I agree and disagree. Automation is the root cause and its partially due to how easy it is to automate things. However, even if you had to build all the machines yourself out of pieces (like RedPower), you still have the issue of automation granting you virtually infinite resources. A solution to that would be to require limited resources (ala fuel) to operate machines at reasonable speeds. Have infinite fuels as well, but have them power machines at a prohibitively slow speeds. This removes machines ability to operate at reasonable speeds without cost, while still allowing machines to work if you run low (abiat at a snail's pace).
I don't think -everything- should be automated. And I don't think in a system where you have to design machines yourself things can be automated you can automate everything(You can't make a machine that mines diamonds for you, for example, because that would require a machine that moved)
I like to build things that automate tasks, it's one of my favorite things to do in minecraft. Almost all practical redstone machines are built to automate things. Making a successful base in the game involves automating things to some extent. I think with minecraft's current tree, automating your world to some extent is the ultimate goal.
Some of the automation, such as auto crafting tables and quarries especially can be a bit op, but there are also mods that automate the more tedious aspects of minecraft, such as the red power sorting machines.
In tekkit this is balanced out by the extremely high cost of Equivalent exchange items, like klein stars, so even if you get lucky and find diamonds, there is so much you still cannot do. This is another way of getting around people skipping parts of a tech tree
My biggest issue is with Vanilla Minecraft. I know that a lot of peope get a lot of satisfaction out of building cool villages, castles and such. For me, I got bored of doing that a long time ago.
When I discovered mods many moons ago it got me back into Minecraft and I spent a lot more time actually playing it. That being said, I agree that with so much automation you hit a wall where everything is being done around you and you're standing there watching it.
I think a good next step would be to invent mods that use the massive piles of resources you accumulate and do something with them.
My worlds usually end all the same way. I build all these crazy machines that do lots of stuff for me and then I have nothing to do.
My biggest issue is with Vanilla Minecraft. I know that a lot of peope get a lot of satisfaction out of building cool villages, castles and such. For me, I got bored of doing that a long time ago.
When I discovered mods many moons ago it got me back into Minecraft and I spent a lot more time actually playing it. That being said, I agree that with so much automation you hit a wall where everything is being done around you and you're standing there watching it.
I think a good next step would be to invent mods that use the massive piles of resources you accumulate and do something with them.
My worlds usually end all the same way. I build all these crazy machines that do lots of stuff for me and then I have nothing to do.
Or just stop automation from gathering infinite resources at super speeds. That'd also fixes the problem.
I slightly agree with everybody. We shouldn't make minecraft take longer to gather things, or take a long time to automate. We should make it take a fairly quick amount of time, but be more challenging. More monsters, random explosions from poorly constructed mechanisms, natural disasters etc..
Or just stop automation from gathering infinite resources at super speeds. That'd also fixes the problem.
This is true. The one thing I find very OP and you can get it very early is the mining turtle from computercraft. The hardest part is getting the 3 diamonds for the pick. Someone could get lucky and find diamonds in a cave and have a quarry going before they even construct a house. At least with the buildcraft quarry it takes a bit of work to get it all going properly. That being said, I love what dan200 and his team have done with computercraft and it adds a lot of excellent functionality.
I'm all for putting the mine back in minecraft. I just want something to do with what I mine afterwards. Right now the options seem to be "mine more and faster".
If I was an english teacher I would say this is your thesis statement. "They make resources pointless, they trivialize their OWN balancing mechanics, and sometimes they make even the player him/herself pointless." You really need to back up statements like those with specifics to construct a valid argument. You mention only 1 mod in all of this, a mod that isn't even version 1.3.2 yet(redpower). So this thread is hardly about "The CURRENT STATE OF MODDING.
If you made all those statements about just equivalent exchange I would have probably agreed with you.
