Crystal Growth Chamber Multiblock

[dense hawk]

Introducing the Crystal Growth Chamber
The CGC is a new tiered crystal growing structure, replacing and reworking the crystal production recipes in the Autoclave and EBF. Relying on crystal seeds and growth slurry to produce crystals of varying qualities and make, this multi will start out your journey into AE2 in EV, to growing rare lab grown gems in ZPM, to fusing and merging gems into contorted chimeras in UIV.

Mechanics
The structure is simple and easy to understand, with no special mechanics tied to its function. A new tiered block set will be used to limit energy hatch tier, being Crystal Clusters of varying types. These blocks must be made in the multi, and will grow alongside your base throughout the pack. These crystals functionally act as pipe casings, and will be the expensive part of the multi. Each tier of structure will unlock a new recipe type, being Growing, Casting, and Fusing.

Changes
Early AE2 progression is slightly changed, as the T1 CGC will allow the player to grow pure crystals and fluix crystals at a much better rate than the Growth Accelerators or mixer. EBF gems will be moved to the CGC, being Cubic Zirconia and Prasiolite.
Mysterious Crystal will instead be grown into parts directly. Due to its unnatural toughness, making it difficult to shatter. Using molds, slurry, and seeds to grow the parts, removing Mysterious Crystal Ingot's long smelt times! A visual overhaul to the material, having it come in varying shades of green and blue like it does in its native crystals.
Lapotron Crystals and Energium Crystals will have slight recipe changes, instead using slurry instead of dust, alongside faster recipes in later tiers. Phononic Crystals will also be grown in the T3 cgc, and a new step in the Stargate Crystal recipe.

Idea by: @steel sleet @manic gulch @vivid sentinel

Design Doc: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1QoOMwLCz37_1el8iQP12sssbzOhJm67pTMftyjBoYiY/edit?tab=t.c12c75ksvc1z

[steel sleet]

the multi of all time <3

[stone terrace]

how many crystal cluster tiered blocks will there be? This should probably not limit energy hatch tier and should instead be recipe metadata

I would imagine you are already planning on using recipe metadata for this, so it would make sense just for that.

this tiered block would need a lot of variations to be 1:1 with ehatch tiers, and would otherwise risk being strangely arbitrary

[steel sleet]

that would even better

there would only be 10 amt

ev-uxv

restricting energy is probably not needed as you said, having recipes directly related to the crystal block is more coherent

[warm sandal]

omg finally something being done about mysterious crystal

[steel sleet]

its pissed me off for forever

[warm sandal]

same

also this crystal fusing idea is super cool

[solemn hatch]

Mysterious crystal solution is very cool

[steel sleet]

i should mention you can grow more types of gems like this, so lathe for gem rods and cutter for bolts also dead

[spice vine]

Mysterious crystal is really need...

[steel sleet]

very much so

[vocal wind]

@round fable your infline could make use of this for growing Chromatic Crystals

Well I have readed this, if I´m not mistaken noc added those to be used in infline rework

[tame raven]

Could this also potentially share some overlap with the boule rework? I know they were looking at adding a multi that ‘grows’ a boule before it’s purified so might be some room to merge the functionality of that multi into this one

[steel sleet]

the crystal growing processes are different, however it could be implemented anyway

thats not my project :p

[tame raven]

I see, all g then I have no idea how either process works irl so it’s all the same to me, keen to see both projects tho. NH’s got so much metal content so it’s sick that crystals are finally getting some love.

Plus this multi avoid the old trap of only actually being used for a handful of recipes (like the chem plant ), so I’m very exited

Also Modernity majority dev team so you know it’s gonna be pretty

[steel sleet]

well it will be styled to match base pack

[tame raven]

Oh of course, I’m more saying having two very talented texture devs on the team means it’ll still look good even in vanilla

Mainly im just keen to actually have a use for the insane number of gems you start wracking up in midgame, feels like outside maybe ruby, diamond and emerald you kinda just end up macerating and electrolysing most of them

[steel sleet]

i agree

they sort of just collect dust in your system for the entire game

only ruby and diamond find use

[manic gulch]

i mean, the recipe that forms gallium arsenide crystals in the EBF could be improved upon in the CGC

[river tendon]

would this be used with crystal circuits? replacing the autoclave recipe for the crystal chips probably?

