Rockets

To progress in GTNH beyond Tier 4 (HV), you must travel into space to mine special ores needed for higher tier recipes. This is achieved by using the rockets found in the Galacticraft mod; however many of the recipes which would normally use Galacticraft machines are crafted by more difficult means.

NASA Workbench
The NASA Workbench is used to make rockets - and you will need at least nine Nether Stars to make it. The simplest way is to make or find a skeleton spawner in the Nether, get the Wither Skulls, and spawn withers in a wither-proof box.

Nether Star Duplication
If you don’t want to farm multiple Withers for Nether Stars, you can duplicate them using Salis Mundis, which requires a basic Thaumcraft setup. To make Salis Mundis, you need to make Balanced Shards in the Thaumcraft Crucible. This requires at least one type of elemental Shards (found in the Twilight Forest), combined with all the other basic Essentia (earth, air, fire, water, order and entropy). The Balanced Shards are then processed in a Macerator to produce the Salis Mundis, which is then combined with Null Catalysts from Witchery to produce Nether Stars. Note that you will need an initial macerated Nether Star to begin making Null Catalysts. Make sure to save at least one Catalyst to continue duplicating them, or you will have to get another Nether Star and begin the process again.

Circuits
To complete the NASA Workbench you will need two Workstation circuits. For more information, visit the Circuit page.

Implosion Compressor and Explosives
The metal plates which are used for most of the rocket parts are made in the GT Implosion Compressor, rather than the Galacticraft Compressors. The Implosion compressor requires very little power to run, but you will need a large amount of explosives to use the machine. At HV you can make Industrial TNT (ITNT), which is most efficient for imploding.

You can also use the Implosion Compressor to make Industrial Diamonds for the Crystal Matrix (see above).

Storage Rockets
There is an optional slot in the middle of the rocket design that you can put a copper, iron, or gold chest into. This will add storage space to your rocket, but the quest will not detect the rocket.

Getting to Space
Now that you have your first rocket, you will need a few more items to actually get to space.
 * 9 Launch Pads to launch your rocket from
 * A source of fuel (cetane-boosted diesel will work) to fuel your rocket
 * A fuel loader to get the fuel into your rocket. If you don't fully fuel your rocket, you will either need to make two of these, or make sure to pick up your loader after filling your rocket, as it will need to be refueled to get back from the Moon.
 * A power source for the fuel loader; a single LV battery should be enough
 * Some Empty Canisters for fuel and oxygen
 * Also you will need a set of Oxygen Gear which will be covered in another section
 * Optional but recommended: armor and weapons, a jetpack and glider to get around
 * Obviously you will also want to bring your mining pick/hammer to gather ores
 * Torches will not work in space as there is no air to burn, so you will need to find another source of lighting. Galacticraft has its own Glowstone Torches, but there are many other options

Once you are ready to go, lay your launch pads in a 3x3 pattern somewhere on the ground with view of the open sky. (Keep an eye out for Natura clouds above your base as your rocket will not pass through them and can get stuck, wasting fuel). Place your rocket in the middle of the launch pads and right click to enter it. You can now press F to view your fuel level, Shift to exit the rocket or Space to launch.

Before you launch, you will need to fill your rocket with fuel. Set the fuel loader down next to the launch pad. You can fill the loader either with Filled Fuel Canisters, or can pipe it in from a tank. (If you use a cell, the empty cell will be lost.) Place your battery inside the fuel loader to activate it. You will need your rocket to be at least 60% full to get to the moon and back (one canister fills it by 20%). Don't forget to pick up your fuel loader to bring along, if you didn't make a spare.

Once you launch, you can steer the rocket using your WASD keys but it is not necessary as you want to go straight up (unless there is a cloud in the way). Note that your launch pads will launch along with the rocket.

The overworld will fall away beneath you; you can view your height level relative to the world on the indicator to the left. Once you reach maximum height, you will enter a loading screen to the space map. (Don’t panic if it takes a while to load.) At this point you will see all the planets on the system map, as well as the option to make a space station if you happen to have brought the appropriate materials. With the tier 1 rocket you can only reach the moon; click on the overworld to zoom in, then select the Moon and click the Launch button on the top right.

Now your lander will fall toward the moon. Hold the space button to use a bit of fuel to slow down, or you will crash and lose your rocket. Your lander will set down on the moon’s surface, at which point you can press Shift to exit the lander. (Congratulations, you’ve set foot on the moon!) Right click the lander to retrieve your rocket and launch pads. You can also use an Empty Canister to drain any remaining fuel from the lander and reload it into your rocket.

