But the sync shell is a farry expensive item and is around mid game not early game because it needs neither quartz with requires witch water and sand wich requires mycelium wich requires spores Ect ect...
Getting soulsand true barrels is quite easy, i usually farm a bunch before i setup proper power cause ill need PCB's. Id say sync shell is rather cheap compare to say a control rod for your reactor.
From my own experiences (on the hard route) I alway go to the city without shell. The water is just too precious to turn into nether quartz. Besides, if I die in the city I am not that far along yet, so a restart isn't that bad.
Grinder from AE, use it to make alloy like invar to make better sheers, use a furnace generator to power your transposers and you will have water for days depending on how big your tree farm is, i need at least 2 sheers to get all my leaves from the trees each harvest. My drum is usually half full before i even hit mid-game content.