I am a huge history nerd and while I enjoy the variety of tech and industrialization mods out there for Minecraft there is one thing that has always bothered me. It strikes me as odd that mods like Industrialcraft and Thermal Expansion (which are good in their own right) take you from a medievalesque time period in Vanilla Minecraft and suddenly thrust you into an era of gleaming wondermachines and advanced technologies. Also it bothers me that many of these machines perform their complex tasks inside of a tiny 1x1 block chassis.
I propose a new industrialization/tech mod that spans the years of the Industrial Revolution, say 1760-1900. I hope to be historically accurate in this mod but not to the point where it makes the game tedious and unplayable. I have much planned out for this ambitious mod but I lack the skills to make it alone. Here are some of my proposed ideas.
Energy
This mod will be separated into tiers of different technologies and have three sources of energy.
1.) Mechanical energy.
Mechanical energy is generated by simple mechanisms such as water wheels, windmills, animal engines and later steam engines.
This energy will be transmitted along rotating line shafts and can power multiple machines, however the distance it can transmit this energy is limited.
2.) Heat.
Now heat itself will not power any machines but it will be required for many machines to perform their functions.
Initially machines will receive their heat simply by inputting a solid fuel such as coal. A good alternative to this is coal gasification.
Coal gas will allow you to transmit fuel to your machines through gas lines from a single source ensuring they always stay fueled.
3.) Electricity.
Electricity is really an endgame energy source that will allow you to transmit energy over longer distances.
It will not replace mechanical power, it will simply supplement parts of it.
Instead of having line shafts transmit energy from mechanical source to machine, the source will turn a dynamo which will produce electricity.
This electricity will travel over cables to an electric motor that will turn line shafts and power machines.
It simply allows you to have a longer distance between power sources and power consumers.
Machines
As i said earlier a complex machine that performs work saving tasks rarely would take up a 1x1 block space.
In this mod most of the machines you use will be multiblock structures, some of which are big enough to take up a small room.
Besides being a bit more accurate in scale, it will just look cool.
Other Ideas
Workers
Many mods include machines that allow you to transmit items from one machine to another (conveyors, pipes). They also have machines that will mine for you, harvest crops for you and chop down trees for you.
During the Industrial Revolution there was one machine that performed all of these tasks, MAN.
Laborers would move items from one machine inventory to another and I don't need to explain what farmers, miners and lumberjacks do.
Pollution
Progress always has drawbacks. Some of your machines will give off byproducts that are harmful to the environment. There are two types.
1.) Industrial Waste
Fluid consuming machines will emit waste fluid that is poisonous and harmful to the environment, if it builds up too much the machine will no longer function.
This waste has no use, the best thing to do with it is pump it into a pond outside of town.
I may or may not include a machine that allows you to dispose of this waste.
2.) Smoke
Machines that burn fuel will give off smoke. If enough smoke is being emitted in an area smog will settle in reducing visibility. It can also cause harmful effects to the player such as slowness, mining fatigue and even nausea.
I have many more ideas not mentioned here and am open to any questions about this mod. I would love to hear feedback from the community and I hope someone with the proper skills will give this idea some consideration.
A tech mod like this, Steampunk instead of high Tech, is something I could really get into. (on a personal note the athestetic really lends itself to being a good companion to thaumcraft.
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WARNING:
My output of snark depends on your output of stupidity.
I like the Thaumcraft idea, in Victorian England there was a society called The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn that studied the occult, alchemy and such. It would make for an interesting pairing.
As you point out such idea, it occurs to me that there is a redstone option to use in a medieval surrounding. This is the way it is, but there could be more to that, make instead of power from switches and redstoneblocks contraptions like watermill driven powersupply, and solarpanels, rotating objects to let bigger doors work and draw bridges up and down, fences to let down and raise them with wires, and cables on poles to power your homes, powerlines and water/sewer etc in the ground and so on... Now we build, we attack and rebuild and attack again. this goes over and over... If i play in my world and i just finished building a house, there is so little i can do in my house that if i had to make it work fully, i needed electricity to power the lights and water to shower/flush toilet and so on..... I guess Mojang is not gonna do that, they even did not do a real global difference, i mean there are no seasons, and the sun is always going the same path (the moon too), and if it is raining and thunder banging all around you, your hair still is untouched, no storm, no puddles on the ground that disipates after the sun starts shining, no fog, no rain, i can go on.....
My idea for the pollution was actually inspired partly by the Thaumcraft Flux. Liquid industrial waste would affect the world around it, say for example everything within a 10 block radius of the waste becomes poisoned, dirt becomes toxic and unfarmable, plants die off etc... Air pollution would be a bit more difficult to implement because it is not as "physical" as a liquid block but it would still be cool to have.
The workers idea is only a possibility and I do realize that too many of them would cause performance issues. They are really only a placeholder idea to act as replacements to machines such as the MFE Harvesters and the BC Quarry. For the workers I took my inspiration from the MineColonies mod which itself is only in alpha but seems to operate well so far. If it does cause problems it will simply not be implemented.
