Regrowth, reasons to RTFM

[malicious_bloke]

So, looking for a bit of a change of pace I decided to check out this 3rd party pack.

And almost immediately ran into problems due to being set in my ways and forgetting that there's probably more than just flavour text in the guidebook.

- Dead wood planks don't go together to make a crafting bench the same way normal planks do. To make a crafting bench you need a TiCo hatchet, which initially confused me since I started thinking I needed all the TiCo crafting benches first, not realising that this pack has added simple 2x2 recipes for tools. Doh

- The lack of any ores. Once I had my crafting bench, a chest and a furnace (vanilla living ftw), I decided to start digging for some iron/other bits to replace my crappy flint pick. I got about 20 blocks down in my ACME "staircase to layer 10" before I noticed the complete lack of any ores in the surrounding rock. If i'd read the blurb i'd have spotted this immediately

- Should probably have looked up how to agricraft before starting. I knew vanilla farming was disabled, and my previous (brief) experiment into agricraft in infinity got as far as "plant carrot and tater seeds. Huh why wont they grow? This is bullshit! *removes mod*" [is terminally lazy].
But this time I actually made the crop sticks, including a set in the middle to try and crossbreed some shizzle...

...but I didn't realise you had to have a second set to make a crosscrop, so I sat there for 15 minutes waiting for something to appear.

Sometimes I think i'm too old and set in my ways for new modpacks

 

[darkeshrine]

Regrowth is a really fun pack. The way it makes you do certain things, like making a crafting table, is genius and awesome.

My one and only gripe with this pack is that it's just one long grind. I almost felt like I was playing Gregtech for the first time, in one of those " I've got to do what for an Iron pick? [Hysterical Laughter] Damn it." sort of ways. It was really fun, but there was so much to do that things aways got pushed aside to do other things. It was quite often for me to plant some crops for crossbreeding and coming back to a fully grown failed mutation.

 

[Vauthil]

Yeah, one operative rule for Regrowth I always keep in mind: never wait on anything, go do something else. And there's always a something else to do. And if you don't know how to do something else, there's probably something telling you if the time is right and learning that is your something else to do first.

Also, yes, if there's an HQM book (or any other starting book for that matter) in a pack nowadays I assume nothing works the way I think it should and that I need to read the book and check NEI every two seconds to boot. I still haven't worked up the energy to actually play Atonement yet, but that's because hardcore + read the book = overload my tiny mammal brain with panic.

 

[malicious_bloke]

I am currently liking the integration of botania and magical crops.

I always wanted to make essence seeds with mana

 

[darkeshrine]

I Hate the dye seeds. They're so useless when you have botania's powder dyes and mystical flower seeds.

 

[Desman]

Yeah, one operative rule for Regrowth I always keep in mind: never wait on anything, go do something else. And there's always a something else to do. And if you don't know how to do something else, there's probably something telling you if the time is right and learning that is your something else to do first.

Also, yes, if there's an HQM book (or any other starting book for that matter) in a pack nowadays I assume nothing works the way I think it should and that I need to read the book and check NEI every two seconds to boot. I still haven't worked up the energy to actually play Atonement yet, but that's because hardcore + read the book = overload my tiny mammal brain with panic.

You don't actually need to read much in Atonement, it's very vanilla-ish. There are a couple of optional mods, which do come with some heavier books.

 

[ljfa]

I started Regrowth together with a friend who already played a bit of it, and he suggested that that we allocate a lot of free space for fields...it takes really a lot for planting every seed that you get in a 4x4 or possibly larger field. Kinda crucial as all your resources are going to come from these fields. I probably would've obstructed the space if it wasn't for this advice.

 

[malicious_bloke]

So TiCo grout is uncraftable and I need to get copper and iron seeds on the go to get started with Mariculture just so I can make some seared bricks for my smeltery.

That's...unusual.

Although the cross-mod integrations in this pack are pretty sweet, I must say.

 

[malicious_bloke]

My journey thus far has taken me a long ways through the progression of Agricraft, Botania, Magical crops, Mariculture and a bunch of other mods besides and i've *almost* got a working smeltery.

On a normal pack that usually takes me about 15 minutes from the start of the world to set up ^_^

Just planted my first aluminium seeds, so i'll have some brass for making casts shortly.

Then I can finally ditch the shitty flint pick lol.

 

[darkeshrine]

My journey thus far has taken me a long ways through the progression of Agricraft, Botania, Magical crops, Mariculture and a bunch of other mods besides and i've *almost* got a working smeltery.

On a normal pack that usually takes me about 15 minutes from the start of the world to set up ^_^

Just planted my first aluminium seeds, so i'll have some brass for making casts shortly.