[steel sleet]

maybe, at least some part of it

maybe replacing the ebf smelt?

[river tendon]

? currently the way to make crystal chips is to autoclave them with europium & then forge hammer 1 of the 9 you get

once you have the first chip

oh wait taht recipe im stupid lol

[steel sleet]

autoclave is an important step in crystal circuits, i dont want to replace it

[bleak scarab]

Could the current europium +crystal chips recipe not just be moved over/doable in either? Provided the cost to build the oon tier cgc is roughly the same as an autoclave. Would still need to get the original couple from the autoclave

[river tendon]

that is more so what I was asking yeah lol

[bleak scarab]

Also mysterious crystal is much needed

Eating half of enceladus with the matter manipulator and sticking it in an ender chest because its too much for your inventory is not fun gameplay

Gem casting and improved lapos also seem like very good qol

Would it be able to uptier gems like the laser engraver and implosion compressor (or possibly replace those recipes) or only flawless > perfect

[steel sleet]

perfect cannot be formed by compression

it can only be obtained from growing in batches, like how the sifter outputs gems

but yes cgc will be used to "compress" gems

supplying slurry with a lower rarity gem to uptier it

[tribal tulip]

Gem Chimeras?! So this is what Homeworld thinks of fusion!

[steel sleet]

reference...... fuckkkkk

[tulip imp]

I think it would make sense to put the different kind of silicon boules here too. After all, they are also crystals that are grown

[tame raven]

Probably should ping the boule rework AOI to see if they’re open to it and/or if that project is still being actively developed

[terse crane]

hell yea i hate making ae2 crystals

[flat swan]

really really cool!!!1

[warm sandal]

yess omg

• the weird bartworks gems that have no use besides praseolite and fayalite

[vivid sentinel]

crystal cpu autoclave recipe needs a proper setup, i dont think we want to remove many things like that since autoclave already has a pretty small number of important uses. instead we were considering removing the crystal cpu ebf step and doing something in cgc, since that step is not nearly as important, but we’ll see

[shy wind]

wait, so how is this separate from the autoclave multi
since a lot of these uses just sound like existing autoclave recipes

[steel sleet]

this one grows crystals

autoclaves don't

it's important we don't take too much stuff from autoclave, I'd like to still incorporate it into crystal lines

[shy wind]

...do they not?

I though that was the whole point of the autoclave

growing dusts back into crystals

only one it doesn't do is diamonds

[steel sleet]

autoclaves are essentially pressure cookers

some can tho

super high end ones

but having a specialized multi for crystals us better, allowing autoclave to not stretch its identity so much

[crystal barn]

preparing for astral sorcery, i see

[steel sleet]

no

[crystal barn]

/j

[steel sleet]

but yeah it would use this too, if we ever did add as

[crystal barn]

but also actually though if AS does ever get added it’d be a good fit

[vivid sentinel]

this isnt really meant to do too terribly much to the autoclave's importance either. sure maybe a little will be unavoidable, but it will still be an important relevant multi. its more meant to deal with some of the secondary problems around some of these materials (prasiolite is nonsense to make, chromatic glass is incredibly slow and annoying before dtpf and a real missed opportunity, mysterious crystal is treated like a metal for some reason, lapotron has a few issues with scale and this also gives us a nice opportunity to rework things in an interesting way with ic2 removal requiring changes already, etc)

[obsidian river]

astral sorcery but part of progression is like
in alpha centauri and the stargate planets it gives a new constellation that contains the sun

[tulip imp]

I agree that it sound a bit like an autoclave so here's what I don't get; if certain recipes are annoying/difficult, why do we need a new multi, and why don't we just change an exsisting one, like the autoclave? Idk maybe the autoclave could be tiered like the PCB factory, T0 is just a regular autoclave, T1 is the crystal growth chamber, etc. Do we really need a new multi to solve a couple recies (prasioltie, mysterious crystal, chromatic glass, lapotron)? Don't get me wrong I like new multis, but I don't see the point in having separate multis that almost do the same thing.

(Maybe it's good for future content, but until we know what that future content is, why do we need the multi?)

