Create Wiki · Fluids

Mechanical Pump

The Mechanical Pump is the engine of fluid networks. Without it, pipes stay still; with it, water, lava or honey move from one tank to another. It is crafted from a cogwheel and a pipe, takes rotation like any kinetic machine, and its throughput depends directly on its speed.

Create 6.0.8 · Minecraft 1.21.1 · updated on

A pump moves water from one tank into the other; reversing rotation changes nothing, a wrench flips the pump and the flow.

Quick facts

Category
Fluids
Crafting
Cogwheel + Fluid Pipe (shapeless)
Stress
4 SU per RPM (256 SU at 64 RPM)
Reach
16 pipe blocks on each side (mechanicalPumpRange setting)
Throughput
Speed ÷ 2 in mB per tick: 640 mB/s at 64 RPM, 2,560 mB/s at 256 RPM
Direction
Follows the arrow, whatever the rotation direction; a Wrench reverses it
Several pumps
In parallel on the same network, their throughputs add up
Version
Create 6.0.8 · Minecraft 1.21.1

Crafting table recipe (shapeless)

CogwheelFluid Pipe

→ 1 Mechanical Pump

The heart of the network

A pump moves water from one tank into the other; reversing rotation changes nothing, a wrench flips the pump and the flow.

Place the pump in a line, like a straight pipe, then feed rotation into its shaft: a Shaft, a Cogwheel or a Large Cogwheel. As long as it does not turn, nothing moves. As soon as it turns, it drives the whole network connected to it, on both sides.

Follow the arrow

The pump's arrow points towards the tank to fill

The arrow on the pump shows the flow direction. The network behind the arrow is pulled from: the pump looks for a source there and drains it. The network in front is pushed into: fluid goes to whichever tanks, basins or machines accept it. Each side reaches up to 16 pipe blocks.

Pull behind, push ahead

Water is pulled from one tank and pushed into the other

You can see the fluid leave the source, reach the pump and carry on towards the destination through the glass pipes. The source tank goes down while the other one fills. Transfer stops on its own when the source is empty or the destination is full.

Reversing the flow

Pump flipped with a wrench, the water returns to the first tank

Changing the rotation direction does not change the pump's direction: it always pushes towards its arrow. To reverse the flow, right-click the pump with a Wrench: it flips over and the fluid heads back the other way, from the second tank to the first. A reversible network therefore needs a wrench, not a gearshift.

A 16-block reach

A faster pump fills a lava tank more quickly, then three pumps side by side combine their throughput.

Whatever its speed, a pump acts on connected pipes up to 16 blocks away on each side. Fluid does not go further: for a long pipeline, add a second pump as a relay. On a server, the reach is set with the mechanicalPumpRange option.

Faster and further

A faster pump between two tanks, the lava moves along

Speed matters twice. First it sets how fast fluid advances through pipes: at 8 RPM it takes several seconds to cross a small setup, at 128 RPM and above it arrives almost at once. Then it sets the throughput: half the speed in millibuckets per tick, that is 640 mB per second at 64 RPM and 2,560 mB per second at 256 RPM.

The stress cost

The lava fills the tank faster at high speed

Each pump uses 4 SU per RPM: 256 SU at 64 RPM and 1,024 SU at 256 RPM. Going fast is expensive, so check your rotation source with a Stressometer before speeding a network up. To fill a big tank without hurry, a medium speed is enough.

Several pumps in parallel

Three pumps in parallel between two lava tanks

Pumps placed side by side between the same tanks add up their throughput: three pumps at 64 RPM move three times as much fluid as one. That is the answer when a single pump already runs at the top speed of your kinetic network.

All facing the same way

A pump flipped with a wrench to match the other two

Every pump on one network must point the same way. A reversed pump works against the others and the throughput collapses. Check their arrows, and flip the odd one out with a wrench.

Tips

A pump placed directly against a tank can drain it without any pipe in between. For a lava farm or a Steam Engine water supply, one fast pump beats a long chain. And if nothing flows, make sure the source actually contains something and the destination has room.

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Sources for the numbers (Create 6.0.8 code)
  • Recipe: crafting/kinetics/mechanical_pump.json (shapeless)
  • Stress: AllBlocks.MECHANICAL_PUMP, CStress.setImpact(4.0)
  • Reach: FluidPropagator.getPumpRange, CFluids.mechanicalPumpRange = 16
  • Throughput: FluidNetwork, transferSpeed = max(1, pressure / 2) mB per tick, pressure = |RPM|
  • Flow advance: PipeConnection.tickFlowProgress, 1/32 + clamp(pressure / 128) × 31/32 per connection per tick
  • Direction: PumpBlock FACING, rotation does not reverse it
  • Scenes: PumpScenes.flow, speed; flow simulated from the code above

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.