Ya i know right but Gregtech does kinda make sense by making “Vanilla” Ic2's macerater cost more because after all it does double you output
Just acknowledging, but, while GregTech is included in FTB and does make the solar panel recipe expensive (along with a few others), the macerator retains the original recipe by default, so that point is kinda null. Aside from that, it only doubles output for ores, and you can already get more than that in vanilla although it does require an enchanting table -- silk touch to mine all ores, until you can use a Fortune II pickaxe. In fact, Fortune even results in more diamonds -- the macerator is useless for diamonds, redstone, etcetera.
Besides, even with GregTech making the macerator more expensive, you can just get a pulverizer
almost as easily, which does the same thing just with BC energy instead (which I find even easier to obtain than IC energy most of the time).
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If I were to just add a large group of compatible mods to a SSP client, non-modpack, it'd probably have IC2, Buildcraft, Thermal Expansion, Rei's, RP2, EE3, Xycraft, Metallurgy, Treecap., Forestry, Mo' Creatures, Factorization, Nether Ores, Railcraft, Steve's Carts, Wireless Redstone, Additional Pipes, Logistics Pipes, Iron Chests, Ender Storage, Computer Craft, Balkon's Weapons Mod, MAtmos, Inventory Tweaks, ExtraBiomes XL, Damage Indicators, Optifine, NEI, and obviously all the requirements for these (ChickenBones, Forge, etc.)
Majority of these do work together just fine, and also support SMP, so that's just my preferences. I'm not really too big on dimension mods. I liked Aether and NetherCraft, and Twilight Forest was okay. MystCraft is fun, but only if you have the space to store all the ages (or a server with enough resources to handle processing several different ages at once). Otherwise it's just a nuisance, especially with the new potions -- although they are configurable, thankfully. I'm mostly happy with things that add to the Nether and make it more worthwhile, and Metallurgy even goes further by adding ores to the End too. Otherwise, stick to one world and just add various different mods that focus on entirely different things.
I realized in my post on the last page (the last post of page 2 even) that I never really did elaborate on what I meant by the different possibilities. When Tekkit first rolled around, and was the most well known modded server (a lot of people didn't know how to mod servers, so having a modpack do the work for you saved the effort for a lot of people -- Tekkit just happened to be the first, really well known client for this), it did exactly that. Say you had 5 people on your server. One could go entirely industrial and focus on IC2, building various machines to get a lot of materials, generate energy for tesla coils, or mass fabricators to create anything you need, etcetera. Another could go with Forestry, setting up automated farms, beekeeping, and green energy. Someone else could go entirely on Equivalent Exchange, relying on 'magic' to whet their appetite for material gains, through transmutation tablets, energy collectors, and so forth. Fourth person? Go around hunting mobs with guns and flails, halberds and grenades, all from Balkon's Weapons mod. Fifth person? Build an elaborate sorting system or transportation systems using RailCraft, or even roller coasters. Hell, you can have a sixth person still doing something different and playing around with ComputerCraft.
While I like interconnecting mods like how Forestry sort of adds to Buildcraft (as does Thermal Expansion), I like the separation too. GregTech "adds" to IC2, but to me, really isn't even all that notable on it's own. In fact, it's appealing to people who want to make IC2 more difficult, but it's pretty much just a mod for a mod. I'd almost never use it as I feel I get enough out of IC2's machines that I rarely even use to begin with, and I just don't feel the more difficult recipes makes it worth using. On the other hand, the additional pipes are extremely useful for Buildcraft as it allows more possibilities, not only with transporting items but wireless conductive pipes making it so much easier to make clean, hidden power sources for engines. But that's just personal preference -- I can do without any mod-extending mods mostly, and just do a collection of vastly different mods that have no relation, because if I get bored of one thing, I can do something completely different. But if it does take a mod and add more to it, it needs to be enough to be worth my time, something I might actually get to experience. GregTech feels like it's something I'd never notice until I already completed everything else, due to the incredibly expensive recipes, and by then... what would I even use it for? I'unno, I guess that's just me though. It feels out of place compared to everything else. Most mods have functions you'll use without having to obtain riches on the level of Gilgamesh.
My apologies for the tl;dr. I tend to rant sometimes. It's a habit I need to break, but, whatever.~
