Different Cables?

[BloodyRum 0]

OC Only has one type of cable available. In real life there is different cable types and uses.

My Ideas are.

 

Cheap Cable

 Transports power at lower rate. (Like IC2s copper or tin cable)

 Sends messages at about 1 Block per Tick

 

Gold Cable

 Transports power at a high rate.

 Sends messages at about 2 Blocks per Tick

 

Fiber Cable

 Transports no power.

 Sends messages instantly like current cables.

 

To work around have slow screen update speeds from slow cable make putting the blocks together act like fiber Cable.

 

Or have Cable like CAT5e or CAT6 or even some scuzzy cables.

[MaHuJa 1]

If you could have two different cable types in the same network, you could run into some plausibility issues. Like how every junction has to have a switch.

 

Moreover, this will make many builds nonviable unless you run a dual-cable setup: One for power, one for messages. And deal with the loops that'll introduce when the power cable also does messages.

 

And that's before we get into the "slower speed of light" issue.

OC does not model any link forms that introduce latency exceeding 50ms (1 tick).

(Except modem messages across overloaded relays)

Realistically, the messages need to travel instantly in any case.

 

So what else could we have varieties of cable for?

Modem messages only? Would this obsolete the relay?

Power only? Same for power distributor.

Range? Sending across a cheap cable will degrade the signal such that it would not be readable after 50 blocks of cheap cable unless there's a repeater?

A breaking change, but would be sensible - and founded in reality.

 

Most computer cables do the same thing. Receive data on one side, and get it to the other side. The differences comes down to optimizations.

Imagine if everything using a cable was a USB device, even inside your pc. That leaves one cable type. Such a pc can actually work, but would not perform quite as well.

[ConnorWM_ 0]

I think more cables would be good with keyboards and screens, more specifically some type of ps/2 cable.  Right now you must attach one of the 2 available to one of the 6 faces of the screen, giving a lot of limitations.