If I was an english teacher I would say this is your thesis statement. "They make resources pointless, they trivialize their OWN balancing mechanics, and sometimes they make even the player him/herself pointless." You really need to back up statements like those with specifics to construct a valid argument. You mention only 1 mod in all of this, a mod that isn't even version 1.3.2 yet(redpower). So this thread is hardly about "The CURRENT STATE OF MODDING.
If you made all those statements about just equivalent exchange I would have probably agreed with you.
I'm not just talking about RedPower, I use it as an example because it is a very popular automation mod. However, if you want me to I can apply the same issues to BuildCraft, ComputerCraft, PowerCraft, etc. The issues is that automation mods short~cut the balance of mods they are used along~side with...
Play ThaumCraft / IndustrialCraft, without automation. See how long it takes you to achieve everything. Then go ahead and play ThaumCraft / IndustrialCraft with ComputerCraft / BuildCraft / PowerCraft / RedPower / etc. and see how long it takes. If you have a remotely good handle on the systems, you're able to abuse automation to remove the point of mechanics that are clearly designed to extend gameplay. Essentially the automation acts like a using a cheat or bot in other games.
The funny thing is that cheats / bots are considered negative things in most game communities...yet in the Minecraft community, people are defending the behavior and even fighting against said content being balanced. It really seems silly to me....
Edit:
I'm all for automation as a tool that helps you save time, as long as it has a continual cost that represents the time you save. I'm against automation as a tool with no drawbacks that is used for every case in every server I've played with it on.
tldr; Automation as a tool = Great. Automation as a cheat = Overpowered.
I'm not just talking about RedPower, I use it as an example because it is a very popular automation mod. However, if you want me to I can apply the same issues to BuildCraft, ComputerCraft, PowerCraft, etc. The issues is that automation mods short~cut the balance of mods they are used along~side with...
Play ThaumCraft / IndustrialCraft, without automation. See how long it takes you to achieve everything. Then go ahead and play ThaumCraft / IndustrialCraft with ComputerCraft / BuildCraft / PowerCraft / RedPower / etc. and see how long it takes. If you have a remotely good handle on the systems, you're able to abuse automation to remove the point of mechanics that are clearly designed to extend gameplay. Essentially the automation acts like a using a cheat or bot in other games.
The funny thing is that cheats / bots are considered negative things in most game communities...yet in the Minecraft community, people are defending the behavior and even fighting against said content being balanced. It really seems silly to me....
Edit:
I'm all for automation as a tool that helps you save time, as long as it has a continual cost that represents the time you save. I'm against automation as a tool with no drawbacks that is used for every case in every server I've played with it on.
tldr; Automation as a tool = Great. Automation as a cheat = Overpowered.
Seems legit. I'm slightly more on your side with the argument you just issued. We should keep automation, but it should not skip past too many gameplay mechanics.
I'm not just talking about RedPower, I use it as an example because it is a very popular automation mod. However, if you want me to I can apply the same issues to BuildCraft, ComputerCraft, PowerCraft, etc. The issues is that automation mods short~cut the balance of mods they are used along~side with...
Play ThaumCraft / IndustrialCraft, without automation. See how long it takes you to achieve everything. Then go ahead and play ThaumCraft / IndustrialCraft with ComputerCraft / BuildCraft / PowerCraft / RedPower / etc. and see how long it takes. If you have a remotely good handle on the systems, you're able to abuse automation to remove the point of mechanics that are clearly designed to extend gameplay. Essentially the automation acts like a using a cheat or bot in other games.
The funny thing is that cheats / bots are considered negative things in most game communities...yet in the Minecraft community, people are defending the behavior and even fighting against said content being balanced. It really seems silly to me....
Edit:
I'm all for automation as a tool that helps you save time, as long as it has a continual cost that represents the time you save. I'm against automation as a tool with no drawbacks that is used for every case in every server I've played with it on.
tldr; Automation as a tool = Great. Automation as a cheat = Overpowered.
