It's a long, busy list of waypoints, but I keep most of them disabled except when I'm planning new shafts.
I switched to using a spreadsheet grid to keep track of where I've looked and what I've found. I suppose a minimap mod that allows grouping waypoints so they can be enabled/disabled together (not just by dimension) would work too. I don't see a way to do that in JourneyMap. I haven't used Xaero's, so for all I know, it might have something like that.
Hmm, 3 of the first 6 attempts, much better.
As for nether mining, my version of the nether appears to be an endless ocean of lava, an overland trip that actually reaches shore would be extremely long.
If you're short on redstone, just head to the nether.
Oh wait do you mean to centrifuge netherrock dust or that there are redstone ores? The former is even less practical, I need redstone to make electric machines in the first place.
I don't see a way to do that in JourneyMap
Thats why I'm using MapWriter 
Thats why I'm using MapWriter
I used MapWriter a few years ago, but iirc when I explored far enough, I got a heap usage crash - I think MapWriter keeps the entire visited area in memory, allowing one to zoom out further than other minimap mods allow, but with that as a risk.
I suppose a minimap mod that allows grouping waypoints so they can be enabled/disabled together (not just by dimension) would work too.
Xaero's just introduced waypoint sets in the last release. It's close to what you're describing - you could keep prospecting waypoints in their own set, so you're either looking at your regular waypoints or you're looking at the prospecting waypoints. If there's some regular waypoint you really must have visible when prospecting (i.e. your home base), you have to duplicate it.
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Some days I feel like I'm really slow at making progress. I found that oil deposit several days ago, and I'm still working my way toward building my first oil rig.
A good part of that is that I decided I was going to transport the oil back by rail instead of pipe. It's about 200m in orthogonal distance from my base, plus another 50m since I've decided to plant my oil rig as close to the bedrock as possible to reduce drilling time. 2x tiny pipelines (1 for fuel for the generator, 1 for oil) would run about 250 bronze, and I've got far more bronze than that... but rails are more interesting as well as being less material intensive. Plus they can haul around anchors - with a long pipeline oil transport might stall if chunks aren't loaded.
I spent a good day in a Creative world exploring how Railcraft signals work. I'm familiar with train signaling in general, and I've built big, elaborate freight networks in Factorio, but Railcraft's signals don't behave anything like rail signals in any other game I've played. They're only detectors, and you have to set up the traffic control using locking track separately. Usually signals are train detectors and traffic control, and usually they can control traffic based on direction. You can set up locks that only affect trains going in one direction, but it's a moderate amount of work and redstone logic to do so.
After quite a few train explosions in Creative, I managed to come up with a design that allow for multiple trains a single track, with a 2-rail passing zone in the center. I'm still a little concerned about race conditions, i.e. the case where two trains enter a signal block simultaneously, though that never actually arose in my experiments.
When I finally did dig the tunnel, I ran into lots of lava in the target area, and handling that was a pain. Maybe drilling from near the surface would have been smarter. I'm not clear on whether or not oil rigs can drill through lava, though.
So far I've got the tanks and machinery I want down there, but no oil rig yet. I got diverted by the fact I was out of lithium, sodium, and salt, so I need to make a mining run for the battery buffers.
I remember pipes not being able to get anything close to the listed throughput unless shutters were used to prevent backflow, has anything changed to fix that?
If the supply is enough to keep the pipes full, you can get the rated throughput, because there's no backflow. Or if the length is short, and there's little room for backflow.
A couple of examples: at one point I had a Huge Steel Pipe (19,200 L/sec) reliably supplying 5 Basic Steam Turbines (demand 10,500 L/sec). In my current setup, a Large Steel Boiler generating 24,000 L/sec has no problems getting steam into my main tank via two very short Huge Steel Pipes.
The problems arise when you're trying to move small amounts of liquid from one point to another, and you care about how quickly it gets there. The overall rate is OK if it's a continuous supply, but if you're doing something like emptying some containers, the last bit of the supply will take forever to trickle to the end.
Man, searching the Nether for Nether-specific ores is a huge pain.
I've learned to prospect in the Overworld, and it's not so bad, if tedious. The Nether, though, has those frequent gaps, so I'll be digging a vertical shaft and it dead ends in the ceiling of a huge chamber. Which is made much, much worse by Ghasts. Playing Ceiling Cat with a Ghast got me killed, and cost me all my gear, including an Infinite bow. The blast didn't catch me, but the blast knocked out the blocks under my feet, which led to a fatal fall. By the time I could make my way back all my stuff had evaporated.
In theory all those wide spaces would make it easier to find exposed ore, but again, Ghasts. My policy these days is never to be in the open, because if I can't run for someplace with overhead cover, sooner or later one of those blasts will hit me. It's funny, since outside of Nether Fortresses, the Nether would be easier than then Overworld if it weren't for Ghast bombardment. Pigmen will leave you alone if you don't bother them, and Magma Creams are no threat.