Departure Checklist

 * An oxygen collector
 * An oxygen compressor
 * Some oxygen tubes to get the oxygen from the collector to the compressor
 * a couple stacks of sheared leaves, to collect oxygen
 * Note that if you bring LOX you will still need an oxygen collector/compressor to transfer it to your tanks
 * All your oxygen gear - 3 light tanks at least - add another light for backup, also moon monsters can occasionally drop extra tanks
 * parachute
 * A fuel loader and canisters of fuel, to get yourself back
 * a few cells of fuel-just in case. Bring a few empty ones to empty the extra fuel out of your rocket.
 * a power source- galacticraft machines use TINY amounts of power, just bring a couple fully-charged large lithium batteries and you'll be fine for a LONG damn time
 * nightvision, the nights are LONG and dark. nanosuit comes with it, if you have one, or you can add nightvision to Darksteel armor
 * GC torches or other non-vanilla torch light source - ztones lamps are good. At least 16 stacks! More if you do not use automated miners.
 * food ofc - At least 8 stacks of tin cans depending on how much mining you plan to do
 * your mining tools and weapons
 * the stuff to repair your tools-the materials and a tool station
 * good armor, you'll have to go into the dungeon there at some point - charging/repair station for the armor
 * A sword to break webs inside the dungeon
 * Storage containers - compressed chests are good for bringing back loot, or get lots of backpacks. Also bring some throwaway chests for garbage loot you might want to bring back later.
 * waystones and their stuff, if you want to get into that, optional though
 * Jetpack and glider of choice, coal works fine if you bring a bunch of water and coal blocks, copterpack is better, for movement
 * plenty of storage to take all your ores and stuff back with you (spectral key is going to be gated with titanium) - Keep the tuft, dirt, and rock for centrifuging
 * Oxygen bubble distributor, if you intend to set up a long-term base there
 * MV miner and related incidentals - generator, chunk loader, mining pipes, output chests. Stop when they hit a vein or reach Y 50, collect small meteoric iron - better to bring HV - covers more area, and also can recharge your nanosuit!
 * Hand prospector or seismic prospector + incidentals. Digging on vein centers is so LV era!
 * enough fuel to run miners and jetpacks
 * HV monster repellator to keep 40 block radius around moon base clear (even without power), or a magnum torch

Arrival checklist

 * Setup base with walls around landing location - will be same in the future.
 * Setup lighting and monster repellator/magnum torch. For the servers, you will need to light up the area. Make sure you keep any monsters well away from your launchpad!  A lightning infernal *can* destroy your rocket!
 * Wall in an area large enough for a launchpad and other items like oxygen generators
 * Build up walls. Make sure you put an anti-spider overhang.  Lunar spiders can jump pretty high!
 * Setup launchpad and fuel loader.
 * Extract fuel and rocket from your lander. Place the rocket in safe place - obsidian chest for example. You can place the fuel in your fuel loader.
 * Find and complete lunar dungeon. Pretty easy overall.
 * Locate and harvest minerals

Returning home checklist

 * Get at least 64 meteoric iron. Meteors hit the surface near players (anchors won't work). Find small meteoric iron ores between 50-70 height, mine manually or use an automated miner. You want at least enough for 64 meteoric iron for the T2 rocket.  Medium air tanks take 21 meteoric iron apiece so if you want to upgrade, you will need at least another stack.
 * Harvest the titanium and chrome from at least 1 vein, maybe more.
 * Harvest bauxite and aluminium from at least 1 vein
 * Harvest some neodymium (Can also get it from rare earths so not super important)
 * Make sure you complete the dungeon quest appropriately. Dungeon blocks/key/blueprint/etc.

Tier 2 Rocket and onward
The schematics for the higher tier rockets cannot be crafted, they must be found on planets (in tier order). To find the tier 2 schematic, for example, you must search for a Moon Dungeon and defeat the boss, which will unlock the chest containing the schematic. The dungeon will appear as an opening on the surface which leads far down and contains “unnatural” blocks as part of its structure.

After tier 2 you will need new Rocket Fuels.

For more information you can visit the Galacticraft Wiki at https://wiki.micdoodle8.com/wiki/Galacticraft

Legacy Rocket Fuels
Rockets need fuel to get where they are going. In 2.1.1.0 new LCR fuels were added as an alternative to GT++ chem plant fuels, but in 2.2.0.0 the recipes for them were removed. Anyone that has previously made them can use the fuels for the corresponding rocket tiers, shown below. However, they cannot be produced anymore in the most recent stable version.