Tutorial:Getting Started (YogCraft Pack)

This article is part of the Feed The Beast Wiki's Tutorials section.

Though the YogCraft Pack is considered to be one of the "smaller" FTB packs, it can still be overwhelming for the uninitiated. This guide aims to ease the transition from vanilla to YogCraft play and provide an outline for creating a functioning base. Note that this guide is not intended to be comprehensive; instead, it should serve as an entry point from which the player can explore the nuances of each mod with a minimum of difficulty.

Starting Up the YogCraft Pack[edit]

This guide will assume that you have successfully installed FTB (and Optifine, if you so choose). If you are having difficulties, please see Tutorial:Installing Feed The Beast on PC and/or Tutorial:Adding Optifine. In addition, you may wish to peruse the YogCraft Pack page for additional info about the pack itself and its attending mods. Once you have successfully installed the FTB launcher, sated your curiosity on the wiki, and selected the Yogpack from the list of available modpacks, choose "launch." You should notice a custom Feed the Beast intro animation. In addition, many major menus have been overhauled; this is a feature of VoxelMenu, and should not be cause for alarm. You will need to create a new world, as each FTB pack uses a separate save folder. This tutorial will focus on SSP play, though you are welcome to begin with a Creative world, if you prefer.

Getting Your Bearings[edit]

Besides the intro and main menu, you should notice a few more additions. Firstly, there will be a minimap in the top-right corner. This is added by VoxelMap, and the controls are as follows:

"M" brings up a general menu
"Z" changes zoom level
"X" brings up a large map
"B" serves as a shortcut for waypoint creation

If you've installed Optifine, your Options menu (specifically Video Options) will contain many new settings and features. Consider taking a moment to peruse the menu and tweak them as you see fit.

Finally, when you bring up your inventory, you should notice several new GUIs (if not, try pressing "O"). These are added by a mod called NEI, or Not Enough Items. Its most important features (for our purposes, at least) are accessed with the "R" and "U" buttons. When hovering your cursor over an item, they will (respectively) show how to create said item and what recipes said item is used in. Clicking on an item on the right side of the screen will spawn a stack of that item in your inventory--this can be disabled from the mod options menu (double-check to make sure that's the real name). The search bar at the bottom will narrow the field of items shown on the right. The "C" button in the top left GUI allows for the toggling of Creative mode. Note that use of NEI will not pause the game. (Screen shot of NEI? Or just rely on the NEI page to get fleshed out? Add GUI guide of some form to both?).

Selecting Your Base[edit]

The sheer amount of content added by the YogCraft Pack makes choosing a truly "perfect" base nearly impossible. However, there are certain features that will prove useful in the course of the tutorial, and can be looked for as a guide to ideal base location. Should you happen across one and decide not to make your base at that location, you may wish to set a waypoint there with "B," so you can easily find it later.

Ideal Base Features[edit]

A village: The YogCraft Pack makes these far more useful. A variety of new villager types will help jumpstart certain mod-added industries, and their crops will provide an early-game boost. In addition, you will eventually need emeralds.
A Silverwood Tree: These trees are both rare and powerful; their presence indicates a region of magic that will slowly purify itself should it become polluted by instability. Their leaves have an abnormally low chance of producing saplings, and the aforementioned saplings have highly specific growth conditions. As such, it may prove easier to transplant your fledgling base than the tree.
A Volcano serves as a source of both lava and Basalt. Though lava may be of limited use early on, Basalt's high explosion resistance makes it ideal for creeper defense. Note that you can create Basalt through alchemy, though this is not ideal if large quantities are desired.
Close proximity to a number of biomes will prove very useful if you intend to pursue any sort of Apiculture-based industry early on.
Generally, the land above reflects the land below; as such, Extreme Hills will typically have larger and more plentiful caverns than plains. However, stretches of flat land lend themselves well to factories, and automated mining makes caverns far less useful.
Keep an eye out for Beehives. Though transporting them (or, rather, transporting the bees inside) is easy enough, they can be difficult to spot. Red and white hives are fairly common, but grey and blue ones should be noted. If you are traveling through a swamp, jungle, or tundra, make note of any green, yellow, and blue-white hives found within.
Animals are slower-moving and rarer than ever before, so try to select a location with some cows nearby. Pigs are not particularly useful, and basic wool can be replaced by Rockwool later on (though you may wish to kill a few sheep en-route and craft a bed). Chickens will prove useful, so pick up any eggs you see. Note that you can use "M"->Radar to display neutral mobs.
You will eventually need a great deal of Rubber. Keep an eye out for the two types of rubber trees; the massive Redpower 2 Rubber Trees found in jungles, and the Industrial Craft² rubber trees found mainly in swamps. Both drop saplings; take a few along, or settle nearby.
While Oil is a fantastic resource for semi-early industry, there are alternative (though often inferior) fuels available, many of which are renewable. Oil, then, is not so much a necessity as a convenience.