My current reason for mucking about is Nether Quartz. I haven't found any veins so far. I've had enough from Small Ores in the past, but now I'm doing stuff with Railcraft that demands it in truckload lots. One Routing Switch is 32 Nether Quartz.
The vertical-shaft technique has been good for finding veins so far in the Nether, the few times I'm not interrupted by a huge cavern over a sea of lava.
I've had some luck in the nether by working my way down to the level of the ore I was looking for then dashing across the open spaces until I hit a wall.
If the supply is enough to keep the pipes full, you can get the rated throughput, because there's no backflow. Or if the length is short, and there's little room for backflow.
A couple of examples: at one point I had a Huge Steel Pipe (19,200 L/sec) reliably supplying 5 Basic Steam Turbines (demand 10,500 L/sec). In my current setup, a Large Steel Boiler generating 24,000 L/sec has no problems getting steam into my main tank via two very short Huge Steel Pipes.
The problems arise when you're trying to move small amounts of liquid from one point to another, and you care about how quickly it gets there. The overall rate is OK if it's a continuous supply, but if you're doing something like emptying some containers, the last bit of the supply will take forever to trickle to the end.
This is the exact use for pumps.
This is the exact use for pumps.
Pumps don't work that way. The "small amount, last bit trickles in" case definitely applies when you're using a pump to extract the fluid from a tank. Gregtech pipes don't appear to model pressure in any way. Rather, each pipe section is a mini-tank, and it will attempt to move fluid to each adjacent entity (pipe or tank). If the prior pipe is full, the entire contents to go to the next pipe, which is why the high, constant source case gives you the rated flow. When the prior pipe is half-empty, some of the contents move in that direction.
Now, it's true that you can put pumps at regular intervals into a pipe. That's the expensive, awkward solution Requia mentioned, only using pumps instead of shutters. It's actually a better solution than a shutter, since a shutter only prevents backflow from pipe 2 into pipe 1. A pump actively moves the contents of pipe 1 to pipe 2, so one pump every 2 pipe sections is as effective as a shutter every section. Shutters are a bit cheaper at 4 iron each; I'd have to work out the precise cost of a 32 volt pump for a comparison, but it involves at least 4.25 tin for the rotor, 1.5 iron, 2 copper, 1 tin, plus insulation for the motor.
Regardless, pumps increase the cost of any small pipe considerably, since those run 0.5 - 1 bronze or plastic each. The incremental cost isn't that great for Huge pipes (12 ingots each), but if you're installing a Huge pipe, you're absolutely doing it for a high-volume, constant flow case, not moving small amounts of liquid.
The upshot is that if I'm doing moving small volumes, I try to put the machines adjacent, so one is putting its output direction into the other, or at most a 1 section pipe, where backflow can't happen. Moving seed oil or molten rubber into an assembler, for example.
Looking at the ultimate battery in NEI crashed entire comp and corrupted my world.
And of course I don't have a backup, so I guess I'm done playing 
Oh wait, it didn't corrupt the whole thing, it just fried Ender Storage. Purging that part of the save recovered 
There are days when I think a save-corrupting bug would be a net positive. I'd rage, of course, but I've got other games in my backlog (i.e. Civ 6) that I think would be more rewarding. This current search for Nether Quartz is getting really boring (interspersed with moments of terror when something goes wrong). But I feel like I can't get it go while the various projects I have planned are not finished.
I've found a lot of other ores. Some of which I would have been glad of earlier. Given my huge oversupply of sulfur, it's hard to remember there was a time when I desperately needed it for rubber production.
Smea, my solution was not to use pumps every few pipe blocks but to use them every pipe block. Nothing in GT is cheap. Having that kind of behavior is more important when there's a lot of fluid to move and the costs are high anyway.
Smea, my solution was not to use pumps every few pipe blocks but to use them every pipe block. Nothing in GT is cheap. Having that kind of behavior is more important when there's a lot of fluid to move and the costs are high anyway.
Shutters would have the same effect for far less cost.
Having that kind of behavior is more important when there's a lot of fluid to move and the costs are high anyway.
That's actually the case where you don't need pumps. If you're moving a lot of fluid in large pipes, pumps will make virtually no difference in the net throughput. It's the case where you're moving 1000-4000L and the next machine won't start processing until it all arrives that's a problem.
If you aren't maxing out the pipe's rate and internal tank then you need pumps. If it's close to the max you can actually end up with voided fluid. A nightmare if you're going for a closed loop with an LHE. If you are maxing it then yeah a shutter will work fine.
Wait, why would pipes ever destroy fluid? I get that there are multi-block machines that destroy items if the output hatch / bus doesn't get cleared, but why would that affect pipes?
Okay, why would pipes void Fluid, that is a serious Question I have too, right now. What happens to void the Fluid?
