HBM’s Nuclear Tech Mod is not a mod you can casually stumble through — it has a deliberate, multi-stage progression that requires learning several interconnected systems before nuclear power becomes accessible. That said, the early game is surprisingly approachable: you will be mining familiar-looking ores, building a custom crafting bench, pressing metal plates, and wiring up your first generator within the first few in-game days. This guide walks you through those critical first steps, from locating the ores you need all the way to running your first powered machines — and it briefly flags the radiation hazards you will soon need to manage.Documentation Index
Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://mintlify.com/hbmmods/hbm-s-nuclear-tech-git/llms.txt
Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.
What You Will Need
Before diving into the steps, it helps to know what ores to look for. NTM adds a significant number of new ore types to world generation. The ones you need immediately are:Copper Ore
Generates at typical mid-level depths. Used for wiring, pipes, and early machine components. You will need a lot of it.
Lead Ore
Generates alongside copper and iron. Lead is essential for radiation shielding, solder, and ammunition. Smelt it like iron.
Uranium Ore
Found at deeper levels, similar to diamond depth. Emits a small amount of radiation when mined — don’t linger. This is the foundation of the entire nuclear fuel cycle.
Titanium Ore
Found at moderate depths. Titanium alloys are used in mid-tier machine components and structural parts. You won’t need it immediately, but gathering it early pays off.
NTM also adds sulfur ore, niter ore, tungsten ore, aluminium ore, fluorite, beryllium, and more. You do not need all of these immediately — focus on copper and lead first, then uranium.
Early Game Progression
Gather basic ores and materials
Start by mining copper, lead, and iron in quantity. You need iron for vanilla tools, copper for NTM wiring and components, and lead for early radiation protection. Smelt your copper and lead in a regular furnace to produce ingots.While you are underground, keep an eye out for uranium ore (it has a distinctive yellow-green texture). Mine it, but avoid standing near exposed uranium for extended periods — it emits low-level radiation even as an ore block.
Build the Anvil
The Anvil is NTM’s custom crafting bench and one of the very first machines you will interact with. It is crafted using a vanilla crafting table with iron ingots and serves as the central hub for construction-type recipes that the vanilla 3×3 grid cannot accommodate.The Anvil GUI has two sections:
- Top slots (Smithing): Used for forging recipes like meteorite ingots or crafting foundry molds.
- Bottom section (Construction): Select a recipe from the list, then click the blue button to execute it. The Anvil draws materials directly from your inventory — you do not need to pre-stage items in slots.
The Anvil comes in multiple material tiers (iron, lead, steel, desh, and more exotic alloys). The iron Anvil is sufficient for the entire early game.
Build the Press and make metal plates
The Press is one of the earliest machines in the mod and is required to produce the metal plates that nearly every NTM recipe uses.The burner Press (the first tier) runs on solid fuel like coal — no electricity required. To use it, you also need a stamp:
- Craft a flat stamp from your Anvil.
- Combine the flat stamp with a template folder (also crafted at the Anvil) to convert it into a plate stamp or wire stamp.
- Insert the appropriate stamp into the Press’s stamp slot, add fuel (coal works), and feed in your metal ingots.
Build the Assembly Machine
The Assembly Machine is the universal mid-game crafting machine, supporting recipes with up to twelve different item inputs. It is important early on and used widely throughout the entire progression — you will likely run several of them.The Assembly Machine is itself built at the Anvil, using plates produced by the Press. Once placed, right-click it to open the GUI, select a recipe from the built-in recipe list, and provide the required inputs. The machine will assemble the output automatically (it requires no power in its basic form).
Many machines in NTM, including the Assembly Machine itself, are constructed via the Anvil’s construction interface rather than a vanilla crafting table. Get comfortable with this workflow early.
Set up your first power source
Most NTM machines require electricity — measured in the mod’s own internal power unit — delivered through cables. Your first power source will almost certainly be the Wood-Burning Generator, which can burn solid fuels (wooden logs and planks are especially efficient) or liquid fuels, and outputs power via cables connected at its back face.To wire it up:
- Craft copper cables from your copper plates.
- Place the Wood-Burning Generator and connect cables from its output face toward your machines.
- Feed it wooden logs or coal via its GUI fuel slot.
- Build a Firebox — the cheapest external heat source — and place fuel (coal or coke) in it.
- Place a Boiler directly on top of the Firebox. Right-click the Boiler with a Fluid Identifier set to water to configure its input.
- Connect a water source to the Boiler’s input and pipe the resulting steam output to a Steam Engine.
- The Steam Engine outputs low-pressure steam, which must either be vented or piped into a Condenser to recover water.
Understand the fluid identification system
NTM uses a fluid identification system that is unlike most other mods. Every pipe and tank must be configured for a specific fluid type before it will carry that fluid. Two pipes of different types will never accidentally merge networks.To set a fluid type: craft a Fluid Identifier, shift-click it to open its GUI and save a fluid type, then right-click a pipe or tank to assign it. Shift-clicking a pipe will identify all connected pipes of the same type at once (up to 64 blocks).This system eliminates pipeline confusion in complex builds, but it means you must explicitly configure every new pipe segment you place.
Protect yourself from radiation
Once you start handling uranium, processing nuclear materials, or building reactors, radiation becomes a serious hazard. Radiation accumulates in your body over time and causes increasing damage.Early protection:
- Lead plates in your armor slots provide basic radiation shielding. Craft lead armor from your lead ingots and plates as soon as possible.
- Hazmat suits (crafted from hazmat cloth, which comes from later processing) offer significantly better protection and are essential for working directly with reactor components.
- Avoid prolonged exposure to uranium ore blocks, yellowcake, and enriched fuel.
Tech Tier Overview
Once your basic power infrastructure is running, NTM’s progression unfolds across several interconnected tiers:| Tier | Key Milestones |
|---|---|
| Early (Tier 1) | Anvil, burner Press, Assembly Machine, Wood-Burning Generator, basic ore processing |
| Industrial (Tier 2) | Steam power (Firebox → Boiler → Steam Engine), electric machines, oil extraction and basic refining (Oil 1), Steel production |
| Chemical (Tier 3) | Advanced oil processing (Oil 2), polymer and rubber, catalytic cracking, diesel generators |
| Nuclear (Tier 4) | Uranium enrichment (centrifuges), RBMK reactor construction, fission fuel cycle, radiation management |
| Advanced Nuclear (Tier 5) | Fusion reactor, particle accelerator, vacuum oil processing (Oil 3, requires bismuth from RBMK), exotic materials |
This is a simplified overview. NTM’s actual tech tree branches heavily — oil processing, chemical synthesis, metallurgy, and weapons development all evolve in parallel with the nuclear progression. Explore the in-game Nuclear Handbook (crafted at the Anvil) for detailed information on every machine and material in the mod.
Tips for New Players
- Build the Anvil first. It unlocks dozens of recipes that are otherwise inaccessible.
- Make a lot of copper plates. Cables, pipes, and machine components all consume copper plates in bulk.
- Label your pipelines. The fluid identification system is powerful, but easy to get confused by in a large base. Use item frames or signs to mark what each pipe carries.
- Don’t mine uranium with your hands if you can avoid it. Use iron or better pickaxes, mine quickly, and move away from exposed ore blocks.
- Condense your steam. Running an open steam loop wastes water and can cause pressure buildups. Close the loop with a Condenser early.
- Check the changelog before updating. NTM is actively developed and updates can change recipes or progression paths significantly.