User:SirMoogle/Drafts/Getting Started (Awakening)

This guide is written for Awakening version 2.29.8.

Modpack-specific mechanics
Awakening is a heavily altered modpack which features different recipes. As such, it is strongly recommended to consult both NEI and the Awakening Quest Book. The modpack has its own biome generation scheme and creates tinier biomes; as a consequence of this villages appear less frequently. Awakening also has the mod The Spice of Life, which will remember the last 6 food items the player consumed and decreases the foods' nutritional value (both hunger and saturation restoration) each time the food item has been stored in the "recently eaten" list.

Ore generation has also been tweaked; for more information, consult this page on ore depths and mining levels.

Starting in a new world
When you enter a new world for the first time, you start off with:
 * 1 Wooden Broadsword
 * 1 Wooden Pickaxe
 * 1 Wooden Hatchet
 * 1 Vial of Mending
 * 1 Awakening Quest Book
 * 64 blocks of Dried Dirt
 * 10 White Candles
 * 4 Floral Fertilizer

No matter where you start off, it's best to find a river close to where you intend to build a base in order to build the Smeltery from Tinkers' Construct quickly. Gathering enough blocks for shelter when night approaches is also important because hostile mobs will attack the player with increased attack strength and defence.

Setting up the Smeltery
To get a decently sized Smeltery, lots of Seared Bricks are needed. With the base being made out of a quadrilateral of Seared Bricks, each successive vertical layer requires more Seared Bricks encircling the base (corners excluded). Some of the blocks making up the wall need to be replaced with a Smeltery Controller, Seared Tank, Seared Faucets, and Smeltery Drains. A good source of Lava (and later, Blazing Pyrotheum) should be found to keep it running for operations.

Food diversity
A wide range of food is needed in order to maximise their nutritional benefits. To this end it is recommended to start clearing out a plot for farmland and Agricraft as soon as possible. You should also consider domesticating wild Cows in order to milk them; this requires breeding Cows across three generations, so putting different generation in different pens will help.

The quest to complete to make life easier with storing and crafting foods is "Kitchen Nightmares." Completing it will award you with the Cooking for Blockheads kitchen set (a Fridge, an Oven, a Sink, and a Cooking Table). It will allow you to store ingredients in the freeform kitchen multiblock structure and craft items at the Cooking Table provided. Aside: the Sink can be used as a source of infinite water (and Fresh Water from it can be used as a pure source of for Thaumcraft).

A Lunch Box from Spice of Life is recommended, as it will be able to store 6 food items (albeit only in stacks of 8):

Mining
In this modpack, ore blocks have varying levels of hardness that require different pickaxes or hammers with the appropriate mining level or higher. WAILA is helpful in this regard and will allow you to see if your current tool is able to mine the block. It is possible to go to mining level 4 by completing the quest to obtain an Iron Pickaxe. Ores of any mining level can also be collected by blowing them up with TNT, though this brings a risk of destroying blocks.

Magic
The two major magic mods, Botania and Thaumcraft, are heavily integrated into other mods, such as Ender IO. Because recipes for many of Botania's items have changed, the Lexica Botania has been removed and the general descriptions for them have been added to the Magic and Mystery chapters. Thaumcraft remains relatively unchanged and as such the Thaumonomicon is still available by right-clicking on a Bookshelf with a wand; research is set to easy mode, and all topics are bought with research points. With the extra demand for research points, farming Knowledge Fragments is recommended over searching for Aura Nodes.