The New Thermal Series

Okay, so I’ve been working on a branch that I unofficially call “1.13-pre” for a while now. And while it’s nowhere near complete, I wanted to let everyone know my thought process and where I’d like to take the mods in the future. Depending on how long Forge takes to get a 1.13 release out (and the team is doing a good job on it, really), there will be a release for 1.12.2.

This post is sort of a weird thing - on one hand I legitimately feel that the Thermal Series is in its most polished and complete state ever, and yet I’m really not super happy with it. So I’m rewriting it mostly from scratch.

Let’s get the big one out of the way - totally revamped dependency structure. I don’t want to make grand promises as far as external libraries, but at least on the surface, the required dependency structure will be this, as long as FML allows for it:

CoFH Core -> Everything Else

That’s it. The Thermal mods are being broken down and put back together in some different ways, and they’ll all be able to run independently of one another. I’ll go over the details of that in a bit. To make this work, however, there’s a little bit of trickery under the hood. CoFH Core is going to be very crucial to this process and almost without question when you update any Thermal mod moving forward, you’ll have to update CoFH Core. The reason for this is sort of a “Thermal Core” mod which - again, Forge allowing - will ship inside the CoFH Core jar. It will only be active if any other actual Thermal mod is found and registered. This mod will provide the basics of the Thermal Series - basic items and blocks.

Here’s the current breakdown of features. Please keep in mind that a lot of this is drawing board stages and the code is either splayed out on the cutting room floor at this time or just doesn’t exist yet:

General Design / Notes:

All content mods have a global config option to disable ALL of their recipes.

Mods not requiring CoFH Core will ship with some internals (CoFH Lib).

CoFHLib is not an official mod, just a bunch of shared code that won’t require CoFH Core.

CoFH World will still exist; plans are to allow it to be a soft yet highly recommended dependency.

Thermal Series Recipes will dynamically adjust based on available OreDictionary / Tags. This makes it entirely possible to do Vanilla + Thermal Expansion.

There are plans for a couple more Thermal mods but I’m not doing to really get into them just yet, sorry.

Vazkii’s amazing new Book API - Patchouli - will be used to provide a manual for everything. It will be a soft dependency.

CoFH Core:

Increased focus on “library” style code.

Removal of Enchantments (Moved to Ensorcellment).

Removal of Potion Effects (Handled in Thermal Series).

Tentatively includes resources for all CoFH mods.

Thermal Series / Core

Ships inside CoFH Core; not a “child” mod.

Includes basic tools and items (Crescent Hammer, Tome of Knowledge).

Adds core Thermal fluids and alloys (Redstone, Glowstone, Ender).

In general, hardcoded levels / tiers will be less prominent. Working on a way to allow modpack makers to configure / add tiers.



Thermal Foundation

Focus will be on world generation; biomes, mobs, villages, etc.

Removal of Tools and Armor (Moved to Quartermastery).

Adds lots of different metals - ores, blocks, and items. Gems and plants TBD.

Will ship with some default world generation which can be easily disabled. CoFH World will be a soft dependency and will take over generation if present.



Thermal Expansion

Renewed focus on being a core processing mod - Machines / Dynamos ONLY. Intent is to unify Machines + Devices

Machines are being Streamlined / redone: Total rework of Recipes under the hood. Fewer side config options - In / Out / Both / Open / None. Machines with Primary / Secondary outputs have 4 now. Plans for advanced filtering / logistics support.

Specialization Augments going away. Replaced by adjacent “companion” blocks or other machines where appropriate.

Dynamos will have a dedicated “Coil” slot to change the type of resource they generate.

Tanks and Caches are becoming Fluid and Item “Cells” - name and mod TBD.

Thermal Dynamics

Focus still only on moving things from A -> B.

Idea is to provide more progress in not only Ducts but types of transport: Conveyor Belts Ducts Ender Routing

Ideally, entities can be utilized with all of these.

That’s the rough idea at this time, anyways.

Thermal Innovation

Acquiring all of the tools from Thermal Expansion.

Tool progress intended to be more freeform - TBD on that though. Modular Tools might happen, if it makes sense. Tool Augments might happen, again if it’s balanced / fun.

If armor ends up being made, it will go here.

Thermal Cultivation

Watering Cans probably going to stay here.

New Crops, probably five or so initially. Artwork is limiting factor here, when it comes down to it.

Brewing and Baking systems.

Redstone Arsenal

This one is staying mostly the same.

There will be a couple of new items.

New Mods

Some things are being moved for better Vanilla+ style play.

Ensorcellment

Adds all of the enchantments from CoFH Core, and some more.

Shield and Horse Armor Enchants. :)

Capability-based Enchantment compatibility (part of CoFHLib).

Enstoragement

Strongboxes.

Satchels.

Ideally, a bit more customization and power for both of these things.

Will effectively replace Vanilla+ Satchels and provide Thermal compat.

Orbulation

Florbs.

Morbs.

That’s it for now. Blocks dealing with these might be added, if it feels thematically appropriate.

Quartermastery

General Tool / Armor mod.

Will enable vanilla-style tools and armor depending on what materials are present.

Will effectively replace Vanilla+ Tools and provide Thermal compat.

At this time, the stuff under “New Mods” is mostly complete. So is much of CoFH Core and Thermal Series / Core. Thermal Foundation has a lot of the current stuff, but not any new biomes yet.

Read through all that? Okay cool - let’s talk .jar files. Again, this is all sort of contigent on Forge providing the means for us to do this, but the general plan is this:

Two combined “large” jar files: Combined Thermal jar. Combined Everything Else jar.



So again, CoFH Core will be required as a base. It just isn’t really super feasible to bundle it inside those jars because it would end up duplicated and Forge will throw a tantrum.

Unfortunately, if there’s something in those jars that you don’t like, you’ll have to do individual downloads or specifically disable mods in-game. On our end, there’s just a balancing act of being accommodating and also the number of projects we have to manage.

Whew, that was long. Again, please understand that this is a statement of intent, and while there’s a lot of code laid down, almost all of it is certainly subject to change.

If you’re interested in knowing more, please drop by our Discord.