A poll regarding turtles and fuel

I was recently reading a post regarding someone being unable to operate their turtle, which resulted in the realisation they had forgotten to refuel.

It got me to thinking, how many people actually do have their turtles require fuel?
Since the day it was introduced, I did not like the idea very much and instantly switched the config to turn the fuel requirement off.

I've never really been a fan of the fuel idea, particularly not the fact turtles run on coal, however I can respect that some people like the fuel idea and as such I would never suggest the removal of fuel.

All this does make me wonder though, how many people do actually use fuel for their turtles and how many people do like or dislike the idea of turtles using fuel. Hence, I created this poll to find out exactly that.

If you are not currently running a version that uses fuel, I have added options for that, however please post on the forum the reason why you are not using that version as it is relevant and of interest.

I hope you all take the time to vote, even if you don't comment as I'm sure a lot of other people have also wondered this at some point or another and it would be a good thing to find out.

i dont like my turtle being in a quarry and making me have to refuel it all the time
im running tekkit so i dont have to disable it, but i also cant use the new CC stuff 3:

I like it only sometimes. When I want realism. I build turtle swarm factory's. They bring back coal and wood and then it's shared bewtween me all. It works well

Turtles are waaaay to powerfull to not have any bad sides. Fuelz ftw

turtles are slow and have a limited amount of upgrades

Computercraft has the fastest replication rate (how quickly you can double your resources given existing resources) of any tech mod except Equivalent Exchange (and we all know EE is just broken). A well programed mining turtle can aquire enough resources to create another mining turtle in around 20 min. That means that in just 3 hours, you can have a good 500 mining turtles (assuming your computer didn't crash). What I am trying to say here is that computercraft is already absurdly powerful for the price. Sure, disable it on creative, but if your mods are too powerful, then survival becomes a joke.

I think the real problem with fuel is in the implementation. If there was an easy visual indicator of low fuel, either on the interface or on the outside, it would be a lot easier to deal with. Also, trying to figure out a way to plug into power systems would be great… if the turtles run off buildcraft, IC2, or Universal Electricity, then it is far less of a hassle.

making programs for CC I assume that people play with default settings and allow warnings for fuel level. problem with making a warning low fuel level is that there is not upper limit and it is job dependent 10 fuel is small for moving 5 blocks but 1000 is too low to complete a full quarry. where exactly would a lower limit be set. from a survival perspective making it require fuel add some challenge to the game and makes mining remorses cost something instead of just free stuff.

I think the way it is now is fine people that want free can have that and people that want to use coal to power can everybody is happy. ether option is fine and I don't really think about switching form default.

kazagistar, on 05 November 2012 - 09:24 PM said:

Computercraft has the fastest replication rate (how quickly you can double your resources given existing resources) of any tech mod except Equivalent Exchange (and we all know EE is just broken). A well programed mining turtle can aquire enough resources to create another mining turtle in around 20 min. That means that in just 3 hours, you can have a good 500 mining turtles (assuming your computer didn't crash). What I am trying to say here is that computercraft is already absurdly powerful for the price. Sure, disable it on creative, but if your mods are too powerful, then survival becomes a joke.

I think the real problem with fuel is in the implementation. If there was an easy visual indicator of low fuel, either on the interface or on the outside, it would be a lot easier to deal with. Also, trying to figure out a way to plug into power systems would be great… if the turtles run off buildcraft, IC2, or Universal Electricity, then it is far less of a hassle.

RichardG got a charging station to use IC power for turtle fuel @ his misc peripherals thread :3

Also integration with at least one of the power mods is on our tomaybe list.

I think those who want a visual indicator are missing the point. You can take fuel requirements into account (and display a fuel indicator) in your own program.

Turtles are even with fuel way too OP, the only thing you really need a diamonds for turtle upgrades, but once you've got 3 diamonds, you can set up a self-replicating turtle system.
In my opinion fuel is very important and more turtle peripherals should use it.

Turtle quarry vs. BC quarry: Turtle is about as fast and much cheaper.

Leo Verto, on 06 November 2012 - 08:41 AM said:

Turtles are even with fuel way too OP, the only thing you really need a diamonds for turtle upgrades, but once you've got 3 diamonds, you can set up a self-replicating turtle system.
In my opinion fuel is very important and more turtle peripherals should use it.

