[1.10.2] Age of Engineering

[WuffleFluffy]

Fusion Power... Space Ships... OffWorld mining....

This is the best mod pack experience we've played, and the really good conversations in this forum are a bit part of it

OK, i'll move to Tier 3 ET machines.

I'm kind of wondering at which point i'll outgrow my two diesel generators.

With all these new high tech machines becoming available, i'm wondering.. do I do a big 'tear down' of my base or start again
with a new base, based on AE2, NeoTech, Extreme reactors and so forth, leaving the existing base behind to do all the other stuff and
just teleport between them as needed?

My existing base with it's pair of diesels is fully self sustaining RE: Power and resources, I'm filling up a large tank with UU Matter and
Sentry guns from IE are happily shooting anything hostile that wanders too close.

I might go for a different look with this new base.

What do you think?

So many things to do!!

-= Wuffle =-

P.S *** WARNING ON CALCULATOR STORAGE CHAMBERS ***

There's a fairly major bug with the Calculator Storage Chamber that I think is worth noting here as it's potentially game breaking.

I was using Mekanism basic bins to store all my bits and pieces from Calculator quite happily until I realized that Calculator has a block that can store very large numbers of circuits.

Long Story short, I began piping circuits over from the basic bins..

Only to discover that if any one slot in a storage chamber has more than 255 circuits of the same type, everything goes a bit strange, the counts go negative and enourmous server lag ensues, with ticks being missed and so forth. After a few minutes my server actually crashed and I couldn't get it started.

I had to set the maximum-tick wait to -1, in the config file, restart the server and breack and dispose of the blocks, resulting in the loss of thousands of analysed circuits.

I popped past the GitHub for the Calculator mod, and the mod author has flagged this and other issue for a release a few days ago.

I'll keep an eye out for this, as if it's fixed, it would be worth an update to the mod pack to include this latest version of Calculator, given that so many things depend on it's output.

 

[GamerwithnoGame]

Oh, identifying them is never a problem - I use colored cables everywhere, and if I look at a P2P connector, I know it's from the yellow segment or the purple segment - the color of the dense cable at the input end. And if I have separate storage and crafting networks - which I do in games where I don't use drawers - I have a black and a white backbone network so I always know the input of any output connection I happen to look at.
No, the problem is remembering where I placed the output connections, because at thatend my P2P connections are almost always hidden in floors and ceilings.

I think part of the problem for me was that I was putting the P2P directly against the controller, so there was no dense cable colour to go by at that end!

And that's definitely fair enough. I think next time I go into it, I'd like to really think in advance about how I'm going to lay things out and have a sensible, consistent way of doing things. He said optimistically...

EDIT:

And.....the Mekanism fusion reactor. I didn't make a water-cooled one since I have no idea about the space requirements, and this looks quite nice and serves nicely as a main energy source for my base. As you can see, I dismantled the DE reactor. This one is more complicated to set up and fuel production is also more complicated, but it generates more power and is significantly safer.

Impressions:

Tritium production. Liquid lithium is made in the TEP from brine made in the other TEPS and routed to the condensentrators in the second screenshot by Quantum Entangloporter, then turned into lithium gas and sent back to the solar neutron activators through the same porter. Tritium from the activators is sent through another porter to the reactor.

Spoiler

Deuterium production. 10 pumps, 4 electrolytic separators. Fortunately, the separators accept heavy water from the bottom, or this would have been much more awkward.

Spoiler

The reactor room. The lasers around the core are only for ignition and take up a lot of space. The central laser amplifier collects all the power until there's enough to ignite the initial D-T fuel, after which the reactor will run on tritium and deuterium and won't need more d-t-fuel injection. The reactor is controlled by an RFTools screen with button modules.

Spoiler

Annd...action. First the lasers, then a long waiting time until the amplifier has collected the 4 GJ or so required for ignition. Then the lasers can be switched off and the reactor activated. It generates 1 MJ/t at an injection rate of 4. I could push this up but I don't know how much. It depends on my fuel production. 1 MJ/t equals 400kRF/t - and I did activate RF/J conversion since otherwise there would no point in building this.

Spoiler

My base is now completely independent once more from the creative power I intermittently used for the last two achievements, except for the quantum generators I use to power the molecular transformer.

Lovely setup dude! You've got to watch out for those lasers, as I discovered when I broke an amplifier while the laser pointing at it was still powered, and it drilled a 1 block wide hole almost down to bedrock... eek.

