Plasmania: The Journal of a Snake and His Quest for Domination.

[Plasmasnake]

7/15/16 EDIT:

New world, new adventures to be had!

6/1/16 Archive Edit:

Spoiler

I'm at that point again where I am debating starting over. What happened is what usually happens when I reach this point... the world has some pretty quirky bugs and misc issues and I just don't like my base.

Honestly, I think I am burned out on MC --- at least for now. Every time I boot up the world, I am greeted with a decent number of outdated mod messages. The stupid bugs like the game crashing when I hold out certain items in a GUI annoy the piss out of me. I stare at my base and cannot seem to figure out what I want to do next. When I do figure it out, I find out that I need more tungsten, or more diamonds, or more gold, basically taking MINEcraft to a new extreme. I should automine, but that feels like cheating. I should wear my bedrock armor all the time, but being an flying invincible rock god just makes me feel like I am playing on peaceful and creative.

I do have many other issues/complaints, but it really boils down to me getting bored of MC. I really am humbled by the small amount of people who took interest in this, but I am not sure if I can continue (at least for now). My attention shifted to making Fallout 4 mods and other projects of mine IRL. If I do return, it will likely be a new world + modpack or it will be when I figure out how to make this current world work for me.

My apologizes, I just hit a wall with this. My creative juices are a bit dried up.

Original Post

Spoiler

Introduction:
Hello, I hope whoever is reading this is doing well. This is a thread detailing all of my shenanigans, creations, little stories/lore, and whatever else I feel like sharing about this new world I have started. I am playing on a custom modpack created by myself that will be mostly focused around Reika's mods. It does not feature a ton of mods on purpose: to reduce lag/instability, to only have the mods that I like and want to use, and to make things interesting and/or difficult. This is my first attempt at something like this so I hope you enjoy and you have my apologizes for any future mistakes.

The real reason I am making this journal is a selfish one. I have a terrible habit of creating a new world before I get anywhere far in terms of mod progression and having a good base and resource situation. Usually I quit when I finish RotaryCraft and am stuck in this cycle where I do one world for at most 3 weeks before starting anew. I once was able to devote a huge amount of time and effort to a single world, but that was back in 1.6.4. My hope is that my almost forcing myself to stay consistent and post updates to this thread, I can finally get a ton of progress and show off some cool things! I also would like to do little guides about RoC/ReC/ElC/CC (Reika's mods) because they are friggin awesome and under-documented.

Picture of my modlist under this spoiler.

Spoiler

The Major Goals of the Adventure

• Build a fully functional and sustainable fusion reactor from ReactorCraft.
• Utilize almost everything from RotaryCraft (even cosmetic machines)
• Automate all the things!!!
• Fully progress through ChromatiCraft and become a master of all the colors.
• Construct a civilization complete with citizens and have a royal family (courtesy of MCA).
• Stick with the world for a long time, even through mod updates.
• More that I have not even planned yet!

The Beginning (2/22/16)

Spoiler

"A new day in a new world. This land is beautiful, yet mysterious. I am keeping this journal to record my journey and to detail anything interesting I may learn or come across. I arrived in a forest with sparse pools of this peculiar fluid with a dark cyan color. As demanded by my curiousity, I throw a piece of dirt into the pool and something magical happened: it warps to another location. This is absolutely fascinating, but I must press on. I start to scavenge some basic supplies from the land around me. I have been in these situations before and surviving out here is not a challenge. I make a random decision to venture southwest in search of a nice place to camp and perhaps make my base of operations. Through the plains, I come across a curious buried secret...

This structure is called a crystal burrow and it holds a great amount of mysteries and a healthy number of useful loot. Crystal shards, info fragments, and a bit of HSLA steel were the main items. I want to stick close by this so that I may come back frequently to study it. To my surprise, I was treated to a sight of grandeur to the west...

The potential fuel to power my base in the future and two islands to the right of it. The larger island to the east of the first seen in the above pictures seems like a strategic place to set up shop since it will not allow many hostile creatures to spawn within it and is out of detection range for most evils. This string of good luck does not end here...

