Took me 2 days of sorting through a bunch of mods, packs, vanilla MC and I've finally found the perfect balance. I'm using DW20 pack but just for the stability and updates that it provides. I've also managed to get shaders working, finally
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Mods I've added:
Damage Indicators, Better Storage, Agriculture
Archimedes Ships, Ender IO (a must have, so awesome!)
Gendustry, Idfix Minus (sorts out id problems)
Iguana Tweaks for TC (settings for this below)
JABBA (I just love the dolly)
Magical Crops (build awesome ore gardens, there expensive to make though)
Mariculture (cultivate the sea, explore the depths in scuba gear)
Natura, Pam's Agriculture (played it on the Horizon pack now I can't live without it, build awesome farms of over 30 crops)
Armor Status HUD, Status Effect HUD, Redstone In Motion
Edit: Just added Traincraft, chugga chugga choo choo! Can't wait to build some advanced networks.
Mods I've disabled:
AM2 (I don't like magic, I only keep Thaumcraft because its more alchemy like than magic, this is a great magic mod though)
Billund, Biomes O Plenty (Some mods don't work properly in modded biomes)
Buildcraft (Useless), Calclavia Core
Compact Solars, Computer Craft (only used the turtles and they are too op)
Den Pipes, Extrautils, Factorization, GravityGun
Hats & Hatstand, IC2 Nuclear control & IC2 (the mod has become terrible)
Qcraft, ThaumicTinkerer (makes Thaumcraft more magical which I don't want)
Twilight Forest (some really op stuff in there), Universal Electricity (don't like UE api)
Iguana tweaks changes I've made:
I:toolLevelingRatePercentage=120 Leveling is a tad slow at the start you must mine out 10 stacks of cobble.
I:weaponLevelingRatePercentage=120
D:xpPerLevelMultiplier=1.25
B:moreExpensiveElectric=false
I:mossRepairSpeed=5
I:redstoneEffect=8
I:durabilityPercentage=110 I felt 100 was a bit too low specially for stone.
B:removeFlintDrop=false
B:toolsNeverDespawn=false
B:allowStoneTools=true Could set to false if you wanted a harsher start but I want to play the game not gimp myself.
And remove "2" from I:restrictedWoodParts, this lets you make a wooden pickaxe head, otherwise you need to find flint before you can make your first pickaxe.
With Iguana tweaks you can't mine out ores immediately, you must first level up your ability to use that tool. Lets say you just made a stone pick, it's mining level will be stone, no coal or copper and it feels new in your hand so you use it less effectively. You want to get a flint tool asap and level that up so it can mine copper. Yes you will be mining a ton of cobble but you can just use those to build your house so its actually not a grind mechanic, it just changes the start of the game and prevents you from rushing down to shaft mine till you get 2 stacks of everything.