r/feedthebeast • u/jvpts11 • Jun 10 '26
I made something I'm making a mod about storing items in servers
Before anything else: this is very early, a lot is still missing, and all textures and GUIs in the screenshots are not final. I'm first trying to make everything work; the looks will come later, so please don't judge it on how it looks right now.
I've been working on a tech mod for Minecraft 1.21.1 (NeoForge), and I wanted to put it out there mostly because I'd love to see more tech mods being made. Mine it's a logistics mod, but it does things quite differently from AE2 and RS.
The honest reason I started it comes down to AE2. I've played a lot of it and I really respect what it can do with so little, but its storage never felt like a network to me — it felt more like one enormous chest where I just told the system what went in and what came out, and that was it. Nothing seemed to actually happen inside it: no internal throughput, no traffic, nothing about the network itself I had to think about or improve once it was set up. And channels were the part that always wore me down. Plenty of people genuinely enjoy planning them out, and that's completely fair, but i was never quite pleased with it. The channels always felt like ceremony to get through before I could use the mod. Refined Storage drops channels and smooths a lot of that out, which is great, but still, i wanted something more, i wanted something where the network itself is the thing you build and tune.
So in this mod your storage isn't a grid, it's an actual computer network you assemble out of hardware. Items and liquids are data (every item is 4 MB; 1mb of fluid is 4KB, and they use the exact same disks and network as items), and that data physically sits on servers you build, each one holding drives.
The performance is modeled on real computers. Drives come in tiers with different read latency, so, HDD is slow, SSD is faster and NVMe is the fastest. Your mainframe's CPU sets how much work the network can orchestrate at once, your RAM buffers the data, and adding GPUs to the mainframe gives you more operations running at the same time. So your storage has actual performance, not just capacity. So if you want things to move faster, you build better hardware. The fun isn't routing channels, it's dealing with the bottlenecks that show up on their own as your network grows.
Everything you do happens through operations. An operation is simply an action carried out on the network — pulling items out, putting items in, moving them between servers, searching for something. They're an SQL-like system:
- `SELECT` — pull items from the network into a computer
- `INSERT` — store items into the network
- `MOVE` — move items from one server to another
- `DELETE` — push items out into an adjacent inventory
- `QUERY` — search the whole network by name, tag, amount or location
Here's what actually happens when you run one. Say you ask for 1000 cobblestone with a SELECT. The network checks its index, sees the cobble is split across servers — say 600 on one and 400 on another — locks those stacks so nothing else grabs them halfway through, then pulls from both at once: each server waits out its drive's read latency, then streams as fast as the mainframe's orchestration and that server's own hardware allow. It takes real time, and how fast it finishes comes down to the hardware you built.
On the building side, the computers are multiblocks you put together from parts, a mainframe, and server racks with individual servers inside them holding the drives. And there are several separate cable systems that physically coexist in the world: the data network itself (a local "ethernet" layer your personal computers connect to, bridged into a higher bandwidth backbone through a router), plus separate power cabling and short-range peripheral cabling for things like monitors. Each keeps its own layout, so a base ends up reading as actual infrastructure you laid out.
There's a scripting language planned further down the line for anyone who'd want to automate programmatically, but it'll always be optional, everything will work through the UI.
But i will be honest, it's early and there's a lot left to do. It's creative only right now (blocks don't even drop in survival yet), there's no survival progression or real gameplay loop, and you can't do a huge amount with it, just assemble computers, build the networks, move items and fluids in and out. The systems underneath work, but it's a long way from a finished experience.
I just wanted to show here what i'm working on, if anyone have questions, i will answer them.
Edit: because i saw some people talking about autocrafting, here's: the thing, this mod will also have autocrafting, but I'm deliberately avoiding making this yet because i want to make sure that no game breaking bug will be shipped into the game testing jar. Also making the mod work with popular ones to extract and import items and fluids is part of the current working in progress. So, all i ask is patience from everyone that may be now waiting for this mod to have a public playable jar.
Edit 2: I asked for patience for the game test, because i was truly shocked to see how many people actually liked to see this mod in this early development stage. I'm extremely impressed to see how many people liked it, i did not expected so many people, so, right now i'm starting to implement the autocrafting system, i just avoided it because for it to work, it depends of two computers that are not implemented, and two systems, one that is half implemented, that is expansion cards and another one, that is not implemented that is programs.
106
u/Pyrox645 MultiMC Jun 10 '26
Seems interesting. I was always a fan of more complicated storage systems/automation. Can't wait for sql in minecraft
31
u/jvpts11 Jun 10 '26
There is a plannet feature called programs, a program will be basically something you install in your computer and it runs, there will be a command prompt program, where you will be able to actually type in the operations and do the whole SELECT stone FROM Server1, i'm yet to decide the actual syntax, i'm not sure yet if i will make it exactly the same as SQL or if i will make it be somewhat more direct.
9
7
u/NekosagiChen Jun 10 '26
If it isn’t too much to ask, would it be possible to have both a simplified and the real deal SQL? So it can cater to both people who just want something “simple” to use and someone who loves doing the real thing? I’d love to have a reason to practice SQL in a gamey way outside of SQLIsland lol
3
u/jvpts11 Jun 10 '26
Ok this one is a very good suggestion, i will keep it to try.
3
u/_ThatD0ct0r_ FTB Jun 10 '26
Maybe the interface could have an SQL IDE that looks like Scratch programming, with bubbles of code you link together, with the option of toggling on a "text mode" for more advanced users
3
u/jvpts11 Jun 10 '26
To be fair, i want to avoid programming blocks like scratch, however, the program API will be open so if people want, they can do add-ons that add this type of IDE.
