Nether going to give you up

[ICountFrom0]

It's a strange feeling, to be prepared to walk away because you are so frustrated, and then become inspired to give things one more try.

My adventures in dark grid came to an end rather rapidly and by mistake. I won by accident. Still I had a good time. Still I don't quite trust myself, so instead of picking the next pack myself, I'm going to take another from the same source.

Next up, Forever Stranded Lost souls. ( https://minecraft.curseforge.com/projects/forever-stranded-lost-souls )


Lets face it, we are all a little rocket mad lately, this isn't the Falcon Heavy, but it's still a space ship.

(and while your waiting for my posts, please do have a look at the past)

Spoiler: past stories

https://forum.feed-the-beast.com/threads/nether-going-to-give-you-up.271084/
https://forum.feed-the-beast.com/threads/exile-to-the-dark-grid.267317/
https://forum.feed-the-beast.com/threads/1-7-10-worlds-beyond-custom-pack.76116/ (rebuild in progress)
https://forum.feed-the-beast.com/threads/mechworld-techworld2-narration.48594/
https://forum.feed-the-beast.com/threads/another-one-of-these-threads.44456/
http://forum.feed-the-beast.com/threads/world-diary-ftb-light.9583/
http://forum.feed-the-beast.com/threads/world-diary.2676/

I've been facinated with the concept of nether survival since I first saw that natura added enough changes to the nether to make it almost easy. Sure, you could survive there before, and various tricks let you even bring in a little water. These days things are harder, but there's more tools then ever to make it possible. This pack has netherex and natura to make things easier. On the other hand it has primal core... harder, but also better. Even NetherUtils. So yes, it has many things I've always wanted to experiance, and a number of things that were also in dark grid. Quests, a book, and modified progression. It'll be quite nice indeed.

 

[Pyure]

Man that thread title though

Where do rockets factor into this modpack?

 

[Celestialphoenix]

Where do rockets factor into this modpack?

You start out in a crashed rocket because Pahimar can't fly

 

[Pyure]

You start out in a crashed rocket because Pahimar can't fly

plausible script, nice

 

[ICountFrom0]

Through the portal, and my exile was over. That is what I was promised. That was the promise of the grid, that the darkness wouldn't last forever.

It was only half true.

Seems that world was a purgatory, I was being judged for my performance in my tasks. The only good news was that I was being given another chance. More tasks to do.

Spoiler: First Quests

I woke up, in a ship. It was no ship I had constructed, though it felt familiar, as if I'd seen it before somewhere. It was mostly darkness outside, and hints of flame, as if it had crashed. Soon though I realized that I'd crashed into a nether hellscape. The heated air was strangely luminous to the eye, but I knew it was a land that had never seen the sun.

I've seen places that I've said have a stark beauty. This is not that place. I've a hard time seeing anything here as beautiful. Hard blocks, and an entire ecosystem grown around defending itself by using fire. And I was rather easily set on fire. I did not want to go down there, but I'd already taken everything I could find from the ship.

As a further complication, it seemed some of the resources where fragile enough that I'd have to gain skill in using my tools and learn to harvest them properly before any attempt to carve them from the stone would do more then harm them. Not that I knew what I could do with amethyst here, I've no potions of booze to purify.

A few more views like this, might start to change my mind about things. Yet what was most pressing to me is the thought that these vines might at least help prevent a ghast from getting in here as easily, if they grow a little more.

To call this region unsafe would be to understate things massively. Outside of the ship there seemed like nowhere even slightly safe for long, and inside the ship there was little I could do for food, much less escape. So I was going to have to explore a little. Glowstone was at least a lightsource I could depend on, as fragile as it is I could not move it with me as I explored.

Perhaps these glowing mushrooms? Though I'm more likely to use them as food for myself and not a light source, they would at least illuminate the world around themselves and be easier to see near them. Tiny sparks of light in the darkness. Without the hellish glow and heat of the lava, perhaps this would be all I could see down here.

Circling around, and there's a nether fortress here, close enough that I find myself wondering about being invaded by Blaze, about the safety of crops. I almost laughed at myself, as if I'd be able to grow anything here that would actually care about fire. Still I wasn't going to starve, I could eat the seeds of the weedy black plants that nearly cover the landscape, I've got mushrooms, and you can always eat your neighbors.

Thus did I return to the ship, with a small and messy pile of resources that I hardly understood, and didn't know what to do with. Though the overlords of this realm did give me quests, and those give such duties a bit of a direction. I'd already found gravel and recovered flint for myself. Segments of the strangely fiery trees, and a few sticks from leaves.

Had to go back outside to knap the flint and get myself a sharp edge to work with. It wasn't the best of tools, but it had potential. While I was out I collected just a bit more of the tough fibers from the local plants as well, pleasing them to perhaps reward me.

Knapped flint isn't enough by itself to make tools, but things here did seem to have just enough to get started. The tough fibers could be worked into twine as well. This all felt strangely familiar, but didn't I have somebody else with me the last time I worked with primitive tools?

So with the twine, and the flint I was able to make the most primitive axe, little more then a stick that can hold the sharp edge. A dangerous tool that was not going to last long. Still, it wasn't going to need to last long, and it wasn't going to have to do double duty to defend me because I've still got some left in my stone sword.

With the hatchet I was able to head out and use it to break down one of the small trees near me. Only two logs and a few sparse leaves. Defending itself by growing in these low hollows and mostly in being unnoticed. I did notice, and I did take it for my own. I left the other trees for the moment, I wanted more then sticks from the leaves.

With the hatchet I was able to carve myself a crafting table. More complicated tools within my grasp now. With the experience gained from this I was able to piece together a little of how the world here operates, to grow more secure in my knowledge and even harvest a few of the other things around me. A crook for the leaves, and soon I was able to grow more of the tiny stunted trees. More broken flint and I had a knife that could carve planks from the waxy red flesh of the other trees as well. Even a pick became possible.

With the pick, the netherack could be harvested and a furnace made. The strange properties of the hellish earth did at least let it make a good furnace. Planks from the waxy red wood worked as fuel, and the world opened for me a little more.

Soon I was sneaking out of the ship for short excavations, taking a bit of the coal out of deposits, and then running back inside with my gains to hide from the monsters and to heal. I was more confident then I was in my first explorations of the region, though I didn't want to go far yet. I got to know the area around the ship better, and what resources I could gain.