When I did the fusion reactor in Regrowth, I found my reactor was cooling down at anything below... I think it was 8, or 10? injection rate - the temp was dropping below the temp threshold.

You filled your Solar Neutron Activators with speed upgrades I'm assuming? That makes life a little easier.

 

[Ieldra]

I think part of the problem for me was that I was putting the P2P directly against the controller, so there was no dense cable colour to go by at that end!

And that's definitely fair enough. I think next time I go into it, I'd like to really think in advance about how I'm going to lay things out and have a sensible, consistent way of doing things. He said optimistically...

Here's an early picture of the time when I was creating my ME network:

Spoiler

You can easily see how I'm doing things. I'm working with two controllers: the four-block controller set up as a pillar controls the main network, the one-block controller behind and below the Dense Energy Cell controls the backbone network. Both controllers are connected through a quartz fibre so they both get power from the energy cell (there is an energy acceptor below it in the floor which gets power from the powercell) and I don't have to worry about extra quartz fibre connections around the tunnels, but a data connection between the two controllers is denied as required. Main network channels are transmitted through the P2P tunnels, and the black backbone cables go from the P2P tunnel into the backbone controller. Then a single black dense cable comes out from the bottom of the backbone controller which can transport my channels all over the base. This setup can control 512 channels, and it's extendable to 1024 by making the main controller 8 blocks high without any other change to the structure, but there are only 16 colors to code with, so things can get a little confusing at more than 512. My space station utilizes about 150, of which 64 are for interfaces connected to molecular assemblers, about 70 for machine processing and the rest for external storage and terminals.

Lovely setup dude! You've got to watch out for those lasers, as I discovered when I broke an amplifier while the laser pointing at it was still powered, and it drilled a 1 block wide hole almost down to bedrock... eek.

When I did the fusion reactor in Regrowth, I found my reactor was cooling down at anything below... I think it was 8, or 10? injection rate - the temp was dropping below the temp threshold.

You filled your Solar Neutron Activators with speed upgrades I'm assuming? That makes life a little easier.

The reactor GUI says mininum injection rate is 2, and I've let this run for about an hour before I left the game. Unless there's something that needs longer to arrive, this setup appears to be stable.
As for the lasers, yes, it would be unpleasant to lose containment in space, but the lasers don't get any power unless I switch them on. The power cubes controlling their power are set to emit only on redstone high. And yes, I applied speed and energy upgrades to pretty much anything in this setup. After the fact, I think my fuel production may be a little oversized, but power use is negligible and it's better to be prepared for higher output.

 

[GamerwithnoGame]

Here's an early picture of the time when I was creating my ME network:

Spoiler

You can easily see how I'm doing things. I'm working with two controllers: the four-block controller set up as a pillar controls the main network, the one-block controller behind and below the Dense Energy Cell controls the backbone network. Both controllers are connected through a quartz fibre so they both get power from the energy cell (there is an energy acceptor below it in the floor which gets power from the powercell) and I don't have to worry about extra quartz fibre connections around the tunnels, but a data connection between the two controllers is denied as required. Main network channels are transmitted through the P2P tunnels, and the black backbone cables go from the P2P tunnel into the backbone controller. Then a single black dense cable comes out from the bottom of the backbone controller which can transport my channels all over the base. This setup can control 512 channels, and it's extendable to 1024 by making the main controller 8 blocks high without any other change to the structure, but there are only 16 colors to code with, so things can get a little confusing at more than 512. My space station utilizes about 150, of which 64 are for interfaces connected to molecular assemblers, about 70 for machine processing and the rest for external storage and terminals.


The reactor GUI says mininum injection rate is 2, and I've let this run for about an hour before I left the game. Unless there's something that needs longer to arrive, this setup appears to be stable.
As for the lasers, yes, it would be unpleasant to lose containment in space, but the lasers don't get any power unless I switch them on. The power cubes controlling their power are set to emit only on redstone high. And yes, I applied speed and energy upgrades to pretty much anything in this setup. After the fact, I think my fuel production may be a little oversized, but power use is negligible and it's better to be prepared for higher output.

Ah yes, I see what you did there! Very nice!

And yeah, I don't know why my reactor seemed to need higher injection rates; it had previously seemed stable at an injection rate of 6, but later on I found it seemed to be dropping! Invariably though it was when I'd logged off in between times that issues seemed to crop up, so that's probably something to do with it (it was on a server, and though ostensibly chunkloaded, I suspect that the whole server suspended when no players were on); I could have set up the power cube and stuff supplying the lasers to be on redstone control, I just didn't because I wanted to get it done I definitely would if doing it again.

