They put me in a box? I'm going to BREAK OUT!

[ICountFrom0]

Looking through my collected pictures, I discovered that I'd done an entire pack and didn't get around to posting any of it. I know 1.12.2 is a long way back, and I know things are pretty quiet but I figure I might as well post things while there's a here to post things into. I'll try to get this one up in short order. It's still better here than imgr...

Breakout

It's a rather novel pack concept, starts you with some custom trickery, and makes you focus on the space you have to work within. You don't deal with packs that often that you really have to work to get any freespace to work in. Reminds me a little of the old Raxpack mantra, "space matters". Of course I found some cheese and made use of it, but mostly I kept within the flavour of the project, even if I didn't keep exactly to the intentions of it in every place.







If you enjoy this, drop in and look at other stories of mine and maybe slap down some likes?

Spoiler: past stories

Small as a puddle, Deep as an OCEANBLOCK

As I'd wrapped up my previous pack and was looking for something fun to do, I saw this and had to give it a try. Admittedly part of the thought was "if HE can do it, I can do it" then I slacked off and he got ahead. I'll try to design things my way and not be overly influenced by what I've...

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Stories of SevTech

I've been seeing the idea of segmented packs, with progression walled off behind one bit or another for a while. Ages of Engineering that I was toying with before is very much tiered. Using the machines of one level, to make the next level item. Ages went further where the crafting chains got...

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Testing myself with Ultimate Alchemy

Testing myself with a side adventure in the middle of playing through Sevtech, I've given myself a chance to try Ultimate, Alchemy. https://minecraft.curseforge.com/projects/ultimate-alchemy It's quite an enjoyable challenge so far. Between updates if you want to have a look at some of the...

forum.feed-the-beast.com

Stories of SevTech

I've been seeing the idea of segmented packs, with progression walled off behind one bit or another for a while. Ages of Engineering that I was toying with before is very much tiered. Using the machines of one level, to make the next level item. Ages went further where the crafting chains got...

forum.feed-the-beast.com

Nether going to give you up

It's a strange feeling, to be prepared to walk away because you are so frustrated, and then become inspired to give things one more try. My adventures in dark grid came to an end rather rapidly and by mistake. I won by accident. Still I had a good time. Still I don't quite trust myself, so...

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Exile to the Dark Grid

You've seen me, I tend to play skyblocks, or themed overworlds. Today I bring you a modpack where it's both. Dark Grid. I'm a fan of Seth Bling, and of Mischief of Mice, so this one was a must. Please do, settle in, enjoy the story, amaze at the pictures, and be generous with the likes if...

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https://forum.feed-the-beast.com/threads/empire-of-one.244199/ (rebuild pending)
https://forum.feed-the-beast.com/threads/skyblock-time-again-ag-skies-2.147320/ (rebuild pending)
https://forum.feed-the-beast.com/threads/1-7-10-worlds-beyond-custom-pack.76116/ (rebuild pending)

Mechworld (TechWorld2 Narration)

One of my forefathers was afraid of portals of all kinds. I think I understand now. Sure, some of the lands in this far place where harsh, but none where unreasonably so, until this time. I found a book, left carelessly, and once I read it, I was pulled in. Sure I'd visited a few ages this...

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Another one of these threads

I've wandered back to the forums, I must have smelled the delicious, delicious brains. Now, instead of my normal habit of playing in a world a while, hitting my frustration level, and then leaving, to never post an update again ... This time I'm on a server. Direwolf20 world. BoP active, but...

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World Diary (FTB Light)

Day ? 1? Again? Took my log with me, I don't know how much use it will be now. I thought I'd just get more of the wood for the floor from that other realm, maybe try the mound in the swamp. Seems life had other plans. That fall was too long, and this is not the world with the trees. It...

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World Diary

Day 1: Forest in sight near this riverside spawn point, looks like a good place to punch wood. Smash a few trees, leave the heads floating to get saplings in a bit but I've noticed surface coal. Wood, planks, crafting table, wooden pick, stone pick, coal, torches. Not a bad start. When the...

forum.feed-the-beast.com

 

[ICountFrom0]

Spoiler: Would you could you in a box

I'm getting used to this. If I don't complete what they wanted me to complete I end up with a harder puzzle to solve before I get another task. This time I found myself in a padded room. Sure, that might be a nice vacation for some folks, but it isn't for me. So lets break out.

Piles of string from wool on the walls. I could make more wool with this, but that would take up space here, and I don't want that. But if I fill my hands with something else I can peal away this wool.

Wood is much less soft. Guess I can't just punch wood here. Looks like they've changed the rules on me a little too. It's okay, I'm used to that. So lets see what I CAN do.

