Have you considered modded to get a little more Factorio in your minecraft?

I'm playing the "Create: Above & Beyond" pack.

There is grind, the pack gives you a goal (build rocket, go to moon), but how you get there is up to you and the automation isn't quite so arcane as vanilla, and doesn't rely on "magic blocks" (Where you plonk down a single block and it magically does all the things) instead relying on you making a machine/factory line from multiple blocks.

I've pushed java far past its breaking point in previous modded minecraft worlds (30 second GC every 30 seconds, some AE2 leak when millions of items are stored).

I like many aspects of bedrock edition, most related to performance. I want a gregtech-like experience in bedrock so badly that I'd go as far as making it myself. I just wish the command interface wasn't so janky. When I've done test blocks and interactions in the past I've run into limitations that would prevent my vision. This was maybe 18 months ago, so I don't think much has changed yet.

Bedrock does have a Javascript-based behaviour pack system. No idea about it's capabilities.

That's what I'm referring to. Behavior packs are json files + assets. It's a real trip to try to have your own variables for things like items inserted, energy level, etc. In java you could edit tile entity metadata with your own java code.

In bedrock minecraft commands must be used to update these states. This is where my understanding started to fall apart.

The problem with those packs, especially ones like tekkit is that they just mash in a thousand different mods of barebones compatibility, some adding the same kind of ore or item slightly differently and you end up with a billion items, some of which are duplicates, no idea where to start from or what to use with what, and all in all a general unbalanced clusterfuck.

Create mod by itself is fine as it is imo, no extra stuff required.

I specifically called out Above & Beyond because it isn't a "kitchen sink" pack thrown together over a weekend with a dozen different game crashing interactions between mods, or 4 ways to create dupe item cycle. Or a hell inducing grindfest like the Gregtech focused packs are.

It's a pack with one goal (build rocket, goto moon), that puts you in the SANDBOX that is the core of minecraft and says, "here are the tools, here's a bit of guidance on what you should automate to progress, but figure it out from tools at hand and have fun in your own way".

The mods are from different authors, but all the recipes have been tweaked and tuned to integrate with each other and provide a cohesive progression curve. Even the textures have been tweaked to make the pack visually cohesive.

> no idea where to start from or what to use with what

A lot of recent packs give you a quest book to guide your progress and push you into the different mods slowly. You get maybe 70-80% through one mod's tech tree and then you're pushed to start on another section before you can progress into that last 20%. The Project Ozone series does a REALLY good job of making sure the different mods balance each other and interact in a way that feels good.

> you end up with a billion items

Yeah that gets bad. Most packs have some sort of inventory organization system (basically a computer you can stick all your items into with no organization and then search them up later) to help alleviate that.

The trailer for Create Above and Beyond made it look pretty integrated. They added a lot on top and did a lot of mod editing.

I honestly never understood the appeal of vanilla Minecraft. I only bought the game because of the mods! Mods like AE2 or Thermal Expansion is where the fun is at!

I think Mojang should reconsider its objection to adding an auto-crafting system into the game. There are legitimate concerns that, if it was too easy, it would make one of the defining aspects of the game obsolete, but I think it could be balanced so that users wouldn't bother doing it for simple items like pickaxes.

As an example, the "auto-crafter" block could be powered by chorus fruit, which means the player would not have access to it until after beating the Ender Dragon. That would also mean that truly automating crafting would also require an automated chorus fruit farm, which would give the system a minimum space requirement.

MC 1.19 has a new 'Allay' mob planned that will pick up and move items for the player. I can see people using this to create some interesting automated systems.

My kids don't play survival at all really and although I have kept trying for years I can't find an actual enjoyable game in there at all really. Like you say, too much grinding, and then it just starts to feel completely pointless and arbitrary.