Of course! I always appreciate spotlights, and am willing to work with you to ensure their accuracy and thoroughness. Please do ensure that everything you explain is correct; I have seen several incorrect ones (eg trying to power high-tier machines with Gasoline Engines and no gearboxes), leading to several misled viewers.
"Can I use this mod in a modpack?"
That depends on what you mean. If you want to install it in your own personal pack, that is fine, as long as you do not distribute it.If you mean a private pack for a server with you and friends, that is also fine, but I appreciate being notified. Like personal packs, these may not be distributed outside your group, and may not be monetized. A couple mods have additional rules; see them for details.If you mean a public pack that you intend to distribute to hundreds or thousands of players, or leave available to anyone, you must ask my permission. If I grant it, you may include it in the pack as long as dismantling the pack and distributing the constituent mods is disallowed, as well as some other situational conditions.See the Pack Rules for more details.
"Mojang said people can do whatever they want with their mods, I'm going to make a copy/ripoff/modified version/distribute/sell it/etc and there's nothing you can do about it!"
One, that is in fact a misinterpretation of the recent statement of Mojang's Mods Terms of Use, which do not state that anyone can take and do "whatever they like" with mods. Two, because of the misunderstanding, Mojang has since revoked this statement, replacing it with the original "we can incorporate any idea from any mod, and you may not sell the mod" rules that have been in place since 2011. Three, the code and assets are separate from the content, and I own the copyrights to them. Even if the Mojang ToS said you could take my code or assets, it would have no power because copyright law overrides it.
"Can I use DragonAPI to help with the development of my mod?"
You may use DragonAPI with your mod and thus make it a dependency, so long as you do not include your own copy of DragonAPI; Including your own copy makes it impossible for me to control version updates. Link to my project instead (not directly to a given download file, which will break as soon as the API updates). Also, because of the fact that much of your functionality will be based on my work, such a mod cannot be used in a competition such as ModJam. See the license for more details.
"Will you (ever) update to [version]?"
I have never ruled out updating, but I do not currently have this planned, as it is an enormous amount of work for what may be minimal benefit. This is explained in more detail at 'Updating'.
ISSUES
"I crash with NoClassDefFoundError: DragonAPIMod!"
You did not install DragonAPI. You need it.
"I crash with NoSuchMethodError/ClassNotFoundException in Reika[something]Library/Helper/API!"
Minecraft is looking for a piece of code that does not exist in your copy of DragonAPI. Download the newest version of both mods and try again.
"I get virus warnings when I try to download your files!"
I can assure you that my copies of the files are clean. I can also assure you that Curse is not tampering with their contents. Ensure you are downloading it from me or an approved pack - other sites are indeed inserting malware into their downloads.
"I get console spam of "GL ERROR @ Pre render 1281: Invalid value", and items are invisible."
This is the result of MC's texture loader glitching out. F3+T usually fixes it.
"My screen is solid black or white (maybe except for the hotbar and other GUI or HUD elements)!"
This is due to a framebuffer issue and often caused by incompatibilities with your Optifine version. Resize your screen to rebuild the buffer.
"I get a weird render error where engines and machines glitch out and switch directions (and types/models/materials), with the RotaryCraft I/O boxes going wild."
This is usually caused by having a large number of block updates in one area (eg large quantities of crop growth, fluids spilling everywhere, and so on), causing TileEntity data to constantly be reset on the client. This is a bug in Minecraft. Additionally, as it is visual-only, its effects will go away as soon as the block updates do. This was partially fixed in 1.7.10 through internal game engine changes, but can still be noticed in severe cases.
"I cannot place the blocks sometimes, even though nothing should be there."
If you have Railcraft installed, it adds invisible blocks wherever you step which interfere with the placement of machines. These can be disabled by setting RailCraft's "blockHidden" (or "residual.heat") to zero in the config. Some other mods also have similar blocks.
"I crash when placing machines, with a ClassCastException!"
This is also likely caused by the RailCraft hidden block. Disable it.
"[ROTARYCRAFT] I crash with ClassCastException: EntityFreezeGunShot cannot be cast to EntityLivingBase!"
You have some mob spawn modifying mod that is assuming that freeze gun projectiles are living mobs. Alternatively, there may be an entity ID mismatch between the client and the server, caused by different mod installations or different Forge versions.
FEATURES
"[CHROMATICRAFT] Can I have a config to reduce/disable pylon spawns? They are obnoxious, killing players and/or obstructing build locations."
Definitely not. Pylons are absolutely required for progression, and disabling them removes more than half of the mod. Even wanting to make them rarer is a bad idea; I can guarantee you that you will want exactly the opposite once you find yourself needing them.
"[ROTARYCRAFT] I think you should split the Extractor into multiple blocks. All the stages being in one machine make it too simple. Try something like Mekanism."