It wasn't long before I'd gained enough from ambushing the locals, eating my neighbors, and taking the resources from the strange red ground for me to feel really confident. I only did dare the briefest of entry into the fortress though, I was only confident, not foolish. Only far enough to loot a chest I could see from outside, and then to flee again.

Back inside my ship, safe, secure, and with enough supplies that I've need to organize things properly. I've taken to drying the flesh of the pigmen, the tougher cuts hanging from racks on the wall, fleshier and fattier bits dried on a rack. A few more quests completed, but I knew that I'd have to travel further to find some of the things demanded of me.

At least I found some berry bushes. The taste was bitter, but it did fill the belly, and was something I could get more of without risking myself outside with the pigmen that are getting more and more upset that I find them tasty.

 

[ICountFrom0]

Spoiler: Not a drop to drink

The local trees are scarce on resources, dirt is hard to find, but I was able to find enough to move one tree inside. As time passes I can just about get enough saplings to keep it planted here, as long as I don't want to do anything else with the leaves. Still, it's a few sticks and a bit of wood that I don't have to travel to locate.

I have to admit, the overlords for whom I complete the quests are not completely unkind and taunting. Even when they have given me things that I cannot comprehend the use of, it at least shows me what I have to learn. In this case they have given me a very little bit of clay. I made up my mind that the best use of it would be to make a planter to grow trees in. The strange little bonsai produced full size logs and sticks enough. It even gave me leaves to replace the dirt I made it from.

I've started to try to make things a bit safer for myself. By taking the local stone and compressing it I've got a material that's slightly more durable and quite a bit better looking. I'm building out from my ship's supports and clearing out just enough space underneath for me to hide from the more dangerous monsters. While these pigmen seem to be smarter and stronger then most zombies they show a reluctance to jump, and after my time on the grid I am a bit more used to such jumps then before.

I've been concentrating my experience on mining and gathering. Taking just enough time in building that I can keep things comfortable back in the ship. I've faced defeat many times, this place is dangerous, and there is much more here then just the pigmen I am used to facing. I didn't need to learn how to take from these veins of quartz without shattering them, there's some in the netherack if I take the time to hammer through the stone here, but it seemed worth the experience.

As I expanded the region that I felt safe in, I started to find more and more iron. With a stronger pick and my own good fortune, I had enough to make an entire anvil. Expensive when crafted from nuggets that you recover just a few at a time, but it did add up. I figure it to be an investment as with it I can keep better armor, repaired with scraps from the monsters.

After getting the wood and barrels that I need from them, the next step seemed to be making the better barrels. Seems that what I need isn't the local stone, but rather sandstone, treated with a bit of redstone dust to seal up the porous surface. Takes quite a bit of sand to do that, a long time with wooden hammers to break it down, but the result is worth it, or will be once I figure out what I can do with it. Perhaps some endstone to modify my blade? Course, for that, I would need to be able to move lava...

Sometimes it feels like experience is just pouring out of me by the bucket. So much of it lost to no good end. Other times I find the perfect thing to learn. Harvesting burnium from the netherack isn't easy, it's unusually unstable even for things in the nether, but it rewards you three times. Once when you harvest it. Once when you smelt it. A third time when you use it as fuel. I suspect it will be my primary fuel source, eventually. I figure once I find a good way to break down coal and blaze into powder, the blend refines into more crystals of the stuff.

I'm starting to be able to explore far and long enough that I've need of more storage space. A backpack crated from the leather scraps from the pigmen, reinforced multiple times with the scarce resources I have, gives enough storage space to be of use. Perhaps once I get the materials for enchanting I'll see about making a more structured satchel.

Just to be sure, I'm taking some of the wood from a rather strange and unstable tree in this world and using it to reinforce my blade. It imparts a rather strange property, making my strikes much more deadly, while being more dangerous then just the stone blade I had before.


(Seriously folks, give this a try. Even if you change your blade out a few minutes latter, it's HILARIOUS)

No matter how much I explore, there are some things I just can't get down here. That's why I've made a set of sieves. Some of these blocks, if you break them apart carefully enough will reveal more hidden inside of them then you would find with the brute force of the hammer. Sometimes within the soul sand there are traces of the magic of the surface. Those petals infused into wood can make something not unlike livingwood.

That magic, just a hint of better times and better climes, is what it takes to make the crucible, to prevent water from bursting into nothingness the instant I make it. From here my options expand again. It might not seem like much, but this is water in a place of fire. It is life in a place of death.

Most importantly, it is clay. From this primal substance I can make many things and expand just what I can do. Clay buckets even let me move lava, though only once as the heat does make the bucket quite brittle and unusable. Combined with the native quartz I've been able to form a crude porcelain that fires a softly brilliant white, quite pleasing to look at.

Better then just the clay, is the material I need to hold together my smeltery, the grout. Though it does seem that I can't use something as primitive as a furnace made out of burning rock in order to get my smeltery bricks.

Starting with the porcelain from the clay, I've made a small heater, a melting vesicle and a casting table. It's just hot enough to melt gold so that I can cast a mold to make the bricks in. The first of the properly cured bricks are used to make a casting basin. With it I can cast entire blocks at a time.

It's even large enough that I can cast myself a tank, using a block of glass as a mold. It's a little strange having to carefully shuffle and juggle the blocks that make up this little melter, but it lets me do everything I need, if only a little at a time.

Moving the seared stone into the tank, and putting the melter into the casting basin lets me use it as the mold to smelt a controller for my final smeltery. In the end the last of the melted material I cast into bricks one at a time, to make the materials I need to finish it off.

A few of them are carefully set to one side, saved, so that I can craft a proper tool crafting station for myself. With it I can make a much wider range of tools, though honestly I'm not entirely sure what I need to make on it, still it is a comfort to know I've done it. Sometimes these are the only achievements, and the only ones that matter.

As the little planter slowly gives me leaves, I move them by the stack into this contraption that converts them, and anything else extra into more earth. With the wide number of things I can gain from it, and the difficulty of finding even a few random blocks of it, every bit of it is precious and needed.

Note to self: Ouch.

 

[Plainy]

How fast can you progress holy .
And how do you feel about the leveling system?
I've been following Pahi and Dire's serie but not convinced that its actually more than annoyance at this point.

