Carrot

Yeah, that's what I meant. The force fields we have now aren't exactly refined to do these types of things, but it is possible (minus the rails) to get some of the look you're going for. It does fit the space-age feel this pack was going for and I'd like to see if you can get it to work in space as an airlock-type deal. Personally, I'd like a texture pack before more mods hop on board the bandwagon.

Although I prefer rednet's wiring to redpower's, I do miss my microblocks and handsaws.

Although that mod is more refined for that specific purpose, we already have a forcefield mod integrated that allows for similar light structures.

I've never had to use more than one AA for a long base of about 21 engines. You want to use an AA surrounded on all sides with water (NESW as well as bottom) but leave the top side to extract via aqueducts. Be sure to wrench the aqueducts accordingly for your system to work and it should keep the engines full as well as the pipes. It's also a good idea to keep a backup tank hooked up and full just in case something happens to your AA so your engines can continue to run for a bit. If you don't like the AA, you can probably wire up a pump to run on it as well but now you have overhead cost to keep your stuff running and if you run out of power you then need to bucket some initial water in to get it started again (the same problem I had when making a power plant running on melting netherrack into lava for magmatic engines).