[stone terrace]

the inception of perfect gems is going to be pretty useful for recipes in the future

it could be part of the autoclave as a tiered thing, sure. but that would make the autoclave way more complex. this is a complexity increase that gets branched out as its own multi so that the autoclave can stay as its own simple processing multi

[steel sleet]

exactly this

autoclave is a simple multi, its only change is tiered components

it doesnt need tiering, as these already fill the role

and the CGC offers completely different recipe maps the autoclave couldnt even do, autoclaves cannot cast gems into parts, or fuse gems

[shy wind]

just wanna make sure it's not splitting what looks like an already-small niche

I'm not too familiar with this space, since I'm just getting to the end of IV

[tulip imp]

So essentially you want multiple, simple multis, instead of combining different multies and making them complicated. Makes sense. I don't know what the general mindset is, when adding new multis, this is why it was my concern

[steel sleet]

more multis makes your base look good

more of the same multi smelly

[stone terrace]

it would just make autoclave standout compared to all the other gt multis in the game

it also makes it kind of bloated. i think the variety here is nice, given that they do different things

[tulip imp]

Yea I mean I like a good looking multi

[steel sleet]

also the autoclave in the pack leans more to the cooking vibe, and not the crystal kind

changing its identity would be weird this late

[warm sandal]

btw new gems and perfect grade could be used for higher throughput laser hatches. it’s really funny how even 16MA UXV laser hatch still used a diamond lens. how is that diamond not atomized and turned into QGP with all that power xd

instead of diamond diamond dismond diamond, it could use increasingly complex and higher tier crystals, maybe even with the benefit of using less components but idk how that could work with assline recipes

[steel sleet]

more lens types could be added

i think its quite weird its just diamond for every one

maybe large lenses could be added

[tribal tulip]

Lenses with extremely complex refractive properties that like, concentrate and focus the power/light that goes through them multiple times?
Multi-Matrix Structure Lenses?

[steel sleet]

or just a lens thats veeeery big :)

[tulip imp]

or add different kinds of optical elements. Mirrors (flat, spherical, parabolic), focusing and defocusing lenses, gratings, prisms. Or just add ray optics to GTNH (/j)

[manic gulch]

ironically, this is just diamond lol

[pliant tartan]

Will there be a higher tier replacement for lapotrons? I saw an idea a while back that suggested using naq crystals in place of lapos. It's kind of weird that an EV material is a core part of recipes for the whole game.

[steel sleet]

we were thinking of a replacement for it in later tiers, and the implementation of perfect gems that can be cut into perfect chips (act as just condensed chips ig)

I'm not sure if we are doing both but I think the 2nd is what we might do

needs more talk

especially for how central lapos are to the game

[vivid sentinel]

i think some things like this are important

for example lapotrons specifically are one of the only things in endgame that need scale for hv circuits, which includes a lot of other pieces and are important to make endgame costs feel “big,” and make scale of resources feel important

[steel sleet]

1 lapotronillion gems

[steel sleet]

its so BBBeautiful 🥹

@terse crane ok it exists now

[regal hamlet]

That is cute, more multiblocks ftw!

[flat swan]

cant believe the cgc is just a BBB

[steel sleet]

everything good starts out as BBB

[regal hamlet]

It's good to see more disabled people able to work in our community. ❤️

[steel sleet]

[regal hamlet]

it's alright, I'm allowed to make jokes about myself

[spice vine]

It looks like can brew crystals lol

[steel sleet]

ok i guess ill add the struture

[manic gulch]

@vital furnace hits you with a mallet

[vital furnace]

[steel sleet]

@terse crane beamcrafter controller cucked cgc

epic merge conflict

[terse crane]

How

[steel sleet]

controller meta id

[solar viper]

Skill issue

[steel sleet]

truth

[terse crane]

[steel sleet]

mean and for why

[terse crane]

shii my bad

[steel sleet]

I joke

my branch was outdated

[tight wind]

I’d suggest making this multi optional, and instead increasing the cost of existing crystal recipes (and adding LCR/autoclave recipes for new crystals). This would make it more exciting IMO, instead of just a mandatory step to take.

