Thought I would take a little break and talk a little about the tools I use for this build. Because it is not like I am filling in every single block by hand, the proper tools can help a lot! There is not going to be anything ground breaking, it is the tools I prefer and are comfortable with. There might not be much in it for the more experienced players, but there might be a few items that can be of help to the newer players.
First lets start with a little look at my inventory when out building on the "circles of doom":
Ender Pouch:
The first thing you will notice is the Ender Pouch window. Make your self an Ender pouch for your tools and a matching Ender chest and put it in your base as soon as you can afford it! Now should you die in lava or suffocate in a wall etc. you will only loose the tools you were actually using right at the moment. Everything else is safely stored in the "end"(and accessible in your base when you spawn). It also has the added bonus of greatly adding your inventory space and making sure you always have that special tool right at hand at that rare occasion where you need it. Now there are plenty of other bag mods that allows you to store items in transportable inventories, but if you loose that inventory item you loose every single item in it! So make an Ender Pouch! (If on a server make sure its on a frequency no one else is using or make it private).
Advanced Diamond Drill:
Nothing too fancy here, just my preferred replacement for a pickaxe. It is Gravisuites upgrade to the IC2 Diamond drill that give it it added functionalities such as TiCo Hammer/Excavator mode(mines 3x3 of both stone and dirt) and Fine mode(when you are building with sandstone for example and don't want to accidentally take down half the wall). Can be enchanted with Enchanted books(currently only got Efficiency on it). It also retains the functionalities of the IC2 drills, so if you for example have torches ANYWHERE in your inventory and right click on a block with the drill, it will place a torch(awesome for tunnel mining).
Shovel of the Earthmover:
Now some people might think that a shovel is an odd thing to use when building something up in the sky. And it would be true if it wasn't for Thaumcrafts added building functionality on the Shovel of the Earthmover. When you right click with the shovel on a block, it will try and place down a 3x3 grid of that item if you have matching blocks in the inventory. And amazingly this isn't limited to dirt and sand etc. In TC3 it was only able to place down blocks horizontally but in TC4+ the functionality has been changed to allow for it to place them vertically as well depending on how you click on the original block. This change does take a bit of time to get used to, it does mean you cant place as many blocks per click any more, but it has actually made it easier to use. For large flat surfaces you can just hold down the button and walk forward and it will build the floor ahead of you as you walk. Ideally enchanted with Repair 2, Unbreaking 3 and Efficiency 4(though Efficiency has no effect on building with it).
Builder's Wand
The builder's wand sort of does the same as the Shovel of the Earthmover, it will place down up to 9 blocks at the time. But the wand will instead of placing down a preset pattern try and extend the pattern of whatever you are pointing at. So if you have a curved wall for example and you want to extend it a couple blocks up, all you have to do it click with the wand on the upper side(there will be a ghost trace to show where it will place blocks), and it will extend the wall upwards. Clicking on the side of the wall will make the wall thicker. The wand is quite difficult to make. You have to first find a Division Sigil, then activate it by a ritual, then craft unstable ingots(and survive it) and craft the wand. But there seems to be a good chance to find the wands in dungeon chests(I have found 2 wands before I found a sigil). And they have no durability so one will last forever.
Mining Laser:
The IC2 Mining laser is really not much good for anything but mining(Duh!), but for building while flying it does have its moments. In its Low-Focus mode it makes an excellent way to break blocks instantly while flying(trying to break something like a Wrathlamp while hovering with a jetpack is just...).
Digger's Backpack:
The backpacks from Forestry are quite cheap ways to extend your inventory. Each standard backpack will store 15 stacks and they can be upgraded through beekeeping to hold 45 stacks(only need to find some Tropical bees and centrifuge their combs, no breeding needed). The different kinds of backpacks will store different kind of items(clue is in the names, Diggers is stone and dirt, Miners is ore and gems etc.). Now yes there are lots of mods that add bags and stuff, but the Forestry backpacks have a really nice feature: When you shift click with them in your hand you can toggle through several modes for them. The most useful of the modes is Resupply mode. In this mode they will constantly try and fill up any stacks that you have in your normal inventory with items from themselves. So you can carry 15 stacks of cobblestone and yet only have 1 stack in your inventory which will stay full until the backpack is emptied. Another good tip is when using them while mining you can shift click with the bag on a chest and it will instantly empty itself out into the chest(easy to empty out into a sorting system).
Tape Measure:
Bibliocrafts Tape Measure is.. Well just that. Click with it on a block, walk off and click another block and it will post the distance between them in the chat. In 1.6 versions it will put down a little marker on the starting position and will show your distance to the marker on the screen while measuring. It has 2 modes: Absolute and "North/south, East/West, and Height". The latter is a lot more useful IMO since the absolute distances are rather hard to use for anything unless you like to use Pythagoras a lot!
Angel Block:
Extra Utilities Angel Blocks are very simple blocks that can be placed anywhere with a simple right click without having to be connected to anything else. This is extremely useful for when building in the sky or on the water since you don't need to build a "bridge" to something solid all the time to place a new block. They also break almost instantly when tapped while flying.
