From A To Z
This tutorial is aimed at taking a new player from the first Osmium ore to the endgame fusion reactor and induction matrix. This will show you, in tiers, what to do and when.
Breakdown: Tier 1
Tier 2
Tier 1
First, you're looking to mine some Osmium Ore. Throw it in the Furnace and get out an Osmium Ingot. Take these, four iron ingots, two redstone dusts and two furnaces and craft the Metallurgic Infuser.
This is where things really get moving. The Metallurgic Infuser is the root of all Mekanism technology. But there's a problem: we need power in order to make the infuser run. Solution? The Heat Generator. It has two modes: you can pump fuels into it (solid or liquid), or you can set it next to lava. The differences between these two options is described on that previously linked page.
There are three basic things you're wanting to make with the metallurgic infuser, but first we're going to make some Steel Ingots. You make these by putting coal, charcoal or Compressed Carbon (more on that later) into the infuser and infusing it into iron ingots. This creates Enriched Iron. Take that Enriched Iron and run it through the Infuser again with more coal-like fuel. This will create Steel Dust, which you can run through the furnace to get the Steel Ingots we need. Make at least a couple dozen for now.
With Steel now under our belt, we need to craft some Steel Casings. These are the basic framework of the machines in Mekanism. To craft these, you need four Steel Ingots and one Osmium Ingot, arrayed in a cross with the Osmium in the center. Next we need some Basic Control Circuits. These will be used very often in the first tier of machinery, so make a bunch of them. For the moment, we just need two. Make them by Infusing Osmium Ingots with redstone.
The next thing to make is some Enriched Alloy. In fact, we need to make a bunch of them, because we're going to use them all over the place, too. For now, make about a dozen. You can make the Enriched Alloy by putting redstone and iron ingots in the Infuser. You need one of each to make one alloy. After that, grab two of them, four redstone dusts and three gold ingots and craft an Energy Tablet. Make two of them.
Next, take two of the Steel Ingots and a redstone dust and put them in a line to make Basic Universal Cables. You can run power remotely now! Huzzah! You can also start arranging your machines along the Cables from the Generator, but for now, make another Steel Casing and those two Tablets and use them to make a Basic Energy Cube. Place this on the power-output side of the Heat Generator. Then, start running your Cables from there to the machines, wherever they are. The side of the Energy Cube that has the plate across it, which is by default the side facing you when you place it, is the output side. Every other side is an input.
Phew! That's a lot of work just to get things started, and we're not even a third of the way through Tier 1.
Now it's time to make a Solar Generator. The heat generator is a very simple start, and we need to start getting some more reliable power in our systems. We can also start talking about power usage. The Basic Cube has a max capacity of 2000 kJ. Interesting tidbit: one stack of coal in the Heat Generator makes 383.52 kJ, and it takes 10 kJ to run the Infuser once.
So, the first step in making a Solar Generator is to make three Solar Panels. To make one, you need three glass panes, two redstone dusts, one Enriched Alloy and three Osmium Ingots. Take those three Panels and put them right back in the crafting grid, along with two more Enriched Alloys, an Energy Tablet, an iron ingot, and two Osmium Dusts.
But wait! Osmium Dust, you say? How do I get that? Well that requires two more machines we haven't made yet, the Crusher or the Enrichment Chamber. The Crusher can make dusts out of ingots, but the Enrichment Chamber is what we really want, because it doubles our ingot output! Yep, it's the macerator/pulverizer of the Mekanism world. Luckily, we can make all the parts for both. Their recipes are very similar, as well. Throw a Crusher together by combining two Basic Circuits, two lava buckets and four redstone dusts surrounding a Steel Casing, then throw an Osmium Ingot or Ore into it to get some dust. To make the Enrichment Chamber, combine the same components in the same order, just replace the buckets with iron ingots. Throw an ingot into the Crusher, or an Ore into the Enrichment Chamber, and get you some Osmium Dusts.
OK, back to the Solar Generator. Take those two Dusts and make your first Solar Generator. Guess what? One Solar Generator puts out 60 J/t. The Heat Generator puts out about 100. Take three Solar Generators and you have replaced your Heat Generator! So now you have a renewable source of power that isn't all that expensive, and two of them more than replace the fuel burner! Huzzah! You'll need one Solar Generator for each machine you have running to break even on power, during the day. At night, well... That's why we have the Energy Cube! See, it's already taken care of. You're welcome.
Want more power? Well, there are other steps we can take, as well. First, there's the Wind Turbine. You can make this by combining three Osmium Ingots, an Enriched Alloy, a Basic Circuit and two Energy Tablets. At base height 0, the Turbine produces 60 J/t, but its output increases as its elevation does, to an upper limit of 480 j/t. Got mountains? Then you've got a viable replacement for up to two active Heat Generators. The Turbine has only one viable output side: its front. Keep that in mind as you design your power transfer systems.
