Beginner's Guide

Starting out in Better than Wolves can be challenging - indeed it is intended to be so! However, you are not without recourse. This guide will help you get your footing in understanding key Better than Wolves features, taking you step by step through the main parts of the Tech tree and explaining important points in detail.

Before we embark on this journey of learning, it pays to mention an important caveat of this guide: it will not attempt to explain vanilla Minecraft features, of which this guide assumes a strong working knowledge. It also assumes that if you are unfamiliar with a vanilla Minecraft feature presented in this guide, you know where to get the info you need, which will in almost all cases be the Minecraft Wiki. Furthermore, this guide cannot and will not explain esoteric or very advanced features - if you need help with something specific, you should make reference to the page of the item or block in question.

Preparation

Better than Wolves adds many advanced features to the game; however, the early part of the game is largely unchanged. In order to start using Better than Wolves features, you should first prepare yourself a functional homestead - shelter with coal and iron, an ample supply of wood and a food source. In addition, even early mod features - like the Cauldron and Light Block - all but require access to the Nether, so you should be comfortable with the prospect of making and entering a Nether Portal.

Major Mechanics Changes

The first changes you will be effected by are

1. Breaking tall grass or tilling grass blocks does not drop wheat seeds
2. Takes longer to break blocks
3. Blocks when punched drop their "parts" not the block
   1. Dirt drops Dirt Piles
   2. Logs drop bark, sawdust, 1 wooden plank
4. Wooden Pick Axes are one use and stone are now 6 uses
5. All wooden tools are much weaker
6. No such thing as a wooden ax (it just makes sense)
7. The more you are wounded the slower you move & break blocks
8. Caves are now completely dark no matter your brightness settings
9. When in the dark you are slower

For more information look at Changes From Vanilla

Pre-Mechanical Survival

Survival in BTW isn't easy. Hell, it can be hard, but the more you get on with it and accept your failures the easier it gets. Your first actions should be to punch either 14 wood planks or 21. Either option is acceptable. The first option, 14 wood planks, will get you enough wood for two wood pickaxes which can get you 2 blocks of cobblestone, enough to get you a stone axe. The other option will get you a stone pick, and a stone axe but costs more time. Hunger and zombies are your enemies. Gather food with your stone axe and chop up some wood. Get iron, find chickens, harvest mushrooms, and plant hemp and you might survive long enough to start your way up the tech tree.

Hemp Processing

Ok, in your first real stage with this mod you will get your first look at Hemp, a Hand Crank, and a Mill Stone. Step number one is to put together an iron Hoe (since you can't craft wood or cobblestone one) and start tilling a large tract of grassland for hemp seeds. Once you have 10+ Seeds go ahead and plant them at a good handy location with a fence around to keep out the pesky wandering animals. Remember that the soil needs to be hydrated!

Now move on to making and preparing your Hand Crank and Mill Stone.

Name	Ingredients	Input » Output
Gear	Shafts and Wooden Plank

Name	Ingredients	Input » Output
Hand Crank	Shafts, Cobblestone and Gear

Name	Ingredients	Input » Output
Mill Stone	Stone and Gear

Since hemp has a VERY long growth time here are some objects you will need soon that you can go get while waiting for more hemp: Gratuitous amounts of wood, a steady food source while you build up (wheat farm), and you will probably want to start collecting cows and wolves when possible. Digging a two block deep ditch with a stair on top and leading in cows with wheat in your hands seems to be the best temporary holding strategy. You will need those and the wolves later. Try to remember to breed the cows whenever you pass by and have the extra wheat.

Now, back to your hemp Farm. Hemp has several growing stages, the first 3/4 of which occur in the first block with the final "ripe" stage being the appearance of a second block of hemp on top of the initial plant. Optimally, you should not cut the entire plant down, but instead harvest the top portion of the plant as it grows (somewhat similar to sugar cane), because the top of the plant regrows far faster than the whole. Once you get some hemp from the plants you can take it over and throw it in your mill. Place the hand crank on the ground next to the mill and hold down the right mouse button.... for a very long time. To make a windmill(your first mechanical power source) you will need 24 fabric, each fabric consisting of 9 hemp fibers. Each hemp makes 4 fibers, so you need a total of 216 hemp fibers or 54 hemp PLUS one Rope for every axle you'll use (Usually around 10), each rope using 6 fibers. At the slow rate of a hand crank it takes quite a while to get all the fiber you need. You can grind multiple millstones at the same time to double your grinding rate, although that will make you twice as tired. Be careful and keep an eye on your food bar while you crank.

Once you have 216 Hemp Fibers (3.5 stacks approximately), you can move on to the next stage!

Windmill

Goals for this stage are to build a Windmill, Axles, and Gearboxes, and bring power to your mill without standing there hand cranking it.

Before you go any further you can watch this video of Mechanical Power, especially the section from 5:50 to ~8:00 that explains how gearboxes and axles work (you may want to turn your sound down a lot before you hit play. You've been warned!)