Coin of Fortune:
Not really something that is needed for this build, but since there is no ground for items to drop on it is quite handy still. The coin works as a loot and XP magnet that when toggled on will draw anything within 5 blocks directly to you. If held and shift clicked it will draw items in from up to 25 blocks away(but only for an instant).
First lets start with a little look at my inventory when out building on the "circles of doom":
Ender Pouch:
The first thing you will notice is the Ender Pouch window. Make your self an Ender pouch for your tools and a matching Ender chest and put it in your base as soon as you can afford it! Now should you die in lava or suffocate in a wall etc. you will only loose the tools you were actually using right at the moment. Everything else is safely stored in the "end"(and accessible in your base when you spawn). It also has the added bonus of greatly adding your inventory space and making sure you always have that special tool right at hand at that rare occasion where you need it. Now there are plenty of other bag mods that allows you to store items in transportable inventories, but if you loose that inventory item you loose every single item in it! So make an Ender Pouch! (If on a server make sure its on a frequency no one else is using or make it private).
Advanced Diamond Drill:
Nothing too fancy here, just my preferred replacement for a pickaxe. It is Gravisuites upgrade to the IC2 Diamond drill that give it it added functionalities such as TiCo Hammer/Excavator mode(mines 3x3 of both stone and dirt) and Fine mode(when you are building with sandstone for example and don't want to accidentally take down half the wall). Can be enchanted with Enchanted books(currently only got Efficiency on it). It also retains the functionalities of the IC2 drills, so if you for example have torches ANYWHERE in your inventory and right click on a block with the drill, it will place a torch(awesome for tunnel mining).
Shovel of the Earthmover:
Now some people might think that a shovel is an odd thing to use when building something up in the sky. And it would be true if it wasn't for Thaumcrafts added building functionality on the Shovel of the Earthmover. When you right click with the shovel on a block, it will try and place down a 3x3 grid of that item if you have matching blocks in the inventory. And amazingly this isn't limited to dirt and sand etc. In TC3 it was only able to place down blocks horizontally but in TC4+ the functionality has been changed to allow for it to place them vertically as well depending on how you click on the original block. This change does take a bit of time to get used to, it does mean you cant place as many blocks per click any more, but it has actually made it easier to use. For large flat surfaces you can just hold down the button and walk forward and it will build the floor ahead of you as you walk. Ideally enchanted with Repair 2, Unbreaking 3 and Efficiency 4(though Efficiency has no effect on building with it).
Builder's Wand
The builder's wand sort of does the same as the Shovel of the Earthmover, it will place down up to 9 blocks at the time. But the wand will instead of placing down a preset pattern try and extend the pattern of whatever you are pointing at. So if you have a curved wall for example and you want to extend it a couple blocks up, all you have to do it click with the wand on the upper side(there will be a ghost trace to show where it will place blocks), and it will extend the wall upwards. Clicking on the side of the wall will make the wall thicker. The wand is quite difficult to make. You have to first find a Division Sigil, then activate it by a ritual, then craft unstable ingots(and survive it) and craft the wand. But there seems to be a good chance to find the wands in dungeon chests(I have found 2 wands before I found a sigil). And they have no durability so one will last forever.
Mining Laser:
The IC2 Mining laser is really not much good for anything but mining(Duh!), but for building while flying it does have its moments. In its Low-Focus mode it makes an excellent way to break blocks instantly while flying(trying to break something like a Wrathlamp while hovering with a jetpack is just...).
Digger's Backpack:
The backpacks from Forestry are quite cheap ways to extend your inventory. Each standard backpack will store 15 stacks and they can be upgraded through beekeeping to hold 45 stacks(only need to find some Tropical bees and centrifuge their combs, no breeding needed). The different kinds of backpacks will store different kind of items(clue is in the names, Diggers is stone and dirt, Miners is ore and gems etc.). Now yes there are lots of mods that add bags and stuff, but the Forestry backpacks have a really nice feature: When you shift click with them in your hand you can toggle through several modes for them. The most useful of the modes is Resupply mode. In this mode they will constantly try and fill up any stacks that you have in your normal inventory with items from themselves. So you can carry 15 stacks of cobblestone and yet only have 1 stack in your inventory which will stay full until the backpack is emptied. Another good tip is when using them while mining you can shift click with the bag on a chest and it will instantly empty itself out into the chest(easy to empty out into a sorting system).
Tape Measure:
Bibliocrafts Tape Measure is.. Well just that. Click with it on a block, walk off and click another block and it will post the distance between them in the chat. In 1.6 versions it will put down a little marker on the starting position and will show your distance to the marker on the screen while measuring. It has 2 modes: Absolute and "North/south, East/West, and Height". The latter is a lot more useful IMO since the absolute distances are rather hard to use for anything unless you like to use Pythagoras a lot!
Angel Block:
Extra Utilities Angel Blocks are very simple blocks that can be placed anywhere with a simple right click without having to be connected to anything else. This is extremely useful for when building in the sky or on the water since you don't need to build a "bridge" to something solid all the time to place a new block. They also break almost instantly when tapped while flying.
Coin of Fortune:
Not really something that is needed for this build, but since there is no ground for items to drop on it is quite handy still. The coin works as a loot and XP magnet that when toggled on will draw anything within 5 blocks directly to you. If held and shift clicked it will draw items in from up to 25 blocks away(but only for an instant).