As far as similar mods RotaryCraft is the only mod that I have found that melds actual mechanical and electrical energy together into one mod. I also want to avoid making this mod too Steampunk, I envision it being a bit more prototypical to the real 19th century (minus the cholera and child labor).
I thought about doing somethings with railways but Railcraft seems to do a fair enough job on it's own, I would probably just add something to ensure compatibility with it, and maybe a way to convert electricity from this mod into Railcraft charge. In addition it already has steam locomotives and the electric locomotives bear quite a resemblance to some early electric locomotive designs.
Hello, I am a mod maker and was wondering if I can take a go at this mod. The idea, about advancing through the industrial stages, absolutely fascinated me and sounds like tremendous fun. If you agree to my proposal, I would like to request something, actually two things. One is, I would like to stay in contact at all times and I need for you to be quite strict on me as I am very lazy when it comes to large project, as such. The second is that I find 1.8 modding absolutely atrocious so I would love it if this can be a 1.7.10 mod instead?. If you wish, you may speak with me on Skype, or so. Thank you, and wonderful idea.
Here's a thought! Since one of the inventions that made the industrial era possible was the Conveyor belt and assembly line, Automation could focus around that!
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
WARNING:
My output of snark depends on your output of stupidity.
As far as weaponry I am mostly focusing of firearms.
Flintlock muzzleloaders would be the first tier weapons and they would later be superseded by breechloading rifles and then a magazine rifle. The only major change between these tiers would be an increase in rate of fire; damage, range and accuracy would probably only improve a little bit between tiers.
As far as automatic weapons I think they would be best used in some sort of automated turret. I would love to base them off of an Agar or a Nordenfelt gun.
I think I know which gun you are talking about, it was a Spanish or Italian design I believe.
As far as gun customization I think that is a really good idea. Say you start with a smoothbore flintlock musket, you could change out the smoothbore barrel for a rifled one to increase accuracy. Later you could exchange the lock out for a breech loading chamber increasing rate of fire. A bayonet is a must have accessory, a scope could also be a late game accessory.
As well as musket/rifles there could be similar modifications for shotguns and pistols.
I am a huge history nerd and while I enjoy the variety of tech and industrialization mods out there for Minecraft there is one thing that has always bothered me. It strikes me as odd that mods like Industrialcraft and Thermal Expansion (which are good in their own right) take you from a medievalesque time period in Vanilla Minecraft and suddenly thrust you into an era of gleaming wondermachines and advanced technologies. Also it bothers me that many of these machines perform their complex tasks inside of a tiny 1x1 block chassis.
I propose a new industrialization/tech mod that spans the years of the Industrial Revolution, say 1760-1900. I hope to be historically accurate in this mod but not to the point where it makes the game tedious and unplayable. I have much planned out for this ambitious mod but I lack the skills to make it alone. Here are some of my proposed ideas.
Energy
This mod will be separated into tiers of different technologies and have three sources of energy.
1.) Mechanical energy.
Mechanical energy is generated by simple mechanisms such as water wheels, windmills, animal engines and later steam engines.
This energy will be transmitted along rotating line shafts and can power multiple machines, however the distance it can transmit this energy is limited.
2.) Heat.
Now heat itself will not power any machines but it will be required for many machines to perform their functions.
Initially machines will receive their heat simply by inputting a solid fuel such as coal. A good alternative to this is coal gasification.
Coal gas will allow you to transmit fuel to your machines through gas lines from a single source ensuring they always stay fueled.
3.) Electricity.
Electricity is really an endgame energy source that will allow you to transmit energy over longer distances.
It will not replace mechanical power, it will simply supplement parts of it.
Instead of having line shafts transmit energy from mechanical source to machine, the source will turn a dynamo which will produce electricity.
This electricity will travel over cables to an electric motor that will turn line shafts and power machines.
It simply allows you to have a longer distance between power sources and power consumers.
Machines
As i said earlier a complex machine that performs work saving tasks rarely would take up a 1x1 block space.
In this mod most of the machines you use will be multiblock structures, some of which are big enough to take up a small room.
Besides being a bit more accurate in scale, it will just look cool.
Other Ideas
Workers
Many mods include machines that allow you to transmit items from one machine to another (conveyors, pipes). They also have machines that will mine for you, harvest crops for you and chop down trees for you.
During the Industrial Revolution there was one machine that performed all of these tasks, MAN.
Laborers would move items from one machine inventory to another and I don't need to explain what farmers, miners and lumberjacks do.
Pollution
Progress always has drawbacks. Some of your machines will give off byproducts that are harmful to the environment. There are two types.
1.) Industrial Waste
Fluid consuming machines will emit waste fluid that is poisonous and harmful to the environment, if it builds up too much the machine will no longer function.
This waste has no use, the best thing to do with it is pump it into a pond outside of town.
I may or may not include a machine that allows you to dispose of this waste.
2.) Smoke
Machines that burn fuel will give off smoke. If enough smoke is being emitted in an area smog will settle in reducing visibility. It can also cause harmful effects to the player such as slowness, mining fatigue and even nausea.
