Getting Started (Equivalent Exchange)

= Step One: Create The Philosopher's Stone =
To start performing alchemy, you're going to need the Philosopher's Stone; this is the fundamental tool that is used in most of the crafts in Equivalent Exchange. To craft this, take 4 redstone, 4 glowstone, and 1 slimeball, and arrange them as shown below. Redstone is pretty easy to get; glowstone is a touch harder (you'll have to make a trip to the Nether), but no big deal. The slimeball is the tricky bit.
But... A slimeball?: You're probably thinking to yourself, "but slimes are so rare and hard to find". So, here's an easier way to put one together:
While you're working on the necessary materials for the Philosopher's Stone (digging to bedrock for redstone and the means to get to the Nether), you may find it helpful to craft some Covalence Dust. Covalence Dust (lesser) is one of the few recipes that don't need a Philosopher's Stone. Covalence Dust has the means to repair your tools, rather than letting them break. Lesser Covalence Dust can repair wood or stone tools, so the most efficient use is to create a set of stone tools, and then craft some Covalence Dust from 2 cobblestone + 1 coal => 3 Lesser Covalence Dust. Now when your stone pickaxe gets damaged to the point of nearly breaking, instead of spending 3 cobblestone and 2 sticks to create a new one, use 3 Covalence Dust to repair it (effectively using 2 cobblestone instead of 3), which will save you some resources as you go.
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= Step Two: Learn Your Transmutation =
The heart of the Alchemist's craft is transmutation - turning one kind of material into another. There are a vast number of recipes in Equivalent Exchange that let you do this! However, while all transmutations are meant to be equivalent, that doesn't mean that they're equal; far from it. Think of this as "the Alchemists ladder" - it takes a lot of cobblestone to make a diamond, and in several steps.
=== (Before you ask: The Philosopher's Stone will never get used up in your transmutations.) ===
=== 8 Cobblestone Transmutes to 1 Redstone Ore: ===
=== 4 Redstone Ore Transmutes to 1 Iron Ore: ===
=== 8 Iron Ore Transmutes to 2 Gold Ore: ===
=== 4 Gold Ore Transmutes to 1 Diamond Ore: ===
=== This means 512 cobblestone is equivalent to 1 diamond! ===
The 'ladder' also works backwards; if you start with diamonds, you can make a lot of lesser materials. There are many more recipes here. And if you're a big fan of numbers, there's more on the math here. However, getting all the cobblestone won't be easy, at least with what you have right now. Which means you're going to want to put your transmutation skills to work right away, to build your first few artifacts. We'll get to that in a moment.
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= Step Three: Take A Moment To Understand The Endgame =
Before you dig in too hard, transmuting things and creating the whole host of awesome items that Equivalent Exchange puts at your fingertips, you'll want to have an idea of where the top end is. It's hard to have goals if you don't know where you're heading. And, if your intent is to build up to the most potent items around? You're heading towards //Dark Matter//. This stuff is used in the most powerful recipes in Equivalent Exchange. To get Dark Matter you have to craft it like this:
=== "Wait those are diamond BLOCKS! How will i get that many diamonds, even with Transmutation?" ===
Well, you're going to need some truly spiffy tools, aren't you? And, hey! You're in luck: We've got some.
=== "And that other stuff is..... What?" ===
That is Mobius Fuel, crafted like this:
Which, in turn, brings up the question of those red things. That's Alchemical Coal, crafted like this:
=== "That's some pretty wild stuff, that is." ===
Yes. Yes, it is.
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= Step Four: Building Your Toolbox =
The first few things you should build with your new-found skills, of course, aren't going to be the crazy endgame material. You're going to be building up a toolkit of awesome stuff that will help you get there. With that in mind, the rest of this page is devoted to exactly those kinds of tools, and how to get them, set up in a sort of 'walk-through' order...
