Project Gear 1.3.0 Prelimary Changelog:
The Great Decluttering:
Project Gear has existed for over two years now. Every major update seems to complete two tasks and create two more. This hydra of a content cycle needs to be slain if we ever want to release this pack.
To kick development back into high gear, I want to start a new project: The Great Decluttering.
The goal is simple. I want to remove content that doesn't add to the core experience, especially if that content is only half done or needs some tweaking. Until this project is complete, I will not be adding any new features to the pack.
Major mods and features getting removed:
- Finite water:
There are very few engaging ways to automate water. This mod turned out to be more of an early game annoyance than a real automation puzzle.
- Nuclearcraft:
Unfortunately this mod's progression is not a fit for the pack. It has a strong reliance on magic blocks.
Designing reactors is fun, but that's a small part of the mod.
Getting the mod to work well with the pack would require an enormous amount of machine recipe changes.
- Mystcraft:
Custom Mystcraft ages accessible via custom portals is something I've dreamed of adding to a modpack since I saw the Forgecraft crew play with the mod back in Minecraft 1.6.4.
Project Gear is not that pack. Mystcraft is an adventure-focused mod, and Project Gear is all about automation.
Getting this just the way I wanted would require hours and hours of creating custom Mystcraft ages, setting up custom portals, balancing Mystcraft to avoid OP ore ages, and so many other little tweaks.
- Practical Logistics 2:
This mod is cool on paper, but I can't find any documentation for it aside from an out of date Youtube video. I doubt many will touch the mod.
- ProdigyTech:
This mod is not a good fit for the pack. It tends to encourage boring machine walls. The heat mechanic is interesting on the surface, but trivial to work around in practice.
- Steel Production:
The old steel production chain was fun to automate, but gating steel behind something so convoluted isn't in the spirit of the pack.
Nothing in the pack requires more than a few stacks of steel, so there's no reason to actually automate it. Instead it was a do-one-and-forget process.
This also caused some problems early on, such as gating early game Immersive Engineering behind a fairly late game factory.
Instead, I will be adapting this into a 5x ore processing chain. The old fashioned Immersive Engineering steel route is currently enabled.
There may be a less complex custom steel processing chain at some point, but not today.
Mod changes:
-Updated several dozen mods
Removed mods:
-Mystcraft
-Myst Lib
-RandomPortals
-WaterControlExtreme
-Nuclearcraft
-Practical Logistics 2
-Sonar Core
-Automated Redstone - Dropped in favor of Redstone Control
-Waila Harvestability - WAILA hasn't been in the pack for ages
+RedstonePlusPlus - The block rotator has potential
+Stone Catalysts - Makes stones like marble and slate renewable with custom cobble generators
+Item Filters - Powerful item filters
+Redstone Control - A better version of Redstone Control
+Condition Overload - Should encourage some interesting Tinkers' weapon builds
+Chisels and Bits - Inferior to Little Tiles, but it's more well known
+Extra Bit Manipulation - Important C&B addon
+Cosmetic Armor Reworked - I want to see some neat Chisels and Bits armor
+Growthcraft Community Edition - Looks like a perfect fit for the pack
+Waystones - Now that Mystcraft has been removed, we need another early game teleporter.
+Aroma1997's Mining Dimension - Replacement for the Mystcraft mining age
+Simple Void World - Replacement for the Mystcraft void age
+Forgiving Void - A nice quality of life mod for void worlds
Bounty changes:
-Removed the Redstone loot bag as it wasn't very useful
-Removed the compressed sawdust bounty task as it was boring to automate
-Removed ProdigyTech items from bounties as this mod was removed
-Removed Forestry items from bounties as this mod may be removed in the near future
-Added new bounties: Lavawood, necrotic bone, snow block, monster jerky, ectoplasm
-Added a handful of redstone components to the machine loot bag
-Added Waystones' warp stone to explorer bag
Script and Config changes:
-Stone Catalysts can now create quarried stone, abyssal stone, red rock, crag rock and slate
-Tweaked MJ-RF energy convertion ratio of Energy Converters slightly
-Updated some loading screen tips
-Enabled Quark clay generation
-Enabled Quark fairy rings
-Scannable can now detect Magneticraft oil wells with the rare ore upgrade
-Updated the Universal Guide and Omniwrench to include some of the new mods, and remove some old ones
-Quark cave crystals now generate as semi-rare stalactites on the tops of caves