I have many more ideas not mentioned here and am open to any questions about this mod.
I would love to hear feedback from the community and I hope someone with the proper skills will give this idea some consideration.
tl;dr
1800's tech
Big Machines
A tech mod like this, Steampunk instead of high Tech, is something I could really get into. (on a personal note the athestetic really lends itself to being a good companion to thaumcraft.
WARNING:
My output of snark depends on your output of stupidity.
My patience wears thin on strawmen and lies.
I like the Thaumcraft idea, in Victorian England there was a society called The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn that studied the occult, alchemy and such. It would make for an interesting pairing.
As you point out such idea, it occurs to me that there is a redstone option to use in a medieval surrounding. This is the way it is, but there could be more to that, make instead of power from switches and redstoneblocks contraptions like watermill driven powersupply, and solarpanels, rotating objects to let bigger doors work and draw bridges up and down, fences to let down and raise them with wires, and cables on poles to power your homes, powerlines and water/sewer etc in the ground and so on... Now we build, we attack and rebuild and attack again. this goes over and over... If i play in my world and i just finished building a house, there is so little i can do in my house that if i had to make it work fully, i needed electricity to power the lights and water to shower/flush toilet and so on..... I guess Mojang is not gonna do that, they even did not do a real global difference, i mean there are no seasons, and the sun is always going the same path (the moon too), and if it is raining and thunder banging all around you, your hair still is untouched, no storm, no puddles on the ground that disipates after the sun starts shining, no fog, no rain, i can go on.....
My idea for the pollution was actually inspired partly by the Thaumcraft Flux. Liquid industrial waste would affect the world around it, say for example everything within a 10 block radius of the waste becomes poisoned, dirt becomes toxic and unfarmable, plants die off etc... Air pollution would be a bit more difficult to implement because it is not as "physical" as a liquid block but it would still be cool to have.
The workers idea is only a possibility and I do realize that too many of them would cause performance issues. They are really only a placeholder idea to act as replacements to machines such as the MFE Harvesters and the BC Quarry. For the workers I took my inspiration from the MineColonies mod which itself is only in alpha but seems to operate well so far. If it does cause problems it will simply not be implemented.
As far as similar mods RotaryCraft is the only mod that I have found that melds actual mechanical and electrical energy together into one mod. I also want to avoid making this mod too Steampunk, I envision it being a bit more prototypical to the real 19th century (minus the cholera and child labor).
Perhaps you could make use of Railways and minecarts to aid in automation?
Although that might be stepping on Railcraft's toes a little.
WARNING:
My output of snark depends on your output of stupidity.
My patience wears thin on strawmen and lies.
I thought about doing somethings with railways but Railcraft seems to do a fair enough job on it's own, I would probably just add something to ensure compatibility with it, and maybe a way to convert electricity from this mod into Railcraft charge. In addition it already has steam locomotives and the electric locomotives bear quite a resemblance to some early electric locomotive designs.
Hello, I am a mod maker and was wondering if I can take a go at this mod. The idea, about advancing through the industrial stages, absolutely fascinated me and sounds like tremendous fun. If you agree to my proposal, I would like to request something, actually two things. One is, I would like to stay in contact at all times and I need for you to be quite strict on me as I am very lazy when it comes to large project, as such. The second is that I find 1.8 modding absolutely atrocious so I would love it if this can be a 1.7.10 mod instead?. If you wish, you may speak with me on Skype, or so. Thank you, and wonderful idea.
Hello!
Here's a thought! Since one of the inventions that made the industrial era possible was the Conveyor belt and assembly line, Automation could focus around that!
WARNING:
My output of snark depends on your output of stupidity.
My patience wears thin on strawmen and lies.
Conveyors would definitely be an option for automation but they would be a late game technology, conveyor belts didn't see major use until the 1890's.
Most automation systems are late game anyway, if for no other reason than the amount of work it takes to set one up.
WARNING:
My output of snark depends on your output of stupidity.
My patience wears thin on strawmen and lies.
As far as weaponry I am mostly focusing of firearms.
Flintlock muzzleloaders would be the first tier weapons and they would later be superseded by breechloading rifles and then a magazine rifle. The only major change between these tiers would be an increase in rate of fire; damage, range and accuracy would probably only improve a little bit between tiers.
As far as automatic weapons I think they would be best used in some sort of automated turret. I would love to base them off of an Agar or a Nordenfelt gun.
Sorry the link does not work for me.
I think I know which gun you are talking about, it was a Spanish or Italian design I believe.
As far as gun customization I think that is a really good idea. Say you start with a smoothbore flintlock musket, you could change out the smoothbore barrel for a rifled one to increase accuracy. Later you could exchange the lock out for a breech loading chamber increasing rate of fire. A bayonet is a must have accessory, a scope could also be a late game accessory.
As well as musket/rifles there could be similar modifications for shotguns and pistols.
The mod Flaxbeard's Steam Power has a gun customization similar to this.