 

[ICountFrom0]

What you see would have only taken a few days, instead of over a week, without the leveling system to slow me down.

I've found a few tricks to help me game the system, and get what I need out of it without too much trouble. But I'm getting help and guides and... well... editing QUITE a few deaths out... (117 deaths, 60 of them to blazing juggernaughts)

 

[ICountFrom0]

Spoiler: Three stones three ways

Two bits of dirt, a bit of gravel, and if this seems familiar, perhaps it has become the routine too often of late. Still it is a good way to get more earth, faster then waiting for things to break down and compost.

Hidden in this so rare earth are seeds that have been slumbering. Ways to grow trees in other types then I've had before, and a few so very needed crops. Not that the nether is completely without life, but the life here is a strange kind that's hard to tame.

I've taken to sifting the dirt to get some of the stones back out from it, giving me traces of material from the surface, tiny bits of pure stone not completely tainted by the nether. There's been a number of things that I desired to make that I couldn't make with the corrupted materials of this place I am trapped.

So far only four of the local plants really cultivate well. The strange black grass grows here, but it grows wild, even if you plant it yourself. I don't entirely trust the idea of a thatch building down here, even wattle and daub does not seem safe, I prefer at least the idea of stone for my shelter, if I must go out from this ship. So of these local plants only the one is of use, allowing me to make something that resembles bread.

This is enough to sustain me when combined with the flesh of the local natives. Sure it tastes like a bacon in a nightmare and needs to be salted and dried before it is actually safe to eat, but it does keep me going. As I can't always rely on eating my neighbors though, I've turned much of the dirt I've made into a garden, a special tank leaches water out into the earth so that I can farm my overworld seeds here. Now I need only live long enough for them to grow.

With a steady supply of food that does not require endless combat to establish my right to survive, I can afford a bit of comfort. For some, this would be shelter. For some this would be a comfortable bed. For me it's this charm, and an indulgence. Gluttony charm, for those times when you care less about what you eat, and more about being able to eat lots of it.

This comes in handy when you want to spend a number of hours sitting at a crank and making a grindstone do the work that you cannot do by hand. Ground netherack, a number of dyes, scoured leather, and the ability to reclaim more leather from the ruined equipment, not the only uses but enough to think about for now.

While I'm working, nose to the grindstone, another machine I've assembled from the odd bits that are my life is working for me. Leaves break down in a crucible, and another hopper introduces a fine dust that settles into soft clay. Sure I've made some before, but I'm going to need quite a bit of it again. This is better then working by hand though.

Quite a few piles of materials got used before I had enough to properly make myself a smeltery, one hot enough to melt iron and form myself a bucket that can actually handle hot fluids like the lava here. This gives me a few new options, but less then I thought I'd have.

Taking the contraption that I've used before to make clay and giving it new life, a new task. Same leaves, same water, but now it cools a bit of flowing lava enough for me to remove some stone from it. Stacks and stacks of the leaves becomes a few stacks of stone. This is enough that I have little need to conserve it, though it is a bit troublesome to make it still.

On the other hand, there really isn't a need to go through all that trouble, as long as I'm willing to go through a completely different kind of trouble. Far from the wrecked ship, there is a place where magically protected ice has cooled the inferno just enough for water to remain, be it at a near boil. It forms something not unlike a hot spring. Careful spadework lets some of this flow down to the lava, producing much the same result as in the device. It also produced some obsidian, but I can't harvest it... yet.

(hehe, did this before updating)

Seems that while the unstable trees here have unusual properties, the others also have uses that are worth investigating. Seems that this kind works as a wetstone, letting me sharpen the cutting edge on my pick enough to break that obsidian I made. If not for that, I suppose I could break down netherack, and sift it like sand to get tiny nuggets of harder materials from it, if I needed...

Best way though, to get the stone I need, is to build a machine that takes care of it for me. It's both more work then anything else, and less. I need not make a complicated contraption. I need not defend myself against floating horrors in the sky. I need only let it work for me. It's not fast, but I don't need fast, I've got food, and I've got time.

A pause, a bit of thought, and some experimentation. The flesh and the fat of the zombie beasts seem to be able to be rendered down into soup with the proper equipment. Then if I let the soup dry it's still a rather hearty bite of food, if tasting of nightmares rather then bacon dreams.

Given that I need to spend some time, that I've got more food then I know what to do with it, and I've gotten copper from a bit of sifting, the next part comes naturally. Destruction. Copper poured to make a bit of my pick, and now all I need to do is break blocks to gain my experience. Working down here at the bottom of the world reduces what can spawn to attack me while I work. This work makes me hungry and leads to me consuming massive stockpiles of my food, but in time I am able to level up all the skills I've been lacking. This device? Stores the broken stones and rebuilds them for me, far better then doing it by hand.

At least when I've climbed out from down there, my garden has done well and I've got real crops, real food to eat. Not that I'm going to stop fighting the swarming pigmen, but at least I don't have to eat them anymore.

 

[Pascal Simard]

What one must do for survival... I'm sure ICountFrom0 was quite nauseated from eating that crap all the time ...Good job for the garden!

 

[ICountFrom0]

Spoiler: New Base, Better with Mods

There are times that you know you are a fool, but also feel like you must continue with what you have started. The block I've chosen as a base for my structure is a strange one. The building wand refuses to understand that it exists, so I must place each piece by hand. On the other hand monsters also refuse to see it, so with it no pigmen will ever spawn here. Likewise no ghasts above. For safety I'll do such things.

With that bit of real water, it seems to me that it's easy enough to take the rest of the petals, fertilize and shear them, and encourage them into this flower of purity. Sure, I could put it in the world and let it drive the influences from netherack until I've pure cobble all around me, but I see little reason to do such things when I've other, better ways to get my stone. And better things to purify.

Living stone. Feels strange to have it in the nether with me but it is something that feels better here, with it's brightness, in this place of fire and darkness. I've also searched far to find a place where the mushroom spores of cast fungi have grown into the netherrack to infuse the ground there with a certain strange vitality. This gives the stone from this strange earth an unusual but welcome shade. The purple walls that I am forming look at home against the red background in the darkness and lava, but it's lively enough to soothe.

For the floor, that living stone blended with stone and gravel makes a block that is quite nice for making my floor. Light I managed by making blocks out of paper, stacking it and dusting it with glowstone to form lamps. I might hide a few more up on the wall, coloured to blend with it, but I like the ones in the floor and how they fit right now.

