a new pipe for more lazy people (like me): a teleporting Wooden-sucking pipe. In essence, you put this pipe under (or at any side) of a chest (let's call these ones "sending pipes"), then in other chest/pipe system you put another (let's call this the "receiving pipe"). Then you set a number of items inside the GUI of the pipe (which would be the same as the Advanced wooden pipe), apply a BC engine to this, and see how the receiving pipe takes the required items from all chests connected to a sending pipe!

Edit: I checked, got a world crash, but it seems like nothing went wrong in the end (I had a whole backup of the game, anyway xD). The new Redstone Pipe is, at the end, the one from Eloraam, actualized to 1.8.1 (sadly, it doesn't seem to emit redstone power, ot at least I wasn't able to find an item that would receive the current, so it seems like it will only light up, at least for now :S).

There is also a new functionality, the F9 key will show (on the sky) a blue grid not much different to one you can make with Buildcraft, a marker and some redstone power. This grid marks the chunks in the game. This is important if you use Fraps, because I think the default key for recording is F9... Anyway, I actualized my Fraps version and now it seems like I can record videos with audio without crashing the game. Sadly, more than 3.95 Gb (about 6 minutes or so in Minecraft) and I get more than one video... Oh, well.

Finally, in this ecclectic collection of ramblings I'll advice you to check a youtube channel if you want to see some stuff about Industrialcraft 2: Direwolf20's channel is quite interesting. I'll add it to the sidebar.

See ya!

IndustrialCraft 2 v1.22

So here we are, a new version of IC2, and I'll try it out ASAP. You can get it in Alblaka's forum. Remember to update Minecraft Forge too.

EDIT: now there's version 1.23 out, with some fixes (apparently the miner was not mining redstone ore or lapis, and the quantum helmet wasn't expending energy to keep you fed).

How to install it? Just delete the old .jar file you had in your .minecraft\mods folder and put that one instead (if you are doing a clean installation, be sure you have the pre-required mods before!). Also, don't use any mod for IC2 since they have not been updated yet (and I'm talking about the Advanced machines that expands the induction furnace to cover macerators, extractors and compressors, specifically).

Also, DO A BACKUP of the game!

If you have a problem of ID conflicts, then I advice you to reinstall the ID resolver mod if you were using it, since Alblaka added some new blocks.

I'll be back as soon as I patch the disaster in my worlds... all pipes got exchanged for Equivalent Exchange's  Nova Catalysts and exploded. Messy.

Edit: solved, I had deleted the config files for the IDresolver mod, restoring them and running the game again assigned fresh ID's only to the new blocks, so nothing got changed.

As for the new goodies, constructive foam and scaffolding are the new blocks (with some dependant sub-blocks you cannot craft but aid in the using of the foam), and some new derived items (pellets and foam-firing gun) and new icons for some stuff like the nuclear chambers, the terraformer and the electrical wrench.

Geothermal plant MkII

Hi again, I just finished with my small project of base in the Nether, with the primary objective being the development of a self-sufficient energy generation base. In this instance, that means Lava Cells production to feed geothermal generators. By adding the Equivalent Exchange mod (see the sidebar for the forum link) and with the help of the Teleporting Pipes mod (again, sidebar for the link) I was able to make a base that would require only Tin Bars from outside the Nether (since Tin is an IndustrialCraft 2 resource, it cannot be produced by Equivalent Exchange).

The tricky part, you might think, is the cobblestone generator, since it requires a water source. Leaving aside that you can use inventory editors and such (as I mentioned before), Equivalent Exchange has a recipe for crafting an ice block with the philosopher's stone and 8 glass blocks. You can then place the ice block in the nether, and break it to have a water source, solving the problem.

Another trick I used to avoid too much trouble with the limited capacity of Buildcraft 2's crafting tables was to connect the pipes to chests, which gives a greater buffer. For item distribution I used one of the extra pipes included in the Teleport Pipes mod, from where I also picked the pipes that teleport power and the ones that teleport liquids (in this case, the lava). The Wireless Redstone mod allows me to control the lava being send or not to the base (though it is mostly a redundant capacity, since I control the energy I send to the pump).

Essentially, the base is divided on two parts: Part one provides endless energy, while Part two crafts the lava cells proper.
While the base of the Lava Cell generator is the same I showed in the Geothermal Generator video, I made a more compact design, thanks mostly to the Advanced Wooden Pipes (from the Teleport Pipes mod), a version of the wooden pipes that applies a filter to what it gets or not (from the deployer, for example, it will take only lava-filled buckets, while from the chest where those go it will only take empty ones) and to the trick of putting the chests adjacent to the crafting table.
The energy generation "plant", on the other hand, I left it without any automated feeding to the steam engines to avoid... unfortunately explosions, let's say (I'd like to tell you that directly attaching a steam engine to a pump with 14 coal or less won't explode... but by putting a wooden pipe between engine and pump the overheating problems nearly dissapear). Anyway, 5 steam engines are a little overkill for a single pump XD.