To the north is a magical and colorful forest teeming with friendly wildlife. It is settled, I will call this area my home.

So with a place to stay established, it is time to gather useful metals and materials from the land and the underground so I can get cracking on re-creating Plasma Corp. In the northern end of this rainbow forest is an entrance to an expansive cave where I spend a lot of time digging up ores and fending off vile fiends with my weak copper sword. As I venture further downward, the danger increases, but so do the spoils. I come across a mine shaft that looks long abandoned. They appear to have missed out on a ton of useful resources (I am talking about gold, iron, silver, lead, and even diamonds! Oh yes, it was a profitable venture). Maybe they ran for the hills because of the dangerous beings that were present in the mine. I play it safe and avoid most of the threats since I am ill-equipped and I harvest what I can manage.

Emerging from the depths of the earth, the sunlight burns my eyes for a little and my shoulders are weary from the weight of my pack, but I make it safely back to a base camp that I set up quickly. Here is all that I have accrued:

Base Camp (It's not exactly paradise):

I must bring this entry to a close. My mind and body is tired from all that I have done so far. I need time to dwell on the mysteries I have been introduced to and to plan what I intend on doing in the near-future. This is but just a step on a very long road.

-Snake"

 

[ewsmith]

oooo! i'm gonna watch this
reika's mods some of my favorites. i'm interested to see what you do.

 

[Pyure]

Fun start, and promising.

Can you fix this? " I arrived in a forest with sparse pools of this peculiar this fluid with a dark cyan color."

 

[Plasmasnake]

Becoming Accustomed (2/23/16)

Spoiler

"The initial scramble to get basic necessities and to gather beginner resources is over. I have more than enough raw materials to get a furnace generator and create the two most basic machines ever: Redstone Furnace and Pulverizer. I also get fuel for my novice smeltery and enter the bronze age. I forge myself a set of bronze armor and tools. I enhance my pickaxe with diamonds and give the new sword a few swings. I then set off to explore my surroundings and get better accustomed to them. I ran into a small village to the northeast...

The people there were friendly and most helpful. In fact, they were happy that there was a stranger in town. I first converse with the town smith and inquire about how to go about smelting and forging HSLA steel since this has been a new discovery. To my surprise, he had a lot of helpful things to say about the strength and versatility of the steel. I always knew my father preferred this type of metal for a reason. The more I learn, the more it seems to be a gift from the Makers. After a while, I thank him for all the information and attempt to talk to all the townspeople.

There were a couple of gorgeous women there, but that will be a topic for another day. I was all about business today. One did tell me of a rumor that a strange structure existed nearby through this one cave. That information immediately piques my interest and I set off to go find this structure. I found the entrance to the cave and ventured onward, but was cautious due to sharp rocks, hostile creatures, and deadly drops. With my new equipment, I was able to handle the hazards much better than before. Eventually, I come across the rumored structure...

Upon entering, the entrance closed in a loud thud and the visual display was impressive. This place is very strange, and seems connected to the burrow I found earlier. This must be a Crystal Shrine, like the ones I read about in my father's journals. Recalling what I remember from his writings, I gather the runes inside and gain more info fragments to add to my collection.

The sun was still midway in the sky, so there was still more exploring to be done. To the south and southeast is a cold forest filled with tall spruce trees. It also harbored these strange plants I have never seen or heard of before....

I spend the remainder of the day organizing myself and preparing to build a home or establishment. I had a ton of area to work with:

Over the next couple of days, I clear out trees, start a wheat farm and construct a bridge connecting the east side of the island to the mainland:

Before I end this eventful entry, I accomplished one last feat...

I have made my first batch of HSLA Steel. Now it is time to really get things going.

-Snake"

Side-note: v11 of Reika's mods are out so my interest in Minecraft soars again! I am extremely eager to try out the new toys and explore even more new stuff of ChromatiCraft.

I also think that I may create a schedule to post an update on a set day of the week, but I will finalize that later.

