Mods/TechAge-Guide

TechAge-Guide

TechAge is a technical mod, forum github

Players advance thru 5 ages: Iron Age, Steam Age, Oil Age, Present, Future (TA1..TA5).

There is a Quick Start Guide, but it doesn't go into much details.

There is a nice, long forum-post about TechAge on the TASS-server, by parasite.

Overview

TechAge has a few special materials:

• TA1-Iron (in addition to regular steel)
• Charcoal - for making TA1-Iron (using the meltingpot)
• sieved gravel - from the gravel-sieve
• Usmium - produced from sieved gravel with a gravel-rinser
• Baborium - for oil-explorer, silicon-wafers, solar-inverter ...
• Oil - to make bitumen, naphta, fueloil, gasoline, propan. Also hydrogen and isobutan.
• Bauxite - for making aluminium
• Plastic - for cables, vaccuumtubes ...
• carbon fiber - for making fuelcells, and windturbines
• Basalt, basalt-glass - for display, power-monitor
• Ceramic - for TA4, TA5
• also: lye, epoxy, and several kinds of powder, used in the reactor

The first key concept is the gravel-sieve, that produces most kinds of ore from gravel (plus sieved gravel).
There are also special hammers (and grinders) to make gravel from stone or cobblestone.

The next key concept is TA1-Iron that is used in most techage-parts.
It is produced in a special melting-pot on top of a melting-furnace, that needs charcoal as fuel.
Charcoal is produced in charcoal-piles, from wood.

(These are the first of the bottlenecks/critical parts - unless you can get those from a shop or other player, you need to produce them yourself to advance.)

The next key concepts are the gravel-rinser, e-fab2 and steam-engine:

• gravel-rinser produces usmium from sieved gravel (plus sand and some copper-ore).
• e-fab2 uses usmium to produce vaccuum-tubes.
• steam-engine to provide mechanical power for the e-fab2, grinder, gravel-rinser (and other machines).

Almost all TA3-parts need a vaccuum-tube.

TA3 is mostly about oil:

• finding oil needs an oil-explorer
• drilling oil needs a drillbox/derrick (plus drillbits, and electric power)
• getting oil out needs an pumpjack (plus pipes, tanks and power)
• processing oil needs a refinery (plus power)

TA4 is mostly about aluminium: Aluminium (and other stuff) is produced with a chemical reactor, and a TA3-industrial-furnace (or TA4-heater).
The industrial-furnace can replace the melting-furnace for making TA1-iron.

Sources for electric power:

• Steamengine with generator (produces 24 ku max.)
• TA3-power-station (80 ku) - can use coal/charcoal or oil/oil-products
• TA3 small generator using gasoline (12 ku) - needs a refinery for the gasoline
• Solar panels with solar-inverter (needs silicon wafers, WLAN-chips, also good temperature)
  Runs only during daytime.
• Windturbine (needs concrete, carbonfiber ...) Can only be built at the ocean.
  Runs only during morning- and evening hours.
• Electrolyzer & Fuelcell (using hydrogen, with a tank and pumps). Needs carbonfiber. (34 ku)
• Fusion-reactor (TA5)

Storing electric energy

• Akkus (easy to build, but small capacity: 3.33 kud)
• Thermal energy storage (needs lots of gravel and concrete) - 5 possible sizes: 5x5x5 (22kud) .. 13x13x13 (1112kud)
• as above, hydrogen-tank+pump with Electrolyzer & Fuelcell (needs 1 hydrogen per 4 seconds to produce 34ku)
  so a tank with 1000 hydrogen will last 4000s = 66.6 minutes = 3 game-days.

...

e-fab3 uses silicon-wafers to produce WLAN-chips.
Almost all TA4-parts need a WLAN-chip.

...

e-fab4 produces AI-chips.
Almost all TA5-parts need an AI-chip.

To produce AI-chips, the player must have XP (experience-points).
Those XP are gained/produced by a collider. Each player must build its own.

A collider needs lots of aluminium, isobutan and power.
Isobutan is produced with a chemical reactor, eg. from gasoline.

TA5 finally has some nice toys/challenges, such as the fusion-reactor and the flightcontroller.

Power can be produced from coal, oil, solar, or wind. Also electrolyzer&fuelcells.

Some supporting equipment:

• quarry - automated digging (to get stones for grinding)
• grinder - grind stone to gravel
• minecart, hopper, tube, pusher, distributor, injector, concentrator - move materials around
• autocrafter, liquid-sampler - automated production
  

This is best used for items with many parts, or mass-production, eg. chests, cement/concrete.
There might be other tools for automated production, eg. technic also has an autocrafter.

• TA-InfoTool - shows biome and temperature. Also for configuring machines.
• forceload-blocks - to keep machines working when player is not nearby
• signbot - robot that can dig, harvest, build etc.
• LUA-controller, ICTA-controller, timer, sequencer ... - for automation
• signaltower, display, touchscreen ...

