I'll be honest, trying to automate GregTech with AE2 is a painful proposition, especially in a pack where 'craft on demand' is a trap.

Logistics Pipes, the current implementation at 1.12, is an amazing way to automate GregTech machines in a logical and powerful way. Combine with Logistics Bridge [Remake] and you have an excellent way of setting up automation that keeps you stocked and supplied with everything you need going forward, rather than having to wait a half hour on a craft request that you had to manually input.

I manually included it in my last playthrough of Omnifactory and I found it to be an amazing addition that significantly increased my enjoyment. If you need someone able to do feature documentation (it exists for the mod, but it is pretty bare bones), I am more than willing to contribute and write up a quest chain for the mod if necessary.

I would suggest obviating the need to compile as that's a pure timesink, but you can simply provide a user with a station that already has compiled all the various modules already to obviate it. Heck, that can be your reward from the introduction quest, just to keep it running smoothly.

AE2 is a great way to handle resource storage, and it can do some automation, but I feel LP/LB is a much better automation mechanic that actually dovetails quite nicely with AE2 thanks to Logistics Bridge. It can trivially handle 'keep x in stock' for quite large numbers, which is going to be key in getting your factory running smoothly, and can handle crafts that require multiple inputs from multiple machines easily, and can also easily handle inputs and outputs being physically separate. It can also handle fluid automation much easier than AE2's addons, which is going to be key in many parts of GT's tech path. It also easily handles recipes where you have a given item that sticks around between crafts, which AE2 has always struggled with.

I want an excuse to use logistics pipes

I tried out using Logistics Pipes for my ore processor and if you fully upgrade a Chassis mk5 with Advanced Extractor modules and Item Extraction upgrades in each module, you can extract items out at least 10 times faster than a single fully-upgraded Item Conduit. I can definitely see myself using Logistics Pipes where I need insane amounts of throughput.

However if a Logistics Pipe can't find a place to put an item it just spits it on the ground, so that's some food for thought.

I understand that there can be a learning curve when it comes to automating Gregtech with AE2, but as it stands it's all you need to complete the pack.

AE2 can do everything that Logistics Pipes can do with the exception of the "Keep x in stock" and "fluid auto-crafting." I'd like to point out that there is a mod addon for AE2 called "LazyAE2" which has a block that can "Keep x in stock" for the ME network.

Regarding fluid auto-crafting, the ability to do this can create bad habits later in the pack. Trying to auto-craft something like Epoxy will result in a severe bottleneck. For machines that use fluid like the Assembling Machine, you can either have the machine full of fluid or use an Extractor next to the Assembling Machine to extract tin/soldering alloy along with the components for circuits.

I have used Logistics Pipes and Logistics Bridge (the older version) in the past in FTB Interactions, and while they work fine, they are only ideal for the early game where automation is simple. Trying to use Logistic Pipes beyond unlocking AE2 can result in long waiting times and/or severe TPS lag. Trying to use the Logistics Bridge (the block that connects the AE2 network to Logistic Pipes) makes both AE2 and Logistic Pipes networks worse, in that auto-crafting sometimes stall, items for supplier modules stop being sent, etc. Maybe the remake of Logistics Bridge fixes this, but you also have to keep in mind that Nomifactory uses a fork of AE2, which may or may not work with Logistics Bridge.

Make sure you have a Default Route that feeds back into your AE network. Simple enough, by the time you have LP/AE2 set up. Even a bare-bones early system before you get full AE2 integration can have a default chest to stick things it otherwise doesn't know what to do. And you can do that with a basic logistic pipe, no need for any chassis.

The version of Logistics Bridge used in FTB Interactions was a primitive one compared to the remake currently available, which explicitly was forked to solve the issue with the failed input across the bridge present in that pack. Same with the TPS lag, this fork was created explicitly to fix that issue.

Also, the way LP handles autocrafting actually solves that problem with epoxy. Currently, either you craft on user demand in which case you wait forever for new circuits, or you let it run on passive in which case you encounter the issue you mention. LP's ability to say 'keep x in stock' and the ability to provide precisely the amount of materials to do so, including fluids, means less bottlenecking elsewhere in the system. Also keep in mind that its ability to 'keep x in stock' can be for quite large numbers, you can, for example, keep 1,028 in stock if you like, and it will handle it just fine. Lazy AE has trouble with numbers quite that large. Usually in the previous pack, I'd use a drawer to backstuff end products, with passive crafting rather than this mechanic, which required a more robust supply chain that uses backstuffing logic.

LB does permit an arbitrary number of recipes per block face as well. Granted, current fork of AE2 in Nomifactory does have the upgrade that permits more than nine recipes, but LB does this much more robustly and at greater speed. It also permits parallel crafting without needing buffer chests all over the place, and generally eliminates the need for buffer chests entirely, which cleans up a build.

It's not a matter of unable to be complete with just AE2, it's a matter of doing several things better, and also just having a more logical way of executing what it does in a way that I feel matches GregTech much better than AE2 which has always felt like an ill-fitting crutch. Which makes sense, given the origins of both GregTech and LP from back in the day. I feel it would be an improvement to the pack, hence why I submitted the suggestion.

I appreciate the time you've spent to elaborate on this suggestion, but LP is basically vestigial in this pack. We keep it around because players coming from old Omni saves could (but are fairly unlikely to) have used it and we need to maintain backwards compatibility or go through a meticulous process to stage the removal of a mod. It's just been easier to leave it than stage its removal.

We do not plan to lean into LP whatsoever; you see no mention of it at all in the quest book for a reason. AE2 (especially Proto's fork of AE2 which we have been using since its inception) is the backbone of automation in this pack and everything has been balanced with the assumption that players will be using it to route items around their base in some combination of on-demand crafting and passive automation. AE2+GTCE is an extremely powerful combination for both forms of automation and endgame content additionally relies on PackagedExCrafting for digitally performing ExtendedCrafting table recipes.