Let's see:
1. if you have Railcraft installed, you can use the Coke Oven to make charcoal (it still takes some brick, but not as much as a large charcoal pile, and you can use things like wood or coal dust/crushed coal (from small coal ore) as furnace fuel to make the brick)
2. GregTech generates large veins of coal between layer 50 and 80 (see http://ftb.gamepedia.com/GregTech_5/Mining_and_Processing for an explanation of how GregTech mix veins generate), and the ore blocks can be hammered for pieces of coal to use for torches.
3. You can also make torches with sulfur (overworld sources tend to be deep below ground, so not really a good early-game choice), phosphorus (generates in Apatite mix veins, from layers 40-60), or sticky resin (though IC2 normally hides this recipe). Other mods might add more choices.
4. If being unable to burn logs into charcoal in a furnace still bothers you after reading the alternatives above, you can find "disabledrecipes" in GregTech/Recipes.cfg and change "B:wood2charcoalsmelting_true=true" to "B:wood2charcoalsmelting_true=false"

[GregTech-5][1.7.10-FORGE-1355+][Unofficial but approved Port][Stable] Even GT5 Experimental is slowly getting stable.
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4. If being unable to burn logs into charcoal in a furnace still bothers you after reading the alternatives above, you can find "disabledrecipes" in GregTech/Recipes.cfg and change "B:wood2charcoalsmelting_true=true" to "B:wood2charcoalsmelting_true=false"
That's what I did, but I wanted to know if there was another, intended solution. When trying out a new mod I like to see how the designer imagined it working before altering it.
I know how Coke Ovens work. It's true that you don't need anything other than a furnace, wood, and clay to make a Railcraft coke oven, but shouldn't there be a solution to torches that doesn't depend on another mod? Or is Railcraft and intended requirement, like Industrial Craft 2?
I've read about the Gregtech vein generation, but haven't had extensive experience with it yet. Are you saying you can expect to see coal veins exposed and visible pretty much all the time, provided you check out biomes like Extreme Hills?
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I'm not entirely sure about the "intended solution", but as far as the charcoal pit being realistic and not wanting it to need the brick base, keep in mind that a max size charcoal pit (605 logs) can produce about 14 stacks of charcoal (give or take) in a total of 25 minutes or less (including the repeated setup and tear-down), which comes out to 1.67 seconds per charcoal, which is much faster than using a furnace, and almost as fast as a pyrolyse oven at minimum valid voltage (without nitrogen input). The only catch is that automation options are somewhat limited.
Yeah, extreme hills often have exposed coal veins.
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The amount of charcoal a pit can produce crossed my mind. If the pit were an extra feature, in addition to vanilla furnace production of charcoal, the pit's cost makes sense. It's just that when it's the only way to produce charcoal in-mod, I have to ask what the intended solution to those torches you need the first night is.
The alternative, I guess, is to dig a hole and hide in it until morning, doing nothing or perhaps doing everything by feel in the dark while the hungry undead moan outside.
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The amount of charcoal a pit can produce crossed my mind. If the pit were an extra feature, in addition to vanilla furnace production of charcoal, the pit's cost makes sense. It's just that when it's the only way to produce charcoal in-mod, I have to ask what the intended solution to those torches you need the first night is.
The alternative, I guess, is to dig a hole and hide in it until morning, doing nothing or perhaps doing everything by feel in the dark while the hungry undead moan outside.
You don't need torches for the first night, nor for the next one
. As long as you don't go underground or building a house.
Hole in a ground (up to 3x3x2) is quite safe, and you are at the caveman stage at this time anyway)). Charcoal pit takes few hours IRL to create (lazy pace), and after that you don't have to think about coal any more. Persanally, I prefer 5x5x5 pit, because I am to impatient to fill largest one, even with giant trees. And as said above - coal and lignite ores are ewerywhere on surface in large amounts. Next pain in the *** will be diamonds.