I set up the power outlet port (I actually used two; probably wasn't necessary) to be directly adjacent to an Induction Matrix that I'd been slowly upgrading - that seemed to work well, so I'd probably do that again.

 

[Ieldra]

And yeah, I don't know why my reactor seemed to need higher injection rates; it had previously seemed stable at an injection rate of 6, but later on I found it seemed to be dropping! Invariably though it was when I'd logged off in between times that issues seemed to crop up, so that's probably something to do with it (it was on a server, and though ostensibly chunkloaded, I suspect that the whole server suspended when no players were on); I could have set up the power cube and stuff supplying the lasers to be on redstone control, I just didn't because I wanted to get it done I definitely would if doing it again.

I've been having odd issues with Mekanism multiblocks, that may also apply to the reactor. One of my dynamic tanks breaks every time I leave the game and re-enter my world, in spite of not being built across chunk boundaries (the reason why I had to relocate my TEPS). If I break one of its blocks and replace it, the tank's ok again and nothing of the stored liquid is lost. The two dynamic tanks in my fusion fuel production chain are ok, but the one where I store honey isn't, for no discernable reason. Also, ever since I have more than one Mekanism multiblock in my world my world loading times have increased significantly. To be more specific: there is always an additional delay after I enter my world in which time period I can do almost nothing because of lag and AE2 inaccessibility, in which time the visuals are built and and other world integration stuff is done by the game apparently. One of the effects is that my singularity production facility starts making new singularities because it hasn't access to my storage yet and the level emitter doesn't find any singularities in storage. Mekanism multiblocks drastically increase that delay.

 

[GamerwithnoGame]

I've been having odd issues with Mekanism multiblocks, that may also apply to the reactor. One of my dynamic tanks breaks every time I leave the game and re-enter my world, in spite of not being built across chunk boundaries (the reason why I had to relocate my TEPS). If I break one of its blocks and replace it, the tank's ok again and nothing of the stored liquid is lost. The two dynamic tanks in my fusion fuel production chain are ok, but the one where I store honey isn't, for no discernable reason. Also, ever since I have more than one Mekanism multiblock in my world my world loading times have increased significantly. To be more specific: there is always an additional delay after I enter my world in which time period I can do almost nothing because of lag and AE2 inaccessibility, in which time the visuals are built and and other world integration stuff is done by the game apparently. One of the effects is that my singularity production facility starts making new singularities because it hasn't access to my storage yet and the level emitter doesn't find any singularities in storage. Mekanism multiblocks drastically increase that delay.

...now you mention it, I know what you mean. I actually logged in once, and happened to be facing towards my first Induction Matrix (I built one quite early on that had just the bottom tier cell and provider inside) and noticed it did the red "forming" particle effect that they do as everything was loading up. And as you say, there is a quite severe period of what is effectively paralysis, after which everything is fine!

 

[Ieldra]

Fusion Power... Space Ships... OffWorld mining....

This is the best mod pack experience we've played, and the really good conversations in this forum are a bit part of it

OK, i'll move to Tier 3 ET machines.

I'm kind of wondering at which point i'll outgrow my two diesel generators.

At 6.9kRF/t, they stay significant until that amount becomes insignificant. Which means, not as yet, since the tier 3 solar makes 15kRF/t during the day.

Also, I agree that this is one of the most interesting modpacks I've played as yet, thanks mainly to Advanced Rocketry. However, have you played with Reika's mods? They're still at 1.7.10 (and likely to remain there at least for a while longer), but in terms of complexity they're in a class of their own. ReactorCraft's fusion reactor is probably the most complex facility in all of modded Minecraft, and ChromatiCraft is one of the most fascinating magic mods I know. Also, it's almost never about resources with Reika's mods, but about finding ways to use the things you can make in order to make new things possible, and figuring things out. AoE used a similiar design as a pack, but ran against limits since the mods in the pack aren't always designed for it, so it was often more about throwing a lot of resources at a problem in the end.

With all these new high tech machines becoming available, i'm wondering.. do I do a big 'tear down' of my base or start again
with a new base, based on AE2, NeoTech, Extreme reactors and so forth, leaving the existing base behind to do all the other stuff and
just teleport between them as needed?