I don't feel bad for pulling the ship to pieces. It was wrecked before I arrived, and I know not what caused this damage. Perhaps if it had carried me here I might depend on it to carry me away. As it is it shall not trap me here. I've taken the resources from it for myself, and I might find use for them eventually, somewhere, but not in my base for now.

(Maybe I should have made the base just a little higher up?


A little at a time and I've got the first floor. Harvesting some of these vines as they grow down here too, they might become useful. I've had to leave some of the native stones in place and build around them, I'm sure I'll be able to break them out of the way latter.

Just as they kept the base safe before, they will again up on my roof. I also have the megatorch that does also prevent things around it, but I'm never one to trust just one thing. They do look good as a roof, and cap nicely the build. Each level just that much higher up then before, the floors may be smaller, but I've little need to stack things.

As a result, the inside has such a vasty open feeling. I'll be fuller in time as I fill this place with ever more complex machines and wires, devices and tools. As much time as this took, I think I'll work a bit more before I rest. There are a few small things I might tinker with. I've already moved all the chests I was working with for storage, and built storage drawers for the larger stockpiles. Time for the small machines I made to come back out, so that I can build the ones that will last.

Not every plant will grow in a planter. The native nether trees seem actively hostile to the idea in most cases, but more then a few saplings will adapt to the smaller form. Having trees with string and paper, and an abundance of apples is quite welcome. Slime has uses, the slime island was well worth trying to find. There might even be the occasional cocoa bean from the junglewood saplings, if I get lucky.

With trees enough, I could afford to waste a bit of wood, taking only the bark, if it was the only thing I needed. I'm sure though I can find something of good use to do with the planks, even if it's only fuel for my furnaces. Taking the bark from the trunks isn't too hard. A good work knife, a steady hand, and a slow scraping motion.

Cauldron over a fire, lit with my firebow, kept lit by the netherack. In it goes the bark for tannin and the scraped hides that I'd worked with the millstone and the handcrank. Eventually that'll have time to work through and I'll get a properly toughened hide, a real leather.

Leather that's workable enough for me to form belts and drive a blade. Sadly the handcrank does not work consistantly enough in the power to make it run well enough to do the work I need from it. On the other hand I've got the cauldron and I can infuse the glowstone into filaments to make proper lamps. This will let me bring the hemp inside. The little clay machine I'd shown off before has made enough that I could form a coke oven and start processing coal into coal coke for latter use.

Hemp growing fast on fertilized earth, lit with lamp to help it grow. The windmill for power to grind free the strands, and a hopper to vacuum them up as they fall. That vacuum hopper was one of the few things from the reward chests that has remained useful the entire time, and likely will remain useful right up until the very end of my time here. I had to grind so much of the hemp to make the windmill, but it's already paying off in saved effort.

The windchimes will protect my windmill against the dust storms that sometimes blow through this inferno of a world, shutting down the gear boxes before they jam. The powered hopper works with a number of filters. My goal right now is to grind down the netherack and gain the concentrated hellfire from it, but it's also a better way to make sand then my hammer, and quite possibly the best possible source of gravel.

Concentrated hellfire gives me the ability to make these hibachi. Normally little more then a bowl that holds flame, with the addition of the concentrated hellfire it'll burn as efficiently as the netherack did and resist going out. This lets me use it for a few more things then I would. I've made more clay with my little machines running in the background, and worked it on a turntable into a number of forms. I've tanned more leather and this time I've made a mechanical bellows. For now I have to operate them by hand, timing it so that they re-inflate before the fire cools. With this contraption though I can make a kiln that's hot enough to properly cook the pottery into a usable form.

I've only enough firebowls to properly heat one thing at a time, but with the crucible fired, and heated well, I can make things I'd not been able to before. A proper brick made from the local stones is now possible, as well as a steel infused with magic that makes it accept enchantment better then iron ever did, while being much more durable. I'm not content with this setup, it sprawls untidily over the base, but I have learned from it. We will see what more I learn in time.

 

[ICountFrom0]

Spoiler: Rebuild Better with mods, start ExU, Actually Additions

All that work. This is what it was meant to be for. You are meant to cook down resources from the nether into something that makes a workable brick, a nether brick if you would, and from that make the blast furnace. Truth is, I found I could use the same living netherack that I'd used to make my walls to make this furnace. I made it a while back and have been building a stockpile of steel ahead of time.

The first piles of soul steel went into a fancy anvil. While I was building things I also took the time to make myself a more controlled way to make alloys. The smeltery is nice, but sometimes you don't want to risk ending up with a few stacks of aluminium brass. ... not that I make that mistake... too much.

Turns out that emeralds really are possible from sifting, just rather rare. So I'm taking this first one and making a shipping bin. With it I can sell the stacks of apples that my little hopper farm have produced and get myself as many emeralds as I could want. Enough to make armor, or make into better armor.

While I can run the coke even to get myself a little charcoal, and a lot of creosote, it seems that there's a better way to do this as well. A bit of glowstone to saturate a container of lava and then let it cool and I have something that resembles endstone. Bundles of logs, with the endstone around it, the firebow to light it and in an hour or two I'll have stacks of charcoal.

While that fire slowly did the work, I went to investigate other things I might do to improve my situation. I made some bait, and tried it a few ways. Seems that the waters of the hot springs are not enough. Nither is the special block that keeps my farmland green. So it seems I am not going to have cows.

Without a cow, there is no milk, no milk jar, and no cowjar. This is the best kitchen I can make for myself, complete with a crucible slowly making leaves into water. Perhaps I should put a tank into this system so I could store up more. Still this helps me make for myself better things to eat then the dried soup I've been "enjoying" for so long.

I'm making use of the planters. Best way grow sugar cane that I've got in here, and it's quite a useful material when you look at it. Cactus is rather useful too. I could make quite a few planters rather easily and bake them in the kiln.

I took a while to make more grout, melt it down, and form more smeltery brick. There's a few small ways to upgrade this. A crucible to keep the lava full that it uses as fuel, with a small cobblegen to keep that full. A small timer so that it pours blocks of metal by itself for me. And just to be pretty, all the tables moved over.

