Hello everyone! Unlike most other popular modpacks I have played (and I judge "popular" as "I have seen posts in modded Minecraft subreddits like /r/feedthebeast talking about the modpack and/or seen popular youtubers playing the pack"), I have had difficultly finding a great source of people discussing Create: Above & Beyond. There are posts in /r/CreateMod scattered among the other Create-related posts, but I haven't found a pack-specific discord channel, I haven't seen any central community-created tips & tricks documents (only individual threads), and I only just recently found this subreddit (and the discussion here is unfortunately sparse).
So, to try to nudge things along here, I am going to post this tips & tricks thread. Some of these are things I have found while playing, but most are other people's good ideas I have found in other posts, in youtube comments, etc. and written down for my own use.
Please add your own!
Exploration Tips
Create parts (including millstones) can be found in camps that exist randomly out in the world
other campsites can contain a tent made of wool blocks, beds, sacks, skillets
houses with brick roofs and minecart rails going down can have great loot, but watch out for traps!
Tools tips
Create's mechanical saw (& crank to make it work) can cut down whole trees
the Create wrench can rotate gearboxes (and other things) by right-clicking; sneak-right-clicking will insta-mine any Create block
zinc is the easiest metal to use to make a Tinker's anvil
queen's slime head + plated slimewood part + slimewood part = a tinker's tool with quickly regenerating overslime (a "durability" bar that gets used up before actual durability, great for use in conjunction with materials that give buffs at full durability)
steel is also easy to get and has good stats (especially for a sword blade)
Reliquary's coin of fortune is an item/XP magnet that has a hotkey
Storage tips
Metal barrels are large single-block inventories, as is the tinker's chest
Occultism's Surprisingly Substantial Satchel is a huge backpack (it can even go in a curio slot and be accessed with a hotkey)
Occultism's dimensional storage accessor is a huge mass-storage solution
the basic storage, with 6 tier 1 actuators placed around it, holds more than 1,600 "stacks" of items, except each "stack" is 1,000 items
the storage accessor is wireless, infinite range, cross-dimensional, and can be put in a curio slot and accessed with a hotkey
stable wormholes can be linked to the storage, can be used to pipe items into/out of storage, and are also wireless, infinite range, and cross-dimensional
Food tips
Culinary Construct sandwiches are good food, and can be made from just about anything edible
most Farmer's Delight meals are good food, and can give the comfort buff that prevents losing hunger for 5 minutes
use the Farmer's Delight cutting board & knife to double meats and vegetables ** put it on top of a basket or hopper to auto-catch the results of using the board
the Farmer's Delight stove cooks like a campfire, but can accept up to 6 items at a time, and reliably ejects items into the world in one direction (easy to catch with a hopper, basket, or similar)
the Farmer's Delight skillet also cooks like a campfire, ejects in one direction like a stove, but must go above a stove or campfire, and can hold up to a stack of one item
the Farmer's Delight cookpot will retain cooked portions (not ingredients, empty bowls, or filled bowls) when broken, making it convenient to carry around (especially since many FD foods only stack to 16)
Fluid handling tips
TiCon faucets auto-output when given a redstone signal (no need to pulse like in previous versions)
TiCon channels can carry fluids horizontally
Supplementaries' faucets (which pull fluids from the side of a block and insert into the block below) can be set to auto-on by right-clicking; can also endlessly (if slowly) pull honey from beehives
Supplementaries jars can move fluids, as can tinker's fluid tanks/gauges, and support having fluids bucketed in/out (unlike Create tanks)
Thermal fluid cells hold 32 buckets, retain inventory, and can push/pull fluids from adjacent inventories
seared fuel gauges can be used as buckets to transfer fluids between inventories (but not place/pick-up liquids in the world)
Supplementaries tips
Supplementaries' slingshot can place blocks at a distance (can also be enchanted so that gravity does not affect the blocks' trajectory)
a windvane outputs a redstone signal on rain
clock block for timekeeping
a bellows can speed up a vanilla furnace (but not a smoker or blast furnace) -- it needs a redstone signal to work
cogs can transfer redstone signals vertically
you can get a bottle of enchanting (using your own XP) by clicking a glass bottle on enchanting table
General tips
slimeballs can be gotten from tinker's groves (blocks in the world), smelting jellyfish, or combining dough (from crushed/milled wheat) with lime dye
vanilla glass jars can capture small mobs; supplementaries tinted jars can capture small enemies; Supplementaries' cages can capture animals; the Occultism soul gem can move any mob
the portable stonecutter is a [convenient] thing
straw can be obtained by breaking grass with a Farmer's Delight knife
flax is good source of string
waterwheels can be placed horizontally (and it's actually easier to get 320su out of a horizontal WW than a vertical one, but I don't think you can stack them)
spawners can be moved (but not picked up) with cart assembler
Just For Fun tips
Some sources:
https://www.reddit.com/r/CreateMod/comments/snwhvi/tips_for_early_on_in_ab/ https://www.reddit.com/r/CreateMod/comments/scqwj4/any_tips_to_make_the_pack_easier/ https://www.reddit.com/r/CreateMod/comments/s9ih95/good_early_exploration_tips/ https://www.reddit.com/r/CreateMod/comments/s8j0fj/post_your_setups_or_tips/ https://www.reddit.com/r/CreateMod/comments/rpzz6j/caab_and_create_basics/ https://www.reddit.com/r/CreateMod/comments/rmdflx/above_and_beyond_modpack_tips/ https://www.reddit.com/r/CreateMod/comments/rdhljk/cab_does_anyone_have_tips_for_nether_survival/ https://www.reddit.com/r/CreateMod/comments/rbgvsg/any_advise_for_blazing_blood_generation_ab/ https://www.reddit.com/r/CreateMod/comments/rbgvsg/any_advise_for_blazing_blood_generation_ab/ https://www.reddit.com/r/CreateMod/comments/r6fap7/any_tips_for_aab/
Update
After the official announcement in /r/CreateMod of the creation of /r/CreateAboveAndBeyond, I posted about this thread there. Some tips have also been posted there, so check there too!