 

[Inaeo]

I made a personal pack based off Reika's mods recently, as well (unfortunately minus ChromatiCraft, due to my CPU being older than Christ). Our modlists are similar, and I'll be looking into a few you have, as my pack is more of a beta stage currently. I did promise myself that all RF would be generated via Rotational Dynamo, else I feared the easy route would lead me away from RoC, and thus the point of the pack.

I'm enjoying the perspective of your tale, and I'm eager to see where you take this. I'll be watching...

 

[Plasmasnake]

Established Pressence (2/27/16)

Spoiler

"The days have been going well --- much progress has been made in all areas. A couple days ago I enlisted the help of some laborers from that one village to help with construction in exchange for some emeralds (I'm not sure why they find these gems so precious. I have little use for them so their labor essentially costed me nothing). While they were working I decided to get some more adventuring done.

This time I was a dimension traveler --- to Hell and the Twilight. My Chromic Lexicon and the notes of my Father mention these places so I figured there must have been much to learn and see. The first destination, Hell, had no shortage of danger, but also no shortage of useful materials. Take netherrack for instance, it has a magnificent combustion property which can be most useful for heating up various machines. I did not stay long however in fear of getting blasted into my fiery demise by those flying ghosts (Ghasts I think they are called). I just needed to extract some necessary resource such as quartz, netherrack, soul sand, cobalt, and ardite.

The other destination was just as interesting. The realm of the Twilight seemed very peaceful at first, but I quickly learned first hand that looks are often deceiving. I arrived in a large cave of some sort. I was greeted by several unhappy denizens who wanted my head. The terrain was also treacherous. Luckily I was well-equipped with tough HSLA steel weaponry and tools.

(An Interesting Portal Spawn)

After I managed to clear the initial danger, it was prime time for mining. Ores as far as the eye can see, ripe for the taking. There were also chests scattered about with many useful goodies inside them. I only stopped collecting when my pack was full and then returned home to see that my construction project was completed.

I was amazed at how well the place was constructed. To confess, I did not honestly think that those laborers would be too good or smart. I am glad to be proven wrong. They even built the casting room to my exact specifications. All I had to do was to populate the interior with all of my technology and commendations. I really should have built a library --- it is beginning to annoy me how disorganized I am with all my notes and books. I have a ton of options on how now to spend my time. I read in a book from the village about a strange structure (probably connected to the other two I have found) located in the desert far from here. There is also much to be done at home; developing technology, constructing a better farm, expansion, decoration, etc. Anyway, I have to clean up a few things so I want to stop writing here. The future is bright, indeed."

(I will spent more time making the place aesthetically pleasing but that is after I get more mod progression and more infrastructure)

Summary of what happened since the last update:
- I now have a roof over my head and terraformed the island a bit. I have many ideas on how to utilize all this space in the future
- I went to the Nether and Twilight Forest
- I constructed the beginner casting room for ChromatiCraft
- I have some ethanol production and an automated grinder (but it runs real slow)
- I have many useful TE machines and a decent power situation
- I have the basis of my mega-farm. I plan to create the most massive farm I will ever do and it will be automated by RoC
- Got cobalt. I have a silk touch pick and a fortune pick.
- Got an ME system up and running. Note: I play without the channels feature.

Anyway, thanks for reading and have a nice day

 

[Plasmasnake]

I just wanted to do a quick showcase of two things I have done in my world that I have never considered before and are interesting setups.

How I got my first ender pearls:

Spoiler

ChromatiCraft can generate ender forest biomes which have pools of resonant ender scattered about. Step 1 is to pump up some of that sweet ender:

Resonant ender by itself is useful for many things, but I want ender pearls and not the liquid form. Luckily RotaryCraft has a machine called a Fluid Crystallizer that can freeze resonant ender into ender pearls (1 bucket = 4 pearls). This machine requires both a minimum of 1024 rad/s and temperatures at or below -3C. I used a gasoline engine running at 50% speed with a 4x speed gearbox to power it and traveled to a cold biome with an ice block below to machine to get cool temperatures. Here is the setup:

This is not meant to be permanent and is small because this will not be my main ender pearl supply. It was meant to get me a couple of stacks to avoid the tedious process of acquiring them in other ways.

