Suggested sticky

[MClaudeW]

I think there should be a thread made regarding the best (most efficient) order in which to make all the machines necessary to fabricate any item in the game.

New players like me struggle with figuring out which machines do what and what machines you need to make to get this or that ingredient.

The Internet seems to be lacking in easy to find and lookup information on feed the beast. This would be a good place to put a little starting guide. In my opinion.
Something like:
1 iron furnace
2 generator (requires this this and that*)
3 macerator (requires *)(effectively doubles your ores by*)
4 electric furnace (requires)
Etc until you've listed everything that you need to make anything.

Maybe there should be a poll? I dunno.

I definitely think whoever would be willing to do this would be a great help to a starting community.

I'd do it but I'm barely on MFE and just learned to use a thermionic fabricator today.[DOUBLEPOST=1355445779][/DOUBLEPOST]And also explain what items go into extra slots. I can't figure out what goes in my dang electric engine or how to power my thermionic fabricator. ( well I know it's glass now but I had to look a bit to find out)

 

[SilvasRuin]

That kind of information is probably going to have to wait for the wiki. That's a lot of stuff to fit into a forum thread, especially as there tend to be multiple methods of producing things.

 

[ItharianEngineering]

the electric engine's slot on the left is for a circuit board made from the carpenter. You need a soldering iron (also carpenter) and some tubes (thermionic fabricator) and you just use the soldering iron while not looking at anything. It should bring up a GUI. Place the tubes in the left and then the circuit board on top and it should give you a new board on the bottom with stats. This can be placed in the electric engine's slots to change the rates that it converts EU to MJ.

 

[EternalDensity]

I thought part of the fun was in figuring things out.

 

[danny75]

I thought part of the fun was in figuring things out.

exactly. no offence to the OP, but wouldn't a guide defeat the purpose. My advice is to watch some mod tutorials to learn the basics. It would probably give you a better advantage than a 'painting by numbers' approach, and allow you to impose your style of play. I've only been playing MC for 3 months, and that was tekkit to start with. I found that overwhelming, being bombarded with information. It was like putting a jigsaw together without the picture as a guide. But you figure it out, eventually.

Quite a few mods have continued to develop as we wait for RP2 to release, so the FTB wiki isn't going to be your best bet...yet. Watch direwolf's spotlights...and you'll be on your way. I would start with Thermal Expansion and go from there...

 

[Minethulhu]

It's worth mentioning that this is also not the only way to go and may even be less than optimal if GregTech is set to hard. At least one (nearly) equivalent alternative is:

hobbyists steam engine
pulverizer
powered furnace

It needs more gold than IC2 way, but needs zero rubber. And in my opinion, Thermal Expansion is easier to learn and use than IC2.

 

[Vauthil]

Have a good idea for how to get started using the set from a particular mod? Take a look at this thread asking for some help for the wiki in this regard.

 

[MClaudeW]

I understand the complexity issue. And the let have fun learning the hard way perspective. But what about the ret of u who just think it'd be more fun with a sense of direction and an idea of what I can make at what point?

There really is to much to learn through trial and error. Like that soldering iron bit. How does one figure that out on their own? Resources for learning can never be anything but a boon to a person trying to learn.

 

[ItharianEngineering]

The bit I offered about the soldering iron is actually hard to come by as the forestry wiki explains nothing except telling you what effects each tube gives and you use it with a circuit board. Until I saw a video of it a day ago I didn't even understand the entire process myself, and was just placing the tubes in the bottom slot with the circuit board installed doing nothing.

There are some things I feel are worth giving out to everyone as the information isn't readily available for a lot of people to find, but I believe that the actual process should be mostly for the player. Like I used to play with just IC2 as my main processing setup but now I have started out getting the TE pulverizer asap and using it to double all my ores as it is cheaper than getting a basic IC2 power grid set up along with using my first few diamonds to make a mining turtle for excavating.

 

[Evil Hamster]

I like the idea of a consolidated, streamlined, consistent source of info- thus waiting for the wiki

I don't know if a "do A then B" will help much though. When I decided to start a new world, I had to figure out everything all over again and tried some things a different way. Kind of got off to a slower start but it is what it is

 

[eculc]

Just having a consolidated source of information should be enough. I don't think anyone expects (or wants) an actual "guide on: how to <do stuff>" just a place where all the information relating to things is located.

in the words of a member of an FTB server I play on (who is new to FTB): "I wanna see whoever made buildcraft, it appears he/she took Notch's 'screw documentation or tutorials, let 'em learn' thing WAY TOO SERIOUSLY."

 

[Vilmos]

I don't think there is a down side to having a guide. After all if you want to have the fun learning yourself then just DON'T read the guide!

 

[ItharianEngineering]

There are some things I feel like should at least be noted somewhere. Like what Steve's carts items for one. I saw all these items in NEI and creative that had modular costs and stuff but no way of knowing what they were for or why. NEI doesn't tell me what they are from or how they are used, it took me quite a bit of time to figure out what I was looking at and then even longer to figure out how to actually use them. There are just a few mods or aspects of some mods that are nearly unusable or very inefficient to use without some sort of documentation. Like the electrical engine thing I mentioned earlier. How many people actually know they can do that at all or have figured out the process? Even creating the twilight forest portal took me a bit because I didn't see it on the forum page the first dozen times.

Instead of creating a step by step guide, why not just have one that lists many aspects of the mods you might have missed or not have known about because you were too busy exploring other mods. There are a lot of things we all probably miss when we start using a mod and might never see it because we get caught up in it's other parts, so it might end up a big surprise for some people to suddenly find out that they skipped over a whole world of functionality of a mod they have.

 

[Vauthil]

The wiki is in progress. I think when it's ready to be presented it'll clear up a lot of this confusion (I'd say "complete", but wikis generally never are). Until then, I really do recommend people check and see when the Wiki Team is requesting input/write-ups and supplying what assistance you are able to. =)

 

[MClaudeW]

This is nice. I like seeing people who are passionate in a positive way