Getting started (skyfactory 3)

Automation

Building a lava farm

Lava will be our first type of fuel to automate. The simplest way to farm a decent amount is to encase a 1×5 area with cobblestone and put a lava source block in the middle so it fills the area. (more than 2 tiles away from the source block it will decrease the Crucible’s speed through) Then place your Crucible over the lava, which will give it a 3x speed boost.

Next we will need a Stirling Generator to get some energy. This requires 1 Redstone for the piston, so we need to sieve some dust through our iron meshes. At the time of writing there is a bug which causes redstone to not land in your inventory but instead somewhere random in your base, so keep an eye out. Place the generator next to your lava farm and deposit a lava bucket to start producing Redstone Flux (RF).

If you want more power, you can craft a coal generator and put in the coal you get from sieving. The RFTools variant is producing more RF/tick, but the Actually Additions variant generates more energy from a single coal and does not require redstone (which is quite a pain at the beginning).

First machines

The lava needs to be regulary refilled. To automate this, we need different metals (Copper and Gold). Drain all iron into your casting basin. If it does not get full, put some more iron (1 ingot equals 144 mb, chunk twice as much) in the smeltery (or just break the basin and place it back). If you put a multiple of 9 chunks in it, this will result in no remainders (2 blocks/9 chunks). With the copper and the gold we can craft an Alloy Smelter. This allows us to gain a lot of materials we’ll need to automate different processes. Put in 3 glass to make 3 Quite Clear Glass. Then craft Fluid Conduits. Place a fluid tank next to your stirling generator and connect it with your crucible. Right-click on the connection on the crucible and set it to «Always active» (torch symbol). The lava should now flow into the tank. Open the tanks menu, click on the gear, move the view until you see the side next to your Stirling generator. Right-click the side in the view until it says «Push/Pull». Now just put an empty bucket in the tank, which automatically gets filled up, sent to the generator and pulled back empty.

Congratulations, you just built your first machine which will steadily generate 20 RF per tick!

Auto Sieving

With our now fully automated power source, we can automate the sieving. Craft an Auto Sieve and place it next to the Stirling generator. Put in a Diamond Mesh and start sieving some dust for redstone. Put a hopper on top so you can input more. We can now let this run while we more on to different tasks. Craft an SAG Mill to make some coal powder. Be sure to put some flint inside, which will increase the output. Craft a Double-Layer Capacitor, which will upgrade our Stirling generator to produce twice as much RF per tick. Then place an Auto Hammer on top and connect it to the generator with an Energy Conduit. Now put a hopper and a new cobblestone generator on top. The result is a slow, but full automatic diamond farm (~1 in 5 min). Switch to a iron mesh if you also want iron (but you will get 3 times less diamonds).

Iron Age

By sieving Gravel, Sand and Dust we get ore pieces, which we can craft into chunks and smelt them to get ingots. Iron is required for a lot of machines, so let’s farm it! To do so, we need a «hammer room»

That may sound complex, but it isn’t. Simply build a clear area, at least 7×10 blocks wide. We will place our cobblestone there and mine it all at once for quick farming. To place blocks faster, we can now use a Stone Wand. Simply right-click on any block and it will place additional blocks next to it (if you have them in your inventory). We also use it to place down our cobblestone faster later.

Getting the Smeltery

A 2×2 smeltery with some molten iron inside

The Smeltery will assist us to get twice as much ores from sieving. To build it, we need Grout. 72 Grout is required, we therefore need 36 Gravel, 36 Sand and 9 Clay Blocks. As we need to smelt the grout into bricks, you should get 1-2 additional furnaces.

Then craft 9 Seared Bricks, a Smeltery controller, a Seared Tank and a Smeltery Drain. Place a 2×2 area of Seared Bricks, then surround it one layer higher (use any block to build up) with Controller, Tank, Drain and the remaining bricks (you can leave out the corners and the top layer blocks may be in any order). If you’ve done it correctly, it should look like the image on the right. If the controller does not emit particles, something is wrong.