Beginning Power

Spoiler

I needed a way to power my base while I am still progressing through RoC and other mods. I decided to use lava power, but not in the traditional way with a pump in the nether. That method is way too overused and too simple, so I wanted to get lava from another source. I decided to use the Rock Melter to melt netherrack into lava. I power it with a steam engine and supply the netherrack from my magic crops farm (I may need to use a bore in the nether later). Not only does this machine consume no resources from power, it is crazy efficient with netherrack since it produces 2 buckets of lava per operations --- not 1! Lava then gets stored into a drum and is feed into 3 magmatic dynamos that have all the fuel efficiency upgrades. Here is the setup:

Right now netherrack is supplied manually, but it will be automated with my ME system at a later date. This small setup, which I have room to expand, will suit my needs until I get into magnetostatic engines.

 

[Inaeo]

Nice usage of the mods available. I absolutely hate the grind to get those first few Ender Pearls. It always seems simple after the first few are acquired, but those first few are brutal sometimes. I've recently started using the Rock Melter in my custom pack to feed Lava into a TE Igneous Extruder for Obsidian. I contemplated using Lava for power generation, but I've decided all my power will be RoC generated this world. That doesn't rule out other uses for infinite lava, however...

 

[Plasmasnake]

A New Life (3/4/16)

Spoiler

"I found a woman who compliments my personality and is willing to get her hands dirty. Funny story how we met. Apparently she had heard of my adventures (to that strange structure back when) and followed me back home one day. It was strange to hear a knocking on my workshop door since I am far into the wilderness. I showed her around a bit and thought she would be put off by all the technology and all the technical terms I throw at her. To my delight, she did not leave like all the rest, nor show disgust, instead she smiled through the whole thing and seemed to understand what I was saying.

Daily she came back to my land to see what I was up to. We talk a lot, flirt, and get along great. It dawned on me that she was the one. I decided to make a move at mid-day. I had never been nervous in my life until I bent down on one knee and proposed with the most elegant ring I have ever devised. My nervousness was met with great joy after she said yes. We got married in the village, but afterward, I took her to my hidden garden I had been working on for quite some time.

After that perfect night, it was time to get back into work. I wanted to build a proper home to accommodate both myself and the new wife. I was assisted by, to my surprise, my new wife. We spent numerous sunrises and sunsets building it and this is how it turned out

We are still working on it, but after getting the structure built and basic furnishings in place, we needed a much deserved break. I wanted to setup some farms and spruce up the place a little. Over the next week or so, a ton of progress has been made. A surprising amount, in fact. I am writing this in my new library where I can be better organized with all my papers. Plasma Corp is well-established and is now growing its power. I look forward bringing back the company that made my father who he was bigger and better than ever. I think he would be proud to see it and so would mother, unless she is still out there somewhere alive. Anyway, before I get sidetracked, I want to end the entry here."

6 fans and 1 item vacuum powered by a microturbine set to 25% speed.

In the back is just two Expanded Redstone block breakers to automatically harvest some sugar cane. In the front is my small tree farm. I wanted to use a woodcutter, but they do not accept the silk touch enchantment so that did not work out. I wanted leaves for the fermented since they give 2 sludge per block. I turned to MFR and used 2 harvesters --- one is set to shear leaves whereas the other is not. This is to make a surplus of saplings so the one that shears the leaves will never run out. In the future, I plan on making a large greenhouse-like structure with all the farms (with improvements) inside of it. As of the time of writing this, I have 2,700 leaves and logs in storage. This little setup has surpassed my expectations.

