Perhaps it goes against your idea of the modpack, but my players have found the Compact Machines mod (for Fabric) to be really convenient due to the number and size of many of the mechanisms required for proper Create automation. It's also somewhat balanced for the current progression because you can't use them until you get to the moon and procure blaze powder. If you've never seen or used Compact Machines before, it allows you to create single block machines with inputs and outputs for items, liquids, and energy. Using a Personal Shrinking Device, you're able to teleport inside these machines (a single room in another dimension, one dimension for all rooms spread out) and build whatever you want within the confines of the room. There are several different sizes of rooms. There's no way to transfer rotational energy into the room with the exception of an alternator/motor combination, so early in their use you have to rely on creating your own with waterwheels, steam engines, or windmills.

A caveat to this is that the chunks the rooms are in need to be force loaded in order to work properly (eventually, when the Fabric version of this mod matures, only the World chunk the machine is in will need to be loaded), but we've found that adding the FTB Chunks mod to the pack allows for a self-limiting method to keep a few of these compact machines loaded.

Requested Mods:
Compact Machines - Fabric
FTB Chunks (Fabric)

Compact machines 👎
FTB chunks 👍