still on 0.6.5 - why are so many recipes missing for most of the essences? Of course I know a lot of the patterns - 3 across, 3 vertical, 3 diagonal, 4 square, 8 square, all 9, etc. but I still don't like having to guess and possibly missing a good recipe. One example is "Essence of the Wither" - there's no NEI recipe for using it, and I did discover that 8 square gives a Wither Skeleton Skull, but how about Necrotic Bone? I've tried all the combos but no bones. Now perhaps there isn't a recipe for Necrotic Bone using Essence of the Wither, but I'd like to know that for certain before I needlessly waste time hunting for a Nether Fortress so I can try to get some Necrotic Bone drops.
Another example is the Slime essence, it has a very odd pattern using 6 of the 9 crafting slots. I would never have guessed that recipe. So not all recipes are the simple kind, apparently. I got the recipe by looking up Slimeball in NEI and pressing "R". So why is the recipe in NEI, but the Essence item isn't? If you look up "Essence of the Slime" there's no entry even tho it is used in the Slimeball recipes. That doesn't make sense to me. (Edit: I made a mistake, it isn't the Slimeball recipe that has the "odd" recipe, but I can't remember which item it is that has that recipe).
Another example is Essence of Ardite, which doesn't show up at all in NEI, not even if you go to "Ardite Ingot" and look up all the recipes. But I think it's safe to say there is indeed a recipe for turning essence into ingots (most likely the 8 square one but I don't have 8 of em yet so I can't check to see). So why doesn't NEI show it? Edit: The answer to this one is, 8 square gives an Ardite Ore block, not an Ardite Ingot, which is a nice bonus!
Point is, we can't be certain of anything when it comes to essence recipes, and I don't enjoy having to guess at them. Is this intended behavior?