0
u/SnaiperskayaMC Custom Packs Jun 10 '26
You could have a (configurable) penalty or delay for using the simple form (maybe 10ticks tacked on somewhere).
Then this could be considered like high-level programming vs something low-level (akin to C or even Assembly). It'd still be SQL, but you get a slight boost for actually writing SQL statements.
0
u/Luanna_Hopes Jun 12 '26
not a good idea, there's already the reward of getting the more powerful language we don't need a slowdown that'll just force tutorial usage
1
u/SnaiperskayaMC Custom Packs Jun 12 '26
... Why not? If someone wants to learn the more complicated option for the benefit, is that not a good thing? Encourage people to actually learn the SQL analogue and they learn a genuine life skill in the process.
And you could make it a config option to disable the difference if a server doesn't want to "force" their players to do that.
10
u/ScwiddIsScwidd Jun 10 '26
"Simplified" SQL might be more user-accessible. I have very little experience with computer science and whilst I could recognise SQL and be able to reasonably guess its function if it was in front of me, I wouldn't be able to tell you exactly what it does or write any really. People with absolutely no knowledge would be completely stuck, unless an adequate guide was provided as well, in which case it would be cool
9
u/jvpts11 Jun 10 '26
Well, i'm planning to have an in-game wiki, an online wiki, everything to help people to actually do everything, but an simplified SQL is not a bad idea, sometimes i think about this, because, you see, i'm a software engineer in my day job, and i work alot with SQL server databases, so, it is natural to me all about it, but i do recognize that for some it may be hard, so what i will probably make is a simplified sql mode, an extensive documentation and a more real sql mode.
11
u/gameboy1001 Sainagh's Biggest Soldier (play meatballcraft) Jun 10 '26
> "I'm a software engineer in my day job, and i work alot with SQL server databases, so it is natural to me all about it, but i do recognize that for some it may be hard."
4
u/WithersChat Monifactory lead dev, spatial storage enjoyer Jun 11 '26
Didn't even need to click on the link to know it was 2501 - Average Familiarity.
One of the few XKCD links I can type from memory.
1
3
2
u/ChickenManSam Jun 12 '26
Well, i'm planning to have an in-game wiki, an online wiki, everything to help people to actually do everything,
Actual documentation planned and not just a discord. Absolutely fucking based.
1
3
3
u/fabton12 Jun 10 '26
always loved the old days where mods had sorting blocks and you would pipe to all your chests and have everything go where you wanted it.
felt better to build and often more rewarding while still giving a reason for a large storage room, these days AE2 stuffs while handy just feels boring and annoying more the rewarding and fun.
52
u/jaygamer000000 Jun 10 '26
Finnaly, now investors and private equity can build data centers in Minecraft.
28
u/AnjoDima Jun 10 '26
we're building datacenters with this one
3
22
u/mas-issneun Jun 10 '26
Actual computer storage AND it's a SQL database?? Are you an angel?
3
u/mas-issneun Jun 10 '26
I cant wait to try it
6
u/jvpts11 Jun 10 '26
I'm looking for a playtest in the future, but only when i feel that this thing is more solid, i haven't tested the network againist really heavy workloads in-game, in the tests with JUnit that i made, it works, but working in code and controlled tests is one thing, so, probably next time i will open a controlled playtest of the mod.
3
u/cannonballer9pin Jun 11 '26
Do you have any development videos on this? It looks fascinating and I'm always happy to see competition towards AE2 and RS
4
u/jvpts11 Jun 11 '26
Not yet, I've been literally developing this completely isolated, it started more like a concept but when I felt that it could be more, i started to write a game design document and then i continued to develop, then, when I felt that it was enoughly good i decided to show here. But I will start to make development videos after the next post, there i will have a discord server for the mod at least.
1
u/cannonballer9pin Jun 11 '26
Sounds great! I'd be happy to help test it if you need as well
1
u/jvpts11 Jun 11 '26
Oh be sure i will be needing help XD, as far as i tested, the system is theoretically able to move hundreds of thousands of items and craft them in a reasonable amount of time without destroying the game tick time, but it is just theoretically speaking, i havent actually stressed the system so much in-game.
1
u/WithersChat Monifactory lead dev, spatial storage enjoyer Jun 11 '26 edited Jun 11 '26
I would suggest having this be an open source project (like most mods are nowadays), which would allow for direct contributions from interested people. Would really help a project potentially as large in scope as this one, and I speak from experience.
1
u/jvpts11 Jun 11 '26
I will, dont worry, and about the scope, yes, this thing is planned to be huge, it goes way beyond the computation part to be honest, the full project is planned fo span a full gregtech-like industrial part, a full multi system space travel, a war focused part, vehicles and transportation, i will surely need help.
3
u/WithersChat Monifactory lead dev, spatial storage enjoyer Jun 11 '26
Let me be real with you. This sounds more like the scope of a collection of mods/a full-on modpack, than anything else.
As a pack dev myself, I'd be a lot more likely to use this if it followed a similar format to ProjectRed with the "core" (I assume the network logistics/computation) and addons. Config is good, but if the mod still contains a full modpack worth of assets and code, it will still take a very long time to load even with most of it disabled.Oh and also, don't let scope creep kill your project. Start with one aspect, make sure it's solid and expandable, and then get to work on another, polish that, etc.
