Crafting electric circuits

[Omicron]

I'm with PieExplosion here... redstone, aluminium and copper cables are plentiful, and so is glowstone dust. Lapis lazuli you could argue is valuable thanks to GregTech's abundant usage of lapotron crystals, but I still end up with a surplus usually. Especially if I luck out and enchant a Fortune pick.

By contrast, enderpearls are not only tedious and difficult to get (particularly if you have not yet found The End and are not decked out in full quantum gear), but they're also required for other interesting things in ridiculous amounts. Take iridium-neutron-reflectors. They make your nuclear reactor awesome and are completely indestructible, much in contrast to all other neutron reflectors. To make a single one, you have to macerate and centrifuge 128 enderpearls. Making four to completely surround an uranium cell, and you're looking at 512. Yes, that's 8 full stacks of enderpearls. Not to mention enderchests, portal guns and upcoming Redpower equipment that needs these things on a regular basis.

Nope, I'd much rather be building advanced circuits.

 

[zemerick]

I'm with PieExplosion here... redstone, aluminium and copper cables are plentiful, and so is glowstone dust. Lapis lazuli you could argue is valuable thanks to GregTech's abundant usage of lapotron crystals, but I still end up with a surplus usually. Especially if I luck out and enchant a Fortune pick.

By contrast, enderpearls are not only tedious and difficult to get (particularly if you have not yet found The End and are not decked out in full quantum gear), but they're also required for other interesting things in ridiculous amounts. Take iridium-neutron-reflectors. They make your nuclear reactor awesome and are completely indestructible, much in contrast to all other neutron reflectors. To make a single one, you have to macerate and centrifuge 128 enderpearls. Making four to completely surround an uranium cell, and you're looking at 512. Yes, that's 8 full stacks of enderpearls. Not to mention enderchests, portal guns and upcoming Redpower equipment that needs these things on a regular basis.

Nope, I'd much rather be building advanced circuits.

I agree. Especially if you add in Electron Tubes for the circuit ( replacing 6 copper, 6 rubber, 2 redstone, 1 refined Iron with 1.25 Iron, .5 Redstone, and .25 sand ) makes this even cheaper and easier. Lapis is definitely the choke point, but since only 2 is required that's pretty minimal. I think I only ran out 1 time...and I just ran over to my quarry and used my rock cutter to get a dozen ores to macerate into a huge amount of lapis.

 

[SilvasRuin]

and are not decked out in full quantum gear

Are you implying you can't kill Endermen without invulnerability? Swing at their feet so they don't teleport, wear at least Iron armor though even Nano should eliminate risk, and use either a Diamond sword enchanted with at least Sharpness II, a Chainsaw, or (when it's updated and added) Athame. Fighting an Enderman has 0 difficulty with a shorter roof than they are, and very little difficulty if you just don't over-aggro. The weapons I listed aren't even needed, they're just what's powerful enough to make the kill quick. Fight the Endermen one at a time, pay attention to your hunger and equipment durability/charge, and you're golden. The only two issues are finding them and deciding which valuable recipe to use the Ender Pearls in, though a player shouldn't need very many of the other Ender Pearl uses unless the Portal Gun's config is changed to use ammo.

 

[Omicron]

I am implying it is highly tedious to do this while there are skeletons shooting you, creepers blowing up the terrain you stand on, and zombies and spiders really want your autograph. Add some server latency, and I can think of far more fun activities to pass a Minecraft night with.

It's not that I can't kill them. It's the fact that doing so is a chore I prefer to minimize and/or trivialize as much as possible.

 

[SilvasRuin]

If a server has so much latency that I can't kill a Creeper before they explode with the Chainsaw, I consider that unplayable. Playing on a server where any normal means of combat cannot function destroys all the fun to begin with IMO. I'm not going to like mining or building if I have to flee any time I see a mob.