[1.10.2] Age of Engineering

[Ieldra]

I've been watching DW20, a few episodes behind, as I play for a different perspective, but that's over now.

Everyone can play how they want, and I've even considered adding the mouse wheel scrolling mod as many others have suggested. Quality of Life changes don't bother me much because there isn't any reason why these kinds of mods were specifically kept out. They don't change progression.

When DW20 added the Elevator mod to his pack, I actually thought it was kinda cheesy, but everybody plays differently. I regularly use the FTB Utilities "/home" command, but DW20 didn't. I would presume he knows it exists, but I suspect he just prefers teleporters. No problem there either, because it really doesn't affect progression.

Then I just watched the episode where he added Gendustry because bees "are too slow" and that's total BS. The Guide warns you about starting bees back in Age 4. He said "it's a little bit of cheesing the pack" but actually it's just cheating. Honestly, I think I wouldn't be annoyed as much if he'd just cheated in the Princess/Drones he wanted.

I don't really know why I'm so pissed about this, except that I just watched it so it's fresh in my mind. I guess I assumed DW20 was better than that. For the record, I don't care if anyone else added Gendustry, but I don't think you can really claim to have finished the pack if you did.

TIL I'm a purist.

So, he added Gendustry, LOL. Of all things he might have changed, I understand this. It isn't about "slow" for me - I have patience where it's just about waiting, and there are always other things to do - but about randomness. Vanilla Forestry bee-breeding is a nightmare for me, like having to win the lottery several times in a row in order to proceed. I don't know yet what's required in terms of bee-breeding and tree-breeding in the pack (I'm in Age 3), but I highly suspect I'll do something to make it less frustrating, too.

As for the elevator, I checked the travel anchor recipes and they appear to be not too far in the future. That'll work for me.

Speaking of randomness, is it just my excessively bad luck or is there no desert in the pack? I'm desperately looking for cactus for my IE wiring (the HV relay requires cactus green). I've been exploring for several hours and I'm reasonably sure there's no desert within 1500 blocks from my base, and there doesn't appear to be another way to get some cactus green or equivalent.

If I haven't overlooked something, may I suggest alternative ways to get biome-dependent resources like this?

 

[SolManX]

...
Speaking of randomness, is it just my excessively bad luck or is there no desert in the pack? I'm desperately looking for cactus for my IE wiring (the HV relay requires cactus green). I've been exploring for several hours and I'm reasonably sure there's no desert within 1500 blocks from my base, and there doesn't appear to be another way to get some cactus green or equivalent.

If I haven't overlooked something, may I suggest alternative ways to get biome-dependent resources like this?

I know it's a long shot but sometimes villages have (at least, used to have ) cacti in flower pots. I can't remember which house has them though but I don't think it's just desert/savanna villages.

Also, if you don't mind getting meta and know your seed, there is an online atlas you could use. It's not perfect because of all the extra biomes in the pack but it'll help.

 

[MatunasCraft]

So, he added Gendustry, LOL. Of all things he might have changed, I understand this. It isn't about "slow" for me - I have patience where it's just about waiting, and there are always other things to do - but about randomness. Vanilla Forestry bee-breeding is a nightmare for me, like having to win the lottery several times in a row in order to proceed. I don't know yet what's required in terms of bee-breeding and tree-breeding in the pack (I'm in Age 3), but I highly suspect I'll do something to make it less frustrating, too.

As for the elevator, I checked the travel anchor recipes and they appear to be not too far in the future. That'll work for me.

Speaking of randomness, is it just my excessively bad luck or is there no desert in the pack? I'm desperately looking for cactus for my IE wiring (the HV relay requires cactus green). I've been exploring for several hours and I'm reasonably sure there's no desert within 1500 blocks from my base, and there doesn't appear to be another way to get some cactus green or equivalent.

If I haven't overlooked something, may I suggest alternative ways to get biome-dependent resources like this?

The biggest part of my issue with adding Gendustry is because it's DW20, who specializes in creative solutions. Adding a mod that greatly reduces the difficulty, in a themed "expert mode" pack, is not creative at all.

Deserts are normal in this pack, so it's bad RNG for you. Use a biome finder website (you'll need your Seed#), or cheat in cactus. The closest Jungle on my map was 8400m away from my base.

 

[GamerwithnoGame]

I went to Titan, a moon of Saturn, and found Rutile like you said, but also Bauxite. So if you mine for Rutile at Bauxite Y-levels, you should get a lot of Titanium (after processing.)

To process Magnesium, send Peridot Dust thru the Industrial Electrolyzer. It goes about as fast as Ruby Dust, which is much faster than processing Bauxite. Also, remember that you can get Peridot from mining Sapphire Ore, so use your Looting III Hammer, not machines.

