BlockFactory:Getting Started

Getting Started walks you through your first session in a new Block Factory world: from waking up in the bunker to your first smelting line and your first research. Follow it step by step, or skim it to see where the game wants to take you. If you have not installed the mod yet, see Installation.

The bunker corridor with its numbered lockers

Waking up

You start in one of the three Cryo Capsules in the bunker under the spawn. A short scene shows the capsule opening, then you have control. Scenes can be skipped with Esc or the Skip button. Without power the bunker is dark; only the red emergency lights glow.

The bunker

Part	What it does
Cryo Capsule (3)	New players wake up here. After dying you respawn in the bunker as well.
Bunker Locker (3)	Hold the starting gear. Open them with the Use key.
Bunker Terminal	Dark until the bunker has power. Then it shows records of the old world and replays scenes you have seen.
Ceiling Lamps, Emergency Lights, Ventilation	Switch over when the bunker gets power.
Bunker Gate	The door to the stairs.
Bunker Power Connector	Outside, next to the top of the stairs. Your first goal is to connect it to a power grid.

All bunker parts are fixed. You cannot pick them up or destroy them.

Starting gear

Icon	Item	Where
	100 Cartridges	In each of the three lockers
	1 Wooden Drill	In the first and the second locker
	Flintlock Pistol	Every player gets one once, when they first join
	Field Manual	Every player; you get a new one whenever you join without one

The lockers are filled once per world and shared by everyone, so in multiplayer agree on who takes what.

Leaving the bunker

The first time you walk up to the Bunker Gate, it swings open and a scene follows the way up the stairs and out over the steppe: it shows the ruin of the Portal of the Ancient near the bunker, then the dark Great Portal on the horizon, your long-term goal. After that the gate opens whenever a player comes near it.

The HUD

• Next goal (right): what the game wants from you next, with progress bars.
• Tip (right): a short hint for 15 seconds when it fits what you are doing. /tips --off turns tips off, /tips --on turns them back on.
• Minimap (top right) with time of day and epoch.
• Research points and tower ammunition (top left).
• Crafting queue (bottom left).
• Machine info under the crosshair when you look at a machine.

All panels are explained on Field Manual and HUD. The first tip already tells you what to do: hold left click on trees and rocks, then craft a Brick Furnace.

Gather wood and stone

You cannot dig the ground. Stand in front of a tree or rock and hold left click. An axe or pickaxe appears in your hand; when the time is up, the whole object disappears and the yield goes into your inventory.

Source	Time	Yield
Tree	2 s	2–8 Wood
Rock	3 s	20 Stone
Large rock	5 s	30 Stone, 15 Coal

Two groves and plenty of rocks lie close to the bunker. Wild trees and rocks do not grow back. More: Gathering and Crafting.

First crafts

Open your inventory and use the pocket crafting tab Factory. These recipes are available from the start:

Icon	Item	Ingredients	Time
	Brick Furnace	5 Stone	0.5 s
	Wooden Chest	4 Wood	0.5 s
	Iron Gear	2 Iron Plate	0.5 s
	2 × Belt T1	1 Iron Gear, 1 Iron Plate	0.5 s
	Coal Grabber	1 Iron Gear, 1 Iron Plate	0.5 s
	Wooden Drill	3 Iron Gear, 3 Iron Plate, 1 Brick Furnace	2 s
	5 × Cartridge	2 Iron Plate, 1 Coal	1 s
	2 × Wooden Walls	3 Wood	0.5 s
	Gun Tower	10 Iron Gear, 10 Copper Plate, 20 Iron Plate	8 s

Craft two or three Brick Furnaces right away. The full list is on Recipes.

Find the ore fields

Drills only work on ore fields. Around the bunker you always find one field each of Iron, Copper, Coal and Stone (about 60 blocks out) and Sand and Clay (about 100 blocks out), plus a small lake. The direction differs from world to world. Open the map: fields show in their own colors, and explored fields are labeled. See The World.

