Welcome to my humble rabbit hole. This begins a journey that I have been far too dedicated to, ending with a goal that I put far too much importance on achieving. Why not come with me? If nothing else, this guide will help make your journey far smoother than my own, as I've already made a large number of the mistakes you might, and can advise you on how to avoid them.

This guide will be coming out piecemeal, starting with world generation. I'll be capturing and assembling assets as I go for examples, and I WILL be cheating for convenience' sake. Just in case you see anything fishy and think the whole article is a scam, no. I've done all these things legit in the past, many of them several times.

To get things started with some general advice...

I did this all in hardcore mode, and my PC isn't particularly great. I allowed myself the indulgence of using the auto-backup feature that sevtech has in order to rollback deaths that I felt were undeserved in one way or another. My final successful run had two of these occurances, and I'll let you know when they happened as they come up. I HIGHLY rcommend you afford yourself the same leniency, especially if your machine is a potato just fresh enough to make sevtech run. These autosaves don't happen particularly frequently, and I find that when rolling back, you're likely to lose significant progress. It seems fair enough to me, but if you're dedicated to the true masochist route or are a proud crown bearer in noita, I won't stop you from doing the true hardcore experience. Just make sure you clear out your worldsaves, as they will fill your hard drive real quick.

I won't explain every step in detail. If I don't say explicitly how to get from point A to point B, I'm assuming you can figure it out yourself using JEI. This is a guide, not a walkthrough.

And now, without further delay...

I HIGHLY recommend you generate a world using the "realistic" setting, and somewhat noncommitally also recommend using the "Sevtech_V2" preset.

I'm not totally sure what this second one changes, but it's what I used. The seed you choose isn't going to change much unless you get phenominally lucky. That said... I did at one point happen to get such luck.

->The world seed k will spawn you next to a giant crater with some VERY valuable items in it and a dark oak hut nearby, sneakily hidden behind a few trees. If you want to skip two of the biggest early-game RNG barriers and have some extra convenience at no effort, use this seed and take a dive into the cobblestone caves at the bottom of the hole. HOWEVER, you should only do this AFTER creating your first crafting stump.

Dungeon chest loot will change depending on what age you open it in. This is incredibly important if you are attempting to use seed k (or to a lesser extent, seed h). If you try to gather your fancy loot before leaving stage tutorial, all you'll get is a pile of bones.

Welcome to actual existence! How does the sun feel? The grass? If you're allergic to fancy green things (low or choppy fps after the initial chunk generation has calmed down) consider opening up your mod options and find "better foliage". Open up it's config and turn the "enable mod" setting to false.

Now existence is great and all, but you really are stuck to the dirt monke lifestyle in this early half-age. Until you make a crafting stump, your only real tool and weapon is the flint hatchet and your only real options for feeding yourself are wild berries and raw carrots. We wouldn't want to set a bad example for the talking heads, so lets get past the nuts and berries stage.

OBJECTIVES:
• Punch grass for plant fiber
• Punch leaves for sticks
• Punch gravel for gravel
• Punch rocks for flint flakes
• Punch tree (with tool) for wood
• Brain blast

Haha, Punch Many Things. But, there is some nuance here.

Don't focus too much on gathering plant fiber. The stuff is everywhere, you'll have more than you need after a few seconds of spinning around in tall grass with m1 held down. (And theres a trick to easily get as much of it as you want later.)

If you spawn in a forest, gathering sticks off the ground piles is way faster than attacking trees for them. Scoop up as many as you like.

The only reason we need gravel right now is to get flint. If you can't find gravel, don't worry. If you dig up enough dirt and grass blocks, you will eventually come across some flint. This is time-inefficient, but it's better than nothing. I recommend looking for water, as gravel is often found on the shore. However, if you come across a huge deposit of gravel, consider slapping together a few fiber torches and using the drop-on-torch trick to collect it all faster. The unlit ones work fine, and you can later toss them for inventory space 100% guilt-free if you need to. If you do find a gravel windfall, go ahead and use up your fiber mesh entirely. That 65 gravel will last you well into the next stage.