I did a ton of grinding and watching Youtube videos while progressing through RotaryCraft. The worst part was waiting essentially the entire IRL day to get my first bits of tungsten so I could make the bedrock breaker and a gas turbine to power it. Easily my least favorite part about the mod, but after getting the tungsten the hard way, the easy way opens (powering an extractor with a gas turbine for 1 tps operation speeds). So I got through RoC progression and got myself a bedrock pickaxe and sword, with more bedrock coming in --- my gas turbine still has like 2 hours of fuel left in it. Now it is time to work on magnetostatic engines and then playing around with all the RoC machines I have never used.

Speaking of playing around with toys I have never seen, v11 of ChromatiCraft adds really cool things. My favorite thus far is the subterranean illuminator. It borders on the line of completely OP, but has made spelunking a blast. I don't have to worry about putting torches on every nook and crevasse of a cave, I just go in and harvest what I want, fight any baddies, and then leave.

Improved workshop aesthetics. The left side is still a WIP.

Thanks for reading.

I upload way too many images of things I don't deem worthy of showcasing in this thread. If you are interested, here is the link to the photo album - http://imgur.com/a/4R0KP

 

[lucariomaster2]

It's awesome to see someone else using Reika's mods so in-depth! I will be watching this thread with great interest.

Would you mind posting pictures of your Ethanol/Jet Fuel setups? I'd love to compare them to my own.

 

[Plasmasnake]

It's awesome to see someone else using Reika's mods so in-depth! I will be watching this thread with great interest.

Would you mind posting pictures of your Ethanol/Jet Fuel setups? I'd love to compare them to my own.

Most of my current setup is already shown, and is hard to show the entire process unless you want to see a bajillion pictures. I'll just explain the process.

So how it works right now: it starts with the sugar cane harvested by expanded redstone block breakers. The sugar cane is transported to an 'input' ender chest, which gets automatically feed into my ME system. I manually grind up the sugar cane in my automatic grinders for a 3x return of sugar. Then I get yeast in the fermenter and I use the leaves acquired by my automatic tree farms for a 2x sludge yield. So that is ethanol down. When I first arrived in the nether, I grabbed a ton of soul sand and netherrack so that supply is good for a while. The automatic grinders are used to turn them into dust. Magical crops is used for the rest of the materials. I grow coal (although I really don't need to), blaze, and slime. I also make sure to grind the blaze rods for a 6x yield.

The setup is subject to change as my demand increases. I have many ideas on how to automate the entire process, and I will post pictures and give (hopefully) helpful explanations of that, but that is for another time when I get more infrastructure.

 

[Pyure]

A thousand words is worth a bajillion pictures

 

[Inaeo]

A thousand words is worth a bajillion pictures

I prefer pictures with concise descriptions, personally. To each their own.

 

[Plasmasnake]

I haven't been playing too much Minecraft since the last post. I have just recently recovered from the flu and the resulting makeup work for school was kinda killer, but from the like three weeks I still managed to get some stuff in. In this post I want to showcase some of the machines I have set up.

Extractor (The 'never bother mining ever again' machine):

Spoiler

With all the ores I have been harvesting and with all my tungsten demand, it was time to set up a proper extractor.

The extractor is powered by a gas turbine running at 25% speed which nets me 16.7MW, which is significant because this is the exact amount of power required to be able to run all stages at 1 operation per tick, but not at the same time. I use a 2:1 gear for speed since the max torque requirement is 512Nm. A CVT unit controlled by a clock from Expanded Redstone alternates the gearing from 32x speed to no speed change. At 32 speed, it will run two stages 1 operation per tick, and at regular speed it runs the other two at 1 operation per tick. Because I am not auto-mining as of the moment, this station is not fully automatic. I have to manually put in the ores to a chest that extracts items to the extractor. The flakes go into a modular storage unit.

I should mention that the extractor itself is upgraded with bedrock, which means that it gives me an average of over 5x. I don't know exactly how much the upgrade affects it, but it feels like I am getting an average of 8x. Absolutely amazing.

Friction Heater Setup:

Spoiler

As I continue to use RoC and my tungsten demands increase, I needed a station to process many of the recipes in a blast furnace/furnace.

