Factories & Minetorio

Your first factory

Build in main Survival. Factories are disabled in the Nether, End, Adventure World, dungeons, and lobby/event worlds. Claim the area first.

1. Open /mt guide and /mt recipes. Gather iron, copper, smooth stone, glass, furnaces, redstone, and fuel.
2. Craft a Crude Assembler: six copper ingots, two iron ingots, and one redstone block. Top row: copper / copper / copper. Middle: iron / redstone block / iron. Bottom: copper / copper / copper.
3. Use the Crude Assembler to work towards a Power Pylon, two Combustion Generators, and a Basic Assembler.
4. Fuel the generators and put the machines within the pylon’s grid. A pylon connects things; it does not generate power.
5. Make a Research Lab, select a technology with /mt research, and supply the science packs it asks for.

Getting a machine to work

A machine needs the correct recipe, all ingredients, output space, and any required power or liquids. Recipes belong to specific crafting devices. A Basic Assembler recipe will not necessarily run in a Crude Assembler.

Use the machine information display when something stops. Check one missing requirement at a time. Start by hand-feeding a short line, then add automation once it works.

The Auto Crafter is for supported recipes and cannot reproduce custom server items. Use the intended recipe system for those. Vanilla recycling is disabled, so don’t feed valuables into a Recycler assuming you will get the materials back.

Power, batteries, and steam

Use a Wire Tool to inspect coverage and connections. If stored power keeps falling, your grid is using more than it makes. Batteries hold a maximum of 1,000 power each; they store spare generation rather than creating it.

Combustion Generators are a straightforward starting point. Keep them fuelled. Solar output changes with day/night, cloud cover, and dust buildup, so give a solar grid battery storage and clean panels when needed.

The starter steam chain uses a pump over water, a boiler, pipes and junctions, and three Steam Engines with two grindstones each. Get water into the boiler, fuel it, then connect steam to the engines. Check each liquid connection before adding more machines.

Move inputs in and outputs out

Movers handle transfers between containers and machines. Belts carry items along visible routes, while pipes carry liquids. Check direction and filter settings before filling a line with expensive ingredients.

• Use the swap-hand key while looking at a Mover to reverse it.
• Use filters to stop fuel, ingredients, and finished products going to the wrong place.
• Leave overflow storage. One full output can stop every machine behind it.
• Use junctions to connect liquid networks to devices. Keep incompatible liquids separate.
• Later, Roboports with provider/requester chests support robot logistics. Trains help connect remote resource sites.

A compact layout is easier to power, keep loaded, and troubleshoot than a line stretched across lots of chunks.

Research is your progression

Technology progression is enabled with a 1.2 cost scale. Select a research target and feed its required science packs into powered Labs. Multiple Labs help only when you can keep all their inputs supplied.

Factory sharing does not merge research: each player keeps their own technology progress. Buying or receiving a machine is not the same as unlocking the technology needed to use it.

Automate common parts first: plates, gears, cable, circuits, and science packs. A steady supply of simple components gets you further than one advanced machine with empty inputs. Full space travel and planets are disabled.

Quarries and resource zones

Auto Miners use physical quarry mode. They remove blocks and can dig 128 blocks down from their placement. Check underneath before switching one on. Keep replacement pickaxes and a lot of output storage ready.

Deep Drills are different: they extract from a resource zone using the required power and lubricant. Zones use a 0.85 resource multiplier, have 128-block spacing, and do not regenerate. A depleted zone is not an infinite mine.

Use Seismic Reading progression to find resources, then plan transport back to your main factory. Once a site is exhausted, you’ll need another source.

Chunks, offline production, and wear

Machines need their required chunks loaded. Deep Drills stop when unloaded, and Chunk Loader radius is capped at 1.

Factories are not globally switched off just because their owner logs out. They still need loaded chunks and their usual inputs. Don’t confuse “owner offline” with “factory unloaded.”

Device upkeep is currently off. You do not need to run a spare-parts repair loop for routine wear under these settings. If a machine stops, check power, recipe inputs, output, research, world, and loaded chunks first.

Pollution and biters

Pollution, biters, and biter attacks are enabled. Production uses a 0.85 pollution multiplier, and wave defense is enabled. Keep access around your factory and prepare defenses before expanding noisy production.

Pollution is not set to rewrite terrain or stunt your crops and animals. That does not make attacks harmless. Keep your factory protected and avoid packing machines into a layout you cannot move through.

Other limits and costs

• Auto Breeder limit: 20 nearby animals. Auto Butcher setting: 16. Keep pens sensible.
• Mover lift range: 20 blocks. Human teleporter range: 300 blocks. Elevator range: 50 blocks.
• Imports have a 7.5% flat tax, plus distance-based charges. Stored device balances over $5,000 use a 0.1% balance tax. Check the device’s displayed charge before using it.
• Nuclear setups need proper cooling and radiation planning. Build and learn the smaller power systems first.

Building with friends

Use /mt sharing for factory access and claim trust for land access. They are separate permissions. Decide who places and owns the devices before building a shared production line.

Keep useful production running and shut down lines you don’t need. Server-provided automation is part of the game; using bots, reward exploits, or lag machines is not.

Three useful starter lines

You don’t need an enormous layout to start saving yourself work. Get one of these running, then copy what works.

Follow /mt recipes for ingredient counts and the correct crafting machine. These are production layouts, not permission to skip the research for a device.

Factory controls worth learning

If you remapped swap hands, use your own binding instead of F. Make sure you are looking at the intended device before copying or reversing anything.

Movers, grabbers, and overflow

A Mover pulling from a motorized belt is a grabber. Belt-side position matters: it normally takes from the closer side. A lever above it lets it use both sides. Feeding onto a belt has the same side-selection issue, so check where your ingredients actually land.

Use a little test material first. It is much easier to fix a reversed mover with ten cobblestone than with a chest of finished components.

Build and check a steam line

1. Put a pump over water and a pipe above the pump.
2. Run the water pipe to the boiler. Use a liquid junction where the liquid network enters a device.
3. Fuel the boiler and confirm that it receives water and produces steam.
4. Run the steam connection to three Steam Engines. Give each engine two grindstones for venting.
5. Check the power grid with the Wire Tool before connecting more production.

If engines have no steam, work backwards: engine connection, boiler output, boiler fuel, water connection, then pump. Adding more engines will not fix a boiler with no water.

When you move into oil

Oil processing is a chain of recipes. Refining and further processing turn heavy oil into light oil and light oil into petrol. Petrol supports petroleum engines and plastic production; plastic is needed for red circuits.

Keep each liquid route clear and check storage for every output. A backed-up output can stop an otherwise powered refinery. Plan the next processing stage before you fill the first tank.

Robot logistics and remote sites

A working robot network needs a Roboport, robots, provider chests, requester chests, and the power-grid coverage to connect them. A provider makes items available; a requester asks for them. A chest holding something is not automatically a provider.

For distant mining sites, trains can bring resources back to one processing base. This saves rebuilding the same processing setup at every deposit. Keep unloading storage large enough that one full chest does not block the whole route.

A factory stopped. Check this order.

1. Is the machine in an allowed world, and are its required chunks loaded?
2. Does the grid reach it, and is generation keeping up with consumption?
3. Do you have the device’s research and access?
4. Is the recipe selected in the right kind of machine?
5. Are all ingredients, fuel, and liquids reaching the correct inputs?
6. Is the output full, the belt backed up, or the mover reversed?
7. For drills, is the resource zone depleted or lubricant missing?

Device upkeep is off in the current setup, so buying spare parts is not the first fix for a stalled machine. Solve the missing input or connection before replacing the device.