Age of Engineering Guide: Ages 7-9

This is a continuation from Age of Engineering Guide: Ages 4-6. It has been broken into multiple parts because of the limit on number of crafting grids per article.

Task 7.1 Replication using UU matter and Iridium production
This task is quite expensive, but the rewards are fantastic. Most of what we have been doing over the last 2 ages leads up to this point.

Scanner
Build a Scanner, and connect it to power. Place the Pattern Storage (that you just made in age 6) directly next to it. Now begin scanning things that you would like to make from UU matter. I suggest all of the following choices:

* Sturdy Casing (~6.401 mB) * Machine Frame (~12.504 mB) * Machine Block (~7.101 mB) * Machine Chassis (~8.840 mB) * Basic Capacitor (~4.723 mB) * Calculator Assembly (~0.062 mB) * Power Cube (~0.180 mB) * Iridium Ore (120 mB)

You can find a full list of replication prices here:

* https://docs.google.com/document/d/1MxHwK9dF2ZdpVEcz90cfb5F9fvqTvlUJC97e4BETAEA/edit

After the scanning process is complete (approximately a minute), click the far-right button to store the pattern to your storage. The item you scanned will be lost, but you will be able to reproduce it once you have the replicator.

Replicator
Build 3 Teleporters, and then use them to build one Replicator. Place it so that is touching your pattern storage, and connect it to power. From its UI, select an item you would like to make, and then click the center button (the big green arrow). It should be created.

In addition to iridum ore (120 mB), iridium shards can also be scanned. If you have turned all your shards to ore, and you have 8 shards left, you may want to scan one, so that you can use the other 7 for making one more ore.

If you have 4 iridium ore, then don't waste one by scanning it. You'll lose it needlessly, because the molecular transformer is a much more efficient way to generate iridium.

If you have less than 4 iridium ore, though, then scan one, and then replicate it until you have 4. It's expensive, but necessary.

Molecular Transformer
Build yourself a Molecular Transformer and connect it to power. Like the mass fab, it can consume all the power you can give it. Also, it is not associated with any tier, so packets larger than 512 EU will not make it explode.

The main reason you are building this is for iridium, but do notice that it can create clay out of cobblestone also, which is quite handy!

You will need a lot of iridium in the future, so once you are set on UU matter (1000 mb is good for a while), pump all your power into making iridium. You'll need 16 iridium to get to age 8, and much more after that.

Task 7.2: Pure Certus Quartz
This task is very easy.

Make 64 Certus Quartz Seeds. Get a block of water and drop them in, and let them grow. It will take many hours for them to get to 100%, so you really want to start this now.

Task 7.3: Void Resource Miner
In age 6, if you skipped making a void ore miner, you should probably make it now. If you did make it, then this is the time to make the void resource miner. You can either make an entirely new structure, or simply change out the main controller block from your ore miner. But you want to get this running now, so it has a chance to generate mica for you.

You will want to use the white lens for maximizing the amount of Mica you get.

Once you have a bit of Mica, it is probably worth it to swap out the base modifiers with something else. I'd recommend changing 1 to an accuracy modifier, and the other 3 to speed modifiers. With higher tiers, you will want to continue using a single accuracy modifier, and just speed modifiers for the rest.

The accuracy modifier needs 5 mica, and the speed modifiers need 2. But the speed modifiers feel more expensive because they require 36 gold each.

Task 7.4: Storage Scanner (RFTools) (Optional)
This thing is amazing. It is a crafting station, but it can scan all your nearby chests, and let you pull items from them for your crafting, even if they are not directly connected! It will be obsolete once we unlock AE2, but since machine blocks are so cheap now, I found it worthwhile making one.

Task 7.5: MFSU (optional)
An MFSU is fairly expensive to make, but now seems like the best time to do so.

My preference is to use Glass Fibre Cables at this point, so that you can use just one power source to connect all your machines. Glass Fibre Cable allows you to carry any tier of power of great distances without having much loss.

