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Improve/trim the user manual further 

Detailed information can be found on Wikipedia. The user manual
should be a compact documentation of the mod as whole.
This replaces long explanations with relevant links for use by
people who are interested in going deeper into this matter.
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@ -0,0 +1,16 @@
Minetest Mod: technic
Copyright (C) 2012-2022 RealBadAngel and contributors
This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
modify it under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public
License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either
version 2.1 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
This library is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU
Lesser General Public License for more details.
You should have received a copy of the GNU Lesser General Public
License along with this library; if not, write to the Free Software
Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301 USA

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README.md
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@ -25,6 +25,7 @@ world. A few notable features:
## FAQ
The modpack is explained in the **[Manual](manual.md)** included in this repository.
Machine and tool descriptions can be found on the **[GitHub Wiki](https://github.com/minetest-mods/technic/wiki)**.
1. My technic circuit doesn't work. No power is distributed.
* Make sure you have a switching station connected.
@ -38,7 +39,7 @@ For modders: **[Technic Lua API](technic/doc/api.md)**
## License
Unless otherwise stated, all components of this modpack are licensed under the
LGPLv2 or later. See also the individual mod folders for their
[LGPLv2 or later](LICENSE.txt). See also the individual mod folders for their
secondary/alternate licenses, if any.

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manual.md
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@ -12,16 +12,16 @@ Documentation of the mod dependencies can be found here:
* [Moreores Forum Post](https://forum.minetest.net/viewtopic.php?t=549)
* [Basic materials Repository](https://gitlab.com/VanessaE/basic_materials)
## Recipes
## 1.0 Recipes
Recipes for items registered by technic are not specifically documented here.
Please consult a craft guide mod to look up the recipes in-game.
**Recommended mod:** [Unified Inventory](https://github.com/minetest-mods/unified_inventory)
## Substances
## 2.0 Substances
### Ores
### 2.1 Ores
Technic registers a few ores which are needed to craft machines or items.
Each ore type is found at a specific range of elevations so you will
@ -59,14 +59,14 @@ of its usage, so you will usually have a surplus of it.
#### Zinc
Use: brass
Depth: 2m, more commonly below -32m
Generated below: 2m, more commonly below -32m
Zinc only has a few uses but is a common metal.
#### Chromium
Use: stainless steel
Depth: -100m, more commonly below -200m
Generated below: -100m, more commonly below -200m
#### Uranium
Use: nuclear reactor fuel
@ -82,14 +82,14 @@ Keep a safety distance of a meter to avoid being harmed by radiation.
#### Silver ²
Use: conductors
Depth: -2m, evenly common
Generated below: -2m, evenly common
Silver is a semi-precious metal and is the best conductor of all the pure elements.
#### Gold ¹
Use: various
Depth: -64m, more commonly below -256m
Generated below: -64m, more commonly below -256m
Gold is a precious metal. It is most notably used in electrical items due to
its combination of good conductivity and corrosion resistance.
@ -97,7 +97,7 @@ its combination of good conductivity and corrosion resistance.
#### Mithril ²
Use: chests
Depth: -512m, evenly common
Generated below: -512m, evenly common
Mithril is a fictional ore, being derived from J. R. R. Tolkien's
Middle-Earth setting. It is little used.
@ -114,7 +114,7 @@ Use: mainly for cutting machines
Diamond is a precious gemstone. It is used moderately, mainly for reasons
connected to its extreme hardness.
### Rocks
### 2.2 Rocks
This section describes the rock types added by technic. Further rock types
are supported by technic machines. These can be processed using the grinder:
@ -136,7 +136,7 @@ Granite is found in dense clusters and is much harder to dig than standard
stone. It has mainly decorative use, but also appears in a couple of
machine recipes.
### Rubber
### 2.3 Rubber
Rubber is a biologically-derived material that has industrial uses due
to its electrical resistivity and its impermeability. In technic, it
is used in a few recipes, and it must be acquired by tapping rubber trees.
@ -150,7 +150,7 @@ observed by its appearance.
To obtain rubber from latex, alloy latex with coal dust.
### Metals
## 3.0 Metal processing
Generally, each metal can exist in five forms:
* ore -> stone containing the lump
@ -162,7 +162,7 @@ Generally, each metal can exist in five forms:
Metals can be converted between dust, ingot and block, but can't be converted
from them back to ore or lump forms.
