GregTech: New Horizons

GregTech: New Horizons (GT:NH) is a Minecraft (2011) 1.7.10 modpack featuring realistic machines, chemistry, and thousands of hours of content. The end goal is to create a Stargate. The original mod, GregTech, was created by GregoriusT. It was expanded upon to create GT:NH by DreamMasterXXL and a team of developers experienced in the game. Most had previously obtained a Stargate.

The pack contains an exceptionally well-written quest book with over 100,000 words. It spans 14 tiers. In the first 50 hours, players create Steam machines. Eventually, they work up to powering a base with the 32-bit integer limit of power. In the endgame stages, players also create pocket universes to gain near-infinite resources. GT:NH is considered one of the most intellectually demanding Minecraft modpacks. By the third tier, High Voltage (HV), players must understand realistic chemistry and electronics. The average time to obtain the Stargate is 3,000 in-game hours solo.

History of GregTech

GregTech was established in 2013 and has undergone continuous development, with updates extending through 2025. The community demonstrates strong cohesion, as reflected in the consistent engagement surrounding each new release.

2013: In 2013, GregoriusT played IndustrialCraft2 (IC2), the most popular tech modpack at the time, and decided he wanted something harder. A combination of CraftTweaker, IC2, and hundreds of other mods formed the beginnings of today’s GregTech, an addon to IC2. DreamMasterXXL started playing the modpack at this time.

2014: DreamMasterXXL decided GregTech was too easy for him and set out to create a more difficult version of GregTech, and named it GregTech: New Horizons. It took him a year, but he finally released the first version of GT:NH to the public. The pack contained progression to about the Ultimate Voltage (UV) tier; however, it looked very different from GT:NH today.

2015: GregoriusT began the notorious GregTech 6 (GT6) as a full rewrite of GregTech. GT6 is far less popular compared to its cousin, GregTech 5 (GT5), as its gameplay differs significantly from what the community is familiar with. GT6 is still in development, and there are a few playthroughs on YouTube. During this time, GT:NH began to gain traction within the community.

2016: GT:NH continued to be developed as its community grew larger. GT5 and GT6 started to be recognized by players seeking challenges, as opposed to regular tech modpacks. At this time, GregTech began to integrate itself into more technology modpacks.

2017: GregoriusT attempted to add Tinker’s Construct (TCon), a popular mod at the time, to GregTech. Tinker’s Construct originally caused massive amounts of bugs, rendering modpacks containing it unplayable. The creator of Tinker’s Construct became fed up with all the error reports coming from GregTech packs and declared the mod banned from all GregTech releases. After a few months of negotiation, the errors were eventually fixed and TCon was returned to the pack.

2018: Development on GregTech: Community Edition (GT:CE) began, intended to curb the extreme difficulty that GregTech had at this point and make a more beginner-friendly modpack. It was made in a more modern version of Minecraft, solidifying it as a top choice for modern GregTech modpacks. Omnifactory, the precursor to Nomifactory, was established early at this time with a similar goal to GT:CE.

2019: GregoriusT returned to GT5 with a new passion to start GregTech 5u (GT5u). GT6’s energy system was completely revamped, a change largely disliked by the community to this day. GT:CE continued with a separate team this year while Omnifactory was fully released to the public.

2020: Not much happened to GregTech besides all of the main mods being developed and merged. Nomifactory was released as a remake of Omnifactory to make GregTech more inviting.

2021: GT:NH was really popular, focused on the older GT6. Nomifactory and Omnifactory became great choices for new players.

2022: Gregorius made no new updates to GT5 in 2022. Many famous GregTech playthroughs began this year, with numerous popular modded Minecraft YouTubers playing the pack. More and more modern GregTech packs appeared. The Create mod was released this year, changing modern packs forever.

2023–2024: No major updates were made in these years, but GT:NH and GTCEu reached a new height of popularity.

2025: The GregTech 10-year anniversary update (2.7.2) is released, although delayed.

Tiers

GregTech progression is based on 13 electric tiers (and 2 non-electric tiers). Each tier is four times the power requirements of the previous tier, starting at 32 EU/t, which can be produced from steam. The tiers are, in order:

0, Stone (Non-electric)

0.5, Steam (Non-electric)

1, Low Voltage (LV, 32 EU/t)

2, Medium Voltage (MV, 128 EU/t)

3, High Voltage (HV, 512 EU/t)

4, Extreme Voltage (EV, 2,048 EU/t)

5, Insane Voltage (IV, 8,192 EU/t)

6, Ludicrous Voltage (LuV, 32,768 EU/t)

7, Zero Point Module (ZPM, 131,072 EU/t)

8, Ultimate Voltage (UV, 524,288 EU/t)

9, Highly Ultimate Voltage (UHV, 2,097,152 EU/t)

10, Extended Ultimate Voltage (UEV, 8,388,608 EU/t)

11, Insanely Ultimate Voltage (UIV, 33,554,432 EU/t)

12, Mega Ultimate Voltage (UMV, 134,217,728 EU/t)

13, Maximum Voltage (MAX, 2,147,483,647 EU/t)

In each tier, the player must use a different material to craft that tier’s Machine Hull block.

The Stargate

The Stargate was never meant to be crafted and started out as a joke. However, nowadays it is considered the final craft of the game; it requires vast amounts of materials for just the mere 13 blocks needed, including 2.14 trillion liters of molten iron. Each recipe is done in a full Avaritia Dire Crafting Table, the most difficult crafting device to obtain.

The Stargate itself is merely a teleportation device; however, it is touted as a token of dedication and is a major accomplishment for any team or player. Once a player crafts one Stargate, the quest book provides the blocks to construct a second one.

