Pipes
Pipes move stored items or water between machines. Power Cable supplies electricity. These channels are separate: a plain Item Pipe does not carry electricity or water, and a plain Fluid Pipe does not carry items or power.
Machines accept their supported power, item and fluid connections on all six faces, including top and bottom. Pipe runs connect through neighbouring cells, turn corners, branch and climb vertically. They do not connect diagonally.
| Connection | Carries | How you control it |
|---|---|---|
| Item Pipe | Items between supported machines, Chests, Bulk Crates and Crate Controllers | Wrench sets each machine-facing end to Input, Output or No connection |
| Fluid Pipe | Stored water between machines and tanks | Wrench sets each machine-facing end to Input, Output or No connection |
| Power Cable | Electricity | Automatic; no direction setting |
| Signal Wire / Signal Conduit | Blue Signal ON/OFF | Separate controls; see Blue Signal |
Signal sockets and boiler/alternator shafts still have their own orientations. The all-face rule applies to electricity and item/fluid connections.
Craft one Wrench at a 3×3 Workbench from three iron ingots:
Iron Iron ·
· Iron ·
· · ·
The mirrored arrangement also works. The personal 2×2 grid cannot craft it. The wrench is reusable, does not stack, and is not consumed when configuring a connection.
Put it in your hotbar and select it so you are holding it. A wrench elsewhere in your backpack or hotbar does not enable configuration.
- Place the pipe against any accessible face of a compatible machine or chest.
- Hold the Wrench.
- Aim at the pipe end touching that machine, close to the join.
- Right-click or Shift + right-click to cycle Input → Output → No connection → Input.
- Check the arrow and the crosshair's connection label while holding the wrench.
| Arrow | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Blue arrow entering the machine | Input: the machine receives items or water |
| Red arrow leaving the machine | Output: the machine supplies items or water |
| No arm or arrow at the machine | No connection: this end transfers nothing. Aim at the same pipe side and right-click with the wrench to restore Input. |
Directions are always named from the machine's point of view. A route normally needs a red output at its source and a blue input at its destination. Both arrows point along the intended movement.
Without a selected wrench, you cannot change pipe direction. Empty hands, other items and the Interact key do not change it. Holding right-click does not repeatedly flip it; each change needs another press. Crouching does not block wrench configuration. If you remap mouse Use or Crouch, use those bindings while holding the wrench.
Shift + right-click works while crouching. In-game capture: 2026-09-12; the red end supplies items from the crusher and the blue end sends them into the chest.
Each end is independent. Changing one does not reverse the whole network or its other branches. Configured directions survive machine rotation, chunk unloading and Save Game / Load Game.
Pipe-to-pipe joins and loose ends have no machine direction to configure. Power cables have no direction setting. Right-click the centre of a pipe, or use Interact, to open its normal interface.
Arrows appear only while the Wrench is selected in your hand. They show the configured direction even when a machine is idle or a tank is empty. Switching to empty hands or another item hides every arrow. A disconnected arm stays absent with any item selected; the pipe itself remains placed. A blue input arrow is not an ON Blue Signal and does not power or enable the machine.
Bring a Crusher, two Chests, Item Pipes, a Wrench and an electrical supply.
- Put raw copper, raw iron or raw gold in the supply chest.
- Connect that chest to the crusher with Item Pipe.
- Set the supply-chest end to red Output and the crusher end to blue Input.
- Run another pipe from the crusher to the receiving chest.
- Set the crusher end to red Output and the receiving-chest end to blue Input.
- Supply the crusher with 160 W through a power cable on any free face.
Supply chest Crusher Receiving chest
red OUTPUT ───→ blue INPUT
red OUTPUT ───→ blue INPUT
One raw ore becomes two matching crushed pieces in five seconds at full power. The output pipe takes finished products, leaving the raw-input buffer alone. Smelt the crushed pieces in a Furnace.
Chest outputs can supply a pipe directly. An Extractor remains useful when you want Blue Signal control of extraction: keep its source chest on its left and connect an output pipe on any free face.
Item transport moves up to four items per second per source inventory. Adding more output ends to the same inventory does not multiply that limit. Unsupported items remain at the source; a full destination stops delivery without deleting anything.
For any machine that burns item fuel, its back input is fuel-only and its other input faces are for usable ingredients. The back follows the machine’s placement rotation. Machines that do not burn fuel, such as the crusher, accept their usual inputs at the back too. Boilers accept coal/charcoal only through the back; water pipes still work on any face. Existing side-fed fuel pipes must be moved to the back.
Current item-pipe endpoints include Chests, Bulk Crates, Crate Controllers, crusher raw inputs and product outputs, boiler fuel inputs, drill outputs and extractor outputs. An input arrow does not give an output-only device a new processing input. Furnaces accept ingredients/fuel and expose finished results. Workbenches do not provide item-pipe endpoints. See Crates and warehouses for physical warehouse setup.
- Connect the crusher to a Furnace with Item Pipe.
- Set the crusher end to red Output and the furnace end to blue Input. Use any face except the back for ingredients.
- Supply fuel manually or connect a coal/charcoal chest with red Output at the chest, blue Input at the back of the furnace. The back accepts fuel only; the other five faces accept ingredients only.
- Add another pipe to a receiving chest, with red Output at the furnace and blue Input at the chest. Only finished products leave the furnace.
Incompatible items stay in their source inventory. A mixed supply chest can send compatible stacks even when its first stack is unsuitable. Receivers follow their saved numeric item priority, and equal priorities round-robin among compatible destinations. Full or mismatched furnace slots stop that cargo without losing it. Logs piped into the back burn as fuel; logs piped into another input face become charcoal. A full slot never redirects logs into the other slot. Manual quick-transfer still prefers ingredients. The furnace still needs fuel to smelt; pipes need no electricity.
