Beginner tips

The goal of this page is to explain things that might otherwise be hard to find out, as well as tips to help progression. This is not intended to be a walkthrough of the mod. That is available here. If you are brand new to the mod it is recommended that you try to use the JEI as much as possible, do as many in-game quests as possible, and read this page.

## Tips for beginners

1. JEI is the items on the right of your inventory. If you left click an item it will show you all the ways you can obtain it. If you right click an item it will show all of that items uses. If you press backspace it will go back to the previous page.
2. There is an item called "time in a bottle" you can create early on. What it does is gains time while you're in the game and you can use that time by right clicking any block to speed it up drastically. This can be used on things like plants, machines, generators, servos, anything. This will save you from having to wait for something to process.
3. Leaving your game open when you're not playing is a great idea. All your machines will continue running and processing everything and you will get tons of time in a bottle.
4. Early into the game you can make a rustic apple sapling by putting an apple in a crushing tub. These trees can be a super easy source of food (Only apples, however)
5. You can pick up mobs, chests, machines and other things by holding right shift and right clicking it with empty hands. This is incredibly useful for moving full chests or passive mobs.
6. Different types of tools in Tinkers Construct have different attributes. The "materials and you" book explains them all. For example, using manyullyn on a pickaxe head gives "cold-blooded" which allows you to deal more damage against mobs that are full health or making tools out of osmium gives "Well-Established" which gives small amounts of vanilla XP every time you break blocks.
7. Tools have levels and experience. When you level up your tool, you can add another modifier to it. The item "reinforcement" combined with a tool gives a 20% chance to not use durability. When you use five of these on one tool, it gives a 100% resulting in your tool being unbreakable.
8. Chests and furnaces aren't easy to make. If you find any in villages or other structures, it is recommended to keep them.
9. You can get two ingots per ore by first putting the ore into either an enrichment chamber (Mekanism) or macerator (Industrial Craft 2). This will give you 2 ore dust per ore. When smelted either in a smeltery or furnace, this will act the same as an ore.
10. Storage early on can be difficult. You can easily make Cabinets (Rustic) for a lot cheaper than a chest, but has the same function.
11. If you click on the carrot in your inventory screen, this will show your nutrition. You have to keep a balanced diet to get buffs, and if any of these percentages goes too low you will get debuffs. You can see what category each food will boost just by hovering your mouse over it. You can cook foods that will give all categories of nutrition.
12. If you notice on an item it says "Not yet eaten! What does it taste like?" Eat it! Eating enough new foods gives you extra hearts (health).
13. You can make a "Apple of Lofty Stature" early on to get Step assist. This allows you to walk up full blocks like horses.
14. On this mod, you get to the end and nether the same way as vanilla.
15. You can create "fertile soil" by simply combining bonemeal and dirt. Fertile soil is like farm land, but it does not require water near by and cannot be broken by jumping on it. Incredibly useful for sugar cane.
16. You can get string easily by crushing wool. You can get wool easily by making an automatic sheep shearing farm.
17. You can break IC2 machines with a pickaxe.
18. You can make pure Certus quartz by simply putting the seeds in an enrichment chamber (Mekanism)
19. You can create many items out of UU matter, which can be fairly easily obtained.
20. "Glowing" tool modifier is super useful. It will spawn a glowball on any block you're standing on that is dark enough to spawn monsters. It only uses durability, which you can create unbreakable tools to negate. The glowballs are nearly invisible, as strong as a torch and last forever.
21. You can press F7 to see where mobs can spawn. The yellow Xs mean it can spawn there at night. The red Xs mean it can spawn there at any time.
22. You can easily get many different types of seeds by making a "market" item and then buying them with emeralds.
23. You can create a "Tool Forge" to create more powerful tools. To do so you need 4 locks of any metal (ex. Iron blocks), 3 Seared Brick Blocks and a Tool Station. With the Tool Forge you can create tools such as a hammer, which will mine blocks in a 3x3 area. There are also many interesting types of weapons.
24. Pure quartz crystals can easily be grown in the Enrichment Chamber (Mekanism)
25. You can get 3 ingots per ore by using a purification chamber. Then put the ore clump into a crusher, then put the dirty dust into an enrichment chamber. Then smelt the dust.
26. You can get 4 ingots per ore by using a chemical injection chamber, then a purification chamber, crusher, enrichment chamber and smelter. This requires a chemical infuser and two electrolytic separators to create hydrogen and chlorine to create hydrogen chloride. Getting chlorine requires you to melt salt with a melter, then put it into an electrolytic separator. You also need to put water into a different electrolytic separator to get hydrogen. Doing all of this manually would be a pain, it's only worth it if you automate it.
27. Despite it not saying so on the tooltip, you CAN replicate iridium in IC2 machines. There are more items like this such as intricate circuit board from forestry. as well as much more simple items such as pistons, blocks of metal and glass.
28. You can get lots of platinum by using thermal expansion machines. use a pulverizer to crush gold ore, then use the resulting cinnabar with nickel ore in an induction smelter to get platinum.

## Mob farm tips

1. Fans are good for blowing entities around without preventing them from spawning.
2. Using a "Drop of Evil" on grass will turn it black and cause a lot more mobs to spawn. The mobs that spawn are stronger, faster and more aggressive, however. Drop of evil is a rare drop from wither skeletons.
3. Water candle will increase near by spawns.

## Automation

1. You can enchant your sieve meshes. This will make them incredibly fast and efficient.
2. You can connect a Material StoneWork Factory directly to your autosieve. Put a whitelisted servo connected to it.
3. You can make a wireless access terminal for wireless access to your AE2 system. however, it is not great as the range isn't very big. you need to use an ME security terminal to link it, then place a ME wireless access point to connect to. You can add "wireless booster" to the access point to increase the range (at the cost of increased power use)

## Mining/building

1. Building gadgets are extremely good. The destruction gadget plus vein miner will help you clear out huge areas very quickly.

## Machines

1. IC2 machines can be connected to RF with a mekanism universal cable. Doing so ignores the power limits, preventing your machines from exploding. (please test this before destroying your base, as it could change with a patch.)