Planks on the other hand, looks like I can take some sticks from those. Because these are less punchable it's not good to spend too much time giving myself splinters and pain. Breaking out means hitting the wood with the stick. Once is chaos, twice is a pattern.

Punching wood didn't work, so of course punching stone wouldn't be good either. Didn't even get splinters this time. Getting trickier with each layer. I can't think of anything much to do with sticks and sting and wool.

Sticks against stone on the other hand let me get flint. Now this is a useful resource. It's not quite stone, but it's something I can make starting tools out of.

Wood hurts a lot less when you have an axe, even if it is a flint one. I can actually keep the planks instead of breaking them now. It's a limited amount of wood, but it's enough to start making a proper start.

Including a crafting table. Chest gives me a place to store things as I experiment and try to figure out just what I'm supposed to be doing.

There's ice in one wall, without a bucket I've got to use it where it is and deal with what it gives me. Straining the water seems to be what I'm meant to do for resources.

Taking out more of the stone and there's a little bit of dirt in the bottom. The coarse dirt in the center is a clear sign to dig under it. Course with the water up there dirt down here won't be useful to me.

So there it is, a small bonus to help things grow faster. Can't break these blocks either. I know the size of the room I have to work in. I know where to get my resources. Now I just have to wait.

Took some of the resources from the first batch of sifting to make more mesh and more strainers. Used string to make enough wool to bring everything up to the level of the water. Seems like a safe enough place to relax and wait. Lots of that in this pack, but on the other hand these are unlimited resources, even if it is a bit slow.

 

[ICountFrom0]

Spoiler: Less a box

I made some hammers, crushed most of the stone that was my last layer I was in, broke some down into dust and sand, and got to sifting. Sitting and sifting while the strainers give me more stone. I'll get enough resources to make more soon.

Flint from the first sifting lets me reinforce to flint stiffened. I could have broken the gravel down into flint myself, might have made some of the early sifts better, but I've got unlimited stone flowing into my nets, a little at a time. All I have to do it wait and I'll have more to sieve.

Iron mesh for the next upgrade, and I've also setup the absorption hopper. Nice to not have to worry about picking up every bit myself. Maybe I should put the crafting table by the crate.

The bonsai pot is a cute little puzzle. Multiple colours of clay, but each of them is possible. Not easy enough to make that I'd want to make more then one for now though. Oak sapling in it means apples sometimes, fuel for furnaces, as well as wood for being able to craft. I could have used the dirt at any time, but I was able to make what I had last.

Cobble gen right into the storage drawer, not fast enough to keep up with demands, but faster than just the water flowing through the filters. The andesite blocks here, you'd think Iron would be good enough, and I've been sieving it out of the gravel at a good rate, but that by itself isn't enough to get out of here.

Diamond shows up only as nuggets, and the normal rules of self symmetry arn't in play here. Diamond will not remember itself and rejoin. The good news is that the nuggets are enough to make the next tier of mesh. Lets me work to get everything I can out of what I have.

I've been neglecting the dirt down here. Mostly just let myself go hungry, sifted what came out of the filters. Could have come down here, let the water flow, and had the seeds grow at any point. I was just forgetful.

Given that I needed something rather unusual for the handle on my ironpick, to break out, perhaps I should have gotten my start earlier. Course while I let everything grow, I just took the time and hammered more, sifted more, and left it to get ready for the next step.

Ironic isn't it? But that's enough joking around, surely there can't be too many more layers to this odd egg I'm encased with. Time to get to work.
{/spoiler}

 

[ICountFrom0]

Spoiler: more a nesting doll

Same setup as before, basically, but with a little bit more room between the slices now. Also taking some time for some upgrades. Not just the bonsai but a hopping one to make things more automatic. The cobblegen is under a drawer that'll do compressed stone for me too, compressed hammer lets me break that down and use the heavy sieve right off. Even spend a little time adding some to the crucible to make a little lava.

Moved the water up and it'll flow through a number of nets quite easily, I can just reach up to take some as I need it from that. Vaccume hopper again this time on a small crate, and I can get the bonus of a little automatic cactus with this setup too. Hand grinder with a bit of quartz is a favorite trick to try to get just a little more out of the scarce resources.

Below where I had room only for a few crops, there's now enough room to keep me pretty well fed. I'm not expecting any more silly tricks like the ironpick but I'm going to do my best not to get caught offguard.

Took me a while to get the heavy mesh up to diamond, but most of my material goes through these now. The lesser ones are really only there if there's something that I'm looking for special that I won't need much of.

