Age of Engineering Guide: Ages 7-9

This is a continuation from Age of Engineering Guide: Ages 4-6. It has been broken into multiple parts because of the limit on number of crafting grids per article.

Task 7.x: Void Resource Miner
The void resource miner can generate resources for you, as long as it has access to the void.

Task 7.x Storage Scanner (RFTools) (Optional)
This thing is amazing. It is a crafting station, but it can scan all your nearby chests, and let you pull items from them for your crafting, even if they are not directly connected!

Task 7.x Cobblestone Generator
Create a Cobblestone Generator (Tiny Progressions) from Tiny Progressions, and upgrade it to at least tier 4.

Task 7.x Scrap Maker
Make 2-4 Scrap Makers, and supply them with cobblestone from your cobblestone generator. Pipe their output to a storage drawer.

Task 7.x Mass Fab
Make a Mass Fabricator. Pipe scrap into it, and then place a fluid tank next to it to draw out UU matter. If the only reactor you have is the 100EU reactor from before, it is time to either upgrade it, or make a second reactor to go with it. The 420EU reactor from the reactor design thread is a good choice.

Please note that this machine will use up as much power as you can give it, yet it is only a tier 3 machine! To get it above 512 EU/t, you'll need to give it a Transformer Upgrade.

If you connect a MFSU directly to a mass fabricator, and do not use a transformer upgrade, you will create a very large crater!! Its explosion is similar to a nuclear reactor, so do not let this happen! If you are playing on a server, I highly recommend making a single player world with cheats to set all this up, just so you can be sure you have a setup that won't explode.

Task 7.x MFSU
An MFSU is fairly expensive to make, but now seems like the best time to do so.

My preference is to use Glass Fibre Cables at this point, so that you can use just one power source to connect all your machines. Glass fibre cable allows you to carry any tier of power of great distances without having much loss.

In the next few steps, we are going to be creating a couple tier 4 machines (scanner and replicator), but they don't draw nearly as much power as the Mass fab. I recommend branching the power from the reactor two ways. One way goes to your Mass fab (protected either with a transformer upgrade or with an inline HV transformer), and the second goes to the MFSU. All your machinery (including the upcoming scanner and replicator) can draw from the MFSU.

Place a switch on a block next to the Mass fab, and turn it the mass fab off. Run your reactor enough to get the MFSU to about half full, then turn on the mass fab. Now your MFSU should stay full enough to give power to all your slower machines, and once the MFSU is completely full, all excess power will go automatically to the mass fab.

Task 7.x Scanner
Build a Scanner (Industrial Craft 2), and connect it to power. Place the Pattern Storage (from age 7) directly next to it. Now begin scanning things that you would like to make from UU matter. I suggest the following choices:

* Sturdy Casing (~6.401 mB) * Machine Frame (~12.504 mB) * Machine Block (~7.101 mB) * Machine Chassis (~8.840 mB) * Basic Capacitor (~4.723 mB) * Calculator Assembly (~0.062 mB) * Power Cube (~0.180 mB) * Iridium Ore (120 mB)

You can find a full list of replication prices here:

* https://docs.google.com/document/d/1MxHwK9dF2ZdpVEcz90cfb5F9fvqTvlUJC97e4BETAEA/edit

After the scanning process is complete (approximately a minute), click the far-right button to store the pattern to your storage.

Task 7.x Replicator
Build 3 Teleporters, and then use them to build one Replicator. Place it so that is touching your pattern storage, and connect it to power. From it's UI, select an item you would like to make, and then click the center button (the big green arrow). It should be created.

Once you have 480 mB, you should make 4 Iridium Ore. You'll use them for the next step. Thankfully, we only need to make 4 at this price!

Task 7.x Molecular Transformer
Molecular Transformer

Making this take 4 iridium ore, but once you have it, you can make iridium ore using just power and iron ingots. We will be needing a lot of iridium in the future.

The main reason you are building this is for iridium, but do notice that it can create clay out of cobblestone also, which is quite handy!

Task 7.x Liquid Nuclear Reactor
Once you have 40 Iridium ore, you can make a decent liquid nuclear reactor. I'd suggest dismantling your old one, and building this instead.

Task 7.x Void ore miner
This is quite expensive, but later we will need ores that can only be obtained by using the ore miner.

For this, we are going to need triple compressed cobblestone. Each one of these is crafted from 729 cobblestone. It is time to automate some crafting.

Build a Crafter Tier 2, and read through the Automatic Crafting with RFTools page. Set up recipes for compressed cobblestone, double compressed cobblestone, and triple compressed cobblestone in the crafter, and set the last of those (the triple) to go to external storage. Make a new cobblestone generator for it, or borrow the one from your nuclear setup.

Build either a tinker's tool with silky (needs emerald block), or make a vanilla pick with Silk touch (make the enchantment in your anvil, and apply using the enchanting table). Use this to get the ores that you need to build the tier 1 void ore miner.

Craft a book for Environmental Tech, as it is the easiest way to find the block diagram for the void miner multiblock. Craft all the components, and set it up facing the void. Give it lots of power.

Begin looking at the necessary components. If you want to make a tier 2 miner, you are going to need 33 structural blocks (tier 2), and that is going to require 2+ stacks of energetic alloy and 2+ stacks of electrical steel. To get the 132 ender pearls, you can use your enderman spawner from before, but I recommend just going to the End, and slaughtering a lot of endermen there. You will need a stack of diamonds also, which was actually a problem for me at this point.

You may wonder why I said 33 structural blocks instead of 32. You will want to make an Assembler (Environmental Tech) also, and it requires another structural block!

You will need a resonator to make Stoneburndt. Make water mills for grid power, and then get that going.

Once you get all the component blocks made, you'll want to find a 7x5x7 space to build the multiblock. It will need to face bedrock, so building over a lava lake is a bad idea. If you discover that your location is over a lava lake or water lake, you can use your wand to fill it in with cobblestone, then mine it out.

For the lens, you may want to make a cyan lens (for diamond preference) or a green lens (for uranium preference). It's up to you.

To build the full miner, place the main controller right above where you want your multiblock to go. Dig a 1x1 shaft all the way down to bedrock. Then use the assmebler, and hold right click the assembler on the controller, and the components for the multiblock will be built under the controller.

Place a chest next to the controller, and connect power, and you will begin getting resources!

At some point, you'll want to make a resource void miner (tier 1) also. You will only need to replace the controller. With it, you can get Mica, and then use that to upgrade your void ore miner to be faster and more precise.