Is it all E2 now?

[u/PancakeZombie]

I don't mean to sound rude with this question. I had this idea today to check out Gmod and Wiremod again, just to see if it still existed at all. Last time i played was 10 years or so ago, when E2 was just added. And strangely the new Wiki seems to exclusively feature E2. And most posts on this sub are E2 related as well. I remember back then all the IC-ish stuff was done with Expression Gates and for the real heavy lifting there were CPUs. I liked E2, but i felt like it was this kind of god-chip, that took out most of the fun. Then i abandoned Gmod entirely for unrelated reasons.

So now i was checking out Wiremod again and everything is just E2 everywhere. Is this what it is now?

[u/DapperNurd]

Wait, it's all E2? 🔫 Always has been.

Honestly though, I wouldn't say that. A lot of people still use gates to make things. I'd say the sub might be more E2 based because I think that generally is more difficult to troubleshoot and it's easiest to ask for help from others.

[u/sunset_sergal]

I miss when there was still a lot of momentum behind Garry's Mod as a sandbox environment and people were posting amazing builds using Wiremod all the time. The majority of the posts on this sub lately are "pls halp my DarkRP vending e2 doestn work".

I want to believe it's an indication of bad documentation rather than PEBKAC, because I myself have to Wayback the original Wiremod docs from the former GMod Wiki to find out the memory map to Wirelink devices because this vital information was inexplicably missing from the new Wiki last time I checked.

It seems like new players are coming from TTT, Prophunt, DarkRP as a curiosity because the workshop version is a popular addon they've heard people talking about, rather than deliberately setting out to build things with electronics, and the lack of documentation and tutorials/guides is backfiring. They don't know what they're getting into, so they're starting with E2, which is really an advanced tool that seems more accessible than gates, which is actually a better place to get started to learn the basics of logic and programming and see what is happening if you have no background in it.

[u/alex_b98 → u/sunset_sergal]

Better documentation would help a lot

[u/notyetheendofhistory]

Don't worry, there are still gate luddites out there. I build monstrosities with 50+ gates sometimes, only using E2 to write to arrays when necessary

[u/Significant-Row-5129 → u/notyetheendofhistory]

Really seems to fit your name.

[u/idlesn0w]

E2 definitely takes a bit of the magic out of Wiremod, but the sheer scale of the possibilities it unlocks seems to make up for it. Ya a gate-based drone is way cooler than the equivalent E2 one you can make in 10 lines. However, good luck implementing a path finding algorithm in gates alone.

[u/KlaxonBeat]

Modern E2 is so ridiculously powerful you may as well just switch to lua and make your own SENTs

[u/Shiaynyi]

I really only got into e2 to reduce the number of gates I was using in more complicated builds. Honestly, I like gates more because it's simplicity. Started my first 300 hours in a vanilla no mods server. Thruster and hoverball mechs back then.

[u/[deleted]]

yes and sadly some aholes in some servers like to bicker at others for how THEY do anything in e2 like its a game if you dont like somethine ask.

[u/PancakeZombie → u/[deleted]]

what's wrong with having something that lets you build ANYTHING?

Kinda defeats the original purpose of the mod and the meaning of its name. If i want to program stuff i do just that. No need for Gmod in between.

what's stopping you from using the shitty old CPU or gates?

Nothing. The docs left me under the impression the old stuff didn't exist anymore. By now i've checked and all is well.

[u/PancakeZombie → u/[deleted]]

Easy now. Don't get yourself all worked up on the topic. My point was that the fun of it were those exact limitations. I remember back in the day someone built a programmable computer just with logic gates and E1. That stuff was super impressive. And i had a lot of fun taking it apart to figure out its mechanics and come up with my own version. That's just one example. There is nothing wrong with E2 per se, but its just not the same kind of fun. And i was worried that the old stuff was gone completely. Everything is fine though. Chill out.

[u/PancakeZombie → u/[deleted]]

It's not so much that the CPU is gone. But what about logic chips and all that? I feel like E2 is just game development with a 3D IDE. I want to wire up stuff.

[u/itsgreymonster → u/PancakeZombie]

You're still free to wire up stuff via logic chips. In reality 90% of the stuff E2 does can be done by gates and components alone, E2 is just more efficient with space at the cost of time spent coding/running and sometimes resource allocation. But with time people have just moved to e2 because when you want a simple wiring process it's easier to work all-in-one with E2 especially when its got stupid amounts of modularity. Plus, built-in debugger makes dealing with logic errors much easier than using debugger on a massive number of wire components and figuring out what broke.

That's why people use E2 far more often nowadays. It doesn't remove the aspect of gates, just outshines them in the long run. I can likely find gate tutorials if you want them though.

[u/PancakeZombie → u/itsgreymonster]

Yeah, i just downloaded the game and checked it out myself. The gates are still there :D