Getting Started Guide

Metallurgy 4: Reforged is a Minecraft mod that attempts to dramatically expand upon the ores and tools system present in the base game by adding 30+ metals to the game. Most metals can be refined from ores much like Iron and Gold in the base game, while others require alloying.

Basic Progression

Progressing through Metallurgy 4: Reforged is not too dramatically different when compared with the standalone Minecraft experience. Crafting a pickaxe of a given tool level allows you to mine ores of a harder ore level, and so on and so forth. Wood - Stone - Iron - Diamond is no longer the progression path, and there is now many possible metals, allowing for hundreds of potential progression paths. The tier list of ores and tools can be found here.

There is an optional intermediate step before iron if you wish for more durable tools, using Copper and Silver.

You can peek at the Mod Advancements for more information about each metal and the progression you can follow.
There are some tooltips under ingot and ore items as well, there you can see what tier each metal is part of.

Alloys

Some metals, such as steel, are not taken from the ground. They must be created by combining metals together in a real-world process known as Alloying. Alloying can be done using machines that exist in the mod, or through similar methods in mods such as Tinker's Construct. A full list of recipies for alloys can be found here.

Complementary Mods

While Metallurgy is designed with a stand-alone experience in mind, mods in Minecraft are often enhanced by the presence of other mods. Four in particular are recommended by members of the community to streamline the experience. These mods can be installed at any time during your playthrough, although like all mods it is best if you install them from the beginning:

• Here's What You're Looking At by TehNut, What Are We Looking At by Darkhax and MinecraftModDevelopment, and WAILA Harvestability by squeek502. These three mods in combination will add UI elements to help inform you of what blocks can be harvested by what tools and what tier of tools. In addition, they will tell you what mod a given block or entity is from, assisting the mod developers in case something goes wrong.
• Just Enough Items by mezz. While not necessary it is highly reccomended to install Just Enough Items that will help you discovering crafting recipes for new items you might need or want. Add-ons to this mod will act like an in-game wiki for far more than just crafting materials.

There are two other notable additions: Tinker's Construct by mDiyo, boni, jadedcat and KnightMiner, and Construct's Armory by TheIllusiveC4. Metallurgy has full integration with TCon and is working on full integration with Construct's Armory, and the three mods complement each other quite well. However, if you are not interested in the changes to gameplay TCon brings, obviously this is not for you.

Do note that Tinker's Construct adds new ores to The Nether, and so will cause minor problems with installing mid play through and major problems with uninstalling mid play through.