Manual sectioning

Expand list of sections yet to be written.  Arrange sections both written
and unwritten into a two-level structure, with a bit of consequential
reordering.
This commit is contained in:
Zefram 2014-08-13 00:16:40 +01:00
parent 7112e742f4
commit df7bf8c713

284
manual.md
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@ -23,8 +23,10 @@ craft guide mod to look up the recipes in-game. For the best possible
guidance, use the unified\_inventory mod, with which technic registers
its specialised recipe types.
ore
---
substances
----------
### ore ###
The technic mod makes extensive use of not just the default ores but also
some that are added by mods. You will need to mine for all the ore types
@ -129,8 +131,7 @@ technic). It is found from elevation -128 downwards, but is more abundant
from elevation -256 downwards. It is a precious gemstone. It is used
moderately, mainly for reasons connected to its extreme hardness.
rock
----
### rock ###
In addition to the ores, there are multiple kinds of rock that need to be
mined in their own right, rather than for minerals. The rock types that
@ -160,113 +161,30 @@ elevation -150 downwards. It is much harder to dig than standard stone,
so impedes mining when it is encountered. It has mainly decorative use,
but also appears in a couple of machine recipes.
alloying
--------
### rubber ###
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.
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.
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.
If you have the moretrees mod installed, the rubber trees you need
are those defined by that mod. If not, technic supplies a copy of the
moretrees rubber tree.
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.
Extracting rubber requires a specific tool, a tree tap. Using the tree
tap (by left-clicking) on a rubber tree trunk block extracts a lump of
raw latex from the trunk. Each trunk block can be repeatedly tapped for
latex, at intervals of several minutes; its appearance changes to show
whether it is currently ripe for tapping. Each tree has several trunk
blocks, so several latex lumps can be extracted from a tree in one visit.
grinding, extracting, and compressing
-------------------------------------
Raw latex isn't used directly. It must be vulcanized to produce finished
rubber. This can be performed by simply cooking the latex, with each
latex lump producing one lump of rubber. If you have an extractor,
however, the latex is better processed there: each latex lump will
produce three lumps of rubber.
Grinding, extracting, and compressing are three distinct, but very
similar, ways of converting one item into another. They are all quite
similar to the cooking found in the basic Minetest game. Each uses
an input consisting of a single item type, and produces a single
output. They are all performed using powered machines, respectively
known generically as a "grinder", "extractor", and "compressor".
Some compressing recipes require the input to be a stack of more than
one of the input item: the quantity required is part of the recipe.
Grinding and extracting recipes never require such a stacked input.
There are multiple kinds of grinder, extractor, and compressor. Unlike
cooking furnaces and alloy furnaces, there are none that directly burn
fuel; they are all electrically powered.
Grinding recipes always produce some kind of dust, loosely speaking,
as output. The most important grinding recipes are concerned with metals:
every metal lump or ingot can be ground into metal dust. Coal can also
be ground into dust, and burning the dust as fuel produces much more
energy than burning the original coal lump. There are a few other
grinding recipes that make block types from the basic Minetest game
more interconvertible: standard stone can be ground to standard sand,
desert stone to desert sand, cobblestone to gravel, and gravel to dirt.
Extracting is a miscellaneous category, used for a small group
of processes that just don't fit nicely anywhere else. (Its name is
notably vaguer than those of the other kinds of processing.) It is used
for recipes that produce dye, mainly from flowers. (However, for those
recipes using flowers, the basic Minetest game provides parallel crafting
recipes that are easier to use and produce more dye, and those recipes
are not suppressed by technic.) Its main use is to generate rubber from
raw latex, which it does three times as efficiently as merely cooking
the latex. Extracting was also formerly used for uranium enrichment for
use as nuclear fuel, but this use has been superseded by a new enrichment
system using the centrifuge.
Compressing recipes are mainly used to produce a few relatively advanced
artificial item types, such as the copper and carbon plates used in
advanced machine recipes. There are also a couple of compressing recipes
making natural block types more interconvertible.
centrifuging
------------
Centrifuging is another way of using a machine to convert items.
Centrifuging takes an input of a single item type, and produces outputs
of two distinct types. The input may be required to be a stack of
more than one of the input item: the quantity required is part of
the recipe. Centrifuging is only performed by a single machine type,
the MV (electrically-powered) centrifuge.
Currently, centrifuging recipes don't appear in the unified\_inventory
craft guide, because unified\_inventory can't yet handle recipes with
multiple outputs.
Generally, centrifuging separates the input item into constituent
substances, but it can only work when the input is reasonably fluid,
and in marginal cases it is quite destructive to item structure.
(In real life, centrifuges require their input to be mainly fluid, that
is either liquid or gas. Few items in the game are described as liquid
or gas, so the concept of the centrifuge is stretched a bit to apply to
finely-divided solids.)
The main use of centrifuging is in uranium enrichment, where it
separates the isotopes of uranium dust that otherwise appears uniform.
Enrichment is a necessary process before uranium can be used as nuclear
fuel, and the radioactivity of uranium blocks is also affected by its
isotopic composition.