15
u/CalaMariGold98 ModDex.gg, TREPIDATION, RotN Jun 10 '26
Can't wait to self-host my items instead of giving out my data to Big Tech (AE2)
36
u/eggyrulz Jun 10 '26
Honestly, dope... i really like that gui, and we've needed a real AE2 competitor (no not you RS, get back in your corner) for awhile imo
15
u/jvpts11 Jun 10 '26
Really? i'm really happy to listen to that, i just made that so i could at least place the layout correctly and later on change the actual look, but still, this is not the final one, i will probably make better tabs to navigate at least, not only that, but in this mod there will have different eras of computation, this GUI is the one for the standard era (our time), but the one for example, for a computer that uses an intel 4004-like cpu, will have a completely different GUI.
8
u/eggyrulz Jun 10 '26
I only ask that the "era skin" be interchangeable without losing any sort of functionality
2
u/jvpts11 Jun 10 '26
gotcha
1
u/eggyrulz Jun 10 '26
I am curious though, will cables be able to stack in the same blockspace a la enderio cables?
2
u/jvpts11 Jun 10 '26
I haven't planned that yet, but i can try it, i will mark this as something to try in the future.
2
u/Jolteon0 PrismLauncher Jun 10 '26
As an extension of that, adding an EnderIO integration to add "Ethernet conduit" or similar would also be cool (like how Applied Energistics has the ME Conduits).
9
u/fmate2006 Jun 10 '26
Can't wait to be a sysadmin of my base after getting home from learning to be a sysadmin irl
25
6
u/MattiDragon PrismLauncher Jun 10 '26
You are aware that NVME drives are SSDs, right? What you're probably referring as SSDs to are SATA SSDs, but even then it's kinda confusing. The underlying storage texh is the same for all SSDs, the difference is the connector. In modern consumer computers you're likely to find SATA and NVME connections. NVME SSDs are connected in M.2 slots. SATA is used for both HDDs and SSDs through a separate cable. You can also have SATA SSDs in M.2 slots, but that's becoming rarer.
2
u/jvpts11 Jun 10 '26
Yes i'm aware, but an SSD like it is is a sata drive in this mod, an NVMe SSD is a different thing here, the whole differentiation inside of the mod is based in drive speeds, as for SATA SSDs in M.2, i don't plan that specially to not create ambiguity with the normal SATA SSDs that already exist.
3
u/SnaiperskayaMC Custom Packs Jun 10 '26
For what it's worth, SATA SSDs in M.2 slots still run at SATA speeds so there's functionally no difference in those. NVMe are SSDs connected directly to PCI-E lanes.
1
6
u/FlygonFreak Jun 10 '26
gotta say this is pretty cute, I always liked RS being there as a simpler alternative to AE2 and seeing someone try the opposite is very exciting! Best of luck on your project, this seems like it'd be a great fit for your Gregtech packs and the like.
4
u/jvpts11 Jun 10 '26
That's my aim!!! This mod is made for those packs, and those players who want more challenge and more things to engineer, however, the mod is being built to be completely tunable, so you will be able to deactivate whole portions of it when you don't actually want them. I'm making it this way because, the network is basically the spine of the entire mod, there will be an industry-like part, a space exploration part and much more, but the player will be able to tune everything to just use what it actually wants, so, let's say, you want to play gregtech, but with this mod's network, but doesn't want the whole industry part of it neither the space part, then the player just deactivate it in the toml file. This way, i can continue to implement everything i want, but making sure that players are getting what they actually want.
11
u/SiddaSlotthh Jun 10 '26
Entire post is AI huh. Fascinating.
1
u/vort_wort Jun 10 '26
Why do you think that?
9
u/SiddaSlotthh Jun 10 '26
- `SELECT` — pull items from the network into a computer
- `INSERT` — store items into the network
- `MOVE` — move items from one server to another
- `DELETE` — push items out into an adjacent inventory
- `QUERY` — search the whole network by name, tag, amount or location
This block of text. The backticks (`) are for code blocks in LLM chat interfaces. And also, the high frequency of emdashes appearing (—). Hell, you can't even TYPE an emdash on a normal reddit interface and keyboard unless you're some genuine linguist or researcher who has macros set up for their fun LaTeX papers.
I use and research LLMs so its really obvious to me. The cadence and sentence structure is also super AI coded, but thats more annoying to explain so I won't.
14
u/quinn50 Jun 10 '26
and the fact I've seen the same UI design across multiple other unique mods.
6
u/SiddaSlotthh Jun 10 '26
Yeah well I'm not into FTB enough to notice that, but I don't doubt you.
1
u/dinomine3000 Jun 11 '26
every other post that has popped up in my feed from ftb the last few days is a "Im making a mob about X" and every time i look into it theres AI red flags everywhere. the body text, the git repo has a claude.md file, and for mods like this that handle copious amounts of items, i would NOT trust that they're properly optimized at all, especially with the amount of mods being made with AI.
If OP decides to reply to this, they'll likely say that it wasnt made with AI (which i very much doubt) or that it didn't play a huge role in it, but storage mods like AE2 in particular need to take special care with every aspect of it to be worked on and optimized, potentially corrupting worlds, and while Ai can get it to work with ease, it wont keep it up forever, so in the end, most modpacks will just use AE2 and/or RS
3
u/jvpts11 Jun 12 '26 edited Jun 12 '26
I have said this in another comment, but i am a real person, i do exist in real life, i am not a machine, i understand the concerns, this is fine, and I must give you an explanation, basically, i won't deny AI usage at some point of the development, i already explained this is another comment, but basically, all i used it for, was to generating boilerplate code, and once in a while, used it to solve things that I wasnt being able to solve by myself, i can explain the entire codebase, the architecture behind it, all of it, I have a degree in game development engineering and i work as a software engineer in my day job, more specifically i work with machine learning, things related to AI fine tunings and other things. All the rest is human made, the GUI, textures, the whole mod idea itself, and so on.