In actual fact, splitting the Extractor would make it much simpler to operate. This is because the main complexities associated with the extractor are not in crafting or item/fluid routing, but power logistics. Until late-game (and even then, not efficiently) it is not possible to power all four stages simultaneously. Due to their control over item export, it is also not possible to have multiple extractors, each running a stage (at least not automatically). Instead, one must have a powertrain that is able to dynamically provide the required power, torque, and speed, and this is a nontrivial task that the majority of people seem not to know how to do (to the point when I broke FZ routers on Extractors, I got dozens of "Extractor can't be automated now" bug reports). Splitting the Extractor into multiple machines would destroy this, as each machine would have a specific power requirement, and thus instead of an innovative or complex powertrain there would simply be four machines with four different engines.
"[ROTARYCRAFT/REACTORCRAFT/ELECTRICRAFT] Will you add FMP/microblock support for wires/pipes/etc?"
No, for many reasons:
FMP works by having a block (with a TileEntity) that can "wrap" other blocks and pass on clicks and ticks accordingly. However, this then means that every "get block at" test will fail, as it now returns BlockMultiPart instead of whatever was supposed to be there. Code like "get machine at XYZ, which compares a Block:Metadata pair to a registry, will return nothing.
In order to know what blocks are wrapped inside the FMP block, it is necessary to get the TileEntity at the coordinate and iterate through its stored TileEntities. Fetching TileEntities is slow - especially compared to lightning-fast Block:Metadata accesses - and the iteration is also bad for performance. The end result will be a marked increase in computational load, especially for things like pipes, wires, and shafts, which require extensive communication between adjacent blocks.
For every example I have ever seen, FMP has created a hard dependency - that is, a mod with FMP support will not load without FMP. ChickenBones's DepLoader will automatically download it as needed, but this raises serious issues if different versions are needed for different mods.
FMP, as KingLemming put it, is "more complex than Minecraft can really handle". As a result, it is very often the cause of serious bugs, crashes, or performance decreases, with the extreme Grid Tick lag from 1.6.4 TE conduits being a good example.
"[GEOSTRATA] There is rock everywhere! I cannot find any ore!
GeoStrata rock does not overwrite vanilla or mod ores. Furthermore, it is replaceable by both of them during world generation. In theory, GeoStrata has no effect on ore density.
"[ROTARYCRAFT/REACTORCRAFT] Can you make an option to turn off animations and/or models? They are laggy for me."
Animations are not the source of your lag. It is no more difficult to render a part of a machine on a 22 or 137 degree angle than it is to render it upright.I will not add the ability to turn off models for several reasons:
Models provide large amounts of useful information that cannot be obtained otherwise, such as I/O and turbine damage, or much more intuitive ways to display things like liquid content, operational speed, temperature, and imminent failure.
For 90% of the models, the actual polygon count is actually not that high, usually comparable with a few mobs. Only if you disabled every render would it make a big difference, and sometimes not even then.
Models and animations are part of RotaryCraft's appeal and uniqueness to the point where they can be considered fundamental to its design.
I am not going to design 300+ textures for the resulting cubes.
On most computers, the rendering is not usually an issue until you collect a large number of machines.
I have done testing before, and in a late game base, even with all the renderers off the performance is not actually that much better; lag in modded MC is generally not caused by a single problem.
"[ROTARYCRAFT/REACTORCRAFT] Why are these machines so cheap to make? This is the most overpowered mod ever!"
RotaryCraft is balanced differently than most other tech mods. Rather than gating access to later tiers of machines by making them successively more expensive - often to the point of absurdity - RotaryCraft tiers them by actual progression across technologies. Making - and more importantly, running - a machine is not simply a question of dumping piles of resources into a crafting table, but engineering the setup and having acquired all prerequisite technologies.
"[ROTARYCRAFT] You should add things like wormholes, manmade black holes, teleportation, time travel, and so on with large amounts of power, as it is theoretically possible."
I agree that things like time travel, wormholes, teleportation, invisibility, and so on are actually technically possible. However, they all either require extremely advanced tech - invisibility requires nanotech, for example - or ludicrous power requirements. Someone else said it best:"I believe the standard for the things your talking about is realism -> the amount of power required is consistent with theory, and theory says it's possible. Reika already indicated that a problem with something like a wormhole is that the theoretical power required is closer to the entire lifetime output of a star than to the power output of one fusion reactor. For all that this thing generates so much power it's difficult to comprehend how much it is, the power needed for those big hard-SF things is still on a completely different scale."
"[ROTARYCRAFT/REACTORCRAFT] What are all these weird labels like W, Nm, rad/s, and C?"
