So, RF is a thing...
MC 1.8 has dropped…yay…no mods for that for the foreseeable future. But don’t panic; Mojang will patch it at least 4 times before they get a stable version.
As far as the state of our current releases, we’re going to move out of “beta” here soon. The team is pretty busy with RL obligations at this point, so beyond bug fixing, no promises on any major releases in the near future.
Chances are that most of you are aware of certain mods making the switch to the Redstone Flux Energy API. Along with this support, some members of the community have suggested just rolling the API itself into Forge. Let’s be clear on that - it’s not happening. Ever. There are a few reasons for it:
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RF is not the end-all be-all energy API. It may be popular right now; it may remain popular for the life of Minecraft, but Forge has disproportionate influence on how mods can and should behave. It’s not fair to mods that wish to use other energy systems.
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Energy is not a Minecraft concept that is universally agreed upon. The Liquid API was merged into Forge because every mod under the sun largely agrees on what liquids are. It was then rewritten by the Forge Team to be the Fluid API. It benefits the entire community to have this API in Forge, with no exceptions.
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Forge has no reason (or right) to act as the gatekeeper for Redstone Flux. The development was not co-opted in any way with the Forge team, nor is there any maintenance benefit to migrating it to Forge’s codebase.
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Redstone Flux has a particular theme to it - it doesn’t fit every mod and shouldn’t be foisted on every mod, even as an “optional” API.
As far as that last point goes, we’d like to emphasize something - we certainly welcome mods adopting the Redstone Flux API and choosing to be part of the energy ecosystem that mods such as Thermal Expansion and MineFactory Reloaded inhabit. However, if you are adopting purely out of pressure to conform, and the fundamental theme of the API - Redstone - goes against your mod, then STOP NOW.
We want people to embrace it willingly and not grudgingly accept it because they may feel that it’s the only game in town. It’s not the only game in town, nor is it necessarily the best game in town. It’s simply freeform, malleable, and open. It’s by no means perfect.
Even so, it’s your sandbox.
Game on.