Guides · The world
Machines: the thrum
The Vael ran a hum through their works: the thrum. A Lever, a Press Stone, a Treadstone or a Thrumstone starts it; Thrumthread carries it; doors, lights and movers answer it. Every piece is made in the middle lands.
How the thrum runs
- A piece is humming or still: there is no strength to count. Thread carries the thrum 48 lengths from where it starts, along the floor and one step up or down.
- Stone never carries it. Only thread and the pieces themselves pass it on: a block between two threads breaks the line.
- A humming thread or piece drives what stands beside it: a Thrumlight lights, a door, trapdoor or gate opens, and shuts again when the thrum goes. Your hand still opens and shuts them in between.
- The thrum never crosses a claim's edge. Nobody opens your door from outside your land, and only those who may build there can throw your Levers.
The pieces
| Piece | What it does |
|---|---|
| Lever | Thrown, it hums into everything beside it until thrown back. |
| Press Stone | Pressed, it hums for a heartbeat. |
| Treadstone | It hums while a player or a creature stands on it. |
| Thrumstone | It never stops humming. |
| Thrumlight | It lights while the thrum reaches it. |
| Stillstone | It hums out of its face while nothing hums into its back. |
| Holdstone | It passes what hums into its back out of its face after a moment. Use it to set a long hold. |
| Heaver | When the thrum arrives, it heaves the blocks before its face one step. |
| Hauler | A Heaver that hauls the block back when the thrum goes. |
| Chute | While the thrum reaches it, it passes a stack a second from the chest behind it to the chest before it. |
| Sorter | A Chute that passes only what the chest before it already holds. |
| Detector | When the block before its eye changes, it hums out of its back. |
| Blastcharge | Lit by the thrum or a Flint, it bursts after four heartbeats. |
A Stillstone, Holdstone, Heaver, Hauler, Chute, Sorter or Detector is set down with its face turned away from you.
Three builds to start with
A Lever and a door
- Set a Lever on the floor a few blocks from a door.
- Lay Thrumthread from the Lever to a block beside the door.
- Throw the Lever: the thread hums and the door opens. Throw it back and the door shuts.
A Treadstone and a gate
- Set an Oak Fence Gate in a fence.
- Set a Treadstone on the floor beside it.
- Step on the stone and the gate opens; step off and it shuts behind you.
A blinking Thrumlight
- Set a Stillstone, then two Holdstones in a row after it, each facing on along the row.
- Lay Thrumthread from the face of the last Holdstone round the side and back to the block behind the Stillstone.
- Set a Thrumlight beside the thread. The Stillstone hums, the hum runs through both holds and the thread, the Stillstone goes still, and round it goes: the light blinks.
- Use a Holdstone to set its long hold, and the blink slows.
Moving blocks
A Heaver heaves the line of blocks before its face one step, up to 12 blocks; a longer line stays put. A Hauler heaves, and when the thrum goes it hauls the block before it back into the gap. A torch or a plant on a moved block pops off as its item.
Movers never move Rootrock, liquids, chests of any kind, a Forge or a Hearth Pot, a Homefire, a Bedroll, a claim stone, doors, signs, shelves, shrines, altars, a Mended Lens or another machine. If any block in the line can't move, if someone stands where a block would go, or if the line runs into another claim, nothing moves at all.
Chutes and Sorters
A Chute between two chests passes one stack a second from the chest behind it to the chest before it, while the thrum reaches it (a Thrumstone beside it keeps it going). A Sorter passes only the kinds the chest before it already holds: put one of each thing you want there, and the Sorter brings the rest.
Neither ever reaches a Sealed Chest, a chest in another claim, or a chest in a ruin nobody has opened yet. Nothing is ever made or lost on the way: a stack leaves one chest and arrives in the other, whole.
The Detector
A Detector watches the block before its eye. When that block changes (dug, set down, opened, moved), it hums out of its back for half a second. Point one at a crop, a door or the end of a Heaver's line, and the thrum answers the change.
The Blastcharge
A Blastcharge is lit by the thrum or by using a Flint on it, and bursts four heartbeats later. It breaks the blocks close round it, each dropping as if dug, and lights or throws the other charges it reaches. It never breaks a chest, a Sealed Chest or Rootrock.
- In the Riven Lands it breaks blocks only inside your own claim (or a claim whose owner trusts you). Anywhere else there it only throws people back: it is a tool, never a weapon.
- In your own worlds it breaks anywhere, unless the world's Blasts rule is off (/rules blasts off).
- Water beside a charge drinks its blast: it breaks nothing.
- A cannon: a charge with water beside it, and a second charge touching it on the side you aim. Light the first: the burst throws the second, burning, and it bursts where it lands.
Limits
- A piece that changes more than eight times in two seconds is spent for three: "A machine here is spent."
- Ground where the machines change more than two hundred times in a second rests for five: "Too much thrum here."
- A patch of ground holds at most 512 machine pieces, thread included.
- At most eight Blastcharges burst at once in a world; the rest follow a moment later.
Recipes
Thrumthread is a Copper Ingot, a String and a Copper Ingot in a row, and makes six. Every other piece needs it: the recipe book at a Maker's Bench lists each one, and the Blastcharge (coal and a Flint in a ring of clay balls) besides.
Commands
In your own worlds, and for operators online, /machines says how hard the world's machines are working and how many pieces the ground under you holds.
Next: The Keepers. All sections: the guides.