- Put a Pump above a source-water cell. It requires no electricity.
- Run Fluid Pipe from a free pump face to a Water Tank.
- Set the pump end to red Output and the tank end to blue Input.
- Run another Fluid Pipe from the tank to a Boiler Engine.
- Set that tank end to red Output and the boiler end to blue Input.
The pump's world-water intake is still directly below it. A pipe occupying that cell leaves no source to extract. Use another face for the outlet. See Pumps and renewable water for pool construction and startup.
Fluid pipes move stored quantities, not flowing world blocks. Water is the currently available fluid. Machines accept only supported liquids; incompatible cargo stays at its source, and tanks never mix fluid types. Each output end can transfer up to 100 mL per simulation step (2 L/s), subject to source contents and destination capacity. Water received by a tank becomes available for forwarding on a later step.
Build a valid multiblock tank and use its functional Tank Fluid Ports or Signal Valve Ports. They share the tank's contents; wall, glass and frame blocks are not fluid endpoints.
Keep the port Enabled in its interface, then use a held wrench at the adjoining pipe end to choose Input, Output or No connection. A Signal Valve also needs an attached ON Blue Signal. The wrench does not bypass a closed valve, an invalid structure or a full tank.
Recovery Out at a controller is drain-only, including during a breach. Set its pipe end to red Output. Selecting blue Input does not allow that recovery connection to refill the tank. Drain contents before removing the controller.
Open the pipe interface at its centre or with Interact:
- FIT POWER adds a separate electrical channel using one Power Cable.
- FIT SIGNAL adds a separate control channel using one Signal Conduit.
Both fittings may share an Item Pipe or Fluid Pipe. Each channel follows its own compatible neighbours. Wrench connection changes, including No connection, affect only item/fluid transport; they do not interrupt electricity or change Blue Signal.
Electrical grids follow physically connected cables and power fittings. Machine faces terminate their cable runs; a battery can charge from one grid and supply another without joining the cables. See separate input and output grids.
A registered electrical connection remains connected when its generator stops or its battery empties. The machine shows Power network: connected separately from its received/requested watts. No electrical power means the machine has no supplied electricity; Power network: not connected means it also lacks a registered electrical link. Check fuel, charge and battery mode before rebuilding a correctly connected cable route.
| Problem | Check |
|---|---|
| Right-click opens a menu instead of reversing an arrow | Select the Wrench and aim near the machine-facing pipe end, not the pipe centre. |
| There is no arrow | Hold the Wrench to see arrows. A disconnected end has no arm or arrow: wrench-click the same side to reconnect. Pipe-to-pipe joins, loose ends and unsupported channels have no arrows. |
| Nothing moves | Use red Output at the source and blue Input at the destination; check contents, accepted items and free destination space. |
| The crusher receives ore but does not process it | Supply electricity; 160 W gives full speed. No attached Blue Signal is needed. |
| A tank valve stays closed | Enable the port, form the tank and supply ON Blue Signal. |
| An input set on a drill receives nothing | The drill produces items; it has no recipe-input buffer. Use its red Output end. |
| Rotating the machine did not reverse the arrows | Expected: configured pipe ends stay fixed. Use the wrench to change them. |
| Two pipe runs touch the same machine but are not connected | Each face is a terminal. Join the pipe runs directly if you want one transport network. |
| The battery has charge but the crusher shows 0 W | Check cable continuity and battery mode. Any crusher face accepts power; leave the battery on Automatic for normal use. |
Related guides: Wrench recipe, item-pipe routing, electricity and batteries, pumps, tanks, Blue Signal.
A Boiler Engine burns fuel and water to drive a mechanical shaft. A separate Alternator must sit directly against its right-hand shaft, facing the same direction. Power Cable connects to the alternator. A cable touching the boiler does not carry its shaft power or turn it into electricity.
A boiler can show Running and consume fuel while supplying 0 W to your battery because the alternator is missing or uncoupled. See the illustrated boiler troubleshooting guide. Fluid Pipe supplies the boiler with water; Item Pipe can deliver fuel through its rear input. Neither replaces the alternator.
Connected pipes define each grid. A chest or tank can receive through one pipe run and supply another without joining those runs together. Newly received items or water can leave on a later transfer step.
Item receivers have editable priorities from 0 through 100. The starting values are Machine/Furnace 50, Crate Controller 40, direct Bulk Crate 30, and Chest 20. Higher eligible priorities receive first; compatible receivers with the same priority rotate turns. Processing machines still filter to useful recipe inputs, and a controller fills matching assigned crates before unlocked empty crates. Full, mismatched, locked-to-another-type, metadata-bearing or unloaded crates relinquish their chance, leaving cargo at the source. Outputs share limited receiving capacity, subject to their normal transport limits and available contents. Items remain whole: when only one item is available, the receiving turn rotates. Set and troubleshoot routing priorities.
| Connected setup | Result |
|---|---|
| Two item outputs and two empty chest inputs | Each source sends one item and each chest receives one in a transfer step |
| One item output and two chest inputs | Items alternate between the chests |
| Two fluid outputs and two tank inputs | Each output can send 100 mL; each tank receives 100 mL |
| Those two tanks have only 30 mL and 70 mL of room | Each source supplies 50 mL; both destination tanks fill exactly |
These September 12, 2026 player captures show two output branches feeding two input branches on a shared pipe run. Red arrows leave sources; blue arrows enter destinations. The native scenario checks both destination quantities after transfer.
See electricity and batteries for equal surplus charging and deficit discharge on electrical grids.