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Inaeo

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Jul 29, 2019
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Cobbleton is now sporting one of these:
(Hey, you can see my IC2 nuke in the background too btw)
I was expecting the Draconium to be the hard part of this assembly, but seriously it was the nether stars. I need a way better way of getting those. I may get into AE2 soon simply so I can try to leverage the formation planes to auto-summon the wither. (The skulls aren't a big deal: I have a few skeleton power spawners in a grinder in the nether)

I also added a bunch of compact drawers. They are indeed pretty neat. I see now that they're more like compact barrels; I didn't realize they only stored one type per drawer.

I like how simple the upgrade system is compared to JABBA (which is also simple but this is simpler)

The Compact drawers were surprisingly expensive compared to the regular drawers. I made 6 compact drawers.

Grats on your sphere. I'm glad you see potential in the Drawer system, and remember, its only wood. Other than the Controller/Slave, that is. Granted it chews through wood, but a tree farm should be pretty high on the early game priority list.
 

Pyure

Not Totally Useless
Aug 14, 2013
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Waterloo, Ontario
Grats on your sphere. I'm glad you see potential in the Drawer system, and remember, its only wood. Other than the Controller/Slave, that is. Granted it chews through wood, but a tree farm should be pretty high on the early game priority list.
The compact drawers require a ton of steel and iron too in this pack, but yeah.

Also: I never made a tree farm. Too tempting to do mass charcoal/biofuel production when you have a treefarm, and then that kinda ruins progression to fission etc :)

Every few (rl) weeks I'll take a stack of fertilizer out back and a sapling and a lumber axe, and just spam plant/grow/cut until my inventory is full of nothing but logs. Takes around a minute.
 

Xavion

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Jul 29, 2019
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Personally I've been living off manual charcoal, something like 20 megaspruce just sitting in a grid and go out for a few thousand charcoal with an autos wor fortune lumberaxe when I remember. The issue is I often forget letting it run out, really do plan to move to an automated power system, got most of the requirements for a nuclear reactor done, just need some more diamonds I think? God energy crystals are stupid expensive here.

But yeah, autosmelt fortune lumberaxe, all the charcoal and xp you could ever need. Got a bunch of 10/10/10 crops too so should probably look into animal power (Pure Love OP) or biofuel too, pity lighting rods were nerfed, although they were kind of stupidly OP, being comparable to something like 5 max BR turbines at peak which could be maintained indefinitely if you could deal with the constant thunderstorm.
 

Pyure

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Aug 14, 2013
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got most of the requirements for a nuclear reactor done, just need some more diamonds I think? God energy crystals are stupid expensive here.
But yeah, autosmelt fortune lumberaxe, all the charcoal and xp you could ever need. Got a bunch of 10/10/10 crops too so should probably look into animal power (Pure Love OP) or biofuel too, pity lighting rods were nerfed, although they were kind of stupidly OP, being comparable to something like 5 max BR turbines at peak which could be maintained indefinitely if you could deal with the constant thunderstorm.
Which nuclear? Big Reactors?

I'm not sure I can really recommend IC2. Its a bit fiddly. Even if you have everything setup "correctly", you'll get an occasional steam explosion noise (once an hour) which can be a bit alarming. If you do it anyway, I highly recommend you use nuclear control to make it shut down if the core temperature ever goes above zero. I'm not convinced that closed loops are working 100% for either the coolant and the distilled water, and when the "cold coolant" gets low in the reactor, it starts to warm up.

Basically: its a tricky balance point between making sure your steam generators get enough hot coolant to prevent explosions, but not so much that they keep too much cold coolant out of the reactor.

Also: have a large coolant tank buffer.

Incidentally: for shits and giggles I installed NuclearCraft which I wanna try in lieu of Big Reactors. I wish I'd turned off the oregen right away though, now I have a ton of duplicate silver, copper and lead :\
 

Pyure

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Aug 14, 2013
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Also progress-wise: If you guys haven't built a draconic chest yet, its worth the investment. The ridiculous storage space is nice, but its also a very fast furnace, ore-doubler and crafting station. OP as per the mod's theme.

Anyone find a better way to maximize draconic ore yields than fully augmented induction-smelter + cinnabar?

According to NEI, SAG Mill (with darksteel grinding balls) + EnderIO Alloy smelter *should* be better but the alloy smelter recipe (1 dust = 2 ingots) doesn't work as advertised.
 

Xavion

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Jul 29, 2019
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So most mods screw up with DE, Draconium ore is more akin to a low yield Redstone or lapis than a metal ore, by default it drops 1-2 dust on mining, with fortune 3 it'll drop 4-10 dust. So yeah, fortune draconium ore, nothing else compares.

I'll try to remember to check out nuclear control, and it's expert so BR is gated behind IC2 reactors, rather obscenely in my opinion by making fuel rods need plutonium but meh, that's why you have mass fabs..
 

