From past experience, I usually build... two hammers and one cutter before migrating completely to machinery, yeah. It's not a super big issue.
I suppose if people use hammers a lot for the sheer crafting speed, it might matter more to them.
Ohh, silly me. I didn't realized metal former is can be used for hammering/cutting... 
Wonderful mod, if you ask me! Two questions:
- Tools can be inserted via BC pipes?
- I am not understood clearly: Workbench needs power for use crafting grid too, or only for charging tools?
And two suggestion:
- I saw you use Forestry's Worktable-like GUI - what do you think about expanding your GUI to remember 8 recipes - as Worktable does? Maybe with adding a book into some slot?
- And what about a simpler version of this - put one tool into a slot, and automatically uses it on items I push into that. For example I insert a cutter and if I push tin plates via pipes, I can pull tin cables out. It should be similar like Automatic Crafting Table from... hmm... Buildcraft IIRC. I think it would be useful for e.g. Nuclear Reactor owners, because as I saw new recipes requires plates instead of ingots and I think they will be quickly tired hammering ingots...
Another simple idea: I noticed I cannot repair forge hammer and cutter with normal Minecraft way by crafting 2 used tool together (same tools, of course). It would be useful if it can be done because it's natural in MC, and I think most player will find this possibility. Of course it not means Forge Hammers can be repaired with Force Hammer, or other variation because these are two different tool, as I cannot repair a stone pickaxe with a diamond one, even if I want to do that.
Natura has always been incompatible with anything and everything except itself- Not even its "companion", Tinker's Construct, can use the Natura wood in its recipes, last time I checked.
Wood works well, but IIRC I tried to form a plantball from some Natura saplings and get nothing. I will do more tests before reporting of course.
I can confirm, as of 1.4.7 (haven't tested in 1.6.4) that all saplings from Forestry (and TF) can be used to make plantballs
Thank you very much guys, then I report the problem to Natura, b/c it seems they are not registers all saplings correctly.
Display Moreyou are all taking stone dust for granted...why?
Let's take a whole different approach:
What does stone dust add to the game? It makes 1 recipe a tiny bit more realistic.
What if we just drop stone dust?...let the ore washers make materials that are already in the game and just change the CF powder recipe.
Cf powder could use gravel instead of stone dust in the recipe.
what would be lost? one tiny bit of realism
what would be gained? one tiny bit of functionality
NOW....I know nothing about geology...but I'm sure there's someone on this forum who does...and with his help we can decide which ore makes what.
Here's a first draft of what stone dust gets replaced with as ore washer output:
iron and silver makes gravel
copper and tin makes sand
gold and lead makes clay
and uranium makes flint
Again...i know nothing about geology and what hardness and composition real ores have....but I'm sure someone can help us figure it out so that it's realistic.
How would this be more functional than stone dust?
Well...for one....takes away one item ID....and for two....saves you a "building mats run" every now and then.
That's my take on stone dust.
I don't think we should drop a newly-introduced item b/c we think it is useless. IC2 experimental acts as its name says: experimental mod. A bunch of new things was introduced, and this implicite requires rebalancing the gameplay. This mod is under heavy development, and author seems very open for our requests, so if we think we found an item what is currently not have an use, we should first try find a good usage for the item, and if we cannot find any good use for it, then we can talk about dropping an item. IMHO it should be the right order.
Stone dust as a byproduct: MFR introduced slag furnace, what generates stone (not cobblestone, stone) as a byproduct of smelting ores to ingot. If we think deeper, stone is not too useful item except for building. Very few recipe uses stone as ingredient, and not too much required during a whole gameplay to recipes. MFR uses stone as a base of it's machine casing, just for consume some of these items. So, they could found a good usage of slag furnace's byproduct.
If stone dust can be crafted to sand, it can be used to burn it to glass what is an ingredient of some stuffs in IC2 and BC. So technically stone dust become same like tiny pile of <ORE> dust.
And its lategame. People usually start farming midgame (or even early-game). This would probably be more useful.
+1 I have to start farming at early game b/c I have no pumpkins/melons in 6 normal-sized biome area, so I have to crossbreed them from wheat (to use them as a source of Forestry seed oil in later game).
I would not like to open new thread for this: there is a plan to plantballs support more saplings than vanilla ones? E.g. what coming from Nautra/Forestry?
A compressor would be a more likely culprit than a furrnace, I'd say... it would be similar to the dense iron plate recipe that already exists.
If we would like to make stone from stone dust, then yeah, compressor is better solution. For sand - I think crafting table should be enough, b/c sand is not differs from stone dust too much.
You can throw stone dust into a recycler for scrap.
Yeah, but I can throw anything into recycler, so it is not really an usage for stone dust.
IC2 experimental introduced stone dust as a byproduct of the ore washing plant and the themal centrifuge. My suggestion is very tiny: allow us to use stone dust to craft sand or cobblestone because these plants generates a ton of this dust, and no way to use it other than CF Powder.
My motivation is very simple: sometimes I spawn quite far from deserts, and some mods requires a ton of sand (mainly to burn it to glass). I always have to go to a long boring journey - just for sand?
And other aspect: I do not use as much CF powder as I can craft from this dozen stone dust. And I cannot use this to any other thing... too bad.
Addition to OP: even if MFE and MFSU are seems extremely expensive, you must keep in your mind: IC2 and IC2 Exp provides a way to make vanilla (!) Diamond from Coal - 64 coal = 1 diamond, what is not too expensive recipe if you ask me. Coal is the most common ore in the world and when you arrive to the point you need MFE or MFSU and you kept in your mind to collect all coal ore what you see, you will have more than enough coal to craft MFE or MFSU without any problems.
And IIRC Coal honors Luck upgrade from TConstruct and similar enchant too.
And, MFE is not needed too early. The new CESU is provides a good way to store energy while you grow - it stores more than batbox and much less expensive than MFE. And LV converter is very cheap.
Another question: how batpacks/lappacks works? I tried to wear a batpack while I held a electronic treetap (game says they are both Tier 1) but batpack does not charged the treetap. Should I press something to do that?
You also need the scuba helmet and rubber boots, for the full hazmat suit.
I had rubber boots, but i missed the helmet. Thanks for clarify this.
Is there a way to touch U-235 somehow without death? Radiation always kill me, even if I wear Hazmat suite and leggings.
