A few nights ago I revealed a secret plan to 709 and turtle that I've been considering for a couple of weeks. That plan is Tekkit. About a month ago, a coworker and fellow gamer (gerlocian in Minecraft) convinced me to set up a Tekkit server on my home computer so he could connect and give me a tour of what he'd been raving about. He sold me on the idea, and I've been trying to think about if/how to bring the AppleNova server into the fold.
TLDR: Should we use Tekkit? Please vote and discuss after reading. :)
So, what the heck is Tekkit?
Tekkit (http://www.technicpack.net/tekkit/) is a suite of mods for both the Minecraft server *and* client. Its name is a portmanteau of Technic and Bukkit. Technic is another set of Minecraft mods, but it's only for single-player use. Tekkit, on the other hand, is designed for multiplayer use.
Tekkit has 18 mods of which the most noteworthy (IMO) are Industrial Craft (http://wiki.industrial-craft.net/index.php?title=Main_Page), Equivalent Exchange (http://equivalentexchange.wikispaces.com/), and Buildcraft (http://minecraftbuildcraft.wikia.com/wiki/Minecraft_Buildcraft_Wiki). I could spend days trying to explain everything these mods do, and honestly I'm still very much a beginner to it all. What I can do here is point out a few of the features that sold me on it.
*More ores, more blocks, more items.* Even if you don't want to try the more "advanced" features in these mods, right out of the box you get more things in nature to play with. There are new ores, new gems, new trees, new stones, new gems, and new flowers/plants. These alone would make the game more interesting. For instance, you can make all the standard tools with the new gems, and you can take the new tree logs and plants and use them decoratively.
Here's an example of a volcano that generated with a huge cone of basalt, one of the new stone types. Also, volcanoes!
Image: http://i.imgur.com/4qOH1.jpg
*Electric devices.* Industrial Craft adds a number of new blocks and items that require electric power to operate. Don't confuse this with redstone power; this is much more analogous to real electricity. You'll need generators, wires, and batteries. There are furnace-like generators, solar panels, wind mills, water mills, geothermal generators, and last but not least nuclear generators.
This is the rubber tree (http://thetekkit.wikia.com/wiki/Rubber_Tree). If you build anything that needs electricity, you will probably need rubber to make insulated cables. That "knot" on the side of the tree can be tapped for sticky resin which can be crafted into rubber. Come to know and love this tree.
Image: http://i.imgur.com/1UTOh.jpg
One example of the simplest machine setups you probably want to build has a generator and macerator. The generator is what it sounds like: a block that uses fuel (like coal) to generate electricity. The macerator is an electric machine that takes ores and grinds them into dust (iron ore becomes iron dust). You can then cook the dust into ingots. Why go through this extra step? Normally, 1 ore yields 1 ingot. In this setup, 1 ore yields 2 dust, and 1 dust yields 1 ingot. So, you've doubled your output! There are also some new dust recipes, such as adding gold dust to redstone to get glowstone dust. With the right machines, you can even turn coal into diamond.
(Psst... you can craft powered mining lasers and jetpacks too.)
*Magic.* Equivalent Exchange adds a suite of items and blocks that make alchemy, transmutation, and magic items possible. You can create divining rods, repair talismans, torches that repel hostile mobs, magic rings that let you fly or change your environment, devices that condense energy into items (such as diamonds), and more. In EE's view, every item in the game has an EMC value (http://technicpack.wikia.com/wiki/EMC), and that value is used for transmuting one type of object into another. For example, cobblestone has EMC 1 but diamond has EMC 8192. Some items go as high as 2.5 million EMC.
Image: http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20120326000233/technicpack/images/c/cc/Transmutation-tablet.png
*Automated mining.* BuildCraft adds "engines" that allow you to automate mining with quarries and "pipes" to move items back and forth. I haven't really gotten into this stuff yet, but it sure looks neat. Here's a picture of four quarry engines!
Image: http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20110811073645/minecraftbuildcraft/images/b/b7/Quarry_Operating.jpg
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OK, so, this all sounds great, but what's the catch?
There are several. :\
First, the Tekkit server is very resource hungry. We can't run *both* regular Minecraft and Tekkit Minecraft on the same server. We have to pick one or the other.
Second, because Tekkit requires client-side mods, this means you'll have to download a separate Minecraft launcher app to connect to Tekkit servers like ours. Fortunately, the Tekkit/Technic people have made this very easy. It's a single download that automatically updates itself just like Minecraft.
Third, because Tekkit relies on a bunch of mods working together, and because these mods are fairly complex, most of the mods aren't kept up to the latest version of Minecraft. As a whole, Tekkit behaves like Minecraft 1.2.5 (not the latest 1.3.2). This means that a few of the newest MC features like villager trading, sidewise logs, and temples/pyramids are not present.
Forth, and this is the last one, because Tekkit adds a bunch of new naturally-generates ores and plants, we'd need to torch our current world and start fresh again. We could use the same seed if you like (the Tekkit version with the same seed actually looks identical on the surface), or we could pick a whole new world. That said, if you've intested time in building something that you'd like carried over to the new world, like Ely's arena or 709's Arco, I can transport them just as before.
Thoughts? Does this sound like a good or bad idea? How interested are you guys in something like this? :)