Getting the Cobblestone Generator
Getting Cobblestone this way is extremely time expensive. To always have a solid supply of Cobblestone, we now get a Cobblestone Generator. We already have water, so we now need a lava bucket. With the regular Crucible, we can get this just by placing Cobblestone into it while it is above a torch (similar how we did it with the water before). This takes several minutes, use the time to build a bigger base!
When the Lava is ready, get it into a clay bucket (it will break after usage, but that is no problem yet) and get that generator. Place a chest on top of the generator, all generated Cobblestone will land up there. Refill the Crucible, we will need more lava later.
By sieving Gravel, Sand and Dust we get ore pieces, which we can craft into chunks and smelt them to get ingots. Iron is required for a lot of machines, so lets farm it! To do so, we need a “hammer room”
That may sound complex, but it isnt. Simply build a clear area, at least 7×10 blocks wide. We will place our cobblestone there and mine it all at once for quick farming. To place blocks faster, we can now use a Stone Wand. Simply right-click on any block and it will place additional blocks next to it (if you have them in your inventory). We also use it to place down our cobblestone faster later.
The Smeltery will assist us to get twice as much ores from sieving. To build it, we need Grout. 72 Grout is required, we therefore need 36 Gravel, 36 Sand and 9 Clay Blocks. As we need to smelt the grout into bricks, you should get 1-2 additional furnaces.
Then craft 9 Seared Bricks, a Smeltery controller, a Seared Tank and a Smeltery Drain. Place a 2×2 area of Seared Bricks, then surround it one layer higher (use any block to build up) with Controller, Tank, Drain and the remaining bricks (you can leave out the corners and the top layer blocks may be in any order). If youve done it correctly, it should look like the on the right. If the controller does not emit particles, something is wrong.
Then craft a Faucet and a Casting Basin. Place the Faucet on the Drain and the Basin below the Faucet. You can input ore chunks and ingots using the smeltery controller and output the molten metals into the basin by right-clicking on the faucet. You can smelt different ores at the same time but only have one type in a basin at the same time. If needed, you can break the basin to discard anything that is inside (e.g. useful when you want to switch to a different ore)
In the next time we will need a lot of hammers. But carrying several of them around is kind of wasting inventory space. You can make use of a Crafting Station, which will hold your items. Place it nearby your hammer room and split one stack of cobble and a stack of sticks on it. Now, every time you are done placing your blocks, grab a hammer and smash them. A stone hammer has enough durability to get through 2 stacks of cobble, so the fastest procedure to get gravel is:
Sieve your gravel, craft the pieces to chunks (use your inventory crafting grid) and put them into the smeltery. Once you have your first iron block, use it to craft a hopper running into the smeltery controller. Now you can just input your iron chunks in the hopper and they will get smelted automatically. Craft new sieves and get iron meshes inside them. I usually go with 16 iron-mesh sieves, so I can sieve a stack in 4 turns (using less is also fine through).
Iron Meshes give us a 1% chance to obtain a diamond when sieving gravel. While you might be tempted to craft diamond gear, craft a Diamond Wand instead. This allows us to place more blocks at once and it does have a much higher durability, thus speed up iron farming. We will need a couple of diamonds later for diamond meshes, which allow us to get a steady supply of them.
FAQ
How does the farming station work?
How can I make my farm station faster?
How do you get chickens in Sky Factory 3?