The Stargate connects to other Stargates by dialing their nine-digit alphanumeric code separated by two dashes. It also requires immense built-up power to run.

Difficulty

If you aren’t a gregger, you might ask: “What’s preventing someone from TASing this in a few hours? What could possibly make a Minecraft mod take real-life years?”

The atrocious combinations of explosions, recipe times, crafting costs, multiblock sizes, and a difficult early game that pushes away many players contribute to the difficulty. Machines can explode in so many different ways, I can’t even list them all here. Sending a higher voltage than needed to a machine will blow it up. If it rains on/next to the machine, it explodes. Installing transformers on your best machine and having it self-destruct is the worst pain you could think of. IndustrialCraft2 vacuum tubes, an incredible source of power in EV-IV, can blow up a thousand hours of work in 10 seconds. Base obliterated, chain reactions, nuclear reactors overheating… the possibilities are endless for explosions.

Ok, what if you’re just incredibly careful? I would never set off a nuke by accident in my base…

Take the Cleanroom in HV—it’s needed to unlock the Moon and your first rocket for titanium. The NASA Workbench (rocket crafting table) needs Insane Voltage circuits, which need a Cleanroom to craft. A singular Cleanroom block is an amalgamation of concrete, plastic, and other items that make it a hell to build in HV. Not even mentioning that it’s recommended to build it 7x7…

There’s just no way to speedrun this game. Take the Dimensionally Transcendent Plasma Forge (DTPF) in very late game. It requires 2,112 coil blocks (preferably infinity at the time) which is just ridiculous, considering each coil requires foil and 8 ingots of the item. No one is doing that, let alone getting there, in under 1,000 hours.

One last thing I can think of is something we named ourselves: crafting dilemmas. Due to the massive scope of GTNH (150,000 items) it can seem very difficult where to go or what to do at times. Bees, IC2 crops, main progression, passives, base building, applied energistics. All worth it for progression, but valuable at different times. Once you decide what you want to work on—let’s say, a MV-tier Chemical Bath—you look at how deep the crafting tree goes for just a Tier 2 machine—MV Machine Hull, MV Pump, 2 MV Conveyor Modules, Copper Cable, Glass—and remember all of these recipes are Gregified beyond belief.

Don’t go ahead and try to speedrun this; the fastest run I’ve ever seen reached the Moon in 75 hours.

Getting Started

GTNH may seem difficult to start, especially as a first or second tech pack—that’s because it is. The game throws you directly into the heat with infernal mobs and a very, very difficult Day 1 bed. Go to the well-maintained GT:NH wiki for install instructions (requires a valid Microsoft account with Java and a decent computer to get any frames).

The Quest Book will be your lord and savior—remember it has a keybind and you don’t need one in your inventory. Set up your base near a river or ocean and check the humidity level in your base with the tooltips in the top left (>70% is ideal).

The grind will be grueling, but you will eventually reach the Steam Age, then the LV tier. Some tips I used while going through Steam to MV:

Build a Steam Grinder multiblock, it’s valid until IV
Build at least 4 BBFs (yes it sucks but it will help massively)
Use Coal Coke Blocks in the BBF for ideal production, gives extra steel per block and is done in 10 steel batches.
Plan for a larger base with more multiblocks
Switch off of using Steam power ASAP, I used light fuel which can be made with a few machines from oil.
Fill out your arsenal of LV machines; you’ll need them.
Build your EBF at the end of LV and start producing Aluminium, Steel, Redstone Alloy, etc. Remember to overclock to MV with 2 LV energy hatches.
Find a mesa biome with terracotta to process into alumina dust for aluminium.
Batch craft! I crafted 48 HVs at the start of the tier and it helped immensely with not getting burnt out.
Remember that you can’t start applied energistics until Titanium (after the Moon in HV)

Hopefully you get past the noob-game, and good luck!

Other Modpacks with GregTech

There are an array of modpacks with similar gameplay to GT:NH but much easier, or much shorter.

Nomifactory CEu: This is probably the best option for an introduction to GT. It introduces you to everything, skips the Steam age, and runs on GTCEu, a much easier version. You can also choose to have a void world teleporter from the beginning.
Star Technology: Basically like NCEu, but skyblock instead. It does contain the Create mod and is much more forgiving. People who don’t like mining choose this often.
Omnifactory: Just harder Nomifactory, but not as hard as GTNH. Has a void world option just like NCEu.
Supersymmetry (unreleased): Supersymmetry is intended to be the hardest GregTech pack to ever exist, requiring 35 steps for PTFE shows you how hard this might be. This is NOT a first pack, ever, and is for only the most advanced of greggers.
GTNH April Fools 2025: This pack is all about Steam—the steamgate, Stronze, Breel, the list of massive steam multiblocks goes on and on. The pack never uses electricity and even includes a wireless steam network later! This is mostly a joke and crafting the Steamgate doesn’t mean much.

What makes GregTech fun?

If you ask someone who plays GregTech, “Why put yourself through this?”, you will usually get one of two answers: “A friend forced me to” or “The feeling of crafting something that took you weeks.”

After playing GregTech for 300 hours, I feel a genuine attachment to the game and I know it’s going to be one of those games that I play for years. The feeling of finally crafting the Cleanroom, our first Rocket, the EBF, all give a sense of satisfaction that really make everything you make feel worth it. There is no unhelpful side quest in GregTech. Only the idea that when you make one step, there’s fifteen more ahead—but when you finally take a big step and complete a milestone—it’s amazing.

As of writing this, GTNH 2.8 has just released.

References

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