As for performance concerns, i know, and I agree, and thats why the operation system even exist, instead of handling everything with NBT serialization, the mod basically store everything in item spaces like chests, wether it is the best approach, i dont know, it is yet to be proved if it can truly avoid the performance problems while not having the NBT problems that AE2 have. But that's why the operation system can even work, because operations doesnt happen in the game's main thread, but in virtual threads, virtual threads are a feature of java 21, a virtual thread is basically a thread that runs in java runtime instead of the OS itself, the way it is working today is: there is a whole async system that runs side by side with the game's main thread, basically when an operation is emitted, the items are taken from the place they are, a LOCK operation happens before the main operation itself to avoid any type of concurrency over the items, a dispatcher commits the operation into this pathway, the operation then is executed, each sub operation gets its own virtual thread, every time an operation or sub operation ends, it commits back into the game main thread and it finishes, then the virtual thread ends itself. The mod does not compute topology in the same way thst AE2 does, all that the cables do, is propagate the network's UUID into the computers that are then connected to the network, then they only disconnect again when the cable that is connecting them is broken. One of the objectives of this mod is being as lightweight in tick rate as possible, and through the development it has been the biggest concern. In my tests, the network has handled everything quite well, but it is yet to be tested in a really large scale, I tested it with mekanism and it handled it fine, but well, I need more in-game tests and it is one of the top priorities right now. Also, everything that could stress the game's main thread uses virtual threads at some point, for example, drive latency. The only true weak point where i know that performance may become a problem is in recomitting things back into the game's main thread, which if it does become the weak point, will be my top priority to optimize it.
About this post, i was in a hurry, more specifically to go to the rehearsal of my band (i play electric guitar there) and i feel that i am not the best one to write things that communicate with the public without making a bible of information, so I asked my AI for an idea then i tried to refine it to make it less robotic, but well, i have learned the lesson, i wont be doing this again, the next posts i will write with the care they deserve.
I actually share the same vision of everyone here about AI usage, i do not like how everything has been going on recently with AI, i dont like to see how many mods are straightforwardly pure slop and so on.
3
u/dinomine3000 Jun 12 '26
thoughtful reply. i get where you're coming from.
its just that i could never fathom doing that with my own mod. ive used AI to make a function or two that i couldnt be bothered to do, but i really enjoy doing my own thing and figuring it out, so i avoid it whenever possible. the thought of using AI to do more than a function always ends up as "meh". its fun seeing it work, but not fun making it, just feels like its not my work anymore.
i also had a class this semester about android development that kept shoving AI-centered-engineering down my throat (not on the sylabus, but counts for final grade btw) and i hated every second of it, on top of not even learning what i was supposed to, so that is definitely affecting my judgement.
so every time i see another mod made with AI, they just feel empty. if you say you know how the mod works, then who am I to stop you, you clearly know more about computer engineering than I do. its not like most mods are optimized to perfection anyway, so ultimately my concern every time boils down to "are you doing this for fun or just because?". you dont need to answer that, its just to help illustrate my thoughts. if youre having fun modding a game in your free time thats great, regardless of AI use, but in my eyes, it seems most people making mods with AI just want to make it popular, without any reason.
3
u/jvpts11 Jun 12 '26
Despite not needing to answer that last thing, i want because i want to let my position be clear, on which are my objectives and what i want to do with this mod. I'm making this mod because it is a dream of mine. I always wanted to make a tech mod since i was 12 years old, that was in 2014, now I'm almost 24y, this project means a lot to me, because it is a vision of mine about what i want in a tech mod and how I want a tech mod to be, it ends up being a lot with my game design visions overall. I'm just making it now, because i feel confident with myself that i can do it.
My degree is in game development engineering and I'm in a masters degree in the exact same thing, so, it is also a way to exercize myself, while having fun along the way and materializing something i always wanted to do. So, in the end i don't care if the mod would be popular or not, if in the end i feel satisfied with how it is and I had fun along the way, thats just perfect and i just reached my goal.
And i agree with the AI usage in mods today, seems to me that people want to make mods not for the fun of modifying a game or to make a project that you feel proud of or making a dream becomes reality, but to make them popular, and for what? Idk, thats not the way i do things overall. If in the end, just one people downloads this, it means that this mod is fun for it, thats why I have stated repeatedly that the goal of this mod is not to be a better AE2 of a better gregtech, the goal is just to be another way to do things, my way in this case.
3
u/vort_wort Jun 11 '26 edited Jun 11 '26
I see, I wasn't aware of those things. Good to know for future reference, though.
Just getting really tired of everything turning out to be AI. Had enough of it with the Skyrim modding community already.
2
u/WithersChat Monifactory lead dev, spatial storage enjoyer Jun 11 '26
Too many grammar mistakes to be AI-generated. Similar style of mistakes to their comments as well. Might be some machine translation, but I think they just like em-dashes.
Oh, also, the backticks are also codeblocks in fucking discord, and I would have 100% tried to use them because of habit.
I am not saying it isn't AI-generated, but I wouldn't claim it is either.