Honestly, I started 3 maps, dig 100 holes each in 10x10 squares(in guesstimated vein locations), and only get 1 diamond vein. But... it was epic.
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Dark souls 2 fume knight naked solo dagger epic level
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I wanted to know if there was another, intended solution.
Stick + Sticky Resin (from rubber tree)
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I've got another "what's the correct way within Gregtech 5u" question.
I'm in the early stages of steam power, and I had some unexpected snags with running a Steam Alloy Smelter. A single Small Coal Boiler couldn't provide enough steam to keep it running, and when the smelter run out of steam mid-way through an operation, it halted and reset. So just running at a slower speed wasn't workable. I added a second boiler, and that wasn't quite enough either. I did hit on a solution, I disconnected the smelter, run both boilers up to a full load of steam, and then reconnected the smelter. That ran pretty much acceptably. Though I also noticed that the steam smelter consumed steam even if it didn't have any operations pending.
Breaking the steam pipe and then re-connecting it seems crude. I'd like a valve for the pipe, or a way to turn off the smelter so it doesn't eat steam. I looked into Shutter Covers and Machine Control covers, and those would do the trick handily - except that both require a very high tech device, the Assembler to make. There doesn't seem to be any way to craft one with a regular craftbench.
Is there a regular way to make them? Or to turn the smelter on and off? I can of course use pipes from another mod, such as Thermal Dynamics, but I'm wondering about the "correct" Gregtech way to solve the problem. Assuming the solution isn't "break the steam pipe regularly."
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The Alloy Smelter is the most steam hungry GT steam machine and constantly running it takes a bunch of boilers. I think 3 or 4 was the right number.
I my case i start using it by running the boiler until it's internal tank is almost full and then put a small amount of materials inside, so it does not run out. About 3-4 runs should work if i remember right.
I do not really understand why you disconnect the pipes? Give the machines only so much material to process so they will not run out of steam. They will not use any when not working.
But the tool you are likely looking for is the soft hammer/mallet. Hit a machine with it to turn it off.
After that i recommend to upgrade the steam storage asap with some tank. For example railcraft or whatever you have in your modpack.
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Are you sure it's the alloy smelter using steam when it has no operations going? I'd never found that to be the case. (although it's a bit hard to tell early-game, as the only way to prove it is to use a scanner, which requires either MV tech or creative mode). However, the boilers keep going as long as they have heat even if nothing is using the steam, and they vent excess steam when their buffers get too full. I think the alloy smelter has some sort of hidden internal buffer of steam, which might be what's confusing you.
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The main reason I disconnected the Steam Alloy Smelter is that it would eat all the steam in the boiler, fail to finish the operation, and then throw the steam away. Secondary reason was that I believed the smelter ate steam even when it had no queued operations.
The only mod I'm currently playing that has storage is Railcraft, and that's just those multiblock iron tanks. Those cost at least 24 iron, and I've yet to find a significant source of that. I know that when I do find a real iron vein, I'll be swimming in it, but so far I've been struggling along on those Small Iron Ore blocks.
Thermal Dynamics of course has a wide range of storage solutions, but I was trying to avoid using that as being too out of sync with Gregtech's design philosophy. I don't want to make things too easy on myself.
Incidentally, I've learned the ins and outs of the charcoal burner pile. It's incredibly fast and efficient, though time consuming to set up and harvest. I started with a 3x3x1 just to learn the ropes, and I'm currently running a 5x5x5 whenever I'm feeling low on fuel.
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I think the alloy smelter has some sort of hidden internal buffer of steam, which might be what's confusing you.
That's a possibility. IndustrialCraft machines all have energy buffers, but it's visible so it's clear that the energy is going to charge the buffer and not being thrown away. I can see how the Gregtech Steam machines might have a internal energy buffer but it's not visible. One video I watched showed some sort of display-panel cover that showed stats for the various Gregtech machines as they were operating, but I don't know what that is, and no doubt it requires electronics.