Two microturbines will allow me to get over 1350C for tungsten smelting and that temperature is sufficient for most bedrock crafting. An upgrade will be needed later for the higher-tier converter engine upgrades. The gearbox brings torque closer to the speed for a decent temperature boost on the friction heater. I used ElectriCraft Relays to be able to turn one heater on or off on command. This setup may not seem all that useful, but it has saved me a ton of time because I kept setting up a quick heater setup for recipes only to tear it down soon after.

New Source of RF Power:

Spoiler

Good source of energy for the other tech mods. The lava generator is still there too.

Liquid Nitrogen:

Spoiler

A microturbine massively geared for torque (512x torque) for a total of 16,384Nm, which gives me 2 buckets of nitrogen per operation. That is enough for a couple of magnetostatics at continuous operation, but it takes ~30 seconds per cycle so I would not feel comfortable going over 5 magnetostatics. I am still debating how I want to power the refrigeration unit --- I could give it tons of torque at little speed so that it produces huge chunks of nitrogen but much slower, or I could give it tons of speed so that it can produce 100, 200, even 300 mb per tick.

Ordinarily I would use a Fluid Crystallizer for ice, but instead I use TE's Glacial Participator powered by a solar panel because it can keep up with a refrigeration unit that runs slow. If I want to run at 1 operation per tick speeds, I would need 1 ice per tick which then I would use the Fluid Crystallizer. Ice goes into the refrigeration unit to make nitrogen (the cache of ice is there for when it turns night time and the ice machine doesn't function). I void dry ice because it is not particularly useful for me to keep. The area here is within range of the chunk loader of my base so I don't have to worry about this ever going down and it is far enough away so I don't have to hear the noise of the refrigeration unit

There were two other significant advances. One is that I setup a wireless ME terminal with max signal boosters. This helps me greatly when I'm out in the farms or in another room without quick access to an ME Terminal. The other is that I made an extension to my workshop --- a big one.

Spoiler

Tons of space to put my various contraptions in. It is going to be cool later on entering a giant room with machinery as far as the eye can see.

Once again, thanks for reading

 

[Plasmasnake]

I have spent a ton of time crafting stuff, so there isn't much in the way of visual progress in this post. Most of it was for my ME system.

Age of Bedrock

Spoiler

After realizing how many diamonds I have used to make diamond gearboxes, and also realizing that I had access to bedrock, I felt stupid for not making a dedicated bedrock breaker. I ran it once for 1 + 1/2 stacks of bedrock dust and then forgot about it. Bedrock, apart from being useful for CVT Units, Isotope Centrifuge, and some machines, makes for the best tier of gearboxes. They can handle any load without lubricant. The question is why I haven't done this sooner...

I made a second Gas Turbine and a 16x Bedrock Gearbox for this setup. The turbine runs at 6.25% speed to be fuel efficient because I do not have automatic jet-fuel production (that will come soon because it is becoming a heavily used resource). Pretty much a fire-and-forget type of setup. Where I built this falls within the range of my base's chunk loader so this will be operational so long as fuel is supplied. So once I feel confident enough to always turn that valve on the ender tank, I would get bedrock dust going 24/7. Right now, it has 3 hours of fuel left in it and that will likely yield 1-2 stacks of dust. Gotta get dat bedrock, yo.

You're Skagbait, Grinder!

Spoiler

Thinking about the RoC grinder always makes me think of that Borderlands quote. I have finally gotten around to making an improved and automatic grinder setup.

Because I have access to liquid nitrogen, I can get into using and abusing Magnetostatics. I use a Tier 2 Magnetostatic to power 4 grinders (around 400RF/t). I use a 4x Gearbox to bring the torque to 512Nm, resulting in each grinder getting the minimum 128Nm. The speed is sub-par at 256rad/s each and 20.95 second operation times. Not all that bad since my tar sand, netherrack dust, and lube consumption is low.

You may have noticed that one of the grinders does not have an export bus - let me explain: One grinder is dedicated to grinding netherrack, one is for soul sand, and the other is for grinding canola for lube. The last grinder is for general use. Say I wanted to grind some Botania flowers or whatever. I do that in the last one.

