Gregtech Survival Guide

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Optibane

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I was just about to ask another question... on that exact subject... and then, I discovered BevoLJ's videos! Haven't watched it yet so dunno if it will help me (us) but if it does I will return and post an update.


I've watched a bunch of Bevo's beyond reality series. They're pretty good but I wouldn't say he's an expert with gregtech. I get the feeling that he doesn't know the underlying mechanics in detail, but there's still value in watching him figure things out. I did learn quite a bit about AE2 though! Also because of this series I was very close to switching to the beyond reality pack. But then resurrection was updated and added a couple things which made it much more playable :p


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Optibane

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Some machines are definitely critical to progress, but I don't think the arc furnace or thermal centrifuge fall into that category.

That said: both of those machines are voracious energy consumers. If you can afford the time/resources, it would be more energy-efficient for you to run two LV thermal centrifuges than a single MV version.

I agree... It's better to use the LV machines when you can because of the efficiency. I only made the MV machines that I needed to keep progressing, same for HV.

One exception to the rule is the HV macerator which gives an extra byproduct over the LV and MV ones, so if you have the energy to spare it's worth running your ores through it.


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asb3pe

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Is it worth making any of the smaller LV arc furnaces or thermal centrifuge, or do I basically need to plan to make 1 of each LV machine so that I can make a few MV machines (not all) and then head on to HV?

I found the Thermal Centrifuge to be an extremely valuable LV machine, however as I've pointed out, it does require a 2 amp power supply. What I finally did was connect my LV machines using 4x Tin Cable which can handle 4 amps of current. Then I placed a 4-battery Buffer Box after every 4 lengths of the Tin Cable, and I can place 8 machines along those 4 lengths of cable (4 in front and 4 on top). If you aren't up against a wall of your base, you could actually place 12 machines but you'd have to walk around to get to the other 4 machines.

This setup allowed the Thermal Centrifuge to run properly, but it also allowed me to run multiple machines at once because they have 4 amps of current to draw from, and most machines only use 1 amp. So you can have 4 machines running, and if they are connected to different battery boxes, then you could have even more machines working simultaneous.

Conversely, I am now in the HV era, and I still have not built an Arc Furnace, not even the LV version yet. I simply have not had any use for it, but that doesn't mean it's a useless machine. I think the Arc Furnace is suggested as a means of destroying older machine (such as all the Bronze Age stuff) and re-collecting some raw materials back. However, I haven't destroyed anything yet, I still have all my machines even if they are just sitting in a chest.

In the discussion earlier in the thread, I guess we came to the conclusion that building a full compliment of LV machines is indeed a good decision... one big reason being, if a recipe can utilize LV and you aren't in a hurry, then the LV version will use the least amount of energy (steam) to process. That's obviously a good thing.

I'm in the process of relocating my base (a big step), and I plan to have a full line of LV machines and also a full line of HV machines. As you indicated, and as was discussed earlier in the thread, I think we also came to the conclusion that skipping as many MV machines as you can is a good idea. But I guess I was wrong about skipping LV machines, there really isn't a practical way to do that without cheating. You want to go as fast up the ladder as you can, but it will require many LV machines to do that.

The only MV machines I made were the Forming Press, Precision Laser Engraver, Assembling Machine, Electrolyzer and Centrifuge. The first three are required to make Advanced Circuits. The last two I'm not sure if they were necessary or if I just built them to help speed up my ore processing.
 
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Pyure

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The only MV machines I made were the Forming Press, Precision Laser Engraver, Assembling Machine, Electrolyzer and Centrifuge. The first three are required to make Advanced Circuits. The last two I'm not sure if they were necessary or if I just built them to help speed up my ore processing.

Electrolyzer is pretty important to upgrade to MV: a ton of good recipes require ~120 eu/t. The centrifuge is less important.
 
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Dlur100

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I have a question that I'm nearly ashamed to ask. How do I get molten metal (tin for example) out of the Basic Fluid Extractor so I can input it into my Basic Assembly Machine to solder circuits and the like? I've tried putting a bucket in just about every location in the BFE, but no tin goes in it. I'm pretty certain that I'm missing something incredibly easy, yet undocumented here.
 