With IC2 on its own, I can have a nuclear reactor feeding a mass fabricator, and be making UU matter, within a day or two realtime (including breaks and sleep time). I just have to focus on the specific resource/crafting paths necessary for it that, skipping everything that doesn't get me to my goal. In my current world, in fact, I have a mass fab in the Nether running off geothermal generators and no scrap, and I don't even have a quarry machine yet, Buildcraft or otherwise! I had the mass fab before I even had my sorting system in place! If I had a chunkloader in the Nether and spent more time farming blaze rods and nether wart, I'd probably have enough UU matter to start making entire machines using pink goo and automatic crafting tables.
You have to specify what a "cheat" is. Am I cheating by focusing my gameplay on a single goal above all others? Is the mod cheating by offering that goal? It appears, Ecu, that you are defining a "cheat" as something that provides benefit without cost or effort. That makes sense, except, I guess we can't have cobblestone generators anymore, everyone must now install a finite water mod, and no more charcoal! There are mechanics in the vanilla game that provide materials without substantial cost, and even the effort of harvesting them is generally minimal. Eventually, players who keep digging get so rich that they can afford to just dump diamonds into lava pools. The whole game is visibly intended to be about supporting your creativity, but a lot of people ignore that because their energy is mostly focused on certain kinds of activities that otherwise interest them. These activities include building automated systems with vanilla mechanics!
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"I dunno, ZK, that sounds pretty awesome..." "Well then, let's get awesome!"
So, the guy above me is saying it was stupid for people to stay in the stone age so long, they could have just ignored everything that didn't help them out of the stone age like pointless food, water, exercise. Hes basically saying this stuff was unnecessary.
With IC2 on its own, I can have a nuclear reactor feeding a mass fabricator, and be making UU matter, within a day or two realtime (including breaks and sleep time). I just have to focus on the specific resource/crafting paths necessary for it that, skipping everything that doesn't get me to my goal. In my current world, in fact, I have a mass fab in the Nether running off geothermal generators and no scrap, and I don't even have a quarry machine yet, Buildcraft or otherwise! I had the mass fab before I even had my sorting system in place! If I had a chunkloader in the Nether and spent more time farming blaze rods and nether wart, I'd probably have enough UU matter to start making entire machines using pink goo and automatic crafting tables.
You have to specify what a "cheat" is. Am I cheating by focusing my gameplay on a single goal above all others? Is the mod cheating by offering that goal? It appears, Ecu, that you are defining a "cheat" as something that provides benefit without cost or effort. That makes sense, except, I guess we can't have cobblestone generators anymore, everyone must now install a finite water mod, and no more charcoal! There are mechanics in the vanilla game that provide materials without substantial cost, and even the effort of harvesting them is generally minimal. Eventually, players who keep digging get so rich that they can afford to just dump diamonds into lava pools. The whole game is visibly intended to be about supporting your creativity, but a lot of people ignore that because their energy is mostly focused on certain kinds of activities that otherwise interest them. These activities include building automated systems with vanilla mechanics!
You explained exactly what I was saying, which was the overpowered nature of BuildCraft applied to IndustrialCraft. Without BuildCraft, you would be constantly running between recyclers trying to keep your mass fabricator full. The resources you use for recycling would all be hand~mined, and you wouldn't be using geothermals in the nether as you'd have to bucket each bucket of lava yourself.
Could you perhaps have a nuclear reactor feeding a mass fabricator within 48 hours legitimately? Sure. Would it be producing endless power and generating infinite matter? Nope. You'd burn through your uranium and need to be constantly mining and managing the recyclers to keep it going, essentially 'maintaining' your machine.
Yes, even in vanilla people do focus on automation. However, in vanilla automation there is nothing that mines for you and nothing that puts items into a chest or device for you. This means that any automation you do, still requires player interaction to actually benefit from (aka a player time sink). Is it enough of a player time sink? Possibly, given the benefit of such machines usually is exp or large amounts of mod items, that generally don't cover expensive item costs.
tldr; Current automation = cheating, Balanced automation = tool.
