Mekanism’s machines can do a lot of useful and important things, like auto mining the ground for ores, or letting you fly on your jetpack. But none of this would be possible without power. This power can come from generators or batteries, but either way is the most crucial part of Mekanism. Some ways to generate this power is from different generators. From fusion reactors to wind turbines, Mekanism has lots of ways to make power. But each generator is not the same, for example the wind generators need to be placed at a high altitude to generate maximum power, and a solar generator only produces energy in the day and gets a 30% energy production bonus in deserts. Some generators are easy to make and should be the first thing that you craft, such as the Heat Generator which only requires 1 furnace, 3 iron, 2 copper and 2 wood planks. Other generators such as the Fusion Reactor or the Advanced Solar Generator require late game items such as diamonds but also will give you almost infinite power.

Once you have the basic machines and solid power generation in Mekanism, it’s probably time to start making more advanced machines and tools. To do this you will have to do one of the most boring things in Minecraft, mining. You need to have at least half a stack of iron and osmium as well as about 10 diamonds, along with other items. Then the next thing you should make is Refined Obsidian Ingots. You use these to make the Atomic Disissembler and Robit, which you can use to make the Digital Miner. Then you should make a number of Atomic Alloys, which are made by putting Enriched Alloys in a Metallurgic Infuser with first diamonds and then Refined Obsidian in the slot on the left. These alloys are needed in most high tier items.

After you have your Metallurgic Infuser and Enrichment Chamber, the next machine to craft would probably be the Crusher which does exactly what you think it does. This will help you in a number of things, including ore tripling. Up until now you have been probably using the Heat Generator, which isn’t that efficient. My favorite early and middle game generator is the wind generator. This gives you a large amount of power, and isn’t to hard to craft. If you want to get the maximum amount of power out of your wind generator, put it at a high altitude, This can give you almost 4 times the power that you can get at ground level.

Getting started in Mekanism can be difficult, but that is far outweighed by the benefits of having machines that can let you fly, literally. The first thing to do is to creat a Metallurgic Infuser. That is crafted with 2 redstone, 2 furnaces, 4 iron and an osmium ingot. This lets you create steel, which is a critical component for most other machines, and control circuits which are essential for every Mekanism machine. The next machine to make should probably be the Enrichment Chamber, which lets you double ores and help with the efficiency of your Metallurgic Infuser.

Mekansim adds standard tools, weapons and armor, like swords and pickaxes. But some tools are not only useful but essential to a good Mekanism start. Mekanism adds 6 new types of tools: glowstone ingots, obsidian ingots, osmium, lapiz lazuli, bronze and steel. Lapiz lazuli is the worst type of Mekanism tool, with just under the durability and mining speed of a iron pickaxe. Then comes glowstone which has about 1.5 times the durability of an iron pickaxe. Glowstone tools also make the holder invisible and give the glowing effect to all nearby mobs and players. Osmium has about half the durabilty of a diamond pickaxe and a mining speed to match. Then bronze has just under the durability of a diamond pickaxe, but a slightly slower mining speed. Steel is about the level of bronze, but with a higher mining speed and level. Then past diamond tools is the obsidian tools with twice the durability and damage of diamond.

Mekanism’s Quantum Entangloporter is a very useful machine, capable of transporting items, blocks, energy, liquids and gasses from one Quantum Entangloporter to another. This late game machine is very expensive to build, especially as you need two of them to actually be useful, requiring 2 ultimate control circuit, 2 atomic alloys, four refined obsidian ingots and a teleportation core each. This device comes in handy when you need to transfer items/energy over long distances but due to its crafting complexity, it is a rarely used but useful machine. 

The Digital Miner in the Mekanism mod is one of the most useful machines in the game, but also one of the most expensive. This machine can scan for ores and mine and teleport them to the surface. You create the Digital Miner by combining two teleportation cores with atomic alloys, refined obsidian ingots, a control circuit, two logistical sorters and a Robit. Once you have the Digital Miner, set it up somewhere where you can power it. The green power plugs are where you can connect the power cables. Then connect a item  transporter to the back of the Miner and hook it up to a chest. Once the Digital Miner is powered you can set a filter by typing the dictionary name of the ore(s) you want to mine. You can get these names from the Dictionary, which is craftable with a book and control circuit. 

Ore processing in Mekanism is probably the best use of Mekanism’s factories. The first tier of ore processing is just the standard 1 ore =1 ingot. This process used an Energized Smelter to process the ores. The next level is ore doubling, using an Enrichment Chamber to turn the ores into 2 dusts then smelting those in the Energized Smelter to get ore doubling. Tier 3 is more complicated, using a Purification Chamber to grind the ores into 3 clumps. Then a Crusher turns these clumps into dirty dusts, finally an Enrichment chamber turns the dirty dusts into dusts and an Energized Smelter turns those into ingots. These three levels of ore processing are the most commonly used, as the other 2 tiers require late game items, such as obsidian ingots. This system can be made even more efficient with the use of factories, which can process up to 8 items at a time.