It's your choice in the end. Though if you think of building a space station, I wouldn't move from the old base before I'm ready to go to space. Also, organic growth has its own beauty if you do it right. My old Revolution 1 base of which I posted screenshots in here some way back was of that kind. I couldn't have planned it that way from the start because I'm no architect, but in the end it did look as if built on purpose that way, gardens and all. I didn't plan the final apperance of my space station either. I just started with five spheres connected by spokes and added stuff as required where I thought it would look good.

Only to discover that if any one slot in a storage chamber has more than 255 circuits of the same type, everything goes a bit strange, the counts go negative and enourmous server lag ensues, with ticks being missed and so forth. After a few minutes my server actually crashed and I couldn't get it started.

I did not have that bug. My storage chambers have been storing up to 1024 of each circuit for quite some time with no problems. Maybe that's a problem that only happens in SMP? I heard that there are problems when you connect storage buses to a storage chamber, so I never did that, but that can't be the same issue since you don't have storage buses as yet.

 

[GamerwithnoGame]

Fusion Power... Space Ships... OffWorld mining....

There's a thought: by offworld mining you mean warping to other planets and digging the stuff up right? Advanced rocketry actually has a orbital laser drill facility - has anyone used that, or was that only added in a later version than the one in AoE? I also believe you can send remote asteroid mining missions - but again, that may be a later version?

 

[Ieldra]

There's a thought: by offworld mining you mean warping to other planets and digging the stuff up right? Advanced rocketry actually has a orbital laser drill facility - has anyone used that, or was that only added in a later version than the one in AoE? I also believe you can send remote asteroid mining missions - but again, that may be a later version?

Asteroid mining is possible in AoE AFAIK, but it's not worth the effort. The orbital laser drill can be crafted, but I don't know if it's functional or how it works. Hmm....something worth trying.

Edit: I haven't got the orbital laser drill to work. It's a multiblock and the multiblock forms, and I can give it power. Nothing more happens though, in spite of the drill having clear sight down to the void and pointing towards a planet.
Edit2: I forgot the lens. I'll try again.

Edit3:
It works like a normal quarry. You set coordinates on the planet and the orbital drill mines either a single location down to bedrock, a line or a spiral around a location. There is no silk touch option since lenses beyond the basic one apparently aren't implemented in this version, and it costs quite a bit of power. You also can't filter. Still, it does mean you can get the offworld ores the void miner can't get you using this machine, without having to leave the station. Which means I must keep this test item and integrate it with my station.

 

[Ieldra]

And it's done! I can now get all ores without having to leave the station. I'm not completely independent from planetary resources, but at least I don't have to visit boring places like...the moon. @GamerwithnoGame : Many thanks for this hint that this very useful and thematically fitting addition to my station exists.

The orbital laser drill. Too bad I can't paint the ender chests. Hmm...maybe I should replace them with Quantum Entangloporters.

Spoiler

I also don't need to go out into space to switch my miners off and on anymore:

Spoiler

The dilithium gets sent strait into my storage system. I switched off the continuing transport in order to test this.

Spoiler

 

[GamerwithnoGame]

And it's done! I can now get all ores without having to leave the station. I'm not completely independent from planetary resources, but at least I don't have to visit boring places like...the moon. @GamerwithnoGame : Many thanks for this hint that this very useful and thematically fitting addition to my station exists.

The orbital laser drill. Too bad I can't paint the ender chests. Hmm...maybe I should replace them with Quantum Entangloporters.

Spoiler

I also don't need to go out into space to switch my miners off and on anymore:

Spoiler

The dilithium gets sent strait into my storage system. I switched off the continuing transport in order to test this.

Spoiler

You’re more than welcome @Ieldra! I’m happy to have contributed in any way to the awesomeness that is your AoE playthrough! It’s been an inspiration and a pleasure to follow. Plus it’s answered my pondering about the miner too, which is pretty great

 

[Ieldra]

All right people, in order to finalize my build, I'd like to have a challenge:

As I said before, my goal is to become as independent from planetary resources as it's possible to become without using creative powers. Since technically, I am already there with the Atomic Multiplier, I'll add the condition that I must be able, without gathering resources from planets, to make or otherwise acquire any basic resource I might need in potentially unlimited quantities - in most cases, that would mean automating its creation/acquisition and making/acquiring at least a thousand of it in an amount of time that doesn't require me to sleep in-between - while restricting the use of the Atomic Multiplier to items which can't be reproduced any other way (of course the required quantities are lower for those). I don't require to have a facility that makes it on my station at any time, but I must be able to create such a facility and run it without having to collect stuff from planets. I could, for instance, easily make and run a rubber farm on my station with the resources I have, if I needed more IC2 rubber, and I could get more rubber saplings by running a regular tree farm with rubber trees rather than a rubber farm.