There are some optional parts of techage:

• growlamp - makes flowers grow on gardensoil
• autobahn - faster movement
• hyperloop - fast transport, like subway/elevator
• paraglider - flying/soaring
• jetpack - flying, with limited baggage. Uses hydrogen as fuel.
• PDP13 - computer
• Barduino - computer

TA1 - Iron Age

The player needs to cover the basics first (food, bed, bags, wooden&stone tools, armor, water, area&housing, furnace, chests ...)
We want a place near water, room to expand, and preferably easy to reach, eg. near spawn.
OTOH, some players prefer far-away places to be undisturbed...
Later (in TA3), we might want to relocate to a place near oil, and/or better conditions for producing power.

For food, I recommend tomatoes, cucumbers and/or carrots (no cooking required).
Honey (from beehive, eg. by xdecor) and blueberry-bushes are also nice.

Also needed, farming-related:

• Papyrus - for paper, books, labels, beehive, TA-construction-boards, carbon-fibers
• red dye (from red flowers, or chili) for power-generator, red cables (solar)
• green dye (from green flowers, or cactus) for pusher
• yellow dye (from yellow flowers, or onions) for pipes, signbot-signs
• blue dye (from blue flowers, or ...) for TA3, TA4

Flowers don't spread when overcrowded, ie. too many within range 4 (so collect some of them).
To make honey, a beehive needs 3-5 flowers within range.

...

Some parts require bits of junglewood, so scout for a jungle.

Plant trees, to get wood (aspen, pine, poplar are easy to harvest, appletrees also give some apples)

• wood to make charcoal (and torches, chests, tubes, tools, for building etc.)

If the server has a mod like chainsaw, big trees (like oak, sequoia, redwood) are also eays to harvest.
Later, we can use signbots or quarrys to farm wood.

Bushes are also nice, for easy harvesting of leaves (and small bits of wood).
Leaves can be made to oil-extract --> parafin --> plastic.
Also, as low-grade fuel, and to make ivy (useful as cheap ladder).

On some servers, you can also make leaves --> twigs --> sticks --> wooden planks.

For farming, make a field near water (or place dirt above water),
then use a hoe on the dirt to turn it into soil.
(Instead of soil near water, you could also use gardensoil)

I recommand an 8x8 field, with a 2x2 pool of water at the center - this also works far from the coast.
(The pool also provides infinite water, eg. for filling the boiler of a steam-engine)

Plant cotton, wheat and some other food:

• cotton to make wool for bed, bags, and some TA-parts like the pusher
  (a bed needs 3 wool --> 12 cotton, 1 small bag needs 6 wool + 1 string --> 26 cotton. But we want 4 large bags ;)
• wheat to make straw for the TA1-lighter (and maybe for baking bread)
• other food, eg. tomatoes
• Also plant some papyrus near water (on dirt only, not on soil)

You might need to scout for seeds, eg. by digging grass and junglegrass. Seeds drops with random chance.

Go mining. First, we need lots of stone and iron, and some coal, copper and gold:

• Cobblestone is needed to build the tower with the meltingpot (and stone-tools, a furnace, etc.)
• Iron is needed to make regular steel, as well as TA1-iron.
• Coal is needed to make torches, black dye, and regular steel (and maybe as fuel).
• Copper is needed to make the meltingpot
• Gold is needed to make hoppers (and maybe protection-blocks)

If you find other ores, mine them too (eg. tin, mese, diamonds, baborium, bauxit).
Iron and coal are the most common, and can be found not far below the surface.
Cobblestone can be cooked to stone in the furnace. Stone is needed for hoppers.
Get some sand too, for making glass.
Also, we need some flint, so mine some gravel (with a shovel). Flint drops with random chance.

A public mine is helpful to get started with mining.

Then build a charcoal-pile (needs 100+ dirt, 27+ wood, lighter, flint&steel),
ignite the lighter, close the pile, and watch if smoke appears above the pile after a few seconds.

While the pile burns (20 minutes), build the tower with the meltingpot (needs 90+ cobblestone, iron, copper, and a ladder or ivy).
Look it up on a TA-construction-board if needed.

...

Things to craft with your first few gold:

• 1-2 protection-blocks or simpleProtection-sticks (only if the server uses those - not needed eg. with areas-mod)

Use them to secure your area.

• 2-3 hoppers (each needs 5 stone + 1 gold)

Things to craft with your first few iron & steel:

• 2-3 locked chests - to keep your stuff secure (maybe copper works too for this)
  For now. Later, we want 'better' chests.
• 1 gravelsieve
• 1 flint&steel - to ignite the lighter in the charcoal-pile
• 1-2 buckets - for transporting water, eg. to make a pool of water for your field
• 1 circular-saw - for making slabs, and cutting glass to slices
• maybe steel-tools (nice, but you can make do with stonetools for now)
• maybe, for repairs: hammer for the workshop, or anvil&hammer (depending on active mods on the server)

Other things to craft:

• 2-3 furnace (for food, stone, parafin/plastic, regular non-TA-ores)
• workshop (available in xdecor)
• Chests (we will need lots of them :)
• TA-hammer - for making gravel from stone (and to dig hard ores like diamond while we only have stonetools)
• 1 Glass + 2 Torches --> SuperGlowglass --> use the saw to cut it into slices
  Glowglass can be used under water, and for 2 torches you get 8 pieces to use as lamps.
• TA-construction-board (needs paper+sticks)

use them to look up the gravel-sieve, meltingpot, steamengine etc.