Once you have chosen a location, mark it with "B" and start constructing your base. Wherever and however you build your first home is up to you; as I will explain shortly, beginning with the YogCraft Pack is not so different from beginning in a Vanilla world. However, make sure that you can easily expand your base! I would encourage new players not to attempt flying fortresses, treehouses, or similar; you can build those later on, but for now you will want plenty of room to experiment.

YogCraft's New Ores[edit]

While exploring your world, you may notice a few of the new ores present in YogCraft. Many of these, such as Uranium, will not prove useful until much later in your base's development. Others should be collected as soon as possible. The added ores are listed below, along with their primary uses and whether or not the Fortune enchantment will increase yield.


	Ore Name	Fortune?	Primary Uses
	Amber Bearing Stone	Yes	Decoration, Research
	Apatite Ore	Yes	Fertilizer (Forestry)
	Copper Ore	No	Machines, Cables, Bronze, Brass
	Ferrous Ore	No	Invar, chance of producing Pulverized Shiny Metal when pulverized
	Green Sapphire Ore	Yes	Tools, Decoration, Sonic Screwdriver
	Infused Stone	Yes	Myriad uses in Thaumcraft 3. Comes in 6 varieties.
	Lead Ore	No	Reinforced Glass
	Monazit Ore	Yes	MFFS Force Energy Crystal, generating Force energy
	Nikolite Ore	Yes	Blutricity
	Ruby Ore	Yes	Tools, Decoration
	Sapphire Ore	Yes	Tools, Decoration
	Saltpeter Ore	No	Gunpowder
	Silver Ore	No	Chests, Blutricity, Athame
	Sulfur Ore	No	Sulfuric Acid, Gunpowder
	Tin Ore	No	Machines, Cables, Bronze, Brass
File:Grid Tungsten Ore.png	Tungsten Ore	No	None without GregTech 4 installed
	Uranium Ore	No	Nuclear Reactors

Your First Machines[edit]

Ore Processing[edit]

Before you get into the meat of the YogCraft Pack, you will need to proceed in a very vanilla fashion towards one of two machines: the macerator or the pulverizer. The two machines have the same basic purpose; they grind ore into two refined items (dust or pulverized ore, respectively), which can each be smelted into an ingot of the original ore. In other words, they double your ore output! The major differences between the items are their crafting recipes and power sources. For simplicity's sake, I will combine the "shopping lists" for each machine and its power source into one box. Note too that the pulverizer has a chance of producing extra resources; the list of possibilities can be found on this page.

Macerator and Generator
12 Refined Iron*
5 Iron Ingots
4 Redstone
4 Tin Ingots
6 Copper Ingots
12 Rubber
3 Flint
2 Cobblestone
Fuel (charcoal)
*2x-smelted iron

Pulverizer and Stirling Engine
6 Iron Ingots
5 Redstone
2 Gold Ingots
2 Copper Ingots
2 Flint
5 Glass
6 Wood Planks
19 Cobblestone
9 Sticks
Fuel (charcoal)

As you can see, the Pulverizer and its attending Stirling Engine are somewhat cheaper to build, though the setup requires gold ingots. The machine you choose is largely unimportant, as long as you are able to process ores. If you choose to use the Pulverizer, you will need to use the crafting recipes below, as well as a Lever or Redstone Torch. The proper setup is shown on the right.

If you choose to use a Macerator, you will instead need these two recipes. The proper setup is shown on the right.

Note: If you also have GregTech 4 installed, you will need this recipe for the Macerator.

Both setups require some form of fuel to function. While coal is easily available, IndustrialCraft² adds the ability to compress a stack of coal into a diamond--as such, it may be wiser to use charcoal as your primary fuel source. Because fuel will be limited, you may wish to upgrade your ore processing machine to an induction smelter. It combines the functions of a pulverizer and vanilla furnace to increase fuel efficiency (from approximately 600 MJ per ore block to 320 MJ), but trades the pulverizer's chance to create extra dust for the ability to rarely create rich slag. It must also consume a block of sand or a unit of rich slag per operation; though sand production can easily be automated, providing necessary sand may prove difficult for fledgling bases, depending on their location.

Note: MJ stands for Minecraft Joule, and is the unit of energy used in BuildCraft. EU stands for Energy Unit, and is the unit of energy used in IndustrialCraft². Amps and accompanying volts are used in RedPower 2. For now, do not worry about them too much; just keep in mind which mod uses which unit.

Automated Mining[edit]

Once your ore-processing industry is set up, begin stockpiling iron, copper, tin, gold, redstone, coal, charcoal, and ever-important diamonds. Though strip-mining and spelunking should provide for your early needs, you may also wish to begin small-scale automation; at the very least, it will grant you a constant stream of cobblestone. Six of the mods included in the YogCraft Pack provide for machine-driven mining. While you are free to choose any of the methods listed below, BuildCraft or ComputerCraft mining automation will provide a relatively easy entry point for a beginner.

