First Steps

In case you need some help getting started, this guide is for you!

Pre Steam Age

Make sure to scout out ore veins that you will need for steam. This includes Copper, Iron, and Tin. Once you have these you can smelt them in a furnace to get ingots. Very few metals are furnace smeltable; many of them require higher technology. Once you have ingots of these, go ahead an make a mortar. This can be made out of flint or metals, use metal if you have if you have lots of it. Grind up copper and tin, and mix them together to get bronze. Congratulations, you are now in the steam age!

Steam Age

The first 'machine' that you will make is a small coal boiler, which turns water and coal into steam. You will need to make pipes from a different mod to transport this steam, as GTCE doesn't have pipes yet, but it will Soon(TM). You should make a steam furnace next, as it is much more efficient than a normal furnace. At this point you might notice that there are bronze and steel steam machines. Bronze can only do recipes that are listed as 8 EU/t or under in JEI, while high pressure can do the full 32 EU/t. Making steel steam machines isn't necessary for progression, but you can if you would like your steam machines to run faster, but they will use more steam per second. Now, how do you get steel? With a Bricked Blast Furnace, of course! If you played GT5, you will know the horror that is the Bronze Blast Furnace (AKA the Bronze Best Friend). Fear not, in GTCE you won't need to get 5 veins of copper just to make steel. Follow the instructions on the BBF controller and you will be able to make steel. You need to insert 1 ingot of iron and 4 pieces of coal, wait a little bit, and you will have steel to use for your first electric machines!