Catch-22: no steel without electricity, no electricity without steel

[forthur]

I can't seem to find a way to generate electricity without access to steel (coal generator needs motor which needs steel, solar generator needs platinum dust), but steel can only be created by the metallurgic infuser, which needs electricity. I've checked, but the iron + 4 coal recipe is disabled in both version 1.0.5 and 1.0.6.

Obviously, I'm missing something, because I'd expect everybody to be complaining if this modpack can't even be played legitimately. So what am I missing?

[GreenWolf13]

You can make steel using railcraft, (which is in Voltz, even though it has been removed from the main pack).

[forthur]

Ah, ok. Thanks for the quick reply.

I'd still prefer a way to start with electricity without having to do major treks through the nether to build a huge device from an unrelated mod. Does anyone know if this is a temporary situation? Is it possible to reenable the steel recipe? I've found the following line in my UniversalElectricity.cfg, but it obviously doesn't do a thing:

B:"Allow Steel Dust Crafting"=true

[aidancbrady]

Hi, I'm the dev of the Mekanism mod which features the Metallurgic Infuser.

Good news! There are two ways around this. First would be to simply put redstone inside of the Infuser's electricity slot. Second would be to craft one of my Heat Generators, which would be a great way to originally generate electricity, due to it's simplicity and efficiency.

[forthur]

Solved:

Good news! There are two ways around this. First would be to simply put redstone inside of the Infuser's electricity slot. Second would be to craft one of my Heat Generators, which would be a great way to originally generate electricity, due to it's simplicity and efficiency.

Thanks for the reply! This solves everything.

I had read somewhere that the heat generator wasn't finished yet and should not be used, but apparently it works. I also didn't know that redstone worked as a makeshift energy source.

[Higa]

Im confused on how to use the heat generator

[Sylph2]

yeah the naming is kinda confusing

[Duke_of_Ender]

I think at the moment there are some bugs with it. Try looking up some vids to see how it works: one might be on the Voltz wiki.

You can use the basic components to get you started off. If you are past that, try solar generators. They are relatively cheaper and, in the long run, can produce a good amount of energy.

[saman]

The heat generator seems to work fine for me in 1.0.7.

It can be fed with fuel pretty much the same way as furnaces can, and it'll produce electricity. Unlike the coal generator, it doesn't need to warm up, and can use buckets of lava as fuel too.

Also, don't forget that for every lava block that's in contact with the generator, it'll always produce some power. Granted, it's not that much, but hey, free electricity is still free electricity!

[Higa]

it works now but not its bugged for me when i put a battery in there it takes out energy but if i leave it in the the heat generator recharges without taking out battery energy

[ArpheliorX]

You should not put lava / fuel inside the heat generator.. If you just put lava underneath / on top / on the sides or all of those.. it also generates electricity.. thus becoming an infinite source of power

I do find it to be quite a lot actually.. If you put lava on 5 sides of the generator, it generates 8 kW (so thats 8 kJ per second), which is only 1 kJ less than an advanced solar generator.. As a reference, the hydrogen generator generates 20 kW and the simple solar generator generates 1 kW.

Sorry for being off-topic, thought that this might be useful for the OP to know.

EDIT: Oops, only just see that Saman also said this

[crumpitboy]

what i did was just go mining long enough to get about 2 stacks of redstone, then ran the metallurgic infuser off that until i had the materiel for a solar generator and played the switch 2 batteries game. just my two cents, but hope it helps.