Pyure

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Aug 14, 2013
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So most mods screw up with DE, Draconium ore is more akin to a low yield Redstone or lapis than a metal ore, by default it drops 1-2 dust on mining, with fortune 3 it'll drop 4-10 dust. So yeah, fortune draconium ore, nothing else compares.
I'll try that out. If 4-10 means, say, 7 on average, that's slightly better. I did a test of 20 ores and I think I found an average of 5 per on my route.

I'll try to remember to check out nuclear control, and it's expert so BR is gated behind IC2 reactors, rather obscenely in my opinion by making fuel rods need plutonium but meh, that's why you have mass fabs..
What about Blutonium? Does it still qualify?

Blutonium can be acquired in huge quantities just by processing yellorite in a SAG mill with dark steel grinding balls.
 

asb3pe

New Member
Jul 29, 2019
2,704
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So most mods screw up with DE, Draconium ore is more akin to a low yield Redstone or lapis than a metal ore, by default it drops 1-2 dust on mining, with fortune 3 it'll drop 4-10 dust. So yeah, fortune draconium ore, nothing else compares.

Interesting, thanks for that tip. I had assumed that Induction Smelting with TE Cinnabar to quadruple the ore blocks was our best option, but the reason I assumed it was because I had not made the Fortune III Upgrade for the EnderQuarry and tried that out in a direct comparison with the Silk Touch upgrade. Looking at NEI, the Fortune III upgrade states it is a "Power Drain Multiplier: x80", while the Silk Touch Upgrade is only "Power Drain Multiplier: x1.5". That's a tremendous difference, which is probably why I never even thought to give it a try. However, with my Tier 7 Draconic Energy Ball now over 500 billion RF (1/4 full), I suppose I could afford to test the Fortune III upgrade now. :D
 
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Azzanine

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Jul 29, 2019
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I'm surprised that people claim to skip logistics pipes and drawers. LogPipes can do essentially the same stuff AE2 can, exept it's slow as balls. Still its a great stepping stone.
Also I need to test LogPipes interactions with Thermal Dynamics warp ducts. As I hear LogPipes can be used with TD, however I have never tried it. So that's just heresay.
Combined with super upgraded Storage drawers and Controller. It's even pretty compact. AE2 still beats it for pure compactness.
Those who are waiting to grind up an ME system are just hurting themselves.

Also I have been reading a few others thoughts on LP. It seems some are still under the impression that LP is reliant on BC pipes to use. While I use gold pipes for my expert setup. I spotted a new standard pipe from LP that might make it so you don't need BC anymore. LP is it's own deal now.

Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk
 
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rouge_bare

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Oct 4, 2014
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I'm surprised that people claim to skip logistics pipes and drawers. LogPipes can do essentially the same stuff AE2 can, exept it's slow as balls. Still its a great stepping stone.
Also I need to test LogPipes interactions with Thermal Dynamics warp ducts. As I hear LogPipes can be used with TD, however I have never tried it. So that's just heresay.
Combined with super upgraded Storage drawers and Controller. It's even pretty compact. AE2 still beats it for pure compactness.
Those who are waiting to grind up an ME system are just hurting themselves.

Also I have been reading a few others thoughts on LP. It seems some are still under the impression that LP is reliant on BC pipes to use. While I use gold pipes for my expert setup. I spotted a new standard pipe from LP that might make it so you don't need BC anymore. LP is it's own deal now.

Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk
They work amazingly with itemducts (including warp) they'll even route correctly though the ducts. You do still need BC to craft most of Logistis pipe's routing pipes to my knowledge though.
 

asb3pe

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Jul 29, 2019
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I only did Storage Drawers before moving into AE (about 400 hours later LOL). But then again, I'm the oddball kind of player who almost prefers to do everything by hand instead of making big setups to automate everything.

I'm sure Logistics Pipes are a wonderful intermediate solution, but I tend not to go thru all those intermediate steps (call me dumb, I know...) I typically build the entry-level stuff and then stick with it until I get to the end game stuff, skipping all the in-between.

My point is... one can easily just use Storage Drawers the entire time until you finally achieve the Quantum Core to make all the AE stuff.
 

Azzanine

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Jul 29, 2019
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They work amazingly with itemducts (including warp) they'll even route correctly though the ducts. You do still need BC to craft most of Logistis pipe's routing pipes to my knowledge though.
Ohh yeah... forgot they need cogs or chipsets in their recipe. But don't the logistics pipes have 2 recipes? (Or was I hallucinating?)
Chances are those recipes are tweaked to be the old recipe due it synergising with the idea of the mode. Or dynamically change depending on the mods detected. It might default to BC if it's there.

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rouge_bare

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Oct 4, 2014
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two - yeah - one for chips and one for gears.... that's it... the basic logi pipe is still 2 glass, 1 redstone torch, 2 cobble pipes 1 diamond pipe and either a gold gear or a gold chipset.
 