Making a bit of witchwater gives me a bit of mycelium over here in one corner, but also a source of a few mushrooms to eat. Sadly I can't make them grow and shatter the walls with them. These blocks are stronger then the ones that have fallen to that kind of trick over the years.

That leads on to netherwart on some soul sand, though I could sift a bit more of this while I'm at it, can't hurt. Can't just ask the world to part and let me escape the stone egg I am in.

Witch water lets me spawn dolls into blazes, and as I get more resources a few others. The blaze drops as dust, but a bit of slime lets me stick it back together, least long enough for everything I might use them for.

Lava infused stone. Place the water next to it and you get a nice piece of obsidian. Course then you need to break it. You get an unlimited amount just for the trouble of breaking it and a single lava bucket, quite worth the trouble as I view it.

Stone barrel with a bucket of lava each also gives you obsidian. Course it also lets you reach netherack and endstone. Not the fastest way to do it, but there's a few more resources locked behind them that can be worth the trouble, if not worth the space to automate it.

A Sieve though, if I don't take up too much space setting this up it'll take less room then the manual sieves, and give me a consistent source of materials that I don't have to work for. Well, I'll have to work, but different work.

Generator, sieve, and now a packager ready to turn the various bits into the chunks I can work with. Just drop them into the furnace and I'll eventually have all the bits I need to escape.

Cobblegen makes cobble, but the sifters want gravel. So a quick bit with a hammer lets me make stacks of it, or automation lets me not have to worry about it anymore.

The so very rare diamond nuggets that I've been using to make the mesh, if I'd thought about it, I'd have saved these earlier. Takes a bit of odd magic from the end, hidden in the endstone to unshatter a diamond in this world. The pick itself uses these, and iron with the obsidian in order to make the reinforced nuggets for the pick. The handle requires me to grind my own ores and make invar dust, so I can smelt the reinforced handle.

Outside this shell is another more durable. The named harvest level though is quite optimistic. Escape. Maybe I'll be able to break out soon.

 

[ICountFrom0]

A quick setup of the most basic of basics. Hammering and sifting around a generator, the good ole hand cranked grinder for making dusts, and batch smelting. Also just a TOUCH of greenery, everybody needs a pet tree. While I took out almost every block, I did leave the glowstone in place, figure breaking it would only lose some of it and I'd just be putting other lights back.

A quick peek into the windows to get an idea of the options. Looks like I'll be expected to do EnderIO at some point. It's a powerful mod, but I don't think it's the best start point. I've got plenty of resources, so the easy ore duplication it offers isn't as intersting.

Actually additions looks like another option. It's powerful too. Works better if I've got a lot of power already though. Really want to be able to power the reconstructor. There's also the tiny chance that you'd get the glitched lens and skip half the pack, and I'd prefer to not do that.

Thermal. A solid starting point. Nothing flashy about it, but I think it has what I need to do the others. I've been given a few gears and the compactor. Also no easy way to make gears, so making gears is probably what I have to use these gears to do.

An improvement in the auto hammering setup that starts with the cobblegenerator. I don't really need to process all the way down to sand as long as I just keep making the materials.

While all that runs, hammer down dust, make clay, take the bonemeal, make the porcelain, make MANY crucibles and fire up the lava production. Mo lava, mo power. I'll be able to stop using those generators and wire up some proper power.

Slowly transitioning from a random collection of stuff, and things, to properly setting up the Thermal machines. Dynamo into power cell, into conduits, and into machines. So that I can make more and more of the machines. Only took me 5 layers to get started.

Melting down the bits, infusing them with the dusts, and it's not long before I've got the ingots of the advanced materials from thermal that the quest wants me to hand in. There really wasn't much that it required me to do in thermal, really just the most basic of the basics.

So, now I've turned them in, I've got another Choice to make it seems. Quick break here though.

 

[ICountFrom0]

This is where everything starts to go off the rails. I spent a long time looking at this, and thinking. To break this, all you need is the reconstructor, lapis, and power. I just have to make my choice. It can't possibly be the exit though.

Actually Additions just happens to be the next one around the circle from Thermal as well. This lets me open the shortcut between the two slices. Don't have to go through the middle anymore once you've opened two.

Course, if you stop and think, the pistons that open the shortcut can move those blocks, so why should I have to wait until I've gotten proper access to them? Double piston setup and pull the blocks out of my way.

The shortcuts are full of skystone. They really didn't want me getting into AE until I'd had my second choice. I can't break out because the walls are still obsidian, but a bit of work and everything I want is open to me.

Botania starts you off with the pure daisy, and while I'm sure I could probably break quite a few things with it, it's not quite what I'm looking for.

On the other side, EnderIO, so given my choice, I've gone with "All of the above". Time to make my own path.

