Machine Tuning

data/machines.json holds every placeable machine: the drills and excavators that dig for you, the processors that refine materials, the pumps and explosives, the ritual structures, the forest buildings (sawmill, hunting lodge, apothecary), and the class-landmark machines. Change these to set how fast machines work, how much fuel they hold, how long they last, what it costs to repair them, and how many you may place at once.

In plain terms

A machine is one entry in machines.json. Machines fall into a few families, each leaning on different fields:

• Miners (drills, excavators) — dig terrain automatically. Their key fields are work_rate (dig speed), max_fuel (tank size), and durability_min/durability_max (how many tiles before they wear out).
• Processors — turn one material into another via a recipe_id. They have work_rate 0 and max_fuel 0 (they run off the recipe, not fuel), a 3x3 footprint, and a durability measured in process cycles.
• Structures and buildings — the Astrolabe, binding stakes, pumps, sawmill, lodge, and apothecary, each with their own extra schema.
• Class landmarks — champion-only signature machines (the Miner's Deepdrill, the Smith's Grand Anvil), unlocked at skill node 3 and capped at one each.

Terms:

• footprint — the tile rectangle a machine occupies (footprint_w x footprint_h).
• work_rate — for a miner, terrain hit points removed per second, multiplied by the quality of the fuel burning (work_rate_mult on the fuel material). For processors it is 0.
• durability — a wear count rolled once per placement between durability_min and durability_max. For miners it is tiles dug; for processors it is process cycles run. When it hits zero the machine breaks and must be repaired.

The tuning fields

The max_placed fallback

Any machine that omits max_placed (all the processors, and the mechanical/hydraulic/steam excavators) is capped at 2 active copies by the script constant GameConstants.MACHINE_DEFAULT_MAX_PLACED, applied through _placement_cap() in MachineController. The JSON value overrides it when present (drills allow 3, forest buildings 1, the Astrolabe 1, both class-landmark machines 1). To let a player place more of a processor, add an explicit max_placed to its entry. A missing key never means "unlimited".

Miners (drills and excavators)

Drills dig a single column downward; excavators cut a 3-wide swath. Fuel quality (work_rate_mult on the burning fuel) multiplies work_rate, so better fuel digs faster.

The Steam Excavator is directional — the player chooses which way it cuts.

Processors

Recipe-driven refiners. All share work_rate 0, max_fuel 0, and a 3x3 footprint; they wear by process cycles (durability_min/max) and repair for gold (repair_cost) or for 2x their recipe inputs. None specify max_placed, so each caps at 2. The exceptions are the Glazing Kiln and the Grand Anvil, which set max_placed explicitly and carry a selectable_recipes list.

The Glazing Kiln's selectable_recipes are glaze_stone, glaze_dense_stone, glaze_cement, glaze_iron, glaze_bronze, glaze_steel — the player picks which block it glazes.

The repair economy

A broken machine repairs two ways (MachineManager):

• With gold — pay the machine's repair_cost in gold. Fallback is 5 if the key is absent.
• With materials — recipe-less buildings (sawmill, lodge, apothecary) and the Deepdrill charge the explicit repair_materials on their entry; every other processor charges 2x its recipe's input materials. Either way the machine resets to full durability.

Structures, pumps, and explosives

The pump fills the well over its 2-day lifespan_days, delivering water_output (50), then wears out. Placing it claims the adjacent water pocket: the discovery is consumed on the spot (no dig reward on top — the pump's well delivery is the extraction), so a pocket can't also be dug for its reward or feed a second pump. The terrain tiles themselves are never touched. Offline, the pump keeps delivering on the idle clock. Explosives use max_placed 0 to mark a one-shot consumable rather than a standing machine.

Class landmark machines

Two of the six class landmarks are machines, unlocked at skill node 3 for their champion and capped at 1 each. Their recipes gate via unlock_requires_champion_skill + unlock_requires_skill_node in recipes.json. The other four landmarks are village buildings — see Village Buildings. Skill/class context lives in Skills, Classes, and Handicaps.

Deepdrill — Miner

A 2x1 underground auto-miner that descends and digs on its own, through any stone. It reuses the excavator/drill tick (is_processor false) but cuts a 2-wide pass.

Offline the Deepdrill's durability is enforced in MachineManager.simulate_offline — it stops at 250 tiles offline just as it does live, so a long absence never mines past its wear limit.