I've been thinking much the same thing myself. Automation is cool and all, but whenever I play with these mods all I am really doing with the automatino provided is building more expensive automated systems until I reach the top of the tech tree and lose interest. So far the best idea I've come up with is to replace magical machine automation with a proper factory system, employing Testificates.
Give them ongoing needs and demands to keep them happy and productive and charge the player with expanding their village and defending them against zombie invasions. To create additional demand for materials like diamond and iron, maybe have machines require occasional repairing like manual tools.
This also means that when local resources are inevitably depleted, it takes considerable effort to relocate, since you can't just haul a few machine blocks somewhere new; you need to bring your workforce along and set up a new place for them to live. Basically plot the progression path into an ultra-light version of Dwarf Fortress' fortress mode.
So, the guy above me is saying it was stupid for people to stay in the stone age so long, they could have just ignored everything that didn't help them out of the stone age like pointless food, water, exercise. Hes basically saying this stuff was unnecessary.
False equivalency and a strawman; how does basic survival not get me to my goal?
I've been thinking much the same thing myself. Automation is cool and all, but whenever I play with these mods all I am really doing with the automation provided is building more expensive automated systems until I reach the top of the tech tree and lose interest. So far the best idea I've come up with is to replace magical machine automation with a proper factory system, employing Testificates.
Give them ongoing needs and demands to keep them happy and productive and charge the player with expanding their village and defending them against zombie invasions. To create additional demand for materials like diamond and iron, maybe have machines require occasional repairing like manual tools.
This also means that when local resources are inevitably depleted, it takes considerable effort to relocate, since you can't just haul a few machine blocks somewhere new; you need to bring your workforce along and set up a new place for them to live. Basically plot the progression path into an ultra-light version of Dwarf Fortress' fortress mode.
I really like this idea, that testificates now become factory workers. This adds a whole new dimension to automation; suddenly you have a workforce to house, feed, entertain, and protect instead of just burying your fully-automatic factory in an obsidian casing or something like that. I'd try out a mod like this.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"I dunno, ZK, that sounds pretty awesome..." "Well then, let's get awesome!"
I don't think -everything- should be automated. And I don't think in a system where you have to design machines yourself things can be automated you can automate everything(You can't make a machine that mines diamonds for you, for example, because that would require a machine that moved)
I like to build things that automate tasks, it's one of my favorite things to do in minecraft. Almost all practical redstone machines are built to automate things. Making a successful base in the game involves automating things to some extent. I think with minecraft's current tree, automating your world to some extent is the ultimate goal.
The question has always come down to...
1) How automated can you make it.
2) How long does that take to get to.
The answer to those 2 question, is the answer for how long you will likely remain interested in playing.
Mods are ultimately about either on of those 2 things, or about just squeezing more things into the world "ie new maps/monsters"
The question has always come down to...
1) How automated can you make it.
2) How long does that take to get to.
The answer to those 2 question, is the answer for how long you will likely remain interested in playing.
Mods are ultimately about either on of those 2 things, or about just squeezing more things into the world "ie new maps/monsters"
I'm making mods to increase '2'
Building the Super Auto Everything-Making Rube Goldberg Machine might be fun and/or interesting the first couple of times, but then people stop making them and focus on the parts of a mod that are actually useful. You can't have every rivet and screw modeled into a device and call it fun because it took six weeks to build. Time spent is not equal to quality of gameplay! The Gravity Suit addon for IC2 is an example of "just complex enough" for me. Iridium takes a lot of time and energy to get, but ultimately it's only one component of the build, and every component makes sense. But it's all about the goal of having accomplished something: you get to fly, and you built it yourself instead of having an admin examine something unrelated (like a castle) to see if it fits their personal idea of what constitutes an "impressive build".
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"I dunno, ZK, that sounds pretty awesome..." "Well then, let's get awesome!"
The question has always come down to...
1) How automated can you make it.
2) How long does that take to get to.
