I have pushed through PC. I am up to the last two parts where I need to create machine upgrades (still don't have a brewery) and the kinetic compressor (more expensive than my car). What annoys me with it is having to micromanage so many things. Sitting there constantly watching it.
Creating alloys while trying to work out the magical number of dusts.
While trying to work out why a setup up of water->cobble->pyrotheum for my cobblegen turns the water and cobble into stone.
While making obsidian with lava instead of pyrotheum.
While constantly stocking the compressors.
While breaking and re-closing the pressure chamber.
All the while losing an hour+ of work because I forgot to check PCBs.
I'm not overly fussed about it now though. I liked how the quest line walked me through each step and aside from the pressure chamber and the loss of the PCBs it hasn't been that annoying. I was just super pissed that the 10 PCBs was where I was going to leave it last night. Losing them made me angry, I considered cheating them in but thought that wouldn't be a very good lesson. Even though it was an annoying mechanic, I didn't want to cheapen the experience. Thus I stayed up well past what I should have to make some more and finish off this nightmare questline.
Losing the PCBs and the finicky pressure chamber was just the last in a long line of annoyances though. The first was when I was finally building my smeltery and I had just enough to finish it off. I went to put compressed cobble into it and it wouldn't smelt. The controller was messing up the lava levels and I thought it was bugged. After about an hour of dis-assemble/re-assemble, close and re-load game etc etc. I realised cobble doesn't smelt and I had to use my leftover blocks. I place the blocks in and start smelting away.
I got my high oven up, while completing the quest to make doubles of things (grumble grumble) and then didn't have enough left over to make a tool forge...apparently one block of seared stone makes one seared brick...realising I needed to either head back to the city in the same armour or find a new one really ticked me off. Dealing with the pressure chamber and losing the PCBs after that was just the game giving me a giant middle finger and saying "F**K YOU HAHAHAHAHAHA".
It's not all doom and gloom though because now I can look forward to automating it all. I am into MFR which is one of the few mods I actually know in this pack (that and TE). I was even doing work on it in the Github when it got revamped last year. I just have to re-acquaint myself with some of the blocks and we are good to go.
First things first, find out why I have the laziest grinder in the history of grinders. You have power, you have mobs, why you sit there and idle grinder? WHY?!
I'm surprised nobody has mentioned this to you yet, it would have been really helpful.
You can have flowing acid flow towards a hopper (multiple source blocks like a mini river might work, I suppose). The hopper feeds into a chest which has itemducts pulling stuff out and placing it in a dispenser, which spits stuff out back into the acid.
Some notes on his build:
I didn't make this up myself; I saw someone else who posted it. You know who you are!
You could probably use a comparator hooked up to the dispenser to make it activate literally whenever it has anything in it, although anytime it has more than one thing in it it would lock up.
You could use a pneumatic servo on the itemduct on the chest to allow only not-done pcbs out.
With one source block, about 4% is etched. This can be lengthened by increasing the length of the acid "river," by sort if cascading... Hard to explain. If you can't figure out what I mean, that is, how to lengthen one source block, go play vanilla.
Finally, once again, I didn't come up with this, nor have I actually tested, so most of what I said is theoretical. Theory is my favorite thing, however, so I'm probably pretty reliable.
I had something else to say, but I don't remember what it was...
On the note of suggested mods:
Hats: Yes. It'll be that much harder to resist the temptation of going out at night to kill mobs.
Morph would essentially have to have all abilities removed. In that case, however, it's kind of useles...
Translocators: Yeah. That would be great.
Steve's Carts: I haven't gotten far enough in
creative to use that. I really can't help decide.
... That's all for now.
(Wow, that was a mega post... XD)