#### Grinding
### Grinding
Ores can be processed as follows:
* ore -> lump (digging) -> ingot (melting)
@ -171,121 +171,59 @@ Ores can be processed as follows:
At the expense of some energy consumption, the grinder can extract more material
from the lump, resulting in 2x dust which can be melted to two ingots in total.
#### Alloying
Alloying recipes in which a metal is the base ingredient, to produce a
metal alloy, always come in two forms, using the metal either as dust
or as an ingot. If the secondary ingredient is also a metal, it must
be supplied in the same form as the base ingredient. The output alloy
is also returned in the same form.
### Alloying
Input: two ingredients of the same form - lump or dust
Example: 2x copper ingots + zinc ingot -> 3x brass ingot (alloying)
Output: resulting alloy, as an ingot
The same will also work for dust ingredients, resulting in brass dist.
Example: 2x copper ingots + 1x zinc ingot -> 3x brass ingot (alloying)
### iron and its alloys ###
Note that grinding before alloying is the preferred method to gain more output.
Iron forms several important alloys. In real-life history, iron was the
second metal to be used as the base component of deliberately-constructed
alloys (the first was copper), and it was the first metal whose working
required processes of any metallurgical sophistication. The game
mechanics around iron broadly imitate the historical progression of
processes around it, rather than the less-varied modern processes.
#### iron and its alloys
The two-component alloying system of iron with carbon is of huge
importance, both in the game and in real life. The basic Minetest game
doesn't distinguish between these pure iron and these alloys at all,
but technic introduces a distinction based on the carbon content, and
renames some items of the basic game accordingly.
Historically iron was the first metal whose working required processes of any
metallurgical sophistication. The mod's mechanics around iron broadly imitate
the historical progression of processes around it to get more variety.
The iron/carbon spectrum is represented in the game by three metal
substances: wrought iron, carbon steel, and cast iron. Wrought iron
has low carbon content (less than 0.25%), resists shattering, and
is easily welded, but is relatively soft and susceptible to rusting.
In real-life history it was used for rails, gates, chains, wire, pipes,
fasteners, and other purposes. Cast iron has high carbon content
(2.1% to 4%), is especially hard, and resists corrosion, but is
relatively brittle, and difficult to work. Historically it was used
to build large structures such as bridges, and for cannons, cookware,
and engine cylinders. Carbon steel has medium carbon content (0.25%
to 2.1%), and intermediate properties: moderately hard and also tough,
somewhat resistant to corrosion. In real life it is now used for most
of the purposes previously satisfied by wrought iron and many of those
of cast iron, but has historically been especially important for its
use in swords, armor, skyscrapers, large bridges, and machines.
Notable alloys:
In real-life history, the first form of iron to be refined was
wrought iron, which is nearly pure iron, having low carbon content.
It was produced from ore by a low-temperature furnace process (the
"bloomery") in which the ore/iron remains solid and impurities (slag)
are progressively removed by hammering ("working", hence "wrought").
This began in the middle East, around 1800 BCE.
* Wrought iron: <0.25% carbon
* Resists shattering but is relatively soft.
* Known since: 1800 BC (approx.)
* Cast iron: 2.1% to 4% carbon.
* Especially hard and rather corrosion-resistant
* Known since: 1200 BC (approx.)
* Carbon steel: 0.25% to 2.1% carbon.
* Intermediate of the two above.
* Known since: 1600 AD (approx.)
Historically, the next forms of iron to be refined were those of high
carbon content. This was the result of the development of a more
sophisticated kind of furnace, the blast furnace, capable of reaching
higher temperatures. The real advantage of the blast furnace is that it
melts the metal, allowing it to be cast straight into a shape supplied by
a mould, rather than having to be gradually beaten into the desired shape.
A side effect of the blast furnace is that carbon from the furnace's fuel
is unavoidably incorporated into the metal. Normally iron is processed
twice through the blast furnace: once producing "pig iron", which has
very high carbon content and lots of impurities but lower melting point,
casting it into rough ingots, then remelting the pig iron and casting it
into the final moulds. The result is called "cast iron". Pig iron was
first produced in China around 1200 BCE, and cast iron later in the 5th
century BCE. Incidentally, the Chinese did not have the bloomery process,
so this was their first iron refining process, and, unlike the rest of
the world, their first wrought iron was made from pig iron rather than
directly from ore.
Technic introduces a distinction based on the carbon content, and renames some
items of the basic game accordingly. Iron and Steel are now distinguished.
