Minecraft Let's Play season 3, Episode 69

Another 2 parts video, because before I realize it it was 50 minutes long ^^U

Part 1:

Part 2:

In this videos we will add a good staircase to go to the second level, a working door, and some other goodies. After that, well, you'll have to watch the videos :)

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.

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 ^^.

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!

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.

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!

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

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...

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.

Mod updates

So, for all of you who are interested, the 1.8.1 compatible version of several mods has been released. Currently, we have:

• Industrialcraft (with SMP support! Expect a few bugs, however)
• Better tha Wolves
• Minecraft Forge (obviously, since you need it for some of these mods XD)
• Portal
• Mo's Creatures
• RedPower 2

However, you should know some details:

First, Redpower 2 is an ALPHA, a pre-release with probably tons of bugs (according to Eloraam herself), with some nasty possibilities about corrupting your savegames. You have been warned!

Second, Buildcraft's thread seems to not show in the usual URL... nor can it be found using the search... However, I manually found it here, and I updated the link in the sidetab. Also, SpaceToad has opened a contest for the best 5 worlds made using Buildcraft (using the default config file, and maybe only minecraft... sadly).

It also seems like MineFactory has found some loving modder that not only updated the mod for 1.8.1, but also added some really interesting features for those people who don't have machines that can keep up with thousands of tiny blocks flowing around pipes, or laying down a pipe system kilometers in length... now it includes minecart support! so carts will pick up/drop out stuff inside chests! Also, Minefactory reloaded is SMP-compatible!

I'll try to upgrade all my stuff to Minecraft 1.8.1 and make a huuuuge map with all the stuff integrated. Before sunday, I hope. Bets are on the table, I'll start in about 14 hours...

Edit: it's all working, at least for now... The IDresolver mod (see the sidebar for the link XD) has proven to be extremely useful, and my only regret is that I couldn't install Steamcraft (the game runs out of terrain sprites). Right now, I have installed the following mods in my 1.8.1 version of the game:

• Modloader, Audiomod, Minecraft Forge, Modloader MP, IDresolver, SingleplayerCommands, ToomanyItems, and the GUIAPI
• Wireless redstone and Wireless remote
• Better than Wolves
• Buildcraft 2.2.0
• Industrialcraft2 1.15 (plus the "patches". The working sound fix is here (apply last))
• Minefactory reloaded
• Redpower2 (currently disabled, but I'm waiting for a TMI compatible-version).

For now, the only trouble I found was solved by changing the order of the mods in the .minecraft/mods folder (put first Industrialcraft2), and that TooManyItems doesn't show all the goodies after some RP2 ones. Oh, and that the game went from 16Mb of the basic version to 64Mb without any map loaded... and that my texture packs no longer work fine because of the hunger bar ^^.

The future of mods in short term

Notch released this tweet yesterday... with the 1.9 preview. So we can expect a 1.10 version of Minecraft before a month or so, so my advice: Stay in Minecraft 1.7.3 if you want to keep all your mods.

For what I saw in the Minecraft forums, we can expect a 1.8.1 version for RedPower and Industrialcraft 2 (meaning a new version of Minecraft Forge, most likely), but I didn't found more mentions about other mods (I didn't checked them all, anyway). What is really important, however, is that unless the code related to the mods remain unchanged, there won't be much mod actualizations for a while, at least until the whole "adventure update" is released (yeah, Notch is releasing that update in minipatches).

In case you want to check the news, by the way, I found some tours made by Paulosoaresjr and updated to Youtube. Here you have them:

• Village monks, swamps and a little of snow biomes
• The update to the Nether
• Snow biomes, and a snow golem

I'll advice to subscribe to his channel, since about 13 hours ago only the first one was up (I'll live in GMT+1, so I was sleeping while he was uploading XD).

Have a nice weekend!

Industrialcraft 2: first impressions

First of all, the wiki has been updated. You can found it here, and it's quite interesting because it has a lot of recipes.

Ok, so I've been playing for some hours in a newly generated map, and these are my conclussions (I also checked some of the new stuff in a testing map using TooManyItems):

Map Seed: Industrialcraft2
Coordinates: 19, 85, -183
Time played: around five or six hours.
Mods used: Industrialcraft2, Buildcraft 2, RedPower (with all "addons"), Mo' Creatures, and some more that had no impact over the game, because I didn't use anything (in fact, from Buildcraft I still have to make something, but I can see oil around).

What I have now: some rubber trees plantation, a normal tree subterranean plantation, 11 solar panels, 2 batboxes (I'm only using one), an extractor, a macerator and two electric furnaces. And tons of cobblestone, of course XD. I also have more raw materials (inlcuding about 5 uranium ore), but it would be of small interest.