You can usually find everything you need to finish out this stage by climbing the closest tree and looking around. Don't think too hard. Wander a bit if you need to. Be monke.

There's really no reason at all to delay getting your crafting stump. Cut down a tree with your new tool, and lets move on to something more interesting.

Nice brain you've got there. Ready to use it? Hopefully you haven't moved too far from your flint knapping spot, because you'll need some more flakes.

Expect to be in this age for a while, especially if its your first time. There are a number of items you need to gather to advance, and you don't have many methods of bending luck in your favor. You'll be doing a lot of walking- so keep your eyes open and be ready to make a detour if you see something valuable.

Key Items:
• Nature's compass
• 8 Sugar cane
• 4 Bones
• 7 Clay
• 1 Ink sac
• 1 Shark tooth
• 1 Shadow gem
• Leather
• 4 Buffalo teeth
• a handful of Red cedar

Desireables:
• bone shears
• a handful of Dark Oak Wood
• some kind of vanilla sapling, preferaby birch
• an abundance of clay
• an abundance of wool
• brown mushrooms
• animal skins
• at least a dozen berry bushes
• bone blocks
• mulberry saplings
• at least 32 shoggoth flesh
• at least 14 monolith stone
• vines

Before we get started, allow me to introduce you to . will be your loyal and unwavering companion in not just your age 0.5 journey, but potentially your entire Sevtech adventure. will never leave you of 's own free will, will never break, and while 's damage output is modest, will never, ever fail you. Unless you throw by accident. As long as you don't do that, will faithfully follow you to the ends of earth and beyond. We love . Upon entering age 0.5, your first action should be to craft and place immediately on your hotbar. Yes, I'm being a bit silly. But genuinely, treat your well, and will be there when everything else fails.

The second thing you should do is work on crafting Nature's Compass. The materials are usually fairly easy to get, especially since most anything you kill has a chance of dropping bones. Take your newly crafted and go on a wild rampage, killing anything that you see. As soon as you get a bone, knap it down and get crafting. use the nature's compass and start searching for the darklands biomes, to see which one is closest.

Chances are, the darklands mountains search will turn up nothing. That's pretty normal. Ignore the sludge plains option as well, that biome is in an entirely different dimension and you'll probably never use it. Honestly, I'm not sure why it's even there.

Typically you will notice one of the darklands biomes within 1400 blocks. (Usually the forest.) You could make a beeline straight for it, but not all of them are created equal. If you see either the plains or highlands are equal distance or even a little further, I recommend going toward them instead, depending on your circumstances. In the highlands, it is easier to see and fight shadow enemies, which will drop the gems you need to progress. In the plains, it will be easier to find and herd livestock toward your base, and you will need cows to progress. The choice is yours, in the end. If you aren't a fan of the place the compass leads you, don't worry. You won't be stuck there forever, and age 1 brings a very powerful tool for relocating your base.

If you have the flint for it, making a pickaxe and workblade before we start moving might be a good idea too.

Time to move. Use your compass to decide on your destination and get walking. Keep your eyes peeled, your journey could prove to be particularly dangerous. Keep an eye out for steppe wolves. They will swarm at you on sight, and if you spot a few, there are usually more in the area ready to ambush you if you make them angry. Likewise, be careful when jumping in the water. Sharks and pirhanas will kill you very quickly, and they move very fast. A raft is absolutely necessary for crossing large bodies of water, letting you pick off swarming pirhanas with relative safety. Sharks will still break your raft with a single hit, but with a steady hand, you stand a good enough change at fighting them off. However... every danger is it's own opprtunity, and there are many valueables you can pick up along the way.

In a rough order of importance (aka, what you should prioritise keeping in your inventory), here's what you should look for.

Squid. You should kill squid on-sight. You should go out of your way to do so. Their ink sacs are THE key to opening tech progression, and if you haven't got one by the time you get to the darklands, you might be unable to progress much until a costly and slow RNG roller deems you worthy. Also, if you come across a village, having an abundance of ink and feathers might net you an early atlas, which is nice, but definitely not necessary.

