Why AE2 feels punishing (the Certus Quartz need)

[Benie76]

Pack: Direwolf20 1.3.1

Trying to get into AE2. Been trying to follow the fragmented video of direwolf20 trying to explain what I need to do. "Fragmented" meaning, he isn't explaining "You need this for this, this, and this" in a Survival setting. Mainly, he never shows the recipe for the pipes, or the Vibration Generator..thing. I really wish there was an updated video for n00bs into AE2 who want to get into it.

Anyway, the reason I feel AE2 is punishing, is simply the insane need for Certus Quartz, and the fact it's in such a broad area(between the levels of 69-17) and doesn't show as frequent. It's about as rare to see one as .. well, almost Diamond.
I need quartz to make the growth things, so I'll have growable Certus Quartz. That would solve my issue. Yet I also need charged quartz for that.. oh, look. I need more quartz to make the Flux Crystals.. and don't forget the pipes and the Energy Acceptor to convert RF to ME.. just, ugh. It feels more trouble than it's worth, and wasn't made for even mid-game. More like late-game.

I feel I'm between early to mid game. Perhaps at mid game. I don't even have the battery from AE2 yet, as I'm short on Flux Crystals. And I can't make more because I'm low on Charged Certus Quartz.. and I can't make more because I'm low on Certus! It's seriously making me pull my hair out how needy this mod is.

There's got to be a better way to get quartz. Or at least not need so much.

 

[rhn]

AFAIK it is not actually AE2 that decides the spawns of the quartz in the FTB packs, but instead the COFH oregen. It could be that the generation of it is scaled back a bit too far, but you need to keep in mind that AE is a very powerful endgame automation solution. It needs to cost a lot to build compared to other solutions to be balanced. And there are tons of ways to automate mining on large scales...

Villagers will some times trade Certus quartz(at least in AE1). Bees can be bred to produce it. MFR laser drills produces it(Cyan Focus increases odds). Probably more options that I cannot think of atm.

 

[Benie76]

I know it's supposed to be expensive, but I didn't think it would be so ridiculous to hardly seeing any Certus Quartz.
And automating mining isn't exactly an option for me. My main power is using lava from the Nether with two Magmatic Dynamos.

And bees, there's only a 15% chance.

 

[ctate]

It sounds like this is more a matter of your particular modpack making AE (much?) more expensive than it normally is.

Remember that just about every recipe that uses quartz crystals can use the pure version instead, so you have a multiplier working for you if you religiously use the pure version all the time. They're very slow to grow without the [high-power] growth accelerator, but it does work.

I also suspect that if you're in a position to bulk-extract lava in the Nether, you probably do have the resources to do automated mining; it's a matter of patience. Quarries run just fine at 80 or 160 RF/t (though it's annoying to have to convert to MJ).

 

[Benie76]

I do get that Pure quartz can be used for most recipes. As I said, I'm trying to get the growth accelerators. Yet I also need the cables to connect to them, plus a converter to convert RF to ME. I wanted to get four of the accelerators, like in direwolf's video (and a friend of mine also did). If I get that, I feel I should be good.

Also, the friend of mine has an Ender Quarry with the Silk Touch upgrade, and the quarry takes an insane amount of power. So...
He also uses the same modpack.

 

[darkeshrine]

I always try to invest into an early alumite pick with fortune before i go on my large mining trip. You can easily mine some iron, aluminum, and copper for a bucket, portable tank, and crecent hammer. Lava and Water in a Tinkers' smeltery makes obsidian for alumite. After my first big mining trip, I tend to end up with fortune iii and a few stacks of certus.

Edit: Also, for easy access certus, ravines tend to have a few vanes.

 

[Inaeo]

I do get that Pure quartz can be used for most recipes. As I said, I'm trying to get the growth accelerators. Yet I also need the cables to connect to them, plus a converter to convert RF to ME. I wanted to get four of the accelerators, like in direwolf's video (and a friend of mine also did). If I get that, I feel I should be good.

Also, the friend of mine has an Ender Quarry with the Silk Touch upgrade, and the quarry takes an insane amount of power. So...
He also uses the same modpack.

Turtles can mine large areas with only regular furnace fuels. The recipe is filthy cheap. Finding (or even writing) a basic mining program isn't too difficult, but I believe they come standard with a few programs that could do the job. You could consider a BC quarry (not as clean, but damn effective), or even just a mining well if you're strapped. You don't need to jump straight to an upgraded ender quarry, as clearly you aren't ready to power it or deal with the incoming resources. Baby steps. Hell, I find an abundance of Certus whilst spelunking (caving) in my Infinity world (generated mostly in 1.2.1, now on 1.4.1).

Patience is the key in AE2. No longer can you have your ME network set up and running as soon as you have power. It has been rebalanced during the 1.7 rewrite. Some love it. Some hate it. Most agree that AE1 was far too cheap for what it allowed, and AE2 is trying to learn from that. It takes time to find the resources. It takes time to grow crystal. It takes time to find presses (which are in a Skystone meteor with obsidian mining level). Hell, it even takes time to think about setting it up to properly manage your channels at first.

