Automation & Handoff
NeroTech's automation machines turn a manual production line into a self-running one — and, crucially, they expose a standard item-handoff surface so a logistics mod (NeroLogistics) or any pipe/hopper can move items in and out with no dependency on NeroTech.
The handoff surface
Every NeroTech machine exposes its inventory through the standard loader item capability (NeoForge
Capabilities.Item.BLOCK, Forge ITEM_HANDLER, Fabric ItemStorage.SIDED), wired sided:
- Inputs are insertable, outputs are extractable, and the internal upgrade-module slots are never exposed to automation.
- Fluids and gases ride the standard fluid capability too (NeoForge
Capabilities.Fluid.BLOCK, ForgeFLUID_HANDLER, FabricFluidStorage.SIDED): a machine's fluid tank, plus each gas tank wearing its transport fluid (nerotech:hydrogen,nerotech:oxygen), so ordinary fluid pipes feed the Electrolyzer and carry its products away. Needs Neroland Core 1.12.0 or newer. - Gases also ride Core's
nerolandcore:gascapability, so gas pipes that speak it carry them natively. The oxygen is the sharednerospace:oxygen; see Fluids & Gases. - Machines are also discoverable through Core's
c:tags.
So a generic capability/tag client routes NeroTech production endpoints generically — exactly what NeroLogistics needs. NeroTech does not implement cross-block routing itself; endpoint discovery and routing live in the logistics layer (Core deliberately doesn't own item lookup).
Side configuration
Every NeroTech machine now carries Neroland Core's universal side-configuration system. Open a machine and use the Side Config tab in the top-right of its GUI: a flattened cube of the six faces, each of which you set per channel (Power / Item) to disabled, input, output or both. Faces are relative to the machine's facing, so a configuration travels with the block when it is rotated or re-placed. The tab also has auto-eject / auto-input toggles, and reset / copy / paste (the in-GUI clipboard pastes between machines of the same type; the Configurator wrench pastes across types).
Side config is server-authoritative: clicks send intents to the server, which validates and syncs the result back. A face's capability is gated by its mode — a disabled face exposes nothing, an input face only accepts, an output face only emits — so pipes connect exactly where you allow them. Since 0.1.0-beta.1 you can also cycle, read and copy-paste side configurations in-world with the Configurator wrench, and the Item Sorter shows its port modes as live-tinted collars.
Each machine ships with a sensible default layout:
- Generators (Nero Generator, Fusion Reactor, Solar Array) — Power out on every face; generators also accept fuel in on every face. Power auto-ejects to adjacent storage/machines by default.
- Processors (Ore Processor, Fabricator and their Advanced tiers, Auto Crafter) — items in on every face except the bottom, which is the output; Power in on every face.
- Item Sorter — input on top and bottom; each of the four horizontal faces outputs its own filtered buffer (the directional routing below). Faces can't be set to both-ways here.
Auto Crafter
Assembles a vanilla crafting recipe from its 3×3 grid into the output slot, powered by NE. It's demand-driven: it only attempts a craft on a batched interval and only when ingredients are present, so it never per-tick-scans. Pipes fill the grid and pull the output via the item capability.
Recipe preview: the output well shows a ghost of what the current grid would craft (server-matched, kept current even while unpowered), so you can lay out a recipe and see the result before any power or crafting happens.
Grid lock: the Lock button (title bar) snapshots the current grid as a per-slot template. While locked, each grid slot only accepts its template item — in the GUI and through pipes/hoppers — so automation keeps refilling exactly the right ingredients and can never scramble the recipe, even when a slot runs completely empty (its ghost stays visible in the emptied slot). Press Unlock to clear the template. The template is world/block state only — no player data.
Item Sorter
A directional filter sorter: an input slot plus four horizontal faces, each with a filter and an output buffer. Items matching a face's filter are routed into that face's buffer, where a pipe (or NeroLogistics) on that side extracts them — sorting by where it's pulled, no neighbour scanning. Routing runs on a batched interval. (v1 filters match by item; tag-based filters are a planned enhancement.) The per-face exposure is driven by the Side Config tab: each horizontal face outputs its own filtered buffer, and the top/bottom default to input.
Conveyor Belt
The cheapest automation in the mod, and the only NeroTech block with no block entity at all: a flat plate, four pixels high, that pushes item entities riding it along the direction it faces (about 0.15 blocks per tick, capped — a chain of belts never accelerates an item past belt speed).
- No power, no GUI, no filter. It applies motion and nothing else: no pickup, no merging, no inserting into inventories.
- Lines and corners form naturally — each belt only ever pushes along its own facing, so a corner is just two belts facing different ways. There is no belt "network" and no path-finding.
- Only item entities are moved; players and mobs walk over a belt normally.
- Feed the end of a run into a hopper, a machine face or a Robotic Arm to get items back into an inventory.
Placed facing away from you, so a run builds in the direction you are walking.
Craft: 3 Iron Dust over 2 Nero Coils around Redstone → 6 belts. This is the mod's main Iron Dust sink.
Robotic Arm
A one-block item mover: once a second it lifts up to roboticArmStackPerMove (default 8) items out of
the container behind it and puts them into the container in front of it, spending
roboticArmNePerMove (default 4) NE per item moved.
- Both ends are addressed through the same standard container surface a hopper uses, through the face pointing at the arm — so machine side configs, furnace sidedness and NeroTech's own per-face routing are all honoured.
- One filter slot in the GUI: while it holds an item, only matching items move. The filter is a template — it is never consumed, and no face ever exposes it to automation.
- Speed modules raise the items-per-pass; Efficiency modules and the Eco preset cut the NE per item.
- Never a world scan: two direct neighbour lookups on a 20-tick cadence, phase-spread across arms.
Craft: Machine Frame, 2 Circuit Boards, 2 Nero Coils and 2 Iron Dust.