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[Drbretto]

If you're looking for something RF driven, I've heard @Drbretto rave about the AA Drill enough that it make me want to try it, and ImmEng has a drill option as well.

Do keep in mind that my experience with mining prior to trying the drill was with pickaxes and shovels for manual and BC quarries for mass production, so I may not have the best perspective on things, but here's the case for them:

It's early game enough to be the first main goal once you're diamond-ready. The 3x3 and first two speed upgrades are all done with easy to obtain early game ingredients and that's good enough that I haven't even bothered upgrading any further. The only thing I'd like to have added is the fortune upgrade, but I tend to just mine what I need when I need it rather quickly and move on.

The two things I like most about it, beyond the 3x3 capability, is that it runs off of RF, so it's infinitely rechargeable, and it breaks dirt and rock like you have the right tool. This makes tunneling through stone and gravel a breeze, and leaving behing a 3x3 tunnel is so much nicer to look at than a 12 mile 2x1 tunnel I used to leave. That sounds superfluous, but you have to try it to see the difference. I will never go back.

 

[GamerwithnoGame]

Do keep in mind that my experience with mining prior to trying the drill was with pickaxes and shovels for manual and BC quarries for mass production, so I may not have the best perspective on things, but here's the case for them:

It's early game enough to be the first main goal once you're diamond-ready. The 3x3 and first two speed upgrades are all done with easy to obtain early game ingredients and that's good enough that I haven't even bothered upgrading any further. The only thing I'd like to have added is the fortune upgrade, but I tend to just mine what I need when I need it rather quickly and move on.

The two things I like most about it, beyond the 3x3 capability, is that it runs off of RF, so it's infinitely rechargeable, and it breaks dirt and rock like you have the right tool. This makes tunneling through stone and gravel a breeze, and leaving behing a 3x3 tunnel is so much nicer to look at than a 12 mile 2x1 tunnel I used to leave. That sounds superfluous, but you have to try it to see the difference. I will never go back.

This last point is huge - @Drbretto is spot-on - its like the old IC2 drill in that regard, blasts through both with the greatest of ease. Likewise, as he said, between the first two speed upgrades and the 3x3 augment (which are easy to get), you've got a tool that will do you very well - its not too hard to take the augments in and out, or if you're really flush have the fortune upgrades on a separate drill! And I believe (you might need to confirm this for me dude) that if you have one of the AA batteries and shift-right-click it so its got the glowy enchantment look, it will charge your drill up while you work (might need to be on your hotbar, I'm not sure there either) - meaning your drilling time is extended too!

 

[Drbretto]

Can confirm. They will autocharge from anywhere in your inventory. Don't even need to be on the bar. I take two batteries (1 mil each, and only take two because I just had them left over) in with me for each tunnel, and I run for miles. long enough to send my inventory back to the sorter via ender pouch about 15 times. Stacks and stacks and stacks. All in like 15 minutes. Then, use an enderIO wireless charger back at the base, so everything is fully charged all the way all the time with zero effort. That drill is awesome.

Edit: It doesn't seem to just be good for rock and dirt, but a lot of machines and whatnot, too, so it's the perfect everyday tool, too. The 3x3 thing can make you accidentally destroy something you're working on, so you have to be careful, but if you hold sneak, it will break single blocks.

 

[OniyaMCD]

If you have Redstone Arsenal, the Flux-Infused Hammer is pretty cool. If you empower it it can do a 5x5


I don't see a tank in the generator, so I don't think so.
You can always pipe the fluid milk into an EnderIO tank, pipe in buckets as well, and push the milk buckets out of the tank. If you're short on iron you can set the side of the tank facing the generator to be push/pull. That way a milk bucket will be pushed into the generator, and when it becomes empty it gets pulled by the tank to be filled again

The Push-Pull method works swimmingly for the Sterling Generator (Ender I/O Fluid Tank on one side receiving lava, one bucket in the slot, and set the connecting side to 'push/pull') I generally make the setting on both machines, although I don't know if that's strictly necessary.

