Indeed, this is the best mod ever.
I have started to use this since minecraft beta 1.5 (when the cables are thick and ugly and the nuke reactor's gui looks like the electric furnace). Witnessing it's growth in terms of content and better coding, i am so moved that the IC2 team can do such a great job. Only if i am 18+ and have a credit card i will donate... but i am 14...
anyways, GREAT JOB THERE!!!
Plan??? i don't.
My base is based on what i find. If i find a nice-looking cave i go in there, wall it up and put a door in front of it. Torch it up and VOILA! a cave.
If i find redpower rubber trees (playing on self-made pack that is near technic-pack) then i go hollow out the middle block, go up, and after a certain height i clear out a area in the tree. Put a door and again you have a base.
In very rare occasions (plains with a few trees) i will make dirt hut for survival (you know them 
), then expand it later on for these 
.
I consider huts to be best given that you have plenty of space to expand it because you can easily put tonnes of 
for power. Tree houses are still good as is one of my main source of power. Caves are like the really worst option becase you will not have . I have, therfore, used the Rocket Science Sub-mod of IC2 which adds a generator that needs less maintaence than 
and that i consider 
to be useless. Well, the cost of the fusion reactor(the rocket-science generator) is that it costs a FRIKING lot of resources. I have to work for several real-life days, even using EE2, just for that (given that it uses 8 reactor chambers and a advanced machine block.
wow... IC2 standalone??? How boring is that!
at least use BC or Redpower or EE2 (if you use EE2 you can have geothermal generators since lava cells can be transmuted) 
wait... explosion-proof???
so you mean if blows up right beside your house your scaffolds are perfectly fine????
Still far too complicated.
I will do it 2 ways.
Easiest solution: Use EE2 mod to manufacture a crapload of cobble, then pump it into a recycler (or multiple ones)
A solution that requires bit more work: build a mob trap. will drop down and leave their drops. Pump the drops into a few sorted recyclers (eg 1 recycler for gunpowder and 1 for bones, 1 for arrows 1 for string and 1 for rotten flesh)