Pyure

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I have a question that I'm nearly ashamed to ask. How do I get molten metal (tin for example) out of the Basic Fluid Extractor so I can input it into my Basic Assembly Machine to solder circuits and the like? I've tried putting a bucket in just about every location in the BFE, but no tin goes in it. I'm pretty certain that I'm missing something incredibly easy, yet undocumented here.
You're correct all around. The only way to get the liquid from a gregtech machine into something like a bucket directly is via a canning machine (there are indirect methods such as using a vanilla tank and right-clicking on that)

The trick is to pipe the fluid into the other machine. I actually have several extractor/assembler pairs in my base so that this is easier to manage (outputting from machine-to-machine directly) but you also have the option of using any fluid pipes are your disposal to transport the liquid.

Note that some machines cannot output liquids, so if you want to use a different liquid in that assembling machine later on, you'll have to remove the machine/replace it or find a way to exhaust all the stored fluid.

Also note: you can either use the GUI button (left one) to force-output the liquid from the output face, or you can "pull" the liquid from any other face using something like an EnderIO fluid conduit (or GT pump on a pipe, etc)

Lastly but not really related, Pro Tip: for assembling table recipes, you get better bang for your buck with the "Soldering Alloy" fluid. You use less of it than the Tin or Lead versions (But you need some Antimony to do it)

Good luck :)
 

Dlur100

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Aw nuts. Oh well. I had planned to set up groups of assemblers later on for mass production of circuits and such, but I was sort of hoping to just do a tidy row of machines for now until I have enough (excess, as if that ever happens) steel to be able to afford duplicate machines. Guess I'll just move the BFE and Assembler over to a different area from my main factory line.

If I use the left GUI button I should be able to just set the BFE directly to the left of the Assembler and transfer the molten tin directly to the Assembler without pipe?
 

Dlur100

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You got it :)
Awesome. I"m guessing the piping of solder fluid would apply later on when you have multiple assembly machines going and want to pump solder in from one extractor to multiple assembly machines such that you could have a setup where you create a NAND chip with one assembler, output that to the next assembler and make your circuit there and then dump that into a chest.

One nice thing about GregTech and to an even greater extent, InfiTech 2 is that this should keep me and my son busy at least until summer. I usually get bored of vanilla MC after about 2-3 weeks of playing survival.

Now if I could just find some damn diamonds. I sunk 17 1x2 mineshafts centered on 3x3 chunk groups in a grid pattern last night. I found all sorts of useful ore, but still no diamonds...still no macerator. It's almost to the point where I'm tempted to go mine a huge pile of coal and start using a compressor or PneumaticCraft to make a few diamonds.
 

Pyure

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Pneumaticcraft is good for diamonds? :p

When searching for specific ores, I find its better to branch-mine at the ideal elevation, with the branches 3 chunks apart or so.
 

Dlur100

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Pneumaticcraft is good for diamonds? :p

When searching for specific ores, I find its better to branch-mine at the ideal elevation, with the branches 3 chunks apart or so.

I'm not sure if it's good or not, but Jason did make a few diamonds with a pressure chamber and air compressor on his InfiTech 2 LP series. I believe it was a ratio of 8 coal blocks to 1 diamond, but all the compressed iron made it pretty spendy. It seemed to be much more resource intensive than using a standard compressor with coal blocks and brick in the center to make an industrial diamond.

I'll give the branch-mine method a go tonight. With the grid-shaft method I've hit an ore vein every single time, just not the ones I need (currently). At least I have cobalt I can use to mine the diamonds when I do eventually find them. I've also got Lithium, Tungston, and about a dozen copper mines all a stone's throw from my base.
 

Pyure

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Grid-shaft (core-sampling) is better for finding ores in general. But if you want to find a specific ore, AND you have a method of digging branches quickly, it can be better to do branches.

This may actually make this method inferior for you depending on your modpack. If you had extra utilities, the destruction pickaxe makes this a joke. But if you're restricted to stuff like the jackhammer, you probably can't build a decent version of that yet.
 

Azkeel

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I'm not sure if it's good or not, but Jason did make a few diamonds with a pressure chamber and air compressor on his InfiTech 2 LP series. I believe it was a ratio of 8 coal blocks to 1 diamond, but all the compressed iron made it pretty spendy. It seemed to be much more resource intensive than using a standard compressor with coal blocks and brick in the center to make an industrial diamond.

I'll give the branch-mine method a go tonight. With the grid-shaft method I've hit an ore vein every single time, just not the ones I need (currently). At least I have cobalt I can use to mine the diamonds when I do eventually find them. I've also got Lithium, Tungston, and about a dozen copper mines all a stone's throw from my base.