Sharks. You should also kill sharks on-sight, but you can stop after you get a few teeth. Their meat and skins are nice, but not very valuable compared to other things on this list. Just always be aware of their existence when crossing water, and remember that 1-block water isn't deep enough for them to swim in. Pro tip: to most reliably hit the shark's wonky hitbox, aim for their front lower fins.

Natural Cobblestone/Mossy Cobblestone. This stuff appears naturally for only a few reasons. First, water and lava mixing. Second, dungeons. It is worth peeking into dungeons for their loot, which can include shadow gems. If you use seed k, you've already got more of these gems than you need and the danger is entirely optional... But probably still worth it. Scoop up some of the mossy cobblestone you find as well, it will be a surprise tool for later. Just be careful around spawners, any shadow enemy can kill you in less than a second at this point.

Dark Oak Wood. You won't need this right now, but if you pass by a dark forest or see a hut made of the stuff in the wild, you should absolutely take some wood or saplings with you. It can save you a massive headache and an unreasonable number of hours later.

Clay. You need at least 7 clay to get started, but you will need a lot of clay over the course of your Sevtech adventure. 2 stacks is a pretty good start, more is excellent. That said, it is plentiful enough that only the first stack is worth fretting over.

Bones and sugar cane. You need at least 8 Sugar cane and 4 bones to do all the necessary totemic rituals. Grab sugarcane when its convenient, and kill every pig you pass by. They will likely give you all the bones you need, and set you up with ample food and skins to get you through the next ages. Cows are also a good target, and you may as well kill any sheep you come across, until you have a set of bone or flint shears. Just be aware of how close you are to your destination. If there aren't any cows near it, then you'll regret having killed the last ones you've seen.

Some kind of vanilla tree. By vanilla, I of course mean "not from a mod". They are the only trees you can use in the process of curing hides. If this sapling is a birch sapling, then it will enable us to make a base anywhere we want to in the next age.

On that note, let me stop you for a moment to discuss cows. There are two general approaches you can take when it comes to this journey. You can do it all in one shot, or in a few parts. IF you have all the items in the list up to this point (excluding the dark oak), you may want to set up camp near the next group of cows you find, craft some cabinets (they are better than primitive chests), and settle in to breed buffalo and make leather. With leather comes the earliest backpack, meaning extra inventory space to carry more valuables with you when you continue. The buffalo teeth will also mean that you can get right business when you arrive in the darklands. I don't usually do this, preferring to do the journey all in one go, but it is a perfectly respectable option. Go ahead and read the next section "The Hideout" if you take this early stop, you'll find useful info there.

Bone Blocks. In this age, farmland can only be made by crafting a dirt and a bonemeal together, and your options for making bonemeal are all tedious and not very rewarding until you're nearly done. The best way to make farms of any considerable size is to grind bone blocks. You don't need that many, but if you haven't found any at all, you'll be stuck scrounging for extra bones and using the zaphkiel waltz repeatedly to squeeze food out of your 5 blocks of farmland.

Wool. It's the easiest way to get string, and having a stockpile is really nice.

Berries and Brown Mushrooms. Berries are probably the most reliable and least effort food available in the game, and having many of them growing will make your life much easier. The mushrooms will combo with the berries to make a POTENT meal combo that we will get to in the next age.

Mulberry, Monolith stone, Shoggoth flesh, and vines. These are nice to have, but are by no means necessary. Only grab them if you have comfortable inventory space, are confident you won't be ambushed by random wolves and sharks, and are comfortable sticking in one spot long enough to collect them. They'll be useful later, and usually aren't that hard to find once you need them... But I've lost that bet a few times before.

You made it! welcome to your new home. I hope you're comfortable with the dark blue grass, grey sky, and wierd noises the neighbors make. Kick back, cut down a tree, and get to work.

