New to FTB, have a few questions

[Larmonade]

Sorry to the moderators is this thread is in the wrong spot or should have been split up into multiple questions - I didn't wanna spam the forums with a bunch of questions since I'm sure the answers to a few of them are pretty simple, but here goes:

1) I am seriously overwhelmed by the number of mods in the FTB Unleashed pack. I've fooled around enough that I think I'm starting to figure out which ones I'll be using the most and which ones I may eventually turn off, but for the majority of the folks here: do you play with all the default mods in the pack ON? Or do you switch off the ones you don't use?

2) On that note, I've seen that while some mods add ores and whatnot to worldgen, others are just new uses for existing materials: are there any mods that are absolutely no-go for switching them on after generating a world? What about mods that it's recommended you don't turn off once you've generated your world?

3) SO. MANY. Machines. Do you folks end up setting up massive machine rooms that to anything and everything, or do most experienced players just stick to the machines that do what they need done? I mean, it seems awfully neat to have a bank of [insert example] machines in my main workshop, but if I'm probably not ever going to need them, isn't it just better to save the resources and not build them? Or is that shortsighted?

4) One of the things that drew me to FTB was Buildcraft Quarries - I love digging out a massive hole down to the bedrock and then filling it back in with a multi-level armored stronghold complex thingy. Recently, having seen how cool some of the pipes and wires can potentially look in FTB worlds, I was wondering - aside from the vanilla beacon, are there any good...like...BEAMS or similar things that might look cool when shooting up through the center of such a fortress? Like having a massive bundle of glowing cables and item-filled pipes managing all my stuff that runs through the center of the fortress like a massive artery of awesome? Ideas?

5) Portal Turrets are neat, fun, and useful! Unfortunately, I keep returning to my entrance to find them...gone. Do they run out of ammo/power and de-spawn? Are they prone to falling over and losing that 1 HP of life that they have? Are there known bugs that cause the turrets to vanish if you venture too far away?

6) Applied Energistics. Now there's a mod for packrats like me. I've checked a few FAQs, Wikis*, and guides, and even watched a few LPs on Youtube but haven't yet found the answer to the mystery of how one might actively load items from the network into an item like a chest. Let's say I have a color-coded ender chest attached to my multifarm to supply it with fertilizer. If I set up an identically-color-coded chest elsewhere and hook it up to the ME network a) how do I tell the network to fill it with fertilizer b) what happens when it fills up? After a bit more tooling around in Creative, I figured this one out, so no worries (I think!)

7) Speaking of Multifarms - I love these things! Googling info on them is hard, on account of the hundreds of forum posts about "why won't my multifarm work," but my question is more one of strategy - what crops are best suited for multi-farming? Thaumcraft Golems are also pretty cool, and don't require power/water/fertilizer, but I like the cleanness of the multifarm. Obviously, Tree/rubber farms are top options, but what about wheat? Netherwart? carrots/potatoes (do I even need those? I don't think I do, but maybe I've missed something), and sugarcane and cactus and...I guess there's other crops too? I found a bunch of freakin' cotton seeds in my inventory, so there's that. What's best left to multifarms, what
s better for golems, and what should I just skip over?


Thanks in advance , or, in the event that this was a mis-placed thread, sorry for the inconvenience, mods




*Has anyone else noticed that there's like 4 or 5 FTB wikis, and they all basically have identical articles between thems? What's up with that?

 

[Hydra]

1) I don't use all the mods in the pack but there's no real reason to switch them off. If you don't like something you can just not use them. Unlike Unhinged there are no mods that try to 'convert' the playing experience.
2) See above; just leave them on. No point in switching them off.
3) I tend to have different floors in my base. I have one general crafting area where I do most of my crafting, and then other floors for stuff like power generation and automated stuff and farms.
4) Liquiducts filled with different fluids look rather cool. They are also very nice for any form of liquid transport. Liquiducts filled with lava or liquid glowstone also give off light.
5) Dunno, don't really use that mod.
6) AE has import, export and storage busses. Import busses take in item from other blocks, export busses output to blocks, storage busses treat an attached inventory (chest, barrel, deep storage unit) as part of the storage network. So you could use an export bus to export to an ender chest or a machine directly. It's best to look at some spotlights on the mod because it's pretty darn big. I use it extensively in my bases.
7) I suggest you look at a Minefactory Reloaded spotlight and use the farms. They work much better than the forestry multifarms and are also not as damn expensive.

