Well, no visual update because it doesn't look like much yet, but much progress and planning has gone on.
And I have to admit, much flinging around by motorized grappling hook from the clouds. Holy crap is that the best way to get around ever, lol. This will be included in every single modpack I ever do.
My other observations aren't as exciting so far, though. I'm running into two issues:
1) There is no ender storage. I tried making a vanilla ender chest but it's just not the same, and it doesn't have the pouch or the tank. I'm debating with myself whether to proceed with the proper progression or to add this mod in. Being that I've already sullied the experience by adding in OpenBlocks, it's not like I'm breaking some sacred vow by putting them in there. But, that will depend on whether or not there's a viable alternative. I'm here to play the pack, but I'm here to have fun, too. And having a partner with me (who is having a blast) means I can' just jump ship to, say, age of engineering, all willy nilly. But if I do that, where does it end? Do I go ahead and add in mob grinding utils as well, just out of convenience? I will have to ponder on this.
2) Minecolonies is, so far, and I could totally be missing some key stuff, but it's lamer than I was expecting. It's the cornerstone of my whole Idea here, though, so I have to work with it, but it's sooo much slower than I thought it would be. And much more cumbersome. I wasn't expecting to have to provide each an every piece of oak fence and spruce door and whatever. I thought I would build an item that lets them build a lumber mill, and that that lumber mill would then provide me with all the wood I would need for the next thing, etc. But they work soooo damn slooow, what they provide is nothing. Now, once I have a solid inventory management system in place, it's not so bad. I will be able to just pump in whatever I need to keep the chain moving, but it's just not how I thought it'd be so far.
And the part that is starting to concern me is that I can't figure out how to build any of the other stuff, like pathways, bridges and fountains and whatnot that I've seen in videos. Maybe I just need to read more into it, but I'm hoping that I wasn't watching some videos where someone else added in those other buildings or something, I don't know.
There's some good stuff, too, though. Not going to just be a negative nancy up in this. Openblocks is looking better than ever. Their new version of the liquid tanks works like one big multi-block liquid storage tank that you can build into whatever shape you want and it will hold and display whatever liquid you want. I'm using is to store a big tank full of XP even though I could make a barrel and store much much more in the same amount of space. I think that will look cool if I made a sort of mad scientist laboratory in the yet to be started main castle. I can have all kinds of potions and whatnot in there with some big tanks of different colored liquids to make everything look all mad sciency.
I am pretty well set up in the survivability department. I'm just out of room in my original little hut and it's time to build some serious storage and ore processing. This is one of my favorite parts of any modpack but I'm trying not to get too hung up on it all this time. I just need something functional.
I did find out just how awesome iron backpacks can be, though! For now, all mine does is pick up anything I mine, then condense redstone, lapis and coal into blocks for easier storage, as well as automatically converts my cobblestone into quadracobble on the fly! I can take my drill and mine for DAYS between the 3x3 drill, and the AA ring of magnetism. I don't even need to stop and pick stuff up. I just run right through with a full 2m battery in my inventory and everything gets gobbled up like it's nothin.
I'll post videos again when I have something to show. I don't want to stop and record every three hours again, lol.