All of the units in RotaryCraft are SI (commonly referred to as metric). W is the label for Watts, a unit of power (energy use/transfer per unit time). Its imperial equivalent is horsepower (1hp = 745W). Nm is short for Newton-Meters, a unit of torque (force times distance), akin to the "strength" of a twisting force. Its imperial equivalent is Foot-Pounds (1 ft-lb = 1.3 Nm). rad/s is a unit of angular velocity (rotational speed), measured as angle rotated per unit time. One radian is approximately 57 degrees. Its imperial equivalent is rpm (1 rad/s = 9.6 rpm). C is the label for degrees Centigrade (often called Celsius). For those unfamiliar with the system, 0C is the freezing point of water, 100C is the boiling point of water, and steel loses 90% of its strength at 1000C. In Farenheit, those are 32, 212, and 1832 degrees respectively.
"[ROTARYCRAFT/REACTORCRAFT] Can you make it so it can use American units (hp, ft-lb, rpm, and oF)?"
Do you want to try calculating required gearboxes/engines to power a machine that requires 76.384 hp at 8475.2619 rpm, requiring a temperature of 1176.2355 degrees, at a pressure of 14.6908 psi? No, this is never going to happen (and I can assure you from experience that the people who have experienced imperial-unit RC rarely enjoy that version).
"[ROTARYCRAFT] What is with the RF conversion? Weak engines are useless for producing other mods power and powerful engines outmatch anything native to those mods."
The ratios all come from the conversion ratio with ThermalExpanion RF. These are based on the magma crucible's ability to melt stone, knowing that melting a cubic meter of rock takes a specific amount of energy, that being 5.2 megajoules, and that the magma crucible has a set RF cost for this operation. The steep curve is because where most mods scale linearly, RC scales exponentially.
"[ROTARYCRAFT] There is a lot of steel in this mod, and lots of mods use steel already. You should change it."
As my header indicates, I approach RotaryCraft from a realistic perspective - everything, where possible, is made to follow real-world behaviors. The use of steel is no exception. Of all the metals one could realistically have in Minecraft, only steel has sufficient material properties to endure what it is subjected to by my machines. Aluminum, Iron, Tin, Copper, all would fail rather easily. Additionally, steel has specific thermal properties that are essential to the function of some machines.
"[ROTARYCRAFT] Shaft power is too complicated, you should make it electricity/Will you make some machines electrical?"
In short, no.In long, no, no, no, no, no.In very long: To change the power system into electricity is to discard the core of RotaryCraft. It would be akin to asking Pahimar to change EE from using EMC to using chemical reactions - it conveys a total disinterest in the mod as it is. Speaking personally, I take that as a rather large insult, akin to saying "your mod is nice, but my way is better". Also, there are a lot of electrical mods, and many players feel that another one would be rather superfluous.Plus - I do things realistically. Do you really want RotaryCraft to use realistic electrical power, with current loops, magnetic induction, nodal analysis, and electrical phase calculations? You will change your "electricity is simple" position rather rapidly.
"[ELECTRICRAFT] Realistic electricity actually sounds enjoyable, you should do that!"
This is never going to happen. I know from even limited experience that realistic electrical modelling is both extremely unintuitive and difficult to implement. ElectriCraft actually did use a fairly realistic electrical model in the very beginning, and it proved completely unworkable:
Realistic electricity does not behave as one would expect, meaning that from a player's point of view the results of changes to their network or its inputs/outputs can look effectively random. It is entirely possible to have situations like adding additional input power and yet having less output due to things like opposing current loops or unwanted voltage drops.
For similar reasons to the above, it is insanely difficult to debug; if you cannot readily tell whether a given behavior is meant to occur - doing the math by hand is somewhere between tedious and impossible - how can you expect to notice issues in the simulation model?
The amount of math - notably linear algebra - makes realistic electrical modelling far more intensive to compute compared to the current ElectriCraft "RC shaft power but as electricity" model.
ElC is meant to fill a specific functional niche, namely the (fairly) even distribution of RC power among many (usually similar) outputs. Realistic electrical circuits rarely even approach that result.
If you really want to play with realistic electricity, there are mods for that (notably ElectricalAge), though to my knowledge they have little actually gameplay-based content at this time.
"[ROTARYCRAFT] My Blast Furnace is not turning on even with coal in it!"
The coal is not a fuel in the Blast Furnace. It is a carbon source. You need to supply heat in the form of lava or a heater (the latter of which can only be made after you have some steel), and wait for it to reach 600C.
"[ROTARYCRAFT] Ball bearings cannot be crafted!"
Some mod interaction is breaking the shapeless recipe of one HSLA ingot to 4 ball bearings. Some say it is old versions of GregTech.
"[ROTARYCRAFT] My machine doesn't work/turn on/is so slow! Your mod is broken!"