So, pose me a challenge: I'm looking for hard-to-get basic resources I might have forgotten to think of. Things I did think of are almost all mob resources - I have spawners for shulkers, guardians, chickens (feathers are unexpectedly hard to get in significant quantities) and squids, among others. I'll have to look if I have a Creeper spawner - I don't need one for gunpowder since that can be made from Netherrack which is "mined" by the void resource miner - but there is one EnderIO item which requires a Creeper head.

The thing I'm currently thinking of are bees, specifially bees of pristine stock. My store of bees is bound to vanish over time, since there is always a chance that one dies when put through a Mutatron or Genetic Imprinter. I haven't tested yet if the Atomic Multiplier can duplicate bees, but even if it can, it's bound to cause problems since all items I've put through the Multiplier have lost their NBT data - so I couldn't, for instance, duplicate filled liquid containers; they always came out empty. I'll test this when I get home later this day. In the best case, I can multiply bees and I'll get a "generic bee" out of it that otherwise doesn't exist except as an object template (at least one other Forestry addon used such a thing, so I know it's possible) , but which I can put into an Imprinter to get a real bee. In the worst case, getting more bees without gathering them from planets might actually prove impossible and I might have to put up with the ignoble stock I get from that bee-making machine in Gendustry.

Edit:
So much for that plan. Bees can't be Atomically Multiplied. So that's a definite weak spot in my setup.

 

[Ieldra]

I'm posting screenshots of my space station in the community showcase thread: https://forum.feed-the-beast.com/threads/an-age-of-engineering-space-station.263602/

(I had originally posted this in Closet Gamer's own thread. Sorry for that)

 

[Closet Gamer]

I'm posting screenshots of my space station in the community showcase thread: https://forum.feed-the-beast.com/threads/an-age-of-engineering-space-station.263602/

(I had originally posted this in Closet Gamer's own thread. Sorry for that)

It's cool man, I didn't mind

------------------------
My Age of Engineering Series: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLUZaEaeCvlj6ChY3jks-N8rW74_3qEtmD

 

[Ferindor]

Asteroid mining is possible in AoE AFAIK, but it's not worth the effort. The orbital laser drill can be crafted, but I don't know if it's functional or how it works. Hmm....something worth trying.

Edit: I haven't got the orbital laser drill to work. It's a multiblock and the multiblock forms, and I can give it power. Nothing more happens though, in spite of the drill having clear sight down to the void and pointing towards a planet.
Edit2: I forgot the lens. I'll try again.

Edit3:
It works like a normal quarry. You set coordinates on the planet and the orbital drill mines either a single location down to bedrock, a line or a spiral around a location. There is no silk touch option since lenses beyond the basic one apparently aren't implemented in this version, and it costs quite a bit of power. You also can't filter. Still, it does mean you can get the offworld ores the void miner can't get you using this machine, without having to leave the station. Which means I must keep this test item and integrate it with my station.

Which lens did you use in the orbital laser? I cannot get my orbital drill to work. I have clear sight to the planet surface, nothing blocking the bottom. I have it formed and powered up. I notice the normal lens from Advanced Rocketry is not in JEI for me. I have watched several videos and see the square looking lens that goes into the Drill but I only see the basic lens which looks like a bubble for me in my JEI. I am playing the latest version of AoE version 1.1.2. Any ideas what I could be doing wrong?

Thanks,
Ferindor

 

[Ieldra]

Which lens did you use in the orbital laser? I cannot get my orbital drill to work. I have clear sight to the planet surface, nothing blocking the bottom. I have it formed and powered up. I notice the normal lens from Advanced Rocketry is not in JEI for me. I have watched several videos and see the square looking lens that goes into the Drill but I only see the basic lens which looks like a bubble for me in my JEI. I am playing the latest version of AoE version 1.1.2. Any ideas what I could be doing wrong?

Thanks,
Ferindor

Since the basic lens is the only one you can make, I tried that one and it worked.

 

[WuffleFluffy]

I've expanded my base in preparation for pushing into Age 9.

