Automation guide for 1.0

In 1.0, Automation Pipes replace the Automator. A pipe can pull items straight out of storage and send them to auto-craft or to another storage building. You no longer build a middle box, fill that box, and hope the link holds. The launch notes say this in plain language, and the older Automation Update is the history of the box that went away.

Automation now starts at Milestone 4. In 0.8 the first Automator waited until Milestone 9, with Automator II at Milestone 12. If a video tells you to rush Milestone 9 before any pipe works, it is teaching the old gate.

Recipes, filters, and speed

A crafting building can queue up to three recipes. If one recipe is missing parts, the queue skips it and tries the next. Storage gained a resource filter: Accept or Deny per building. Deny blocks a pipe delivery and nearby pickup, and a manual drop shows a warning. That is the 1.0 behavior Throughput and the build cost of an Automation Pipe were not printed, so

Energy has been global since the Automation Update. Generators and crafting buildings do not need to sit inside the farm range. Meet the minimum and the building or drone becomes Energized, about 2.5 times speed. That multiplier is from the 0.8 announcement, not a new 1.0 measurement. Fall short and the building returns to normal speed. It does not shut off. Drone stations stopped burning fuel in that same update and draw Energy instead.

The 0.8 sequence, kept here as a comparison, was: build an Automator, run a connector pipe to the crafting building, toggle auto-craft with H or the right stick, and stock the Automator. Splitters divided a line. Mergers joined lines. None of that is the 1.0 first step.