The thought behind an alternative to smelting is that it feels like it's an incomplete way to process the berries. Like it was a place holder put in until a better way of processing was thought of. It works... but I feel it is a little lack-luster/generic. Also on top of having to wait and harvest 9 berries, you then have to turn around use more materials to smelt them, wait for them to finish, then craft them. All to get just one ingot, which makes them fairly pointless after early game. (depending on the pack)

They're berries, and their descriptions paint a picture of what they taste like. What if, you could eat the berries (maybe quick eat them like Natura ones), and once consumed, they spawned the corresponding nugget in your inventory? It would be like you ate the berry to get to the tiny metal "seed/core". (like a cherry pit)

Thank you for your time, and all the hard work you put in to this community. Keep up the great work. :)

I see two separate points here. One is game mechanics/balance: berries aren't worth enough to be meaningful late game. The other is fluff: smelting seems arbitrary/boring. Is this accurate? If so, I note that your suggestions really only address the second point.

By the way, those things are both the way they are just because how they were done in TiC. I'm open to adding additional options to adjust them.

I see what your saying and agree with it. (two separate points)
For the record, I love this mod and am only trying to help improve it

First Point: Berries viability is ultimately up to the pack maker, based on their own taste. I don't feel like berries have a place in late-game unless a pack maker wants to use some interesting creativity on their end. However, I think it would be nice if bushes were a little bit more valuable/sought after. In other words, if they would last to mid-game (in standard packs). In my opinion, this was partially solved with the config option of min and max drops. The other part is solved by other mods having a way to harvest the berries from the bush. So I think the balance of bushes is up to pack maker.

Second Point: I can only speak for myself and, to me, the fluff stuff is just as important as balance and mechanics. If a mod is well balanced and has solid mechanics but is boring to play with, it's not as fun. Eating them would be fun at the start but they would quickly be replaced be real food. (but it might make a cool "** special **") You weren't convinced on the juicer but I still feel like the process can improve. Maybe i'm looking at this wrong though. Putting berries on a TiCon drying rack to dry them into nuggets doesn't sound bad and it would be on my end to make that happen. Giving them custom TiCon smeltery recipes is also ok, and again still on my end.
I also had the thought of some type of extractor that gave the nuggets and had a bi-product of juice/wine/biofuel/ect.

I would also like to thank you for actually looking at your project page and taking time out of your life to reply. Thank you <3

The other part is solved by other mods having a way to harvest the berries from the bush.

Powered Thingies can do it if you also have Bush Master Core. So can Industrial Foregoing if you have Integration Foregoing. If you know of any other mods that have some sort of harvesting machine, let me know and I'll try to add compat for them.

Giving them custom TiCon smeltery recipes is also ok

Being usable in the TiCon smeltery is tied to their oredict name, not their smelting recipe, so you can already have just that.

If you know of any other mods that have some sort of harvesting machine, let me know and I'll try to add compat for them.

Ender I/O and would it be possible for steve's carts support?

Being usable in the TiCon smeltery is tied to their oredict name, not their smelting recipe, so you can already have just that.

I removed the berries oredict because I didn't like that you could use them in recipes as berries and was in favor of some type of processing. But that's just my personal taste.

Ender I/O and would it be possible for steve's carts support?

I took a quick look at their APIs. EnderIO is definitely possible, so I'll try to get that done. Steve's Carts is technically possible, but there's a slight quirk. With it, "harvest" always implies "set the block to air". This means that if you used it to harvest, you'd have to start over at growth stage 0 after every harvest, instead of only going back to growth stage 2 like you would harvesting by hand or with any of the other mods.

EDIT: I looked into Steve's Carts more. It has the additional quirk that if Oreberries is configured to not allow bonemeal growth, it will consider the bushes to always be ready for harvest, whether or not they actually have berries on them.

I removed the berries oredict because I didn't like that you could use them in recipes as berries and was in favor of some type of processing. But that's just my personal taste.

I might be able to separate the oredict from the smeltery. I'll look into it.