* The official wiki used to be very outdated (only a few people could edit it) and a few new ones spawned. Now they're 90% the same, copy from each other, and are outdated on some stuff that matters. Welcome to modded minecraft

 

[KingTriaxx]

1) If you're overwhelmed, then just pick one to start with. I recommend Thermal Expansion, though like many others, I first learned how to use IC2. (Of course I learned with GregTech, which isn't in Unleashed.)

2) Don't worry about that. They've mostly consolidated the ore generation to eliminate overlap.

3) I do set up machine rooms, primarily because I like to have machine rooms. I love setting it up so I can have one of everything if I want it. I use less IC2 infrastructure now than I used to because MJ power is so much easier to move around. That said, having a room, or area dedicated to automated smelting is incredibly helpful. Thermal Expansion machines do this best, since they automatically eject into networks. So you can have four Powered furnaces set around an ME interface, all ejecting that way, and have each fed by up to three pulverizers. Just make sure to place them up against the furnaces to avoid bounce back.

4) Yeah, liquiducts are awesome. And ME cables have a cool light that flashes down them when they're moving items, though it's hard on the FPS sometimes, so there's a config to turn it off.

5) I've never noticed it, but I've only used a couple.

6) Yeah, export buses are your friend. Unless all you want is that item, then use a storage bus, and that will be the default location for it to place fertilizer, meaning anything it makes will be 'stored' there.

7) Multifarms are pretty awesome. Yes, they're more expensive than MFR farms, but for certain purposes they are superior. One of them is for harvesting IC2 rubber. Plant rubber trees and use a gravity gun or portal gun to move the blocks with harvestable spots onto the farm. Then cut down the rest of the tree and repeat until you have enough. Facing doesn't matter, nor does exposure. The Farm will continually harvest the sticky resin and before long you'll be drowning in it.

That said, there are some areas where MFR farms are better. They are much more efficient at producing wood. And for crop harvesting, they're much faster to process through it than Multi-farms. They also only take two blocks and no fertilizer. On the other hand, I think Multi-farms are awesome looking.

 

[Juanitierno]

1) No real benefit to disabling them, except mods that may cause lag. (For example, there would be a small benefit on disabling the minimap if you absolutely never use it...but why wouldnt you?)

2) Any mod swtiched on after generating your world should generate its stuff in new chunks, worst case scenario ull have to travel very far.

3) I personally set up several machines for the most common stuff ( multiple pulverizers and powered furnaces for example), but only one (and sometimes even manually operated) machine for more uncommon tasks (like the induction smelter)

4) The only other beam i can think of came from a mod that added weapon stands, but its not in unleashed.

5) They are VERY fragile, and can be overwhelmed/shot easily. For best effect encase them in iron bars (just like in the game, they can shoot through).

6) Already answered

7) I use MFR mostly, i didnt like the change for the farms to use apatite (non renewable) and still not using them now that the fertilizer can be crafted with MFR fertilizer (i think). I suggest you give a try to MFR farms, theyr a bit OP, but i really like them.

 

[Juanitierno]

BTW: Portal turrets are AWESOME, but i cant stand them constantly speaking.... i will try muffler blocks when i get home today.

Theyr awesome to set up pillboxes on open land and watch monsters getting destroyed (they have to be properly protected behind iron bars of course). They are also the ultimate solution to wisp-infected aerial space.

Also, place 5 oracle turrets next to eachother for an easter egg.

 

[Omicron]

Hi Larmonde, welcome to the forums.

1.) I generally play self-assembled packs nowadays, since usually I start new worlds to play with something specific or poke at a certain mechanic. These packs tend to have a very narrow list of mods. I'm not fan of useless worldgen clutter, duplicate mechanics, cross-mod exploits or even mods that feel like thinly concealed exploits themselves. Further, I like a challenge, so I avoid mods that make things to easy for myself. I think that the FTB launcher is a beautiful thing because it lets you load or unload mods at the click of a button, even if you're a newbie. Do use it, get comfortable with customizing your experience. It can be very rewarding to build "themed" selections that intentionally omit some otherwise "no-brainer" mods, just for one world.

2.) Turning mods off on existing worlds has never caused any issues for me... Forge has become very good and precise about handling missing mods and removing their remains. Now obviously if you build your house out of abyssal stone and power it with a boiler, and then turn off Railcraft, you might have a rough wakeup call when you log in next time But as far as mods go which you haven't used? The worst you'll encounter might be a few strange holes deep underground where generated ores were replaced by air.