Turtle quarry vs. BC quarry: Turtle is about as fast and much cheaper.

Until we add durability on tools :P/>/>

Cloudy, on 06 November 2012 - 08:52 AM said:

Leo Verto, on 06 November 2012 - 08:41 AM said:

Turtles are even with fuel way too OP, the only thing you really need a diamonds for turtle upgrades, but once you've got 3 diamonds, you can set up a self-replicating turtle system.
In my opinion fuel is very important and more turtle peripherals should use it.

Turtle quarry vs. BC quarry: Turtle is about as fast and much cheaper.

Until we add durability on tools :P/>/>

i like that idea more than the fuel because you have to refuel it every single time you want to move
with that it can just detect that it needs a new pick and goes up to my house :3

The turtle holds more than six thousand fuel from a single stack of coal. Yeah, that's less efficient then a powered cart, but the turtle be flying and stuff. For me, I think that fuel is a good idea, and having it be optional is also good. Balance isn't really the point, it's more a matter of style.

Cloudy, on 06 November 2012 - 08:52 AM said:

Until we add durability on tools :P/>/>

But what if the tool breaks? Does it become a normal turtle again? Or is there just a slot in the turtle containing the tool?

Jan, on 07 November 2012 - 03:30 AM said:

Cloudy, on 06 November 2012 - 08:52 AM said:

Until we add durability on tools :P/>/>

But what if the tool breaks? Does it become a normal turtle again? Or is there just a slot in the turtle containing the tool?

Normal turtle again.

I still like the idea of turtles having a tool slot :P/>/>

Leo Verto, on 06 November 2012 - 08:41 AM said:

Turtles are even with fuel way too OP, the only thing you really need a diamonds for turtle upgrades, but once you've got 3 diamonds, you can set up a self-replicating turtle system.
In my opinion fuel is very important and more turtle peripherals should use it.

Turtle quarry vs. BC quarry: Turtle is about as fast and much cheaper.

I don't know how much power you give your BC quarry's but with what I give mine they are much much faster then a turtle. Due to this I don't use turtles to mine with.

Leo Verto, on 07 November 2012 - 09:56 AM said:

I still like the idea of turtles having a tool slot :P/>/>

Not going to happen. We aren't changing the system now - it was a design decision to use crafting instead of tool slots.

luanub, on 07 November 2012 - 10:49 AM said:

I don't know how much power you give your BC quarry's but with what I give mine they are much much faster then a turtle. Due to this I don't use turtles to mine with.

I haven't used BC quarries for ages, but you can make at least two turtles with the resources needed for them and you need less than a stack of coal for digging a quarry using turtles.

Cloudy, on 07 November 2012 - 10:51 AM said:

Not going to happen. We aren't changing the system now - it was a design decision to use crafting instead of tool slots.

Other modders would release a new main version or just change it, I feel like you guys are a little strict about changing stuff afterwards.

Leo Verto, on 07 November 2012 - 10:54 AM said:

luanub, on 07 November 2012 - 10:49 AM said:

I don't know how much power you give your BC quarry's but with what I give mine they are much much faster then a turtle. Due to this I don't use turtles to mine with.

I haven't used BC quarries for ages, but you can make at least two turtles with the resources needed for them and you need less than a stack of coal for digging a quarry using turtles.

Cloudy, on 07 November 2012 - 10:51 AM said:

Not going to happen. We aren't changing the system now - it was a design decision to use crafting instead of tool slots.

Other modders would release a new main version or just change it, I feel like you guys are a little strict about changing stuff afterwards.

Yep, just like we were strict about not adding fuel.

Point is, the system is how it is by design - it works, and we want your choices while making a turtle to matter. People complain CC is OP - imagine how they'd feel if you could swap tools out at will?

Cloudy, on 07 November 2012 - 10:58 AM said:

imagine how they'd feel if you could swap tools out at will?

You could lock the slot until the tool is broken, not really different from your new system, just a suggestion though.

I think limits are what make these things so much fun :) I've got a bunch of ideas for a self-expanding sky-net providing GPS and message forwarding features, which I wouldn't need if wireless redstone had unlimited range. That said, I'm really thinking of trying the recharging station from RichardG's misc upgrades mod, just because coal is at a premium for other uses (I'm all railcraft steam-powered, so I need coal coke for the boiler).