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= The Destruction Catalyst =
You can make 3 by 3 tunnels with ease with the Destruction Catalyst. You can craft it like this:
You've already seen Mobius Fuel. But now you're wondering what the TNT like things in the corners are. Those are Nova Catalysts, crafted like this:
Now that you have the Destruction Catalyst, you need to know how to use it! You can right click a wall to remove a 3 by 3 area but if you press V, it will start charging. Now when you right click, you remove up to sixteen 3x3 panels in a row! However, it's not free to use:
* It costs 1 Glowstone dust (you can use other things if you want) for every 12 blocks broken.
* It costs 12 Glowstone dust for every 16x3x3 area
=== ...That's a lot of trips to the Nether. ===
Or you can just craft your Glowstone dust. Like this:
Of course, you can get that iron from gold...
And you can get that gold from a diamond...
And that works for now. But that's a really expensive way to get Glowstone. There's a way to get Glowstone very cheaply without sacrificing your hard-earned diamonds...
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= Glowstone Aggregator: =
The Glowstone Aggregator is a special device that allows you to turn relatively worthless materials into valuable Glowstone. With enough of these, you can fuel the use of all your alchemist's tools without grinding up your shinies.
To make a Glowstone Aggregator, you need: 1 furnace, 4 Glowstone blocks, 3 diamonds, and 1 Redstone dust.
It sounds expensive (three diamonds a device!), but set up properly, you can make up for the cost and start making a profit in less than an hour.
In order to ensure you always have enough fuel for your Destruction Catalyst, you should make around 15 of these. If you don't want to waste diamonds, you can set up a few for now, wait a while, and use the Glowstone produced by those to make more, rinse and repeat until you have as many as you need.
But wait! As amazing as it sounds, the Glowstone Aggregator can't just be placed and expected to start cranking out Glowstone! You need to set it up properly. The Glowstone Aggregator is powered by light. If you don't have a powerful light source near your Glowstone Aggregator, you won't get the best production rate. So what's the best light source you have at your disposal?
...Well, Glowstone blocks, of course. That sounds inefficient, but unless you have pumpkins for jack-o-lanterns, Glowstone blocks are the best light source, and the results are worth it.
In order to get near-optimal results from your Aggregator, you should place Glowstone blocks both directly ABOVE and directly BELOW your Glowstone Aggregator. You should also make sure that the sides and back are exposed to light - you can get away with just making sure the light from the Glowstone block on top of your Aggregator has a direct route to the sides and back.
In other words, place a Glowstone block on or as part of your floor, place the Glowstone Aggregator on top of the Glowstone block, then put a Glowstone block on top of the Aggregator (since right-clicking directly on the Aggregator opens the UI, you'll have to either use a nearby wall, a ceiling, or place it before you put down the Glowstone Aggregator by using a placeholder block like dirt in place of the Aggregator).
Once you've set down the Aggregator, it's time to set it up. Right-clicking on it will bring up the UI. There are five input slots and five output slots, as well as a lightbulb-shaped symbol (that should be nearly full if you prepared the lighting correctly) and a progress arrow. You need to place something in there for the Glowstone Aggregator to convert to Glowstone blocks.
The item that will net you the highest rate of Glowstone dust per minute is Glowstone dust (Glowstone dust converted into a Glowstone block takes one and a half minutes at 100% lighting and is a profit of 3 Glowstone dust. That's 2 Glowstone dust a minute!). If you don't have a lot of dust, you can either grind some diamonds (this might be the last time you have to do that!) or throw another block in there. The Aggregator will convert dirt, stone, cobblestone, Netherrack, and Soul Sand into Glowstone. I generally use dirt until I can switch to dust.
With 15 or so Aggregators, you can go ahead and start mining to your heart's content with the destruction catalyst with no worry of needing to grind precious diamonds into dust.
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= Talisman of Repair: =
Hey look, your diamond pick-axe just broke. You can prevent that with Covalence dust.
You can craft them like this:
More recipes can be found here.
You can repair your shiny diamond pickaxe like this:
And look at the link above for more recipes.