A secondary use of centrifuging is to separate the components of
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.
metal
-----
### metal ###
Many of the substances important in technic are metals, and there is
a common pattern in how metals are handled. Generally, each metal can
@ -322,8 +240,7 @@ ingots, or by alloying two piles of copper dust with one pile of zinc
dust to make three piles of brass dust. The two ways of alloying produce
equivalent results.
iron and its alloys
-------------------
### iron and its alloys ###
Iron forms several important alloys. In real-life history, iron was the
second metal to be used as the base component of deliberately-constructed
@ -426,29 +343,110 @@ 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.
rubber
------
industrial processes
--------------------
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.
### alloying ###
If you have the moretrees mod installed, the rubber trees you need
are those defined by that mod. If not, technic supplies a copy of the
moretrees rubber tree.
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.
Extracting rubber requires a specific tool, a tree tap. Using the tree
tap (by left-clicking) on a rubber tree trunk block extracts a lump of
raw latex from the trunk. Each trunk block can be repeatedly tapped for
latex, at intervals of several minutes; its appearance changes to show
whether it is currently ripe for tapping. Each tree has several trunk
blocks, so several latex lumps can be extracted from a tree in one visit.
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.
Raw latex isn't used directly. It must be vulcanized to produce finished
rubber. This can be performed by simply cooking the latex, with each
latex lump producing one lump of rubber. If you have an extractor,
however, the latex is better processed there: each latex lump will
produce three lumps of rubber.
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 are three distinct, but very
similar, ways of converting one item into another. They are all quite
similar to the cooking found in the basic Minetest game. Each uses
an input consisting of a single item type, and produces a single
output. They are all performed using powered machines, respectively
known generically as a "grinder", "extractor", and "compressor".
Some compressing recipes require the input to be a stack of more than
one of the input item: the quantity required is part of the recipe.
Grinding and extracting recipes never require such a stacked input.
There are multiple kinds of grinder, extractor, and compressor. Unlike
cooking furnaces and alloy furnaces, there are none that directly burn
fuel; they are all electrically powered.
Grinding recipes always produce some kind of dust, loosely speaking,
as output. The most important grinding recipes are concerned with metals:
every metal lump or ingot can be ground into metal dust. Coal can also
be ground into dust, and burning the dust as fuel produces much more
energy than burning the original coal lump. There are a few other
grinding recipes that make block types from the basic Minetest game
more interconvertible: standard stone can be ground to standard sand,
desert stone to desert sand, cobblestone to gravel, and gravel to dirt.
Extracting is a miscellaneous category, used for a small group
of processes that just don't fit nicely anywhere else. (Its name is
notably vaguer than those of the other kinds of processing.) It is used
for recipes that produce dye, mainly from flowers. (However, for those
recipes using flowers, the basic Minetest game provides parallel crafting
recipes that are easier to use and produce more dye, and those recipes
are not suppressed by technic.) Its main use is to generate rubber from
raw latex, which it does three times as efficiently as merely cooking
the latex. Extracting was also formerly used for uranium enrichment for
use as nuclear fuel, but this use has been superseded by a new enrichment
system using the centrifuge.
Compressing recipes are mainly used to produce a few relatively advanced
artificial item types, such as the copper and carbon plates used in
advanced machine recipes. There are also a couple of compressing recipes
making natural block types more interconvertible.
### centrifuging ###
Centrifuging is another way of using a machine to convert items.
Centrifuging takes an input of a single item type, and produces outputs
of two distinct types. The input may be required to be a stack of
more than one of the input item: the quantity required is part of
the recipe. Centrifuging is only performed by a single machine type,
the MV (electrically-powered) centrifuge.
Currently, centrifuging recipes don't appear in the unified\_inventory
craft guide, because unified\_inventory can't yet handle recipes with
multiple outputs.
Generally, centrifuging separates the input item into constituent
substances, but it can only work when the input is reasonably fluid,
and in marginal cases it is quite destructive to item structure.
(In real life, centrifuges require their input to be mainly fluid, that
is either liquid or gas. Few items in the game are described as liquid
or gas, so the concept of the centrifuge is stretched a bit to apply to
finely-divided solids.)
The main use of centrifuging is in uranium enrichment, where it
separates the isotopes of uranium dust that otherwise appears uniform.
Enrichment is a necessary process before uranium can be used as nuclear
fuel, and the radioactivity of uranium blocks is also affected by its
isotopic composition.
A secondary use of centrifuging is to separate the components of
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
------
@ -576,10 +574,36 @@ subjects missing from this manual
This manual needs to be extended with sections on:
* the miscellaneous powered machine types
* substances
* concrete
* powered machines
* machine upgrades
* how machines interact with tubes
* the generator types
* the mining tools
* battery box
* processing machines
* CNC machine
* music player
* tool workshop
* forcefield emitter
* quarry
* power generators
* hydro
* geothermal
* fuel-fired
* wind
* solar
* nuclear
* tools
* tool charging
* battery and energy crystals
* chainsaw
* flashlight
* mining lasers
* liquid cans
* mining drills
* prospector
* sonic screwdriver
* wrench
* radioactivity
* frames
* templates