On the subject of breakable tools… if that is adopted, any thought to allowing turtles to use non-diamond tools? Perhaps at increased durability cost if balance is a concern. I'd like to try a scenario where I'm confined to a house with nothing but enough supplies to construct a computer and a turtle or two, and see if I can program my way to a fully automated empire :) Unless I start with 3 diamonds, I can't send out a miner to gather more resources. Of course, I could design the scenario to start with a mining turtle, but if his tool breaks before more diamonds are located, game over :)

You should have a tree farm to produce charcoal. As for diamonds and durability…you can do the thing where you dig a hole and compare around and only dig out things that aren't stone/dirt/gravel. That works far better with a turtle than in person, because you can check four blocks for every block you mine without leaving any "dead" space unchecked.

I can see why some people would like to use fuel but personally I don't. To comment on the idea of turtles being overpowered, I agree they're an extremely powerful tool, but what I really like about them is they're only as powerful as the programmer. A skilled programmer can make turtles do incredibly powerful things, so your skill, your understanding and your practice correlate into direct game rewards. What a turtle can do, how flexible and easy it is, is limited by your skill and your imagination, which is one of the only games I know where that's the case.

So I'm not fond of fuel. Because another limitation is introduced, and it can be reacted to but I've always found it an irritating process when I've done it in the past. It's not really skill based, it's resource collection absed- at it's best it's wasting inventory and at it's worst it forces grinding out resources just to keep your ideas going.

I don't mind the overpowered nature of the mod, beceause minecraft to me isn't about "winning", it's about conceptualizing and realizing an idea, so the only challenges I really want are the cognitive ones of creating the best outcome. So fuel won't ever be of much interest to me.

Well, a few thoughts of my own here. First I'll mention that I leave them requiring fuel. Just makes sense to me.

I think people get too focused on trying to make mods not too easy and not too over powered, etc. That's not a bad practice but you have to remember also that the point of a game is being fun more than anything else, including realism or challanging. Any experienced game programming can tell you that (including me). Someone mentioned turtles making survival a joke or something to that effect. Survival mode itself is a joke really if you think about it, though, because who doesn't survive (unless you play hardcore mode). It isn't about survival really. Everyone will eventually reach their goals. It isn't about if you will but rather when you will. Different players prefer it to take longer than others. EE lets you get there a lot quicker. Turtles not quite as fast, and most other mods take even longer. For me personally, I like to play with lots of different mods and for me it is about how quickly I can get to my goals of a full setup (either large stockpiles of resources or fully automated systems, depending on the nature of the mods). For me, fun is measured by how quickly I can master the systems in a mod, come up with a plan for an ultimate design, and then how quickly I can make that design a reality. Mod makers trying too hard to balance things and make it take longer just tends to frustrate me a bit because it only slows me down. I will still reach my goal. It is just more irritating to get there because you've made it a slower process. Or if it gets too slow, I may just give up because it is too slow to be fun anymore (in which case the designer failed in my opinion because they broke the prime rule of fun being priority #1). This is why I quit playing Everquest a long time ago. It was just way to slow a process of improving your character.

So bottom line, figure out what is fun for people and tailor your mod to cash in on that, rather than dictate how they should be having fun. In the case of fuel required for turtles, I think lots of people like both options so both options should be available and left to the user to decide which to use. Why force them one way or the other? That's what servers are for.

I'm new to computer craft, having just started using like 2 days ago for the first time. My first impression of turtles: not what I expected. Biggest surprise was that they can fly (!) I figured they would be as affected by gravity as the player is. Also only being able to use diamond tools seems odd. Thinking about turtles, it seems to me like they would be better if they behaved more like players. Players can't fly. Players use tools to do work. Having a turtle able to equip a tool and use it makes sense. Using a stone pickaxe should allow the turtle to only be able to break stone, for example, and not diamond blocks. Turtles should take as long breaking blocks as the player does. Breaking obsidian should take a long time for a turtle, just like for the player. Anyway, these are my thoughts. Turtles are just an extension of computers. Mods are just an extension of minecraft. Different mods can do similar things differently, such as buildcraft and industrial craft. So why can't a different extension of computers be created similar to turtles? At some point I might make a mod extension I think as a replacement for turtles that implements them in a different way. This would satisfy a slightly different audience that maybe doesn't like the way turtles are right now. What's wrong with that? Having a variety of options is what makes mods for minecraft so awesome.