The answer to those 2 question, is the answer for how long you will likely remain interested in playing.
Mods are ultimately about either on of those 2 things, or about just squeezing more things into the world "ie new maps/monsters"
I'm making mods to increase '2'
I think focusing on number two isn't the best option as taking longer to build yourself into creative mode doesn't change the fact that you've built yourself into creative mode. Minecraft is a sanbox game, and as such.. doesn't end when you beat the Dragon. This means that extending the time it takes to get to fully automated doesn't balance having that full automation.
Building the Super Auto Everything-Making Rube Goldberg Machine might be fun and/or interesting the first couple of times, but then people stop making them and focus on the parts of a mod that are actually useful. You can't have every rivet and screw modeled into a device and call it fun because it took six weeks to build. Time spent is not equal to quality of gameplay! The Gravity Suit addon for IC2 is an example of "just complex enough" for me. Iridium takes a lot of time and energy to get, but ultimately it's only one component of the build, and every component makes sense. But it's all about the goal of having accomplished something: you get to fly, and you built it yourself instead of having an admin examine something unrelated (like a castle) to see if it fits their personal idea of what constitutes an "impressive build".
As I commented to the above poster, just because it takes you awhile to get to doesn't make it balanced. If the eventual power you gain throws everything out of balance after that, it's still overpowered. So I think this route is the wrong way to go.
I've been continually thinking about the issue of automation and have come to a very simple understanding. Fuel is the main thing needed to balance automation. Currently, its very simple to make endless amounts of power for all the mods that have automation. Requiring a large amount of power to run automation makes sense as well, you sacrifice power (one resource) for the ability to do things automatically.
This actually mirrors reality as well as large factories consume a large amount of power that does actually take from their bottom line. This would also eliminate the ability to automate everything. Because a tree farm wouldn't produce more charcoal then it takes to run it, a quarry might get lucky and mine a bunch of coal, but not enough to actually power it to bedrock, etc. Essentially the player would be required to act as the manager of all the energy resources, devoting energy to where it's needed at a given time and gathering resources needed to create said power.
It's actually interesting that this topic came up, because it touches on a mod idea I've had for a while, but haven't gotten around to developing yet. The purpose of the mod would be to configure existing content in other mods to work together in a balanced way and to provide a reason for using mod content that would be OP in vanilla. The basic concepts of the mod are as follows:
1. Why do you need beefier items and automation? Because the world is more dangerous.
Tougher mobs that could see a player from 50 blocks away through walls and then dig through those walls to get to the player would necessitate the more powerful tools provided in most mods. Since most of those tools are more expensive than the vanilla equivalents, the player would need the resource-gathering and automation content from those mods to get the items they needed quickly enough to stay alive.
2. Make mob difficulty scale with player technology.
Players would need to build bigger and better tools because mobs would get tougher over time. My current idea of how to accomplish this (though not my only idea) uses content from the old Better Dungeons and Siegecraft mods: over time, more numerous and difficult mobs with increased ability to break down player defenses would spawn, and the difficulty would scale faster than the player's power level. The only way to "reset" this difficulty factor would be to hunt down a dungeon (from Better Dungeons) and kill the boss. Then, over time the difficulty factor would start to rise again, the player would need to hunt out a harder dungeon, and so on. Edit: obviously, this idea is for SSP and LAN play only.
3. Enact hard limits on the power curve.
Currently, a smart player can get themselves to the endgame of the Tekkit family of mods in one sitting, and even non-expert players often skip intermediate stages of mods (e.g. why build steam engines? Electric engines powered by solar panels are easier.) For this idea to work, players should be forced to stop through the intermediate stages of each mod before proceeding to the next stage. My idea for accomplishing this is twofold: first, establish a tech tree, and second, create more intermediate stages of items. With the tech tree, not all recipes would be available to a player initially. Instead, they would have to unlock them (not sure how yet) over time, and progressing further in the Buildcraft tech tree (for example) would limit their access to advanced IC technology. This would also be an easy way of fixing broken combos created by interactions between mods. To flesh out this tech tree, more intermediate stages of items would be required. Perhaps the player has to build a 3x3 quarry that can only mine 20 blocks deep before they build the full-size one. Maybe there's a nerf'd version of nano armor that doesn't hold a charge as well, so it's only good for 30 seconds of invincibility. You get the idea.
