| SpaceToad posted BuildCraft on the Minecraft Forum on 25 April 2011, describing it as "a new game mod aiming at allowing users to build advanced structures and mechanisms". The thread's opening post credits the code to SpaceToad and the pixels to plashal. | opening section | Dev blog |
| Adrian Siekierka (asie), who joined BuildCraft's developers in October 2014, wrote in 2015 that when BuildCraft came out, under Minecraft Beta 1.4, almost none of the later mods existed, and IndustrialCraft 1 had come out a month before. | opening sectionopening sectionopening section | Dev blog |
| By asie's account, the first release had five pipes and no building or crafting; 1.5_01.3 added quarries and automatic crafting tables, which then ran on fast-clocked redstone; 1.6.5.1 added vacuum pipes (later obsidian pipes), land marks and the filler. He also dates mining wells to 1.5_01.1, which the first release's code contradicts. | opening sectionopening sectionopening section | Dev blog |
| By asie's account, BuildCraft 2.0.0, at the end of July 2011, was the first version to depend on Minecraft Forge and added the power system, Minecraft Joules; 2.0.1 brought oil and wrenches, 2.1.0 liquid pipes and pumps, and 2.2.0 conductive pipes, fuel and the refinery. | on 2.0.0on 2.0.0on 2.0.0 | Dev blog |
| asie writes that Eloraam, FlowerChild and SpaceToad created Minecraft Forge, an API on top of Risugami's ModLoader for patches several mods needed, and that SpaceToad made its first commits on 12 July 2011. | on 1.7.2.1 and Forgeon 1.7.2.1 and Forge | Dev blog |
| SpaceToad released BuildCraft 2.2.1 "with SMP capabilities" (multiplayer servers) on 8 October 2011. asie dates earlier multiplayer support, through ModLoaderMP, to 1.7.2.1. | on 1.7.2.1 and Forge | Dev blog |
| SpaceToad previewed 3.1.0 on 28 December 2011. By asie's account it was billed as "completing the initial mission of BuildCraft" and brought blueprints and blueprint libraries. | on 3.1.0 | Dev blog |
| asie names Krapht’s Logistics Pipes among the most notable BuildCraft addons, adding a routing system that supplies and provides items. | on the 2.2 branch | Dev blog |
| In 2015 asie, then a BuildCraft developer, credited the mod with "the first pipes, quarries and builders", and named gates and the filler among its features, quite a few of which he said other mods hadn't replicated. | design views | Dev blog |
| By BuildCraft 3.2.2 (December 2012) the engine's screen names the unit: output in "MJ/t" and the store in "MJ". The 2.2.4 code counts the same energy as a bare integer. | opening section, on 2.0.0 | Code |
| Of IndustrialCraft, BuildCraft and Thermal Expansion, IndustrialCraft 1 has the earliest known power network: the IC wiki described its cables carrying a generator's current to machines by 11 April 2011. BuildCraft added its power system, Minecraft Joules, in 2.0.0 at the end of July 2011, by the account of its later developer asie, and Thermal Expansion's first release, in June 2012, needed power from BuildCraft or Forestry. Factorio's earliest date read here is its first demo, released on 31 December 2012; when its electric poles arrived isn't read here. | on 2.0.0 | Wiki |