Graphite/Diamond veins aren't that rare, you'll find them sooner or later. I found 3 diamond veins in my current world, 1 by branch mining at level 10, others by digging 1x2 holes every 40 blocks or so. It's my second Infitech 2 world (currently HV era), but I have never found any tungstate or iridium ores *sigh*
 

Dlur100

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Grid-shaft (core-sampling) is better for finding ores in general. But if you want to find a specific ore, AND you have a method of digging branches quickly, it can be better to do branches.

This may actually make this method inferior for you depending on your modpack. If you had extra utilities, the destruction pickaxe makes this a joke. But if you're restricted to stuff like the jackhammer, you probably can't build a decent version of that yet.

Our server is running InfiTech 2, so there probably is a destruction pickaxe among other things that I had no clue even existed. However, right now I'm still trying to conserve resources so I'm mostly using stone picks for general use and saving the level 2 and level 3 picks for ore that only they can break. I've only been playing this instance for 7 days or so now.
 

Pyure

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Our server is running InfiTech 2, so there probably is a destruction pickaxe among other things that I had no clue even existed. However, right now I'm still trying to conserve resources so I'm mostly using stone picks for general use and saving the level 2 and level 3 picks for ore that only they can break. I've only been playing this instance for 7 days or so now.
I didn't realize you were playing Infitech2, great pack :)

You certainly do have the destruction pickaxe as well as a bunch of other goodies, but you won't be able to get it until you can kill the Wither.

Thaumium tools are nice too btw.
 

asb3pe

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Wow. Surprising development. Start at Gregorius Post #45474 and read from there - GT5 is done, will never be progressed further, so no Fusion Reactor, he's moving on to GT6 with a complete rewrite of everything to fix "the Code mistakes of GT 2 and GT 4, which were the MetaTileEntity System for GT 2 and the Material Enum System for GT 4."

Oh and also a totally new energy system, sounds more like rotarycraft but I never played that mod so I dunno.

http://forum.industrial-craft.net/index.php?page=Thread&postID=180271#post180271
 
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Queue

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Jul 29, 2019
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Here's a crosspost from the IC2 forum on the future of this iteration of the guide:
quoteS.png
Quoted from "macyayaya"

Hello Queue,

1.Can I translate the survival guide to the traditional Chinese version and republish to other forums?
I'll let you know when it's done and ready to publish.

2.I want to translate the pages about GT on the FTB wiki (to traditional Chinese too), and I want to add templates on it,
but it's not working at all, it just giving me

""This page contains changes which are not marked for translation.""


After Google, I found that I need the translate administrator to get the translate work faster
Does anyone know how to get the admin?
I'd appreciate it if anyone can tell me
smile.png


1. Absolutely! Credit all of the people who contributed (not just me) from the second page of the document, but feel free to do so. No need to contact me when it's done, just go right ahead. As long as you credit the people who contributed, there is also no need for you to link to this forum post.

2. I've contributed to the GT wiki, but the FTB wiki is not mine. I suggest contacting SpwnX or retep998 on this forum.


----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Also, since this came up, I have some news. Gregtech 6 is coming out. As a result, I am ceasing all work on the Survival Guide. It was a project too daunting for me to finish and since it got essentially molested by trolls, the editing restrictions have made progress very slow. Since the guide will very soon be obselete and I have a lot of things on my plate at the moment, I am handing off the document to the community for real this time.

Once Gregtech 6 comes out, the guide is anyone's to copy, edit and distribute freely. My only request is that you properly credit all of the people who put time and effort into creating the document. You can credit me as the original creator, but from the time Greg slaps the first release of Gregtech 6 I no longer have control over the document. If anyone wants to piggy back off the GitHub, contact me there and I can give you the repository.

Any questions, PM me here or on the FTB forum. And as said above, feel free to translate it.

When GT6 comes out, I'll make a decision on what to do for a future survival guide. Until then, adios.
 

Dlur100

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Does anyone have a good video for electricity similar to what Chloe did for GT fluid pipes? My wiring keeps starting on fire every time I add a new machine:(

(I'm going through the LV stage now)
 

Queue

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Does anyone have a good video for electricity similar to what Chloe did for GT fluid pipes? My wiring keeps starting on fire every time I add a new machine:(

(I'm going through the LV stage now)
Video? @mr10movie had one I think. Also, I believe someone on the ftb subreddit had one too. Might want to search there.
 

Pyure

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Don't have a video at hand, but wirefires at that stage mean too many packets (amps) are in a wire block at a given time.

A rule of thumb is: your wiring should at the very least be able to handle the number of amps your power sources can output. So a 4A cable on a 4x battery box. Although due to bouncing amps, this isn't 100% reliable either, so double it :)
 
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