Integrated Crafting

Overview

Integrated Crafting is an addon for Integrated Dynamics that adds automated crafting to your logistics networks. If you have been using Integrated Dynamics to move items, fluids, and energy around, this mod is the next step: telling your network to craft things on demand. The mod adds just two parts, the Crafting Interface and the Crafting Writer, but together they enable a powerful autocrafting system that rivals any tech mod's automation capabilities.

The core concept is straightforward: Crafting Interfaces sit next to machines and hold recipes, while Crafting Writers trigger crafting jobs. The network handles the rest, pulling ingredients from storage, inserting them into the right machines, and tracking when outputs are complete. The system supports crafting with items, fluids, and energy, and can even resolve multi-step dependency chains automatically. You can browse the mod's items using the tabs on this page.

Prerequisites

Integrated Crafting is not a standalone mod. You need a working Integrated Dynamics network before any of this mod's features become useful. At minimum, you should have Integrated Dynamics installed (version 1.0.9 or later) along with CyclopsCore. You should already be comfortable with the basics: placing Cables, using Variable Cards in the Logic Programmer, and connecting storage inventories to your network.

Before setting up autocrafting, make sure you have a network with at least one storage system connected (Chests or other inventories read by the network), a supply of Variable Cards, and access to a Logic Programmer. You will also need the machines you want to automate, whether that is a vanilla Crafting Table, a Furnace, or machines from other mods.

The Two Parts

Crafting Interface

The Crafting Interface is the workhorse of the autocrafting system. It attaches to a machine and holds Variable Cards containing recipes. When a crafting job is scheduled, the interface pulls the required ingredients from the network's storage, inserts them into the attached machine through the appropriate sides, and waits for outputs to appear. The GUI shows a row of slots for recipe cards, each with a validation icon underneath indicating whether the recipe is compatible with the connected machine.

The interface also has a settings panel (accessed via the button in the top-right of its GUI) where you can configure which sides of the machine receive which ingredient types. Items, fluids, and energy can each be routed to different sides of the machine. This is particularly useful for modded machines that accept inputs on specific faces.

Crafting Writer

The Crafting Writer is the trigger mechanism. Unlike the Crafting Interface, it does not have an inventory GUI. Instead, it uses Integrated Dynamics' aspect system to receive crafting requests. You configure it with a Variable Card that specifies what to craft, and it submits the job to the network. The writer supports four write aspects: Craft Recipe (using a recipe value), Craft Item (using an item), Craft Fluid (using a fluid), and Craft Energy (using an energy value). Each aspect accepts different input types, giving you flexibility in how you trigger automation.

How Crafting Jobs Work

When a Crafting Writer submits a request, the network creates a Crafting Job. Each job tracks the recipe being crafted, the quantity requested, which ingredients are available, and any dependency jobs that must complete first. The job progresses through several states as it moves from request to completion.

The network first checks if the required output already exists in storage (unless you set the "Ignore storage contents" property). If the items are not available, it finds a Crafting Interface with a matching recipe and assigns the job. The interface then pulls ingredients from network storage, inserts them into the machine, and monitors for the output. Once the machine finishes and the result enters the network, the job is marked complete.

If the required ingredients are not available in storage and the "Craft missing ingredients" property is enabled, the network will recursively schedule additional crafting jobs for those materials. This creates a dependency chain: the parent job waits until all child jobs finish before it can proceed. The system detects infinite recursive recipes and throws an error rather than looping forever.

Crafting Writer Aspects and Properties

The Crafting Writer communicates through Integrated Dynamics' aspect system. It provides four write aspects, each accepting a different input type. The Craft Recipe aspect takes a Recipe value and is the most direct way to trigger a specific recipe. The Craft Item aspect accepts an ItemStack and will find any recipe that produces that item. The Craft Fluid aspect works the same way but for fluids, and the Craft Energy aspect accepts an integer energy value.

Each write aspect supports several configurable properties that control how the crafting job behaves. The Channel property determines which network channel the job runs on (channel -1 means the entire network). The Ignore Storage Contents property forces crafting even if the output already exists in storage. The Ignore Crafting Jobs property allows starting a new job even if an identical one is already running. The Craft Missing Ingredients property enables recursive autocrafting of sub-components.

For the Craft Recipe aspect specifically, there is also a Craft Amount property that lets you specify how many times to repeat the recipe. This is useful for batch crafting, such as requesting 64 Torches at once.

Read Aspects for Monitoring

Integrated Crafting also adds read aspects that you can use with Network Reader parts to monitor your crafting system. The Recipes aspect returns a list of all available recipes registered across Crafting Interfaces on the current channel. The Active Crafting Jobs aspect returns all currently running jobs as a list. The Crafting Ingredients aspect returns a list of all pending or missing ingredients across all active jobs.

These read aspects are invaluable for building monitoring displays. You can connect them to Display Panels to show what your network is currently crafting, which jobs are queued, and what ingredients are needed. If you have Integrated Terminals installed, the Crafting Job Terminal provides a visual dashboard for all of this information.

Advanced Techniques

Distributed Crafting

One of the most powerful features is distributed crafting. If you place multiple Crafting Interfaces on identical machines and load them all with the same recipe, the network will automatically distribute large crafting jobs across all available interfaces. For example, if you need to smelt 40 Iron Ore and you have 10 Furnaces each with a Crafting Interface holding the Iron Ore smelting recipe, the network will split the job and send 4 ore to each Furnace. This scales linearly and is the key to high-throughput automation.

Dynamic Recipes

Variable Cards in Crafting Interfaces can contain dynamic values that change based on conditions. This means a recipe can change depending on the time of day, what is available in storage, or any other variable you can express in Integrated Dynamics' logic system. The network detects recipe changes and uses the updated recipe for new jobs, while existing jobs continue with the recipe they started with.

Channel Isolation

The network supports channels for isolating crafting subsystems. Channel -1 is the default and spans the entire network. Numbered channels create isolated groups where only Crafting Interfaces and Writers on the same channel can interact. This is useful for separating different production lines so that a high-priority crafting request does not compete with background batch jobs for the same interfaces.

Configuration

Integrated Crafting has a few configuration options worth knowing about. The most relevant is minCraftingInterfaceUpdateFreq, which controls how often Crafting Interfaces check for recipe updates, measured in ticks. The default is 5 ticks (0.25 seconds). Lowering this makes the system more responsive but increases CPU usage. Raising it reduces server load at the cost of slower job detection.

The validateRecipesCraftingInterface option (default: true) controls whether the Crafting Interface checks that inserted Variable Cards contain valid recipes for the attached machine. This can be changed at runtime using commands. Disabling it allows more flexible setups but removes the safety net that prevents misconfigured recipes.