Reputation ranks
Ranks only ever go up; points can drop but your rank stays.
About reputation ranksI feel that I may not be the best judge of this specific pack due to my inexperience with GregTech but I think it's actually probably fine, given the positioning of this (and beforehand Omni/Nomifactory) as a good entry-level Greg pack. And so most of my criticisms are likely moreso criticisms of GregTech and the philosophy around it in general, so take that into consideration.
What it really boils down to is that every inconvenience you surpass is just replaced with a new one. It never really feels like you're making things easier by building infrastructure, you're just building more infrastructure to have to deal with. Tool-based microcrafting gets phased out for machine crafting, which is much more clunky than just clicking through everything in a crafting table. Some resources get automated and suddenly you don't really need them anymore (and when you do, it's an alloy or chemical breakdown which takes several steps).
I ended up tapping out right around HV/getting AE2 automation, and while this would've been huge, the setup time for that would probably take forever, between building all the parts and rewiring my (admittedly rudimentary) base. The push for polyethylene was quite annoying and I would definitely need to build some more blast furnaces (I was running this on a server, but friends got bored and so if I were to continue it'd be local). It seems like chemical reactors become a very big aspect of the game going forward which is not exciting given my aversion to dealing with fluids in MC modpacks. I don't even want to go through the process to make the next tier of conductive wires lol. I realized at some point that everything in front of me was just going to be a chore, which when completed would only be rewarded with more chores.
It's still entertaining for a long while though, in the same way as pulling a loose string from a sweater is. It is for sure an achievement to get 100 hours out of me basically on a whim. Just don't really expect to be satisfied or particularly happy with the time you spent by the time you tap out unless you've got the tenacity to hit some of the bigger goals.
CurseForge