While this is not FTB directly, I believe this would be the best place to ask since you guys seem quite knowledgeable about the mods used.
I'm playing with a very bare-bones modpack in SSP in 1.7.2. Due to the lack of updated mods, the ones I have access to right now are primarily IC2e, Buildcraft 5, and Applied Energistics 2. With no addons on any of them. Only other content mod is bibliocraft.
I'm wondering, what are your thoughts about energy generation with these mods alone? Particularly during midgame, and particularly MJ, but any "did you know?"s of hidden or underused strategies are appreciated.
For IC2 on-demand I use geothermal and standard generators, which work quite good so far. I'm planning on building a super-safe, simple nuclear generator with high efficiency and low voltage, since I'm not aiming for matter fab or teleport and more like... decent maceration speed and similar. For AE I use a setup of passive IC2 water mills (54 currently, which covers several times my need and the excess goes into a CESU for recharging my batpack).
But for MJ I'm kinda lost. I've always been able to use at the very least railcraft, and mostly forestry too, but now I don't know. Is oil/fuel worth it, considering there's no ender tanks or automatic long-distance fuel moving at all? Vanilla ender chests cannot be automated (AFAIK) so there's no options there either. And there's no chunk loaders available. Right now, I don't use much MJ; I just have 8 stirlings for my assembly table and the rest is Redstone Engines (for pumps etc).
Ideas? Or is any of the other MJ-related mods (railcraft, forestry etc) on the verge of updating to 1.7.2, and I should just hold off with anything large until they're released?
EDIT:
Is it an option to find and refine oil locally, then bottle it up in loads and loads of buckets/cells on a few mules and lead them back to base?
It seems like it still would be extremely obnoxious, but I would enjoy getting a Quarry sooner or later. I know the IC2 miner is an option, but I really have no good experience with it and it always seem to leave a bunch of mining pipes or whatever they are called down in the hole they make.