Anyway, enough rambling.

just a couple of points… first, this is much less of a problem in some cases now that turtles keep fuel when broken. Second, it's not terribly difficult to set up a turtle-based automated charcoal factory. Harvest trees, burn to charcoal, burn a bit to keep itself fueled, set it up over water to funnel saplings together for collection, and you've got fully-a automated never-ending supply of charcoal. And third, people tend to forget lava, which is 1200 fuel per source block. A very simple program, a bucket, and a few minutes in the nether can get your turtle's fuel level into the hundreds of thousands.

All that said, if you don't like playing with fuel, that's fine, it's optional for a reason, but it's not nearly so difficult to manage as some of these posts make it sound.

I suppose if you are playing tekkit (which I am at the moment just cos it is easy to find servers with the same modpack) or with a crazy server owner you can just use EE to pump your turtles full of energy now that they keep it even when broken so the system isn't at all bad. too bad tekkit doesn't have fuel :P/>/>

GopherAtl, on 14 November 2012 - 01:18 PM said:

just a couple of points… first, this is much less of a problem in some cases now that turtles keep fuel when broken. Second, it's not terribly difficult to set up a turtle-based automated charcoal factory. Harvest trees, burn to charcoal, burn a bit to keep itself fueled, set it up over water to funnel saplings together for collection, and you've got fully-a automated never-ending supply of charcoal. And third, people tend to forget lava, which is 1200 fuel per source block. A very simple program, a bucket, and a few minutes in the nether can get your turtle's fuel level into the hundreds of thousands.

All that said, if you don't like playing with fuel, that's fine, it's optional for a reason, but it's not nearly so difficult to manage as some of these posts make it sound.

I don't think it's a matter of challenge but of inconvenience. Time I have to spend setting up and running my charcoal farm, or supervising lava collection is time I could be spending conquering new worlds, building newer and more exciting programs more interesting than just keeping my computers powered. Finding fuel isn't difficult, but for me at least it's time better spent elsewhere. It's not why I'm playing computercraft.

I agree it's highly subjective, it depends on what your goals are and why you're playing (as Tclord eloquently put).

nitrogenfingers, on 08 November 2012 - 07:58 PM said:

I can see why some people would like to use fuel but personally I don't. To comment on the idea of turtles being overpowered, I agree they're an extremely powerful tool, but what I really like about them is they're only as powerful as the programmer. A skilled programmer can make turtles do incredibly powerful things, so your skill, your understanding and your practice correlate into direct game rewards. What a turtle can do, how flexible and easy it is, is limited by your skill and your imagination, which is one of the only games I know where that's the case.

So I'm not fond of fuel. Because another limitation is introduced, and it can be reacted to but I've always found it an irritating process when I've done it in the past. It's not really skill based, it's resource collection absed- at it's best it's wasting inventory and at it's worst it forces grinding out resources just to keep your ideas going.

I don't mind the overpowered nature of the mod, beceause minecraft to me isn't about "winning", it's about conceptualizing and realizing an idea, so the only challenges I really want are the cognitive ones of creating the best outcome. So fuel won't ever be of much interest to me.

I completely concur, the true power of ComputerCraft comes from the creativity it allows.
As for the wining thing, minecraft has for a long time lacked a set path or storyline, and the 'ending' doesn't really feel like much of an ending compared to other games. Ultimately it's sandbox at it's core, and thus the true aim is merely to satisfy your own desires to create.

Minecraft is more a game for the creative, not the competitive.

With the ICBM mod it's a game for the competitive too now, heh. There is also the super hostile series of maps. The nice thing about being open with a game and allowing for modding is that it's possibilities expand, limited only by the creativity of people and difficulty of making an idea a reality. That is kind of what is limiting me right now really with computer craft actually. Computers and turtles seem a little too limited in what they can do. I'm still thinking about what exactly it is lacking and how it would best be added. My rough thoughts so far are that some new system of identification of blocks and items utilizing a code rather than comparisons to something in inventory is needed. That way this data code could be transfered to other computers via rednet, as well as a database constructed of all known objects. Also some method of scanning and manipulating adjacent inventories is needed. I'm thinking a paripheral block for that, which can interact with the blocks adjacent to it, including buildcraft pipes. Probably have only one slot itself, which it can fill from or put to a specified slot in an adjacent inventory, or ejected to an adjacent pipe. Again the object code above would be useful in this application. Adjacent pipe items going into the peripheral would also fill it's internal slot and trigger an event. You could probably do everything the logistics pipes mod does with this system if you could figure out how to write all the programs for it to all work in lua on your computers. You could do even more though too. I guess I really should figure out how to make a mod myself one of these days and do it myself.

