Getting Started

Nuclear Tech is a big mod - after 5 years of development and counting, it has amassed a ton of content. Getting a good grasp on just how things work might not be easy at first, but fret not, this is why this guide exists.

Preamble
The Nuclear Tech Mod has many, many recipes, it's unlikely that any one person can memorize them all. While there are plenty of mods that aid you in that regard, only Not Enough Items will show you all recipes, uncluding ones that make use of modded machines. Using NEI is crucial, and so is understanding how it works. Here are a few tips that might make your life a whole lot easier:
 * The NEI overlay can be toggled by pressing 'O' while looking at your inventory
 * On the bottom left corner of your inventory, given that the overlay is enabled, there is a button for an options menu. It is advised that you turn on the "Highlight Tooltips" option in the "World" caategory, as it will displaay the name of whatever block you are currently aiming at on screen. Alternatively, there is a NEI addon called "WAILA" which has the same core functionality, plus some extras.
 * Pressing R on an item will show you how it's made. In addition, pressing U allows you to see all the recipes it is used in.
 * When looking at recipes, you might not always see what you want to at first glance. If multiple pages are available, on the bottom there's buttons to go through pages of the crafting machine you're looking at (e.g. if you're looking at a workbench recipe, the bottom arrow buttons will lead you to more recipes of the workbench). The top arrow buttons, if available, will lead you to recipes in other machines (e.g. if you're looking at a workbench recipe, the top arrows will lead you to recipes of other machines, for example the furnace). This is very important, since some items can be made in multiple machines, and the machine that comes up first might not be available to you at the moment.

Things to do before you start
One thing that you can do before engaging in the progression, as well as something you should always do if you have the time, is looting structures. Your world is littered with buildings and dungeons alike, all full of stuff free for the taking. You shouldn't solely rely on structures for your resources, but they give you a head-start when it comes to progressing through the mod. Here's a list of structures which are great for raiding in early-game:
 * Antennas: A common structure with a few resources, mainly steel ingots, wires and basic circuits.
 * Radio stations: A great source of concrete and steel, the small side building also has tanks filled with diesel. The chests often also contain revolvers and sometimes weaker shotguns which are fantastic alternatives to your stinky old vanilla bow.
 * Relay stations: Huge antenna-like structures with loads and loads of steel. Steel sets are only marginally better than iron - but with steel so easily accessible and in such quantities, you'll be able to make steel tools quickly.
 * Crashed space ships: Somewhat rare and filled with items that aren't very useful in early game, they still contain a considerable amount of steel and a chest full of rare items, more often than not consumables and rocket launchers.
 * Crashed vertibirds: Helicopters that are buried in the desert, they are a good source of steel and often contain parts for power armor.
 * Factories: Large structures made of brick which have many machines and chests full of raw materials. Some say there's a treasure hidden in the lava.

However, this world isn't a place filled with just candy and free stuff, there's also places which you absolutely should not enter, or even approach, unless you are well equipped:
 * Nuclear power plants: Easily recognizable by their large cooling towers and by the fact that everything in proximity to it is dead, these structures contain many valuable resources. However, every power plant also has its own on-site nuclear waste storage, which causes ambient radiation levels to skyrocket. Unprotected players may die within less than a minute if they choose to approach a power plant. To add insult to injury, high levels of radiation can also turn creepers into mutated nuclear creepers, may Lauren have mercy on your soul if you encounter one of these.
 * Radiation hotspots: Rare, but extremely dangerous craters filled with rocks that are boiling from radiation. They offer no noteworthy loot, so it's best to avoid them.
 * Nuclear waste storage tanks: Tower-like structures with nuclear waste leaking out of them. Buried deep within all the nuclear waste usually lies a treasure chest, but without the equipment, you are unlikely to even get to see any of it without dying a dozen times.
 * Duds: Not very dangerous per se, but you should not meddle with them. There are certain ways to extract resources from them, but those are very dangerous and not relevant to you unless you have reached end-game.
 * Poison geyser: Easily recognizable from the lack of grass surrounding a patch of crumbled rock, the geyser periodically spits out a jet of poison gas. Below it there are a few blocks of yellowcake, although these aren't very useful until you have reached the nuclear age.

Okay, now where to start?
No matter what your end goal is, the very beginning of the tech tree always looks the same. You need to get these three things:
 * A machine template folder, made from paper, lapis and bone meal
 * A burner press, which is made from mostly iron, a piston and a furnace
 * A special anvil, made from either iron or lead.

Along with some base resources, mostly iron, titanium, plenty of coal and copper.

Anvils
Starting from beta X3913, you'll require an NTM anvil to progress. You only need an iron or lead one for now. They're made with a block and six ingots of the respective metal. You'll be able to manually make plates with them later on, but that's not important right now.

