Trying to make FTB longer and more rewarding

[seanbrockest]

My wife and I have played a LOT of FTB. Our latest server is coming to a close (modified version of direwolf 1.64) simply because we feel we have done everything to the extent we want to.

I'd like to make the next game take us longer to get to the "bored" phase. I'd welcome any hints or suggestions.

Here's what I'm planning so far (I will be working on this tonight, with hopes of starting up tomorrow)

Starting with Direwolf 1.7.10
Adding "Metallurgy"
Adding "Hardcore Ender Expansion"
Adding "Random Things"
Adding "QuarryPlus"

Disabling ender-tanks (I always exploit them too much)
Disabling infinite water (so water works like lava)

Any other suggestions?

I'm also open to questions to improve feedback.

 

[rhn]

Build more stuff? Carpenter's Blocks and Microblocks and just be creative.

Also, if you value longevity, do not enchant your QuarryPlus with Fortune or Unbreaking! Efficiency is fine as it then becomes an excellent power sink.

 

[seanbrockest]

Also, if you value longevity, do not enchant your QuarryPlus with Fortune or Unbreaking! Efficiency is fine as it then becomes an excellent power sink.

OOh, i like that! I'm gonna do that!

EDIT: OOOH! Blood magic is back! This will give me a LOT to do!

 

[tedyhere]

You could make surviving a touch more difficult by adding Pams Harvestcraft, Hunger Overhaul and Spice of Life. These three together make food meaningful and diversity in food a must for surviving. If that's too much remove Hunger Overhaul and leave Spice of Life and Harvestcraft. This will extend the early game a bit as you work on making farms to keep yourself fed well.

 

[Wagon153]

Gregtech will slow your progression a lot. I suggest doing Beyond Reality instead of DW20.

 

[Golrith]

You could always try out my OmegaDawn pack (or use it as a foundation). It's designed for more survival challenge, and longer gameplay via tweaking recipes/configs.
It's taken me a minecraft game week to get a TiC Smeltry built and my first iron pickaxe, plus 5 deaths. But it's felt more rewarding getting to that point, as there hasn't been a dull moment during that week.

 

[MigukNamja]

Gregtech will slow your progression a lot. I suggest doing Beyond Reality instead of DW20.

I second this. I, too, became bored with DW20 and DW20-like packs.

So, I put aside my initial dislike of GregTech and gave it a shot. I now love it. I've been playing @Jason McRay 's excellent Infitech (for 1.6.4) and Infitech2 (for 1.7.10) for over 6 months now and am loving it. This is by *far* the longest I've stuck with a single pack.

Just to give you a taste of how long this pack is, I've been playing my current world for about 6 weeks now, playing on average *ahem* 30 hours per week *ahem*, and have only recent had the materials and technology to contemplate an AE2 system and a BigReactors Steam Turbine. It took me 3 weeks - with focus from start to finish - to get Ethanol going. I'm still a long way from a Wither Boss farm, for example.

To put that into context, I'm usually Wither Boss-farming in a DW20 pack in ~2 weeks.

 

[Crhymez]

You should try "The Dark Trilogy"
Its one of the best pack i have played in a while
http://forum.feed-the-beast.com/threads/1-7-10-the-dark-trilogy-public-beta.51854/

 

[Double-D]

Or instead of trying another mod pack you could impose a rigid set of game play rules along the lines of the Refugee to Regent Challenge. It is very rigid an limits your introduction to tech very slowly.

 

[rhn]

I second this. I, too, became bored with DW20 and DW20-like packs.

So, I put aside my initial dislike of GregTech and gave it a shot. I now love it. I've been playing @Jason McRay 's excellent Infitech (for 1.6.4) and Infitech2 (for 1.7.10) for over 6 months now and am loving it. This is by *far* the longest I've stuck with a single pack.

Just to give you a taste of how long this pack is, I've been playing my current world for about 6 weeks now, playing on average *ahem* 30 hours per week *ahem*, and have only recent had the materials and technology to contemplate an AE2 system and a BigReactors Steam Turbine. It took me 3 weeks - with focus from start to finish - to get Ethanol going. I'm still a long way from a Wither Boss farm, for example.

To put that into context, I'm usually Wither Boss-farming in a DW20 pack in ~2 weeks.

Must admit I kinda liked TPPI for the same reason. It is possibly not the same Hardmode, but more an "Easy Hardmode", but everything is very nicely balanced and you will need to work quite a lot longer to achieve things.

Disabling ender-tanks (I always exploit them too much)

For example in TPPI, Endertanks have been rebalanced to require the Enderium tier tanks from TE, making them much much less trivial to make and early game than usual, and more of an midgame alternative to tesseracts. Same with Ender Chests needing Tesseract Frames.

 

[seanbrockest]

Wow you guys, thanks for all the input!

Wow, direwolf 1.7.10 is buggy as hell. I cant even get a default server set up, adding, removing, or changing anything makes it even harder. I can load single player fine, but running a dedicated server, NOPE.

I'm really liking what I hear about these non direwolf packs, I'm gonna try both beyond reality and infitech2, then get started!

Thanks guys!