Once you have your automated mining, you'll have Certus. Then you can use it (even inefficiently at first) to set up the basics. After that, you're golden. I set my ME up as basic storage to hold my mining spoils, and slowly worked to add basic processing and crafting. The first things I taught my ME to make was itself. Once that was done, it was as simple as expanding my mining operations until I had the resources to complete the job (which is still a work in progress after two months).

While you're waiting on things, make either JABBA Barrels or TE Caches and begin sorting your stuff into a basic barrel wall. Then, when you have the infrastructure, you can just plop on storage busses. Bam! Dedicated ME storage location that isn't taking up precious space on your drives.

 

[gold49]

Also, the friend of mine has an Ender Quarry with the Silk Touch upgrade, and the quarry takes an insane amount of power. So...
He also uses the same modpack.

There is your problem, your friend is using a upgrade. A un-upgraded quarry can function pretty well with two or three magmatic dynamos. No, it will not be as efficient harvesting ores like diamond/certus/ect. but it will work and will work well. One decent sized quarry should get you plenty of resources once it is done (and if you are on a server that allows the chunkloading function of the enderquarry you could just leave it on overnight, assuming you have a decent storage and power solution (barrels and upgraded chest spam works pretty well for this, and I assume you have lava pumping from the nether. Even if you do not, XU drums can feed dynamos for a good amount of time, speak from personal experience)).

Not going to go into certus quartz/AE2 discussions, I have opinions but do not have much first hand experience so I will just leave it at that.

 

[ctate]

Oh man, yeah; Ender Quarries are end-game tech for mining. You aren't anywhere near that.

Direwolf20 1.7.10 has ComputerCraft, doesn't it? Like Inaeo said: make a mining turtle. The 'tunnel' intrinsic makes branch mining super easy, even without resorting to fancy quarry programs that you can find out on the web. They also go through obsidian and sky stone like it's dirt. They're my go-to early game mining enhancement of choice.

 

[rhn]

And automating mining isn't exactly an option for me. My main power is using lava from the Nether with two Magmatic Dynamos.

Then I would say you are VERY early in the early game. 2x dynamos is like the power I would expect to have going within the first 5 hours.
You cannot expect a modpack to be balanced around you instantly getting access to everything if you dont put an effort into getting it. Put some work into getting some more power, get some automated mining going etc.

And bees, there's only a 15% chance.

Ehm... what??? Yes there might be a 15% base chance per bee tick(27.5sec) to produce the certus quartz, but if you know anything about bees you will know that you can boost production with Alvearies, frames, production speed traits etc. A base chance of 15% is quite high and it is quite easy to raise the actual chance to 100%(Fast production in an alveary with 3 frames would do it).

 

[PawnedSauce]

Yeah quartz is somewhat a pain - you can try with first going off with a reactor then using MFR Lasers to get certus

 

[malicious_bloke]

Magical crops.

Problem solved.

 

[ScottulusMaximus]

I feel I'm between early to mid game. Perhaps at mid game.

My main power is using lava from the Nether with two Magmatic Dynamos.

You are so not mid game.. Patience and do some branch mining higher up. There's PLENTY of quartz around, you shouldn't even be thinking about AE until you've got stacks of the stuff and then it's the power draw that will get you. AE's biggest headache for me is the nether quartz... Until I got bees.

 

[Ieldra]

That's really odd, OP. Of the things I am occasionally short of when playing with AE2, Certus Quartz is not on the list. You need to mine more before you can even think of building an efficient ME network. As I mentioned elsewhere: my personal guideline is if you feel you can't spare half a stack of diamonds to make engineering processors, you're not ready. If you don't generate enough power to require second-tier energy conduits, you're not ready. AE2 is not an early-game mod. If you treat it like one it will only lead to frustration.

 

[Zarkov]

And bees, there's only a 15% chance.

You have access to Gendustry in the modpack you are playing. It's slightly resource heavy on diamonds, etc. but in return makes bee breeding much less tedious and random.

You can also rather quickly get an output from your bees that actually is useful, with production upgraded industrial apiaries.

Though I would recommend holding off with Gendustry until you have a bit more power production.

 

[Bibble]

Personally, I quite like the balance mechanisms in place. There's the thing that you can't really do anything until you have found the inscription templates and charged certus quartz. By that time, I usually fin that I've got a decent stock of quartz, and the other materials to build a rudimentary (read: controller-less) system, with enough storage to replace my chests.

When I get to the auto-mining stage, there's enough to make an auto-processing. Once you get to that stage, certus quartz is rarely a problem.

I think that the problem you are expressing is that you are attempting to do precisely what all of these mechanics are in place to prevent, which is power-game towards AE, at the expense of other areas of the game. This is made painful because AE is not intended to be early game, in any way. It's set up to be viable at around the same time that logistics pipes becomes viable.

There are methods in place for early game inventory management, but AE isn't it.

 

[GreenZombie]

Pack: Direwolf20 1.3.1

Trying to get into AE2. Been trying to follow the fragmented video of direwolf20 trying to explain what I need to do. "Fragmented" meaning, he isn't explaining "You need this for this, this, and this" in a Survival setting. Mainly, he never shows the recipe for the pipes, or the Vibration Generator..thing. I really wish there was an updated video for n00bs into AE2 who want to get into it.