I also looked into smart casting, but while I made the pick, and the needed silky jewel to harvest from the frozen caves, I didn't setup the device. Sure it would let me get more from my resources, but as long as I can sift it, I don't need more do I? I'm starting to think of my resources as generous. It's a strange thing indeed. Though, again this does get me thinking, there has to be some use for this.

Truth is, I'm working on more then one thing at once, and pretending I've done them in order when I'm writing my diary here at night. I don't have to keep perfect track of everything, nobody's watching. I've gotten myself combat ready enough that I can handle the occasional enderman. This lets me get a very few ender pearls. I've carved them with a glass cutter into shards and combined it with redstone. Seems to be able to turn mechanical energy of various forms into a form of power. The first use of this power is to make burnt stone.

The first of this burnt stone combines with more of the resonating crystals, and placed over fire. The heat rising from the fire drives a turbine and generates more GP for me. Enough to start making use of it for more then simply searing stones.

A simple survival generator, to make the most efficient use of the fuels I can grow and find down here. I've placed it down against the wireless power bank. This will power the wireless power without my having to setup any way to transfer it over the distance with wires of any sort. The GP, as long as I can maintain it, will let me setup wireless power anywhere I might need it. Course I've not need of any power, yet. Not built anything that accepts it.

So, lets find a use for it, eh? Hammer some of the constantine that I'd made in the Alloy furnace. Build myself an iron machine frame. That one was a prize and a half to construct for sure. Another thing that I'd needed to make progress through better with mods for. This block is also slightly unstable. Still that has it's uses, and putting power into the reconstructor passes that instability into the objects that I've targeted and transforms them. I love being able to transmute emeralds into a material that functions well as armor.

I'm not going to be using that all the time though. It's good to access more things, but I can use the RF to do more then just make more kinds of things. With it I can start to slowly free myself from ever having to sift again. Perhaps I could also make sure that I'd never have to mine again either. For now, I'll concentrate on freeing myself from sifting. A little machine here to do it for me. I'll just cover it over so I don't have to look at them and remember the task they are doing for me.

Easy enough to make upgrades for the machines, to make sure I've got enough power, but that takes more grid power. It's a careful balancing act. You can only make so many of these machines before they start to interfere with each other and make less grid power. This means there's only so much you can demand from these in terms of upgrades. For now this looks like it'll keep me going a while.

While I let my little sifting machine produce unlimited resources, though of a limited type, I'll come over here to the other end of the base. Poke the shaft up through the roof and place the windmill outside, and even use a single soul steel axle so that if a shot from a ghast should go horribly astray it won't be at too much of a risk. I've even placed a wind chime so that things could be shut down in case of disaster. In trying to prevent such disasters I've also made up my mind the hottest of these machines will be against the wall. The first of these is a permanent kiln. Not automated, but not everything can be.

Rather then having to pump the bellows by hand, the same clock that I'm using to automate the smeltery is saving me trouble here again. A handy lever and a dab of redstone makes it so that both are turned off together. No need to heat the kiln at all times. This also makes a nice place to put the pottery wheel.

On the other side, I've got the cauldron for now, just to make some tallow while I work. That will soon be the permanent home for a well fired crucible. As there's nothing, other then drying sponge, that a crucible without quite a bit of heat under it can do, I won't be making two of them. Though with this system in place I could always turn it off, if I somehow needed to dry an awful lot of sponges.

Over on the right hand side, each with 9 more hibachi, is a pair of cauldrons. One of them is complete with a bellows, for those few jobs that just take a bit more heat under them. The other is primarily used for food, and sometimes for leather. I'm growing rather fond of doughnuts, specially ones with powdered sugar on them.

Sawmill and filter are the last things to go up into place. Not quite satisfied with them to be honest, and probably going to move the anvil over here too, but I can wait for a time when I feel more inspired. Honestly at this point I'm just tucking the loose ends into place, waiting to see what unravels, and preparing to fix it when the need comes. Otherwise though I feel this stage of the build is done. When there is more steel I'll return, making axles that can transmit power further and gear boxes that break less easily. Maybe I'll even find another power source.

 

[GamerwithnoGame]

The scale of your base took my breath away a little! Amazing stuff dude, looking great so far!

What's going on with your hearts by the way? I've seen them red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, even gray!

 

[ICountFrom0]

Spoiler: resources and upgrades

As the other bait didn't work, I found myself having to come up with another way to get materials. Eventually I did get enough bait in the trap for it to catch an egg. One of the eggs had a chicken for me in it. I've gathered a few others and hatched them into chickens, but they seem reluctant to lay for me, I'll have to set up a coop and trough to feed them eventually.

I've got power, and the garden has produced enough crops for me to get enough emeralds, so now I've made myself some proper armor. I've only gotten the most routine of enchantments on it, but I'm sure I'll be able to get a better set of abilities on it eventually. Sadly it's taken so much work to put a full set of skill points on it, it's taken so much damage in the process, I won't be able to repair it but a few times, so it'll hang on the wall until I desperately need it.

Taking advantage of the power that I've been making, I setup an enchanter. The magical wood nearly ran me out of tanned leather, but I had made enough, just barely. With this I started to make more powerful upgrades for the machines, though I did eventually reach the limit of what I could sustain with the small gridpower farm that I'd setup. Another project to return to once I've more materials.

I've taken to using the burnium blocks that I've been carefully stockpiling as fuel in my generator. With the speed upgrades even a survival generator can keep up with most of the day to day demands and requirements. I've a furnace generator for when I need a sudden burst of power. It's a lot of power with very efficient returns, though eventually it will run out on me. This will only preserve me for so long before I will have to fall back on using more mundane materials for my power.

Sure, I could process everything through the smeltery in batches, making sure to never let them mix, but that's not the only way to do things. With my power supply steady I can build some simple automation, pulverizer and furnace will turn a chest of the sifted nuggets into ingots for me. Progress is writ in such builds as this, a few machines put together just long enough to do the work, until comes the time to take it apart and build it again in a better form. Circle of life, perhaps?

Cycle of death too, for that matter. A long time spent in the nearby nether fortress did eventually get me a few wither skulls. With armor enough and life enough, it's time to take down this monster. Truth is, I've got more then a few of them to take down before I've got enough to progress.

Never liked using infusion stones that break after a few uses, killing a few withers gives me drops enough from them to be able to make a master infusion stone right from the get go. Though for the moment I've only one purpose in mind for the infernium infused metal, making sure that I never run out.

