Been playing some modded stuff now that I'm running on a 64 bit system with plenty of RAM
I've had a love affair with Tinkers' Construct for a long time and a few mod packs have introduced me to one of its best friends,
Iguana's Tinker Tweaks, which does a lot of really great stuff to the mod including
- Disabling vanilla tools: can be crafted in case they're needed for other mods but won't mine anything, forcing you to use TC
- Material restrictions: certain things can't be used to make certain parts anymore, stone parts can't be used in tools at all
- Tool experience: using a tool for its intended purpose levels it up and adds random modifiers (like haste and luck)
- Pickaxe boost: pickaxes start a mining level lower and need to be used until they reach full potential (can also be augmented with a mob head or disabled in the config entirely)
- Part replacements: any fully repaired tool can have any part swapped out, letting you save your tool experience and minimizing wasted material
- Slower progression: takes more than a measly 15 minutes to get iron tools, there are many more mining tiers and each one requires a tool head made of the previous material to gather
There's a lot of other little things too including helpful tooltips, a clay bucket for that period between having a smeltery but being unable to mine iron, repairing tools in the crafting window, and requiring you to craft gravel into flint