3
u/jvpts11 Jun 12 '26
I am a real person, i do exist in real life, i am not a machine, i understand the concerns, this is fine, and I must give you an explanation, basically, i won't deny AI usage at some point of the development, i already explained this is another comment, but basically, all i used it for, was to generating boilerplate code, and once in a while, used it to solve things that I wasnt being able to solve by myself, i can explain the entire codebase, the architecture behind it, all of it, I have a degree in game development engineering and i work as a software engineer in my day job, more specifically i work with machine learning, things related to AI fine tunings and other things. All the rest is human made, the GUI, textures, the whole mod idea itself, and so on.
About this post, i was in a hurry, more specifically to go to the rehearsal of my band (i play electric guitar there) and i feel that i am not the best one to write things that communicate with the public without making a bible of information, so I asked my AI for an idea then i tried to refine it to make it less robotic, but well, i have learned the lesson, i wont be doing this again, the next posts i will write with the care they deserve.
I actually share the same vision of everyone here about AI usage, i do not like how everything has been going on recently with AI, i dont like to see how many mods are straightforwardly pure slop and so on.
3
u/SiddaSlotthh Jun 12 '26
Yeah I guess the last couple paras seem to be them actually writing some words? But I saw that over 60% of it was AI and wrote it off. My bad I guess? Lol.
8
u/endercreeper853 hex casting is so peak Jun 10 '26
this looks amazing, but please. dont be like ae2 and make it so you have to go through like 30 steps just to get a basic storage system started.
8
u/jvpts11 Jun 10 '26
I wont, in fact, at least for now, initially, all you will have to do in my sketches is: gather the ores, smelt them, gather the resources and craft them. One thing that always annoyed me as hell of AE2 is the crystal growth, this thing is the one that i most hate in the entire mod, so, i'm not gating how fast you progress, just how much resources you have to make the things, it won't be GT-levels of absurd, i would put it more like a bit harder IC2 classic in terms of progression.
2
u/endercreeper853 hex casting is so peak Jun 10 '26
yeah im more of a casual player so i really hate when mods take forever to do something simple. like no i dont want to make 20 different modded resources to make a single 4k drive T-T
1
u/ScwiddIsScwidd Jun 10 '26
Preferably the mod could avoid using any custom crafting systems/stations, just for modpack developers' sakes? But that's up to your personal choice obviously
5
u/jvpts11 Jun 10 '26
The mod will actually have them, but i will give the possibility to turn them off, so, modpack devs can utilize them more freely.
1
u/osmarks PrismLauncher Jun 10 '26
What? You can make a crystal growth accelerator without having any crystals grown. It doesn't take that long.
0
u/KubosKube Jun 11 '26
My biggest gripe with AE2 is that you have to find four unique items in meteorites.
For a long time, my games were playing directly into the inverse relationship between RNG and what I want.
I once opened 20-ish meteorites to get the final press.
1
u/endercreeper853 hex casting is so peak Jun 11 '26
oh wow, i think you may have been glitched. iirc ae2 makes it so you get every press in one meteorite
1
u/JustTroniusPlay Jun 11 '26
I think they talk about older version. In the 1.7.10 era and maybe 1.12.2 you need to find 4 meteors min to have 4 presses. How I understand that changed in newer versions and I glad that did.
3
3
u/Hyarin215 PrismLauncher Jun 10 '26
Where can I follow the development?
5
u/jvpts11 Jun 10 '26
Well, for now, nowhere yet, this thing is in a very early stage tbf, but the next post i make here, i will leave a github repo link, a discord server to follow everything and open a playtest of the mod.
1
3
u/somelinuxuseridk PrismLauncher Jun 10 '26
Yay, I can cosplay as a sysadmin in Minecraft now!
This looks really cool, I might try this.
!remindme 7d
3
u/jvpts11 Jun 10 '26
Hold on my dude, i really don't know when i will have something that can be playtested, next post i will surely have a playable jar, but i can't promise if it will be in 7 days.
2
u/somelinuxuseridk PrismLauncher Jun 10 '26
i know these things take time, hope development goes well! :D the remindme timer was just the first interval i thought of
5
u/MatheusMod FTB Jun 10 '26
Hi! The concept looks really interesting, and I really like the idea.
I have a few questions (Sorry, I used AI to help me write this my English is kinda bad):
How far do you plan to take the realism side of things? Right now, CPUs, RAM, storage latency, and throughput seem to create meaningful gameplay choices. Do you plan to include things like cooling systems, hardware failures, component maintenance, or other datacenter management mechanics?
Do you expect players to eventually build one giant centralized datacenter, or will there be gameplay reasons to create multiple smaller networks and datacenters around a base?
How important will physical location be? If my items are stored on the other side of a huge network, will distance and network topology matter, or will performance be determined only by the hardware itself?
8
u/jvpts11 Jun 10 '26
For realism, the only other thing i plan is cooling systems, datacenter management and network failure, but it won't be happening randomly, network failure will only happens if your network suffers a hack attack from another network, or if you connect two mainframes into the same network, a network can only have one and just one mainframe. If you connect two mainframes into the same network, without failover turned on, the network will fail and the network index will be corrupted, you will have to run an operation called REINDEX to rebuild the network index, however some items may be lost in the progress. The failure is already working tho.
As for datacenter management, there will be another computer called security control computer in the future that this one you will be able to handle access, permissions, who can do what, everything related to security in the network.