Sometimes you won't have time to repair your stuff yourself; this is where the Talisman of Repair comes in handy.
As long as you have Covalence dust, it will repair your stuff for you!
It will even work ANYWHERE in your inventory!
You can craft this amazing thing like this:
And if you put it in an Alchemical Chest, it repairs everything in it FOR FREE (at the rate of 1 point per second)!
This does only affects vanilla items though.
You can craft the Alchemical Chest like this:
Knowing that your diamond pickaxe will never break again, it's time to collect 2 Dark Matter.
And if you forgot how to craft it,
And you can use lots of different tactics to get those diamonds.
Good luck.
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= The Gem of Eternal Density: =
I knew you could make it!
You probably noticed by now that every time your inventory fills up, you had to craft them into different stuff which means placing a workbench down.
The Gem of Eternal Density will do this for you!
And to craft it:
I know it's using you dark matter you worked so hard on but did you really expect such a thing to be cheap?
Press V to charge it and G to activate it.
Now with your new toy, go for 3 Dark Matter!
If you have Buildcraft, you can set up a diamond factory.
This is mine:
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= The Volcanite Amulet: =
You just fell in lava and died.
Don't you hate it when that happens?
The Volcanite Amulet can help!
As long as you have it in your hot bar, lava will never harm you again!
It can also be used instead of lava buckets in many recipes (and won't get used up)!
HAYO!
Whoops, wrong wiki.
Here's how to craft it:
Making Alchemical Coal is much easier now with this recipe:
And there's much more you can do with this thing!
Just click here!
Now I got that out of my system, it's time to make another 3 Dark Matter.
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= The Evertide Amulet: =
You should make an Evertide Amulet, I'll tell you why shortly.
To craft it:
The reason I asked you to do that is because you'll be able to make easy Obsidian Aggregator factories.
And to craft one:
Click the link above to learn about them.
And if you need to make more Evertide and Volcanite amulets, here's how!
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= Swiftwolf's Rending Gale: =
Having to walk everywhere and obey the laws of gravity is such a pain. And while you're protected from lava and water (and probably have a shiny set of diamond armor), you still have to watch out for long falls. It doesn't help that now and then a monster comes to interrupt your mining.
Swiftwolf's Rending Gale can help solve all those problems. It comes at a cost, though: You need 4 Dark Matter to craft it, as well as 8 Iron and 4 feathers.
First, you must assemble eight iron ingots into an Iron Band. Normally, you'd need a bucket of lava, but you can just use your Volcanite Amulet:
Now for the actual ring:
Swiftwolf's Rending Gale naturally protects you from fall damage just by being in your hotbar. In addition, you can use it to shoot projectiles which blow enemies away, strike lightning in outdoor areas when it's rainy or stormy, FLY, and erect a barrier around yourself that will prevent enemies and projectiles from getting near you!
With the Volcanite and Evertide amulets in your hotbar and the Rending Gale's barrier active, you are basically untouchable; immune to fall damage, immune to lava, immune to drowning. Basically the only things that can damage you are flukes (sometimes enemies can get a hit in if they jump on you or you back them into a corner), suffocation, and falling out of the world.
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= Epilogue: =
Once you really get into the fancy items, you are basically invincible. There exist many more items to create with many different purposes, from making smelting or farming easier, to speeding up your mining even further, to duplicating items.
While I highly recommend going for the Catalytic Lens right after the Destruction Catalyst, as it will speed up your mining immensely (it is FOUR TIMES as powerful as the Destruction Catalyst, and twice as efficient!), the rest of the items have no significantly optimal order (unless you're willing to go for the Dark Matter Locus, the most expensive item in the game at a whopping 32 Dark Matter, immediately).
See Power Items for a list of other rings and special items you can make to supplement your current tools.
On the Dark Matter page, you can find links to the pages for all the Dark Matter tools and Dark Matter armor.
You can see how to make the Dark Matter Locus and its amazing function on the Dark Matter Locus page.