dlepi24

Alright, I figured it out. I didn't realize it mattered exactly where you ran your energy in and mob essence out. I had the power going into the top of the grinder and the essence out of the back. I found out you have to have the power and the mob essence each on the side of the grinder for it to continuously work. I figured I'd post this incase anyone made the same mistake as i did. Thanks.

Yes, Block Mover from Random Things 

Wouldn't a Grinder be easier?
I don't know how it compares in cost to an Autonomous Activator and a sewer combo, but the Grinder basically takes and outputs the items and mob essence without need for conversion.
Half the machines needed.

This is the system I use for Essence berries and works great.  Did nothing to the Autonomous Activator except for placing it down.

 

 

Ooh, DS - use the battleaxe instead, it's got a lot more parts for paper modifiers
 
Edit: That's an item I did think it was worth using a nether star on, so I guess you can see where my priorities lie.

I try to find cactus quickly early on as it's useful for a lot of tools - I'll list my preferences in order.
 
Early game:
Weapons (damage is important, durability is important, enchantability not important)
Blade = Cactus > Flint
Crossbar = Bone > Flint > Cactus
Rod = Bone > Cactus > Wood
 
Tools (speed important, repair material important, eurability important, enchantability not important)
Head = Cactus > Stone
Binding = Stone (if not used above for stonebound trait) > Bone > Flint > Cactus
Rod = Bone > Cactus > Wood
 
The goal of this stage of the game is to find iron and if possible, blue slime from underneath slime islands (if you can get up on top then that's even better).  You'll need sand, clay and gravel for the next step, but you can choose if you want to make that step;
The Tool Forge: Earlier access to the excavator, lumber axe and hammer for mining resources quickly, but you lose out on some efficiency by not having the smeltery up first.  With B-Teams resources if you're not planning on going to the nether soon or haven't got any access to lava yet then this is a pretty good choice.
The Smeltery: This will allow you to switch to making metal tools and increase the output of smelted ores by double.
You'll need to do both before moving on, so the only choice is which way around you'd like to do it (if you go smeltery first then you're probably not going to upgrade to second-tier tools until you make metal ones).  I find it worth it to start making moss stone at this point to put a moss ball on each of my tools (you need cobblestone and a bucket of water to do this).
 
 
The mid game has a lot of its options removed (alumite, bronze) by easy access to steel in the B-Team.  It's by far the best choice of its tier for most of these things, so unless you feel like it's a bit cheaty you should use it.  Cook iron ingots in an ordinary furnace to make steel ingots which you'll melt down in the smeltery.
Mid-Game
Weapons (damage is important, enchantability is important, durability is important)
Blade = Steel > Alumite
Crossbar = Paper (if you feel you'll be likely to stay with this tool for a while) > Blue Slime > Steel > Green Slime > Alumite > Bronze > Iron
Rod = Blue Slime > Green Slime > Steel > Alumite > Bronze > Iron
Enchantment = 1x Moss Ball, Nether Quartz to max if struggling in nether
  Tools (speed important, enchantability important, durability important, repair material not important)
Head = Steel > Alumite > Bronze > Iron (Bronze or Iron are debatable, probably not worth the upgrade effort unless you're never intending to visit the nether in which case put a diamond on it)
Binding = Paper (if you feel you'll be likely to stay with this tool for a while) > Blue Slime > Steel > Green Slime > Alumite > Bronze > Iron
Rod = Blue Slime > Green Slime > Steel > Alumite > Bronze > Iron
Enchantment = 1x Moss Ball, Redstone to max
  The Mid-game introduces hammers, excavators and lumber axes if you haven't seen them yet.  Generally you'll want to make a tool that needs plates with the same material you use for the head unless you're trying to save resources.  If you haven't started making moss-balls to auto-repair your tools, now is the time to do that.  The goal of this stage is to have the tools you need to mine cobalt and ardite in the nether, and weapons capable of fighting off the nasties you'll find there.     The end-game focuses on the nether and two materials you'll make from what you find there, cobalt (for tools) and manyullyn (an alloy of cobalt and ardite for weapons). End-Game
Weapons (enchantability is important, damage is important, durability is important)
Blade = Manyullyn
Crossbar = Paper
Rod = Manyullyn > Blue Slime
Enchantment = 1x Moss Ball, Nether Quartz to max if struggling in nether, Diamond + Gold block to allow more nether quartz.
  Tools (speed is important, enchantability is important, durability is important)
Head = Cobalt (faster than manyullyn but won't mine manyullyn blocks, not an issue... unless you accidentally place one down) > Manyullyn
Binding = Paper
Rod = Manyullyn > Blue Slime
Enchantment = 1x Moss Ball, Redstone to max, Diamond + Gold block to allow more redstone.
 