Task 7.6 Liquid Nuclear Reactor (optional)
Once you have 40 Iridium ore, you can make a decent liquid nuclear reactor. It will generate EU more efficiently from your uranium, but be less efficient at creating plutonium. Personally, I don't think it's worth it, but it's up to you.

Task 7.7: The Grind
There's not a lot of grinding in this modpack, but both times I played, I found a point in age 7 where I was just waiting on my nuclear generator to make enough power, and waiting on my void ore miner.

As is usually the case, you should never just sit around and do nothing. Things I did while waiting:


 * Make a 2nd or 3rd nuclear reactor. I decided to use my first 420 EU reactor for IC2 machines and the mass fab, and the 2nd for iridium.
 * Work on bees.
 * Make more cloches. They aren't expensive but they are a pain to make.
 * Buff your automation for calculator circuits. You'll need lots of them for AE2.
 * Do lots of mining. The void ore miner will exceed what you can do eventually, but not yet.  You may still be doing the bulk of the resource generation at this point, and that's ok.

Task 7.8: Atomic Calculator
Build the Atomic Calculator to advance to age 8. Since this is the main crafting for this age, I'll include the recipes:

Task 8.1: IC2 Basalt
Build a Liquid Heat Exachnger and 10 Heat Exchangers. This will be used for converting lava to Pahoehoe Lava.

Build a Sterling Generator (IndustrialCraft 2|Sterling Generator]] to take your heat. It will produce EU, which you can send to your main EU storage, or to your mass fab.  Or you can just throw it out, it doesn't really matter.

Make a Ranged Pump and take it to the Nether. Pump lava into an Ender Tank to bring it back to the overworld.

Place a bucket of IC2 coolant in the world. The block above it can be used for placing Pahoehoe lava.

Make a Fluid Placer and Automatic Block Breaker, and place them in the world so that they both face the spot above the IC2 coolant. Pipe the Pahoehoe lava from your liquid heat exchanger into the fluid placer. The block breaker will begin immediately to pick up the IC2 basalt.

For reference, I highly recommend watching the first few minutes of this video from Chosen Architect on how to set it up.

Task 8.2: ME system from Applied Energistics 2
Inscribers are quite expensive in this pack, so you may want to make just one. I'm not going to go through all the details. I'd recommend either watching videos on it, or following this guide:

Getting Started (Applied Energistics 2) - Starting a ME Network

Task 8.3: RF Power generation
If you didn't increase your power generation in age 7, you should now. Even if you did in age 7, it may be worth spending some more time on it now.

If you have a single T2 void ore miner running now with an accuracy modifier and 3 speed modifiers, that is about 1700 RF/t. You'll need to update it to T3 soon, and that will increase the power consumption by about a factor of 4.

Here's several options:

Advanced Generators
Advanced generators are one of several energy production methods gated by Plutonium. I really like them because they can grow over time, and you can easily switch between generating RF and EU.

I'd recommend using Syngas for your method of generating power, and using manyllyun for the turbines.

Here's a good video on setting it up.

EnvironmentalTech solar arrays
A T2 solar array generates a little more than 2000 RF/tick, and can run 100% of the time if deployed in the mining dimension. It doesn't require plutonium, so you can start with this if you don't have a lot of plutonium yet. The downside is that it takes a whole lot of gold, quite a bit of diamonds, and 208 Million RF for the 8 empowered Palis blocks and 4 empowered diamond blocks. Using these numbers alone, it's not worth it. But, the T3 version is pretty nice for the cost, so if you look at the T2 as a stepping stone, it's not terrible.

Locator Plugs (Calculator)
These take plutonium also, and you need a stable circuit for each plug in the locator. But, these are really the only downsides, and if you have stable circuits and Pt, then there's not much of a barrier here. They work in any dimension, and don't need to see the sky, and since there is no moving fluids or items, not much can go wrong.

