GeneShark

Hence I said enhancing, rather than enchanting.

Hey, me and my friends have been trying out TFC on a server the past week or so and a use for gems has been something we've talked about a bunch. The idea we seem to end up on each time is using them as an enhancement system that would replace vanilla enchantments using "Gem dust". Crushing say, a diamond, and applying it to the edge of a tool or weapon would add Efficiency/Sharpness and the like. If there aren't enough vanilla enchantments that fit the TFC realism, perhaps split the gems into groups, which would give the same enhancement. Better grade gems could give more dust when crushed. Needing something to crush gems with means you could effectively "price out" enhancing tools with a high crafting cost to stop it being overpowered in the early game, though the crushing machine (maybe a grindstone?) would lend itself nicely to some of the new crops too, so maybe a high crafting cost would shut down farming which wouldn't be so good. Of course, no-one seems to be opposed to decorative blocks either, though perhaps limiting the gems that can be used for them to the higher grades would make them less obtainable in number and more of a fancy decoration. Thanks for the work you've put in, this is a nice change of pace from our usual IC2/RP2 setup.