Just in case other people are reading this thread, I also want to say a big thank you to those considerate members who volunteered to use dissipation charges on their rainmakers over the last few days. I know I'm not the only one who appreciated the respite, and I'll be building one when I have a chance to try and pay it forward.
It depends on one's personality, either if they are doing it for the grief of others, or doing it for their personal needs. I understand what you are getting at. If you use your weather altering machine in the morning, with 3-4 people on, it won't effect everyone else later in the day.
Set the rain maker to uncraftable then build a community weather control station. Players have to supply dissipation/iodine charges and the unit can only be activated once per x time frame. If it's computer controlled you could add additional stuff like allowing dissipation more frequently during day and iodine more frequently at night. I do agree that there needs to be a balance. Some gameplay aspects rely on rainfall and others rely on sunshine and clear skies. At the end of the day though, one of the key aspects of a multiplayer server is that you don't get total control.
I wouldn't mind having this put into effect since it's a pretty good idea that takes into consideration both sides, as long as it can be properly implemented. I just wonder if there'd be anyway to automate the dissipation in case of someone forgetting to disable it.
It wouldn't run automatically. Players would have to manually activate it. Even if they supplied multiple charges, it would only use one per activation. It just regulates how frequently players can use the rainmaker to change the weather.
I meant if someone turns it on, and they just forget about it; does the machine itself only work for a certain period of time per Iodine Capsule used or does it run indefinitely until a Dissipation Charge is used? Then with the latter would there be a way to automatically shut it off after a period of time, if someone did happen to forget to use a Dissipation Charge.
I know that there are bees with a lightning effect but are there bees that will actually enable or disable rain? Panda13ear, the forestry rainmaker machine is a single shot. You right click it with a dissipation or iodine charge and about 10 seconds later the rain either switches on or off. It doesn't make the rain stay on or off for any given period of time. What other systems are there in game for players to alter the weather?
i say just add a 30 minute time mark, weather can only be on for 30 minutes at a time, with at least 40 minutes with out weather as a cooldown, everything would then stay as is exept for the limit and cooldown
You're pretty much reiterating what other people have suggested already, in addition to that, I think that InfiniteAlpha's suggestion about a public rain machine works better in the long run. Since it would be easier to regulate than with however many people having their own rain machines.
Why not just go back to the way weather was configured before, permanent sunshine? I really don't see the benefit of having rain at all on the server, all rain really does for anyone is causing FPS drops and slows power generation. Well that's just my opinion, unless there is a use for rain.
- rainwater tanks (pointless) - windmills generate higher power (require maintenance, can break, mostly good for show) - some bees only breed in a storm? (@herbie will probably know for sure) Not sure about any others? I think there's some Thaum stuff that is buffed by a storm, but I don't know if it's required. I'd be interested in building some kind of shared weather manipulation machine just outside of spawn with reasonable shared min/max timeframes for how much it can be used, unfortunately I can't find a mechanism that is capable of activating the rainmaker (all the suggestions I found through Google were a bust).
What about lightning rods...? Also I personally think solar panels are over powered. Having them generate less during storms helps to balance game play. One benefit of having a rainmaker versus just using server side software is that in a system where the players who want to use the community rainmaker have to supply their own charges, you effectively create a market for charges. As for automation, I believe the charges can just be piped into the rainmaker with buildcraft pipes. I'm pretty certain Etho made an automatic system in one of his Mindcrack FTB lets play videos.
1. Sorry yes, lightning rods too. I have mixed feelings about the high-end stuff, because it seems like to get there you probably need a whole bunch of other infrastructure first so that you won't miss the loss as much as people still scraping by will. But I agree that's worth considering. 2. I tried Buildcraft pipes, Pneumatic pipes and a Deployer and none of them seemed to be acceptable to the rainmaker. However if there's actual video footage I'll see if I can find it and work out if the bug was PBKAC. 3. OP vs not OP. I find this discussion interesting because in my mind Minecraft is primarily a building game, not a grinding game. As such, anything I can build to reduce the time I need to grind will then give me more time to build more stuff. So replacing all my lava pumps with ultisolars doesn't reduce the game for me, it opens it up to having time to do things like base building and bee breeding. I understand that different people feel differently though (hence GregTech), so YMMV. *shrug* I do agree it seems a tiny bit silly they still generate so much at night though.
Thanks! Interesting, I tried BC pipes and it popped out but perhaps the redstone signal affects the rainmaker or perhaps the extra transport pipe I used messed it up (or perhaps it was a res flag). Now that I've got a working model to iterate from I'll try again next time I'm online.
Success! Turns out it was the res flag +use that was stopping my previous attempts from working. I have a working prototype at res "norain", though I still have to work out how to program a computer to enforce time limits on usage (specifically holding timestamps between chunk unloads will probably need some os.file malarky).
Hopefully you can remake it with the new mod pack, if you're going to be playing on that after the reset, if there are all the required mods in the FTB unleashed pack to make it, that is. It'd be a bummer if one needed component wasn't in it :s
I haven't been able to find a side-by-side between the old version and the new version, only side-by-side of all the old versions or all the new versions. Google search reveals a lot of crappy forum posts, so if you have a direct link to a side-by-side between Ultimate and Unleashed I'd appreciate that. So far I'm aware that GregTech (hooray!) and Power Converters (nooo!) will be missing, but BC + ComputerCraft + Forestry + Thaumcraft I believe are all there. So far at /res norain I've got: - warded glass + warded stone + warded door to prevent messing with the mechanism - chests for I/O to the device - wooden pipe, golden pipe, diamond pipe + autarchic gate - rainmaker - trade-o-mats + personal safe [for people to buy charges if necessary] I want to add: - computer + big monitor - insulated wire* + extra gate * = I need a control signal going PC->inputPipe and a triggering signal going rainmakerPipe->PC. I'm pretty sure I can do this with regular redstone drops but coloured wires/cables are so much easier to use. I understand that RedPower probably isn't in the next pack, but also that people were talking about some kind of replacement for it's basic blocks. Hopefully a good wire/cable solution is a part of that, otherwise it'll just have to be ugly. Having said that, I believe the new server is still pretty far off, right? I would imagine that even if the server is stable it'll still be wise to put off the great switch-over until a time when >= N mods+admins have enough spare time to deal with whatever goes wrong when we all pile on. Maybe some big holiday party with free nukes for everyone...
Oh damn, Xycraft too? But I love my super-fast fabricators. I also love using Wireless Redstone on my own maps, but I've found it unreliable on the current server. It's also partially replaceable with ComputerCraft wireless and (worst comes to worst) 1-item enderchests.
