Dear Devs

[Eldwen]

Hello you wonderful code writing, art drawing, fabricators of imaginary epicness,

I’m writing this letter to you on behalf of my sanity, creativity, and inner doer of stupidly ridiculous things. Some of you might have already of seen my Portal Frame Comp. submission: The Spark Portal.

For those that haven’t, let me show you a shiny thing that was made with way too much iron:

Neat huh? Yeah, I thought so too. So much in fact that after a recent discussion during a great hunt with a group of friends in game, I formulated the most preposterous idea I’ve yet to have. In this game. So far.

Make it bigger.
Fill it with Spark Cores.
Connect it to our existing crafting network.

So I said “Wife, I require a stupid amount of iron and coal, with a dash of blue gleam.” To which she lovingly replied: “You know where the tools are.”

After a few days of mountain smashing, logistical tomfoolery, and some wizard math, I had acquired enough supplies to start the build:

However, being now about half way done with the build, I have suffered what is another roadblock to another creative idea. Spark Cord.

I can understand to a degree the decision to limit a player’s ability to build large Spark Core “banks”. Sorta. Ok, not really, but at least I was aware of it. What I was not aware of, nor do I understand, is why it is that Spark Cord length has a build limit as well?

No other blocks do. (Other then Spark Cores)
Well. Except for crafting machines…

So? My point? Well, if it’s in game, people are going to want to build with it. So please, for the sake of all things Great and Oortlike, I respectfully request that current and future limitations to block use be thought out more deeply. Thank you kindly for your time, this amazing game, and space goats.

Sincerely yours,
-Eld & Brad the Space Goat

[slyduda]

Dang, this would have been so cool!!! What was the limit if I may ask?

[Eldwen]

Wasn’t keeping track to be honest. At some point during tear down I’ll make sure to figure that out. This was for science after all. Something good should come of it.

[boundmore]

I have stumbled upon that limit myself lately when building my 3-floor machine center.
Yeah - it has boggled me a bit.
And now middle floor machines get spark from both ends of the system (2 spark core bundles), while my bottom and top floors only enjoy spark from one. Didnt know about it before building and now I put too much effort time and materials to destroy part of the house and rebuild it to somehow get all the machines close enough to be fed by all cores and be able to use all spark available.
What it creates now is that whenever I’m putting fuel to my cores I have to think which machines I will use more and will need more spark.

[Rumplypigskin]

If you’re talking about cords, yeah thats 100 or so I learned.

[Eldwen]

How is anything resembling proper Oortscience supposed to take place with a build limit of only 100!? Blasphemy I say.

[Rumplypigskin]

Since you can hold only 99 in one non-smartstack maybe they thought we would never find out ️

[boundmore]

I definitely have less than 100 distance from top floor cores to bottom floor machines and they dont get spark from there.
Direct distance is less than 30 actually.
So, maybe 100 is not too bad of a limit but problem lays somewhere else. It seems to count all cords connected to the core. So, all branches spreading to machines on top floor, then the line to middle floor and all branches to machines on that floor, and then eventually the line going to the bottom floor. And suddenly machines there are too far from top cores.
If it was a limit of 100 blocks distance from core in any direction and wouldnt count all the cords, well, that would have been enough for even very large spark system.

[Dzchan94]

According to some testing I did, it’s 100 spark cords in any way. It could be a straight line or another configuration. But the moment it touches another line. The number of cords get summed together.

So you could have more than 100 spark cords coming out of a group of spark cores, but no more than 100 in any “line” of spark cords.

[Shadora]

Can also be an issue with the connections have to go past the cores and not true them. I did that mistake at first. Actually, I think I see them go past in the screenshot now.

[Eldwen]

Yeah, they all go around to connect to each block of Cores. The intent was to drop in a stupid amount of cores, and then slam as much coal/peat into them as I could and see how much spark “could” be generated. The current build progress has about 90-100 cords so far. I’d estimate at least another 200-300 required to wire everything up inside the Core and then run it to my crafting area in a nearby plot. Of course, if this HAD worked, the build would of extended downward into the ground, and included large replicas of the other crafting machines built out of crafting machines, gleam, and other blocks with a winding staircase leading down, thus requiring an even larger connection distance. Alas, I’ll just settle for a hunk of prestige boosting iron instead I suppose.

[boundmore]

I counted what I have. It’s 60 cords on two floors plus 8 cores (4 on top and 4 on the lowest floor) so thats 68 blocks working as cords.
At that point it reaches the floor of the bottom level and there are 12 cords going in 3 directions before they reach machines there. Thats just above 70 and not a single machine on that floor uses spark from top floor cores. They all only show spark from cores place on their floor.
Now, if every single machine counts as a cord block than ist 24 on top two floors and that brings it up to over 90 (still below 100) before the first machines on the bottom floor are reached from the top.
If every machine connected eats 4 blocks from the 100 limit for the core, then yes, it would be way beyond 100 between top floor cores and bottom floor machines.

I just dont know how it works really.

[Havok40k]

@Eldwen does proper oortscience, and probably makes the @Illuminoorti proud!

[Cookviper]

Space goats!!!

[Illuminoorti]

Can confirm, am proud!

[lucadeltodecso]

to clear things up: pipes are limited to 100 pipe blocks in a single connected group, there is no limit on “length” or anything like that other than the implicit one from being limited to 100 blocks in the group, aka a 100x1x1 pipe or a 50x1x1 pipe connected to a 49x1x1 pipe, or a windly mess that connectes to itself multiple times all over the place but uses no less than 100 pipe blocks in total etc.

The limit is a purposefuly soft one, we could raise it at any time, but “decreasing” the limit is " a lot " of work involving complex migrations and ■■■■, so its much better to have a limit that we can increase if we need to, than not have a limit and find we hit issues with performance from very large pipes and find that putting a smaller limit in takes up too much development time.

[obsidious1]

Do the spark cores count in that limit? Like spark core 4x4 length and width, one cord each side or something?
I think you will find a way to make it work.

[lucadeltodecso]

Sparkcores don’t count, but spark won’t travel through multiple pipes in a chain, it must be a direct link from machine to sparkcore.

[Chonps]

@lucadeltodecso
This limitation is due to sparks “transfer data”?