Back to topic, the energy production part goes as follows: the cobblestone generator produces 1 cobble every 4 seconds. 5 cobblestone get transformed into 20 dirt, which produces (with 20 saplings) 40 wood. 20 wood go to the furnaces (powered by a Klein Star, an item from Equivalent Exchange that provides infinite burning power to vanilla items. If that item becomes fully usable with steam engines... right now it acts like a single piece of coal) which in turn makes them into 20 charcoal. The other 20 wood blocks go for another alchemical transformation... producing 20 saplings. That means I turn 5 cobble into 20 charcoal, if I'm not mistaken. And when the redstone engines are really hot, the furnaces cannot keep the rythm (I think adding a fourth furnace would relieve most of the problem, though).
The worrying thing, of course, is that with Equivalent Exhange, some cobblestone generators and some base mats, using Buildcraf 2 we can stop farming forever...

Oh, and I made a diamond factory with Equivalent Exchange and the cobble generators, too. But that has been covered enough in the mod's forum thread ^^

Have fun!

Geothermal plant

So I was the other day mailing Eloraam because the deployer didn't interact with Buildcraft's tanks, when she told me that yes, they do... and I realized what my problem was. Anyway, I was able to end my project of an automated factory that needs only one input from the player in order to produce industrialcraft's energy. Here you have a video with the idea:

Explanations:

• The tanks need to be at the same height than the deployer, or it wont work (that was my mistake: I tend to bury half the tank).
• The charcoal can be kept being put thanks to a nearby tree farm, or put there manually (in the video, I did the second option).
• You can change the stone engines for the combustion ones (which can be powered by lava), but they overheat quicker and the only way to have water sources in the nether is cheating (place a water block, itemID 8, without using a bucket... and it can be placed).
• I lack BC2.2.2 extra pipes (bouncing and insertion, to be precise), and I didn't test the teletransport pipes.
• The input you cannot avoid is tin bars. You will get a 4:1 ratio in lava cells per each tin bar (you need 4 bars per 16 empty cells).
• The factory will consume lava, coal and tin. It will produce, in exchange, lava cells.
• The idea is to put this factory in the Nether, near a lava lake. once you have emptied the lake and the lava reserve from the tanks, you can pack all the system and go to another place.
• The energy production requires the player to take manually the lava cells from the nether to a geothermal generator in the "real" world, where they are used to produce energy. You can also put a geothermal generator in the nether in order to produce energy for your tools (the chainsaw, the energy sword, the drill,, the mining laser, and the armor).

Expanding the idea:

By cheating and placing water into the nether, we can make several cobblestone generators, run the cobble through a recycler and use the scrap and energy produced by this plant to create universal matter, that we will use later to make tin ore that we will macerate and then smelt into bars that we turn into cells. Or we can use Equivalent Exchange (which I am really reticent to).

Edit: I went home and made some tests.
First, 3 Universal matter are required to get 5 tin ore => 10 tin dust => 10 tin bars => 32 empty cells & 2 tin bars. Each Universal Matter needs 1.000.000 of energy, and each lava cell produces 20.000 energy. Without much looking into it, with 4 tin ore we can produce 32 lava cells => 640.000 energy, meaning the process won't yield any benefit. As for boosting the mass fabricator with scrap, 640.000 energy and 129 scrap (2 stacks plus a single unit) produces 3 UU-matter and the 83% of a fourth one, meaning the process can be kept self-sustaining by a really small margin that allows nearly no errors (testing method: an MFSU, 10 stacks of one use batteries => 640.000 energy. Connect to a Mass fabricator with a stack of scrap, and keep the fabricator with scrap).

Second, I installed the teleporting pipes, and the conclussions are quite clear, also: you cannot teleport stuff from the nether to the "real" world. You can, however, set up the factory near the portal, so you only will need to move the pump, steam engines and teleporting pipe.

And yes, I'll be testing Equivalent Exchange. I still have 17 block IDs left, after all, and 77 sprite IDs...

