Stone Age

In this guide I will point out helpful tips and tricks that I personally use to navigate the mod pack. Please note that this is not the only way to play the pack just the method I use when I start a new play through. That being said this guide will not go all the way through the end game but will focus on the beginning of the mod pack. Hopefully it will help people that are starting out. I recommend using FTB Utilities for chunk loading if you don't think it is "cheaty" because it helps you spread things out and not have to worry if important stuff is loaded or not.

Fresh World

In a fresh world there is quite a lot going on. I like to explore looking for a base for the first few nights. If you spot a rogue-like dungeon (mainly the brick ones) go in and get the bed! This will solve the slow nights. While exploring I try to find a location for a base that meets the following criteria:

Near rivers (water isn't renewable and they tend to have clay all over). Not a dry or tropical biome. Something middle of the road.
Somewhere near a village. I like to build a vanilla iron farm once you have access to your first iron to supplement iron income and give you passive iron gain for the rest of the game. If you think this is "cheaty" then just don't do it.
Somewhere that has a desert within reasonable travel distance.

Gather Gardens as you explore.
- You will eventually need 8 of each to submit to the Healing Axe quest (this axe feeds you).
  - Leafy Garden
  - Mushroom Garden
  - Stalk Garden
  - Textile Garden
  - Tropical Garden
  - Nether Garden (I usually try to buy garden bags from the coins shop to get a Nether Garden early on to spread).
  - Ground Garden
  - Berry Garden
  - Desert Garden
  - Grass Garden
  - Gourd Garden
  - Herb Garden
  - Water Garden (You can find these in swamp biomes pretty easily or rivers rarely. Look for shimmering green on the water. They are distinctly different from lily pads).
Keep your eye out for Natura Cotton plants as well and grab all you see! You can always convert the cotton from Textile Gardens to Natura Cotton but if you find it raw...don't pass it up.
Keep your eye open for bamboo forests and quicksand (mainly just to be able to complete the quests in tier 0.
Get carrots, wheat and potatoes from a village if you come across one. This will prevent you from having to wait for carrots to grow.
Use JourneyMap waypoints to mark things. I think the default key to create one is "B". Mark things like aluminium gravel deposits, villages with bee houses, brick rogue-likes (easy bricks),
You will need to find 20 of each of the following flowers for the healing axe quest as you explore:
- Blue Orchid
- Poppy
- Dandelion
- Lavender (the trickier one as lavender fields are rare-ish).
Keep your eye out for Coconut trees from Pam's and mark them on JourneyMap for you to come back to. You will need them for the healing axe quest.

Stone Age

In the stone age we want to push a few different things:

Tinkers' Tools
Coke Oven (to make torches).
Iron, Copper and Tin
Plant a 9 x 9 cropland for the cotton. You're going to need a ton for tanned leather for bags and a sleeping bag in the stone age.
Consider breaking some of your extra (anything over 8) Stalk Gardens to find some soybeans and plant a 9 x 9 cropland of that (to make all the tofu for the healing axe quest).
Place all of your Pam's gardens that you don't have over 8 of on the ground so they start spreading (don't put too many in a small space because they seem to spread better when they aren't concentrated).

I usually rush to these parts to make the vanilla iron farm so I can focus on more difficult things (building the bricked blast furnace for example) while it accumulates.

The crops you're going to need for the healing axe quest are:

Soybean (pointed out above - can often times substitute tofu for things like eggs and meat so it is pretty useful).
Raspberry (smoothies).
Potato (fries).
Lettuce (burger)
Tomato (burger, ketchup, pizza)
Wheat (dough, bread, toast).
Strawberry (juice).
Onion (potato cake, supreme pizza, sausage in bread).
Rice (curry rice).
Spice Leaf (curry rice, supreme pizza, maple sausage).
Chili Pepper (curry rice).
Coconut (curry rice) (these are a tree crop and can be found in wet forests such as tropical or just dense wet areas - you can make make a tree to farm them once you have one).
Bell Pepper (supreme pizza)
Maple Syrup (maple sausage) (grows in Pam's Maple trees - like sap grows in rubber trees - can be found in world but tough to spot - can be purchased in coins shop and can use them to make more saplings if you wish).
Spinach (beef wellington)
White Mushroom (beef wellington)

You can generally make everything for the healing axe quest before you go to the nether. The only thing you can't make is Rainbow Curry because you will need Burning Blossom (Biomes O' Plenty) from the nether to make that.

Steam Age

In the steam age we begin to push for some steel and I like to always be making coke bricks (using the alloy smelter) when I'm not using steam.