The industrial revolution, but without Thermal Expansion

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Robijnvogel

Well-Known Member
May 8, 2013
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So I decided to challenge myself to a survival playthrough of a tech-themed (private) modpack, that did not include Thermal Expansion, Dynamics or Foundation. This 1.7.10 modpack was composed by a friend of mine and as he has done just the barest amount of config editing, it still feels pretty much like a kitchen sink modpack.

The challenges in this modpack, for me, are to find other ways of dealing with problems I usually solve with Thermal Expansion. This includes constructs like a cobble-gen, obsidian generator, power-gen, continuous auto-crafting and probably more.
I will try to make these setups as simple as possible and I'd really like feedback on how to improve them.
Some other mods that the modpack contains include:
  • Tinkers' Construct (with Iguana TT)
  • Immersive Engineering
  • EnderIO
  • Open Blocks
  • Extra Utilities
  • Logistics Pipes
  • Steve's Carts
  • ComputerCraft
Some of the noteworthy mods that are not included in the pack:
  • Minefactory Reloaded
  • Big Reactors
  • Draconic Evolution

Cobblestone generation was pretty easy to automate once I got a hold of some Redstone, after which an Extra Utilities Item Transfer Node with a World Upgrade was made into an easy cobblegen. A water pump, replacing the Aqueous Accumulator, was constructed just as easily by using a Liquid Transfer Node instead.

Obsidian proved a little harder. With Iguana TT, you either need Steel, for which you need a Railcraft, Immersive Engineering or Industrialcraft Blast Furnace, or Pig Iron, for which you need an Emerald, which I did not have. With Thermal Expansion I used to use a Terrain Smasher crafted with an Invar Pickaxe to obtain my first Obsidian. Luckily, Open Blocks' Block Breaker proved not to be much different to use, however it did require a Diamond Pickaxe to craft.

Afterwards, I set up a rather vanilla-ish obsidian generator somewhere in a corner of my base, using this same Block Breaker, an Extra Utilities Redstone Clock and a Buildcraft Flood Gate, placing down Lava. A Vanilla Dispenser would have been a hassle with maintaining the Buckets, preventing them from getting spit out when empty, effectively wasting a lot of iron.
Also, putting the Redstone Clock right beside the Flood Gate, meant that the Flood Gate updated more often, causing the whole obsidian generator to be more efficient.

I have, as of yet, not found a way to generate Smooth Stone out of Water and Lava without using power, fuel or tool durability, like the Igneous Extruder was able to.

I had already used Minefactory Reloaded, Forestry and Steve's Carts for my tree farms in the past, however this time I decided to go for EnderIO.
Initially, I intended for the tree farm to use a Tinkers' Construct flint hatchet, that could be repaired by a single auto-crafter, of which quite a few are available in this modpack, replacing a Cyclic Assembler. However, apparently it's impossible to extract a tool out of the tool slot of an EnderIO farm, so I had to go another route instead.

For a Vanilla Stone Axe I'd need wood and cobblestone, the first of which the farm would provide and a cobblegen the latter. Furthermore I would need three crafting steps, wood to planks, planks to sticks and sticks and cobblestone into an axe. The EnderIO autocrafter is a nice machine, however it is pretty expensive, costing more than 2 gold bars, a zombie
head and quite a bit of iron. The Project Red autocrafter is a different story entirely. It needs Electrotine energy and it can craft multiple recipes at once. The problem with this machine, however, is that its input needs to be micromanaged very carefully to prevent it from clogging up, since its input and output share the same inventory. Also, since the world was generated before adding Project Red, we did not have any Electrotine at our disposal.

Buildcraft's Auto Workbench, however, was perfect for the job. I needed three of them, which was no problem since they are cheap to craft. They were slow, which was no problem, because I only needed a new axe every minute or so. As a bonus, they do not consume any energy whatsoever.

PS. In case you're wondering. Yes, the tree farm is powered by an EnderIO Stirling Generator, which is the most efficient coal-fueled RF-generator in the modpack for as far as I have found. When upgraded with an Octadic Capacitor, it's even 4% more efficient than Extra Utilies' Survivalist Generator.

At the moment I am using Buildcraft fuel in Combustion Engines for my main power generation, however I am working on switching to the more sustainable Immersive Engineering biofuel solution that Inaeo already mentioned. I already have an EnderIO Farming Station set up to harvest melons, of which half can be crafted into seeds later on.

In a creative world, I already tested and found that an EnderIO farm was passively using too much RF/t for a net profit by the Immersive Engineering Biofuel Generator, which is why the default config values for EnderIO farms were tweaked. Passive energy consumption was changed from 40 to 1 RF/t. Active energy consumption was multiplied by 50.

[I will posts results when I get them.]

Does anyone have an idea on a substitute for Thermal Expansion's Autonomous Activator? Specifically for mining blocks with a Fortune III effect.
 
Last edited:

Inaeo

New Member
Jul 29, 2019
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Cyclic Assemblers can be replaced by EnderIO Crafters (or RFTools Crafters, which I prefer even to the TE alternative, if that happens to be available). Once you get some infrastructure, Logistics Pipes can handle all your autocrafting needs.

As mentioned, XU Transfer Nodes with World Interaction Upgrade is one of the most powerful cobble gen options ever.

Depending on your configs, you may be able to automate Obsidian in the Tinker's Smeltery.

On the power gen side of things, EnderIO has a few options for power generation with the Stirling Generator (which upgrade easy enough with capacitors for better fuel economy and better power output) and a few others that require more infrastructure. You may find XU to have some of your best early game options for power, and Immersive Engineering has the Diesel Generator for a nice 4k/t if you decide to build a few of the needed multiblocks to support it.

For those that moved to 1.10 before TE was ready, it's easier to imagine life without having it. Just remember that even with the mods you've listed, you have more than one way to do just about everything you need already.
 

Inaeo

New Member
Jul 29, 2019
2,158
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Pro tip I learned from the forums: you can use a Tinker's Hammer to mine Obsidian quickly by using a block of coal as the piece you're actually mining. Since coal block and Obsidian have the same hardness, the hammer will break the coal quickly, taking the adjacent Obsidian with it. Depending on your version of Tinker's, your hammer may need to be of the correct mining level to harvest the Obsidian, but at one point it would break it regardless.

If Tinker's Tweaks is in the pack, definitely check the config for Obsidian in a Smeltery. Automation made easy.
 

Robijnvogel

Well-Known Member
May 8, 2013
533
421
89
Obsidian can not be made in a smeltery. I tested it. That would also let you skip a tier in the Iguana Tweaks TiC chain (bronze)

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