Dumb questions!

Ok, I will tell you the basics of IC2. First off, there are 4 machines you will need in order to create everything in IC2. The macerator, compressor, extractor, and furnace. The macerator grinds stuff into dusts. The compressor makes stuff smaller. The extractor helps pull all the resources out of stuff. The electric furnace is faster than a cobble furnace. These all take a certain amount of EU/t when running.

Macerator = 3eu/t
Compressor = 1eu/t
Extractor = 1eu/t
Electric Furnace = 2eu/t

You will need to power these machines using a generator. There a number of different types of which you can use Google to get more info on.

Regular Generator = 10eu/t Output (Only when you give it stuff to burn)
Solar = 1eu/t Output (Only during day and when weather is good)
Water = 0.025 eu/t for every adjacent water block or 1 eu/t for every bucket or water cell inputted (Only when the bucket or cell still holds water)
Wind = 0 - 5eu/t (Varies based on altitude and random wind)
Nuclear = 5eu/t to Several Thousand (Based upon very complex reactor layout possibilities and # of uranium cells)

There are a number of different cables as well.

Copper Cable = Carries 32eu/t or less. Every 4 blocks of cable, it losses 1 eu/t.
Gold Cable = Same loss as Copper Cable, but can carry 128eu/t
Tin Cable = 5eu/t or less, losses 1eu/t every 40 blocks
Glass Fibre Cable = 512 eu/t or less, same loss as Tin Cable
HV Cable = 2048eu/t or less, losses 1eu/t every block

In most cases, the best cable is Glass Fibre.

So what you should do to get started in IC2 is make 1 of each of the basic machines listed above. Then get some energy storage, and enough power generation to power the machines. Then just start making what you feel is needed. Lots of fun IC2 stuff. Endgame is things like MFSU and Quantum Armor, but thats way to advanced to explain here.

Thats the purpose of IC2 and Minecraft itself, do what you want and have fun.

DZCreeper, allow me to correct your numbers on power drains. It turns out that, in the current version, the electric furnace consumes 3 EU/t and the macerator, compressor, and extractor all use 2 EU/t each.

I believe your other numbers are correct, however it may be worth noting that cables actually care about packet size rather than EU/t -- as long as no packets try to travel through that are larger than the cable capacity, you may send an infinite number of them. Thus, tin cables can actually be used to hook up, e.g., 120 solar panels safely, as none of the solars will ever output packets larger than 1 EU.

Sorry about the mistakes. That was just a quick explaination to help the OP get started with IC2. Didn't want to go into complex stuff like Packets, and weird machines like the Mass Fab that takes unlimited power.

Mhm, it was a good summary! I think the packet thing is hugely important for everyone to understand, though, since so many newcomers tend to run into problems with them.

Quote from Oneoutway

Interesting. I have the four machines powered by solar. The first three use a batbox for storage and the 3 furnances have the MFE since they need more stored energy because they are used more often. The miner is set up using the compact solars. I really hate making the compact solars there should be an auto recipe maker. So I am mining and using all the machines. Is there something I can power that is fun or useful besides what I have. Not saying it isn't enough but just wondering.

GregTech adds the electric auto-crafting table and the industrial centrifuge, but besides that you could get a recycler, or if you have progressed enough, move on to the mass fabricator.

non IC2 related, but there are other mods that work well with IC2, for example, buildcraft, you can make a "factory" that process's all your ores, doubles them, smelts them, then puts them in a chest for you.

however tho, that is more complicated in a way.

(Why use IC2 for a factory? Because IC2 machines can have stuff like overclockers etc... makes it faster.