Looking for some suggestions...

[damn_winston]

Hey all,
This is my first post on these forums. Please excuse the following long-winded post as it may be a tad redundant or mundane but I am really looking for some suggestions.

I have been watching FTB videos for the past few weeks now and have been playing unleashed for about 2-3 of those weeks. I completely consider myself a rookie/newbie but I am progressing at my own pace. However I am starting to feel very overwhelmed with how much I can actually do in this game, which is a good thing! With there being more than one way to skin a cat, I am looking for mere suggestions on how to progress further or better ways to optimize my builds/world. I get a lot of information from Youtube videos, only if I know what I am looking for but I feel like I am missing things. Ok, on to my current set up...

After manual mining for about 3-4 days, I have set up my house with 3 Hobbyist steam engines, powering a pulverizer which deposits into a powered furnace, that automatically outputs to a gold chest which stores all of my ingots. In my storage area I have my chests broken down to the normal things (processed materials, raw ore, saplings, wood, mob drops, misc., etc.). I set up a base in the nether with a laval pump into an ender tank which pumps to an enderpump in the overworld. This supplies combustion engines at a quarry which leads to an ender chest at my main base which pumps to a gold chest. There is no sorting system set up on that gold chest. I also dabbled in tinker's construct, made a alumite pick with a few upgrades and a sword with some upgrades.

That's pretty much my set up now. The things I realize are; 1) I know I need a better sorting system, (AE?), 2) I need a better power system, 3) I need some type of tree-farm. After that I am lost... both literally and figuratively.


To close let me add that I play this game as an escape from my hectic day to day life. I don't consider myself to be a pro or "hard-core" in the very least. I enjoy the planning, creating, and automation this game has to offer. To sit back and say, "yea I made that and its awesome", is a great feeling. I am not asking for anyone to play my game for me, all I am asking is for some suggestions as I feel like I am missing A LOT.

Sorry for the long post.

 

[casilleroatr]

One thing you might like to look into is the magmatic engine from Thermal Expansion. It outputs up to 4 mj/t per engine and you don't need to worry about supplying lava. Until you get fuel or biofuel going, they might be a good replacement for lava power.

AE is really nice for keeping your inventory under control although be aware that if you use it heavily for automation and stuff the power requirements can get pretty steep. Its perfectly ok to use AE for everything it can work quite well but when you get situated there are other powerful automation methods that integrate almost seamlessly with AE. My only other AE advice would be to not go crazy with storage drives. Usually, people end up running out of slots before they reach maximum storage. 4k disks are good to start out with. The AE wiki is really good too http://ae-mod.info/.

For tree farms, MFR offers very fast machines (harvesters, planters and optionally, fertilisers). They can easily power multiple max sized railcraft hp boilers. They can also receive upgrades to boost their default 3*3 range. Forestry adds multifarms. The nice thing about those is you can have multiple different types of farm running off the same multiblock. They are quite tricky to explain quickly so I will link you to Sengir's wiki. You can also make a peat bog on one of the sides that can power the rest of the farm! http://forestry.sengir.net/wiki.new/doku.php?id=farms:multi

Have fun!

 

[damn_winston]

Awesome, just what I was looking for. Thank you!

 

[netmc]

One other option for power is the MFR bio reactor and generator to make mj. It takes 9 different crops to bring it to the highest efficiency though.

For sorting/supply systems, transfer nodes from extra utilities can be nice for small setups.

I use AE for my storage, and have only 1k and 4k drives with a handful of deep storage units from MFR for all the large volume stuff.

 

[Staxed]

I am an avid AE user, I couldn't live with out it, I use it to store everything, craft everything, automate everything...I haven't found something yet I haven't been able to integrate into AE....and like you, the feeling of "I did that" is all I need .

Though, since you are also asking about things to do...make sure you checkout bee breeding, tree breeding, and thaumcraft...they can make for some fun times with lots to do (or boring times with lots to do...just depends on you )

 

[spidey1958]

Another option for a starting sorting system or lower power needs it Logistics Pipes you can connect it to AE and share items between them. I find for power needs after you get going a good choice is steam boilers from Railcraft. You can start with a solid fuel one burning charcoal from your tree farm and then later a liquad fuel one using ethanoal made from saplings or any other extra abundant crop.