Unlike a lot of other tech mods, the power system in RotaryCraft is trinary, with both torque and speed (and the product of the two, power) being important. Simply giving a machine some power is not enough - almost all machines have a minimum power, and most have either a minimum torque or a minimum speed (or both).You need to forget "traditional" power systems where engines produce energy, and it accumulates in machines until they have enough to work. This is not how RotaryCraft works.Additionally, for most machines, especially ones that perform discrete operations like the grinder, the speed determines the operational speed. 2 rad/s at sufficient torque and power will run the Borer, yes, but it will take over a minute to dig one meter.Furthermore, power and torque are used in a lot of machine to calculate their "abilities" - for example, the amount of excess power (power above minimum "activation" power) increases the range of the heat ray, which starts off at just 8 blocks.Finally, some machines are temperature-sensitive. Some, like Steam Engines and the Blast Furnace, will require a heat source - often lava, fire, or both - or, like the Fermenter, will stop working if they get too hot.
"[ROTARYCRAFT/REACTORCRAFT] I do not like [feature]. Can I disable it?"
Maybe. If there is a config for it, yes. If not, then you cannot and should not try. Due to the mod's internal tech-tree and large amount of self-reliance, taking out machines has cascade effects that may well make more than half the mod unusable. Things like the Borer, Fan and Spawner Controller are crucial (unless you want everything to be ridiculously expensive). Others, like the pump, are required to be able to supply liquids to machines that will not operate without it.Additionally, many machines produce ingredients that are critical for later stages of the mod. Disabling them makes progress impossible.Some machines, however, while not able to be flatly disabled, can have their functionality and/or destructiveness reduced with the configs, potentially alleviating your problem.
"[ROTARYCRAFT] This mod adds so many machines that could be used by griefers/Only add it to a server if you want it destroyed/Can I disable all of the dangerous machines?"
See the answer to the question above.Also, were you planning to take out every machine that starts fires when it gets hot, or explodes when overheated or mistreated? Such a decision would cripple the mod.Additionally, all the destructive machines have either a config to control their block damage or obey standard block permissions. If you enable "Block Damage From Destructive Machines" and do not bother protecting critical areas, that is your perogative and you are responsible for the damage.Finally, and most importantly: RotaryCraft is not a mod that someone can just start and immediately accomplish major things, even if they spawned in the resources. There is a strong learning curve in it, and that is crucial to the issue of griefers: Most griefers are both immature and impatient, and neither of those traits lend to being able or willing to sit down and learn the mechanics of the machines and powertrains. The kind of person who would use the machines to destroy your server are also the kinds of people who would be least likely to be able to understand how to even turn them on, much less maximize their destructive potential.
"[ROTARYCRAFT] OMG this is like Overpowered: The mod. Everything is so easy and the machines can do everything for you without lifting a finger. I bet you could get everything in an hour."
Words spoken by someone who has not tried, and would likely fail horribly once they did. Unless you understand everything about how the power system works, you will find the mod is quite the opposite of "easy" - a quick scan through a lot of the comments can attest to that.If, however, you feel that the mod is overpowered because "players should have to work for everything - automatic anything is too easy", and "It should take days just to accomplish anything", then this is not the mod for you. The mod for you disables diamonds, iron, redstone, boosts mob difficulty, slows your movement speed, triples the spawn rate, and fills ordinary stone with hidden lava in random places.
"[ROTARYCRAFT] What are those red/green boxes I get when placing a machine/how can I tell which side is input and output on the machines?"
When you place a machine, it shows you the input and output sides by rendering colored boxes in the positions where input/output machines would be. Green sides are inputs - a pump, for example, has two green sides, and can receive power on either side. Red sides are outputs - a shaft junction in split mode, for example, writes to two locations, highlighted in red. A shaft in any other position will not receive power.To see the boxes again, just right-click the machine with the Angular Transducer (meter) and they will show up for a few seconds. They will also redisplay themselves if the input and/or output coordinates change, such as by right-clicking a machine with the screwdriver. Only custom-modelled blocks render these highlights; textures on full-block models make the input and output sides fairly clear. Note: Optifine can mess with the rendering of these, and cause them (and many other things) to not appear or to render incorrectly.
"[ROTARYCRAFT] Are you going to add the ability to convert RotaryCraft power into BuildCraft, IC2, ThermalExpansion, etc?"
I have two machines to convert RotaryCraft power into PneumaticCraft power and back (Air Compressor and Pneumatic Engine). I also have two machines to convert to and from IC2 EU power (Generator and Electric Motor). RailCraft power (steam) can also be generated, using the Friction Boiler, or converted to RotaryCraft power with the Steam Turbine. Two machines also exist to convert to and from Redstone Flux (Rotational Dynamo and Magnetostatic Engine). These machines all fetch data from their parent mods, and can not be forcibly enabled. There is also a machine to convert BC fuel into my jet fuel, and one that can convert other fuels and fluids.