One of the first changes I noticed is that copper and tin ore are quicker to mine using the non-IC picks, and that you now need at least an iron pick to harvest the uranium ore. I also noticed in this map that, while I found lots of redstone in the lower levels, I found nearly no iron, and about minimun quantities of iron; coal, however, was nearly everywhere with in big veins.

Another thing I noticed (and I think it's a bug) is that the rubber trees grow insanely fast.

About my thoughts on the new ways the mod works, I'm happy to see the cabling is now more easy, setting solar plants is also more simple (no more need for the flowers!), and things look much more smooth. The only downside I found was that, coupled with Buildcraft's piping system, things work randomly regarding blocks inserted/extracted (no matter if you cannot put those items manually, with the pipes they will be put wherever there is free space).This means that a battery has to be put in the powering hole, and the item extraction might be something a little complicated. Hopefully this problem will be solved in the next release of Minecraft Forge, Buildcraft or Industrialcraft.

On monday I'll share with you all a new video about my Food Factory idea, with the new IC2 and BC2, so until then stay tuned and enjoy this small video about the new block of IC2 called "induction furnace" (it can take two blocks different or equal and process them quicker the longer it's burning).

Oh, and a good youtube channel with some videos about IC2 is this one, which has a lot of the new stuff showed up and explained. Enjoy!

IndustrialCraft 2 released!

And you can download it here! It requires Minecraft Forge 1.0.6, so download that aswell.

However, remember to visit Alblaka's blog, in http://www.industrial-craft.net/

How to install the mod: right now it seems (I cannot promise anything) to work like buildcraft and redpower: ypu download the file, put it in your mods folder, and profit. Alblaka advices to inject the contents of the file inside the minecraft.jar (remember to keep a backup in order to not need to make a clean install from scratch).

I'm curently testing the mod, but this month is quite a busy one for me, so it will be small updates most of the time. Meanwhile, I can tell you that a new suit (a quantum one) has been added, with some more machines (like an induction forge, able to work with two ores at once, and that requires time for warm-up, after which it will burn the items faster and faster), and new cable types. I'll add some data: the gold cables don't seem to transmit current, and there are insulated and uninsulated versions. Oh, and the new cables look a lot like Builcraft pipes, since they no longer use a whole block.

And by the way, a heads up: Industrialcraft2 has block ID conflicts with Better than Wolves. There goes my dream of having them together, at least for now...

Buildcraft 2.1.1

Hi people, sorry for the delay... In my defense, I'd like to say something: do NOT place extraction pipes with Buildcraft 2.1.1, it will crash the game... and you won't be able to keep that map. So yes, I lost the map I was working with XD.

I'll be using a new block from RedPower (version 1.7.1 is out, by the way): the repeater. Yes, there is already a repeater in the game... but this (that does not replace the old one) has a maximun delay much bigger, and can be placed like any other logic gate (on a wall, under the roof...). Here is how it looks like:

Here you can see four repeaters at several delay adjustements. They seem to be a lilttle buggy, at least visually, but they work well. I'll be using them so several stacks of engines will start at slightly different times, producing three "ticks" really quickly instead of pulsing at the same time, wasting two of those ticks.

Anyway, I made a video of a strip mine operation (a quarry at its maximun coverage) and its feeds. You can see it here:

There is a reason for the separation between the oil tanks, and I'll explain it with another, much shorter video at the end of the post. Meanwhile, let's talk about the oil, the pipes, etc...

First, in case you didn't knew, oil is a new finite resource that is treated like water in regard to everything but Buildcraft 2.x.x (dolphins can spawn in oil pools, for example, if you have installed Mo'Creatures). Being a finite resource, you cannot create infinite sources like we usually do with water. Also, the only way to put oil inside pipes is by using the new oil pump (made by putting an oil tank over a mining well in the crafting grid), and there is no way to take the oil out, the only possible destination to the oil is an oil tank or a combustion engine where it will be consumed (you cannot extract oil from the combustion engines).
By the way, you can place anything connected to an oil pump, like a lever to power the attached engine.
Sadly, oil is not affected by the special effects of insertion pipes or golden pipes, but iron, stone, cobblestone and wooden pipes work as usual.
Placing a wooden pipe between two oil tanks will mean that you might have to take a wrench and rearrange manually the direction to where they point, so do as I did in the video and put a stone or cobblestone pipe between the wooden pipe and the target oil deposit.
Now about behaviour, it seems like each block of oil is "divided" into three or so chunks, so wherever you have a point where the oil can go two or more directions it will go all of them at all, stopping moving until it has enough "mass" to move (so, until more oil gets divided and makes for a full oil block in each pipe). So you will be seeing lots of "leftover" oil everywhere.