@Direwolf20 has a mod spotlight on AE2 that covers all that. The mod spotlights he makes are generally way more in depth than the lets play coverage where he expects the basics of the mods to be known and concentrates on how to hook them up to achieve complicated automation tasks.

Anyway, the reason I feel AE2 is punishing, is simply the insane need for Certus Quartz, and the fact it's in such a broad area(between the levels of 69-17) and doesn't show as frequent. It's about as rare to see one as .. well, almost Diamond.
I need quartz to make the growth things, so I'll have growable Certus Quartz. That would solve my issue. Yet I also need charged quartz for that.. oh, look. I need more quartz to make the Flux Crystals.. and don't forget the pipes and the Energy Acceptor to convert RF to ME.. just, ugh. It feels more trouble than it's worth, and wasn't made for even mid-game. More like late-game.

The one time I did try AE2 in the very early game, Certus Quartz was an issue. Fortune III obviously helps when mining certus, and the forge dictionary equivalance with nether quartz for a lot of uses also alleviates pressure. However, it requires zero existing AE infrastructure to grind up certus quartz, combine it with sand, and grow the results in a puddle of water to double your effective supply. It does take a very long time so when I am bootstrapping AE in the very early game I get this going even before I go searching for presses and then get busy making farms and stuff.

I feel I'm between early to mid game. Perhaps at mid game. I don't even have the battery from AE2 yet, as I'm short on Flux Crystals. And I can't make more because I'm low on Charged Certus Quartz.. and I can't make more because I'm low on Certus! It's seriously making me pull my hair out how needy this mod is.

There's got to be a better way to get quartz. Or at least not need so much.

Most mods are needy at this point. Making a mining bag and possibly the Tinkers Construct Knapsack and going mining until all your storage is full is necessary to supply you with the iron, gold, diamonds and certus you need for AE recipes.[/quote][/QUOTE]

 

[Baron_Falcon]

It sounds like perhaps your early game strategy could use some refining. Particularly use of Tinkers construct, reactors and quarry.

My personal strategy early game is first get Tinkers hammer and excavator,( and get a smeltery going to make tools and early ore doubling). This is the only way to efficiently mine manually in my opinion. I will upgrade these several times before getting quarry and I usually try to get silk touch as soon as possible. I used to go for cobalt and manylyn but I've discovered shiny metal is actually better for tools and sword and doesnt require a trip to the nether. My early game power is half dozen survival generators (these are SUPER CHEAP and super efficient) direct connected (no conduit etc) to a pulverizer/furnace. Pulverizer first ofc, very early i will often have a pulverizer feeding a vanilla furnace that outputs to a chest that feeds a bank of barrels. My power strategy is to go straight from survival generators to a small reactor, I stopped using dynamos a long time ago. At the same time, I'm mining for diamonds to build a quarry. Once I have a small reactor I place it one level down under base, and a quarry down one more so the reactor can power early machines and early quarry below. Quarry outputs to chest that branches out into barrels and trash can for junk. Since AE is so much later, at this point barrels will be your friend. After that the Draconic chest is a beast until you get the AE going. By the time you run the quarry once you will have enough materials to build an AE if you have explored and gotten all the plates, it usually takes running quarry twice to get enough draconic dust to make a chest.

So, to recap.

Tinkers hammer and excavator.
Branch mine like crazy on several levels down to level 10.
Pulveriser/furnace powered by survival generators.
Barrels for storage.
small reactor
quarry
AE

Hope that helps Thats just one way, but it's the strategy I've refined after many games and I can get to a reactor powered quarry and AE .
very quickly this way. Another mod I try to get going early is Botania for the sojourners sash and magnet ring. The sash is an easy way early game to make exploring and just getting around much much faster and easier, step up one block, jump up two and much faster. It's very very easy to get to that level in Botania.

 

[Baron_Falcon]

There is your problem, your friend is using a upgrade. A un-upgraded quarry can function pretty well with two or three magmatic dynamos. No, it will not be as efficient harvesting ores like diamond/certus/ect. but it will work and will work well. One decent sized quarry should get you plenty of resources once it is done (and if you are on a server that allows the chunkloading function of the enderquarry you could just leave it on overnight, assuming you have a decent storage and power solution (barrels and upgraded chest spam works pretty well for this, and I assume you have lava pumping from the nether. Even if you do not, XU drums can feed dynamos for a good amount of time, speak from personal experience)).

Not going to go into certus quartz/AE2 discussions, I have opinions but do not have much first hand experience so I will just leave it at that.

I would build a small on site reactor before I would waste my time with dynamos. A reactor with 3 cores will put out several times more power than a few dynamos for a lot less work keeping it running and reactors are pretty cheap IMO. However, by the time you have an ender quarry, you should have a large base reactor and tesseracs, so that point is moot. Dynamos powering an ender quarry seems like wood wheels on a race car. jk no hate intended.

 

[Daniel_USA]

I can get certus just fine it is the massive amounts of Nether Quartz that's killing my AE advancements.