Logistics: Moving the Goods of the Commonwealth

Comrades, a factory that cannot feed its machines or empty its output is a factory standing still. Planning is logistics: the right goods, in the right amount, at the right place. This lecture takes you from moving items between two machines to a network that fetches whatever the plan requires.

As always, Ponder (hold W over an item) shows each block at work. Check it before you build; Create changes between versions, and the game is the final authority.

Moving items a short way

• Belts carry items (and people) along a line of shafts. Items on a belt can be processed as they pass: a press above it, a fan beside it, or a saw set into the line, facing up (Ponder shows how).
• Chutes drop items straight down, from one machine or chest into another. A smart chute lets only filtered items through.
• Funnels put items into an inventory or take them out. An andesite funnel moves whole items; a brass funnel takes a filter and can move a chosen number at a time.
• Tunnels on a belt split items between parallel belts; a brass tunnel can share them out evenly or by filter.
• The mechanical arm (brass) picks items up from chosen places and puts them down at others. Select its inputs and outputs by clicking them with the arm in hand before you place it.
• Item vaults join into large stores for bulk goods.

Filters and signals

A filter (a list filter, or an attribute filter for "all ores", "all food" and the like) set in a brass funnel, smart chute or tunnel decides what passes. A threshold switch on a chest or vault gives a redstone signal when it is fuller or emptier than you choose: use it to start a line when stock runs low and stop it when the store is full. Redstone links carry a signal wirelessly between two linked points.

The principle: produce to the plan, not without end. A line that stops itself when the store is full saves ore, fuel and stress for other work.

Packages and the stock network (Create 6)

Create 6 brought a new kind of logistics, built on packages.

• A packager, placed against an inventory, wraps items into a package and unwraps packages it receives. Packages carry an address.
• A chain conveyor runs between shafts and carries packages across a site, even uphill and around corners.
• A frogport hangs on a chain conveyor. It sends packages off and catches those addressed to it.
• A postbox at a train station hands packages to trains and takes them from trains, so goods can travel between towns.
• A stock link joins packagers into one network. A stock ticker, attended by a seated stock keeper, shows everything the network holds and lets you order any of it; the goods arrive packaged at your door.
• A redstone requester places a standing order when it receives a signal, and a factory gauge can keep a production line supplied with its ingredients by itself.

Build this in steps: first a packager, a chain conveyor and two frogports between two stores; then a stock link and a ticker; only then automated requests. Ponder shows how addresses are set on each block.

Trains

For goods between colonies, trains are the backbone. Lay track, place a station at each end, build a train from bogeys, casing and controls, and give it a schedule so it runs by itself. Postboxes at the stations connect the trains to the package network. Mind the stress: a train needs no rotation, but the machines that load it do.

Logistics and the plan

Everything the plan asks for must in the end reach the common stores. Make your lines finish in a chest you empty with /cw deliver, and propose to the council that a plan target name the item you produce: then your deliveries count towards it at once. When a colony's line serves the Commonwealth as a whole, write it up for the Chronicler, and tell the Planning Commission (/cw commission <proposal>).

A checklist for every new line

1. What goes in, what comes out, and how much the plan needs.
2. Where the rotation comes from, and whether the stress is enough (goggles).
3. How the inputs arrive: chute, funnel, belt, arm or package.
4. How the output leaves, and what stops the line when the store is full.
5. Label the line with a sign, so your comrades can keep it running.

Questions: /cw ask professor-engineering <question>. For towns and colonies, see my colleague the Professor of Architecture: /cw lecture architecture 1.