Mechanical Arm

The Mechanical Arm is a block used to transfer items.

Obtaining

Crafting

Name	Ingredients	Crafting Recipe
Mechanical Arm	Brass Sheet + Andesite Alloy + Precision Mechanism + Brass Casing

Usage

The Mechanical Arm can take or deposit items from various blocks within a 5 block radius of where it is placed. The order it does this in is determined by its behavior as well as the order the blocks were selected in during placement. A placed Mechanical Arm's selected blocks can be viewed by hovering over it with a Wrench.

Placement

• With the Mechanical Arm in hand, right clicking valid inventories will select them.
• The arm will remember the order the blocks were selected in while transferring items.
• Right clicking again will toggle between taking items from the block (highlighted in blue) or depositing items to the block (highlighted in yellow.)
• Left clicking will deselect the block.
• The Mechanical Arm can then be placed by right clicking on a block, and powered.
• Inventories beyond a 5 block radius from where it is placed will be dropped. The range of the arm can be adjusted in the Config.
• After placement, the amount of inputs and outputs an arm has will be shown in a message on screen if no selected points had to be dropped. A separate message is shown in red if interaction points were removed.
  • "Mechanical Arm has x input(s) and y output(s)"
  • "x selected interaction point(s) removed due to range limitations"

After the arm is placed, the inventories will be saved relative to where the arm is rather than by their coordinates; when the arm is moved, it will check for inventories relative to its current location, dropping them if no valid inventory is found.

The arm can be powered by a Cogwheel or similar blocks.

Interaction Points

The Mechanical Arm can interact with the following blocks:

•  Mechanical Belt
•  Chute
•  Depot
•  Weighted Ejector
•  Basin
•  Andesite Funnel
•  Brass Funnel
•  Mechanical Crafter
•  Millstone
•  Deployer
•  Mechanical Saw
•  Blaze Burner
•  Crushing Wheel
•  Composter
•  Train Station
•  Jukebox
•  Campfire
•  Soul Campfire
•  Respawn Anchor

Behavior

The Mechanical Arm's behavior can be adjusted in the Value Settings Screen accessed from the side of the block.

• Round Robin - The Mechanical Arm will take from and deposit to available inventories in the order they were selected in.
• Forced Round Robin - The same function as Round Robin, but the Mechanical Arm will not move items until the next inventory in order of selection is available.
• Prefer First - The Mechanical Arm will always take from and deposit to the first available inventory in order of selection.

The Mechanical Arm can be disabled with Redstone. Before stopping, it will deposit any item it is holding.

Filtering

The arm itself cannot be Filtered, but will respect the Filters on selected blocks such as Brass Funnels while sorting. The arm will not pick up items it cannot deposit elsewhere.

Trivia

• When a Music Disc is inserted into a Jukebox selected by a Mechanical Arm, the arm will dance like a Parrot and become rainbow-colored.
• When Engineer's Goggles are right clicked onto a Mechanical Arm, the arm will wear the goggles at the top of its hand. Doing so will not remove the goggles from the player's inventory, and the arm must be broken and replaced to remove the goggles from it.
• In its item.json file, the model is named "inserter". This could be a reference to the game Factorio.
• At 256 RPM, the Mechanical Arm has a transfer speed of approximately 1,27 seconds. Almost half speed of a hopper horizontal transfer speed. Though, contrary to a hopper, it's possible to transfer an entire stack at once.

History

• 0.5.1: Campfires, Soul Campfires, and Respawn Anchors are now interaction points.
• 0.5g: Mechanical Arms now only dance to Jukeboxes when the Jukebox playing music is in their interaction points.
• 0.3.1:
  • Composters are now interaction points.
  • Arms will stall targeted Mechanical Belt Items.
• 0.3: Introduced.