Starting with reinforcing my pick with the magical metal to make sure that I get plenty of shards as I work with it, I'll need quite a bit more before I can make proper weapons from this quite expensive material. Truth is, if I want more then the tiny bit I've already gotten I'll have to take my time to farm it up.

In the mean time there are other projects that I can fill my time with. An ember bore placed down here at the bottom of the world will slowly consume coal and dig up ember for me. This is another of those projects that will take me a bit of time, mostly involving waiting while a chest fills.

A nice patch with fertalized soil, tilled over here in a corner. There's not enough crops to fill this yet, but patience and sifting will change that. A bit more tinkering with the design perhaps.

Sifting dirt through a very fine mesh produces seed bushes that, if I let them grow, will slowly spread. Breaking a few from the edge of the growth will get me a full set of seeds for a proper garden, given enough time. I've been digging through the dirt, hoeing at the grass, growing and breaking grass, and letting the crops grow and spread, slowly filling the chest.

The most valuable find is a red orchid, the seed was in the grass. The redstone ore itself is a rare thing, I've only gotten a few from quest rewards and loot boxes, so I'll never have very many of these growing. So while it is a source of redstone it won't be enough to make upgrades for everything.

Coming round the circle from before, rebuilding the original machine that was sifting gravel, to now sift dust for me to get me more redstone. This takes more power, another survival generator running constantly produces enough. Each of the upgrades takes an entire block of redstone and a little more, but eventually I am able to make an entire stack of upgrades for each machine. I didn't quite use up all of the metal that I sifted earlier. Each refinement of the process gives me more resources and lets me progress further.

*hums Mary Mary to himself*

With a full garden there are many things I can now make for myself. Almost any food I desire. Life will never be sustained from the flesh of my neighbors again. Unless I want some stinky bacon for nostalgic purposes. And yet, I find myself longing for something as simple as maple syrup, or as exotic as black pepper. I miss the sunlight. Still I must continue.

 

[ICountFrom0]

Spoiler: embers

Looks like some of the pictures I took of my work are missing. I'm not going to use a thousand words to fill in for them, I've just not the time to do that much writing. I believe I mentioned that I'd setup a bore to collect ember? Seems that it liked being down here in the nether realms, I'd been getting ember from it in amounts I'd never seen before.

With plentiful basic resources, and the ability to make plates rather efficiently I was able to get a rapid start on embers. Three devices that refined ember into it's gas form, one to power each machine as I melted down gold and copper and let them blend into dawnstone.

Then the press and the plate maker and my dawnstone was in ingots. I used about half of the dawnstone I'd made to form an anvil, and sat and worked on turning some of the items from the monsters of the world into more resources. I let quite a stockpile of dawnstone form while working at the anvil, even made some into plates for latter use.

But once I had my anvil, and enough dawnstone, I knew I'd have to take everything down again, to rebuild with the better tools that the dawnstone lets me make. Though the tools require much of me in levels to wield them, they all seem tempting. I know I will return to this. While I wait, I shall fill the most powerful storage with the power of embers, as to make things easier when I do return.

 

[ICountFrom0]

Spoiler: Immersive Engenering

Every time I move the smeltery, I make it a little better. This time I've also figured out how the solid fuel system works. There are things that I can melt now that I could never have managed before with just lava. Seems to work by boosting the entire system, making it burn hotter, and faster. Won't work alone, and probably wouldn't work at all if I was trying to work from a regular firebox. Melting the glowstone does not seem to let me reach anything too useful. Melting the enderpearls brings a few possibilities, but I am rather low on the materials needed to make it useful. I need a reliable source of platinum to use them like this. Melted redstone, now this is a situation with quite a few options I could work with.

Jetpacks don't last long in these lower tiers, and using one of these crystal blocks to recharge it makes the process even slower, but I can take the block with me and just keep flying, as long as I bring enough food to heal myself. Perhaps I should have brought a capacitor? Still, I was able to explore a bit more of the world around my base.

Found a special worktable that was able to work with some of the materials that had resisted my attempts to craft them before. Getting seeds from barley and making plates to eat off properly have been on my todo list for a while, this finally give me a way. Shame that the MRE stacks in such a limited amount. Still it is one of the better foods I can access.

One of the best things I could manage though, is a pizza entirely covered in multiple kinds of meat. When eating things this nice, I have to remember to take off my gluttony charm. There are times to remember yourself and eat more slowly, and a this is one of them. Quite a worthwhile reward for taking all that time to make myself a proper garden. Just have to keep checking the traps to get bits of meat to cook with, and not think too hard about where that meat comes from.

All that time I spent, was finally enough to finish these quests and assignments. I've been doing soul steel in small batches, leaving large batches to grind while doing other work in my base, and sifting the dust in spare moments. Once I've got a method to more efficiently make the gears I might come back and make a system of waterwheels and reinforced gear boxes that do the jobs here better. That's a project for latter that I will be thinking about while doing other things.

While I'm working with the base, and making myself a better organized space to live in, I've moved all of what I have into crates and large storage panels. I've then constructed an indexer with it's own internal crafting grid. Saves me from having to go through my wall of chests to find just what I need, instead I need only to wait for it to find it for me. Eventually I'll have to make myself more grid power to link with it so I can put in more upgrades and make it better, but for now, this is enough.

Okay, not quite enough, I had to link it to my storage walls, and I'll probably want to link it up so it's actually checking from under the floor, to make things look that much more beautiful again. The remote has enough range that I can craft from anywhere in the base, when I remember I've got it. I've still got a habit of going to the nearest crafting table and working with that, and forgetting that I've got the indexer remote with me. You'd think I'd remember to check, because I've had a portable crafting table with me ever since I've had a saw, but sadly, habits are hard to break.

Speaking of updating things, I've found a use for the nether star that I harvested earlier. This tablet will slowly repair everything equipped over time, as long as I keep it with me. As long as I don't take too much damage for too long this should keep up with the demands. Means that I can finally afford to actually wear my armor regularly. Though there are, perhaps, other and better ways to repair things, that I should be working towards.

Looks like the next set of assignments from the overlords, starts here. It's not quite a work table, but it will craft for me quite a few strange things that seem to be key to working with the tools of engineering that are in this book. It looks like it's going to take quite a bit of space, that's why I've been moving things around.

