Factory Gauge
Factory gauges are used for automating logistic requests and production, for their conventional usage and foundational concepts of higher logistics, see the in-game ponder. When placed in a factory controller, they operate in recipe mode.
Factory gauges need to be tuned to a logistics network before being placed in a factory controller. To do so, either interact with a stock link in the game world with the gauge in hand, or use the network selector in dashboard UI to tune to a network that is already tuned to by another gauge in the factory controller.
Once placed, the new factory gauge need to be configured with an item to monitor. You may do so by clicking on the unconfigured gauge with the item in cursor, or use the "set item" screen. Either way, you may also drag a ghost item from JEI or EMI to the filter slot.
If you use the "set item" screen, the item’s NBT data can be chosen to be respected or ignored. NBT is respected by default.
Once an item is set, the gauge starts monitoring the number of this item in the tuned logistic network, and displays the count on its label.
Clicking on a factory gauge with an item set opens its recipe settings screen.
- ❶ Output
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The type and number of items this gauge is set to produce. See Basic Production.
- ❷ Ingredients
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The types and numbers of ingredients required to produce the output.
- ❸ Add connection button
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Click to add a connection to other factory gauges or other components.
- ❹ Relocate button
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Click to move the location of this gauge on the virtual board.
- ❺ Destination address
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The address the ingredients will be packaged and sent to.
- ❻ Storage amount
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The number of the monitored item stored in the logistic network.
- ❼ Target amount
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The amount of items in storage this factory gauge is targeted to reach.
- ❽ Item measure
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Unit of measurement of the target amount: Items/Stacks
- ❾ Mode of operation
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How the target amount is set or determined. See On-Demand Production.
- ❿⓫⓬ Promises
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Requests made by factory gauges awaiting their outputs, and options for limiting them. See Promise Limits.
- ⓭ Reset button
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Click to clear all configurations of this gauge, including the set item.
- ⓮ Confirm button
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Click to confirm the configurations, and close this screen.
Beyond monitoring storage, the most basic usage of a factory gauge is to reperesent a recipe to produce an item, for example, smelting 1 raw iron into 1 iron ingot. The type of the output is simply the monitored item. To define the ingredient(s), connect this gauge with other factory gauges set to monitor those ingredients.
This connection can be made by clicking "add connection" (Figure 4 ❸), and then the gauge responsible for the ingredient. Such connections are shown as item icons in the ingredient list (Figure 6 ❷), and can be removed by clicking on them.
In its default mode (❾), a factory gauge monitors the amount of its item in the logistic network storage it is tuned to (❻). When this amount is below the set target (❼❽), it requests a set of ingredients to be sent to the destination address (❺), expecting the output (❶) to later arrive in storage (❻).
Both the number of each ingredient and output can be adjusted by scrolling on them, allowing an arbitrary of number of output to be produced from arbitrary numbers of ingredients. Scrolling on an ingredient allows you to configure more than 1 stack of the same item. However, there cannot be more than 9 stacks of ingredients in total, the output is also limited to 9 stacks.
Smelting raw iron to ingots in 32-item batches |
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Mixing concrete powder in 256-item batches |
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When a factory gauge A is used as an ingredient to another gauge B, most of the configurations of A are irrelavant to B, except the item A is set to monitor and the network A is tuned to. This means A can be producing its item by any means, or merely monitors it, all accepted by B identically.
When the ingredients and output matches a mechanical crafting recipe, a "use mechanical crafting" button (Figure 7 ❶) is revealed. With this option toggled on, when packages created by this gauge are unpacked onto mechanical crafters, the ingredients are automatically arranged into the crafting pattern (❷).
The crafting recipe may be at most 10×10 in size. When it is larger than 3×3, ❷ no longer previews the pattern.
The mechanical crafters must be connected by a wrench, and arranged in a square grid of a size between 3×3 and 10×10. Smaller recipes may be sent to larger mechanical crafter arrangements, hold Ctrl and scroll on the ingredients to adjust the crafting grid size to match the crafter arrangement they will be sent to.
It is recommended to use a repackager before unpacking onto mechanical crafters, see the in-game ponder on repackagers.
A factory gauge may be configured to send ingredients enough to craft multiple output items at once. When mechanical crafting is turned on, scroll on the output slot (Figure 9 ❶) to adjust how many items to craft each batch. The number of ingredients (❷) are matched automatically and cannot be adjusted individually.
The maximum number of output using mechanical crafting is 64.
Using a repackager is mandatory when batch crafting is used. When a repackager receives a package containing ingredients for multiple crafts, it is repackaged into multiple smaller packages containing ingredients for 1 craft each, which may be then unpacked onto mechanical crafters.
Batch crafting may not be used, if any of the ingredients comes from a factory gauge that ignores the NBT data of its monitored item.
By default, a factory gauge operates in "maintain stock" mode, which activates (requests ingredients to be sent to the destination) when the monitored item in storage is below the configured target amount. By clicking Figure 10 ❶, you may switch it to "follow demand" mode, which instead activates the gauge when there is downstream denand, that is, when another gauge uses this gauge as an ingredient, and that gauge would like to request this ingredient.
In this mode, the target amount (❷) cannot be modified manually. It is automatically set according to downstream demand. Specifically, it is the total quantity requested by all currently active factory gauges that use this gauge as an ingredient.
For example, to produce barrels, one may use 6 oak planks and 2 oak slabs. 6 slabs may be crafted from 3 planks, and 4 planks may be crafted from 1 log. The planks and slabs can be produced with gauges in "follow demand" mode. The gauge for slabs receives a demand of 2. The gauge for planks receives a demand of 9: 6 from barrels, 3 from slabs. First, 3 logs are crafted into 12 planks, then 3 of which are crafted into 6 slabs. After crafting 1 barrel, 3 planks and 4 slabs are left over.