For help setting it up, see the wiki page on the Calculator Locator, and watch Episode 44 from ChosenArchitect's playthrough.

Powercells (RFTools)
These don't generate power, but they do store it and transfer it. For storage, the vibrant capacitors from EnderIO are far better, but if you want to transfer between dimensions, right now this is your only option.

By default, each powercell holds 1 million RF, and can transfer 5000 RF/t through each of the 6 sides. Transfer from powercell to powercell is instantaneous, even across dimensions. In fact, all powercells are technically part of the same multiblock, and the storage from all of them together is combined.

So, if you have 1 powercell in the mining dimension with 6 sides used for pulling in power, and a second powercell in the overworld with 6 sides for removing power, you can hold 2 million RF in the combined powercells, and transfer 30k/t in and 30k/t out. Once this no longer meets your needs, you can add more powercells.

Unfortunately, the two ways to increase the stats (advanced powercells and infusing) are both gated by the Dimension Builder, so don't let yourself get tempted by them.

When considering the crafting cost, you need to consider that you need to make a powercell card for each powercell, and they are not cheap. If you build 10 powercells and 10 cards, place one in the world, and put all 10 cards in it. Then pull them back out. Now these cards are all linked. Place the other 9 cells wherever you want, and when you put the cards in, they'll all be part of the same network.

If you want to use an array of vibrant capacitor banks for your main storage, you may want to consider having 2 powercell networks, one for power going to the main storage, and one for distributing power out.

Task 8.4: Your first 11 End Diamonds
Your first 13 End diamonds will be the most expensive, but even they aren't too bad. First you need to make 13 fire diamonds, and then use one of them to make a conductor mast:

Place the Conductor mast somewhere outside, and put your other 12 fire diamonds inside. They'll be converted to electric diamonds in a matter of seconds.

Side Note: Conductor Masts are extremely cheap and also create RF both day and night. A huge array of them can be used as a decent passive power source.

Use them in the atomic calculator again to get end diamonds:

Task 8.5: Flawless Calculator
You'll need another 17 iridium for this step. If you don't have it yet, then use the time to work on your power generation or resource generation. Once you have the 17 iridium, everything else is fairly straightforward:

Task 8.6: Diamond trees
The diamond tree will produced Weakened Diamond and Flawless Diamond, so it is definitely worth it to make one. Make an End Diamond Block and a Diamond Sapling and plant the sapling on the block:

Also, craft a Sickle. Right clicking with a sickle on pear tree leaves or diamond tree leaves with fruit will generate resources.

The ripening rate is pretty fast. I never needed more than a single diamond tree, and always just harvested it manually.

The Amythest trees and Tanzanite trees can be used to fill a Hunger Module or Health Module. You can do this by right clicking the ripe leaves with the module, or you can do it automatically by making a Health Processor and attaching it to the trunk of the tree (and putting the health module inside the GUI). You can eat from the health module, and it is instantaneous (much like eating with a gluttony charm). It is marginally useful.

Once you have diamond trees for making free flawless diamonds, and a blaze farm for free blazes, you should start using the secondary recipe for fire diamonds. It does use 2 blaze rods instead of 1, but essentially it uses 0 diamonds instead of 2.

Task 8.7: Electric Crucible
Age 10 is for Tech Reborn, and the main metal for getting started is Refined Iron. The primary way to make it is to melt down steel in an Electric Crucible, and then use an Electric Solidifier to turn it to refined iron.

In addition, it can be used for ore tripling, and, possibly most importantly at this precise time, it triggers age 9:

Age 9: The New Age
Age 9 is all about ore tripling, using a mod called NeoTech.

As far as I know, this mod has never been available for 1.7.10 or 1.12.2, but instead only the versions between, so it is very rare to have the chance to play it!

Age 10: The Technological Age
Are you glad to be done with NeoTech? Yeah, me too.

Getting Started (Applied Energistics 2) - Starting a ME Network