Carbon steel, with intermediate carbon content, was developed much later,
in Europe in the 17th century CE. It required a more sophisticated
process, because the blast furnace made it extremely difficult to achieve
a controlled carbon content. Tweaks of the blast furnace would sometimes
produce an intermediate carbon content by luck, but the first processes to
reliably produce steel were based on removing almost all the carbon from
pig iron and then explicitly mixing a controlled amount of carbon back in.
Notable references:
In the game, the bloomery process is represented by ordinary cooking
or grinding of an iron lump. The lump represents unprocessed ore,
and is identified only as "iron", not specifically as wrought iron.
This standard refining process produces dust or an ingot which is
specifically identified as wrought iron. Thus the standard refining
process produces the (nearly) pure metal.
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stainless_steel
* ... plus many more.
Cast iron is trickier. You might expect from the real-life notes above
that cooking an iron lump (representing ore) would produce pig iron that
can then be cooked again to produce cast iron. This is kind of the case,
but not exactly, because as already noted cooking an iron lump produces
wrought iron. The game doesn't distinguish between low-temperature
and high-temperature cooking processes: the same furnace is used not
just to cast all kinds of metal but also to cook food. So there is no
distinction between cooking processes to produce distinct wrought iron
and pig iron. But repeated cooking *is* available as a game mechanic,
and is indeed used to produce cast iron: re-cooking a wrought iron ingot
produces a cast iron ingot. So pig iron isn't represented in the game as
a distinct item; instead wrought iron stands in for pig iron in addition
to its realistic uses as wrought iron.
Processes:
Carbon steel is produced by a more regular in-game process: alloying
wrought iron with coal dust (which is essentially carbon). This bears
a fair resemblance to the historical development of carbon steel.
This alloying recipe is relatively time-consuming for the amount of
material processed, when compared against other alloying recipes, and
carbon steel is heavily used, so it is wise to alloy it in advance,
when you're not waiting for it.
* Iron -> Wrought iron (melting)
* Wrought iron -> Cast iron (melting)
* Wrought iron + coal dust -> Carbon steel (alloying)
* Carbon steel + coal dust -> Cast iron (alloying)
* Carbon steel + chromium -> Stainless steel (alloying)
There are additional recipes that permit all three of these types of iron
to be converted into each other. Alloying carbon steel again with coal
dust produces cast iron, with its higher carbon content. Cooking carbon
steel or cast iron produces wrought iron, in an abbreviated form of the
bloomery process.
Reversible processes:
There's one more iron alloy in the game: stainless steel. It is managed
in a completely regular manner, created by alloying carbon steel with
chromium.
* Cast iron -> Wrought iron (melting)
* Carbon steel -> Wrought iron (melting)
### uranium enrichment ###
Check your preferred crafting guide for more information.
### Uranium enrichment
When uranium is to be used to fuel a nuclear reactor, it is not
sufficient to merely isolate and refine uranium metal. It is necessary
@ -460,35 +398,15 @@ a post and adjacent concrete block.
industrial processes
--------------------
### alloying ###
### Alloying
In technic, alloying is a way of combining items to create other items,
distinct from standard crafting. Alloying always uses inputs of exactly
two distinct types, and produces a single output. Like cooking, which
takes a single input, it is performed using a powered machine, known
generically as an "alloy furnace". An alloy furnace always has two
input slots, and it doesn't matter which way round the two ingredients
are placed in the slots. Many alloying recipes require one or both
slots to contain a stack of more than one of the ingredient item: the
quantity required of each ingredient is part of the recipe.
In Technic, alloying is a way of combining items to create other items,
distinct from standard crafting. Alloying always uses inputs of exactly
two distinct types, and produces a single output.
As with the furnaces used for cooking, there are multiple kinds of alloy
furnace, powered in different ways. The most-used alloy furnaces are
electrically powered. There is also an alloy furnace that is powered
by directly burning fuel, just like the basic cooking furnace. Building
almost any electrical machine, including the electrically-powered alloy
furnaces, requires a machine casing component, one ingredient of which
is brass, an alloy. It is therefore necessary to use the fuel-fired
alloy furnace in the early part of the game, on the way to building
electrical machinery.
Check your preferred crafting guide for more information.
Alloying recipes are mainly concerned with metals. These recipes
combine a base metal with some other element, most often another metal,
to produce a new metal. This is discussed in the section on metal.