I'm not sure what half the things in the steam GUI do, and online documentation seems to be sparse. I guess the top right box in the coal boiler is just to hold dark ashes?
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That's a possibility. IndustrialCraft machines all have energy buffers, but it's visible so it's clear that the energy is going to charge the buffer and not being thrown away. I can see how the Gregtech Steam machines might have a internal energy buffer but it's not visible. One video I watched showed some sort of display-panel cover that showed stats for the various Gregtech machines as they were operating, but I don't know what that is, and no doubt it requires electronics.
I don't recall a purely-GregTech way to do that as a fixed display, but maybe with Nuclear Control. However, the Portable Scanner (or Debug Scanner in creative mode) can show details like internal steam/EU buffers of GregTech machines in chat.I'm not sure what half the things in the steam GUI do, and online documentation seems to be sparse. I guess the top right box in the coal boiler is just to hold dark ashes?
Yes, though you get plain ashes rather than dark ashes if you fuel it with charcoal or coal coke. -
I don't recall a purely-GregTech way to do that as a fixed display, but maybe with Nuclear Control.
That's it exactly. I looked at the cover tutorial video again, and at 5:09 you can see the panel is a Advanced Information Panel from Nuclear Control 2. It seems like a really handy diagnostic, but I don't know anything about that mod, or what the panel costs.
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Quoted from "MauveCloud"
I don't recall a purely-GregTech way to do that as a fixed display, but maybe with Nuclear Control.
That's it exactly. I looked at the cover tutorial video again, and at 5:09 you can see the panel is a Advanced Information Panel from Nuclear Control 2. It seems like a really handy diagnostic, but I don't know anything about that mod, or what the panel costs.That's it exactly. I looked at the cover tutorial video again, and at 5:09 you can see the panel is a Advanced Information Panel from Nuclear Control 2. It seems like a really handy diagnostic, but I don't know anything about that mod, or what the panel costs.
The mod is really neat and the panels great for pretty much everything especially things that tend to go boom. Here's a link from 1 of Greg's posts to the new thread. -
[Steam] Machines, if insufficiently powered, will continue to operate and waste energy, until they are turned off by right-click with a Soft Hammer. (a Wooden Hammer works)
As for continuing to drain Steam when inactive, [Steam] Machines contain an internal energy buffer that they will fill when inactive. So it's not using energy when inactive, it's refilling its internal buffer for use when you turn it on again.As for the steam GUIs, they use a clone of the standard machine GUI so there's a few unused slots hidden at the bottom of them (no visible slots show, but if you mouse over, they exist). As for the Steam Boilers, red bar = heat, blue bar = water, grey bar= steam; one set of inventory slots for Water input, one slot for Fuel, one slot for [Dark] Ashes output.
Steam Machines do not store "Steam" internally; when Steam is pushed into them it is cut in half and converted to stored energy. I don't know how that shows up on an energy scanner panel.
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Steam Machines do not store "Steam" internally; when Steam is pushed into them it is cut in half and converted to stored energy. I don't know how that shows up on an energy scanner panel.
I beg to differ. From https://github.com/Blood-Asp/GT5-….java#L106-L109
That looks to me like it's storing steam internally.
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The steam machines store steam really as steam, but the scanner reads the energy value of the stored steam. So it is actually the scanner confusing people here.
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And its time for GregTech update 5.09.26!
Changelog:Fix crash with Fossils Archeology Revival.
Basic IC2 Classic compatibility.
Fix Forestry Wood Cover recipes.
Fix missing paperboard recipes.
Fix ore in basalt or mable not triggering achievements.
Fix Disassemblers above Insane Voltage(These tiers now work faster without efficiency loss).
Lowered sodium fuel value because mods with endless salt sources allowed too efficient power generation.
Exploding GT machines now drop randomly some of their crafting components.
Add missing GT Food Crops.
Fix GC Compressed Aluminium recipes.