Ahh peridot! Magnesium silicate, how did I miss that?! That makes sense.

 

[Ieldra]

The biggest part of my issue with adding Gendustry is because it's DW20, who specializes in creative solutions. Adding a mod that greatly reduces the difficulty, in a themed "expert mode" pack, is not creative at all.

Deserts are normal in this pack, so it's bad RNG for you. Use a biome finder website (you'll need your Seed#), or cheat in cactus. The closest Jungle on my map was 8400m away from my base.

Thanks. found some. I didn't know those biome finders existed

As for the bees, I guess he could've used a less brute-force method to make things less frustrating, but really, that genetic lottery isn't for everyone. I had hoped bees wouldn't be on the critical path in this pack, but since they are, I'm very understanding of everyone who cheats.

 

[Ieldra]

Another question: what are people using for power generation and storage in age 5? I'm running into demotivating messages like "requires X million RF to craft" at every turn while exporing the possibilities. I do have several million stored, but replenishment is slow at this time. The empowerment costs seem generally insane to me - especially the cost for the basic capacitors' empowered restonia crystals is rather offputting since I'm always going to need several of them in fairly short order.

 

[MatunasCraft]

Another question: what are people using for power generation and storage in age 5? I'm running into demotivating messages like "requires X million RF to craft" at every turn while exporing the possibilities. I do have several million stored, but replenishment is slow at this time. The empowerment costs seem generally insane to me - especially the cost for the basic capacitors' empowered restonia crystals is rather offputting since I'm always going to need several of them in fairly short order.

Oh I remember struggling with power quite a bit back then. I had AA Oil Generators burning regular Oil, then Crystalized Oil. I also had 4 Solar Panel III, but only because I thought the Upgrades could be installed. I built Environmental Tech's Lightning Rod, but it was not worth the trouble. It requires an actual thunderstorm, not just rain, so most of the time it sits there doing nothing. As soon as I built the ET Solar Array, I was good on power.

 

[MatunasCraft]

As for the bees, I guess he could've used a less brute-force method to make things less frustrating, but really, that genetic lottery isn't for everyone. I had hoped bees wouldn't be on the critical path in this pack, but since they are, I'm very understanding of everyone who cheats.

If he had been a tiny bit smarter, he would have cheated in the bees he wanted, then said he'd been letting them run behind the scenes. Oh well, I am much less angry about it now.

 

[Ieldra]

Oh I remember struggling with power quite a bit back then. I had AA Oil Generators burning regular Oil, then Crystalized Oil. I also had 4 Solar Panel III, but only because I thought the Upgrades could be installed. I built Environmental Tech's Lightning Rod, but it was not worth the trouble. It requires an actual thunderstorm, not just rain, so most of the time it sits there doing nothing. As soon as I built the ET Solar Array, I was good on power.

The ET Solar Array is what I'm aiming for, yes, but that will cost... 184 million RF in Empowerment costs alone, plus something I can get only on the slime islands, and I have no idea how to get there.

 

[SolManX]

Early game power is slow leldra. If you can get cloches going then, as matunascraft said, crystalized canola oil is good, but even the basic greenhouses with (calculator) lanterns can put out quite a lot of canola. I had some thermoelectric generators going pretty early and some water wheels. As soon as I was able to use extra ultils, I had cloches with carrots for culinary generators. Still pretty slow going though.

EDIT: Have you found any slime islands yet? I just pillared up to one.

 

[MatunasCraft]

The ET Solar Array is what I'm aiming for, yes, but that will cost... 184 million RF in Empowerment costs alone, plus something I can get only on the slime islands, and I have no idea how to get there.

Yeah, dirt pillar is best way to get to slime islands. While you are there, get the slime tree saplings. It's not a great source of slime balls, but at least it's renewable.

 

[Ieldra]

Early game power is slow leldra. If you can get cloches going then, as matunascraft said, crystalized canola oil is good, but even the basic greenhouses with (calculator) lanterns can put out quite a lot of canola. I had some thermoelectric generators going pretty early and some water wheels. As soon as I was able to use extra ultils, I had cloches with carrots for culinary generators. Still pretty slow going though.

I have 6 water wheels and 16 thermoelectric generators running. I'm experimenting with the greenhouses to see how much canola they generate, but the canola oil path never really appealed to me - as opposed to the IE stuff. Do the effects of the greenhouses and the cloche stack?

EDIT: Have you found any slime islands yet? I just pillared up to one.

