Note: My username on reddit, the FTB forums, and the Minecraft Mod Development discord is lucariomaster2. (Updated May 10, 2018)
Factory Tech is a tech mod, centred around designing intricate automation setups. It adds some of the same machines as other tech mods, but it differs from them in that no machine in Factory Tech requires power. Instead, each machine has a list of parts that it needs to run, which gradually wear out and need replacing. It aims to be as close to a true tech mod as possible, in terms of making the challenge stem from creative engineering instead of resource acquisition.
List of machines:
Machines added:
- River Grate: Slowly generates metal when placed in a river
- Chop Saw: Converts logs into planks more efficiently than normal
- Grindstone: Sharpens parts and tools
- Metal Cutting Machine: Cuts ingots into precise metal parts
- Woodcutter: Chops down trees
- Drill Grinder: Grinds ores to dust to double their output
- Magnetizer: Magnetizes iron ingots
- Electric furnace: Smelts faster than a normal furnace and has a few unique recipes
- Centrifuge: Separates things into their components
- Magnetic Centrifuge: A specialized Centrifuge for extracting iron and nickel
- Crucible: Melts things into liquids
- Potion mixer: Combines potion effects
- Circuit scribe: Etches circuit patterns onto quartz
- Mining machine: Digs a large hole, outputting resources
- Mob disassembler: Kills monsters for more loot than normal
- Fluid drill: Extracts sulphur and propane from the Earth
- Fluid agitator: Vigorously mixes solids and liquids together
- Electroplater: Purifies ore dust, redoubling its output
- Refrigerator: Freezes liquids back into solids
- Compression chamber: Fills portable tanks with compressed fluid
- Propane furnace: Uses propane tanks to smelt extremely quickly
- Tempering Oven: Tempers mechanical parts to make them last longer
- Core charger: Charges energy cores for eventual use
- Stabilization table: Stabilizes charged energy cores to make them safe to use
- Biosynthesis unit: Uses energy cores to spawn mobs
- Mob disruptor: Stops nearby monsters from moving
- Negative ion disperser: Applies positive potion effects to players
- Tesla coil: Zaps any nearby creatures not wearing full chainmail
- Universal Supercharger: Consumes energy cores to double the speed of adjacent machines
To begin playing with Factory Tech, craft a Blueprint Collection, which will explain everything else in the mod.
Factory Tech has a lot of potential for clever setups. Here is a very basic woodcutting factory with manual inputs, but you will find that all of your automation will end up intertwined as parts are produced and deployed to all of your machines.
CraftTweaker guide (Slightly outdated):
River Grate: CraftTweaker can be used to add or remove possible outputs. The syntax is (item, chance) with 0 being never and 1 being always.
mods.factorytech.rivergrate.addRecipe(<minecraft:sand>, 0.1);
How to configure machine part lifetimes:
Machine part configuration happens in factorytech_maintenance.cfg. Each string of numbers separated by colons represents the statistics for a part. For example:
S:motor=motor:6:0.35:1.3:0.95
The first number is the minimum number of operations in a machine that a part can complete. The second number is the chance (between 0 and 1) that the part will break once the minimum operations complete. The third number indicates the break chance increase; once the minimum operations complete, the break chance is multiplied by the increase every operation afterwards. The fourth number indicates the chance that the machine will give back a broken part once the part breaks.
Q: I love this mod! How can I support it?
A: The best way is to let people to know that it exists. If you're a Youtuber, consider doing a spotlight!
Q: Will you add x machine/item/feature?
A: Feel free to suggest things (I don't bite), but I have no obligation to include them. That being said, if it fits in well with the mod, is balanced, and I like it, I may very well add it!
Q: Why do parts only stack to 4 now?
A: So that you can't stockpile a double chest of them and use that as your automation. Set up a proper supply line. It's fun. You know you want to.
Q: I feel like <machine> is unbalanced in its part consumption.
A: Balance is an ongoing challenge in designing the mod. The magic number for part consumption speed is high enough to force the player to automate production and distribution, but low enough that the player isn't using a big chunk of their resources just to keep their industry running. Fortunately, every aspect of part consumption is fully configurable in factorytech_maintenance.cfg.
Q: Your textures/sprites/models/othervisuals suck!
A: Yes, I am well aware of that. I'm a coder, not a pixel artist. However, if you make me some better ones I'll put your name in the mod!
Q: [Feature]/[Mechanic] is so unrealistic!
A: Yes, yes it is. Although this is a more down-to-earth tech mod, I do take creative liberties (e.g. circuit crafting) where I deem necessary. On the specific topic of machines not using power, Factory Tech is balanced differently. Instead of needing to hook up a wall of machines to a Big Reactor (tm), you keep them supplied with the parts they need. Making machines require both parts and power would be too cumbersome since you would have to hook up both a power line and a part supply line.
Q: Everything has too many steps to make! This is worse than GregTech!
A: Set up automation. That's the whole point.
Q: Why would I use this thing instead of Thermal Expansion which does everything this does but is easier?
A: Why would you use Thermal Expansion instead of this mod which does most things TE does but is more challenging? Different strokes for different folks; this mod is designed for people who like engineering.
Q: Why do you have 3 different internet usernames?
A: "lucariomaster2" comes from circa 2009 when I first registered my MC username. I was young and foolish, a big Pokemon fan (that has not changed), and "lucariomaster" was taken. It's since become my go-to username for sites since it's always available. "ProfessorLucario" is my new, much-less-cringeworthy MC username that also reflects my skin. "dalapo", my GitHub name, was chosen since in the future having a Pokemon-related username might not be the best idea.