Then I can finally ditch the shitty flint pick lol.

Yeah, I really wish tools would upgrade in this pack. It would make having that pick for so long really worth it. It would be nice for mining, solely because that's 90% of landscaping in this pack. It would be best for the hatchet though. Farming Birch, Oak, Spruce, Rohan, Hawthorn, and Alder tree farms with a flint pick is so slow.

As for taking so long to get basic metal tools, I really like this. For someone like me that really enjoys early game minecraft, because my computer can't handle mid game let alone late game, It's really nice.

 

[malicious_bloke]

Yeah, I really wish tools would upgrade in this pack. It would make having that pick for so long really worth it. It would be nice for mining, solely because that's 90% of landscaping in this pack. It would be best for the hatchet though. Farming Birch, Oak, Spruce, Rohan, Hawthorn, and Alder tree farms with a flint pick is so slow.

As for taking so long to get basic metal tools, I really like this. For someone like me that really enjoys early game minecraft, because my computer can't handle mid game let alone late game, It's really nice.

Actually, thinking about it, Iguanatweaks for TiCo is in the pack, so you can upgrade parts of your tools. It's just taken me so long to get basic metalworking sorted out it hasn't been worth it.

 

[malicious_bloke]

So it appears to get into the very beginning of Mekanism I need:

Mariculture's blacksmith's anvil
Railcraft's rolling machine
Buildcraft's assembly table

Part of me is dreading what i'm going to have to go through to get to AE

EDIT:

Add in Mariculture titanium production and a Railcraft blast furnace.

Madness!

 

[egor66]

The pack is very well balanced & makes great use of botania, the one draw back & reason I stopped playing was the pipe system, just way to retro for my taste, one more point is the rewards are all helpful but none give game breaking items, again very well balanced.

 

[malicious_bloke]

Oh very much so, I am enjoying the extent to which Botania is woven into other mods, it makes the whole pack feel very nice and integrated.

And in all honesty, gating the techiest mods behind progression in more organic mods makes a fair amount of sense.

If I had one minor grumble (or another one to add to the list ) it's that thaumcraft shard seeds are too high up the magical crops progression so I can't even get started with a thaumometer until I get a strong infusion stone.

Bit odd.

 

[malicious_bloke]

This rabbit hole just keeps on going.

So, having set up Mariculture's crucible furnace and the accompanying vat; a rolling machine, coke oven and blast furnace (for which I needed to invest in no fewer than three new magical crop types) I now have a steel casing for my Metallurgic infuser.

And I made an assembly table, so now I turn my attention to making one laser to power the thing.

I need the assembly table because the recipes for Mekanism machines in Regrowth include BC chipsets. It's then I realise that the laser needs a Mana Lens from botania, which requires a high level rune that needs cake and snow blocks.

So now I need cow seeds (to make milk) and two more elemental seeds to make snow.

You can keep putting obstacles in my way, but I will prevail if it's the last thing I do!

 

[darkeshrine]

So now I need cow seeds (to make milk) and two more elemental seeds to make snow.

You can keep putting obstacles in my way, but I will prevail if it's the last thing I do!

You get snow from snowbells. Also, it seems like building snowmen gives a positive average snowball return.

 

[gattsuru]

Regrowth puts a lot of stuff folk are used to starting out with stuff fairly deep in the tree -- Witchery's Attuned Stones require you to go through Botania up to Alfheim, Thaumcraft requires Witchery up to Treefyds (in addition to Shard Seeds themselves), Tinker's Construct requires Mariculture to make a Smeltery (and you really will want to have Buildcraft pipes to automate the bricks), so on. It'll encourage some thinking outside the box, albeit at the cost of some early confusion.

AE is pretty much end-game right now. In the short term, Storage Drawers handles thing very well for very little cost, especially with a Drawer Controller. I also recommend Botania's Corporea system, or manually updating Automagy and using its Inventarium, both of which are criminally underused. The Inventarium is pretty far into mid-game unless you manage to bottle a decent Ordo node, though.

One warning: be careful what storage types you use. Binnie's Compartments and the Improved Inventory Chests are attractive in the early game, with the number of seeds and materials you have coming in from Agricraft and Botania, but their lack of Dolly support and nonstandard upgrade paths make them a good deal less reliable in the long run.

EDIT: yeah, snowbell seeds are /much/ faster paths to snow than trying to get the elemental seeds early. Cow seeds are also disabled, but Cow Spawn Eggs can be made pretty easily once you have wheat, leather (best from throwing zombie parts into a Botania Alchemy Catalyst-upgraded Mana Pool), and chicken eggs.