Automation — Planter and Harvester

The Planter and Harvester are NF-powered machines that work a square area of grow beds around themselves, so a flat farm can run hands-free. Both use the same bounded, interval-batched engine and never scan the whole area every tick or force-load chunks.

How they work#

Build a flat field of grow beds around the machine at the machine's own Y level. Each work interval the machine processes a bounded number of columns from a rolling cursor:

• The Planter looks for an empty bed with a spare space above it and plants a matching seed from its inventory, validating the same catalog, tier, gate and dimension rules as manual planting.
• The Harvester takes any mature crop in the area in place — the plant and its harvest history are preserved (no block replacement), and produce goes to its inventory or drops at the machine if full.

Work is phase-offset per position so neighbouring machines do not all fire on the same tick, a fixed number of columns are handled per pass, unloaded columns are skipped, and each operation costs NF.

Loading items and upgrades#

Hoppers and pipes load seeds into a Planter and pull produce from a Harvester through the machine's item faces and Core side configuration. You can also right-click the machine with a seed, a fertiliser, or an upgrade module in hand to drop it straight into a free slot; right-click with an empty hand to read the machine's status (mode, area size, NF, owner, speed).

Upgrades and area size#

Core upgrade modules slot into every machine. Range modules step the work area 3×3 → 5×5 → 7×7 → 9×9 (clamped at 9×9). Speed modules make passes more effective and Efficiency modules lower the energy cost, exactly as on the fabrication machines.

Ownership and claims#

If owner tracking is enabled (config automation.track_owner, on by default), a machine records only the placing player's UUID — never a name — so a claims/protection mod can authorise its edits. Fabrication machines and powered grow beds record their placer the same way, and progression checks (gate unlocks, research requirements) are made owner-first: they credit the machine's owner, falling back to the nearest player only when no owner is recorded, so opting out never bricks progression. Standalone, with no claims mod, machines work freely on loaded chunks. A player-data erasure request clears the stored owner from any loaded machine (and from unloaded ones when their chunks load — see Privacy).

See also: Fertiliser, Side Configuration.