# First: mine, mine, mine!
Before building anything, go mining and stockpile as many ores as you can:
iron, copper, tin, coal, redstone, gold, diamond, lapis... the more the
better. Everything you make later eats raw materials.
- PICK UP EVERYTHING. In this pack almost every item is useful: ores, dusts,
  mob drops, plants, even "junk" blocks. Don't throw things away.
- A deep first mining trip (or a branch mine at y=12) sets you up for hours.

## The golden rule: use NEI
The recipe browser (NEI) sits to the right of your inventory.
- Type an item name in the search box to find it.
- Hover an item and press R to see how it is CRAFTED.
- Press U to see what the item is USED in.
Most "how do I make X" questions are answered by NEI in seconds.

# Step 1 - Rubber and refined iron
IndustrialCraft (IC2) is the backbone of early progression.
- Find Rubber Trees (dark spots on the trunk). Tap the spots with a
  Treetap, or break the tree, to get Sticky Resin.
- Smelt Sticky Resin into Rubber. You need a lot of it for cables.
- Smelt iron in any furnace to start; you will upgrade smelting soon.

# Step 2 - Power from lava (Geothermal)
The cheapest early power is lava. Recommended path:
- Craft a basic Generator first. It can burn coal/charcoal to bootstrap.
- Craft a Geothermal Generator. It eats lava and makes EU with almost no
  running cost once you have a lava supply.
- One bucket of lava = a large amount of EU. A few stacks run your early
  machines for a very long time.

## Endless lava from the Nether
Nether lava is effectively unlimited. Pipe it back home like this:
- In the Nether, place a BuildCraft Pump over a lava lake to pump lava up.
- Feed that lava into an Ender Tank set to a colour code (frequency).
- Place a second Ender Tank on the SAME colour code at your base. It now
  holds the same lava - pull from it into your Geothermal Generators.
- Result: a wireless, cross-dimension lava pipeline that never runs dry.

# Step 3 - Double your ores (Macerator)
Never smelt raw ore once you have power.
- Build a Macerator and power it from your generator.
- Ore -> 2 crushed dust (Macerator) -> smelt each dust into an ingot.
- Result: 2 ingots per ore. This doubles every mining trip - now you see
  why the big ore stockpile from step one matters.
Later, GregTech's Industrial Grinder and Thermal Expansion's Pulverizer
give even better yields plus bonus byproducts.

# Step 4 - Complex items have several recipes
Many parts can be made more than one way. Use NEI to compare:
- Plates: a Compressor turns ingots/dust into plates. This is cheaper
  than the hand recipe and is required for advanced machines.
- Cables: the Cutter route from plates saves a lot of rubber over the
  hand recipe.
- Circuits: Electronic Circuits need insulated copper cable, refined
  iron and redstone - batch-craft them, you will need hundreds.
Rule of thumb: when two recipes exist, the MACHINE route (Compressor,
Macerator, Cutter) is almost always cheaper. Check it in NEI (press R).

# A suggested early progression
1. Mine hard, hoard ores, pick up everything.
2. Rubber + Refined Iron -> basic Generator (coal-powered to start).
4. Macerator + Electric Furnace -> ore doubling.
5. Geothermal + Nether lava via Ender Tanks -> cheap, steady EU.
6. Add a MFE buffer so machines never stall.
7. Branch into your favourite mod: Forestry bees, GregTech, BuildCraft
   quarries, Thermal Expansion, or Applied Energistics for storage.

# Tips
- Keep an energy buffer (MFE) between generator and machines.
- No voltage limit on this server: a mod changes how EU works, so machines
  accept any voltage by default and will NOT explode. You don't need
  transformers - just wire things up.
- Open the Quests book (default Q). Quests pay MONEY you can spend in
  shops or on land claims.
- Claiming land costs money per chunk. Press J to open the claim /
  chunk-load map. A team that stays offline for 7 days loses its
  chunk-loading, so keep your base active!