Then craft a Faucet and a Casting Basin. Place the Faucet on the Drain and the Basin below the Faucet. You can input ore chunks and ingots using the smeltery controller and output the molten metals into the basin by right-clicking on the faucet. You can smelt different ores at the same time but only have one type in a basin at the same time. If needed, you can break the basin to discard anything that is inside (e.g. useful when you want to switch to a different ore)

Quick hammering

In the next time we will need a lot of hammers. But carrying several of them around is kind of wasting inventory space. You can make use of a Crafting Station, which will hold your items. Place it nearby your hammer room and split one stack of cobble and a stack of sticks on it. Now, every time you are done placing your blocks, grab a hammer and smash them. A stone hammer has enough durability to get through 2 stacks of cobble, so the fastest procedure to get gravel is:

• Get exactly 2 stacks of cobblestone into your inventory
• Place it in your hammer room with the help of a wand
• Grab a hammer from the Crafting Station and excavate
• Collect the gravel and throw the 1-durability-hammer overboard (the last durability will drop cobble instead of gravel anyway)

Sieve your gravel, craft the pieces to chunks (use your inventory crafting grid) and put them into the smeltery. Once you have your first iron block, use it to craft a hopper running into the smeltery controller. Now you can just input your iron chunks in the hopper and they will get smelted automatically. Craft new sieves and get iron meshes inside them. I usually go with 16 iron-mesh sieves, so I can sieve a stack in 4 turns (using less is also fine through).

Diamonds!

Iron Meshes give us a 1% chance to obtain a diamond when sieving gravel. While you might be tempted to craft diamond gear, craft a Diamond Wand instead. This allows us to place more blocks at once and it does have a much higher durability, thus speed up iron farming. We will need a couple of diamonds later for diamond meshes, which allow us to get a steady supply of them.

Mods[]

Mods used in Sky Factory 2:

Minecraft Forge: 10.13.3.1395-1710ls

Furnace 3D: 1.2

ArmorStatusHUD: 1.28

Damage Indicators: 3.2.3

StartingInventory: 1.7.10.r03

Optional Mod; isn’t needed for gameplay: Lucky Blocks: 5.1.0

Applied Energistics 2: rv2-beta-28

AutoFood: 59.0.0

AutoPackager: 1.5.3

BetterTitleScreen: 1.1

BiblioCraft: 1.10.3

BiblioWoods Natura Edition: 1.5

Big Reactors: 0.4.3A

Carpenter’s Blocks: 3.3.6

ChickenChunks: 1.3.4.19

Chisel 2: 2.3.10.37

CodeChickenCore: 1.0.5.37

CoFH Core: 3.0.2-262

ComputerCraft: 1.73

Draconic Evolution: 1.0.1 RC 5

Dragon Mounts: r41

Optional Mod; isn’t needed for gameplay: Dual Hotbar: 1.6

Emotes: 1.0.1

Ender IO: 2.2.8.367

EnderStorage: 1.4.7.32

EnderTech: 1.7.10-0.3.2.382

Ender Utilities: 0.4.0-beta-1

Ex Astris: MC1.7.10-1.16-35

Ex Nihilo: 1.38-36

ExtraCells: 2.2.68

ExtraTiC: 1.0.0

Extra Utilities: 1.2.4a

Food Plus: 3.2rS

FoxLib: 0.7.0

Greg’s Lighting: 1.11.2-mc1.7.10

Hats: 4.0.1

Hat Stand: 4.0.0

Headcrumbs: 1.3.1

iChunUtil: 4.1.2

Iguana Tinker Tweaks: 2.1.4

Immibis Core: 59.0.8

Optional Mod; isn’t needed for gameplay: Infinite Invo: 1.0.36

InGame Info XML: 2.8.1.75

Inventory Tweaks: 1.58-147

Iron Chest: 6.0.62.742-universal

It’s Raining Food: 1.7.10-1.0.2

JABBA: 1.2.1a

Liquid XP: 59.0.0

Loot Bags: 1.5.3

LunatriusCore: 1.1.2.21

Magical Crops: 4.0.0_PUBLIC_BETA_3

Mantle: 0.3.2.jenkins184

MineFactory Reloaded: 2.8.0-104

MineTweaker 3: 3.0.9C

MobiusCore: 1.2.4

Mod Tweaker 2: 0.7.5

Moo Fluids: 1.7.10-1.5.01.19a

Optional Mod; isn’t needed for gameplay: MorePlayerModels: 1.7.10

Morpheus: 1.5.26

Natura: 2.2.0.1

NEI Addons: 1.12.5.17

NEI Integration: 1.0.8

NotEnoughItems: 1.0.4.90

OpenBlocks: 1.4.1

OpenEye: 0.6

OpenMods: 0.7.1

OpenPeripheralAddons: 0.3.1

OpenPeripheralCore: 1.1

OpenPeripheralIntegration: 0.2.1

Opis: 1.2.4a

Plugin Messages Mod: 1.0

Redstone Arsenal: 1.1.0

Reliquary: 1.7.10-1.2.1.483

SimpleAchievements: 1.1.0-17

Simply Jetpacks: 1.4.1

Stabcraft: 1.7

Solar Flux: 0.5b

Staircraft: 1.7

Sync: 4.0.0

Tabula Rasa: 1.0.1

Optional Mod; isn’t needed for gameplay: Tails: 1.3.1

Tinkers’ Construct: 1.8.4a

Thermal Dynamics: 1.0.0

Thermal Expansion: 4.0.1

Thermal Foundation: 1.0.0-81

Tree Growing Simulator: 0.0.3-22

ttCore: 0.1.1-76

Utility Mobs: 3.1.1

Optional Mod; isn’t needed for gameplay: Vein Miner: 0.26.0

Waila: 1.5.