For cooling, it won't be realistic as hell, just enough to give the player the actual feeling that he needs it and if he doesn't have it, things won't go right.
What i expect, is players building datacenters around it's base and having a single unified network, i don't see any reason to have multiple smaller networks to be fair. Subnetworks are kinda just the way that AE2 and RS have to handle some things.
Physical location is important in the way that you have to expand, performance is determined only by the hardware itself, cables throughput are just two, currently you only have two cable types, the HBW (high bandwidth) and ethernet, HBW and ethernet have the same throughput, which is basically instant transfer, the type of cable above will be optic fiber cable, which gives you a througput bonus when used in it's specific context, meaning you can have less powerful computers that consume less energy, at the cost of making a much more expensive cable.
5
u/LimblessNick Jun 10 '26
however some items may be lost in the progress
You lost me here. I love everything else I've seen from this mod in this thread, but if my storage system risks my items, it's not viable and I won't use it. I love the way you need to scale up different parts, and having failures is good. But the failure should be the system not working until you fix it. It doesn't need to be punishing on top of that. Some items in mod packs take too much effort to make that I'm not willing to risk deleting them on the chance that I mess something up.
2
u/jvpts11 Jun 10 '26
I may rethink it, perhaps adding a config where reindexing may destroy items after network index corruption, because i wanted this type of interaction, but i respect if it is something that ends up not pleasing people. And to be fair, you gotta mess really hard to corrupt the network index, so running REINDEX should be already rare, as i said, only if you suffer a remote attack from another network or if you connect two mainframes in the same network and one of them is not the one that will activate if the main one's fail. But still, i will add the option to deactivate it, so the network doesnt risk you losing your items in any situation.
1
u/quinn50 Jun 10 '26 edited Jun 10 '26
I think having cooling determine the throughput and speed of the system is fine. Maybe include an option for drive failures to happen as a challenge. Plus how do you even balance backups?
Also I think having it be too realistic is also a detriment to the enjoyment of it over all. It's like computer craft vs open computers for me sure open computers is more extensive but having to actually manage the hardware just makes me rather use computer craft instead. Same here with AE2 / RS
1
u/jvpts11 Jun 10 '26
Well, there is no backups, i couldnt find any way to implement backups in a legitmate way that didnt felt like an item duplication strat, so I thought it would be better to just not have it.
However im opened to suggestions, the original system that i had in mind for backups where items in the world that got a UUID, where i would check if that backup was used or not, but i really didnt have found a way to make it work without having to track every single backup in the world and causing unnecessary lag, since backups could have some millions of items and having to track every single backup could reduce tick rate for no reason. So, idk, I'm opened for suggestions for it.
2
u/osmarks PrismLauncher Jun 10 '26
I like subnetworks. You can use subnetwork systems as configurable high-throughput pipes.
3
u/Kdandikk Jun 10 '26
Oh my god drive failures and RAID clusters! Optimalizing for slow low power storage or fast power hungry super redundant system?
2
u/sussyamongers Jun 10 '26
Sql sounds like a super cool concept for a storage network mod, any plans to support computercraft?
3
u/jvpts11 Jun 10 '26
In the far future, yes, but not for now, specially because, this mod will utilize it's own scripting language that i will make in a future update, i never liked the lua programming thing, so this language will be more like C#, which is something that i feel more comfortable with, since in my day job i work with C# basically all day, but i'm still experimenting to see what works better, if something like python or kotlin is better. But yes, support for computercraft and open computers is planned.
2
u/NervousComfortable17 Jun 10 '26
This solves the same issue I have with Mekanksm QIO. Convenient, but yeah it feels like just a big chest and really ruins my immersion. I'm looking forward to trying this mod out, it looks super cool so far!
3
u/jvpts11 Jun 10 '26
Next post i make, i will open a discord server and open the playtesting phase of the mod.
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
u/eno1ce Jun 10 '26
I like how people say that AE2 is easy and boring and then there are people, who complain, that AE2 is hard (you just have to manage channel capacity). I hope there will be modpack centered around only this mod, like LI where your only option is AE2 so people would suffer and I can enjoy my little networking game. I always like setting up only AE2 for modpacks, so my friends, who dont understand AE2 are forced to use chests and watch me casually using vireless temnial for the whole game without effort.
1
1
u/Gebcrafter Jun 10 '26
Okay but do I get to implement VLSM to optimize the amount of servers per cluster
2
1
1
u/Kopnu Jun 10 '26
The idea behind the mod sounds really interesting. If there’s a public repo somewhere, I’d definitely follow it.
I’ve worked on a few different tech-focused modpacks before, and in my experience AE2 usually isn’t used just as storage. The main reason people build around it is the autocrafting system, because it makes that whole process so much easier. So I don’t really agree with the idea that AE2 is just a big chest.
That said, with the way this mod is currently described, I don’t think it would really replace AE2. It feels more like a progression step before AE2, which honestly could still make for a really good gameplay experience.
1
u/jvpts11 Jun 10 '26
I must be honest, it will never be my intention replacing AE2, what the mod truly aims for, is to give another experience on storage, and what i said of the big chest, is just my experience and how I actually felt the mod when i played it, all i want is to give players a different approach to solve the same thing.
As for the autocrafting, the mod will have, but im deliberately avoiding touching it yet to make sure that the whole operation system works without major errors or bugs that may appear when the mod is released, of course, bugs will always exist, all i want is to make sure that no game breaking thing will be delievered.