ME, Myself, and I

Spoiler

I said at the top I spent time crafting a bunch for AE2. Here an overview of the room:

Got a filled ME Drive, 3 connected Modular Storage units, Caches for bulk storage. I made a somewhat-automatic inscriber because manually clicking was far to frustrating and taxing on the fingers. If I want to make printed circuits, just dump a stack of the material on the top hopper and it will eventually yield a stack of printed circuits. For logic processors and the rest, both hoppes and the chest are used to automatic make them. The Charger next to this is sorta-automatic too. I learned that the import bus worked on the charger, but it will not supply power to it. Trade one problem for another I suppose.

AE2 autocrafting, a completely new concept for me. I never delved into this part of the mod - not sure if I like it or dislike it yet. I extensively used AE1's autocrafting way back when in 1.6.4, so my thoughts are biased from that. I make a butt-load of ender tanks and chests (as you may have noticed), so I set up recipes for most commonly used things like those.

This setup really bothered me. For some reason, plugging the AutoCrafting Unit directly to an ME cable will completely derp out the system. It will disallow me from withdrawing items and depositing items, but everything is still powered. Last time I used this machines (v3 RoC), it worked wonders. Now, I have to ghetto this setup.

The reason why I use the AutoCrafting Unit in the first place is to automatically and continuously craft materials out of the essence I get from my Magical Crops. It can read from an inventory directly above it, so I took advantage of that. I export essence into a chest placed above and get the job done that way. Even when the game fights me, I still get what I want.

I am running into issues in this world and would like to ask for some advice. I used most of my supply of gold and diamonds. Even with my bedrock-upgraded Extractor, my supply of both these resources are scarce. I could just plop a Boring Machine somewhere, but I am not a fan of auto-mining. For me, it ruins a chunk of the fun and challenge of survival (I say that even though I have bedrock tools, a jetpack, and a fair amount of infrastructure). If the scarcity continues for too long, I may resort to auto-mining though. I should also mention that I nerfed Magical Crops so that I couldn't just grow everything and win. The mod in this pack is primarily used to grow mob drops and misc stuff. I was thinking about making an RFTools dimension, but I am a noob at dimension making. If you guys got any cool dimlet-combinations or just cool worlds in general, I'd appreciate learning about it. I could also just go Hollowed Hill farming in the Twilight Forest, or just go mining in general.

So how do you guys get your gold and diamonds? Got any tips for me?

Anyway, thanks for reading!

 

[Inaeo]

I've been using Agricraft Resource Crops to grow my gold and diamonds this world, as I found Magical Crops to be too forgiving, even dialed back in the configs. This does mean I have to rely on mob farming for drops, since Agricraft doesn't have an answer for that.

If TiCo is in pack, Oreberry bushes can net you a passive income of gold. Alternatively, you could farm Zombie Pigmen for nuggets and gear (to be melted down or put through the Uncrafting Table). Diamonds are a bit harder to make renewable. The RFTools dimension may be the easiest way to do this.

Remember that Dimlets drop from Endermen, so if you haven't already killed the dragon, it should become a priority. Once he's been dispatched, farm those Dimlets and Pearls till your heart's content. A dimension with diamond in any form will be expensive, in RF terms, to realize and then power, but it may be cheaper (and with an extractor possibly more efficient) to opt for diamon ore over blocks if given the choice. Even doing spheres or spikes rather than a full landscape will help considerably.

 

[Plasmasnake]

I'm back with another update! Remember that I did not start the fire...

(There was a lava pool next to this)

A Whole New Dimension:

Spoiler

Being pressed for gold and diamonds, I decided to start dimesion making with RFtools. No dimlets used at all, my body was ready. Here is highlights of the dimension.

It was a grid type of world, with a checkboard pattern of Savannah and lake. Good for dirt and clay. I am not gonna really build anything here, just harvest resources.

I have never seen these berries from ChromatiCraft before. I like being surprised by new content. Unsure of what these do, but hopefully I will learn in the future!

