Cornerstone: Industrial Foregoing - Introduction

Industrial Foregoing (IF) is a remake of MineFactory Reloaded (MFR).  It includes most of the machines from MFR, with some slight tweaks here and there for balancing.  It also has new machines such as a wireless energy system that generates a field which can power any other IF machines that have the necessary upgrade installed.  IF is all about automation: create a farm that plants, fertilizes (and waters) a field, then harvests the crops.  The systems are interlinked, so in order to make fertilizer for your field, you'll need to collect animal waste from farm animals.  You can setup an automated breeding system with crops from the automated farm, then slaughter animals for food and Pink Slime.  You'll need Pink Slime for the high end upgrades and Laser Drill, which generates random Ores for a large amount of RF.

IF has a built-in manual, which I highly recommend creating and reading.  It also integrates with JEI, so information about blocks is right in the interface.

Cornerstone: Draconic Evolution - Introduction

Draconic Evolution is an end-game mod.  It has some very powerful armor, tools and weapons, and has the largest energy storage and energy production system of any mod out there.  A fusion crafting system uses a multi-block crafting grid and millions (or billions) of RF.  Item recipes include Nether Stars, scores of diamonds/emeralds/gold, and a new ore called Draconium.  Higher tiers require Ender Dragon heart(s) (yes, plural, as in you'll be fighting the Ender Dragon a whole lot) and Chaos Shards, which come after defeating the new Chaos Guardian boss.  Think Ender Dragon on speed, with attacks that will kill you outright unless you have the highest armor upgraded as far as it can go.

The energy storage system can be upgraded to hold 9,223,372,036,854,775,807 RF.  That's not a random string of numbers, that's the maximum value for a 64-bit signed integer.  Good luck ever filing that to capacity or coming close to using that much RF for anything. :)

Cornerstone: Applied Energistics - Introduction

Applied Energistics is all about storage and automation.  Say goodbye to fields of chests in a room, and dump all your materials into a single storage system called an ME Network.  Craft right in your storage interface, or build processors and molecular assemblers to build complex items very quickly.  Connect up to machines from other mods and outsource material crafting to those machines, and import back into your network.  Items and even liquids are 'digitized' into the ME network, and reconstituted when you need to extract them from the network.  Items take up space on the network, so if you need more space, just add more storage cards.  Access the entire network from a terminal, or create a wireless terminal and place wireless access points to make a virtual WiFi network.

Cornerstone: The Thermal Series - Introduction

Thermal Expansion is one of my favorite mod series.  The machines just make sense, and it has changed over time to be even better.  If you haven't played recently some of the mechanics have changed, some things have been added, some taken away.  TE is a true backbone mod, many other mods rely on it for a framework to build upon.  TE handles ore generation, a power system called RedStone Flux (RF), fluid/item/power transfer pipes, and a suite of machines for different tasks.  Double ore output by pulverizing into dust, then smelt the dust in a furnace that runs on RF, not coal. Melt materials into fluids, then combine fluids with items to make new items.  Recharge items, or repair them.  Make snow and ice, lava and obsidian, from basic resources like water and cobblestone.

All of the machines, containers and blocks are upgradeable, and some can be augmented to perform new tasks or specialize in a certain task.  Increase output of the Pulverizer from 2 to 3 pieces, press gears or currency, power your generators with excess gems or enchanted items.  Store all of the experience you gain in a book, then extract that Essence of Knowledge and use it to enchant, repair or process in machines.

Cornerstone: Tinkers' Construct - Getting Started

The first thing you are going to want to build is a Smeltery, which can be used to double your ores, create alloys, and cast tool parts.  You can also skip right over the diamond requirement by casting obsidian blocks right in the smeltery, just combine 1 part lava and 1 part water!  Solid materials like ores and stone can be inserted into the Smeltery Controller, while liquids should be poured into a drain.  You can pour from a bucket, reservoir, or place a faucet over a drain.

Start off by collecting a stack or so of Clay, Gravel and Sand.  Combine to make Grout, then cook the Grout in a Furnace to make seared bricks.  Use the bricks to make a Seared Tank, Smeltery Controller, at least one Drain and one Faucet, a Casting basin and a Casting table.  Turn the rest of the bricks into blocks, then build a 3x3x1 multi-block structure including a drain, Smeltery Controller, and Seared Tank on any side.  Attach a faucet to the drain, then place up to 4 buckets of lava in the Tank.  You can also pipe lava into the tank using Hardened Fluiducts from Thermal Dynamics.

The Casting Basin can hold 9 ingots (in block form) of metals.  You'll need a Casting Table and an Ingot Cast in order to drain single ingots at a time, otherwise make sure to input metals in multiples of 9 and use your casting basin.  Casts are created by pouring 1 ingot of Aluminum Brass or 2 ingots of gold over a tool part that has been placed in the Casting Table; be warned this will consume the part so use cheap materials like a clay brick for an ingot and stone tool parts.  You can always drain any extra molten liquid into a Seared Tank, if you have too much and want to keep the material.  To drain from a Seared Tank back into the Smeltery, place the tank next to a drain, place a faucet on the tank so it is over the drain, and use the faucet and it should pour molten liquid right back into the Smeltery for use again.

You can melt different materials at a time, however be warned that some materials combine to make an alloy.  Some common alloys:

3 ingots Aluminum + 1 ingot copper = 4 ingots Aluminum Brass
3 ingots Copper + 1 ingot Tin = 4 ingots Bronze
1 bucket Lava + 1 bucket Water = 1 block of Obsidian
1 ingot Gold + 1 ingot Silver = 2 ingots Electrum
3 ingots Tin + 1 ingot Silver + 1 block of Glowstone = 4 ingots Lumium
3 ingots Copper + 1 ingot Silver + 4 pieces of Redstone = 4 ingots Signalum
3 ingots Lead + 1 ingot Platinum + 4 Ender Pearls = 4 ingots Enderium

There are many more, look up "Molten" in JEI/NEI to see their components.  Some math may be required to translate mB into ingots or blocks.

You can upgrade the Smeltery by increasing the size of the multi-block structure, but you don't need to make seared bricks with Grout!  Put cobblestone directly into the Smeltery and pour into casting basins and use the seared stone blocks to build the Smeltery even larger.  Seared Stone can be cast into ingots to form individual bricks if necessary.

Cornerstone: Tinkers' Construct - Introduction

Tinkers' Construct is a low tech mod all about making tools you keep for a long time.  Rather than slapping together some iron ingots and enchanting it, you create different tool parts out of many different materials with different properties and abilities, and combine those parts to make different tools.  Want a combination shovel and hoe?  What about a hammer that can mine 9 blocks at a time instead of the measly one a pickaxe can?  Make a crossbow that can fire faster and further than a bow can and reload much more quickly.  How about a laser gun that steals health with every shot? (ok, it's a little higher tech with the addition of PlusTIC.)  Smelt ores into liquids, combine them with other materials to make alloys, then pour the molten metal into a cast to shape a specific part.  Or triple your ores in the Ore Crusher and smelt them in overdrive, and create a stack of ingots.  Cook stacks of items at a time in the multi-block replacement for the furnace, it runs on lava!

You'll never break a tool again, because you can simply repair the tool using the core ingredients and bring the durability back up.  Play around with different material combinations as you explore the world and other dimensions.  Give your tool new abilities by applying rare materials like necrotic bones or emeralds.  Build the ultimate hotbar with tools designed to fit your playstyle.

Tinkers' Construct has a great in-game guide that will be in your inventory when you start the game.  Refer back to that manual often, and see what kind of new tools you can create when you just find the right resources...