Yeah...can you believe it didn't occur to me to pillar up to one until after I wrote my previous post? LOL. Well, I can now make the fishing net, the thermal centrifuge and the algorithmic separator, which will get me the advanced greenhouse and the lithium I need to empower the diamonds for the solar array controller. Also, I caught my first legit fish in Minecraft, and I've been playing since the beta days.

BTW: I am experiencing very frequent crashes when reading and navigating the Engineer's Manual. Is this a known problem?

 

[GamerwithnoGame]

in the guide there's a mention that you can get titanium on 2 moons in the solar system, but you actually can't get titanium ore on the moons.
what you need to find is rutile ore, which you need to pulverize, and combine the dust with magnesium dust to create titanium blend, so you can't get titanium straight from the moons.

but here comes my question... is there a planet or moon where you can find magnesium ore? I've tried searching for this answer, but I couldn't find it. I know there's a few ways to create magnesium dust, but is that the only way to get magnesium in this pack?

I don't know if you've updated recently, but I've discovered that marble dust in an industrial centrifuge is a quick and fairly straightforward way to magnesium dust by the looks.

 

[SolManX]

I have 6 water wheels and 16 thermoelectric generators running. I'm experimenting with the greenhouses to see how much canola they generate, but the canola oil path never really appealed to me - as opposed to the IE stuff. Do the effects of the greenhouses and the cloche stack?

Just to be sure, I was talking about the calculator greenhouse. I only ever used the basic version with lanterns but the IE cloches are easier to deal with anyway. For canola, it's a bit of intricate setup to get the crystalized oil but one cloche produced enough canola/seeds to power 4 oil generators and (from memory) that gets you 200 rf/t per generator. I used the same method as DireWolf20 to convert the seeds.

EDIT:

BTW: I am experiencing very frequent crashes when reading and navigating the Engineer's Manual. Is this a known problem?

Yes, same here - also with the info calculator.

 

[carryyourzero]

I've been really enjoying this modpack until today. I have an issue with mined blocks not dropping items. Can someone direct me to where I should post about this? Thanks

edit: It was from my Bagginses bag, which I accidently set to pickup mode
Great pack by the way!

 

[pazzoeo]

I'm enjoying the pack, but I have some problems:
1) Has anybody found a way to automate the Arc Furnace efficiently?
2) I've automated Quantum Entangled Singularities but when I put them in the AE system it gets stuck in the CPU, it thinks the crafting isn't over. How do I fix it?
3) How do I split items between multiple alloy smelters?
Thanks.

 

[MatunasCraft]

BTW: I am experiencing very frequent crashes when reading and navigating the Engineer's Manual. Is this a known problem?

Yes, same here - also with the info calculator.

There is a list of Known Issues, most recently posted back on page 27 of this forum thread, that mentions this issue and a potential workaround.

 

[MatunasCraft]

I'm enjoying the pack, but I have some problems:
1) Has anybody found a way to automate the Arc Furnace efficiently?
2) I've automated Quantum Entangled Singularities but when I put them in the AE system it gets stuck in the CPU, it thinks the crafting isn't over. How do I fix it?
3) How do I split items between multiple alloy smelters?

Thanks.

1. I believe someone wrote a script for the Arc Furnace a while back, but I never used it. I'm still using mine manually.
2. I believe this is because of the NBT data, each Singularity is packed with different items, so they are each unique. Again, my solution is to manually craft with them, instead of autocrafting.
3. If you have an Interface on each Alloy Smelter, you can split up all the recipes so that each Alloy Smelter creates different items. But if you want every Alloy Smelter to be able to create every alloy on demand, that is much more complicated. It's virtually impossible for me, but maybe someone else has a solution.

 

[pazzoeo]

1. I believe someone wrote a script for the Arc Furnace a while back, but I never used it. I'm still using mine manually.
2. I believe this is because of the NBT data, each Singularity is packed with different items, so they are each unique. Again, my solution is to manually craft with them, instead of autocrafting.
3. If you have an Interface on each Alloy Smelter, you can split up all the recipes so that each Alloy Smelter creates different items. But if you want every Alloy Smelter to be able to create every alloy on demand, that is much more complicated. It's virtually impossible for me, but maybe someone else has a solution.

Thanks for the answer
Honestly, at this point, I don't really need the Arc Furnace that much, so I'm going to craft manually with it, and I don't really care if I don't split items between alloy smelters, I can wait. The Quantum Entangled Singularities are really bothering me though. I see videos of people just requesting them and everything works fine, but for me it doesn't. I know that each pair has different NBT data, but is there really no workaround? If not I'll just keep crafting them until I have a big stock, but I don't really want to do that...

 

[SolManX]

There is a list of Known Issues, most recently posted back on page 27 of this forum thread, that mentions this issue and a potential workaround.

Thanks for that.