Ars Machina

Field Manual for the Industrial Operator, Edition 0.5.1 (alpha)

Congratulations on your new plant! You have joined the proud ranks of the industrial operator. This manual will tell you what the ground hides, how to get it out, and what to do with it once you have. Read it through before you touch anything. Keep it away from the furnace. Keep it away from all furnaces. — P.

Here the ground matters. Ore is not just a few blocks in a cave wall. Great hidden veins run under the world, and a sensible operator finds them first and digs second.

(o_O) Section 1. Geology, or "Where the Good Stuff Is"

• Prospector maps and the rock analyzer show the hidden ore veins, oil and underground fluid horizons near you. The digital map is the modern way. The paper map is the dependable way.
• Drilling rigs and mining drills take ore out of a vein without turning the countryside into Swiss cheese.
• Leaching plants dissolve minerals out of a vein with acid. This is the only approved way to obtain uranium. Don't lick the acid. — H.
• Pumps and geothermal plants draw oil, water and other fluids from horizons deep below.

\(^_^)/ Section 2. The Machine Hall

Proper machines are big. Each is a multiblock with its own casing, ports and slots for upgrade modules. Build it to the drawing in the guidebook, and it comes to life.

• Alloy furnace: your first machine and an old friend. It makes steel, bronze, invar, rubber and more.
• Macerator: crushes ore into dust for a better yield. Two dusts beat one ingot. Trust the math. — H.
• Electric furnace and arc furnace: fast smelting. The arc furnace takes ore straight to ingots and makes composites.
• Rolling mill and hydraulic press: plates, wires, gears and stamped parts.
• Assemblers T1 and T2: from electric motors to processors.
• Chemical reactor: acids, plastics, catalysts, paints and nuclear fuel.
• Gas centrifuge: separates uranium isotopes. It spins up slowly and spins down slowly. Be patient.
• Distillation column: turns crude oil into diesel, gasoline, lubricant, bitumen and gas.

(⌐■_■) Section 3. Power

• Steam boilers and turbines: burn fuel, boil water, make power. Time-tested.
• Solar panels, wind turbines and diesel generators.
• Nuclear reactor, the pride of any plant. It has control rods, cooling, high-pressure steam and the big red AZ-5 button. Press it whenever you like. Press it when you must. — P.
• Batteries, capacitor banks and energy accumulation modules keep the surplus for a rainy day.
• Cables lose energy over long runs. Tesla coils send it through the air instead. Musical Tesla coils can play songs. Nobody asked for this. Everybody loves it. — H.

~(^-^)~ Section 4. Pipes and Plumbing

• Item pipes, with filters and extractors.
• Copper and steel fluid pipes that age honestly over time. Also valves, and open pipe ends that pour fluid or blow off steam.
• Fluid tanks and capsules.

(•̀ᴗ•́)و Section 5. Operator's Kit

• Engineering and composite armour, with jetpacks, gas masks and helmet vision modes: night vision, thermal and ground radar.
• Electric and fuel drills and chainsaws, a Tesla gun and a multimeter.
• All of it can be improved at the engineering workstation.

(◕‿◕) Section 6. Plant Beautification

Factory fences (graffiti welcome), spray cans, asphalt with road markings, concrete and rubber trees. A tidy plant is a happy plant. Graffiti is not "tidy." — P. It is art. — H.

(^_^)b The Manual Inside the Game

Every machine has its own page in the in-game guidebook: how to build it and how it works, in the same no-nonsense style. For recipes, see JEI.

<(-_-)> Working Alongside Other Equipment

Energy, fluids and items work with other tech mods: Forge Energy on NeoForge, and Team Reborn Energy and the Transfer API on Fabric.

(._.) What You Need

• Minecraft 1.21.1, on Fabric or NeoForge
• Architectury API (plus Fabric API on Fabric)
• JEI, optional but recommended

(°_°;) Notice to Operators

This is an alpha. Bugs and balance changes are expected. Items marked (WIP) are not finished yet.

Machines may change between updates. A new version can alter a machine's structure, and a multiblock you have already built may stop assembling. If that happens, look up the current drawing in the guidebook and rebuild it. The plant is finished. The plant is never finished. — H.

Back up your worlds before every update.

Found something broken? Report it, with logs/latest.log and any crash report, on our Discord: https://discord.gg/bUt826s28

Licensed under MIT. Thank you for choosing Ars Machina!