Add Duranium/Tritanium as highend tool materials between HSS and Neutronium.
Add radon and naquadria fusion recipes.
Fix ImmEng adding simple recipes for Steel/Iron/Aluminium rods.
Added compat to EnderIO Rocket fuel+GT Recipe.
Cleanup recipe code.
Add all missing potion recipes to GT.
Make Dough by throwing flour into filled cauldron.
Allow Oil Drills to pump oil in void worlds without bedrock.
Hide Covers for Forestry woods if forestry is disabled.
Hide Disabled Crates.
Show missing Mining Pipes in Adv Miner II GUI and missing turbine rotors in large turbine GUI.
Fix Reinforced stone dropping as TNT.
Wrench shift click can move machine front direction.
Fix Quicksilver nugget dupe.
Improved Magneticraft compatibility.(Imported instead of reflection, add sifter recipes, remove processing exploits for tungsten, iridium or osmium, change carbite recipe, add oil products to fuels)
Immersive Engeneering compatibility.(Crusher recipes, Excavator has GT oreveins, bio fuel in diesel generator)
Add fuel values for PneumaticCraft fuels.
Fix crash in some Processing Array recipes.
Naquadah Fuel Rods.(Mox fuel stats with 10x runtime)
Fixed some broken Assemblyline recipes.
Added special mode to needsmaintainance cover for large turbine rotor damage detection.
Detect GT++ and enable materials for it.
Item Transfer now tries to move full stack instead of single operation.
Rare dropping of items in combination with double chests fixed.
Add Automatic Maintainance Hatch.
New Recipes for Lapotron Crystals, Mining Pipe, Mining Laser and Quantum Armor.
Change gravisuite armor recipes to assembly line.
Fix missing pulverization byproducts.
Add EnderIO Alloy recipes.
Rebalance Pollution. (https://github.com/Blood-Asp/GT5-…_Pollution.java for details)
Fixed some Pollution Bugs.
Added some more Pollution Effects.
Fixed Powderbarrel processing client side.
Fix the generation of uncraftable turbine rotors.
Fix Translation of Multibock Tooltips(This time for real)
Fixed Broken crop orepreocessing recipes.
Turn off AdvMinerII once reaching bedrock.
Turn off Oil Drill once all oil is drained.
Fix ignoredOredictList not working.
Fix scanner looking at wrong chunk for pollution in negative coordinates.
Fix Large Turbine tooltips.Revised the modular armor.
Recipes are now enabled.
Basic, non electric, Modular armor should work fine, testing needed.
Electric modular armors still with a bunch of strange behaviors, will be fixed in the next updates, helping with testing would be nice.
Modular armor now has a config to change its values. Balancing proposals would be nice. -
Dropping flour into a cauldron will make early bread making a little less tedious.
Speaking of which, GT6 apparently allows fluid pipes to fill cauldrons. That's a pretty rare capability - because filling the cauldron is very repetitive, I went looking for a way, and the only mod which seems to do this aside from GT6 is Tubes.
Unfortunately, Tubes is a really terrible otherwise. When I connected a tank full of water to a cauldron, it filled it, but then it continued to empty it until the tank was dry. Apparently it treats fluids as packets, and if they don't reach a destination they just bounce around inside the tube. I'm not sure if they're destroyed or just in limbo, but in either case it was behavior I didn't want to see.
I'm still struggling along in the Steam Age. I found a big vein of iron / pyrite / copper, but I'm reluctant to start on blast furnaces until I can get a macerator running, and I haven't found any diamonds. I found a few small diamond ores, but they dropped diamond dust rather than usable diamonds. In the meantime I've been hoarding lots of unprocessed copper ore.
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About diamonds... try to dig about ~10z in depth. After some time (and little bit of pure luck) you will drop 2 diamonds and finally can make macerator. Consider making steel one first because it has processing time 20s instead of very long 40sec per ore.
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