This idea's been on the back burner for me for a while, but since it seems like there's community interest, I'd be willing to develop it further if I could get some help (though I do want to wait for the modding API to start with actual coding. Luckily, there's lots of work to be done beforehand.) If you're interested, send me a message.
I don't think -everything- should be automated. And I don't think in a system where you have to design machines yourself things can be automated you can automate everything(You can't make a machine that mines diamonds for you, for example, because that would require a machine that moved)
I like to build things that automate tasks, it's one of my favorite things to do in minecraft. Almost all practical redstone machines are built to automate things. Making a successful base in the game involves automating things to some extent. I think with minecraft's current tree, automating your world to some extent is the ultimate goal.
In tekkit this is balanced out by the extremely high cost of Equivalent exchange items, like klein stars, so even if you get lucky and find diamonds, there is so much you still cannot do. This is another way of getting around people skipping parts of a tech tree
When I discovered mods many moons ago it got me back into Minecraft and I spent a lot more time actually playing it. That being said, I agree that with so much automation you hit a wall where everything is being done around you and you're standing there watching it.
I think a good next step would be to invent mods that use the massive piles of resources you accumulate and do something with them.
My worlds usually end all the same way. I build all these crazy machines that do lots of stuff for me and then I have nothing to do.
Or just stop automation from gathering infinite resources at super speeds. That'd also fixes the problem.
This is true. The one thing I find very OP and you can get it very early is the mining turtle from computercraft. The hardest part is getting the 3 diamonds for the pick. Someone could get lucky and find diamonds in a cave and have a quarry going before they even construct a house. At least with the buildcraft quarry it takes a bit of work to get it all going properly. That being said, I love what dan200 and his team have done with computercraft and it adds a lot of excellent functionality.
I'm all for putting the mine back in minecraft. I just want something to do with what I mine afterwards. Right now the options seem to be "mine more and faster".
If I was an english teacher I would say this is your thesis statement. "They make resources pointless, they trivialize their OWN balancing mechanics, and sometimes they make even the player him/herself pointless." You really need to back up statements like those with specifics to construct a valid argument. You mention only 1 mod in all of this, a mod that isn't even version 1.3.2 yet(redpower). So this thread is hardly about "The CURRENT STATE OF MODDING.
If you made all those statements about just equivalent exchange I would have probably agreed with you.
I'm not just talking about RedPower, I use it as an example because it is a very popular automation mod. However, if you want me to I can apply the same issues to BuildCraft, ComputerCraft, PowerCraft, etc. The issues is that automation mods short~cut the balance of mods they are used along~side with...
Play ThaumCraft / IndustrialCraft, without automation. See how long it takes you to achieve everything. Then go ahead and play ThaumCraft / IndustrialCraft with ComputerCraft / BuildCraft / PowerCraft / RedPower / etc. and see how long it takes. If you have a remotely good handle on the systems, you're able to abuse automation to remove the point of mechanics that are clearly designed to extend gameplay. Essentially the automation acts like a using a cheat or bot in other games.
The funny thing is that cheats / bots are considered negative things in most game communities...yet in the Minecraft community, people are defending the behavior and even fighting against said content being balanced. It really seems silly to me....
Edit:
I'm all for automation as a tool that helps you save time, as long as it has a continual cost that represents the time you save. I'm against automation as a tool with no drawbacks that is used for every case in every server I've played with it on.
tldr; Automation as a tool = Great. Automation as a cheat = Overpowered.
Seems legit. I'm slightly more on your side with the argument you just issued. We should keep automation, but it should not skip past too many gameplay mechanics.
