[prefix{l}]Basic Materials[prefix{}]
In PneumaticCraft there are no extra ores generated in the ground. To get started, you only need Iron Ingots. You can convert those to Compressed Iron Ingots, which are heavily used in several recipes in PneumaticCraft. To do this, throw your Iron Ingots on the ground, and create an explosion next to it. TNT like the picture shows does the trick, but any other explosion works as well. As a side effect of the explosion you lose 10-30% of your ingots. To prevent this from happening you can also craft Compressed Iron Ingots in a [link{pneumaticcraft:menu/pressure_chamber}]Pressure Chamber[link{}]. However, to be able to craft the Pressure Chamber itself you need Compressed Iron Ingots.

[prefix{l}]Pressure Physics[prefix{}]
The compressed air in PneumaticCraft is based on real-life pressurized air. Therefore, the air has the following properties:

• Air travels from high pressure to low pressure. Leaving pipes unconnected will cause a giant air leak, which means energy loss! When machines have an air leak, this is visible as you can see smoke particles.
• Air pressure tries to balance. Connecting a small machine to a big air capacity (like a Pressure Chamber) will result in a slow pressure build-up.
• Air pressure applies force on the inner walls of a machine/pipe. Applying too much pressure results in a quick air release, known as an explosion. The pressure on which certain machines explode can be seen as the red area in a pressure gauge from a machine's user interface. Some will explode right when they hit the red, others will explode when they reach the end of the red, or anywhere in between. This isn't predictable. When the pressure is in the yellow area this means the pressure isn't high enough for the machine to operate.

[prefix{l}]Tiers [prefix{}]
PneumaticCraft currently has two tiers for pneumatic machines: Tier one machines are capable of nominally resisting 5 bar of pressure, while tier two machines can go up to 20 bar.  Note that "bar" as used by PneumaticCraft represents the pressure [prefix{o}]above[prefix{}] normal atmospheric pressure: 0 bar is unpressurized air, and -1 bar is a vacuum.

[prefix{l}]Machine Tabs[prefix{}]
Most of the machines in PneumaticCraft have a GUI (Graphical User Interface) which has tabs. Here is a list of the most commonly found tabs:

• [prefix{n}]Redstone behaviour[prefix{}]: In here you can select how a machine responds to redstone or when it should emit redstone.
• [prefix{n}]Information [prefix{}]: The info tab shows (static) information about what the machine is used for.
• [prefix{n}]Upgrades [prefix{}]: In here you can read about the upgrades this machine accepts, and what they do in the machine's context.
• [prefix{n}]Pressure Status[prefix{}]: Here you can find current pressure the machine is under and the volume of the machine.
• [prefix{n}]Problems [prefix{}]: If the machine doesn't work, this tab will point you in the right direction about what's wrong.
[image{320,70,0.5,pneumaticcraft:textures/wiki/compressed_iron.png}]
[image{380,420,0.5,pneumaticcraft:textures/wiki/pressure_gauge.png}]
[image{320,590,0.5,pneumaticcraft:textures/wiki/gui_tabs.png}]