Getting Started
This page is a guide on how to get started in the Tekkit modpack.
Now under development by MinecraftRogue.
Contents
New World
You've got Tekkit up and running and you can't wait to jump in and build all the amazing things you've seen on YouTube. You imagine quarries, digging up all the ores you'll need, huge solar arrays, powering the various engines running your machines, elaborate redstone mechanics to alter whether you want to make diamonds, gold, iron, or any other block.
However, you need to start small. If you plan on doing things normally without spawning stuff in, it will take a while to get up to this ideal setup. To begin with, it's like any normal Minecraft world, punching down trees to get wood, making yourself a wooden pick, and mining some stone. Many of Tekkit's mods are mostly used later on in the game, but there are many things you can do to start off right from the beginning.
Mining
To start off, get the normal ores and supplies, such as Iron, Redstone, and maybe even some Lapis Lazuli and Gold. On the way, you'll notice a couple new ores; Copper, Tin, Nikolite, Uranium, Tungsten and the three types of Gems. You will need a great amount of Copper and Tin, so pick up as much of that as you can.
Rubber Farms
To start out with IndustrialCraft, you will need wires. For these, you will need two key ingredients: Copper and Rubber.
Copper Ore is fairly common, much like coal and it comes in rather large veins. Smelt it in a furnace to get copper ingots. Once you have them, you are one step closer to starting with IndustrialCraft.
To obtain sticky resin, you will need a Treetap and Rubber Trees.
Once you have located the trees and crafted a Treetap, right click on the yellow spots on the Rubber Trees and you will get Sticky Resin. This can then be smelted to create Rubber.
It is encouraged to not cut down the rubber tree itself, but to break the leaves and take the saplings. Rubber trees will continue to produce sticky resin if not destroyed. Once you have around 15 rubber tree saplings, you can plant them and create a farm.
Note that if you decide to cut down the tree, the rubber wood can also give you extra rubber. Rubber Wood and saplings can also be converted into Rubber using an Extractor.
So, you've set-up a rubber farm for a good supply of rubber and the next part will deal with building the basic machines.
Making Electricity
First get some rubber and some copper. To start making the machines, you'll need to make Copper Cables.
You will need some refined iron for upcoming recipes, it is created by putting Iron in a Furnace.
To make a machine block, you place Refined Iron in the crafting table as if you were making a Chest or Furnace.
Next up, you will need to make an Electronic Circuit.
To power machines, we need EU. There are many ways you can produce this, but the easiest way is a Generator.
This item needs something we haven't seen before. We know about making a furnace and a machine block, but now we need an RE Battery. It may be worthwile making a few of these as they are useful for storing energy and taking it with you (10,000 EU per battery, which is 2.5x the storage capacity of a generator, which stores 4,000 EU).
Simply place the generator down like you would with any other block, and put some fuel (coal, for example) in the bottom slot. This will then be burnt off into energy, which will slowly accumulate until full. Once full, it will not burn off any more fuel unless its already started burning.
Remember those RE-Batteries that you made? They are also needed in another item you can make which stores power. This is called a BatBox.
To have it store power, place it right next to the Generator. If you don't want it right next to the Generator, you can run Copper Cables between the Generator and the BatBox. The plain, unmarked faces are used for taking in power, while the side that has a circle on it can be used to discharge power to machines. This can store 40,000 EU, which is 4 RE-Batteries worth.
The Basic Machines
These machines run on EU, not fuel. You will need to have power running to them from a BatBox or Generator. (See above)
Extractor
This is a very helpful machine. Putting Sticky Resin in a Furnace only yielded one Rubber. An Extractor is much more efficient. Putting Sticky Resin in an Extractor will give you three Rubber. Rubber Wood, which was previously next to useless, can be put into an Extractor for one Rubber.
Macerator
The Macerator is another good early machine.
This machine is very useful for ingot production, as it will macerate the ore into two dust of the same ore type. Each dust can then be smelted into it's accompanying ingot. Effectively doubling your ingot production. All ores can be macerated, except Tungsten.
Electric Furnace
The Electric Furnace is an IC Machine that uses EU to smelt items, rather than fuel such as coal or wood. The advantage to using EU is that when the item is finished smelting, the Electric Furnace stops using power, which is much more efficient than the Iron Furnace and the vanilla Furnace that burn up the fuel before stopping.
