Ad Astra: From First Machines to Your First Launch

guide

Ad Astra is a space-travel tech mod, and reaching orbit means building an energy grid, processing new metals, and assembling a rocket. This guide walks the ground-level progression before your first launch.

Energy first

Energy is the core resource of Ad Astra — every machine needs it. Start with a coal generator, then upgrade to a solar panel, which produces more energy per tick and is self-reliant. Move power around with cables (steel, or the faster desh variant) and store it in an energizer or a portable Etrionic Capacitor.

Plates and steel

Two early machines unlock most recipes. The compressor turns ingots and blocks into plates — for example, one Iron Ingot compresses into an Iron Plate, and a Block of Iron into nine. The Etrionic Blast Furnace makes Steel Ingot by combining iron and coal, one steel per iron and coal, and steel is essential for machines and the first rocket.

Fuel and oxygen

Fuel starts as oil, which erupts at the ocean surface and never comes back once taken, so gather more than you think you need — a launch plus the trip home wants six buckets at minimum — and put it through a refinery. To breathe off-world, an oxygen loader extracts oxygen from water, which you collect into a tank or space suit.

Building the rocket

Craft the rocket parts — nose cone, plates, fins, tanks and engine — then assemble a Tier 1 Rocket at the Nasa Workbench from a Rocket Nose Cone, six Steel Block, four Rocket Fin, two Steel Tank and a Steel Engine. Place it on a launch pad, load three buckets of fuel, and you are ready for the Moon.

Breathing off-world

Nothing past the Overworld is breathable, so a Space Suit is equipment, not decoration. The Oxygen Loader is what fills it: feed the machine water and it separates out Oxygen, which you draw into a tank or straight into the suit.

For somewhere you intend to stay, build an Oxygen Distributor from four Fan, a Large Gas Tank, an Oxygen Loader, two Desh Plate and an Oxygen Gear. Sealed inside a room it fills the space with breathable air, and the helmet can come off indoors.

Cryo fuel from ice

The cryo freezer turns ice into Cryo Fuel, and which ice you feed it matters enormously. Against plain Ice as the baseline, Packed Ice returns twice as much, Blue Ice ten times, and an Ice Shard twenty-five times. Hauling shards rather than ice blocks is the difference between one trip and several.