[Tutorial]Better than Wolves 101 #2 Mechanical Energy & Hemp : How to start, how to use on YouTube

The recipes for the devices you need for this stage are:

Name	Ingredients	Input » Output
Fabric	Hemp Fiber

Name	Ingredients	Input » Output
Sail	Wooden Planks, Fabric

Name	Ingredients	Input » Output
Wind Mill	Sail

Name	Ingredients	Input » Output
Gear Box	Wooden Planks, Gear, Redstone Dust

Name	Ingredients	Input » Output
Axle	Wooden Planks, Rope

Name	Ingredients	Input » Output
Rope	Hemp Fiber

Keep in mind that gear boxes and axles will become the basis of all mechanical power systems you will construct in the future. You should make lots of them, especially when you start automating things.

Now, to build a functioning windmill you will need around 5 gearboxes to bring the power down to ground level and approx 20 axles. Another option would be to connect the millstone straight to the windmill (using 1 gearbox and 2 axles), although it is useful to bring the power to the ground/floor level if you want to build more mechanical contraptions there. You will probably want to build a structure to house the windmill as well. Windmills take up a huge amount of space; they are 13x1x13 (LxWxH). So any tower you build to house it must be at least 10 blocks high. The windmill is set up by placing an axle over the edge of your tower, turning it with a right click with empty hands so that it points out and away from the wall (unless it's already pointing in the right direction), and right clicking with the windmill in hand on the axle. The windmill should be placed. If you get an error message, you should make sure the 6 blocks above, below and to the sides of the windmill aren't taken. Remember - even torches and vines can stop you from placing the windmill. You will then run the axles back to your gearbox and down and away to your mill. NOTICE: Every axle can only transport power up to a length of 3 blocks. Placing more axles will just break them when the device is powered.

Leather Processing

Remember back when we said it would be very handy to get some cows and wolves together for later? This is later. Things you will need to start this stage are: a productive wheat farm (or just a decent supply of wheat), cows (at least 2, or else you won't be able to get more), a pack of wolves (two would be a minimum), at least 1 netherrack (probably want to grab glowstone and soul sand while you are there, and way more than 1 netherrack (up to 9), that's just the minimum) 7 iron, a bone, and a bucket of water. This stage is very short and simple once you get all the materials, the only new device is the Cauldron.

Now, put a block of Netherrack and ignite it. Above the flames (exactly 2 blocks above the Netherrack) there should be a Cauldron. It is very recommended to place 9 blocks of Netherrack (in a 3X3 formation, with the Cauldron above the center), because that will greatly increase the speed of the Cauldron.

You have successfully created a Cauldron. You can use it to heat many different food items at once, unlike the Furnace, and it is also capable of creating other things. Also, any items that are thrown into it will get inside. That means you can put it in the bottom of your traps, farms and toilet to effectively store items.

Now, farm some leather from your cows, feeding them wheat to breed, and thinning the herd as they mature. Simultaneously breed your wolves (feed them raw meat till they get hearts over their heads, while they aren't sitting) and once you have around 10 have them sit down in a little area and feed each one rotten meat, beef or any other meat. Just sit around and wait. They will poop out dung, which you need to collect (be careful with that, you don't want to spill it). Once you have a few Leather pieces go over and put it in your mill at the base of the windmill from earlier. It gets processed into Scoured Leather, once you have that put it and the dung into the cauldron. Wait a few seconds and voila: Tanned Leather!

!Tanned Leather | align="center"| Scoured Leather,
Dung,
2 Jungle Bark or
3 Spruce Bark or
5 Oak Bark or
8 Birch Bark
8 Blood Bark |

Tanned leather is really your next step in building devices, much like hemp fiber, and will be used in a LOT of your upcoming stages, as such it is very important and you will probably want to maintain occasional hemp and leather processing as you go about the next few stages. Since you cannot yet fully automate anything.

Wood Processing

This stage has some very easy goals. You will first need to place your new tanned leather on a crafting table and grab some straps. Then construct a belt to use in making your first saw. Immediately after that you will be able to create a Hopper, and then the world of automation is busted wide open. Recipes used in this stage:

Name	Ingredients	Input » Output
Strap	Tanned Leather

Name	Ingredients	Input » Output
Belt	Straps

Name	Ingredients	Input » Output
Saw	Iron Ingots, Gears, Belt and Wooden Planks

Name	Ingredients	Input » Output
Hopper	Wooden Sidings, Gears, Wooden Pressure Plate, Wooden Corner

First build the saw, then take it over next to your mill at the base of your windmill. Now run another axle out of one of your gearboxes and into your saw. To use the saw, place a block of wood in front of it, and it should be cut down into 2 pieces of wood called Panels. You can also cut a panel to get an even smaller one (1/4 of a wooden block) called Moulding. You can further cut the Moulding into Corners (1/8 of a wooden block). You can also cut corners into gears which is a very efficient way to make them. Continue until you have all of the blocks you need for the Hopper (2 panels, 2 gears, 1 corners). Hoppers are used to collect and sort things that pass over them. Using a combination of hoppers and water flows, and in some cases such as the nether, you will use pistons to automate all of your farm collection areas easily, and with more clever work you can automate just about anything in the game.

