Craftomation 101 Feeding CraftoMates: Energy, Bricks, and Ales

Every ambitious base in Craftomation 101 fails the same way first: a perfect program, a dark battery meter, and a CraftoMate frozen mid-Combine. Feeding robots is not a side chore — it is the rate limiter on heat, research, and terraforming. This guide covers energy basics, Coal Bricks, brewery ales (Wakey / Speedy and Primordial), eco vs turbo speed settings, and how to build self-fueling loops that do not collapse when you look away.

New arrivals should skim Getting Started. Heat couples tightly to fuel logistics via Automate Fire. Recipe numbers live in Recipes. Long-term crew growth pairs with Upgrade Path.

How CraftoMate energy works

Each CraftoMate has a battery that drains while walking, picking, combining, and delivering. Standing still still costs you opportunity — an idle unfed bot is a future outage. When energy hits zero, the robot stops until you (or a nurse routine) feed it.

Early scraps like raw Coal or Fire restore almost nothing (on the order of a couple of battery points). Coal Brick restores on the order of 25 — the first fuel worth automating. Later ales and crafted batteries change the mid-game, but bricks remain the backbone of early crews.

Rule of thumb: never ship a new specialist without a fuel plan. A second heat bot with no brick income doubles your outage risk.

Coal Brick: the staple food

Coal Brick = Stone + Coal

That recipe shares inputs with Fire (Spark needs two Stone; Fire needs Coal). Plan one brick stockpile near both the heat yard and the worker path so Find and pick / Pick from stay short.

Manual feeding (first minutes)

Craft a handful of bricks by hand and drag-feed your first CraftoMate to a safe battery level before you admire the editor. The tutorial expects this; skipping it guarantees a tutorial bot that dies during its victory lap.

Automated eating

Add a branch every serious program should own:

1. Compare energy (threshold often in the low teens — tune to walk distance)
2. If low: Find and pick Coal Brick (or Pick from brick storage)
3. Eat
4. Resume production / return to Idle

Better: craft bricks in a dedicated Brick1 bot and let consumers only Eat. That separation is the heart of scalable Automate Fire yards.

If bricks are empty, the energy branch should fail safe — pause work near storage rather than hiking to a distant Coal node at 5% battery.

Eco and turbo: gears on the robot

CraftoMates expose a speed / consumption tradeoff (think gears):

• Eco-leaning settings — lower speed, lower energy use. Ideal for long, boring loops (steady Fire feeding, brick crafting) where reliability beats haste.
• Turbo-leaning settings — higher speed, much higher drain. Useful for urgent hauling or catching up after an outage — dangerous without rich fuel income.

Exact slider labels can vary with UI updates, but the contract is stable: speed costs fuel. A turbo courier on a starved brick line will faceplant farther from home than an eco bot would.

Default new workers toward eco until your brick surplus is obvious. Spend turbo deliberately, not as a global “make game faster” switch.

Ales: Wakey, Speedy, and Primordial

The Brewery unlocks drinkable buffs and fuels. Core recipes players rely on:

Drink	Typical recipe	Role
Primordial Ale	Wood + Water (Brewery)	Strong mid fuel / brewing base
Wakey Ale 1	Moss + Water	Eco mode buff (~60s)
Wakey Ale 2	Moss + Primordial Ale	Longer eco buff
Speedy Ale 1	Mushroom + Water	Turbo mode buff (~60s)
Speedy Ale 2	Mushroom + Primordial Ale	Stronger/longer turbo path

Wakey leans into efficiency — slower, thriftier operation for sustain. Speedy leans into haste — finish a long trek or clear a backlog, then return to normal gears before the buff expires and the battery cliff hits.

Do not replace Coal Bricks with ales in the early game. Ales need Water, organics, and brewery attention. Sequence them after heat and bricks are boringly stable. Water itself is Ice + Fire — another reason your Fire loop must already work.

When you automate drinks, dedicate a small brewery cell: Water input, Moss/Mushroom input, output storage, and a nurse that only distributes ales to named bots. Mixing brewery logic into your Heat1 graph is how bases become unreadable.

Self-fueling loop design

Aim for this closed economy:

1. Gather Stone + Coal
2. Craft Coal Bricks into Storage A
3. Every worker’s program starts or ends with an energy check against Storage A
4. Surplus Stone/Coal also feeds Fire → Bonfires (Automate Fire)
5. Only then divert Water/Wood into Primordial Ale and specialty drinks

Optional nurse robot: Find low-energy mates (or park at a feed station) and feed mate when those interaction blocks are unlocked. Until then, self-Eat branches are enough.

Cargo Mates help by carrying storage boxes of bricks to distant work sites so line workers never path across half the seed for lunch.

Scaling the crew without a famine

Before assembling Body + Head for a new CraftoMate, ask:

• Do bricks net increase while the current crew runs?
• Does the new bot have a single job and a named program?
• Is there physical space near fuel, or will it commute to death?

If brick production is flat, invest in Brick1 upgrades or layout — not another hungry specialist. Upgrade Path helps sequence bodies, heads, cargo variants, and research without starving the line.

Symptoms → causes

Symptom	Likely cause	Fix
Bot stops holding half a recipe	Battery empty	Energy branch + brick stock
Many bots idle near Coal	Competing Find and pick	Central storage + Pick from
Turbo bots die farther out	Drain > income	Eco default; shorten routes
Ale automation stalls	Missing Water/Fire	Repair Fire/Water first
New bot dies in five minutes	No fuel plan	Feed before first execute

Checklist

1. Coal Bricks automated into visible storage.
2. Every working program has Compare energy → Eat.
3. Crew defaults to eco; turbo is situational.
4. Ales are a second system, not a first fuel.
5. New CraftoMates only after surplus food.
6. Heat and food yards stay neighbors (Automate Fire).

Feed the robots like the power plant they are. Clever code on an empty battery is just a sculpture on the ice.