needing assistances

[wade2008]

i just started a big dig world a little while ago and im struggling on power im wondering which is the best source of power from early to mid game, and also is there a machine that chops and re plants sapplings because i am in need of charcoal also thanks :)

[Stone Rhino]

MFR's Harvester is a great machine to grab plants. It sadly cannot replant, so it needs a Planter from the same mod pack. It's quite complex to setup, and requires a hefty bit of power to run. It also uses a lot of computer power to process the information. It can go quite fast and lag. You dont want to live next to this while it is harvesting trees.

As far as starting off power goes the Wind Turbines from the mekanism mod is a good, stable source of power. It requires steel, so if you're running 1.3.9, it will be a bit painful for you to make. Updating to 1.3.13 will invalidate your world as the block ID's are different, but you will be able to simply refine iron in a furnace to steel. Osmium will be your linchpin on these. You must keep them 3 blocks apart from each other. The higher the elevation, the more power. 3 or 4 of these will keep the most simple setup running at sea level.

Quartz Grindstone:

If you are starting off and want to be really stingy with materials this is a low-tech version of the pulverizer requiring zero power, but a bit of time on your part. Its a worthwhile crutch until you can get stepped up to machines. It does not do osmium, so you will be hard pressed to get large amounts of that. There is a crank handle associated with it, so dont forget to make that.

Gold, Iron, Tin, Copper, Silver are the only grind-able items in this.

Forestry Clockwork Engines:

Uses a ton of gold, but that really is not hard to find in bigdig. The nice thing about these is you can wind them up and power machines with them, like the pulverizer. The recipe is easy to assemble. You use the black wrench to change the direction it is facing. I recommend just putting it next to the pulverizer or powered furnace as they have internal buffers. It may take 2 or 3 winding sessions to do a full stack. If you want to be fancy, you can use a basic energy cube or makeshift energy cell and feed one or two into it.

**note** Stop winding when it hits red. After that it will start to kill you.

BuildCraft Sterling Engine:

A good standby if all else fails. Burns any burnable vanilla item. Treat it like the clockwork engine. These WILL explode if you hook them to things like pumps, or let a machines power fill to full capacity.

To answer the question which is the best power system, its a matter of efficiency and how much time is vested in setting up.

BuildCraft's Minecraft Joules (MJ/t) require more complex setups, and the machines that use it are very power hungry.

Mekanism's Joules (J), KiloJoules (kJ) or MegaJoules (MJ) are different than Buildcraft's, but seems to be more straight-forward.

Mid-Game power should be supplemented by diversity. This means not relying completely on one type of power. Solar-Wind mix is a good example.

10 wind generators will do you quite well, supplement that with 9 advanced solar panels and connect with Universal Cable to an Advanced or Elite Energy cell. Dont expect this to run a BC Quarry machine for long.

[wade2008]

thank you so much i really appreciate the help :)