Similarly, I've never seen a mod that broke a world when adding it belatedly. Now, Thaumcraft 3 can and will generate its content retroactively, meaning you might have trees, ores or even dungeons with monster spawners pop up in places where there was nothing before. Unless you build your base exclusively out of smoothstone and dirt, however, it should be immune to any changes. Other mods, like Magic Bees and Binnie's Mods, are very much reliant on their unique worldgen being present and cannot retroactively add it in. The mods will still work, however; it's just that some of the content will be inaccessible. Also, newly explored chunks can and will contain worldgen from mods that were added later-on, as will MystCraft ages. You can get access to stuff that way.

3) Remember, this is Minecraft. The way is the goal, not the destination. If you like a machine, just build it - who cares if you never use it, it's cool anyways! Tech mods often threaten to trap you in the analytic mindset of an engineer. Don't let them - stay creative and whimsical. It's your world. If it sounds fun, just do it. This is not a contest.

4) I've seen someone use the redstone output on full feature of the Industrialcraft storage devices to build a tower of them and surround them with differently colored lamps. As more and more MFSUs filled up, more and more lights went on, working like a huge energy meter showing your storage level at a glance.

5) Never used Portal Gun myself.

6) [Redacted]

7) The prime use case for multifarms is Forestry's tree breeding system. One hundred buckets of ethanol (not biomass, processed ethanol) from single trees - it has been done, even without Binnie's Extra Trees. Tree breeding also unlocks trees that bear different products, such as nuts or cherries, that can be harvested in a multifarm in orchard configuration and squeezed for seed oil.

Other than that, it depends on what you need. Unless you have some sort of processing in mind for them, food farms are pretty much never worth it. A player can survive indefinitely off of four blocks of potato farmland surrounding a single block of water; autofarming food is completely pointless unless you're tasked to single-handedly feed an entire server. Netherwart is a similar case - Thaumcraft will consume about a stack for research, maybe a little more if you're unlucky, and then you'll never need it again except when using the vanilla potion system (and one stack of netherwart will give you near 200 potions in that case). Carrots can be a source for the vision aspect in Thaumcraft research, but again, after completing it there's very little consumable need for it - you can breed pigs, but why? They don't give leather or wool or feathers or eggs. Wheat is your go-to crop for that, because it feeds cows and sheep, and the seeds feed chickens. Seeds, chicken eggs, feathers and leather are major, major resources in Thaumcraft.

Sugarcane can be interesting if you need a lot of paper (vanilla enchanting table, Thaumcraft). Cactus... maybe if you play without Thermal Expansion and need a whole ton of liquid Buildcraft pipes. Cotton - sure, if the farm harvests it and you don't want to bother with shearing sheep. String and wool are low-key resources but used by almost every mod at some point. Peat has a niche use - for solid fuel, a tree farm is flat-out better, but if you happen to like having engines that run at 1 MJ/t to provide small localized power delivery (for example, for a multifarm...) or you want the ash to multiply your fertilizer yield with, then you can't go wrong with peat.

To sum up - tree farm, orchard, wheat farm, rubber plantation, sugarcane, cotton, peat. Everything else will probably just be for looks. Which is perfectly fine, of course, just don't expect to ever actually use all those chestfuls of netherwart When you have the choice, always opt for a manual farm; you can run them more efficiently by building the layout yourself, and you can mix and match multiple plants in a single farm section (such as carrots and potatoes in a vegetable section). The managed (fully automated) farm types are too zealously singleminded for that.

 

[Larmonade]

Thanks for all the great answers!

I guess I'll make my peace with having mods on that I might not use, but I'm curious - if I decide to generate a world with, for example, a bunch of science-y mods, and then gen a separate world with a bunch of magic-y mods, do I have to manually turn on/off all the relevant mods each time I switch which world I'm playing? Or is there a way to "save" my custom-selected sets of mods in order to make it simpler to change which combos I'm playing with?

Also, regarding the portal turrets - I *do* in fact have them behind iron bars. The world is actually even set to peaceful for the time-being while I get stuff figured out/set up. Yet somehow, those little guys keep vanishing. Perhaps they're having a problem with hit-boxes/collision detection and suiciding? Or maybe some yet-undiscovered mod interaction? Or perhaps a passive mob is running deep into my entryway, making sure to knock against each turret and then dying?

