Mechanical Crafters form physical crafting patterns: each crafter represents a slot and sends held ingredients toward an output when powered. They are valuable for recipes that feel like machinery assembly rather than ordinary hand crafting.
Using a crafter array
- Lay crafters in the recipe shape, point their outputs along a valid path and feed the correct ingredients into each position.
- The exported settings allow ordinary crafting recipes to be processed by Mechanical Crafters.
- Use filtered supply lines when repeated production depends on exact ingredient positions.
Build role
- A locomotive workshop or engineering works is a fitting place for large crafter arrays producing advanced components.
Production-line design
- Every process has an input position, an operation condition and an output path.
- Buffering at depots, vaults or chests prevents one slow stage from freezing the whole line.
Recipe verification
- Use the recipe viewer to confirm steps and required heat or fluids.
- Use Ponder to see how the machine expects items to be presented.
Processing as modules
A processing cell should make four things obvious: its input, its required condition, its operation and its output. For example, a press needs items placed under its working head; a basin process needs ingredients, powered operation and sometimes heat.
Once one cell is reliable, repeat or connect cells using belts, chutes, funnels, arms and storage. Modular processing lines are easier to upgrade, supply by train and sell from a player market.
Throughput and storage
Higher speed is useful only when every downstream stage can accept the results. When a line stalls, the apparent failure may be a full output inventory rather than the machine that stopped moving.