The second option is to upgrade your Solar Generator into an Advanced Solar Generator. You need four Solar Generators, two Enriched Alloys and three iron ingots. The Advanced version of the Solar Gens is better than the sum of its parts. Whereas one Solar Generator outputs 50 J/t (making four of them a total of 200 J/t), the advanced Solar Generator generates 300 J/t. There is a downside, though. The Advanced Solar Generator takes up a 3x3 block space, which means that you could also have a 3x3 array of regular Solar Generators giving you 450 J/t for the same space usage. The Advanced looks cool, and it does have the advantage of being able to output more at once, but it's just not worth it in the long run.
Hmm, 450 J/t... That brings us to the next problem: the Basic Universal Cable is only capable of transferring 500 J/t. That just won't do, if we're to have the power that we need. Solution? Upgrade to Advanced Universal Cables! These are really simple to make, you just have to wrap eight Basic Cables around an Enriched Alloy to get 8 Advanced Cables. These babies can handle up to 2,000 J/t, or 2 kJ! More than enough to handle the power requirements we have so far.
Side note: the Solar and Advanced Solar Generators get a 50% bonus on their output in desert biomes, so that would give the Solar Generator 75 J/t and the Advanced 450 J/t. If you had an array of nine Solar Generators that would give you 675 J/t output. Yeah, definitely need the Advanced Cables.
That reminds me, you'll probably want to upgrade the Basic Energy Cube, as well. It's actually capable of outputting 800 J/t, which should technically be more than enough for the build we have so far, but we want to upgrade the storage capacity too. Take the one you have (if you have one of the myriad mods that supply a wrench, you can shift-right-click the Energy Cubes to "break" it while saving the energy stored inside of it), and combine it with four Enriched Alloys, two Osmium Ingots and two Energy Tablets. The new Advanced Energy Cube's capabilities are four times that of the Basic, giving it 8,000 kJ storage capacity and 3.2 kJ/t output. Huzzah!
Now that we've gotten the power question answered, let's talk about pulling all of our processing needs into the energy side of things. First off, naturally, would be the furnace (we've already talked about the Crusher and Enrichment Chamber). To replace this we use the Energized Smelter. Works just like a furnace, except it runs off of the power network! You need four redstone dusts, two glass blocks, two Basic Circuits and a Steel Casing to craft this. If you have this hooked up to an Enrichment Chamber, you'll need two to keep up with the supply, as it takes just as long to smelt dusts as it does to enrich ores.
Next, just to get more wood, we're going to make the precision sawmill. Now, this may not be particularly useful to you, but it could be good to have around just in case. You need a Steel Casing, two Basic Circuits, two Enriched Alloys and four iron ingots, arrayed in the usual pattern. The Precision Sawmill produces six wood planks (instead of the usual four) AS WELL AS a sawdust with each operation. Now, the uses for sawdust within Mekanism itself are fairly limited, but you can use three sawdusts to make a stack of three paper. Can be useful.
Tier 2
I wanted to put the next level of power generation in Tier 2 simply because it requires so much setup, even though it doesn't actually require anything with Advanced Control Circuits. But the generation capability of this setup is absolutely astonishing. More on that in a bit. Here's what we'll need:
- Basic or Advanced Pressurized Tubes
- Basic or Advanced Logistical Transporters
- Basic or Advanced Mechanical Pipes
- Advanced Universal Cables or better
- Advanced Energy Cubes or better
- Crusher
- Configurator
- Chargepad
- Electrolytic Separator
- Pressurized Reaction Chamber or PRC
- Electric Pump
- Gas-Burning Generator
You'll also need an infinite water source, for the pump to draw from.
That's quite a list, eh? Well, we've already made Advanced Universal Cables and Energy Cubes, not to mention a Crusher, so that's three off the list that aren't new. The Pressurized Tube, Logistical Transporter and Mechanical Pipe are new, though, and the process for making Advanced versions of them is the same as for the Universal Cable. However, the Basic recipes are different, with the differences being the Tubes need glass, the Pipes need a bucket, and the Transporters need Basic Circuits.
In order to use the Transporters properly, though, we'll need the Configurator. This thing, made from 1 Energy Tablet, 1 stick, 1 lapis lazuli and two Enriched Alloys, allows you to configure the various transport items after placement. The thing about the Pipes, Transporters and Tubes is that they have four modes: Push, Pull, Normal (passive) and None (supposed don't allow interaction there? Doesn't quite work like it should in the latest version). You need to configure all the transports that are receiving item/liquid/gas output to Pull that stuff out of the inventory they're attached to. You do this by crouching and right-clicking on the ends of the pipe when they're attached to an inventory. You can also run the same type of transport next to each other and keep them separate by shift-right-clicking the middle section of the transports and assigning color networks to the transports.