There are also a few alloying recipes in which the base ingredient is
non-metallic, such as the recipe for the silicon wafer.
### grinding, extracting, and compressing ###
### Grinding, extracting, and compressing
Grinding, extracting, and compressing are three distinct, but very
similar, ways of converting one item into another. They are all quite
@ -562,57 +480,17 @@ metal alloys. This can only be done using the dust form of the alloy.
It recovers both components of binary metal/metal alloys. It can't
recover the carbon from steel or cast iron.
chests
Chests
------
The technic mod replaces the basic Minetest game's single type of
chest with a range of chests that have different sizes and features.
The chest types are identified by the materials from which they are made;
the better chests are made from more exotic materials. The chest types
form a linear sequence, each being (with one exception noted below)
strictly more powerful than the preceding one. The sequence begins with
the wooden chest from the basic game, and each later chest type is built
by upgrading a chest of the preceding type. The chest types are:
See [GitHub Wiki / Chests](https://github.com/minetest-mods/technic/wiki/Chests)
1. wooden chest: 8&times;4 (32) slots
2. iron chest: 9&times;5 (45) slots
3. copper chest: 12&times;5 (60) slots
4. silver chest: 12&times;6 (72) slots
5. gold chest: 15&times;6 (90) slots
6. mithril chest: 15&times;6 (90) slots
Features of extended chests:
The iron and later chests have the ability to sort their contents,
when commanded by a button in their interaction forms. Item types are
sorted in the same order used in the unified\_inventory craft guide.
The copper and later chests also have an auto-sorting facility that can
be enabled from the interaction form. An auto-sorting chest automatically
sorts its contents whenever a player closes the chest. The contents will
then usually be in a sorted state when the chest is opened, but may not
be if pneumatic tubes have operated on the chest while it was closed,
or if two players have the chest open simultaneously.
* Larger storage space
* Labelling
* Advanced item sorting
The silver and gold chests, but not the mithril chest, have a built-in
sign-like capability. They can be given a textual label, which will
be visible when hovering over the chest. The gold chest, but again not
the mithril chest, can be further labelled with a colored patch that is
visible from a moderate distance.
The mithril chest is currently an exception to the upgrading system.
It has only as many inventory slots as the preceding (gold) type, and has
fewer of the features. It has no feature that other chests don't have:
it is strictly weaker than the gold chest. It is planned that in the
future it will acquire some unique features, but for now the only reason
to use it is aesthetic.
The size of the largest chests is dictated by the maximum size
of interaction form that the game engine can successfully display.
If in the future the engine becomes capable of handling larger forms,
by scaling them to fit the screen, the sequence of chest sizes will
likely be revised.
As with the chest of the basic Minetest game, each chest type comes
in both locked and unlocked flavors. All of the chests work with the
pneumatic tubes of the pipeworks mod.
radioactivity
-------------
@ -750,115 +628,44 @@ so the positioning of holes in each layer must still be considered.
Tricky shine paths can also be addressed by just keeping players out of
the dangerous area.
electrical power
----------------
## Electrical power
Most machines in technic are electrically powered. To operate them it is
necessary to construct an electrical power network. The network links
together power generators and power-consuming machines, connecting them
using power cables.
Electrical networks in Technic are defined by a single tier (see below)
and consist of:
There are three tiers of electrical networking: low voltage (LV),
medium voltage (MV), and high voltage (HV). Each network must operate
at a single voltage, and most electrical items are specific to a single
voltage. Generally, the machines of higher tiers are more powerful,
but consume more energy and are more expensive to build, than machines
of lower tiers. It is normal to build networks of all three tiers,
in ascending order as one progresses through the game, but it is not
strictly necessary to do this. Building HV equipment requires some parts
that can only be manufactured using electrical machines, either LV or MV,
so it is not possible to build an HV network first, but it is possible
to skip either LV or MV on the way to HV.
* 1x Switching Station (central management unit)
* Any further stations are disabled automatically
* Electricity producers (PR)
* Electricity consumers/receivers (RE)
* Accumulators/batteries (BA)
Each voltage has its own cable type, with distinctive insulation. Cable
segments connect to each other and to compatible machines automatically.
Incompatible electrical items don't connect. All non-cable electrical
items must be connected via cable: they don't connect directly to each
other. Most electrical items can connect to cables in any direction,
but there are a couple of important exceptions noted below.