Grand Anvil — Smith

A 3x3 processor (built on the glazing-kiln template) with a selectable_recipes picker the player switches between. It's the only source of the game's toughest wall and unlocks a masterwork pickaxe.

The glazed_vault_block it glazes is the strongest wall in the game — wall_hp 5000, base_chew_resistance 7.0 (see Materials and Mining Yield). Forging grand_alloy also opens the grand_pickaxe masterwork recipe (tier-6 pick, 5000 durability, reaches tier-8 material) in Tools and Durability. Because both outputs are champion-gated, the Anvil shifts how powerful a Smith run feels rather than the baseline; the vault-block's wall_hp is the number to watch if it makes the Maw trivial.

Forest buildings

These sit in the forest zone (west of an forest_zone_max_x boundary), burn fuel from a max_fuel 2500 tank (~7 game days / ~42 real minutes of continuous burn), and are all max_placed 1. They repair with materials (repair_materials) and carry tiered upgrades.

Sawmill (2x2) — produces wood passively per day. Durability 250/350, repair_cost 250, repair_materials 16 wood / 12 iron / 12 stone. Daily wood output depends on the fuel burning (wood_by_fuel): coal 12, deep_coal 15, crude_oil 18, ethanol 21.6. Three sawmill_upgrades multiply output: Sharpened Blades 1.5x, Steel Frame 2.5x, Steam Engine 4.0x.

Hunting Lodge (3x2) — sends hunters out for food. Durability 40/60, repair_cost 150, repair_materials 8 wood / 6 stone / 6 iron. Timing knobs: hunt_min_days 0.3 / hunt_max_days 0.7, rest_min_days 0.2 / rest_max_days 0.5, and a hunt_death_chance 0.05 (5% chance a hunt ends in a death). Base haul base_food_min 4 / base_food_max 8, raised by three lodge_upgrades: Trained Hunters 8-13, Expert Trackers 13-20, Master Hunters 20-35.

Apothecary (3x2) — brews medicine that can save a dying villager. Durability 80/120, repair_cost 500, repair_materials 50 wood / 30 stone / 8 quartz / 2 ancient_clay. It brews while it's fueled, stocked, and the water tower sits above stored_water_floor 20, spending water_per_dose 3 per dose. Daily dose output by fuel (doses_by_fuel): coal 6, deep_coal 8, crude_oil 10, ethanol 12. Target stock defaults to dose_target_default 10, up to dose_target_max 50. Three dose_levels set the save chance and ingredients:

Offline behavior

While the game is closed, machines advance on the idle clock (elapsed time times the idle multiplier, default 0.15): fuel burn and output scale together, so the fuel cost per unit of output offline matches live play. The apothecary is the one exception — it brews at the full clock because the villager-death sims it counters also run at the full clock. The Trading Post trickles gold on the idle-scaled clock; the Deepdrill mines on the idle clock and stops at its 250-tile durability offline exactly as it does live. While the game is merely unfocused (tab open in the background), machines run at full speed.

Safe to change / handle with care

• work_rate on miners is multiplied by fuel quality and runs continuously. Small bumps compound into very fast automated digging that can outrun the whole survival loop. The Deepdrill already sits at the top of the range (12.0).
• durability_min/durability_max set the repair cadence. Narrow the range for predictable wear; widen it for variety. Set both to 0 and a machine is immortal, which is only intended for the Astrolabe and stakes.
• max_placed governs how much a player can parallelize. The fallback is 2 for any omitted key; to allow more, add the key explicitly. Both class-landmark machines are capped at 1 on purpose — they're signature, not spammable.
• max_fuel and the fuel materials' fuel_seconds/work_rate_mult (in materials.json) together set unattended runtime. Tune them as a pair.
• Forest-building upgrade multipliers and hauls (sawmill output_mult, lodge food ranges, apothecary doses_by_fuel) feed the village food/water economy directly, so large changes ripple into survival balance.

Any edit to machines.json needs the data validator and, for gameplay-affecting numbers, the smoke test — see The Safe Change Workflow.

Related

• Materials and Mining Yield
• Tools and Durability
• Village Buildings
• Skills, Classes, and Handicaps
• The Astrolabe Consequence Curve
• Survival and Supply Drain
• The Safe Change Workflow