Core principle: A conveyor solves distance, not congestion. Every route needs a destination that can accept material and enough space to survive temporary surges.
When to automate
Automate a process after you can make it work manually or with gravity. If the reaction itself is unstable, adding transport only moves the failure somewhere harder to see.
A good first automation target has three traits:
- the input appears repeatedly;
- the output has a clear use or disposal route;
- you can inspect the entire path without excavating the factory.
The Wet Sand → Shaker → Gold and Slag line meets all three.
Conveyors: movement with constraints
The official wiki describes Conveyors as transport for solid pixels. A large or unsuitable block can jam the belt and stop the pile behind it. The machine can also be reversed with the game's alternate placement control.
Reliable conveyor layout
- Give material a clean drop onto the middle of the belt.
- Avoid sharp pileups immediately before a narrow opening.
- Leave headroom above the route so accumulated pixels do not bridge into nearby channels.
- End the belt at a machine, storage area, or deliberate overflow—not a dead wall.
- Test the route with a small batch before opening the full input.
Filters: separate a mixed stream
A Filter is a conveyor with a configured exception. Matching pixels fall through; all other supported solids continue along the belt.
This creates two output paths:
- downward path: the selected material;
- forward path: everything else carried by the belt.
The downward path needs empty space. If it fills up, matching pixels cannot leave cleanly and the mixed stream becomes a congestion problem again.
Dense-pixel-first sorting
The official Filter page recommends arranging a chain so denser pixels are filtered before less-dense pixels. This reduces unwanted mixing as materials settle and pass one another.
Launchers: bridge awkward geometry
Use Launchers when a belt cannot cross a gap or gain useful height in the available footprint. Keep the landing zone open and avoid firing directly into a full hopper or pile. A launcher can hide the origin of a blockage, so label or visually separate long routes.
A simple automation blueprint
| Stage | Job | Failure signal |
|---|---|---|
| Feed pocket | Buffers Wet Sand | Shaker runs dry |
| Shaker row | Refines Wet Sand | Material sits before the machine |
| Lower channel | Catches Gold | Gold cannot fall through |
| Forward belt | Removes Slag | Slag piles on the Shaker |
| Filter or storage | Separates or stores output | Belt backs up from the destination |
Start with one machine. Once the input and both outputs run continuously, copy the module sideways or vertically with separate overflow capacity.
Troubleshooting a stopped factory
Nothing moves
- Confirm the transport direction.
- Inspect the destination first; a full destination stops upstream flow.
- Look for a large block lodged in a solid-pixel route.
- Temporarily close the input and clear the route from the end backward.
The belt works, but throughput is inconsistent
- Smooth the drop feeding the belt.
- Reduce the amount released in a single burst.
- Widen the collection pocket before the first machine.
- Separate liquids from solid transport paths.
Materials are mixing after a Filter
- Confirm the configured material.
- Clear the space directly below the Filter.
- Put denser materials earlier in a multi-Filter chain.
- Give each output a distinct channel before recombining anything.
Scale without making the factory fragile
Add capacity at the stage that is actually saturated. More Shakers do not help when Wet Sand production is the bottleneck; faster input does not help when Slag removal is blocked. Watch one full cycle, identify the first queue that grows, and expand that stage alone.
Verified sources
Facts on this page were checked on August 16, 2026 against:
Controls and balance can change during Early Access. Recheck the official wiki after major patches.