The first of these machines, a handy little press. With it I can make a number of things more easily then before, and perhaps a few things I couldn't before. It's better to press gears and bars from metal with this instead of trying to make it by hand. Wires from this have many uses, and save me from having to use hand tools every time I want a bit more. With these two items I can start to make all the most impressive things offered to me in this manual.

Looks like I can't just use the remote power to run the preheaters on the furnace, so steel is going to be slow until I can stumble onto another and better way to make it. As always, I might have an idea, but it will be work. Still I've got the time. Time is what I have here, more then anything. Hours ticking past, and work fills those hours.

The arc furnace promises to be able to make steel for me, and make it fast. It also promises that if I make the exotic alloys using melted redstone, glowstone, and ender, I'll be able to smelt it into ingots. Perhaps I could even find some use for it. Sadly, I can't find a use for this yet. I need special electrodes to make the arc furnace work. Looks like the overlords have written out a set of orders to cover this...

With a grinder, I can work more things into dust then I could before. It also seems to be slightly better at the job over the one I had been using and enhancing with grid power. Still, it is a bit of a monster to work with, dangerous open grinding hopper in the middle of the machine. On the other hand coal coke grinds mighty fine in it.

I can press many things with this machine. Extract oil from seeds, plant oils and even canola for power. Perhaps even a few more exotic materials. More importantly it presses the finely powdered coke blocks into cakes of refined graphite. It's a simple matter to take that over to the press and form electrodes from it.

With those, my arc furnace works just fine. It's quite happy to make large batches of steel for me, and anything else that needs melting. Like many things in the book it's a bit of a hulking beast, but I could get to like using it. I figure I'll at the least, replace all the steel I took to make it.

There's still plenty of room in this corner for a few more machines from the base, even if some of them might be a bit loud to leave running the entire time. They do look good together, satisfying in a solid, earthy way. It's a well done job, I think.

Bringing over the other bits from where I had them before still leaves me room and clears up another chunk to work in over there. Just means I need another task to perform. The overlords always have more tasks for me, but are they always the best thing to do?

 

[GamerwithnoGame]

Wow! That is quite some progress! From basic IC2 stuff to Quantum Suited badass

What were the scrapboxes for by the way?

 

[ICountFrom0]

Spoiler: chapter name quantum suit badass

Funny thing. I tried, and I tried to get nether wart to grow. I tried a number of soils. I tried a number of ways to hydrate and heat the ground. Tried it dark, tried it light, tried a number of fertilizers. Seems like what it must have really needed was some crop sticks to support it. Seems to grow better with the tank in place as well. Seems a bit of a shame to only dip into this technology for the crops it can grow, with the points already spent to unlock it.

Hayo, as they say in the book. Yes, that's a bat box. I placed it wrong, and I wasn't going to scratch my wrench to turn it, so I had to place another wire in from the top. Honestly, most of the time when I make these, I don't make the generator first. I make the metal former first, and I let the power come from redstone. Sometimes though, you just want to be a traditionalist. So I started with the generator, the bat box, and then an electric wrench.

Next up, scrap powered power. Just setup stone, a nice fast hopper to move it smartly, and then it's just a matter of tinkering with the settings on the bat box so that the hopper is stopped if it has power. Don't want to let the generator burn scrap when it won't get the full amount of power out of it. Sadly without speed upgrades or scrap box auto crafting you can't make huge amount of power out of it.

First set of machines. Metal former, block cutter, compresser, macerator, furnace, even a water generating system for the ore washer. I'm sure there are better ways to make water, but I've not stumbled onto it yet. I'm sure, eventually, I'll have water piped around, all made in one place, efficiently. Or maybe some ender tanks? We will see.

Another set of the low tier machines. Less useful but you never know when you might want to make some food tins. The extractor isn't of much use as I don't have rubber tree saplings and can't make one the normal way either. I'll be using the other canning machine in order to make a few useful things, but uranium seems to be out of reach, no fuel rods for me.

I've been making lava and collecting the extra over at my smeltery. Got half a barrel of overflow, so it'll work for power for me for a while. Still, this isn't enough power to run everything all the time. It is enough to make some serious progress with.

For me, progress looks like another 7 geothermal generators. Sure, that'll go through lava quickly, but I'm in the nether. So what if I don't have a pump that'll drain an entire lake for me easily, I'm sure I'll find a way. Burn that bridge as you cross it, and all that.

Just to make sure that I don't need to go running out for more lava all the time, another crucible will put lava into that barrel for me, it does add up over time, even if it is slow. I don't mind slow progress, there's always more projects I can work on.

With those geothermals I can safely move the generator over here and start up a proper farm for the scrap. Just going to slap a chest and hopper onto that generator and fill it full of bits and bobs that'll burn up and turn into power.

All that power will very nicely turn into scrap. Scrap into scrap boxes. Scrap boxes return 10 times the power when I burn them, instead of just nine. There's also the random items that pour out of them when you get stacks and stacks. Turning the endless wooden tools into more power is a nice way to recycle it again. If I didn't have grass that I'd made with sifted grass seeds, this would have been the first pieces of green life I'd seen. It's a nice source of ore, metal, and a few other delicious toys.

I made just a few speed upgrades, put them all into these two machines, and got to work. Can't forget the transformer upgrades either. Boom happens. LOTS of boom. SO never forget the transformer upgrades. That's the rarely seen cesu there as well. Course I didn't stay in this configuration for long. Just long enough, to grow and upgrade.

MFSU. Stupidly huge piles of power. That lava isn't going to last for long at this rate. Though there is more. A world full of it. The more I take, the safer it gets. No harm in that. Might even make more. Just have to see.

Full set of basic machines in place, and none of them exploded, due to my remembering the upgrades. If I wanted to stop here, I could make many more speed upgrades. I've got enough lapis that I don't really have to worry about not being able to see the sun and thus not being able to distill my water before using it to make the upgrades. Perhaps I'll make a steam powered monstrosity. Perhaps I'll come back latter. It's not pretty, it's not perfect, always room for improvement.

I say nay. I say HAYO. Let me never be satisfied with the slow way, or the easy way. UUM production has now started. Stacks of scrap and insane amounts of power turn into precious droplets of this magical ooze. Sadly technology is very impractical for making magic, or perhaps that my machines are not quite up for the power.

