Create Wiki · Package network
Factory Gauge
The Factory Gauge is the brain of a networked factory. Attached to a Packager, it watches an item and a target amount: as soon as stock drops below it, it orders from the network whatever is needed to top it up. Linked together, several gauges describe a recipe: ingredients on one side, product on the other, and the factory starts producing whatever is missing on its own.
Quick facts
- Category
- Package network
- Placement
- Up to 4 gauges per face, on a Packager to restock its inventory
- Settings
- An item and a target amount, plus the delivery address
- Rate
- One request every 100 ticks (5 s) at most, server setting factoryGaugeTimer
- Links
- Gauge to gauge for recipes, to Mechanical Crafters, redstone links and Display Links
- Recipe
- 1 Stock Link + 1 Precision Mechanism → 2 gauges
- Version
- Create 6.0.8 · Minecraft 1.21.1
Crafting table recipe (shapeless)
→ 2 Factory Gauges
Keeping a stock topped up
Put a gauge on a Packager and set it to an item and an amount, for instance 64 bread. It reads the inventory the Packager serves and, as soon as stock drops below that number, orders the difference from the network, delivered to that Packager's address. A pantry that fills itself. No need to check the chests any more.
Plugged into the network
The gauge joins the network like the other logistics blocks, by copying a Stock Link's frequency before placing. It then draws from every linked warehouse. Its light shows whether the goal is met; an arrow shows whether an order is on its way.
The order on its way
The gauge takes packages already ordered into account: it does not ask again for what is on the way. It waits at least 5 seconds between two requests, a delay set on the server. Packages arrive by belt, chain or train, and the Packager unpacks them into the watched inventory.
Describing a recipe
A gauge can also stand for a product. Link other gauges to it, those of its ingredients, by clicking from one to the other: an arrow appears between them. Set how many units of each ingredient the recipe takes and how many it gives. The product's gauge then knows what to send to the machine to make more.
Sending the ingredients
When the product's stock is too low and the ingredients are available, the gauge orders the ingredients and has them delivered to the address of the machine that makes it: a mixer, a press, a furnace… The finished product returns to the store the usual way, and the loop starts again until the goal is met.
Chaining steps
Gauges combine into production chains: the gauge of an intermediate product is an ingredient of the next one. Ask for bread and the gauge will order flour, which its own gauge will have milled from the available wheat. The factory then produces on demand, with no useless stock.
With Mechanical Crafters
For a crafting recipe, link the gauge to a grid of Mechanical Crafters: it then knows where each ingredient goes. Ingredients arrive as packages, go through a Re-Packager so they arrive together, and the grid crafts, here a diamond pickaxe.
Redstone and display
A gauge can be linked to a redstone link: it sends a signal when its goal is met, or is held back if the link receives a signal. A Display Link placed on it writes its status on a board, to follow the whole factory at a glance.
About the pictures
The gauges' dials, their link arrows and the ordered packages are not drawn by our renderer: this page is illustrated with stills of the Ponder scenes, and the text describes what they do not show.
Related pages
Sources for the numbers (Create 6.0.8 code)
- Gauge: FactoryPanelBehaviour (count goal, satisfied, recipeOutput, targetedBy and targetedByLinks links, redstonePowered), FactoryPanelBlockEntity.getRestockedPackager (Packager under the gauge, not a Re-Packager), FactoryPanelPosition (4 slots per block)
- Delay: CLogistics.factoryGaugeTimer = 100 ticks
- Recipe: crafting/logistics/factory_gauge.json (shapeless)
- Scenes: FactoryGaugeScenes.restocker, recipe, crafting, links; stills only (gauge dials not drawn)
Original texts and animations by Create France, rendered from the mod's Ponder scenes. Create is a mod by the Create Team, not affiliated with Create France.