• ..

Build a gravel-sieve, with hoppers for input and output, and a locked chest as final output.
(You can skip the input-chest for now, and put gravel directly into the input-hopper)
Put some gravel into the input-hopper, and watch if stuff appears in the output-chest.

If the server uses compost and garden-soil, you could use hopper #3 as input to a compost-barrel,
and use the output-hopper to drain both the barrel and the sieve,
to make a combined machine for gravel-sifting and composting.

Put some leaves into the hopper feeding the compost-barrel,
and move gravel that gets into the output-chest (ie. unprocessed gravel) back into the input-hopper.
(This should be automated later, with tubes, pusher, distributor)

If you think you have too much TA1-iron, you could build the TA1-watermill now (but it is mostly a sidequest, and eyecandy - not really needed ;)

TA2 - Steam Age

The steamengine provides mechanical ("axle"-) power for machines. The most important:

• grinder - to make gravel from stone
• gravel-rinser - to make usmium from sieved gravel
• e-fab2 - to make vaccuumtubes, to make TA3-parts

Other machines: quarry, autocrafter, generator

TA2-machines cannot be automated.

...

TA3 - Oil Age

The TA3-industrial furnace finally makes the melting-furnace obsolete,
as it can make TA1-iron, and process recipes with more then one raw material.
Eg. iron+coal --> steel, or sand+steel --> silicon, or papyrus+sticks --> carbon-fiber

The oil-explorer checks a mapblock (area 16x16) for oil, downto depth 380.
It also shows the borders of the current mapblock.
Oilsources vary in size, from about 5000 to 20000. So, you will have to do a lot of exploring while looking for oil...
While doing this, also use the TA-Infotool to check the biome and temperature.
The position-temperature is the efficency for producing electric power with solar panels.
Take notes ! Consider relocating your base.

When oil is found, the oil-explorer displays where the derrick for drilling needs to be placed.

The drillbox builds the derrick, and uses drillbits (made with obsidian) to reach the source of oil.
This takes some time, and uses about 20 eu of electric power.
For the first drillsite, you might need to set up a steam-engine with a generator.

A forceloader is useful to keep the drill working while you work elsewhere.

When drilling is complete, the derrick and drillbox can be removed, and a pumpjack placed there.
Be quick, otherwise oil spills out.

The pumpjack pumps oil out, and moves it via pipes into a tank.
This also needs power.

The refinery with reboiler and destillationtower is then used to separate the crude oil
into separate tanks with bitumen, naptha, fueloil, gasoline, propan.

Further processing can be done with a chemical reactor, in TA4.

Building the refinery needs concrete, which needs wet cement.
To make this, it is useful to have an autocrafter with a liquid-sampler.

Depending on the distance from your home to the source of oil, you have several options:

• transport oil in barrels (on foot ;)
• pipeline - needs a pump every 100m. Also needs protection.
• minecarts with barrels or tanks, and terminals for loading/unloading.
  You can use landmarks to protect the rails (one per mapblock)
• new base / move base

...

The e-fab3 produces WLAN-chip that are needed for TA4-parts.

TA4 - Present

The chemical reactor is needed to make aluminium and isobutan (eg. from gasoline).
The reactor uses many TA4-parts, eg. the TA4-Doser.

The TA4-heater (upgrade to the TA3-industrial furnace) needs ceramics,
for the furnace-ceramics (needs aluminium-powder, clay-powder and silversandstone-powder).
On some servers silver sand is hard to find...

TA4 also has many things that are useful for production, transport, control and automation.
Eg. autocrafter, signbot, LUA-controller, ICTA-controller, timer, sequencer, recipe-block ... signaltower, display, touchscreen ...
Also, nice toys like doorcontroller and move/turncontroller.

TA4-parts in general work faster then TA3-parts, but use a bit more power.

...

A collider is needed to get the XP for producing the AI-chips for TA5-parts.

It must be built underground (below -26), needs a minimum area of 40x6x40, and some key parts are:

• a forceloader that covers the collider-worker/detector and the collider-cooling
• lots of aluminium, pipes, cables
• ceramics - for the collider-magnets (needs silversandstone-powder)
• 250+ isobutan (eg. from gasoline)
• 145+ power (needs to be stable over several hours)
• I also recommend some akkus (5-20) for smooth operation.

TA5 - Future

With enough XP from the collider, the player can produce AI-chips, and build advanced machines:

• Fusion-reactor
• Flightcontroller
• Hyperloop-chests
• Teleporter-chests

...