Now that we have power devices added onto our machines it requires a lot more space usage for a fully functional workshop. Additionally, we will have a forge soon and the assumption is that it will require spark as well to function.
Please extend the distance spark cords can run because it is hard to put everything we need down and connect it to a spark core in a reasonable fashion that looks nice. Not all of us want to have to have multiple spark core groups spread out across our whole workshop to just meet the demands.
I can’t see it is that hard or a big design problem than to just extend the distance. It should be a very easy fix and would help a lot of us greatly in having a nice workshop.
I just want the ability to spread spark through my community like a public utility. The current cap on spark cord makes that impossible. I know it is unreasonable to ask but for my purposes it would be great to have a cap closer to 1000 cords.
I don’t know what the max distance is at the moment but the way i see it is this:
Option 1: Leave as is.
Option 2: Make the distance greater but add a maximum ammount of Spark that can be transported at once per Spark link cable.
Option 3: Simply make the spark transported a fix ammount with a fall out of “X” over every “Y” distance. Fix ammount could or could not be augmented by the ammount of Spark generator plugged on the same network.
Option 4: Mix Option 2 & 3 together by adding multiple Spark link cable grade that would transfer different ammount of spark to enable transfer of higher ammount of spark for larger network such as city’s.
Edit: For those familiar with it, i’d like something similar to Gregtech 5 (Minecraft mod) energy system… But then, some will like that system and other would hate it.
It’s a 100 now and it’s simply not enough. I was breaking my head trying to make full machine and coil set up and stay within the limit.
For future i would love to see that limit way higher so one power-plant-like set up could feed a settlement with spark thus letting a lot of individual settlers focus on other aspects of game that they are interested in rather than spend time and resources on building their individual spark cores links etc.
I am not sure why one of your options just was not to extend the distance. I don’t see a need to make everything more complicated. We already have a lot of complicated things in the game.
I wouldn’t be opposed to a something like a max amount limiting the machines you can run on a single spark core block… but ultimately I just think a longer amount is simplest.
I do overall agree with boundmore and havok that it would be nice to make it much longer so people could possibly set up a power plant setup.
I personally find thing too simple at the moment. I’ve been playing for about 2 weeks give or take a few days now and i alreaydy have Gems tools (well, nearly. I’m building my 4 missing Power Coil and then i’ll be able to build my first Gems tool) and i haven’t bought anything from anyone or traded anything.
According to Steam, i’ve spent a measly 52.7hrs total. That’s rather short in my opinion for a Mmorpg to reach endgame materials. But then again, not everyone rushes for endgame stuff so for other peoples, the current pace could be entertaining to them.
Hope this help you understand the reasoning behind my proposal
Yeah I hear you in that respect. I think in some aspects simple is bad but I guess at least in a foundation component like spark transfer I just wouldn’t want it too complex. That is one reason why I kind of hope we get a wipe soon so we really can see how fast most people level. Either way I’m fine with some tweaks with spark delivery as long as we get an extension soon. The machines take up a lot more space now than they used to and if you want more than 1 of each the cord limit is pretty harsh on designs.
Off-topic: A wipe wouldn’t show who is better at leveling but rather who get to spend the most time on the game to level more ;).
Back on topic: in order to fix your power shortage problem in the current situation, now that i know that 100 block is the maximum, I have to agree that in the current system, it is a bit low. While on the other hand, i find it fine as is as i would just see another way to the Spark shortage. Make more “Power plant” scattered arround the town. If you think about it in a logical way, you don’t want to have only 1 spark power plant as if it were to go down for some reason, then your screwed. But if you have multiple smaller or just as big power plant, then you lower the risk of running out of power alltogether. The only difference is that you have to manage your ressources a bit better and run to each “power plant” considering we have no means of automation for the time being (which i hope eventually change.)
If this can help you for the amount of cords you can connect, every single block (maybe face) of the spark core multiblocks gives you a max of 100 cords if the cords does not touch around the spark cores. So i think atm the best place to build your spark cores is in the middle of your workshop.
I’d still like to have a higher spark cord limit in general. 100 is pretty small regardless if you can branch off 6 different directions with 100 cord.
I still have yet to even redesign my workshop. Probably will get to work on that later tonight.
Yeah you cannot cover a 4x4 plot design right now with the limited spark cord distance. I ran 1 row towards one side of the workshop and another the other way and ran short of what I needed.