I've decided to give Extreme Reactors a go and begin the process of pushing into AE2.

I have added a reactor building which will house power generation and storage centrally to power the rest of the base. The second floor of my IC2 building will become the place where my AE2 storage system will be built, I am going to be building what is known as a Soaryn Drive, something I've done before. There will likely be a few levels of Racks of storage arrays holding inventory in a central scheme.

AE2 carfting will take place in another building to be added, I am preparing a network layout plan for the channels, and am hoping that subnetworks are still a thing

I'm going to leave the existing base infrastructure as is for now.

An RFTOOLS elevator will be built in the main building allowing access to the upper deck and the Tower.

Spoiler: Wuffle begins expansion

In other news... Have pushed into Age 10.. was surprisingly easy, once I figured out how to make refined iron.

Looks like i'll need to set up a dedicated floor to TechReborn and NeoTech, Need to make the machine that takes Magma cream (which I can farm with a spawner) into those light-green slimeballs.

@Ieldra, you are right! NeoTech machines are extremely fast.

I've added a few hundred million RF worth of EnderIO Vibrant capacitor banks in my big energy building.

I have to make an inscriber before I can make an ME Controller, I have most of the components ready, I have found all of the presses (I think).

-= Wuffle =-

 

[xKillo]

I really enjoy this modpack and like how the progression is balanced. Just 3 questions.

- Will any other tech mod be added in any future update?

- Will their be an option for terrain generations, like biomes o plenty, biome bundle or whatever because the vanilla minecraft generation is incredibly boring, or can I just add a terrain generation mod that it wouldn't affect the core modpack?

- Is their any other modpack or mod that balances recipes and adds progression to other certain mods for 1.10.2?

Anyways, cool modpack!

 

[WuffleFluffy]

Well, after a bit of dithering around I've finally got AE2 up and running!

Spoiler

Had to craft a bunch of other machines, including some from TechReborn and NeoTech, luckily I've now got a few stacks of End Diamonds, those NeoTech machines are EXPENSIVE.

Was a bit stumped by the Carbon Plates for Tech Reborn, but the charcoal from the old Coke Oven did the trick on that one.

Automating circuits could be ... interesting given how dependent they are upon the Calculator mod, luckily for me I've got 4096 of each type of circuit, which should be more than
enough to see me through.

My first order of business will be to fully automate all of the AE2 bits and pieces I can automate, I've got several stacks of Pure Certus Quartz slowly grinding away in the empowerer, i'll
let that run over the next 24 or 48 hours.

How do you guys approach the early phase of AE2?

I must admit I was quite disappointed when I found out I could not replicate the circuits with UU Matter

Quick question... I have my AE2 crafting terminal set up, i' made a pile of EnderIO ME conduits and I've run a line down to my Storage Scanner, I am aware that this only has 8 channels, but I was wanting to access the inventory of my Storage Scanner via the AE2 Terminal, but so far am having little luck.

Figured it out, need to apply the Storage bus interface directly to the modular storage and the Drawer Storage Controller. Nice and simple, that uses up a few channels on the ME conduit, but all it needed to do was give my AE2 building access to the stuff from my original basement

-= Wuffle =- !

 

[GamerwithnoGame]

Well, after a bit of dithering around I've finally got AE2 up and running!

Spoiler

Had to craft a bunch of other machines, including some from TechReborn and NeoTech, luckily I've now got a few stacks of End Diamonds, those NeoTech machines are EXPENSIVE.

Was a bit stumped by the Carbon Plates for Tech Reborn, but the charcoal from the old Coke Oven did the trick on that one.

Automating circuits could be ... interesting given how dependent they are upon the Calculator mod, luckily for me I've got 4096 of each type of circuit, which should be more than
enough to see me through.

My first order of business will be to fully automate all of the AE2 bits and pieces I can automate, I've got several stacks of Pure Certus Quartz slowly grinding away in the empowerer, i'll
let that run over the next 24 or 48 hours.

How do you guys approach the early phase of AE2?

I must admit I was quite disappointed when I found out I could not replicate the circuits with UU Matter

-= Wuffle =- !

I think setting up automation of circuits and some molecular assemblers and crafting CPUs has got to be your first few steps. You can keep adding more recipes and automation as you go on, but automating the basic components is an essential. I know @Closet Gamer came up against some issues with automating using calculator circuits, and I believe he solved them in efficient and novel ways - he'd have some good advice on that I think!