With IC2 on its own, I can have a nuclear reactor feeding a mass fabricator, and be making UU matter, within a day or two realtime (including breaks and sleep time). I just have to focus on the specific resource/crafting paths necessary for it that, skipping everything that doesn't get me to my goal. In my current world, in fact, I have a mass fab in the Nether running off geothermal generators and no scrap, and I don't even have a quarry machine yet, Buildcraft or otherwise! I had the mass fab before I even had my sorting system in place! If I had a chunkloader in the Nether and spent more time farming blaze rods and nether wart, I'd probably have enough UU matter to start making entire machines using pink goo and automatic crafting tables.
You have to specify what a "cheat" is. Am I cheating by focusing my gameplay on a single goal above all others? Is the mod cheating by offering that goal? It appears, Ecu, that you are defining a "cheat" as something that provides benefit without cost or effort. That makes sense, except, I guess we can't have cobblestone generators anymore, everyone must now install a finite water mod, and no more charcoal! There are mechanics in the vanilla game that provide materials without substantial cost, and even the effort of harvesting them is generally minimal. Eventually, players who keep digging get so rich that they can afford to just dump diamonds into lava pools. The whole game is visibly intended to be about supporting your creativity, but a lot of people ignore that because their energy is mostly focused on certain kinds of activities that otherwise interest them. These activities include building automated systems with vanilla mechanics!
"Well then, let's get awesome!"
Kill two stones with one bird whenever possible
You explained exactly what I was saying, which was the overpowered nature of BuildCraft applied to IndustrialCraft. Without BuildCraft, you would be constantly running between recyclers trying to keep your mass fabricator full. The resources you use for recycling would all be hand~mined, and you wouldn't be using geothermals in the nether as you'd have to bucket each bucket of lava yourself.
Could you perhaps have a nuclear reactor feeding a mass fabricator within 48 hours legitimately? Sure. Would it be producing endless power and generating infinite matter? Nope. You'd burn through your uranium and need to be constantly mining and managing the recyclers to keep it going, essentially 'maintaining' your machine.
Yes, even in vanilla people do focus on automation. However, in vanilla automation there is nothing that mines for you and nothing that puts items into a chest or device for you. This means that any automation you do, still requires player interaction to actually benefit from (aka a player time sink). Is it enough of a player time sink? Possibly, given the benefit of such machines usually is exp or large amounts of mod items, that generally don't cover expensive item costs.
tldr; Current automation = cheating, Balanced automation = tool.
Give them ongoing needs and demands to keep them happy and productive and charge the player with expanding their village and defending them against zombie invasions. To create additional demand for materials like diamond and iron, maybe have machines require occasional repairing like manual tools.
This also means that when local resources are inevitably depleted, it takes considerable effort to relocate, since you can't just haul a few machine blocks somewhere new; you need to bring your workforce along and set up a new place for them to live. Basically plot the progression path into an ultra-light version of Dwarf Fortress' fortress mode.
False equivalency and a strawman; how does basic survival not get me to my goal?
I really like this idea, that testificates now become factory workers. This adds a whole new dimension to automation; suddenly you have a workforce to house, feed, entertain, and protect instead of just burying your fully-automatic factory in an obsidian casing or something like that. I'd try out a mod like this.
"Well then, let's get awesome!"
The question has always come down to...
1) How automated can you make it.
2) How long does that take to get to.
The answer to those 2 question, is the answer for how long you will likely remain interested in playing.
Mods are ultimately about either on of those 2 things, or about just squeezing more things into the world "ie new maps/monsters"
I'm making mods to increase '2'
Building the Super Auto Everything-Making Rube Goldberg Machine might be fun and/or interesting the first couple of times, but then people stop making them and focus on the parts of a mod that are actually useful. You can't have every rivet and screw modeled into a device and call it fun because it took six weeks to build. Time spent is not equal to quality of gameplay! The Gravity Suit addon for IC2 is an example of "just complex enough" for me. Iridium takes a lot of time and energy to get, but ultimately it's only one component of the build, and every component makes sense. But it's all about the goal of having accomplished something: you get to fly, and you built it yourself instead of having an admin examine something unrelated (like a castle) to see if it fits their personal idea of what constitutes an "impressive build".