One last thing I wanted to mention, though. Had an interesting idea about combining computer craft with the ICBM mod to create a sort of super hostile style adventure map. It would be a kind of war game, where the player had to wipe out some enemy stronghold, which is defended by computer craft computers. The idea would be similar to Unreal Tournament, I think it was domination maps? I can't remember, but I remember these maps where you had to go in and wipe out the enemy who was defending a position. Then, you had to play from the defending perspective and stop the enemy from doing the same thing.

I think that turtle fuel should be disabled by default. <EOF>

Tclord, on 17 November 2012 - 10:46 AM said:

With the ICBM mod it's a game for the competitive too now, heh. There is also the super hostile series of maps. The nice thing about being open with a game and allowing for modding is that it's possibilities expand, limited only by the creativity of people and difficulty of making an idea a reality. That is kind of what is limiting me right now really with computer craft actually. Computers and turtles seem a little too limited in what they can do. I'm still thinking about what exactly it is lacking and how it would best be added. My rough thoughts so far are that some new system of identification of blocks and items utilizing a code rather than comparisons to something in inventory is needed. That way this data code could be transfered to other computers via rednet, as well as a database constructed of all known objects. Also some method of scanning and manipulating adjacent inventories is needed. I'm thinking a paripheral block for that, which can interact with the blocks adjacent to it, including buildcraft pipes. Probably have only one slot itself, which it can fill from or put to a specified slot in an adjacent inventory, or ejected to an adjacent pipe. Again the object code above would be useful in this application. Adjacent pipe items going into the peripheral would also fill it's internal slot and trigger an event. You could probably do everything the logistics pipes mod does with this system if you could figure out how to write all the programs for it to all work in lua on your computers. You could do even more though too. I guess I really should figure out how to make a mod myself one of these days and do it myself.

One last thing I wanted to mention, though. Had an interesting idea about combining computer craft with the ICBM mod to create a sort of super hostile style adventure map. It would be a kind of war game, where the player had to wipe out some enemy stronghold, which is defended by computer craft computers. The idea would be similar to Unreal Tournament, I think it was domination maps? I can't remember, but I remember these maps where you had to go in and wipe out the enemy who was defending a position. Then, you had to play from the defending perspective and stop the enemy from doing the same thing.

"Ultimately it's sandbox at it's core"

Minecraft itself is still firmly rooted in creativity. Adding a mod to make things more competitive is just another way of being creative - by expanding the existing game.

I agree about the block identification though. I tried suggesting this a while back and it was shot down pretty quickly. It would be so much more useful.
As for the pipes thing, CC would need permission to get pipe interactivity, so you're probably better to make a peripheral for that one. If I were better with Java, these are the sorts of things I'd do myself, but I have enough work on my hands with college as it is.

tiin57, on 17 November 2012 - 10:49 AM said:

I think that turtle fuel should be disabled by default. <EOF>

This is one of the things I was hoping to come out as a consequence of this poll. I have often said that more people don't use fuel than do, and as such it makes more sense that fuel should be off by default.

I doubt I'd be allowed to use this poll to back the idea given the way making suggestions works, but it's nice to have the assurance that my assumptions about the state of fuel use were right, as well as the reassurance that I'm not the only one that thinks it's a good idea to set the fuel as off by default.

tiin57, on 17 November 2012 - 10:49 AM said:

I think that turtle fuel should be disabled by default. <EOF>

No. It's a default as most server owners leave the options untouched. You don't like fuel, turn it off.

Cloudy, on 17 November 2012 - 10:59 AM said:

No. It's a default as most server owners leave the options untouched. You don't like fuel, turn it off.

Out of interest, can we have a poll to see just how many?

I don't think it's on by default because they think most server operators will want it on. I think it's on by default because turning it off opens your server to serious turtle abuse, and with it on by default server ops who turn it off have nobody to blame but themselves.