That is why I am asking because if you don’t want to stack all machines right beside each other and instead put a group on 1 side and another on the other side, you cannot really do it in a 4x4 plot space. And considering what we have to store now in the game with the machines you need spaces like 4x4.
Another thing to note is if you get things too close together and stack it into multiple floors, then you will be hitting the 512 mesh limit and not able to place any blocks. So the mesh limit is forcing us to expand our workshops out, yet the spark core limit is restricting what we do.
Kind of hard to meet the demands of both those masters!
I understand your concern and i agree that distance should be higher (should be limitless really.) But not without cost. I think there should be a loss of spark transfer over “x” distance. Otherwise, 1 single spark generator would be/is able to power a whole city. Even now, in it’s current state i find it overpowered to be honest in it’s ability to power everything you want if you let it store enough energy.
Another option could be adding some kind of spark storage device wheter static or mobile to be able to power further away without having to extend the spark link distance capacity. This way, you could charge up said battery and even avoid more cabling as you could place spark battery near your machines or set a spark link cable from said battery to your machines.
As you said, not everyone want to have a jampack workshop so eventually they will have to figure out a way to extend the spark transfer capacity but it whouldn’t be to the point where 1 spark generator can power a whole.city on it’s own. Otherwise, what will happen is that people will simple rush for 1 generator, fuel it intensely while they work on everything else ane by the time they actually need power, they’ll have hundreds of thousands if not millions of spark stored. So i’m taking this opportunity to blab out some different scenario/ideas.
I’m fine if they want to revamp spark… but honestly too many times people have asked for a “simple change” and it resulted a huge change with development time and all this stuff that takes a lot of time.
Can we just get a fix now to solve an immediate need. It not destroy the system to just make it 200 length not 100 and that wouldn’t cause the concerns you have, etc.
4x4 plot is pretty huge. I have 37 machines in a 3x6 plot area using the method @Gorillastomp showed above.
However I can see increasing the cord limit for certain builds like @Havok40k community spark, and the hive was going to be a community spark core also but cord limits our build potential. Now each workshop has to have their own array
As I understand it, reason for the spark cord cap is because too many entities in a confined area (cord, torches, etc) were causing performance issues. People were building entire structure from cord- sky bridges, roads, etc. So to discourage that, the limit was put in place. This limit can be adjusted easily enough, just edit a number value in its code somewhere.
I think a simple solution to cord length without making it easily abuseable again is to introduce a “spark relay” item. A block that allows spark to travel an additional 100 cords from its output. Spark comes in, powers the machine, and gets boosted down the line. Since its typically only the most advanced workshops that are hitting the spark cord limit, this device should also be an advanced crafting item, requiring pricy parts to construct. Let’s say exotic materials like blink or something. It could also require repairs any time spark passes through the device, so upkeep is higher for larger and larger spark networks. A fully integrated city may require dozens of relays to be maintained, which I think is a fair counterbalance to a large network, and would encourage using spark cords as efficiently and sparsely as possible.
This is another great option of what we can do in a larger context to solve the bigger issue. I think all of us are fine in growing the solution around spark however it turns out.
So while 100 cord might start to affect performance I cannot believe a simple change in the code to 125 or 150 or 200 will destroy performance enough to affect the game. I think we should just push for the initial change to be put in a build ASAP to at least solve some of the needs on a bit more space so we can actually build and not shove everything into a tiny few plots and then deal with Mesh Limit issues because we actually want more than 1 floor in our build.
I think there needs to be something to besides 100 limit, the limit only hurts workshops not builders. I can still place 1000 spark cords close together if they are separate by 1 block. I can still make whatever I want, a better solution would be the inability to use sparkcores if they are not attach to machines. Force a close circuit otherwise the cord starts receiving damage until it breaks(or another type of effect for not using it as intended)
Yeah right now I’m just focused on ones connected to the spark core for production use. Initially just a bit more space because the original design was without Power Devices. Now we have that and they should at least account for that immediately with a small increase in distance. That is only fair to all of us that have to build the machines and power devices.
Then they can take the great suggestions in this thread and develop a much more robust system.
I’ve been playing for about 2 weeks give or take a few days now and i alreaydy have Gems tools (well, nearly. I’m building my 4 missing Power Coil and then i’ll be able to build my first Gems tool) and i haven’t bought anything from anyone or traded anything.
This gives me ideas.