I like both and overall, I'd have to say ExtraBees has a more consistent story line. Let's consider 3 arbitrary paths:
1. Breeding without machines the "old fashioned way"
Pros : Long-tail project that will keep your world going for weeks or months
Cons : Takes a very long time to get to species which produce usable resources and can be very tedious/repetitive
2. Breeding with just ExtraBees
Pros : You have to breed species (not traits) up to at least Industrial and Imperial the old-fashioned way
Cons : Can be too tedious for some to breed up Imperial and Industrial and after that, the old Isolator --> Synthesizer --> Purifier --> Inoculator shuffle can get tedious/repetitive
Can be considered "cheaty" to proponents of the old-fashioned way since you can brute-force traits
3. Breeding with just Gendustry
Pros : Fastest, easiest breeding method. Allows bypassing of breeding mechanics like biome and special blocks underneath.
Cons : Most expensive in terms of power and resources. Trivializes breeding mechanics
Personally, I prefer a bit of ExtraBees and Gendustry. I've done it the old fashioned-way. Once. Once was enough, in my book. However, I do enjoy spending 30 minutes or so a night breeding up a new species of bee using traditional species breeding mechanics, and then short-cutting the tedious/repetitive trait "improvements" using a combination of ExtraBees and Gendustry.
I breed trees these days in a similar fashion : breed up species the slow, old-fashioned way outside, but then improve traits using Gendustry. I did breed up a super-tree *once* the old-fashioned way by getting all of my species with desirable traits, then cross-breeding species to get desirable traits (i.e. no machines), but that was long and tedious. I think I've stared at a Treealyzer and Beealyzer enough to last a lifetime, TYVM.
A bit of all the above in moderation is what makes me happiest these days.[DOUBLEPOST=1405114932][/DOUBLEPOST]
I start off with EB until I get royal jelly and then gendustry becomes a lot more useful for automating in most packs I've played bees have not been a large impact in progression and are usually something I have on the side just for fun
Heh. I gate my automatic resource production using bees as a way to encourage slower development of my world. In the downtime of waiting for a new species of tree or bee, I'll go off and build stuff, make my base look better, explore, etc.,.