Fluids, conveyors and sorting

How liquids flow

Seas, lakes and pools are sources, and they stay put. When you dig a hole next to a liquid, the liquid runs in. A liquid spreads sideways a block at a time, and each step it loses some strength. Water runs furthest, and a hot liquid such as lava only spreads a few blocks before it stops. Thick liquids such as oil run a shorter distance than water. A liquid that lies on something settles, and a pool beside a lake fills up to the lake's level but never higher.

Liquids flow in steps, so a large flood takes a little while to finish. A dug channel off a lake fills to the lake's surface.

Pumps

A Pump (12 metal, at a Workbench) draws power, 90 W while it works. Put it over a liquid and it lifts a block out of the spout each second, keeping the spout running while it has power. A spout that runs on its own is a spring: it feeds the liquid round it, but it does not spread out over flat ground, so the water runs off and dries up when the pump stops. Without power, the spout dries.

A pump over an oil bore draws oil up. Put a crate beside the pump and the oil comes out as barrels of crude oil, one barrel every few seconds, until the field runs dry. The same goes for fresh water: barrels of water can be drawn into a crate.

Drills, bores and oil

A Powered Drill bores straight down, and when it strikes oil it stops and reports the depth. Put a pump over the bore, with a crate beside the pump, to pump the oil. The drill's string runs down through the sea and through pipe, so a drill on an offshore rig can reach the seabed. Full details are on the machines and power page.

Conveyors

A Conveyor (1 metal and 2 plant fibre, unlocked later in the game) carries whatever lies on it the way it faces, at 1.6 metres a second. It keeps items toward the middle of the belt, so they do not fall off the side. At its end, the item goes into a crate, a sorting chest, a smelter, a furnace, a refinery or a generator, whichever is there. It draws 8 W while it is on power. Nobody can pick up items while they ride a belt. Things ride on it, and players can stand on it.

Hoppers

A Hopper (6 metal and 2 plant fibre, at a Workbench) takes one item at a time from the chest or machine behind it, or above it, and passes it into whatever is in front: a chest, a smelter's input or a belt. It moves an item every half second at full power and draws 20 W while it has work. An auto-smelter queue is a crate of ore, then a hopper, then a smelter, then a hopper, then a crate.

Harvesters

A Harvester (10 metal and 6 wood, at a Workbench) picks every ripe crop in a 5 by 5 patch round it. It puts the harvest into a chest beside it, then replants from the seeds in that chest. It takes 1.6 seconds for each crop and draws 60 W while there is something ripe in reach. It works as a hand would, so the crops come up the same quality.

Sorting chests

A Sorting Chest (6 wood and 2 metal, at a Workbench) keeps one item in its slot as its filter. An item that matches the filter turns to the right, and everything else goes straight on. Put a crate on the right and one on the straight-on side, and the chest splits a belt by kind. Items can pass through a chain of up to four sorting chests before they stop.

Tips

• Start an automatic farm with a harvester beside a chest, and a hopper to feed seeds back if you like.
• A sorting chest with the filter set to ore sends ore one way and everything else the other.
• Put a generator at the end of a belt of petrol or diesel barrels, and it fills itself as the belt runs.
• Empty the pump's crate regularly, or the pump stops with "the crate is full of barrels".

For the power that drives these, see machines and power. For the pieces that make up a conveyor line, see building pieces and shapes.

← Back to the wiki · Last updated 25 October 2026. Mantlenaut is in alpha, so things change.