What is the Thermal Series?
The Thermal Series is Team CoFH's family of tech mods for Forge: Thermal Foundation (materials), Thermal Expansion (machines), Thermal Dynamics (ducts), and siblings covering locomotion, innovation, and cultivation. Its lineage goes back to the original Thermal Expansion, the mod that introduced Redstone Flux (RF), the energy standard most of modded Minecraft still uses in spirit.
Thermal machines are known for clean, predictable design — each machine does one job and upgrades install as Augments. The visual language of these GUIs has been copied across the ecosystem for a decade.
Getting Started with Machines and Dynamos
- Craft a Redstone Furnace — the entry machine and a component of most others.
- Add a Pulverizer. It grinds ores into dusts for doubled ingot output, with bonus secondary dusts (nickel from iron, and so on).
- Power them with Dynamos. The Stirling Dynamo burns solid fuels, while the Magmatic variant drinks lava and Compression Dynamos run on liquid fuel. Each accepts augments for output and efficiency.
- Store power in Energy Cells and move it with Fluxducts (or any FE-compatible pipe from the pack).
- Expand the line. The Induction Smelter alloys metals (bronze, invar, electrum), the Magma Crucible melts stone into lava, and the Fluid Transposer fills and empties containers.
Thermal's alloys — Signalum, Lumium, and Enderium — gate the machine tiers. Upgrade kits convert a basic machine up through Hardened, Reinforced, Signalum, and Resonant tiers with better speed and augment slots.
Augments, Storage, and Ecosystem
- Augments customize machines: more speed at an energy cost, secondary-output boosts, fuel efficiency, or specialized modes.
- Satchels provide filtered portable storage; Caches store one item type in bulk.
- Itemducts and Fluiducts (Thermal Dynamics) handle logistics with servos and filters on the endpoints.
- Thermal Cultivation adds watering cans and crop tools; Thermal Locomotion covers minecart infrastructure.
The series targets Forge on 1.16.5 through 1.20.1. Modern kitchen-sink packs frequently pair Thermal's straightforward ore processing with deeper endgames from Mekanism or Create.
Thermal Series FAQ
What is the difference between Thermal Expansion and the Thermal Series?
Thermal Expansion is the machines module; the Thermal Series is the whole family, spanning Foundation, Expansion, Dynamics, Cultivation, Locomotion, and Innovation. Modern packs usually ship several modules together.
Does the Thermal Series support NeoForge or Fabric?
The mainline releases target Forge from 1.16.5 to 1.20.1. Check the CurseForge pages for newer ports; for 1.21+ packs, similar machine roles are usually filled by Mekanism or EnderIO.
How do I double ores with Thermal?
Run raw ores through the Pulverizer into dusts, then smelt the dusts. The Induction Smelter with rich slag gives higher multipliers on some setups, and augments push yields further.