Getting Started

This page is a guide on how to get started in the Tekkit modpack.

Now under development by MinecraftRogue.

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 others build. 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.

Square One: IndustrialCraft
The IndustrialCraft mod is a great place to begin your Tekkit experience, and a major reason for this is the Macerator. This will be one of the first machines you'll build, and it doubles the number of ingots you get from smelting ore blocks! So plan ahead: Until you get a Macerator, only smelt what you need---save the rest of your ore blocks until you can macerate them for twice the number of ingots!

Building and connecting IndustrialCraft machines like the Macerator requires cables (wires)---and plenty of them! You need two things to build cables:


 * Copper. You'll have very little trouble finding plenty of copper as you mine, which you'll get to soon (just remember to smelt only the copper you need, saving the rest until you have your Macerator)
 * Rubber. Rubber may grow on trees (literally), but you're going to need a LOT of it, so it's best to start a rubber farm as soon as possible.  After building your shelter, getting a rubber farm started should be one of your highest priorities.

Rubber Trees & Rubber Farms
The first thing you need to do is find a Rubber Tree. You can recognize them by the tower of three leaf blocks sticking out the top.

When you find a rubber tree, break the leaves and collect any saplings that fall. Then, look for any light brown spots on the trunk of the rubber tree (you can see one in the picture to the right): This is Sticky Resin, which you can smelt into Rubber once you've harvested it.

To harvest Sticky Resin from a rubber tree, you will need a Treetap:

Once you've crafted a Treetap, use it (by right-clicking) on those resin spots to get Sticky Resin. Be sure to harvest all of the resin spots on the tree, as well as on any other rubber trees nearby, then head back to your base.

When you get home, plant the rubber tree saplings you collected nearby: This is the start of your rubber tree farm. (You'll want to keep growing your farm until you have around 15 rubber trees; you can collect more rubber tree saplings from the leaves of trees you've planted yourself, or from any rubber trees you find in the wild.)

Now, smelt that Sticky Resin into Rubber. (Never waste Coal by using it as fuel. It's very valuable in certain recipes and, much like Rubber, you're going to need a lot of Coal.  Burn Charcoal instead!)

Remember the advice to save your ore blocks until you have a Macerator? The same thing is true of Sticky Resin: Another early IndustrialCraft machine, the Extractor, triples the amount of Rubber you get from each ball of Sticky Resin. So only smelt what you need; save the rest of your Sticky Resin until you've built an Extractor (an Extractor can also convert Rubber Wood and rubber tree saplings into rubber).

Once you've started your rubber farm and have a supply of rubber trickling in, the next step is to start mining (this is, after all, still Minecraft!).

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, which you already know you need a lot of, and Tin, which is another important IndustrialCraft ore. You might also see some Nikolite, Uranium, Tungsten and the three types of Gems (Ruby, Sapphire and Emerald).

You want lots of Iron, Copper and Tin, so pick up as much of that as you can. Once you've mined a decent amount of these ores (how much isn't important; you can always go back if you don't have enough, and there's no such thing as "too much"), the next step is to build those essential IndustrialCraft machines (like the Macerator and the Extractor) that will serve as the foundation of your Tekkit economy.

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 RedPower2 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.