I went mining by hand for a bit and found out that this dimension is plentiful with the ores. I may just bore after all.

Base Remodeling

Spoiler

I fiddled around with the RoC machines in my main room to make it more aesthetically pleasing and matching with the rest of the room. Everything is mostly the same, except that I removed a grinder and that will be explained a bit further down this post. I added barrels of jet fuel so that I could take them on 'one-shot' type of trips. Likely going to use it to power a bore with 256 buckets of jet fuel and see what kind of results that yields.

Between the main room and the machine room is this. I decided to move my RF power gen up here so that it is easily visible. It is my main power after all. Other than that, I wanted to use those Chromatic Flowers. They look pretty.

Additions:

Spoiler

Welcome to the new and improved machine room. This design more accurately follows what I want to accomplish: a line of gizmos.

It is double-sided too! The idea is that the machines that will run automatically will be in the back (because I really won't have to interact with them and they should be low maintenance). There is a line on the bottom for jet fuel and a power line on the ceiling for RF. This makes getting fuel or power for the engines easier and makes it look less sporadic. All stations will have shut-off capability because they are supposed to be manually operated. I will do that with Expanded Redstone I think. I just got the base setup though.

You will see that I did get a foot in the door in ReactorCraft. Just got 2 Isotope Centrifuges powered by a microturbine with an 8:1 gearbox, geared for speed. The power is split evenly and cleanly with a shaft junction. The machines run slow, but they are netting me a decent amount of dust while I work on this room and other parts of the base. Speaking of which...

Work on the farms:

Spoiler

I only learned recently that you can pick up these ivy plants from ChromatiCraft with shears. It is nice that you can farm these plants. It also looks really cool with the particles and is a different style of farm than the rest. Yes it is just a couple blocks of stone and I have to punch the ivy, but I want to make it automatic. I wonder if I can use Expanded Redstone for this endeavor.

Since I'm getting into ReC, I need to step up and get a good lubricant supply. Tons of canola are planted now and I installed a sprinkler to make all the plants grow slightly quicker. I also got two more harvesters for sugar cane to step up my sugar production since sludge is automatically produced in my base now.

Quick update on the gold + diamond scarcity. That trip to the new dimension yielded quite a few ores. For now I am good on gold, but diamonds are still in low supply. I have decided that I am going to make a gold farm (not sure if I want to use mobs that drop gold or oreberry bushes yet) and a boring machine in the dimension.

Additionally, I want to say that life is getting busier for me lately. Between school, hanging out with friends, doing family stuff, and playing other games, I don't get a lot of Minecraft in. I am not making excuses or complaining, I just want whoever is reading this to be aware that things are slowing down.

And again, thanks for reading!

 

[ewsmith]

what do you do to gather building resources (clay, geostrata stone, etc...)? that tends to be the most limiting factor with my builds.

 

[Plasmasnake]

I try to use materials that require cobblestone or smooth stone as much as I can to avoid grinding the harder to acquire materials for building. I have a cobble generator via a TE Igneous Extruder that has been producing cobblestone for a very long time (since like 2 hours into this world). Good thing about producing cobblestone with it is that it consumes no lava nor water.

For Geostrata rock, I did not get mine by digging it up or by using a mining machine. With the chisel you can turn cobblestone into any one of the geostrata rocks, so I do that and cook them in a furnace if I want the smooth counterpart. Unlimited building materials and great variety with cobblestone if you use the chisel.

As for clay, well that one is more difficult. In the earlier versions of RoC that I played with, I would just centrifuge dirt to get clay, but now that is a 10% chance instead of a guarantee. I do have the dirt supply for this however, I will have to try it out one day. Of course I could just grow clay with Magical Crops. Considering that there aren't many other options I would say that the centrifuge is still the best bet.

 

[Inaeo]

I noticed Botania in your OP mod list spoiler. That is likely the easiest way to renewable clay (Clayconia).

Edit: Magical Crops is an easy answer as well, I suppose.