Build Foundry

Advanced Materials Foundry

The Foundry melts metals into one shared bath, mixes alloys in it and casts the melt into ingots, plates, rods, gears, blocks or nuggets. It is a box of Refractory Bricks. Induction Coils in its walls heat it, and Casting Basins in its walls hold the molds.

• What melts: every metal that QuantaWorks recognises through the c: tags (any family with an ingot form), in any of its forms: ore, raw metal, dust, ingot, nugget, plate, rod, gear, wire, block. Each form adds its material units (MU) to the bath (nugget 10, ingot or dust 90, ore 180, block 810). Gems do not melt. Items with components (renamed, enchanted …) are refused. A Solidified Melt goes back in whole.
• Bath: 810 MU (one block of metal) per interior block. All metals share it. The screen lists every metal in the bath.
• Heat: each Induction Coil raises the highest temperature by 300 °C (800 °C + 300 °C per coil). The bath heats by 5 °C per tick. Holding a temperature costs 2,000 E/t up to 1,000 °C and doubles every 300 °C above it (about 200,000 E/t at 3,000 °C). Without enough energy the bath cools by 2 °C per tick. A metal melts at its melting point (from the material data, default 1,200 °C).
• Alloys: when the bath holds every metal of an alloy at the right ratio and is hot enough, whole sets turn into the alloy (at most 10 sets per tick, no material is lost). Built in: Bronze, Brass, Electrum, Invar and Constantan, and the Precision Alloy under argon (1 mB argon per set, through a Gas Input Port). An alloy only forms when your pack has its metals and an ingot of the result; otherwise the status line says so ("No … ingot in this pack – the metals stay apart"). Steel is alloyed in the Induction Furnace, not here.
• Casting: each Casting Basin holds one mold (Ingot, Plate, Rod, Gear, Block or Nugget Mold) and casts one piece every 40 ticks. The cast button chooses the metal: "what there is most of", or one metal of the bath.
• Breaking the controller keeps the bath: you get a Solidified Melt that holds everything, and it melts back in later.

The example below is 5 × 5 × 5: six Induction Coils (one per layer in the middle of both side walls, up to 2,600 °C), three Casting Basins on the lowest layer of the back wall, the item ports at the front of the side walls, an argon input and an Energy Hatch in the roof.

Rules

• Size: 5 wide, 4 to 8 high, 5 deep.
• Frame (edges and corners): Refractory Bricks only (or blocks a data pack puts into the tag quantaworks:multiblock/refractory).
• Walls: Refractory Bricks, Industrial Viewport, Induction Coil, Casting Basin, plus the controller and ports.
• Ports:
  • Item Input Port: metals in.
  • Item Output Port: cast pieces out.
  • Gas Input Port: argon (only needed for the Precision Alloy).
  • Energy Hatch (tier 2 – 5): energy in, at most 4.
• Inside: air only. The bath fills it.
• Required: at least 1 Induction Coil and 1 to 4 Casting Basins.
• Controller: the Foundry Controller sits in a wall and faces out; the block right behind it must be inside the plant.

Running it

Put the molds into the mold slots of the screen (one per basin), feed metal through the Item Input Port or by hand and connect energy to the hatch. The screen shows the energy, the temperature, the argon tank, the bath and what the basins cast.

Common error messages

Message	What to do
The controller must sit in a wall, front facing out	Put the controller into a wall so that the block behind it is inside the plant.
Structure too small ((size)) / Structure too large or not closed near (position)	Build 5 wide, 4 – 8 high, 5 deep, and close every wall.
Wrong block at (position) (expected: refractory)	Only Refractory Bricks on the edges and corners.
Wrong block at (position) (expected: refractory|glass|coil|basin)	Only these parts (and ports) in the walls.
Missing parts: coil:1 / basin:1	Add at least one Induction Coil and one Casting Basin to the walls.
Too many ports of one kind: basin:4 allowed	At most 4 Casting Basins.
Too many ports of one kind: energy_input:4 allowed	At most 4 Energy Hatches.
Port not allowed here: (position) ((port type))	Only item in, item out, gas in and Energy Hatches work here.

Sight glass

Every wall block that is not on an edge may be Industrial Viewport (or any block a data pack puts into the tag quantaworks:multiblock/glass) instead of the casing. The plant works the same, and through the glass you see what happens inside while it runs. The example below has Industrial Viewport in its front.

Step by step

The example below is 5 wide, 5 high and 5 deep. The example forms as shown (checked in the game when the pictures were taken).

Each step shows the plant from the front left after one more layer is placed (from the bottom up), and a top-down map of that layer: the back of the plant at the top, the front with the controller at the bottom. The letters match the parts lists.

All parts of the example:

	Key	Block	Count
	A	Refractory Bricks	76
	B	Industrial Viewport	8
	F	Induction Coil	6
	I	Casting Basin	3
	G	Energy Hatch (Tier 2)	1
	C	Foundry Controller	1
	H	Gas Input Port	1
	D	Item Input Port	1
	E	Item Output Port	1

Step 1: Layer 1

Parts in this step: Refractory Bricks (A) ×25

Step 2: Layer 2

Parts in this step: Casting Basin (I) ×3, Foundry Controller (C) ×1, Gas Input Port (H) ×1, Induction Coil (F) ×2, Industrial Viewport (B) ×2, Item Input Port (D) ×1, Item Output Port (E) ×1, Refractory Bricks (A) ×5

Step 3: Layers 3–4 (identical)

Place this layer 2 times on top of each other.

Parts in this step: Induction Coil (F) ×4, Industrial Viewport (B) ×6, Refractory Bricks (A) ×22

Step 4: Layer 5

Parts in this step: Energy Hatch (Tier 2) (G) ×1, Refractory Bricks (A) ×24

Finished

In operation

Tips

• A taller Foundry has a larger bath and room for more coils. More coils only raise the highest temperature; the temperature the bath needs follows from what is in it, so a hotter Foundry does not waste energy on iron.
• The bath shows inside the plant behind the viewport, coloured by the metal.