[steel sleet]

kiiiinda a bit late for that

and it was always the intention to change up progression

the autoclave will lose these recipes as autoclaves are not made for these types of processes

some can, but not here

[flat swan]

i think that a crystal growing multi is a much better solution to the lapotron problem that exists at endgame

[steel sleet]

its a pressure cooker currently

exactly

[tight wind]

Ahh, fair, didn’t realize how far along you were. Not sure if even this is realistic, but you could potentially leave existing recipes in the game (or nerfed) even if it’s mandatory for the rest of the crystals. I feel like it’s super satisfying to unlock an efficiency gain with a new multi, brings a smile to my face every time! 😁

Excited to see this in game either way tho

[steel sleet]

oh dont worry this multi will have plenty of efficency to be gained

and a lot of steps, crystal circuits, will still be autoclave mostly

autoclave will have most of its random recipes removed, being gem forming

and some small ones

[flat swan]

stuff like certus, fluix and other niche things?

[steel sleet]

in ev, theres a shit recipe to make them

[tight wind]

Oh hell yes I’m hyped

[steel sleet]

but once you get cgc you get a perfect 1-1

which is good

its a fast easy way to make pure cystals

r

the uiv+ stuff will be fun

zpm is qol

and the mysterious crystal rework

basically, if theres a gem somewhere involved, i am changing it slightly

your recipes will break

but this is 2.9

you should expect that

:p

[tight wind]

If there is an efficiency gain, it will be worth it ❤️

[steel sleet]

oh yeah def

[tame raven]

What was the final decision in regards to boules btw? Seems this has seen a lot more work than the broader boule rework so will it still affect boule growth as outlined in the doc or is that being left out for now?

[steel sleet]

left out

[cold flower]

fusing and merging gems into contorted chimeras in uiv

Kasane teto in gtnh?

[steel sleet]

teto word of the day

gem

[steel sleet]

T1 and T2 structure (gem clusters and emitters have no texture atm)

ignore the elephant on the right thats the t3

not really a fan of it atm

i mean here it is

ima tweak it some more

[warm sandal]

i'm open to try texturing if u need any

i know ur the texture fella tho

[steel sleet]

thanks, but I wanna tackle this on my own 😅

ill keep that in mind tho!

also compact ctm lfg

@manic gulch ctm waow

[manic gulch]

u want CTM?

[steel sleet]

no

i also just found a ctm bug

[regal hamlet]

I like the purple and black looks really nice

[steel sleet]

truee

[spice vine]

wow it actually coming?

[paper thistle]

Certainly Gactually Coming

Certainly Gonna Come

[manic gulch]

:galaxia:

[tribal tulip]

T3 definitely needs adjusting imo it's cool so far but I'd prefer to not have to build another DTPF

I like the first two so far for sure

Also I will harass the dev team until they promisr to put a steven universe or houseki no kuni reference in the QB entry for this (not really that's mean but pleeeeeeeeze )

[manic gulch]

so youll harass the dev team until like 2 months ago when the idea was made

[steel sleet]

you will to build another dtpf

you always will have to

that's how the pack goes

you can't beat the game with one

it's also thematically related and requires it to function

[tribal tulip]

oh no I just mean it's kinda boring to have a machine that could be completely different but it's like 80% of another dtpf

Oh ok its an addon to dtpf

that's fine then lol

[steel sleet]

there's no other multi like this

this is in fact the first

[tribal tulip]

I misunderstood

[steel sleet]

this is the first codependent multi

two completely different multis that will physically interact to change one another

the cgc parasitizes a dtpf

also I will change the structure to allow for 4 sharing

but 8 sharing will be impossible

this is intended

by the time you need this tier, dtpf will be free

quite literally printing them out

[tribal tulip]

Yes okay very good I understand it now thank you

[steel sleet]

yeah they are two seperate multis

the dtpf will, most likely, stop gaining fuel discount when it's cgc is running

and the cgc will not run unless the dtpf has reached a certain fuel discount threshold for the recipe

the amounts will be greater than tho

or perhaps it subtracts discount slowly

way less than if you turn it off

but the idea is the cgc leeches off of the dtpf's rifts in spacetime to physically stress and irreparably change the gems

morphing them into a chimera

a gem fusion reactor basically

[steel sleet]

(also yes it may have accidentally been a steven universe reference, that was not planned)

[tame raven]

“We have DTPF at home”
DTPF at home:

[steel sleet]

well yeah that is dtpf

its merged into it

its two multis

its pretty naked without its host tho

[tame raven]

Oh true, it’s all strange UEV+ magic to me

[tribal tulip]

That is a really cool concept for sure though
It's like a modded DTPF

Modded/retrofitted

Feels very on brand for a tech/engineering fantasy setting

which I guess kinda describes gtnh