First drill and furnace

Drills and belts on the steppe

1. Place a Wooden Drill (2 × 2) on the Iron Ore Field. It works best when all four blocks under it are ore, and the middle of a field is richer than its edge.
2. The drill drops its ore in front of its front left corner (the front faces you when you place it). Place a Brick Furnace so that it covers that block, and the drill feeds it directly.
3. Fuel both: hold Coal or Wood, crouch and press Use on the machine. The stack goes into the fuel slot. Coal holds 4 MJ, Wood 2 MJ.
4. The furnace turns each Iron Ore into an Iron Plate in 3.2 s. Crouch and Use with an empty hand to take the plates out.

Put the second drill and another furnace on the Copper Ore Field. A furnace also bakes 2 Stone into a Stone Brick, which you will need in large amounts.

If a machine stops, an icon floats above it after a few seconds, for example No Fuel or Output Full. See status icons.

Your first automated line

Feeding every furnace by hand gets old quickly. Build the classic chain:

Wooden Drill → Belt T1 → Brick Furnace → Coal Grabber → Wooden Chest

• Belts carry items on two lanes.
• The Coal Grabber moves items between belts, machines and chests. It burns fuel, and it fuels itself from the coal it carries.
• A drill on the Coal Field with a belt to your furnaces solves the fuel question for good.

Details: Mining, Belts, Grabbers, Smelting.

The goal tracker

The Next goal panel shows the first open goal from this list:

1. Power the bunker: connect the power connector at the bunker exit to a power grid.
2. Portal of the Ancient (phase 1 to 4): rebuild the portal on the ruin near the bunker.
3. Open the Great Portal (3 steps): research Great Portal, build a Great Portal Altar near the Great Portal, deliver goods and power to it.

The first goal needs a generator, and generators come with the first research. So in practice you rebuild the Portal of the Ancient first.

The road to the first research

The Portal of the Ancient

Research starts at the Portal of the Ancient next to the bunker.

1. Rebuild the portal in four phases. Bring the materials by hand (crouch and Use), on a belt pointing into the portal, or with a grabber. Open the portal with Use to see the current phase.

Phase	Materials
Foundation	200 Stone, 100 Stone Brick
Pillars	100 Stone Brick, 60 Iron Plate
Arch	80 Iron Plate, 60 Copper Plate, 30 Iron Gear
Rune Ring	60 Copper Plate, 60 Iron Gear, 100 Coal

2. Call Goblins. The finished portal summons creatures. Goblins come for worked metal: plates, gears, bricks, belts, cartridges. Each item fills the essence bar by its Gob value; when the bar is full, a Trapped Goblin appears in the portal's output. You need two.

3. Call an Outlander. Outlanders want variety: every kind of item fills at most a tenth of the bar, so it takes at least ten kinds. Raw materials count half.

4. Build the research buildings:

• Goblin Research Center: 2 Trapped Goblin, 40 Stone Brick, 20 Iron Gear, 20 Iron Plate.
• Outlander Test Site: 1 Trapped Outlander, 60 Stone Brick, 30 Iron Plate.

5. Write a scroll. Feed the research center products of your factory. The goblins study them, the points go to your account. Choose Scroll I in the center's window, and it writes Knowledge Scroll I from the account.

6. Research Steam Power at the Outlander Test Site with one Knowledge Scroll I. It unlocks the Water Pump, Water Boiler, Steam Generator, Small Power Pole, Auto Drill and Lamp.

The whole system: Portal of the Ancient, Goblins, Outlanders, Research.

Powering the bunker

Build a Water Pump at the lake, a Water Boiler and a Steam Generator, and run Small Power Poles to the Bunker Power Connector at the top of the stairs. The bunker draws 30 kW. See Power and Fluids.

When the connector gets power for the first time, the ceiling lamps switch on, the ventilation starts and the terminal boots. Players close to the bunker watch this as a short scene; everyone else gets a message and can watch it later at the terminal. From then on the terminal shows five records left by the last person in the bunker and lets you replay the scenes you have seen. The goal stays done even if the power fails later.

Stay safe

By default no enemy nest lies within 500 blocks of the spawn, so the first hour is usually quiet. Your machines make noise, though, and noise wakes the steppe. A Gun Tower needs no research; fill it with the Cartridges from the lockers. Wooden Walls hold attackers back. See Defense and Enemies.

See also

• Controls and Building
• Gathering and Crafting
• Field Manual and HUD
• Epochs