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.

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! Yay! 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.

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.

Power Up

Now it's time to make a Solar Panel. 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, or 800 kRF. I'm more familiar with RF, so I'll be utilizing that unit throughout the tutorial. Interesting tidbit: 71 coal in the Generator creates 170 kRF, and it takes 4 kRF to run the Infuser once.

(This will be continued)