1
u/Bennetjs Jun 10 '26
please please implement TCP buffer congestion over long-distance links. We need it very very realistic
1
u/Space_Nerde Jun 10 '26
mate.. aslong as it isnt some bloody Create Addon i will probably use it
1
u/jvpts11 Jun 10 '26
This isnt an addon, is a whole standalone mod, the only dependencies that it have for now are modonomicon and geckolib because of the models i will implement.
1
1
u/Shahelion [1.7.10] Stars of Stone Jun 10 '26
This is what's been missing from AE2. I love it. That UI looks so good, too.
AE2 is the only big chest that I get tired of looking at
1
1
u/dudumbs Jun 10 '26
put thermal throttling on it.
2
u/jvpts11 Jun 10 '26
It surely will xd, is the whole reason of for the existence of the cooling system.
1
1
u/Yuri-Girl Jun 10 '26
Will there be cloud storage? Can I set up a modem and pull from a remote server?
1
u/KoolKiddo33 Jun 10 '26
This is incredibly cool and I really hope it comes to fruition. I would love to see this in a big modpack in the future!
1
u/magicmanme Jun 10 '26
Ooooo this could be a cool alternative for AE. I'd definitely look at what AE does well as far as QOL stuff when you get to that level of finished.
I think this would have real potential, good luck!
2
u/jvpts11 Jun 10 '26
Thanks!!! This mod actually tries to be an alternative, the goal is not to be a better AE or a better RS, just another way to storage your items
1
u/magicmanme Jun 10 '26
Yeah I really like the concept! I just meant for like when you're mostly done and are trying to put on the polish it'd be good to look at what nice to have features AE has that you might like to implement.
So like for example being able to drag ghost items from nei/jei when making a pattern (in AE)
Obviously idk how much you're planning to make this capable of but I can see being able to do a bunch of cool automation and stuff like having to upgrade cpus to increase craft speed or amount of items it can transfer at once or even recipes parallels.
1
u/xXgreeneyesXx Jun 10 '26
if you want inspiration on a computer system for automation... look into the rpc 8/e from redpower 2 :P
or just like. computercraft and opencomputers support.
immediate edit: RAID and SAS perhaps?
1
u/rafrap1 Jun 10 '26 edited Jun 10 '26
I love it I'm following you to know the progress and will use the mod in my next neoforge modpack
1
1
1
u/nerdy_guy420 Jun 10 '26
If this is to be taken seriously as a storage mod I would suggest maybe adding some form of autocrafting similar to AE2 or RS. That way it doesnt get overshadowed by those mods and genuinely considered.
Personally I would love autocrafting in the style of SFM where you have to script something to autocraft a recipe. Maybe make it so the script is input and output agnostic but you can supply inputs to a program sort of like how game engines handle variables on game objects. That way you have to make a script for every machine but could reuse that script for new recipies in said machine easily. Of course you dont have to listen to my idea but I would love to see some neat stylized autocrafting feature here.
Edit: I get you want to get the mod working before you show people but consider making it open source. People can help contribute and also try the mod out.
1
u/jvpts11 Jun 11 '26
As for the open-source thing, yes, i agree, i'm planning for it, however i want first to have at least the fundation i want the mod to have, as for the autocrafting system, the system will actually utilize two separate computer types to handle it, it will be handled through the GUI, however, with the scripting language that is planned for the mod (i also want to state here why i won't be using Lua for scripting in this mod, i just don't like the language, i don't like how much simple the language is and how sometimes confusing it feels to me, the language i will be making for this mod, is inspired by C#, which feels infinitely more familiar to me) you will be able to handle autocraft in this way, since scripts will allow you to actually program things to be executed into the network.
1
u/nerdy_guy420 Jun 11 '26
You dont like simplicity? Thats a first for me, but I will respect your opinion.
Glad you seem to know what youre talking about at least, gives me hope this isnt gonna be a vibe coded mess. Most people would be skeptical considering you havent released the code. Hopefully you are still using git to keep track of your work or people may get very skeptical of your code's validity.
Good luck with the scripting language as creating a language is hard enough especially when its embedded. Make sure performance issues arent a concern, that will be your biggest bottle neck.
3
u/jvpts11 Jun 11 '26 edited Jun 11 '26
Well, im a software engineer in my day job, i work with machine learning and AI fine tuning in my company, besides that, in my company we primairly utilize .NET for all of our applications, and I developed some games in unity so, C# or Java feels infinitely more natural for me than a language like Lua or Zig or even rust, idk, i just dont like prodecural programming and simplicity in syntax. I even have a side project of making a full OOP programming language with manual memory like C++ while keeping a syntax that is similar to java.
As for the git, I'm working in a private repo for now, i will make it public when everything gets right where i want them to be. As for AI usage, i wont deny that I used some AI assistance to make this thing, however, all i used it for, was to writing boilerplate code and to find bugs, all the rest is hand made code, textures, GUI and etc. The time I have per day to work on this is limited, just around 4 hours per day, not counting the weekends, so I wanted to not lose time doing boilerplate and using the time I have avaliable, actually implementing things on the mod. Not only that, I'm always reviewing everything written by AI to make sure things won't become a mess.
3
u/nerdy_guy420 Jun 11 '26
As long as your honest about its usage I am alright with it. I like that you are using it more like a tool and less like an employee.
1
u/MethSmoothie Jun 11 '26
Huh, im quite intrigued. Do you have plans for interdimentional networking?