Q: What software do you use for modding?
A: I write code using Eclipse, and then I use GIMP for making textures and Blender for modeling.
Known issues:
- Many machines do not have animations (Planned)
- Many of my textures, especially for the decorative blocks, are fairly ugly (Planned)
- Balance may be out of whack (Ongoing)
A note on Modern Skyblock 3:
Modern Skyblock 3 is the most popular modpack that contains Factory Tech; thus, for many people it is their first experience. However, the way it was implemented into the pack encourages players to simply grind out every machine in order to unlock other processing options, after which it is never touched again. This is the exact playstyle that Factory Tech is designed to counter, and thus I feel like it was implemented very poorly. Thus, if your only experience with it is from MSB3, I highly encourage you to try it out standalone or in a more automation-focused pack.
Hi! Pretty weird question: Why do you use noise in various GUIs? I don't think that it's really needed.
(I am developing a dark theme mod, and your guis look horribly off with it, hence I need to do a lot of work to include all those noised colors)
I am talking abot THIS
Edit: After spending an hour, I managed to get all noised pixels to the list as an alias to the default colors. Result:
But please.... please do something about that, noise in guis is not normal :/
In reply to Zeitheron:
The GUI noise is there because I like it, and will not be going away, Sorry! But I would be willing to help you with your mod if you wanted and are willing to link me to the code. :)
EDIT: It's not supposed to be nearly as severe as in your first picture; it's meant to look something like this. (Assuming that was the result of your mod, though)
In reply to
ProfLucario:
The first picture is the default look of your guis with my mod, without any fixes. I did write it, and tell you what: noise is horrible to fix. Thanks for the help offer, but I am a lonewolf.
Also, this noising creates large png files and can look unusual for some color-blind people (relative to vanilla guis).
I created a poll on my server to see who preffers noised guis over flat (I'll report about that a day or two later (or you can keep track on my discord server in news channel), as of now, 6 prefer flat, 0 - noised
(click to open)).
If you wanted your original gui design, you should've made completely different style in the first place, not just the noise. Vanilla style is not noised for some reason... Going for "I like it" in this case is just not enough...
This noising also leaves me with unfixable color mismatches while darkening the texture. The reason for that is... Overlapping noised colors!
I'd love you to do your own poll and see who likes noised better. Wonder what your community thinks about this topic.
Last thing I'm questioning is.... WHY in the world some textures are noised and some are not? If you "like it", then why didn't you noise everything? :/
Is there a config option to give the player the Blueprint Collection on first login/world start? I’m thinking about putting together a modpack and using Factory Tech as the primary tech mod. It’d be nice to have the player automatically start with the book so they’ll know how to get started.
In reply to sonicspeedster16:
You can do this with the Initial Inventory mod, which lets you customize the inventory (including with items added by mods) that players start with upon creating a new world.
In reply to Dimentive:
I’ll check that out. Thanks!
Might I suggest an optional cross-mod tie-in with Mystical Mechanics API of some kind? Perhaps requiring mechanical power to run certain machines if they are both installed?
In reply to donovankai:
Is Mystical Mechanics very widespread? This is the first I'm hearing of it, and I'm iffy on adding cross-mod compatibility with more obscure mods.
In reply to ProfessorLucario:
It was originally code that wasn't being used inside of Embers. Once Embers passed to a new dev, it was sectioned out into its own mod and provides a mechanical power api without other bloat.
Embers Rekindled has optional compat for it already and there is an addon for it called Mystical Gears which allows compatibility with many other modded gears and a few other bits and pieces such as: a mechanical powered RF generator as well as tie-ins for Botania and Thaumcraft.
The only other mod I know of off the top of my head with a mechanical power system is Better With Mods but it comes with so many other changes it is hard to justify it's use depending on the theme you are going for in a modpack.
How do i generate energy from ye mod?
In reply to Raze_soldier12:
There are a couple of blocks that generate RF from batteries and energy cores.
In reply to ProfessorLucario:
oke
I'm getting into this mod and so far it's a nice breath of fresh air.
Is GitLab the best place to report bugs?
What about feedback?
In reply to JMNielly:
Yes, GitLab is the best place to report bugs. Feedback can be done here. Thanks!
In reply to ProfessorLucario:
The idea of refurbishable parts instead of fuel is brilliant and makes for really interesting automation.
Sadly I'm currently blocked by a few issues with the automation components (most notably, the pulse piston is currently broken on my server setup, detailed on GitLab).
I'm imagining that the expected way to keep a machine filled with multiple parts would be to flow all of the parts past it on a transport roller and have a pulse piston push the compatible ones into an insertion hatch?
is it compatible with texture packs ?
In reply to isphinxrealone:
Right now there are no texture packs that support Factory Tech, but you can of course use it with a texture pack and have it look the same.
do i need a good pc for this? i got i7 3540, 4GB Ram, Intel Integrated Graphics card (4000)
In reply to supdeity:
If you're talking about only Factory Tech, that should be fine. That wouldn't be able to run a modpack, though, especially with only integrated graphics.
In reply to ProfessorLucario:
I'm currently using a custom modpack I made with about 30 mods on a much lesser system, celeron n2830, 4gb ram, and intel graphics. Keeping things from all within the same few chunks is a must, but it can be done. :)