### Tiers
To be useful, an electrical network must connect at least one power
generator to at least one power-consuming machine. In addition to these
items, the network must have a "switching station" in order to operate:
no energy will flow without one. Unlike most electrical items, the
switching station is not voltage-specific: the same item will manage
a network of any tier. However, also unlike most electrical items,
it is picky about the direction in which it is connected to the cable:
the cable must be directly below the switching station.
* LV: Low Voltage. Low material costs but is slower.
* MV: Medium Voltage. Higher processing speed.
* HV: High Voltage. High material costs but is the fastest.
Hovering over a network's switching station will show the aggregate energy
supply and demand, which is useful for troubleshooting. Electrical energy
is measured in "EU", and power (energy flow) in EU per second (EU/s).
Energy is shifted around a network instantaneously once per second.
Tiers can be converted from one to another using the Supply Converter node.
Its top connects to the input, the bottom to the output network. Configure
the input power by right-clicking it.
In a simple network with only generators and consumers, if total
demand exceeds total supply then no energy will flow, the machines
will do nothing, and the generators' output will be lost. To handle
this situation, it is recommended to add a battery box to the network.
A battery box will store generated energy, and when enough has been
stored to run the consumers for one second it will deliver it to the
consumers, letting them run part-time. It also stores spare energy
when supply exceeds demand, to let consumers run full-time when their
demand occasionally peaks above the supply. More battery boxes can
be added to cope with larger periods of mismatched supply and demand,
such as those resulting from using solar generators (which only produce
energy in the daytime).
### Machine upgrade slots
When there are electrical networks of multiple tiers, it can be appealing
to generate energy on one tier and transfer it to another. The most
direct way to do this is with the "supply converter", which can be
directly wired into two networks. It is another tier-independent item,
and also particular about the direction of cable connections: it must
have the cable of one network directly above, and the cable of another
network directly below. The supply converter demands 10000 EU/s from
the network above, and when this network gives it power it supplies 9000
EU/s to the network below. Thus it is only 90% efficient, unlike most of
the electrical system which is 100% efficient in moving energy around.
To transfer more than 10000 EU/s between networks, connect multiple
supply converters in parallel.
Generally, machines of MV and HV tiers have two upgrade slots.
Only specific items will have any upgrading effect. The occupied slots do
count, but not the actual stack size.
powered machines
----------------
**Type 1: Energy upgrade**
### powered machine tiers ###
Consists of any battery item. Reduces the machine's power consumption
regardless the charge of the item.
Each powered machine takes its power in some specific form, being
either fuel-fired (burning fuel directly) or electrically powered at
some specific voltage. There is a general progression through the
game from using fuel-fired machines to electrical machines, and to
higher electrical voltages. The most important kinds of machine come
in multiple variants that are powered in different ways, so the earlier
ones can be superseded. However, some machines are only available for
a specific power tier, so the tier can't be entirely superseded.
**Type 2: Tube upgrade**
### powered machine upgrades ###
Consists of a control logic unit item. Ejects processed items into pneumatic
tubes for quicker processing.
Some machines have inventory slots that are used to upgrade them in
some way. Generally, machines of MV and HV tiers have two upgrade slots,
and machines of lower tiers (fuel-fired and LV) do not. Any item can
be placed in an upgrade slot, but only specific items will have any
upgrading effect. It is possible to have multiple upgrades of the same
type, but this can't be achieved by stacking more than one upgrade item
in one slot: it is necessary to put the same kind of item in more than one
upgrade slot. The ability to upgrade machines is therefore very limited.
Two kinds of upgrade are currently possible: an energy upgrade and a
tube upgrade.
An energy upgrade consists of a battery item, the same kind of battery
that serves as a mobile energy store. The effect of an energy upgrade
is to improve in some way the machine's use of electrical energy, most
often by making it use less energy. The upgrade effect has no relation
to energy stored in the battery: the battery's charge level is irrelevant
and will not be affected.
A tube upgrade consists of a control logic unit item. The effect of a
tube upgrade is to make the machine able, or more able, to eject items
it has finished with into pneumatic tubes. The machines that can take
this kind of upgrade are in any case capable of accepting inputs from
pneumatic tubes. These upgrades are essential in using powered machines
as components in larger automated systems.
### tubes with powered machines ###
### Machines + Tubes (pipeworks)
Generally, powered machines of MV and HV tiers can work with pneumatic
tubes, and those of lower tiers cannot. (As an exception, the fuel-fired