The Thermal starting room is a fine place to pick up some infinity grains, the heat of fire cracking tiny slivers from the bedrock. I've also started moving some of the grass that was under my main platform into this room.

Takes a long while for the grass to grow where I want it, for bait to get me some animals, and for enough infinity to be pulled into the chest so that I don't have to keep refilling the flint and steel. I don't really want to do too much with EnderIO right now, just enough to make a few things easier.

A quick zap with the reconstructor, and I've got Palis. If I'd taken this room first, I probably could just have done this pretty much as soon as I escaped into this space. Without Thermal though I wouldn't keep up with the power demands of Applied Energistics.

Making my own path. Choosing my own choice. First I chose "all of the above" and now I'm picking "DOWN".

This isn't the mock nether I was expecting. Basically just a store room of supplies. As I've already got auto sifting and generation setup it's not giving me much.

Though the red sand does give a few new options. The most valuable thing down here isn't the sand, dust, gravel or even the netherack.

The most valuable thing down here is the space. I'd say this pretty much doubles the amount of space I have to work with. When you've gone off the rails as far as I have, why stop?

Endstone reminds me. I've been silly. There's a better way to make the diamonds, crafting them with an enderpearl is such a waste.

I've had the Factorizer for quite a while, I could have been doing this since I started thermal. That'll let me finish clearing out down there with quite a bit less trouble.

If the skystone was around me the entire time, am I in a giant metorite? Probably not, they don't have wool in the middle. Though if I wanted to survive slamming into the ground, maybe I would make a giant padded chamber in the middle. I doubt though that this was a Project Meteor situation though.

A few small steps, fluix, a press, a core, and then the screens. Once it lets you start Applied Energistics this place is nice about not limiting you in what your being allowed to do with it. So much nicer to have all my storage in one place.

 

[ICountFrom0]

I always do this given half a chance. Each of the woods and the largest container I can put them on. I can honestly tell you that I almost never use these woods for anything but fuel, but I always like having them.

Amusing story here. Used bait to get the chicken, got it onto the hopper, but a baby zombie spawned and got out, then got onto the chicken through the glass with a diagonal. Hitboxes, so magical.

The villager zombies do spawn, but rather rarely. Since I've got the oak tree, I figured I might as well cure one of them.

First one I cured had jam for me. Not the most useful villager, but I figured I'd keep him around.

Audiophile didn't have much to offer me, but it's not hard to make noteblocks, so this is at least another source of emeralds. Without being able to see the sky, I can't get a village going, and the spawn rate is so low, I might never get a useful villager.

Now I've got enough machines up here to replace the furnace and grindstone downstairs, and it's so nice to not have to grow crystals in water. I can just keep building and rebuilding my systems larger and larger.

With the entire basement cleared out to bedrock, I've got plenty of room to work with. Figure I can setup a few things down here and let them run while I work on other projects upstairs.

Big chest and a lot of strainers, the gravel and other siftable materials arn't as important anymore, but the other more rare items will be useful, it'll just take me a while to get enough of them.

Pop upstairs, make a lot of bonemeal, make a lot of magical fertilizer, and settle in to make all of the flowers that I'm going to need to complete the entire botania chapter.

Pure wood, pure stone. I'll make a few stacks as well, and then return to the project.

Not enough slime downstairs for everything I want to do. So a quick little machine to make the riceslime. Internal tank that lets me automate around the water bucket, always a treat when I can just do things this easily.

More machines means more power, so I needed to come down here and rebuild my lava generation system, even larger then the last two times. The emerald upgrade keeps them all nicely full of stone. This time it's pyrothium making things as hot as possible.

I've automated both the regular and heavy sieve, though the regular one isn't quite as useful, but 7 times the resources from twice the work is better then only six times.

The compressor lets me compact the gravel into compressed gravel for the heavy sieve and the transposers are faster than a simple pipe would be.

Rebuilt and expanded the AE2 system, the improved lava production gives enough power to actually keep everything running properly. Unlimited resources in, vast storage, and all the machines I could want.

Not every resource, the pure daisy gives me slow access to snow. It's got a few uses in the pack.

Unlimited snow from a golem, another resource that I won't need to worry about again.

Now I've got enough cryothium for any future project, no matter what it might be. Not as useful as the pyrothium that makes my lava, but it has uses just the same.

Spotted the magma set while I was looking through armor, almost trivial to make but powerful even compared to diamond armor.

That witchwater that I've kept from rather early in my progress, always been dangerous to pull it out, what with the risks of super charged creepers. Still as long as I narrow it down to just skeletons, and then convert it's not too risky. Isn't like I can just ignore nether stars, progress demands them eventually, inevitably.