Scanner, pattern storage, replicator. Now I can turn the UUM into anything. Well, honestly there's only one thing I really want to make with it. I've explored far, but I've not gotten nearly enough iridium, so few shards. Scan it, replicate it.

So hungry for power, even with scrap to accelerate things. With my power fueled by lava, a few more crucibles will help feed the system just a bit better then just letting it be fueled by one. Could perhaps setup even more then this, if I was going to use the UUM for everything I could replicate. Sadly a number of things I'd like to replicate just turned up blank in the scanner.

I did say, if. The first 4 iridium got turned into a magical seed and put into a cloche. Now I've got enough without spending quite as much power as it would have taken. A terribly large amount of power, that I really don't want to think about.

Just charging this suit was more power then I want to think about. The price is getting pretty steep for powering this. Still, this is the lowest skill cost for a set of armor that protects me this absolutely. Enchanting it is going to be a bit tricky. Another project that I am working on.

Just a little side project while I spent all that time waiting. Tinkering with all the various types of crop I could manage. Terrawart is a fast favorite. Nice being able to grow pumpkins just this easy as well. Rather like what cactus turns into down here. Tempting to use them as part of my defenses.

I did mention there was a cost. This lake is near enough to the ship that surely everybody has seen it. I've consumed the entire thing powering my machines. If I'd replicated all that iridium it would have cleared more space then I want to even think about. As it is I suspect I'll only use the armor when I need it most. Still, this has been a good project.

Now, enough procrastinating. Time to spend some of these levels.

 

[ICountFrom0]

Spoiler: Repairs, IF and COFH

I'd tinkered, I'd toyed, hammered and plated. I'd even worked out how to get enough power. It's become time to make small stockpiles of each of the empowered crystals. I don't think I'll need much, I can always set this up again latter.

With the empowered crystal it's possible to build a few things I'd been waiting for. The repairer takes a lot of power but is more efficient then just remaking tools or armor all the time. You can only repair a set of gear so often with levels and an anvil before it exceeds your experience. The charm helps keep my armor intact, but sometimes you just take a beating and this really makes the difference. Coffee is the closest I can come to a real potion, still this is progress.

While that's working, I've combined enderpearls, ground by hand with the grindstone, with some diamonds taken care of by the industrial machines to make a rather sparkling and spectacular material. With it I've made a special enchanting table, and started to use the precious water to charge this rather strange wand it makes.

It takes quite a bit of water, rare as it is, to make the storm clouds needed for the cloud craft furnace at the heart of my next project, but I am determined. If I have to forge the clouds myself, I will create this device on the scrolls I've been finding.

The burnium was easy. The glowing blocks of end stuff, expensive. The ice was strangest of all, but I was able to harvest some from a cold patch of this nether region with my silk touch pick. It took me a few tries to get everything properly in place.

The result though has a majesty that I'd not expected. The oddest thing is that this structure is protecting some real flowing water. If there was some way to access this I might be able to do some really unusual things in these realms.

It takes quite a while to make a set of the graphite electrodes, and while the coal is easy to get, and time is something I have plenty of, sometimes you just don't want to go through that much fuss again. As the storm forge is able to repair them, if slowly, my set of electrodes is spending most of it's time stored up here, slowly being repaired by the elements.

Another solid use of the empowered crystals is this lens. The exotic materials that construct the emitter, focused through the lens, it's able to cause enchantments to be stripped from equipment and forced into a book for latter use. All those items that I've taken from the monsters that are trying to kill me, now are being turned into enchanted books so that I can make myself stronger and more effective against them.

I'm spending my time doing that, while this little machine runs. A machine, just sitting there, humming to itself as it extracts latex from a log. Eventually it's broken down and a new log is replaced for it to continue the work.

Once that was full, I expanded the little network of machines and pipes a little further. A crucible, to break down the leaves, and some pipes to move the latex and water into a processor. It takes quite a bit of water to purify the latex and get some nuggets of it to work with. Then it's a simple matter to craft it into sheets and smelt it to cure it.

Most of what I could do with this material is meant to work with crops, trees, or animals. There is one very useful thing I can do with it though, making a remote pump to collect the lava from the world more easily. Making the lava an even more scarce resource near me. This ensures that I will always have enough to power my machines and armor.

As I can't really work with industrial forgoing's catalog of machines, the next set to look at seems to be those from cofh. It costs me a few more levels, well spent, to get the catalog and start making the machines. I had to start with machine and tool frames refined from blocks of metal, and the simplest, and slowest machines are all I can work with at the start.

It's not too much work though to build an entire set of the machines and start them running on the wireless power that I've established. The two most critical sets of these are the magma crucible with it's infuser, and the induction smelter. Course even now I need to run the results from these machines back to the immersive engineering machines and power up the arc smelter to get proper ingots, as I can't quite get things hot enough without a large amount of concentrated hellfire.

With the induction smelter, and even without the hellfire, I'm finally able to make the much required hardened glass. This breaks me loose on a number of constraints, and most importantly lets me make the tier 2 machines from COFH, as well as all the pipes and ducts needed to automate things all around my base. This marks the point when the rebuild I've been waiting for, might finally be able to happen.

The nature of a challenge, placed before me, is to make me want to overcome it. There are other, better, and easier ways to make cobblestone. It's true. A large number of other materials can also be made from the interaction of water and lava with this machine. All of them placed out of reach by a number of challenges and rather ridiculous requirements. I was challenged. I overcame.

With all the work I'd been putting into the enchanting, I made one more upgrade. I'd been using the enchanted crystals to hold experience for a while. Now I've got enough of it to nearly fill a drum, and a much easier way to extract it then hammering on a button for a while. It also comes out quite neatly with the tap.

I did mention, power suited badass? I'd built the quantum armor, I'd left it charging while doing other, much needed work, but I'd always intended to use it. I'd been left a challenge. A note. Asked to find the target. Once I found that though, my destination was changed. Again. Then again. Until finally, I was lead here. Above the roof of the world, in a place where death itself stalks.

At the far end, a stash of treasures beyond understanding or explanation. Getting through here took more then a few tries. Sometimes warping home with only seconds before the grim touch of death caught me. These rewards baffle the mind, and beg that I find some creative use for them.

 

[GWSheridan]

gg on getting the treasure