If you've had good luck during your journey, then the only thing you actually need from this place is the wood from the dark trees and the abyssal zombie flesh. And you might not even need that flesh, if you got very lucky and knew what the future holds in store. If you're eager to get out of here, set up a slapdash campsite and focus on progressing through the age by collecting whatever key items you're missing. You'll have your escape soon enough. The strainer might be of use here if you need sugar cane, ink sacs, or teeth. Once you've set down roots, it's frustratingly unlikely that the waters near your home will have any useful critters in them.

Once you've got your bison tooth gear, go right on ahead and finish out the age by grinding out some porcelain. Take the oppurtunity to eat a variety of foods, those nutrition buffs will be super useful through your entire playthrough, and this is where you can really begin to commit to filling each food group. If you've made a horse mill, then flatbread will do just fine to fill out grains as a grinding snack. You only need 12 porcelain to move to the next age, but I recommend making 40. You'll need 32 porcelain for a fully functional melter-basin-table setup with two spigots, and the last 8 go toward a tank to use for melting iron. Technically you can get away with less, or substituting some with seared brick, but the process is very similar, and it isn't worth the hassle. Just make the 40 porcelain, and don't fire it all into bricks right away.

Miscellaneous tips:
• Once you set up a home base, use your Nature's compass to search for the biome you're already in. This should cause it to point to the spot you're currently standing.
• Shadow beasts are guaranteed to drop at least one shadow gem when killed. They are very capable of killing you in return, but aren't as scary as you might think. Their blinding smoke attack doesn't actually do any damage to you, and if you get one by itself, it should be an easy kill. Just be aware that not all your attacks will cause knockback, and keep a safe distance.
• You can make tiki torches by crafing a lit fiber torch with two sticks. They are worth it.
• If you stick to using vanilla wood types when possible, then stripping each log's bark before use will give you enough bark to last several ages.
• Make a horse chopping block as soon as possible, and set up woppers leading into and out of it. You will save so much time.
• If you don't need the horse press now, then you still will later. Just make it now.
• None of the 3 horse machines actually check the blocks immediately around them, meaning you can group them all up next to each other and they will operate just fine.
• If you have your horse machines near your livestock or farm, the cows tied to the machines will break their leads to get the wheat. Keep them separate.
• Oh yeah, cows are by far the best animals for horse machines.
• Keep the whole walking area of animals working horse machines within the same chunk. You can use f9 to see chunk borders easily.
• Your farmland doesn't need to be near water. Your crops will grow faster if wet, but the farmland won't change back to dirt if there are crops planted.
• Don't turn all your animal skins into raw hide. You can use those to make gear easily in the next age.
• Buffalo meat is ABSOLUTELY goated, and its massive amount of saturation will be very helpful in the next age.
• The buffalo dance will only turn 2 cows into buffalo at a time, but you can do it more than once to get more buffalo quickly. Just don't change ALL of your cows.
• Adult buffalo are so much bigger than young buffalo that when they grow to adulthood, it can cause them to suffocate when their heads get stuck into solid walls. Always surround your buffalo with walls or fences to avoid this.
• If you want to leave the darklands ASAP, make a garden trowel and a fisherman's strainer. Eventually it will catch vines, which you will want for the near future.
• It's worth repeating: if you can't hit the opposite shore with a thrown rock, THEN MAKE A RAFT.

As a final note before the mental rush of making a couple porcelain boxes knocks us comatose for several seconds while all the gnomes come out of hiding and swap out some of the stones for shinier stones, I'd like to present the humble grill with the "universal champion of usefulness" trophy. Put down a wopper going into it and a flame wopper under it, and that grill will passively cook dozens of stacks of anything a vanilla furnace can while never requiring any fuel, power, or supervision, regardless of what age you've reached, and without danger of setting nearby wood blocks on fire. ANY base you make should have a setup like this. Maybe even two, despite only one being needed to handle any demand you have for cooked items. The utility of the grill rivals that of the ender furnace, an expensive item unlocked in the space age after going to the end. It really is THAT good.