 

[Everlasting2]

Yeah I get those ones, it's more the extra modifiers not included on the parts I was after. Looks like the ball of moss is now mending moss, which needs XP levels to create. That seems...redundant?

if ur into bloodmagic and have blood arensal in ur pack u could use blood infused ___ material , it self-repairs using lp from your soul network (kinda behaves like a bound tool durabilty wise but slower dmg repair) or

if u want a more general tool yes green slime is lovely for plates keep in mind u can repair tools with any of its head material , meaning if u have a hammer u can repair it with the material either plate is made of or what the hammer head is made of so u could make 1(hammer head) or 2(1 of the plates+ hammer head) cobalt parts and make the other plate out of green slime crystal then repair the hammer with more green slime crystals

 

[Cptqrk]

if u want a more general tool yes green slime is lovely for plates keep in mind u can repair tools with any of its head material , meaning if u have a hammer u can repair it with the material either plate is made of or what the hammer head is made of so u could make 1(hammer head) or 2(1 of the plates+ hammer head) cobalt parts and make the other plate out of green slime crystal then repair the hammer with more green slime crystals

This is true, but you do lose some durability by not using slime.

I go with any kind of wood Tough Tool Rod (to start, may switch to copper for extra exp) and Slime Plate x 2 and Slime Hammer Head. This gives me 4,500 durability. Add in Redstone to speed up mining, an Expander module (pistons, lapis and purple slime) to mine a 5x3 area, and an Obsidian Sharpening Kit, and you rip through stone like crazy

 

[Everlasting2]

This is true, but you do lose some durability by not using slime.

I go with any kind of wood Tough Tool Rod (to start, may switch to copper for extra exp) and Slime Plate x 2 and Slime Hammer Head. This gives me 4,500 durability. Add in Redstone to speed up mining, an Expander module (pistons, lapis and purple slime) to mine a 5x3 area, and an Obsidian Sharpening Kit, and you rip through stone like crazy

why not a hammer head made of knightslime after u give it the obsidian sharpening kit it will rip through stone/iron tier(+others) before u apply redstone

 

[GamerwithnoGame]

Hopefully this is simple: does the Immersive Engineering block of uranium work as a "hot" source next to a Thermoelectric generator?

 

[Platoonsgt1]

How does the elevation (and surrounding terrain) impact the explosion form a Draconic Evolution Reactor? Is the widespread damage lessened if it's deeper, with a larger cone or sphere of nearby damage, or does it just move the same sized explosion downwards excavating much more terrain? If you build it in the air, does it deal less damage over a much greater area, or does it do very little terrain damage at all?

 

[Everlasting2]

Hopefully this is simple: does the Immersive Engineering block of uranium work as a "hot" source next to a Thermoelectric generator?

yes , its intended to be used as the one of the hottest blocks , ive used it before for this type of build

How does the elevation (and surrounding terrain) impact the explosion form a Draconic Evolution Reactor? Is the widespread damage lessened if it's deeper, with a larger cone or sphere of nearby damage, or does it just move the same sized explosion downwards excavating much more terrain? If you build it in the air, does it deal less damage over a much greater area, or does it do very little terrain damage at all?

total annihilation of anything nearby that does not have the blast resistance of obsidian or better , the range of the blast is fixed but nothing can stop it (and yes it annihilates many whole chunks y lvl wont matter)

 

[GamerwithnoGame]

yes , its intended to be used as the one of the hottest blocks , ive used it before for this type of build
total annihilation of anything nearby that does not have the blast resistance of obsidian or better , the range of the blast is fixed but nothing can stop it (and yes it annihilates many whole chunks y lvl wont matter)

Awesome!!! I had heard yellorium worked, but wasn't sure about the mods own uranium. Immersive Engineering RTG for the win! Thank you!

 

[Platoonsgt1]

total annihilation of anything nearby that does not have the blast resistance of obsidian or better , the range of the blast is fixed but nothing can stop it (and yes it annihilates many whole chunks y lvl wont matter)

Y level doesn't matter? I've seen a video with the explosion, and the sphere of explosion immediately around the reactor didn't reach bedrock, while the wide area effects were reasonably shallow. If I buried the reactor down at bedrock, are you telling me that the wide area effects will be exactly the same? Will the short range sphere even breach the surface? If the sphere is still on the surface, will it reach the reactor? If I build it in the sky, will the short range sphere hit the ground at all?
I'm assuming at this point that the Y level does effect the short range sphere, and doesn't effect the wide area effects.