Dentvar

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Jul 29, 2019
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Even if BC is still used for the recipes, I do not use Gold Pipes. There is a LP Pipe called "unrouted logistic pipe" they are black and as fast as the golden pipes.
For expert mode, its still a bit pricy(2 iron ingots per craft) but not as bad as the gold you would need.

As I said some days before here, I getting in love with LP and how it makes me think again and setup a bit more "complex" stuff.
AE is good in whats it aims for: Small efficient setups. But it tend to be the same over and over but thats not the mods failure its beeing us getting bored to fast :)
You cant drive a car for 20 years and get mad on it for beeing the same all the time and switch to a bike then.
 

TheElectricCake

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Jul 29, 2019
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(Takes a long, slow look around.)

Okay, just found this thread and now I am wondering if I've chosen unwisely. I've been using Storage Drawers (Hesitant applause from audience) with Project Red pipes and sorting systems. I'm absolutely in love with the Stock Keeper chips because they mean that for the most part there isn't stuff constantly flying around through my base in pipes, generating lag...Stuff asks for more supplies when it needs more supplies and that's it. It grew expansively, so I've been combining that with use of Ender Chests to reduce pipe length wherever possible between farming/mining and processing/sorting and I don't have tons of pipe causing troubles.

I've never used Logistics Pipes. This is my first time using Project Red. When I started out Infinity/Expert I had a ton of dye (Flower Forest) and glowstone (early nether put me right in the midst of several huge columns) and wasn't so interested in anything that smacked of Buildcraft pipes (which were the principle cause of lag in my last AgSkies venture). Searching for "pipes" turned up the Project Red ones which used glowstone and dyes, and off I went. Am I missing out on something or are the systems roughly equivalent? The "Crafting" pipe appears to be disabled in Expert mode, and I assume that's so it doesn't fully replace having an AE system. I just put little "request" pipe terminals in all of my crafting areas right above my crafting tables and grab stuff out of those, easy-peasy.

Is anyone familiar enough with both systems to do a quick pro/con comparison?

I'm currently about a third of the way through my Iridium-gathering stage, so I'm not quite in the mood to yank out all the plumbing and replace it, but I'm considering shifting base at some point (My early automatic mining systems have utterly gutted the earth at various targeted levels beneath me now for as far as chunkload range of my base extends, and I'd like to have them continue their good work in addition to the other quarrying I'm doing...but that'd mean moving my base. I might also be influenced by the fact that I recently found both a Sacred Oak sapling and a Robust Twilight Forest Oak Sapling.).

I'm also using Endergenic Power rather than Big Reactors (though I have a ton of yellorium stockpiled). Hadn't ever used it before and it's surprisingly compact for its power generation, if a bit fiddly.
 

Pyure

Not Totally Useless
Aug 14, 2013
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Cobbleton now sports a wither grinder. This is a modified version of one I've seen on youtube.

I press a button and the wither falls and gets insta-grinded once he does his initial explosion. Improvements over the original include hopperhock grabbing the goodies (it teleports items at no mana cost rather than dragging them) and no RF spent on the block placers. I do have to manually load up the block placers with soulsand/skulls occassionally which is a deficiency. Also I can't seem to place a brain-in-a-jar anywhere that will reliably scoop up xp but not get vaporized. But who cares. Nether stars ftw.

2016-01-29_22.18.48.png 2016-01-29_22.18.38.png
 

asb3pe

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Jul 29, 2019
2,704
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Nice setup Pyrure. Achieving that Draconic Grinder is (to me) the signpost that announces you've crested the top of the Expert Mode hill and can finally begin to pick up a bit of speed after struggling on the uphill climb for so long...
I was able to place a vacuum hopper close enough to the kill pad (one block down and one block off the edge of it) so that it collects everything (items and xp) but somehow never gets blown off in the explosions. But it sounds like you're using all magical stuff to do your work, which is pretty cool. :)
 
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turbodiesel4598

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Jul 29, 2019
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So I got to the End and forgot to get my bottled End Air, woops. #ThingsToGetDoneTonight. Also when I got to the End I couldn't figure out why there was an army of "Pauls" wrecking the place. It turns out I installed NuclearCraft (which I wanted to try out in lieue of Big Reactors) and that mod adds that silliness by default (configurable).
Oh my goodness - I remember adding that about a year ago, and completely forgot to remove it - I guess I thank you for reminding me to take it out after all this time! Unbelievable...
 

Pyure

Not Totally Useless
Aug 14, 2013
8,334
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Waterloo, Ontario
Cobbleton now sports Mass Fabs. That's not particularly interesting to anyone.

But what people might not know is that basic gates (From BC) have conditions specifically for has/doesn't-have amplifier. Combined with the fact that mass fabs turn off when they receive a redstone signal, and you can do this:
2016-01-30_17.53.13.png 2016-01-30_17.53.02.png

Any time my mass fabs run outta amplifier, I can save energy (if I care) by automatically turning off the mass fabs.