Love the early game in this pack, automate nothing, do it all yourself. Nice sense of accomplishment when you finally place that basic steam turbine.
Took me 3-4 hours of exploring at the start of the world but I found a place where I could see tin, copper, silver, sand, and clay from one place. Mineshaft down to 10 finding iron on my way to those first macerator diamonds and I was ready to go.
Sand to the left, tin and copper in hills to right, silver/lead right behind the coke ovens, clay and pipe waterproofing in the water wrapping around the outpost, iron and redstone/cinnabar very close to mineshaft across the river. Everything you need to start plus an OK biome for railcraft watertanks, this place is perfect. Is even a village not too far away.
Think playing with early steam is one of the most entertaining bits. Started out with gravity-fed clay pipes, upgraded to gold pipes, wooden/emerald extraction pipes and redstone engines, upgraded again to some ender i/o conduit since I didn't have an easy way to really power emerald extraction pipes. The basic conduit can keep up with the basic steam turbine where I couldn't with 2 redstone engines on each emerald pipe. Think I would have had to make some basic steam engine/sterling engines to drive those emerald pipes.
Do a little thaumcraft now and then when GT resources are processing, mainly so I could get some Boots of the Traveler. Doing the golem research in case I want them for farms but might do Forestry instead, prefer tech to magic when I have a choice. Couple hurdles on the way to BoTs, first was silverwood for the alembics as in a couple days of exploring/playing I hadn't found a magic biome/silverwood tree. Did a bit more exploring, found that, realized I didn't have any cinnabar for the essentia tubes. Went back to my mines, did some vertical shafts where convenient until I hit a redstone/ruby/cinnabar vein. GT5 ore system seems like a giant headache but once you know it I think it is better because once you've found a resource you're usually set for a good long time.
Got my wiremill and bending machine, work on canner, batteries and buffer today, try to add 2 more bronze blast furnaces. Start thinking about automation options.
I've already made all the Carbon Plate, and the only thing I really can't make are those IC2 Energy Crystals, hence the HV Autoclave... was this the point where you guys were able to make the Nano Armor? I know I'll need 4 MV turbines plus a GT transformer to run the Autoclave, but that's no problem. Go for it? Even if it takes a full RC tank of steam to make one Energy Crystal, I don't care how slow it goes as long as it's do-able.
