What mod do you use for early game ore processing?

  • Please make sure you are posting in the correct place. Server ads go here and modpack bugs go here

Vaygrim

New Member
Jul 29, 2019
533
0
0
The title says it all: You have your first scraps of iron, with gold and redstone in sight. What mod do you go to for your first upgrade from the vanilla furnace?
 

Bomb Bloke

New Member
Jul 29, 2019
612
0
0
TE steam engine powering a TE pulveriser. Though I hear Dartcraft may be a little more Monty Haul then TE these days. Dunno.
 

Necr0maNceR

New Member
Jul 29, 2019
92
0
0
Factorization's slag furnace is nice, providing extra stone and the occasional extra ingot. Along with getting 1 silver and 1-2 lead ingots from each silver ore. Unfortunately, I think that only works with factorization silver ore.

Also, the Quartz Grind Stone from AE is a cheap albeit time consuming and manual way of doubling ore output.
 

Drawde

New Member
Jul 29, 2019
279
0
0
TiC's Smeltery.

Other than three iron for a bucket it doesn't require any of the ores I process with it to make it. It get's annoying early in the game to be an ingot or two short of something, when you still have to mine with a pick.
 

PoisonWolf

New Member
Jul 29, 2019
300
0
0
AE Grindstone, then TE Pulverizer early game.

Late game: Manual conversion of ore blocks with Fortune III and Auto-smelt on a pick. I use a filler to create large 3x3 towers and I just mine down and pick everything up.
 

Alcheya

New Member
Jul 29, 2019
214
0
0
AE Grindstone and TC Smeltery seems to be one of the easiest to get started with. And the tools you get from TC make early-game mining incredibly more easy and fun. You can take a crafting table with you, stone tools, and never have to go back to the base to repair.

Oh yea, and the golden bag of holding is not hard to get, so you can hold a huge amount soon after you start your mining expeditions.
 

Mysteana

New Member
Jul 29, 2019
22
0
0
AE Grind stone is my starter stuff.

Then TiCo smelter plus Induction furnaces with the smelter mainly for Aluminium while the Induction is for anything else. I want the rich slag to triple the output for silver. I'm probably going to branch into Factorization's chain after I learn it and retain the grind stone for the initial processing.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Fuzzlewhumper

Spikednate12

Active Member
Nov 14, 2012
155
22
43
I usually go straight for TE but as it is not in the pack we have currently... I start with mekanism because it's relatively easy to generate power. If I had TE however it would most certainly be that route.
 

Neirin

New Member
Jul 29, 2019
590
0
0
I tend to go with TE, but occasionally I still do a simple IC2 setup. I'm also a big fan of using a TiC hammer with Auto-Smelt and Fortune III. Faster than any early furnace and yields slightly more than 2 ingots per ore block.
 

Fuzzlewhumper

New Member
Jul 29, 2019
500
0
0
If Thermal Expansion is available in the pack, pulverizer is my preferred method.
If it isn't (1.6.x) then I've had to resort to using AE's grind stone, then once I have gathered the resources for Tinker's Construct, the smeltery is such a good method of ore doubling for me.

That suffices for the first home we build in the side of a wall to survive the first few nights and dig dig dig. Once progressed into later game the methods change.
 

Vaygrim

New Member
Jul 29, 2019
533
0
0
Thank you all for the interesting responses. I've been playing 1.6.4 recently and, unfortunately, Thermal Expansion is of course not available for that MC version. I would normally step over to IC2 and go that route as an alternative but the experimental branch is still in flux and I am still figuring out the machines in it. I find it interesting that so many people recommend the Tinkers' Construct Smeltery and the Applied Energistics Grindstone. I had forgotten about both of those and really should keep those in consideration in future playthroughs.

Does the TC Smeltery in fact act as an ore doubling process, like pulverizing / macerating before smelting? I've never actually analyzed this aspect of the Smeltery so I'm unsure.
 

zilvarwolf

New Member
Jul 29, 2019
541
0
0
Does the TC Smeltery in fact act as an ore doubling process, like pulverizing / macerating before smelting? I've never actually analyzed this aspect of the Smeltery so I'm unsure.

Yes. When melted in the smeltery, a single ore block makes 2 ingots.
 
  • Like
Reactions: RedBoss

PhilHibbs

Forum Addict
Trusted User
Jan 15, 2013
3,174
1,128
183
Birmingham, United Kingdom
In my last game I did an AE grindstone but I regret it, the time I spent twiddling that little stick I could have spent going getting more ores while my last lot cooked up. Next time I will make a smeltery early on. I suppose the grindstone might be useful for making sand for glass, if you don't have any sand nearby.
 

WTFFFS

New Member
Jul 29, 2019
768
0
0
Slag Furnace->Smeltery->TE is my usual progression. Not sure what I'm going to do with no TE in my 1.6.4 world I've just started.
 

Hambeau

Over-Achiever
Jul 24, 2013
2,598
1,531
213
Yes. When melted in the smeltery, a single ore block makes 2 ingots.

Ore-berries in the smelter do not double the yield... 9 berries = 1 ingot, but if you're like me you have a berry farm next to your smeltery that yields at least an ingot a day of each type and I add to mine every time I find an ore-berry bush.

Not only that, but basic tools are cheaper in TiC. For example:

Vanilla wooden pick: 3 planks for the head, two sticks (1/2 plank) for the handle = 3.5 planks.
TiC wooden pick: 1 plank for the head, 1/2 plank for the tool rod, 1/2 plank for the tool binding = 2 planks.

Different materials can be used for each part of a tool or weapon, each having unique characteristics and bonuses.

TiC does not need an Anvil (at a cost of 31 iron ingots for a limited number of uses) to repair tools, just the tool station you built the tool on. You can also apply enhancements to tools/weapons here using gathered resources instead of needing an enchantment table, book & anvil or XP.

My favorite enhancement, even more so with the new Mega Taiga biome in NC 1.7 with it's Mossy Cobble Boulders on the surface:

9 mossy cobble --> 1 moss. 1 moss + (tool/weapon) = self repairing (tool/weapon).

Make a few of these so you can alternate to a fresh one periodically and you might not need another, until you want tier 2 versions.

Alloys are available without the need to be processed through multiple machines, using the old fashioned "melt 'em down together" method.

I do find a need for other systems eventually, but TiC is easy to get up and running when you first start and can help you maintain your tools and weapons cheaper, rather than replacing them..
 

twisto51

New Member
Jul 29, 2019
1,443
0
0
In my last game I did an AE grindstone but I regret it, the time I spent twiddling that little stick I could have spent going getting more ores while my last lot cooked up.


I think this is an important point. Now that it can't be automated I'd rather just mine more ore too. :)
 
  • Like
Reactions: Zexks

Kitchen_Fire

New Member
Jul 29, 2019
119
0
0
This time time around I used dartcraft for a while as my first mod. It was nice to have a pickaxe that would pulverize and smelt the ores for me (You can also use TiC for the same purpose). Of course, this is no needed once you have a quarry or something similar .