Also, thanks for the great multi-farm answers! I think I'll set my 4 big multifarms to rubber, trees, bamboo, and maybe the last one will be a 4-way of wheat, cacti, veggies, and...something. Or maybe it'll be a second tree farm to help me get my ethanol production kickstarted. I dunno. I'll certainly check out the MR farms as well, but honestly, I like the industrial feel of the multi-farms. Also - extra wheat/carrots/potatoes can be converted to biofuel, right? So over-production might not be a complete disaster. A massive tank full of yellow-y biofuel doesn't sound so bad. I didn't really feel like looking for oil anyways.

 

[Runo]

Thanks for all the great answers!

I guess I'll make my peace with having mods on that I might not use, but I'm curious - if I decide to generate a world with, for example, a bunch of science-y mods, and then gen a separate world with a bunch of magic-y mods, do I have to manually turn on/off all the relevant mods each time I switch which world I'm playing? Or is there a way to "save" my custom-selected sets of mods in order to make it simpler to change which combos I'm playing with?

Also, regarding the portal turrets - I *do* in fact have them behind iron bars. The world is actually even set to peaceful for the time-being while I get stuff figured out/set up. Yet somehow, those little guys keep vanishing. Perhaps they're having a problem with hit-boxes/collision detection and suiciding? Or maybe some yet-undiscovered mod interaction? Or perhaps a passive mob is running deep into my entryway, making sure to knock against each turret and then dying?

Also, thanks for the great multi-farm answers! I think I'll set my 4 big multifarms to rubber, trees, bamboo, and maybe the last one will be a 4-way of wheat, cacti, veggies, and...something. Or maybe it'll be a second tree farm to help me get my ethanol production kickstarted. I dunno. I'll certainly check out the MR farms as well, but honestly, I like the industrial feel of the multi-farms. Also - extra wheat/carrots/potatoes can be converted to biofuel, right? So over-production might not be a complete disaster. A massive tank full of yellow-y biofuel doesn't sound so bad. I didn't really feel like looking for oil anyways.

Part 1:
I'm not sure how to do that in the launcher, but there are modpacks tailored to this sort of thing so you can do this without creating custom packs. Magic World and magic farm are two of them. The way I've swapped between diff verisons of the same pack for different servers is by renaming the one I want to use as the default folder and changing the name of the one I don't want to use to "Ultimate2" for example. I think there's a program, MultiMC, that makes it easier, but I have never used it.

Part 2:
They can be shot by skeletons behind bars if I recall, as well as get bullrushed by endermen. For the skeletons, you have to set up the range so that the skeletons can't close in on the turrets, so lighting within the turret's range and possibly hills up to the turrets to slow the skeletons down.

 

[Larmonade]

Part 2:
They can be shot by skeletons behind bars if I recall, as well as get bullrushed by endermen. For the skeletons, you have to set up the range so that the skeletons can't close in on the turrets, so lighting within the turret's range and possibly hills up to the turrets to slow the skeletons down.

That thought had certainly crossed my mind, except that the world is currently on peaceful, so unless there's a glitch that's causing hostile mobs to spawn anyways, it's probably something else.

I have them all situated in a pillbox of sorts - an alcove two blocks deep with a turret on each of the back squares and iron bars in the front. Perhaps they're too close to each other and are jostling/knocking over each other? Is it a bad idea to put them directly next to each other? Or to have them more or less completely surrounded by blocks except in the front? And they don't have ammo or battery charge to worry about, right?

I usually settle for air locks, walls, and other "passive" defenses for my vanilla forts, but with the crazy amount of tech in ftb, and with the sort of "raven rock meets Cheyenne mountain" bunker/fortress I'm working on, I really like the aesthetic of the turrets over the more minecraft-y arrow-based defenses.

On that note, are there any sort of similar "techy" shooter defenses that I'm overlooking? "Intruders will be shot on sight" is what the signs on the perimeter (will eventually) say, and adding "with arrows" just doesn't have the same ring to it.

 

[Adonis0]

Something I do know about turrets is if you have a space behind them, it's possible for them to engage endermen, endermen teleport behind them, and beat them up and eventually teleport away after your turret is gone.

Perhaps try having some turrets angled to protect your turrets?

Another defensive thing that you can have is tesla coils from IC2, they use EU for power, and take a redstone signal to turn on. If you do plan on using these for defense beware however, they also shock you.. Which if set-up wrong can cause some troubles to shutting them off again