Redpower 2: The Deployer and a cobblestone generator

Ok, I've been toying around with the machines from Redpower 2, and the deployer, while it's quite interesting, it's not the godlike machine I thought it was going to be XD.  First let's take a look at the block, and its innards:

 The funny thing of a deployer is that does almost the same thing Steve? does with a right click of the mouse wehn receiving a redstone current pulse. However, some items require a little care (for example, you can use the deployer to empty a bucket of water, or to retake the water source if there is an empty bucket inside the deployer, as long as there is a block to support the water, the same way you cannot place a water source in the middle of the air). Doing this allows me to place a music disk when I want:

And here we go with Portal: not only can the deployer put turrents in front of him (yeah, it can put 9 turrets in the same block), but he can fire portal guns too!!

 This made me though about IC2's mining laser...

And yes, it works. It also consumes less energy (I had put the laser into long range... but it was consuming like mining only).
The deployer can also plant seeds, however, it only plants in the block in front of him, so it's not really efficient.

Let's make a catapult... with Portals, again:

The range is a litte short, but it's an easier way to make a catapult than the usual with pistons. Also, I checked and the deployer accepts Buildcraft's pipes, allowing for endless supplies. And with the block breaker, it also allows for other things (but you can usually do that kind of things with one of the blocks from Better than Wolves, so it's not as useful unless you don't want to install that mod).

And since we are talking about the block breaker, I made a small video about making a cobblestone generator with this machine. Quite more efficient and cheap than Buildcraft's based ones were!

I'll now try to complete my small world, since I now have RedPower 2 cabling and logic gates (but I still miss the extra pipes... oh hell... XD).

Redpower 2 prerelease 2

So, Eloraam has released the second prerelease of Redpower 2. I'd like to mention that the mod is again modular, and that the saves made using the prerelease 1 are compatible (for what she said, I have no save with anything from RP2 ^^U).

Anyway, she added new machines, among them the "deployer", which is a quite interesting machine that acts like a player, and I really want to test it, so I'll stop for a day or two my work with the BC2 world and I'll try to see what's new (and later I'll add the things from RP2 that I needed in my world).

You can get the mod at her blog, up to seven files (plus server versions!) with SMP support that might be a little buggy. Anyway, tomorrow I'll post something about what I found, and maybe a video or two.

Work and head-banging

Weeeeell... Here I am, realizing how spoiled I've become when I notice the few mods I cannot use but I'm too used to have...

The good news are that I'm making a nearly 100% automated farm for wheat (and hemp or any single-block based plant, that is, not for pumpkins nor melons... nor, obviously, sugar cane, wood, cactus...), thanks to Minefactory Reloaded, which solved the usual problem we always found: replanting the stuff.

Here, have some screenshots of the prototype (I have a much bigger farm in process):

The upper view does not differ much from the usual wheat farm's design (aside from using three blocks wide plantations, instead of two). One detail that I didn't applied here is that I'm planning to make each "echelon" only 6 blocks in length, so each echelon will need two seeders.

The underpart is also quite "traditional": a chest to gather the wheat, and the diamond pipe will send the seeds to other storage.

And the last one is the good one: the planting blocks (that cover a 3x3 block surface), fed by the pipes. I'm missing bouncing pipes here... and Eloraam's cabling and clock. In fact, my idea includes the sequencer, not the clock, for the full automation of the farm, but until a new and stable version of RP2 is realeased, I'm a little bound here.

As for what goodies does Minecraft Factory reloaded includes, well, it has the old harvester, seeder, fertilizer and the conveyor blocks. But it added four new rail blocks (cargo pickup, cargo dropoff, passengers pickup and passengers dropoff), a fisher (same as harvester, but for fishing!), and a rancher (same as the harvester, but for animals). the only "problem" of the rancher is that at least the sheeps tend to die after producing 5-6 whool blocks, most likely because I suspect the rancher block "hits" them with the same strenght as an unarmed Steve?. I'm using the cargo pickup and dropoff rails to move goods from the different "farms" to the main base.

My plan is to make a map that inlcudes all the farms and some stuff I usually end making in a map, and my plans are to make:

• Mushroom farm
• Wheat farm (in process)
• Sugar cane farm (done)
• Quarry (I already set up three for autonomous work)
• Monster grinder
• Animal farm (mostly finished, I need to eliminate all other blocks with grass from around)
• Fish farm
• Cactus farm (actually, I'll cheat and use a .schematic file I made two weeks ago from the cacti farm in my last video)
• Cobblestone generator
• Wood farm (done)
• Universal Matter farm (meaning a really big solar array too, and connected to the cacti farm)
• Scrap farm (between the cacti farm and the Universal Matter farm)
• A fully electric house (meaning extractors, compressors, electric-dependant furnaces, recyclers, macerators, a magnetizer's supported access, a canning machine and even a teleporter).

Sadly, all the projects will require some sort of support from RedPower 2, so "done" means "waiting for cables" XD. 

If you want some other farm or detail included, please tell me, and I'll try to include it.