 

[Cptqrk]

why not a hammer head made of knightslime after u give it the obsidian sharpening kit it will rip through stone/iron tier(+others) before u apply redstone

Purple slime for the knightslime is semi rare, and I would rather use my first one for an expander for my hammer
Also, Slime Crystals (green that is) is so cheap. No use of fuel to smelt, no Iron used, no problem

 

[Drbretto]

Just want to make sure I'm doing this right. The Quantum Quarry has a slot for an enchanted book, and at first I put silk touch in there and it definitely appeared to be working. But I threw in Fortune 3 instead, and I'm not sure that is working. I have it hooked up to an ender chest connected to my main auto-sorting storage, so it's hard to track the items as they come in, but I'll occasionally watch it through my ender pouch, and I'm not sure I've seen more than one block come in at a time, and steadily at the pace I'd expect. This is including coal, which is the one particular one I was wanting the fortune upgrade for.

Though, side question, which *IS* better? Silk Touch or Fortune?

 

[GamerwithnoGame]

Just want to make sure I'm doing this right. The Quantum Quarry has a slot for an enchanted book, and at first I put silk touch in there and it definitely appeared to be working. But I threw in Fortune 3 instead, and I'm not sure that is working. I have it hooked up to an ender chest connected to my main auto-sorting storage, so it's hard to track the items as they come in, but I'll occasionally watch it through my ender pouch, and I'm not sure I've seen more than one block come in at a time, and steadily at the pace I'd expect. This is including coal, which is the one particular one I was wanting the fortune upgrade for.

Though, side question, which *IS* better? Silk Touch or Fortune?

That sounds like you're doing it right; unless the energy requirements for it are prohibitive, I'd always be inclined to go Silk Touch, because you can always use something else with Fortune III that you KNOW works, or something like a SAG Mill with dark steel balls, to break the ores once they're in your system. There's virtually never a harm to keeping them in ore form until they reach your base, in my opinion!

 

[Drbretto]

That sounds like you're doing it right; unless the energy requirements for it are prohibitive, I'd always be inclined to go Silk Touch, because you can always use something else with Fortune III that you KNOW works, or something like a SAG Mill with dark steel balls, to break the ores once they're in your system. There's virtually never a harm to keeping them in ore form until they reach your base, in my opinion!

That was my original plan, but I don't know what machines to use! lol. I have a SAG mill, what do the dark steel balls do? I didn't even know that was a thing! Is this that thing that people are talking about that can double ores?

 

[Drbretto]

Too late, I just wandered over to the EnderIO wiki and discovered reinforced obsidian and am already mentally designing my wither farm, lol

 

[GamerwithnoGame]

That was my original plan, but I don't know what machines to use! lol. I have a SAG mill, what do the dark steel balls do? I didn't even know that was a thing! Is this that thing that people are talking about that can double ores?

Yes indeed! You know how there's a secondary slot in the SAG Mill that you can add flint to to increase the chance of secondary outputs? Well the dark steel ball is like that but more so - primary output is increased to 150% (so from an iron ore, you'd get 3 dusts instead of 2) and bonus output is increased to 200%

EDIT: Hah! Good man yeah, I'd recommend at least for things you want to get the most out of (yellorium, if you want to go Extreme Reactors), Diamonds, anything like that, stick it through a SAG Mill with dark steel balls in. Its worth the cost.

 

[Drbretto]

Yes indeed! You know how there's a secondary slot in the SAG Mill that you can add flint to to increase the chance of secondary outputs? Well the dark steel ball is like that but more so - primary output is increased to 150% (so from an iron ore, you'd get 3 dusts instead of 2) and bonus output is increased to 200%

Yup, silk touch it is! Now I'm excited, I get to design a whole second processing system. Do SAG mills and Alloy smelters charge off the wireless charger or will I need to use conduits?

When you say dusts, does that mean I already could be putting my ores in the SAG mill to get two dusts, which then cook into ingots? Because it sounds like I've been sitting on a literal gold mine and didn't even know it, lol. I've been funneling my ores straight into furnaces.

Dammit, I wanna go home now!

 

[GamerwithnoGame]

Yup, silk touch it is! Now I'm excited, I get to design a whole second processing system. Do SAG mills and Alloy smelters charge off the wireless charger or will I need to use conduits?

When you say dusts, does that mean I already could be putting my ores in the SAG mill to get two dusts, which then cook into ingots? Because it sounds like I've been sitting on a literal gold mine and didn't even know it, lol. I've been funneling my ores straight into furnaces.

Dammit, I wanna go home now!

That's exactly what I'm saying! Ore doubling at minimum, ore tripling when Dark Steel Balls are involved.

I believe they do have to be powered via conduits or other RF carrying channels - the only wireless thing that works on them is the Draconic Wireless Energy Transceiver (which if you've got some draconium and ender pearls lying about isn't too expensive).