The Electric Furnace uses 384 EU per operation, so using this and a Generator saves 160 EU per piece of coal used.
Natural Energy
These machines are sources of energy that don't run on limited materials like coal.
Wind Mill
A good source of natural energy (energy that is created using natural and sustainable sources) is the Wind Mill, as it is quite cheap, and produces a fair amount of energy, depending mainly on placement.
The aim with a Windmill is to place it as high in the world as possible, because the amount of energy produced depends on this.
The average amount of energy produced is 250 EU per day, but it could be anywhere from 0-1000 EU per day.
This is then multiplied by the layer it is placed on, so at a layer 70 one Windmill would produce 17500 EU per day. But obviously you could place one up to layer 256.
However, obstructions can bring the production down. Obstructions can be in a 9x9x7 area around it. Basically, the obstructions are 4 blocks off of each side except only 2 blocks off the bottom.
Each obstruction takes of a multiplication of the layer by 1, so having cables connected from the bottom will reduce the layer by a minimum of 2. This means that the Windmill on layer 70 would instead produce 17000 EU.
Read more into this on the Wind Mill page.
Water Mill
An option for a good early game source of infinite renewable power is to start the redpower mod and set up some Water Mills connected to a automated machine that fills buckets and sends them to the mills and brings them back to be refilled.
Advanced Natural Energy
A higher level natural energy producer would be a Solar Panel.
It requires coal dust which is obtained from Macerating Coal.
Now even though a single panel only produces 13050 EU a day, multiple can be placed together without obstructing each other. The only obstruction is if any full block is above it or if it becomes night time.
They can also be upgraded into Solar Arrays (Low, Medium and High Voltage), which will give 8 times more energy per tick on every tier.
- 8 EU/t
- 64 EU/t
- 512 EU/t
However for Medium Voltage Arrays and above, you will want better cables (and in turn better storage). Glass Fibre Cable is most recommended because it can carry a voltage of 512 EU/t and will only lose 1 EU every 40 blocks. They are also quite expensive, using 1 diamond for 6 of them.
When using a Medium Voltage Solar Array you will need a MFE Unit minimum, which stores 600,000 EU.
This needs 4 Energy Crystals to build.
A High Voltage Array will require an MFS Unit (or MFSU), but this is not recommended until you have a Nuclear Reactor set-up.
When you have a steady supply of energy from Solar Panels/Wind Mills, you'll want to move on to a use for the power.
Electric Armor
There are a variety of Utility Armors available in Tekkit.
Solar Helmet
The first you will need to craft is a Solar Helmet. It produces 1 EU/t, the equivalent of one Solar Panel. It is highly useful when using an Electric Jetpack, as it charges the Jetpack faster than it uses energy, which means as long as the Solar Helmet is equipped, you can fly indefinitely during the day. The Solar Helmet will not produce EU at night.
The Solar Helmet can be used to charge a BatPack, LapPack, or an Electric Jetpack.
BatPack
The BatPack is a portable energy device worn in the chest slot. It has a storage capacity of 60,000 EU, equal to 1.5 BatBoxes. It can be used to charge a variety of handheld Electric Tools such as the Electric Treetap, Electric Wrench, Electric Hoe, Mining Drill, and Chainsaw.
LapPack
The LapPack is an upgrade to the BatPack, with an energy storage capacity of 300,000 EU compared to the BatPack's 60,000, equivalent to half the storage capacity of an MFE Unit. It has the same uses as the BatPack, but with more storage.
Electric Jetpack
The Electric Jetpack is a simpler alternative to the fuel-powered Jetpack, using EU to propel the player into the air. It can be sufficiently powered using a Solar Helmet.
Rubber Boots
Rubber Boots are used to reduce falling damage, useful when using the Electric Jetpack. Rubber Boots are not powered by EU, they have durability. This means they can be placed in an Alchemical Chest containing a Talisman of Repair to automatically be repaired.
Static Boots
Static Boots are similar to the Solar Helmet in that they can recharge BatPacks, LapPacks, or Electric Jetpacks. however, they are much slower, producing only 1 EU for every 5 blocks traveled.