The Machine Template Folder and You
Congratulations, the moment you have crafted the folder is the moment you have found your new best friend. This handy item will follow you through the entire mod, no matter how big or small the task, it will be by your side. The main functionality is to create templates for the assembly machine and chemical plant, siren tracks, fluid identifiers and press stamps. But one step at a time, in the beginning we're only interested in the latter one, which brings us to our next piece:

The Burner Press
The burner press uses (as the name implies) combustible materials (i.e. furnace fuel) to press ingots. Since ingots can be pressed into many different shapes, you need to make a demountable piece that helps the metal become the shape you want it to: The stamp. Flat stamps can be crafted with a desired material (for example, iron), some bricks and a pile of redstone dust. While a flat stamp does have some uses, they aren't all that important, hence why we are going to upgrade it a little. For that, open your trusty template folder and select "Plate Stamp" on the first page, with the plate stamp's material matching the one of the flat stamp you have just crafted. Voilà, you have created a stamp, ready for use! Now fire up your burner press, wait for the gauge to hit the yellow area, put the stamp on the top and some copper at the bottom, and now the magic starts: You have made yourself your very own copper plates. Note that even when idle, the press will burn fuel, so either remove unwanted fuel when not in use or use a lever to "pause" the press. Note that the temperature gauge will rise as long as fuel is burning, the hotter the press, the faster it will go. Don't worry, the press will stop heating up if the maximum is reached, it cannot overheat.

Metallurgy 101
Armed with copper plates (which you can make into copper panels at an anvil for 4 pieces each) and hopefully some tungsten, you can now craft your second machine, the blast furnace. This machine has many recipes, but for now you'll only need the two most important ones: Steel and minecraft grade copper (also known as red copper). The blast furnace can be powered with coal or lava, which gets stored internally so that nothing is lost when the furnace is currently idling. The mod makes use of many alloys, but these two are the most important ones. The furnace is slow, so it would be a good idea to make multiple (or to steal them from a factory structure).
 * Steel: A piece of iron and a lump of coal make two ingots of steel
 * Red copper: It's an alloy of redstone and regular "industrial grade" copper.

The Road to Automation
Soon it'll be time for your next machine, but you're not quite there yet. You'll need two more stamps: A wire stamp and a circuit stamp. Using your newly made red copper and some aluminium, you'll have to make wires out of them. Aluminium wires, redstone and steel plate make basic circuit assembly items which can be (you guessed it!) pressed into basic circuits using the circuit stamp. Once you have a sizable amount of red copper wires, you can craft motors, which, combined with the circuit and some metal blocks, make an assembly machine!

Assembly!
The assembler is the most important machine you'll make. Almost all other machines or items are made using the assembly machine. The interface might seem a bit confusing at first, but don't worry, it's simple. At first, the assembler must know what it's supposed to make. Many recipes make use of the same base ingredients, so there has to be a way for it to know whether it should make, for example copper plates or copper wires. Luckily, we have our template folder for just that: Get some paper and dye in your inventory, open the folder and look for the shredder (it's a small dark gray machine with a red top). Click on it, and it should give you the required template. Putting the template into the template-shaped slot will make the small red !-indicator disappear (which, when hovered over, should inform you about a template being required). Hovering over the template, or by using NEI, you can check which items are required to make the shredder. Gather them, put them into the assembler and...!

Nothing. The assembler needs electric energy in order to work. For now, the only obtainable generator will be the combustion generator. Craft one, place it down next to the assembler so the wires on the sides connect to it (or use wire blocks to connect them), feed the generator some water buckets and coal and now wait. One generator may not be enough to power the assembler on its own, resulting in the power being wasted. Either get multiple generators, or remove the template from the assembler and insert it once the assembler's battery has charged up. Now witness the might of the crafting automaton, creating advanced machinery in mere seconds!

Shredding like there's no tomorrow
The shredder is not only required to progress with all the machines, it's also an incredible handy utility machine: Once powered up and equipped with shredder blades, it will crush ores into two piles of dust each, effectively doubling the yield! If you haven't already smelted all your ores, it might be a good idea to toss them into the shredder instead. It can also remove unwanted items such as dirt or half broken tools and turn them into scrap which you can use as furnace fuel. For the next step, you will need quartz, so get ready to go to the nether.

The Hell Zone
The nether has not changed significantly since installing Nuclear Tech, aside from two things:
 * There's now a couple of ores spawning in the nether, most notably uranium, tungsten and sulfur, all of which are also found in the overworld
 * The nether in its entirety is now slightly radioactive

The last fact might frighten you, but be assured it's just a mild 0.1 RAD/s which isn't all that big of a deal. It would take almost 3 hours for you to die in the nether from radiation, so take your time and get some quartz. Might as well use some phosphorous, but watch out for the white ingots - they'll set you on fire if you don't have a suit to protect yourself from them. There's also plenty of uranium which becomes interesting later.

Circuits Galore
Shredding quartz will yield you quartz dust which, combined with some basic circuits and copper wires (regular copper, not red one) in the assembler, will give you an enhanced circuit ("wow!"), which then can be upgraded again in the assembler using gold dust and red copper wires. And now you can finally afford the next vital machine, the cousin of the assembler: the chemical plant. This handy machine handles many recipes involving fluids, and plays a key role in oil processing and uranium enrichment.