Waila Harvestability: 1.1.2

Waila NBT: 1.4

Wawla — What Are We Looking At: 1.1.1

WR-CBE-Universal: 1.4.1.9

YUNoMakeGoodMap: 4.0.0.12

bspkrsCore: 6.16

CodeChickenLib: 1.1.3.127

Forge Multipart: 1.1.2.332

AE2 Stuff: 0.1.7.17

Automagy: 0.22.2

Botania: r1.6-176

Cosmetic Armor: 1.0.5.B8

Decocraft: v1.12b

Forbidden Magic: 1.7.10-0.562

Ranchable Fluid Cows: 1.1.1-Beta

RFTools: 2.80

MinefactoryReloaded & MagicalCrops extra compatibility: 1.0

RedLogic: 59.1.9

Witchery: 1.7.10-0.24.0

Translocator: 1.1.1.14

Thermal Casting: 0.0.1

Thaumic Energistics: 0.8.9.3a-rv2

TC Node Tracker

Thaumcraft NEI Plugin: 1.7

Thaumcraft: 4.2.3.5

BD Lib: 1.7.0.70

Config files: 0.1.2.2

General

• When pressing your inventory key, you will see a list of all available items in the modpack next to your inventory. Use the search bar below to find what you want. Clicking on any item (also in a recipe) will show you (almost) every possible way to obtain this item! This is a good way to look up any unknown crafting recipes.
• To mine faster, there is a mod called Ore Excavation. By pressing a key, you can mine all connected blocks of the same type within a certain range, as long as you have any item in your hand. The key to press is usually the one above the TAB-Key (called Grave). It might differ between different keyboard layouts through (if you cannot find it, head to your controls, search for Ore Excavation and bind the Excavation action to any key you like). Note that this will deplete your hunger quickly, so have an eye on that bar. Watch out to not accidentally deconstruct the floor!
• In the very early game there is no need to stay at full health/hunger bars. Monsters do not spawn if a player is less than 24 blocks away from a dark enough space. This also means you do not need armor in the early game.

Mod List[edit]

Version 3.0.15 of the SkyFactory Pack includes the following 174 mods by default:

Name	Version
Actually Additions	1.10.2-r105
Actually Computers	1.0.0
Advanced Generators	0.9.20.23
Angel Ring To Bauble	0.2.4.19
Apple Shields Mod	0.1.7
AppleCore	2.2.2
AppleSkin	1.0.8
AutoPackager	1.6.4b
AutoRegLib	1.0-2
B.A.S.E	1.4.0
Baconators	3.0.6
Baubles	1.3.11
Bdlib	1.12.4.24
Bed Bugs	1.1.6
Better Builder’s Wands	0.11.1.220
Better Than Bunnies	1.1.0
BetterFps	1.10
BiomeTweaker	2.3.239
BlockDispenser	1.0-1
Blood Magic	2.1.11-80
Bookshelf	1.4.4.347
Botania	r1.9-341
Brandon’s Core	2.1.12.130
Ceramics	1.1.6b
Chameleon	2.3.0
Chance Cubes	3.0.1.207
Charset	0.3.5
Chest Transporter	2.5.18
ChickenChunks	2.2.0.52
Chickens	4.3.2
Chisel 2	0.0.14.33
Chisels and Bits	12.15
Client Tweaks	1.1.16
Clipboard	1.1.1
Clumps	1.0.5
CodeChickenCore	2.4.1.102
CodeChickenLib	2.5.9.283
Colossal Chests	1.6.0
Common Capabilities	1.3.3
CompatLayer	0.2.9
ConnectedTexturesMod	1.0.0
Controlling	1.0.5
Cooking for Blockheads	4.2.45
Custom Main Menu	2.0.5
Cyclops Core	0.10.9
Dark Utilities	1.1.8.finalrc2
Decocraft	2.4.2
Default Options	6.1.5
Dimensional Cake	0.0.1
Draconic Evolution	2.1.6.263
Dragon Mounts	r46
Drawers & Bits	0.36
EnderCore	0.4.1.66-beta
EnderIO	3.1.193
EnderStorage	2.2.1.106
Engineers Workshop	1.3.6
Environmental Tech	0.10.6b
ET Lunar	0.10.6a
Ex Compressum	2.0.97
Ex Nihilo Adscensio	0.1.20
Experience Rings	1.3.0
Extra Bit Manipulation	2.5.1
Extra Utilities	1.6.3
Extreme Reactors	0.4.5.30
Fairy Lights	1.10.2
Farming for Blockheads	1.1.16
Fence Overhaul	1.2.1
Flat Colored Blocks	4.4
Flux Networks	1.2.8
FoamFix	0.7.2-anarchy
FTB Utilities	1.1x-3.6.5
FTBLib	1.1x-3.6.5
Fullscreen Windowed	1.5.1
Funnels	1.1.2
Garden of Glass	1.0
Get Ya’ Tanks Here	2.0.0.27
GraveStone Mod	1.5.13
Grue	1.3.5
Guide-API	2.0.3-46
Hammer Core	1.9.4.3
HarvestCraft	1.10.2h
Hatchery	0.3.21
Headcrumbs	2.0.3
Hopper Ducts Mod	1.4.8.1
HydroGel	0.9
Immersive Engineering	0.10-61
InGame Info	2.8.1.89
Initial Inventory	1.0.1
Integrated Dynamics	0.7.12
Integrated Tunnels	1.2.5
Inventory Sorter	0.11.0+47
Iron Backpacks	2.2.31
Iron Chests	7.0.15.804
It’s Raining Food	0.1.0
JourneyMap	5.5.0b4
Just Enough Items (JEI)	3.14.7.420
KleeSlabs	3.3.5
Literal Ascension	1.0.2.2
LLibrary	1.7.7
Long Fall Boots	Hard Mode
Loot Bags	2.3.9
Lunatrius Core	1.1.2.38
Mantle	1.1.5
McJtyLib	1.1x-2.4.3
MCMultiPart	1.4.0
Mercurius	1.0.6
MineMenu	1.4.5
MineTweaker	1.0.0
Missing Pieces	4.3.0
Moar Signs	4.2.3.9
Mob Grinding Utils	0.1.8.22
ModTweaker	2.0.13
More Chickens	1.1.6
More Shearables	1.2.1
More Shears	1.0.5-release
Morpheus	3.1.13
Mouse Tweaks	2.8
MPUtils	1.2.9
MPUtils Basic Tools	1.1.5
MTLib	1.0.3
Mystical Agriculture	1.5.8
Natura	4.1.0.80
Neat	1.3-12
Not Enough Items	2.1.3.220
Not Enough Wands	1.1x-1.5.5
OpenBlocks Elevator	1.3.0
OpenComputers	1.6.2.1
Ore Excavation	1.2.102
Packing Tape	0.6.0
Platforms	1.2.10
Psi	r1.0-42
Quantum Storage	3.3.6
Random Things	3.7.7.1
Ranged Pumps	0.3
Reborn Core	2.13.6.142
RebornStorage	1.0.3.30
Redstone Paste Mod	1.7.4
Refined Storage	1.2.26
Reliquia	0.0.7
Resource Loader	1.5.1
RFTools	1.1x-6.13
RFTools Control	1.1x-6.13
Roots	0.208
SBM Wooden Shears	0.0.1b2
Shadowfacts’ Forgelin	1.5.1
ShadowMC	3.6.1
Shetiphian Core	3.3.11
Simple Achievements	1.2.2-28
Simple Barrels	1.26e
Simple Corn	2.2.0
Simple Generators	0.10.6a
Simple Labels	0.0.3
Simply Jetpacks	2.1.3.55
Snad	1.6.09.20a
Solar Flux Reborn	2.17r
SonarCore	3.3.0
Steve’s Carts 2	2.2.0.86
Storage Drawers	3.7.10
Super Circuit Maker	1.0.4
The Beneath	1.2.0
Tinker’s Construct	2.6.5
Tinkers’ Tool Leveling	1.0.1
Tiny Progressions	1.1.0
TorchMaster	1.4.1.34
Translocators	2.1.4.55
Twitchcrumbs	2.0.4
UniDict	2.9b
ValkyrieLib	0.10.6
Waddles	0.5.4
Waila	1.0.0
WanionLib	1.3
Wawla	2.3.2.215
WitherCrumbs	0.9
Zero CORE	0.1.0.6