Going back onto the topic of 'grinding', we've actually got a really nice example of 'grinding' done properly: The Storage Drawer Wall.
You'll probably start with cobble/dirt/gravel and possibly things like andesite/granite/marble if you have Chisel2 installed. Just a few drawers on a wall, conveniently located. You can make the packing tape out of commonly obtainable materials if you need to move them.
Then you start getting to the point where you are starting to farm certain materials, producing copious quantities of them. This is also probably the point where you are going to want to lay out your storage room a bit less... organically. However, by this time, you've probably gotten a dolly or cardboard box or just have your good ol' packing tape available to move them around.
Fortunately, empty drawers stack, so you don't have to spend a half hour clicking and placing, you can make a whole stack at a time if you'd like.
Right now is also probably when you're going to want to pick up your Controller, and maybe a Slave or two, depending on how much automation you are going to be using and how conveniently placed you can put your controller.
At this point, you've got a primitive AE drive that takes up a room and gives you that aesthetic sense of accomplishment. You can walk down the halls of your storage drawers filled with all your material wealth, and breathe a sigh of contentment. The only thing you can't do is go swimming in it. Ahh well, such is life.
In short order, you're going to probably want some upgrades, typically storage upgrades and maybe a void upgrade on things that are starting to backlog and shut down other systems.
Ultimately, you will be building your AE2 system. However, instead of having to dump the entire contents of your entire storage room onto ME Disks, you just run a single storage bus to a Controller or Slave. Done. All the hard work you've put into it? Just paid off dividends
again. You get to feel
good about having put in the work on organizing your stuff all over again, because now it's all sorted and much easier to access. You don't have to tear it down, you don't have to move anything around, you just plug n play.
It is a matter of building upon the work you have done, rather than making it obsolete. Making your earlier tasks the foundation upon which your future tasks will rest, secure in the knowledge that your hard work and effort will not be wasted.
And as the tedium increases, this feeling will also increase. As your time investment increases, the disinclination to see that work go to waste increases
exponentially. So if, for example, you decide to Minetweaks your recipes to something a bit more resource-intensive to compensate for how easy it is to automate, this feeling of accomplishment and satisfaction that all the work you've done just paid off again for you, is even bigger. And not only that, but you've got something aesthetically pleasing to look at, which is sizable in nature. No one would have cared if the pyramids were the size of a dog-house, after all. But you've got a truly impressive piece of engineering that you can walk through, the nostalgia hitting you as you see a resource and recall the original difficulties you had in getting your first few pieces, creeping around in dark caves terrified of that hissing noise that would be your doom, your very own wall of accomplishment. Then you hook up your storage bus, and it is all that... version 2.0.
Cue the
music.
Now then, why is this all the feels? Three basic concepts you have done to facilitate this:
1) Early game utility. Storage drawers, being entirely wooden, is something you can use in the early game, when it is most challenging, when you are developing the sense of wonder and enjoyment and exploration. The drawers are right there alongside you, like your very own faithful 'droid. Only without the beeping.
2) Player Engagement. This isn't a one-block 'store all the things' mod. This mod encourages you to create expansive structures to house your stuff in. It encourages the player to do something both functional and aesthetically pleasing. With hooks for Bibliocraft, and various other mods that give even more types of materials to build with, you can make something you can be proud of. You can create a storage room that you are proud to take screenshots of and share with your friends. Sure, it'll take a bit to make something that looks impressive, but hey... isn't that half of the game's name? And it is work that will never be wasted. Every time you go into your storage room, you get that rush of accomplishment all over again. This, too, was built by my hands. May the gods damn me if they must, but they cannot take from me this wonder of the world that I have created. It engages the player's sense of creativity and lets him think of it less as something to suffer through and more the tools to make something
awesome with.
3) Lack of obsolescence. You can permit yourself to go wild with Storage Drawers because they will never be obsolete. So even if AE2 is gated behind the Ender Dragon Egg or something, you will never have to worry about all the effort you are putting into it
now to be wasted
later. This isn't an interim ad-hoc makeshift storage system to hold you over until you get AE, this is something that plugs right in that you have no need to disassemble once you get there. So all that time you spent previously? Still is every bit as viable now. But in addition to it, you also get more immediate access to it, sorted, and can craft with it much more conveniently. Which is going to be important for creating your
next wonder of the world. Because if you're going to make a Pyramid to go with your Library of Alexandria you just created... it's gonna require a LOT of stuff. Let's do this.
THIS is why I like Storage Drawers so much. You engage your player. It's not just 'craft, craft, craft, yawn, drink caffeine, craft craft...'. It's the ability to see these drawers and think 'how am I going to build an impressive storage room that looks awesome'. It teases the creativity which brought you into this world made up of blocks to begin with, secure in the knowledge that even if you get AE later on, it'll still be every bit as functional, and beautiful, as the day you made it. A wonder of the world that still continues to be useful to this very day.
