Boy, I sure did hit a new plateau or whatever. It's that moment in every playthrough where you are firmly rooted. The tipping point where everything is about to open up. The end of Act I.
The bad news is, nothing to show for this move, do no video for the next few sessions. The good news is, it will mean I have time to polish some things before moving into bigger better, and much more interesting, projects shortly. Who's excited? This guy.
But, I'm not quite there yet. What I do have is a solid, if not simple, inventory management system. I've spent too much time on this in the past. This is actually the thing that got me into modded Minecraft. It started off on one of my many failed server attempts (there's always something!). Without knowing this was already a thing (I had done next to no research on this game yet) I designed a small basic inventory sorter that I never had a chance to actualize because the server imploded. After it crashed I was like screw it, let's try mods. I ended up diving into buildcraft as my platform to learn what this is all about.
That lead to the auto sorter I linked in the first post. If you're reading this and you're starting to get me a bit, it's worth a look if you skipped past it before. I'm still pretty proud of that design. There's a simple elegance to it that was really not particularly simple to create, but it was AS tight a build as it could possibly have been. It took all three of stone, cobblestone and quartz pipes and woven so tight not a single pipe could have been a different material, including the only places I could use the gold and iron pipes as well. Each infinitely repeatable section (you should have seen my face when I solved it. I though for sure it'd be an even number, but the pattern repeats every 3 blocks. It was incredibly satisfying.) had enough room for one glowstone in the center and nothing else. And it was just mesmerizing to watch the items run through this thing like a corkscrew. That was easily my favorite build of all time.
Anyway, that being solved, it's no longer about getting anything perfect. This is about convenience. But, I'm also Mr no compromises, so it still can't just be Willy nilly. It needs to be permanent, expandable, dynamic, functional and organized. And ultimately presentable, and with a view. Basically my rule for everything. I came up with a nice elegant solution here as well.
Using storage drawers. I start by building special blocks like compactors and bits, then an assortment of different colors and numbers of drawers, favoring 2x2's, and based on wood availability. The whole back wall is a 4-high wall of single color of 2x2s and the only drawers that aren't locked. Any item going through that doesn't have a place will go here. Followed by two sections of dark oak 2x2's that are designated for void upgrades for all my stupid common stuff, then sections based on color to be filled as I go along, grouped by whatever makes sense.
All I have to do is periodically clear the back wall as new things come in. No sitting there trying to figure out the perfect place for everything, it basically fills itself naturally as I go. Everything just ends up getting grouped up naturally and there's plenty of flexibility if I need to expand a group.
And now that my mob grinder is producing loot at an astonishing rate (a single unmodified ExU2 transfer node struggles to keep up at times), these walls will slowly fill themselves as I go, while being more or less unobtrusive while remaining organized.
One section I did plan out though I'd going to be my pallette. I set up 16 drawers and bits drawers exclusively for each color stained glass (if there are more than 16, please correct me now!). The 8 pieces you get making each color once is enough for 32768 bits, and I will be using those for stained glass pixel art. And if you know be by now, you know I ain't going to use it as intended. Stay tuned.