Hibachi + Bellows

After much thought and planning, the next section is going to be very short and really not accomplish very much because this is simply a needed step on the way to pottery. First step in this stage is to collect a lot of netherrack. 216 is again the magic number needed to make the 9 Hibachi that will be needed for our Kiln. Once you have 216 Netherrack you will need to place them in your mill and grind them down into Ground Netherrack. After that they will need to be dropped onto(hint hint, first semi automatic opportunity here) a hopper that has soul sand in the filter slot and Hellfire Dust will appear on top of the hopper in the place of the ground netherrack. It is important to note that you will need to run mechanical power to the side of the hopper you are using to filter the ground netherrack or your hopper will overload on the souls being filtered out(which are invisible) and explode, spawning a very bad friend. Hellfire dust is then placed in your cCauldron and 8 dust turns into 1 Concentrated Hellfire. Add an Element, some stone, and a redstone and you get a hibachi. You need 9 of those.

Name	Ingredients	Input » Output
Concentrated Hellfire	Hellfire Dust

Name	Ingredients	Input » Output
Element	Blaze Powder, Redstone Dust, Hemp Fiber
Element	Blaze Powder, Redstone Dust, String

Name	Ingredients	Input » Output
Hibachi	Concentrated Hellfire, Stone, Element, Redstone Dust

Hibachi are actually very easy to use. All you need to do is run redstone power to them, and they create fire. If you are like me and simply leave them burning all the time then the easiest way to do this is to place a redstone torch immediately below each hibachi. The next piece you will need to complete your preperation for building a kiln is your Bellows. This is very easy to make and I will simply show you the pattern and move on to the next stage.

Name	Ingredients	Input » Output
Bellows	Wooden Sidings, Tanned Leather, Gears and Belt

Ok, once you have at least one hibachi (though 9 is optimal) and a bellows in your inventory you are ready for the next stage.

Pottery

The pottery process is started with at least one but preferably several Turntables. When a turntable has mechanical power supplied to the bottom it rotates the block on top of it at varying speeds controlled by the indicator on the side of the turntable. Right clicking with empty hands will change to a slower rotate speed.

Name	Ingredients	Input » Output
Turntable	Sidings, Stone, Nether Quartz, and Gear

Your first step is to create 8 clay blocks. Then place the clay block on top of a turntable that is powered by an axle. It would be very handy to have a nearby lever that turned on and off the gearbox nearest to your turntable so as to stop the turning at the correct stage of the clays' shaping into Unfired Pottery. As a clay block turns on a turntable it goes through 4 stages that become the following items if placed in a kiln: Crucible, Planter, Vase, and Urn. For now you will need to stop the turntable at the first stage and collect the item once for a crucible, then go to the last stage for 7 urns.

Now we need to build a Kiln with the hibachi underneath and the bellows to stoke it. Your Hibachi are placed in a 3x3 square much like your netherrack under your cauldron but with 9 redstone torches under the hibachi. You will then take at minimum 4(but more makes it look better) brick blocks and place them as shown in the picture below. One block above the hibachi.

The kiln (on the right) with hibachis underneath it.

Your bellows must be placed against the center and one block above your hibachi facing the fire. Then you need to run mechanical power to the back of the bellows. Now power needs to be alternated to the bellows for it to expand then contract, the easiest way to do this is to use a turntable with redstone torch on the block above it. I'll leave the rest for you to figure out.

Now you have your kiln, to fire your unfired pottery from the turntables above you simply need to place the block in the center of your bricks and wait a few seconds. If nothing happens make sure you have your kiln only one space above your lit hibachi and that your bellows has alternating mechanical power to keep it expanding and contracting. Also check that your bellows is facing the right direction :P.

To move to the next stage you simply need to fire your 7 Urns and 1 Crucible.

Soulforged Steel and Anvil

Your first step in acquiring steel, along with the more advanced blocks that come with it, is placing a urn under a hopper with a soul sand filter, BE SURE THE HOPPER IS POWERED! Else you will get a bit of a surprise, along with a broken hopper, after placing 8 souls of the damned into the urn, place the urn into a crucible with some extract of carbon (carbon powder) and an iron ingot, you will have your first soul forged steel ingot, now repeat 6 more times, then craft them into an anvil, like so:

Ok, now that you got an Anvil, you can now use the 4x4 crafting grid, for stuff like block dispensers and the like

Rendering

now you may be asking "why can't I make tools from steel?" the answer is quite simple, really, the shafts that you use normally are too weak to make steel tools out of, you need something tougher, such as a Haft, which is made like so:

Now you may be wondering what that orange stuff in there is, it's Glue, which is made from rendering leather. You may be asking "how do I turn leather into glue?" it's quite simple really, all you need is a cauldron and a fire. Now you may be asking why it doesn't work, well you know the bellows you made earlier? Now it's time to use them again, the fire needs to be hotter in order to render items down, and I'm pretty sure you know how to use those bellows... I hope.

Rest to be completed later -- slango20