Medium Voltage (MV)

Medium Voltage (MV) is the second electric tier in GregTech: New Horizons. It introduces fewer new mechanics, but instead improves and expands what the player has already seen in LV.

Some of the suggested milestones the player should look for in MV are:

• Craft the Electrolyzer to split many natural resources into basic elements, most notably aluminium, oxygen and silicon.
• Upgrade your LV machines - you probably can't pass by the Arc Furnace, Assembler, Circuit Assembler, Chemical Reactor, Chemical Bath, Cutting Machine, Extruder, Fluid Extractor, Fluid Solidifier and/or Laser Engraver.
• Diesel is a significant improvement over Light Fuel which can be mixed in the MV Mixer.
• Tree farm setups can switch from Steam to Benzene, but will require Gas Turbines.
• Make a silicon processing line and start accumulating solar grade silicon, you'll need it later.
• Making lots of Polyethylene is also a good idea, automating it is even better.
• Upgrade your EBF(s) with Kanthal coils to smelt new ingots.
• Find sources of Chrome and Manganese for stainless steel, a material used very heavily in HV.

• Aluminium & defeating the first Twilight Forest boss Naga, which gives the player access to Thaumcraft.
• Create the Good Miner for additional mining range and fortune bonus. Remember that it can be powered by LV generators.
• Use EnderIO Item Conduits to instantly move things around complex networks. The EnderIO conduits have additional bonuses, such as routing, support for item filtering, and the ability to pull from non-output machine sides, but have less throughput without upgrades.
• Use the Tool Forge to fill out your set of Tinker's Construct Hammer/Excavator/Scythe/Cleaver and other tools.
• Convert single-block steam/LV machines to their MV counterparts, or upgrade to Steam multiblocks (Steam Oven, Steam Grinder, Steam Squasher, etc).
• Start Bees or IC2 Crops for renewable resources.
• Botania & Witchery.

On top of the concerns from LV machinery, the addition of MV power means keeping higher voltage lines away from low voltage cables and machines. Giving machines a higher voltage than they are rated for will make them explode. Putting MV power on a LV cable/wire will make it burn up, catch fire and potentially explode adjacent machines. To avoid a catastrophic failure by accidental over-voltage, separate LV and MV machinery rooms, use different cable sizes, and/or paint your cables.

Providing a lower voltage than a machine is rated for is safe. For examples, while a Good Miner is MV-tier, it only uses 1/4 of an MV amp, meaning that as long as a there isn't any cable loss, it can be powered with 1A of LV energy.

Transformers are used to convert EU between power tiers. To run LV machinery off MV power generation, a Transformer is necessary to convert the energy into LV voltage. One Amp (1A) of the higher tier will make four Amps (4A) of the next tier down in Step-Down mode, the default (1A MV -> 4A LV). In Inverted Step-Up mode, Transformers can take four lower voltage amps and output a single higher voltage amp (4A LV -> 1A MV). Keep in mind that in this mode the lower voltage sides become the Input, and the higher voltage side is therefore the Output. The single larger circle on a Transformer is always the side that connects to the higher voltage.

Hit the transformer with a Soft Mallet to switch between its two modes. “Machine Active” is Step-Down mode, "Machine Inactive" is Step-Up mode. Never change mode on a transformer that has power or it will explode. Always disconnect cables before switching modes on Transformers.

The Power Transformer works like an ordinary transformer with one exception. It will accept 4A of higher voltage and turn it into 16A of lower voltage in its default mode. In inverted mode it will transform 16A of lower voltage to 4A of higher voltage.

MV is a new tier, and will require new materials. The player should find a mesa biome in order to source clay dust for aluminum. A large amount of aluminum is used in MV, expect multiple trips to a mesa!

The player should stockpile multiple resources during early MV such as silicon dioxide/raw silicon and cryolite, which is used for aluminum production. Mining 3 Galena veins should provide enough for most of MV.

Raw silicon is used in mid/late MV to produce solar grade silicon. Solar grade silicon is used everywhere from HV-LuV. Expect to automate this (see automation section for more details).

Oxygen should be first to be automated. Breed some max stat sugar beet seeds and get a Crop Manager on it, that plus an electrolyser or two should carry you well past EV. Alternately, Sweed can be made with a little Thaumcraft progression and harvested with the Ender IO Farming Station.

Polyethylene is vital to progression to HV and should be automated as soon as possible. The main issue is obtaining ethylene. You can use multiple different machines to obtain ethylene.

• Pyrolyse oven - The Pyrolyse oven produces charcoal, but we are more interested in the byproducts. Wood gas can be used directly in a distillery to produce ethylene. Don't expect this to last, this setup is slow.

• Oil - Oil can be used to produce ethylene through a long line of processing: Oil ->(Distillery) sulfuric naphtha

Sulfuric naphtha ->(Chemical Reactor) Naphtha

Naphtha ->(Chemical Reactor) Severely steamcracked naphtha

Severely steamcracked naphtha ->(Distillery) Ethylene Note: other Oil products like refinery gas can be used, look at NEI for what best suits your setup.

• Biofuel - For completely renewable ethylene, consider biofuel. Consult NEI, there are many ways to do this.

Another material needed to be automated is solar grade silicon. There are two ways to do this, as listed in the quest book. Method one requires more machines but is faster overall than method 2. Most players go with method 2, as the time save isnt significant enough to matter.

There are 3 main goals in MV. 1. Obtaining Stainless Steel 2. Semi/Fully automatic Polyethylene 3. HV Circuits ("advanced circuit")

This section will cover all 3 in detail.

Every goal discussed here is gated behind an EBF with Kanthal coils and MV power.

1. Stainless steel is a very important material required for virtually everything in HV. The dust is made with a mix of chrome, manganese, iron and nickel (or invar, which is just a mix of the last two).

Nickel can be sourced from nickel ore in the twilight forest, or as byproduct of some basic ore processing chains (iron, gold, copper)

Chrome has multiple ways it can be sourced. Electrolyzing ruby dust provides some chrome, but it is instead recommended to use a ruby juice line (whether manually or automatically) to process ruby for much more chrome.

Manganese can be sourced from Grossular ore veins (one of the rarest veins in the game!) Or alternatively from XP buckets. It is recommended to use Grossular veins, as they also provide tantalum. Tantalum is used for SMD transistors and better SMD resistor recipes.

2. Automate various things. (see automation section)

3. HV circuits are the mark of the start of HV. They are very complicated and require a new circuit line: integrated circuits. They also require transistors, which is why solar grade silicon should be automated. (see automation section)

Integrated circuits will be new and not simple to craft! Its not a sign that your base isn't strong enough to handle HV if these circuits take a long time to craft/figure out.

Transistors require solar grade silicon, but if you have been electrolyzing clay for alumina that shouldn't be a problem. They will also take some time to figure out.

Don't expect HV to be easier. This game doesn't have a difficulty curve, it has a difficulty cliff.