Create Wiki · Logistics

Mechanical Arm

The Mechanical Arm picks an item up in one place and drops it off in another, within a few blocks. It replaces metres of belts and funnels in compact factories: it feeds a Blaze Burner, serves several depots in turn, loads a saw or a Mechanical Crafter. The whole trick lies in setting it up before you place it: the arm can only reach the targets you showed it.

Create 6.0.8 · Minecraft 1.21.1 · updated on

Before placing the arm, depots are selected as inputs (blue) or outputs (yellow) around the spot where it will stand.

Quick facts

Category
Logistics
Stress
2 SU per RPM (64 SU at 32 RPM)
Range
5 blocks around the arm (server setting mechanicalArmRange)
Speed
One move ≈ 1.6 s at 32 RPM, ≈ 0.2 s at 256 RPM
Targets
Depots, belts, funnels, chutes, basins, burners, deployers, saws, millstones, crushing wheels, Mechanical Crafters, composters…
Modes
Round Robin, Prefer First, Forced Round Robin
Version
Create 6.0.8 · Minecraft 1.21.1

Crafting table recipe

Brass SheetBrass SheetAndesite Alloy
Brass Sheet
Precision MechanismBrass Casing

→ 1 Mechanical Arm

Targets are chosen before placing

Before placing the arm, depots are selected as inputs (blue) or outputs (yellow) around the spot where it will stand.

A Mechanical Arm does not look for targets on its own. Before placing it, keep it in hand and point at the blocks it should work with: the game stores them in the item. Once placed, it only knows those targets. To change them, you have to break it, redo the selection and place it again.

Selecting inputs and outputs

Depots outlined in white, selected as targets for the arm

Right-click a depot, a belt, a funnel… while holding the arm to add it. Right-clicking the same target again switches it from input (blue), where the arm picks items up, to output (yellow), where it drops them off. Left-click removes a target from the selection.

Range and speed

Once placed, the arm takes items from its input depots and spreads them over its outputs, then uses funnels to reach inventories.

Targets must be within 5 blocks of the arm. It can have as many as you like within that radius, inputs and outputs mixed. Its speed depends on rotation: each move takes about 1.6 s at 32 RPM and 0.2 s at 256 RPM, a ceiling above which it does not get any faster. A full transfer is two moves: fetch, then drop off.

Reaching a chest: funnels and depots

The arm drops items into a funnel attached to an inventory

The arm only works with certain blocks: Depots, belts, Funnels, chutes, basins, Blaze Burners, Deployers, saws, millstones, crushing wheels, Mechanical Crafters, composters, jukeboxes… A chest or a barrel is not a direct target: put a funnel on it and aim at the funnel. That funnel is also what lets you filter, as shown below.

Filtering with a Brass Funnel

Brass Funnels with a filter, targeted as outputs by the Mechanical Arm

The arm has no filter of its own. To make it sort, target Brass Funnels set with a filter: the arm reads their filter and only brings them the items they accept. It is even smart enough not to pick up an item that no output can take, so it never gets stuck holding something.

Choosing how to share

An arm distributes items from a belt over several depots in turn, skipping the full ones.

When several outputs are available, the arm's value panel sets its strategy. In Round Robin, the default, it serves each one in turn and skips the full ones. In Prefer First, it fills the first selected target first and only moves on to the next when it is full. In Forced Round Robin, it never skips an output: it waits until it is free.

Two classic setups

Feeding a Blaze Burner: a chest of coal with a funnel as input, the burner as output. The arm only hands over fuel when the burner accepts it, so nothing is wasted. Serving a row of machines: a belt as input, four depots as outputs under four presses or four Deployers, then one last delivery depot. In Round Robin, each station gets its item in turn, and the arm leaves aside the ones that are still busy.

Controlling it with redstone

A lever pauses the arm; a negative pulse makes it do a single transfer.

Like the Deployer, the arm stops when it gets a redstone signal, after finishing its current move. A negative pulse therefore makes it do a single transfer: perfect for dosing exactly one item, for example one piece of fuel per boiler cycle.

DepotDepotLogisticsAndesite and Brass FunnelAndesite and Brass FunnelLogisticsDeployerDeployerProcessingBlaze BurnerBlaze BurnerProcessingFilters and ClipboardFilters and ClipboardTools and equipmentCannon breechesCannon breechesCreate Big CannonsAutocannonsAutocannonsCreate Big Cannons

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Sources for the numbers (Create 6.0.8 code)
  • Stress: AllBlocks.java, MECHANICAL_ARM, CStress.setImpact(2.0)
  • Range: CLogistics.mechanicalArmRange = 5
  • Speed: ArmBlockEntity (chasedPointProgress += min(256, |RPM|) / 1024 per tick)
  • Targets: AllArmInteractionPointTypes (basin, belt, blaze_burner, chute, crafter, crushing_wheels, deployer, depot, funnel, millstone, packager, saw, campfire, composter, jukebox, respawn_anchor); positions stored relative to the arm (ArmInteractionPoint)
  • Modes: ArmBlockEntity.SelectionMode (ROUND_ROBIN, PREFER_FIRST, FORCED_ROUND_ROBIN)
  • Recipe: crafting/kinetics/mechanical_arm.json
  • Scenes: ArmScenes.setup (two loops), filtering (Mechanical Crafter and inventories: stills only), modes (two loops), redstone

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.