There are a few exceptions to this (I like to make a cleaver that does just over 20 damage and add looting for the rest of the enchantments for example) but this covers most things except bows.  That should have you sorted for most tools.
 
 
Bows are a strange one - the bow damage value is irrelevant (it applies to you physically whacking things with the bow rather than using arrows), you only care about its draw speed, arrow speed and durability.
Bows
Rod = Blue Slime/Green Slime > Wood/Cactus
String = Fiery Bowstring > Bowstring
Enchantment = 1x Moss Ball, Redstone to max, Diamond + Gold block to allow more redstone (to max draw speed).
Metals on bows allow a good arrow speed (on par with slime) but a very slow draw speed (twice as long as slime), even manyullyn isn't worth using for a bow.
 
Arrows (Best Damage)
Arrowhead = Manyullyn
Rod = Paper
Fletching = Feather Fletching
Enchantment = Make a full stack of arrows first, then max nether quartz and Diamond + Gold Block to allow more.
 
Arrows (Fast w/no enchantment)
Arrowhead = Cactus
Rod = Blue Slime/Green Slime
Fletching = Feather Fletching
 
Arrows (Cheap but fast - Loader's favorite)
Arrowhead = Cactus
Rod = Paper
Fletching = Feather Fletching > Leaf Fletching
(easy to farm the components and so cheap you've got no fear of losing them, very fast arrow makes easier aiming with little drop - still very enchantable for PvP in an emergency and you're familiar with the arrow drop because you probably regularly use them)

I'm not to sure if this would work but you can try an item dropper. That'll probably do it.

I've had similar thoughts -- all the posts seem to be "x is broken or not working" and yet they don't bother posting them in the issue tracker.  But short of backseat modding (which is a no-no) I don't really have any idea how to help fix it.
 
Like you said, very few are bothering to search the forums.  And a lot of the issues are poorly explained at best.

I do like that setup. That was actually my first setup. The only problem I have with it is SMP. It causes some annoying lag and the amount of entities it can create that are not picked up can be insane. Of course keep in mind that is just my server. It won't necessarily do the same on other servers. However in Single Player, I still use that setup.

you realize that actually uses up power rather than generate it

Interesting little fun story that has happened to me.
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For some reason the players on my server have given me the role of evil god tyrant since I am the creator of the server. I never asked for it, nor am I evil. I just happen to shoot ahead of everyone before they had a chance because I had prior experience with B-Team and my fellow denizens happen to, rather unceremoniously, experience first hand witchery because they had no idea what a taglock was.

One person happened to wise up to witchery. They created a poppet and somehow got my taglock but didn't know what to do with the voodoo poppet doll. So they were fiddling with it and it just so happened that they figured out how to toss me around...now needless to say I did not inform them of their newfound power so I proceeded along my merry little way......getting tossed every once and a while, no big deal because like I said..they weren't aware of what they were doing and I kept my silence.

Crap a tornado, run for it! Yet I cant run....Instead....I am tossed into the tornado which happens to be in a rather terrible biome which then flings me out of it, into a hole which is down to bedrock and filled with lava.....

A rather unpleasant day and the individual who tossed me into the tornado with the voodoo doll had no idea of the feat they just accomplished.

Alright, I figured it out. I didn't realize it mattered exactly where you ran your energy in and mob essence out. I had the power going into the top of the grinder and the essence out of the back. I found out you have to have the power and the mob essence each on the side of the grinder for it to continuously work. I figured I'd post this incase anyone made the same mistake as i did. Thanks.