BlockFactory:Grabbers

Grabbers are mechanical arms that move items from one block to the next: from a belt into a furnace, from a fabricator onto a belt, from a chest into a boiler. The fuel-driven Coal Grabber is available from the start; the electric grabbers come with research.

Grabbers moving items from belts into chests

Overview

	Grabber	Epoch	Unlocked by	Energy	Swings/s	Items per swing	Reach	Recipe
	Coal Grabber	0	Start	Fuel, 95 kW	0.6	1	1 block	1 Iron Gear + 1 Iron Plate
	Grabber T1	1	Automation	Electric, 13.2 kW	0.83	1	1 block	1 Electronic Circuit + 1 Iron Gear + 1 Iron Plate
	Grabber T2	2	Fast Grabber	Electric, 46 kW	2.31	1	1 block	1 Grabber T1 + 2 Electronic Circuit + 2 Iron Plate
	Long Grabber	2	Fast Grabber	Electric, 20 kW	1.2	1	2 blocks	1 Grabber T1 + 1 Iron Gear + 1 Iron Plate
	Grabber T3	3	Logistics 3	Electric, 100 kW	2.31	up to 4	1 block	1 Grabber T2 + 15 Iron Gear + 15 Electronic Circuit + 1 Advanced Circuit
	Mass Grabber (T4)	4	Mass Grabber	Electric, 130 kW	2.31	up to 12	1 block	1 Grabber T3 + 15 Iron Gear + 5 Processing Unit

All grabbers are 1 × 1 and make no noise. A swing is one full cycle: grab, swing over, drop, swing back. Grabbers only use energy while the arm moves. A grabber that grabs several items at once (Grabber T3, Mass Grabber) only takes items of one kind, and only as many as the target will accept.

Direction

A grabber picks up from the block behind it and drops into the block in front of it. Behind is the side away from you when you place it, so a grabber always moves items towards you. Place it while standing where the items should go.

The Long Grabber picks up two blocks behind and drops two blocks in front, over whatever stands in between.

A grabber can work with any block of a large building, not only its center.

Fuel and power

The Coal Grabber burns fuel (see Smelting for fuel values). It feeds itself: when its fuel slot is empty, it takes a piece of fuel from the block behind it, even with no energy left, so a Coal Grabber at a coal belt starts on its own. If it runs out of energy mid-swing while carrying fuel, it burns what it carries. Press Use on a Coal Grabber to see its fuel slot and what the arm holds, or crouch and press Use with fuel in your hand to fill it.

The electric grabbers need power from a nearby power pole (see Power). When power runs short they slow down. A boiler fed by electric grabbers can therefore starve its own grid; feed boilers with a Coal Grabber instead.

With a Programmable Interface you can switch grabbers on and off.

What a grabber takes

From	It takes
Belt	items from either lane
Splitter	items waiting inside it
Furnace, drill, fabricator, SlaughterHouse and other machines	only finished products from the output
Chest, Animal Trap, Goblin Cart, Cargo Wagon	any item the target accepts
Another grabber, boiler, Coal Plant, locomotive	nothing

A grabber only picks up what the target will accept. It never grabs an item it cannot drop, except at a belt, where it waits for a gap.

What a grabber puts in

Into	Rule
Belt	one item at a time, onto the far lane (the lane away from the grabber), as soon as there is a gap
Splitter	into a free place inside; the Splitter passes it on like an item from a belt
Furnace, SlaughterHouse, refineries	ingredients up to twice the recipe amount; fuel up to 5 (only machines that burn fuel)
Fabricator	only ingredients of the chosen recipe, each up to twice the recipe amount
Wooden Drill, boiler, Coal Plant	only fuel, up to 5
Nuclear Reactor	only Uranium Fuel Cells, up to 5
Locomotive	only fuel, up to 10
Towers	matching ammunition, up to 20
Buildings with rune module slots	Rune Modules into free slots, one at a time
Portals, research centers, Outlander Test Site	what they currently need
Chest, Goblin Cart, Cargo Wagon	wherever it fits
Another grabber, Animal Trap	nothing

The small limits keep items from piling up in one machine while the next one in line starves. The far-lane rule makes belt layouts predictable: a row of grabbers on one side of a belt fills one lane, a row on the other side fills the other.

See also

• Belts
• Storage
• Smelting
• Fabricators
• Power