"Well then, let's get awesome!"
I think focusing on number two isn't the best option as taking longer to build yourself into creative mode doesn't change the fact that you've built yourself into creative mode. Minecraft is a sanbox game, and as such.. doesn't end when you beat the Dragon. This means that extending the time it takes to get to fully automated doesn't balance having that full automation.
As I commented to the above poster, just because it takes you awhile to get to doesn't make it balanced. If the eventual power you gain throws everything out of balance after that, it's still overpowered. So I think this route is the wrong way to go.
I've been continually thinking about the issue of automation and have come to a very simple understanding. Fuel is the main thing needed to balance automation. Currently, its very simple to make endless amounts of power for all the mods that have automation. Requiring a large amount of power to run automation makes sense as well, you sacrifice power (one resource) for the ability to do things automatically.
This actually mirrors reality as well as large factories consume a large amount of power that does actually take from their bottom line. This would also eliminate the ability to automate everything. Because a tree farm wouldn't produce more charcoal then it takes to run it, a quarry might get lucky and mine a bunch of coal, but not enough to actually power it to bedrock, etc. Essentially the player would be required to act as the manager of all the energy resources, devoting energy to where it's needed at a given time and gathering resources needed to create said power.
1. Why do you need beefier items and automation? Because the world is more dangerous.
Tougher mobs that could see a player from 50 blocks away through walls and then dig through those walls to get to the player would necessitate the more powerful tools provided in most mods. Since most of those tools are more expensive than the vanilla equivalents, the player would need the resource-gathering and automation content from those mods to get the items they needed quickly enough to stay alive.
2. Make mob difficulty scale with player technology.
Players would need to build bigger and better tools because mobs would get tougher over time. My current idea of how to accomplish this (though not my only idea) uses content from the old Better Dungeons and Siegecraft mods: over time, more numerous and difficult mobs with increased ability to break down player defenses would spawn, and the difficulty would scale faster than the player's power level. The only way to "reset" this difficulty factor would be to hunt down a dungeon (from Better Dungeons) and kill the boss. Then, over time the difficulty factor would start to rise again, the player would need to hunt out a harder dungeon, and so on. Edit: obviously, this idea is for SSP and LAN play only.
3. Enact hard limits on the power curve.
Currently, a smart player can get themselves to the endgame of the Tekkit family of mods in one sitting, and even non-expert players often skip intermediate stages of mods (e.g. why build steam engines? Electric engines powered by solar panels are easier.) For this idea to work, players should be forced to stop through the intermediate stages of each mod before proceeding to the next stage. My idea for accomplishing this is twofold: first, establish a tech tree, and second, create more intermediate stages of items. With the tech tree, not all recipes would be available to a player initially. Instead, they would have to unlock them (not sure how yet) over time, and progressing further in the Buildcraft tech tree (for example) would limit their access to advanced IC technology. This would also be an easy way of fixing broken combos created by interactions between mods. To flesh out this tech tree, more intermediate stages of items would be required. Perhaps the player has to build a 3x3 quarry that can only mine 20 blocks deep before they build the full-size one. Maybe there's a nerf'd version of nano armor that doesn't hold a charge as well, so it's only good for 30 seconds of invincibility. You get the idea.
This idea's been on the back burner for me for a while, but since it seems like there's community interest, I'd be willing to develop it further if I could get some help (though I do want to wait for the modding API to start with actual coding. Luckily, there's lots of work to be done beforehand.) If you're interested, send me a message.
Eh. More like we've pretty much talked it to death. Is there really more to say?
"Well then, let's get awesome!"