As for advice when using all this, I'm using Eloraam's light blocks to know, at a quick glance, which wooden engines are working and which ones are not. Also, remember that now the engines will cool down on their own, and they won't explode as long as they have something to do, regardless of their color (heat level).

I'll start looking into Eloraam's other new three blocks for the weekend or so (I'm quite useless with circuitry, I think I said that before ^^), since there is nothing more to do with buildcraft right now. And without further delay, here is the video about how not to place the oil tanks:

Buildcraft & Redpower new versions

Well, first, Minecraft Forge has been actualized to 1.0.5, which is good because is the needed version for both  BC and RP.

Redpower 1.7.0: we get dome bugs solved and a new bunch of blocks consisting in a cable passing over another (both of redstone without insulation or colour), with different configurations (inversion of power or same power, for example).

Builcraft 2.1.0: Still a beta, SpaceToad added tow new blocks: the oil tank (made by arranging 8 blocks of crystal the same way we would do it with wooden panels to craft a chest) that can contain up to 16 units of oil (and stacks vertically), and the pump (right now working only for oil, but there are plans to make it work with other liquids like water and magma), which collects all the oil in a deposit and sends it through pipes without the need for buckets. The pump is made by putting a tank over a mining well, simply as that.

I'll be checking these two new options in the following days and I'll make some videos and demonstrations about good arrangements for everything.

Finally, remember that 1.8 seems to be going to be released soon, BUT the mods will need a few weeks to catch up (specially since they will wait for Notch to polish some of the bugs, so I would not expect any actualization until about version 1.8.2 or so).

Have fun and keep exploring!

RedPower and Buildcraft with Minecraft Forge

Ok, I just managed to bundle most of the stuff together.

Mods I currently have installed in the Minecraft.jar (in order of installation):

• Modloader & ModloaderMP, and Audiomod
• SinglePlayerCommands & Worldedit
• TooManyItems
• Minecraft Forge
• Wireless Redstone with almost all of its extras

Mods I currently have in the mods folder:

• Redpower 1.6.0 with all the options
• Buildcraft 2.0 with all the options
• Portal Gun v4

Necessary tweaks for all to work together:
Buildcraft:
The mod comes pre-configured to keep working with redstone clocks (but if you install the "energy" addon, the oil and the engines will appear). To enable the engines, you need to go to the folder .minecraft\builcraft\config and, using some .txt editor (like notepad), open the file Buildcraft.cfg.
There, inside the "general" block, you need to paste this file:

power.framework=buildcraft.energy.PneumaticPowerFramework

So it has to looks like this:

###########
# General #
###########


general {
# set to true for allowing machines to be driven by continuous current
current.continuous=false
mining.enabled=true
# set to false to deactivate pipe connection rules, true by default
pipes.alwaysConnect=false
power.framework=buildcraft.energy.PneumaticPowerFramework
version=2.0.1
}


#########
# Block #
#########


block {
autoWorkbench.id=152
builder.id=157
cobblestonePipe.id=159
diamondPipe.id=149
drill.id=151
engine.id=161
filler.id=155
frame.id=160
goldenPipe.id=148
ironPipe.id=147
marker.id=154
miningWell.id=150
obsidianPipe.id=156
oilMoving.id=162
oilStill.id=163
quarry.id=153
stonePipe.id=146
template.id=158
woodenPipe.exclusion=
woodenPipe.id=145
}


########
# Item #
########


item {
bucketOil.id=3807
diamondGearItem.id=3004
goldenGearItem.id=3003
ironGearItem.id=3002
stoneGearItem.id=3001
templateItem.id=3005
woodenGearItem.id=3000
wrench.id=3806
}

RedPower:
There is a problem with this one and TooManyItems, derived from some resitance values. It makes TMI to not show any wires in the extra tab, but the wires can be crafted manually using the mats and a Crafting Table. To solve the issue, a patch has been written, and you can download it here. The post of the thread where you can find about it (including the author, Jay) is here.

EDIT: instead of that patch, you can use this, which will be also compatible with the version 1.6.1

Installation: download the patch and put it inside the Minecraft.jar, that's it.
Side effects: a lot of previously hidden blocks might show up. I went from 2 to 12 pages of different blocks, almost all of them Portal's weighted companion cubes and about a thousand templates for Buildcraft 2.0, so don't freak out.

Now on to work! ^^