In order to use the Configurator, though, you need to charge it. And in order to charge it, you need a Chargepad! Go figure! One of these babies can be crafted with three stone pressure plates, two Steel Ingots and an Energy Tablet. Attach it to a Cable and stand on it to activate the charging. Be sure you only have the Configurator in your inventory when you do, because it will charge energy cubes, too.
Now that you're fully capable of configurating all of the necessary pipes, transports and tubes, we can move on to the actual build. First in the build list is the Electric Pump. Create an infinite water source (2x2 water, if you're not familiar with the concept) then place the pump one block above one of the sources. Hook up the power to the side of it (the only side that has a straight vertical face), and a pipe to the top. I will only remind you once: if a pipe, tube or transport isn't doing what you expect it to, use the configurator to change the mode of the connection to pull.
Next, we make the Electrolytic Separator. Combine four iron ingots, two redstone dusts, two Enriched Alloys and an Electrolytic Core to make one. Oops, we haven't gotten that one yet! To make a Core, combine five Enriched Alloys, two Osmium Dusts, an iron dust and a gold dust. Make two, while you're at it, you'll need the second one later. When you've made the Separator, place it somewhere and hook up the water supply to it with more pipes. Don't hook it directly up to power yet (or change the redstone sensitivity to high so it doesn't run without active redstone signal), because it's a bit of a power hog. However, you can go and set the oxygen side to Dump its contents. There's a little button under the power bar at the right to let you do so. If you didn't set it to do that (or to dump excess, if you're feeding the oxygen somewhere else), it would fill the oxygen side and not produce any more hydrogen, and we need the hydrogen. Badly.
After that, we get to make the Pressurized Reaction Chamber, or PRC for short. This requires two Basic Circuits, an Enrichment Chamber, an Enriched Alloy, two Gas Tanks and a Dynamic Tank. Wait, wait, wait, TWO new things AT ONCE?! Yikes! Well, let's buckle down for it. The gas tank requires eight Osmium Ingots around an iron dust. Fairly simple. The Dynamic Tank, on the other hand, requires an empty bucket and four Steel Ingots. That recipe actually makes four, so hold on to the others for the later machines. Put the PRC close to the Separator, preferably on the blue tank side of the Separator. The Separator's output cannot be configured, so the hydrogen gas is ejected out of the blue tank side. Run some Tube between them and watch the hydrogen flow. It shouldn't be necessary to change the side config to allow gas input on the side you put it on, but it would be good practice to be in the habit. This is done in the Gases tab of the Side Config (Side Config is the top left tab, and the Gases tab of that is the top right tab).
Next we'll need to set up the supply for the PRC. The PRC requires Biofuel to create the Ethylene that the Gas Generators run on, and this is made by crushing organic matter (wheat, seeds, saplings, etc) in the Crusher. So, set up a crusher and a chest with some transporters between them set to take organics from the chest into the Crusher and then take the Biofuel from the Crusher into the PRC. You'll also need to run the water pipes to the PRC and set up the Fluids Config to accept fluids from the side you hook it up to. The Universal Cables can be hooked up on any side and don't require any configuring in the PRC GUI.
Finally, we get to the Gas-Burning Generator. This is where you use the extra Electrolytic Core you made earlier, combined with two more Steel Casings, two more Enriched Alloys, and four Osmium Ingots. Place this in close proximity to everything else, and hook up the Universal Cables to the side of the Gas Generator that has the yellow coloring (yeah, only one output side), then hook up the Ethylene from the PRC to any of the remaining sides. You may want to throw a couple of Advanced Energy Cubes between the Generator power output and the hookup to the rest of the system.
Apply a power surge to the system from your other setup (the Heat Generator/Solar Generators) to get the Separator started, and then from that point on, as long as you have plenty of Biofuel, you have a self-sustaining energy source.
Astonishingly, once you get this setup running, you can support a whopping 18 Gas Generators with the Ethylene that is produced (gaining 1-2 stored Ethylene per gas output from the PRC), making for a mind-boggling net gain of over 12 kJ/t! When you think about the fact that most basic machines need only 50 J/t at their basic operating level, you're still netting over 10 kJ/t with your entire machine setup running at once!!!. Now you see why I told you to use at least Advanced Cables and Cubes. Elites would be much better (remember, the Advanced Cable is only capable of transferring 8 kJ/t, whereas the Elite Cable is capable of 32 kJ/t).
Next thing to mention is the Factory upgrades. Factories are basically pimped out versions of the