BuildCraft: Quarries and Mining Wells, the former of which is extremely reliable and somewhat flexible (but requires eleven diamonds), and the latter of which is fairly inexpensive (but requires some oversight and can only dig straight down). Mining Wells can simply be placed down and powered with a stirling engine, similarly to a pulverizer; for constructing a quarry, see [tutorial].

Computercraft: Mining Turtle, a very simple and inexpensive machine that requires very little player input; the low resource cost relative to its speed and power could be seen as an exploit, and programming them requires some knowledge of Lua and/or modification of game files. However, they are by far the cheapest and most flexible option, and an excellent choice for a fledgling base. Currently, there is no comprehensive tutorial available on the wiki for turtle use--I will hopefully find one soon.

Railcraft: Tunnel Bore, which is both expensive and breakable, and requires a degree of advancement in its corresponding mod. Though the prohibitive cost and destructability may be seen as a boon by experienced or "hardcore" players, it is likely not an ideal choice for early automation.

RedPower 2: Support Frame mining drill, which is inexpensive and flexible, but requires knowledge of Redpower 2 (or close adherence to a video tutorial) and can be rather bulky.

Steve's Carts 2: Custom Mining Carts, Digs a 3x3 hole in a straight direction, the drills can be customised, the storage etc. A very flexible way to mine, be cheap for the lower tier carts, however more expensive for the higher tier. Modular attachments such as liquid sensors to go over lava or bridge builders to build over gaps can be added to improve your cart. Fairly cheap, very flexible, and an early in-game item.

Thaumcraft 3: Arcane Bore, which works quickly and consumes no tangible resources, but rapidly drains Vis (which will be covered later on) and requires a degree of advancement in its corresponding mod before it can be constructed.

You should also aim to craft a Minium Stone. This item forms the core of Equivalent Exchange 3 alchemy, and will allow you to "upgrade" a large quantity of common materials (e.g. dirt, logs, iron ingots) to a smaller quantity of rarer materials, like diamonds and ender pearls. At the very least, the Stone will allow you to access the Nether without first crafting a diamond pickaxe, as two logs can be "transmuted" into one block of obsidian. All transmutations are shapeless and can be performed by putting the necessary items (for example, two logs) in a crafting table with the Minium Stone. The Stone will not be consumed directly, but each transmutation will cost a point of durability (the Stone has a durability of 1521). However, the Stone can also be used in conjunction with an automated mining system to transmute cobblestone and other "low-tier" materials into more useful ones, or with your ore-processing industry to provide an alternate source of diamonds, as eight iron ingots (processed from four iron ore blocks) equate to one gold ingot, and four gold ingots (processed from two gold ore blocks and/or transmuted from sixteen iron ore blocks) equate to one diamond. All transmutation recipes can be found on the Minium Stone's page, or accessed in-game by holding the cursor over the Stone and pressing "U."

Note: The red, semi-oblong objects in the second recipe are Shards of Minium, and are occasionally dropped when you kill a mob. You can see their page, and the page of any object used in a crafting recipe on this wiki, by clicking on the object's image.

Your First Diamonds[edit]

Once your base is set up, you should aim to collect _ diamonds. The first diamond is the most important, as it will allow for travel to the Twilight Forest, a new dimension added by a mod of the same name. Though the Twilight Forest is much more dangerous than the Overworld, it can also serve as a concentrated source of resources, especially redstone, iron, and more diamonds. Instructions for constructing the portal can be found on the page Getting Started in the Twilight Forest. As this guide will not go into much detail about the Twilight Forest, interested players should read the remainder of the mod's Getting Started page--the dimension boasts a great deal of content, and you should feel free to explore it at any time. For the purposes of this tutorial, the most important features of the Twilight Forest are Hollow Hills. As the name suggests, these hills contain a cavity which is itself full of stalactites and stalagmites, many of which are comprised of ore. The Hills come in three sizes: the smallest will provide a comparatively safe source of iron and redstone, whereas the largest will yield plentiful diamonds, but are incredibly dangerous for an unprepared adventurer. As would be expected, hills of middling size fall somewhere in-between. Because the terrain of the Twilight Forest is almost uniformly low and flat, Hollow Hills should stand out noticeably; if in doubt, search for an entrance or mine directly into the hill. If a cavern space is encountered, prepare yourself for the worst before venturing deeper inside. If you are nervous about accidentally entering a large Hollow Hill, you may wish to craft a magic map: information about the process can be found on the page Getting Started in the Twilight Forest: With Fire it Writes.

The second diamond should be used to create Soul Shards. These items, which are created at a ratio of 3 Shards:1 diamond, allow for the creation of upgradeable mobspawners. In order to make Soul Shards, you must first enter the Nether and gather a minimum of nine Soul Sand and nine Glowstone Dust. As mentioned above, entering the Nether does not require a diamond pickaxe, as obsidian can be transmuted from logs; you will also want five more obsidian to craft a Soul Forge, and four more (as well as diamonds three and four) for an optional Enchantment Table.