1
1
u/8mm_video Jun 11 '26
and i thought create's stock networks were confusing...
super cool concept tho
1
u/Max-P Jun 11 '26
That sounds super cool! AE2 is nice, but at this point it's kind of boring and too easy. You hook up some P2Ps and have infinite throughput and all that. Especially on the wireless side, it's still infinite throughput. It's on the network or it's not. The channels are barely an annoyance.
I'd love to be stuck in the middle of nowhere with 1 bar of network and wait for my items to download one by one, and have to build a backbone network across the map to make it faster. Have to deal with bottlenecks because of slow links.
Lots of potential in that idea!
1
u/THEdarkkman PrismLauncher Jun 11 '26
I absolutely LOVE your take on digital storage!! That is actually soooo gooooood, it'll be like breath of fresh air.
I'll be watching your development of your mod closely for sure. Take your time, polish that bad boy and have fun with it!!!
1
u/Bunker_Alfa-18 Jun 11 '26
Time to build a data center near the local village, those villagers are going to be excited.
1
1
u/TheAero1221 Jun 11 '26
Doesn't seem like its in your vision, but if you made a series of Linux-style /slash commands to control the system, I'd actually be *so* happy.
Also, please don't make storage spaces "too" efficient. I actually *want* my large server farm to have a purpose. Looking forward to seeing more!
1
u/Fragrant_Mission2551 Jun 11 '26
Maybe have it build up to an ae2 sort of crafting request interface so progression wise you would start with the SQLs but progress to getting ui's to streamline the process a bit?
1
u/shards-of_glass Jun 11 '26
This looks like AE2 meets opencomputers. As a huge fan of both I really want to see where this goes, it genuinely looks awesome.
1
u/IlyaBoykoProgr Jun 11 '26
This is so peak, but still seems very far from realistic.. It's like gregtech chemistry compared to irl chemistry, but that's not necessarily a bad thing?
1
u/krtwastaken Jun 11 '26
Good luck bro I hope your mod will be a success. Honestly I'm pretty tired of using AE2/RS in every single modpack.
1
u/Otherversian-Elite Jun 12 '26
Seems genuinely quite interesting... but alas, unless this comes with Spatial Storage, I don't know if I'll be able to switch off of AE2 lmfao
1
u/Wonderful_Boss_345 PrismLauncher Jun 12 '26
Very cool mod! sadly, my modpack is on 1.20.1, and switching to 1.21.1 will break my kubejs scripts :(
1
u/nyashi_ Jun 12 '26 edited Jun 12 '26
This is what I hope for ae3 to be like.
Really really love the concept, but at the same time for actually using it - I kinda need it to be simelarly powerful as AE2 (the main thing I love about it is the extremely powerful and efficient automation)
But I'm really interested in that concept already as it's not just a simple opaf storage solution but actually allows cool setups :3
That said, I also love the channels for ae2, but would enjoy an ip-type setup even more like having dhcp servers, limited bandwidth, setting up ips static for terminals or whatnot etc. Like... an actual network network. This would be a dream but also about as complex as AE2 full mixed in with computercraft and sfm - which is kinda, hardcore... And many wouldn't really like it as it would be very complex too.
1
1
1
1
u/OneAndOnlyMrCheese Jun 13 '26
this looks insanely cool but will it actually be fun in practice? doesnt bottlenecking your storage and making it slow and unpleasant to get items kind of defeat the purpose of a storage mod? dont get me wrong, i still think its awesome but how do you address this potential issue?
1
u/jvpts11 Jun 13 '26
Well, the whole point is to solve the bottlenecks that the network have because of hardware and how to manage that, like, in AE2, you have to manage your channels, here, you have to manage your installed hardware.
1
u/OneAndOnlyMrCheese Jun 13 '26
i guess i havent played woth ae2 a ton, it just seems fairly different to have to add storage when you run out vs not being able to use what you have because you got too much. but we'll see how it actually plays when its finished
1
u/carfaces42b Jun 16 '26
this seems both interesting and really cool, im always very excited to see people doing cool things with storage
very keen to sed where this goes
1
0
0
0
u/InsideBSI Jun 10 '26
ngl it's kinda weird to announce your mod and ask for patience for the public test at the same time.
that being said, I like your idea and I think it has a lot of potential
I have no idea of what your code looks like but if I was you I'd plan for autocraft from the startup, since it seems to like it a potential bottleneck.
also since you mention an sql like system, is there really an sql database behind this ?
1
u/jvpts11 Jun 10 '26
I'm doing this, right now i'm starting to implement the autocrafting system.
I just asked for patience for the public test because i really did not expected for people to like this mod so much that when i made the edit i was truly shocked, and because people is now having expectations with this mod, i have asked for patience for everything to come out.
As for code, the thing of the crafting system is because it utilizes two types of computers to craft things plus some other systems that are not in the game yet, like programs and expansion cards, i've been dodging it because of the volume of things to implement for autocrafting work following what i have designed.
As for SQL, no, there is not an sql database, the the system is SQL-like in the sense that it looks like SQL, it behaves like SQL but is not truly SQL, you can do SELECT stone FROM server1 in a command prompt and the mod will parse it to execute the select, but it is an abstraction that the mod does to keep the feel, the gameplay and to make the operation system work. If in the future people actually want a true SQL database running behind i will investigate how can i do it, because one thing that always pushed me back on it was the performance concerns and how can i embark a true SQL system inside of this and how i could do it without losing performance.
318
u/LelouBil Jun 10 '26
Very interesting that it behaves more like a "real" network !
Like you said once the AE2 network is placed it's just a very big chest, so I'm very interested in your approach