Craftomation 101 Automation Priority List
Rank which visual-programming loops to build first so CraftoMates carry the frozen colony.
Manual crafting teaches recipes. Automation wins the planet. In Craftomation 101 you program CraftoMates with visual blocks—mostly mouse drag-and-drop—to move, combine, and repeat work while you plan the next unlock. This page ranks which loops to automate first, not which enemy to fight. Use it with visual programming, Automate Fire, Feed robots, and the upgrade path.
The video embedded mid-page shows practical loop thinking you can mirror in your own block graphs. Pause it when a pattern matches your base layout, then rebuild the idea with your resource lanes.
Priority ladder at a glance
- S — Fire sustain loop (Spark materials → Fire → protected output chest)
- S — Robot feeding loop (ales/fuel/food path your mates actually consume)
- A — Water & Seed assist (Ice → Water; Water + Wood → Seed)
- A — Storage & buffer sorting (Steel Plate + Glass Storage nodes)
- A — Steel / Copper smelt assist (Fire sinks into Steel and Copper)
- B — Brewery luxury ales (after feeding is stable)
- B — Decorative or one-off quest crafts (keep manual)
- S (mid) — CraftoMate production (Body + Head assembly once parts exist)
- A (mid) — Cargo Mate & Steam Battery prep (toward terraforming)
Why Fire is automation job #1
Fire (Spark + Coal) is spent by Sand, Steel, Copper, Water, Glass, and more. If Fire is handcrafted, every other project stutters. Automate:
- Hauling Stone into Spark combines
- Mixing Spark with Coal into Fire
- Parking Fire in a visible, protected buffer
- Refilling Coal and Stone inputs before they hit zero
Details and gotchas live in Automate Fire. Until that loop is green, do not invest hours into fancy Chip factories.
Why feeding robots is automation job #2
Idle CraftoMates are decorations. Hungry or unpowered workers drop throughput to zero even if your recipe knowledge is perfect. The Feed robots guide covers practical sustain. In priority terms:
- Detect low feed state
- Deliver the correct ale or resource
- Return the mate to its work program
- Keep a small emergency hand-feed stack for outages
Rank feeding S beside Fire. A beautiful Steel line that starves its operators is a B-tier base pretending to be endgame.
Visual programming habits that keep loops safe
Read visual programming for block vocabulary. For priority ranking, enforce these habits:
- One job per mate early. Multitasking graphs fail silently when a haul path clogs.
- Buffers between stages. Fire chest → smelt mates → plate chest beats a single mega-script.
- Fail visible. Place outputs where you can see emptiness from the camera angle you use most.
- Re-entrancy. Programs should survive save/load and partial inventories.
- No infinite combine without stock checks. Empty inputs should idle, not thrash.
A-tier loops after Fire and feed
Water and Seeds
Water (Ice + Fire) and Seed (Water + Wood) stabilize organics. Automate Water as soon as Fire has spare capacity. Seeds can stay semi-manual until Wood is organized.
Storage placement
Storage (Steel Plate + Glass) is both a recipe and a logistics upgrade. Automating fills into Storage nodes prevents ground clutter that breaks pathing. Rank buffer management A; it multiplies every other loop’s reliability.
Steel and Copper assists
Once Fire is automated, assign smelt mates: Iron + Fire → Steel; Copper Ore + Fire → Copper. Then Steel + Steel → Steel Plate and Copper + Copper → Wire. These assists unlock Magnet, Charged Steelplate, Rotor, Chip, Tank, and mate bodies—see recipes on the recipe list and ranks on early recipes.
Bonfire → Rotor → Furnace prep
Bonfire (Clay Brick + Coal), Rotor (Magnet + Wire), Furnace (Rotor + Bonfire) are machine milestones. Automate brick and coal feeds when you commit to Furnace; until then, craft Bonfire pieces in short manual bursts.
Mid-game automation: mates making mates
When Battery, Radiolamp, Steel, and related parts exist, automate CraftoMate assembly:
- Body = Battery + Steel
- Head = Radiolamp + Steel
- CraftoMate = Body + Head
Cargo variants add Steam Battery and Copper Ore paths:
- Cargo Body = Body + Steam Battery
- Cargo Head = Head + Copper Ore
- Cargo Mate = Cargo Head + Cargo Body
That ladder is detailed in upgrade path. Automation priority here is build a parts warehouse first, then a single assembler mate, then scale. Spawning ten broken graphs helps nobody.
Terraforming-oriented loops
Heaters, Tanks, Steam Batteries, and the volcano wake (drop Steam Battery) are late automation goals. Do not rank them above Fire in hour one. When the colony is fed and plated:
- Tank = Copper + Steel Plate
- Steam Battery = Tank + Water
- Heater = Charged Steelplate + Sand
- Steam Bonfire = Heater + Tank
Tie these into terraforming plans. Automation priority shifts from “survive cold busywork” to “push planetary systems.”
What to leave manual (B-tier jobs)
- One-off Brewery experiments and joke ales
- Tiny exploratory Yellow crafts you have not ranked yet
- Layout redesign hauls (faster to drag yourself once)
- Debugging a single stuck mate (intervene by hand, then fix the graph)
Automation is a tool for repetition. If a task happens once per session, keep it manual.
Rollout checklist
- Confirm controls comfort via controls.
- Rank recipes with early recipes.
- Ship Fire loop (Automate Fire).
- Ship feeding loop (Feed robots).
- Add Water/Steel/Copper assists with Storage buffers.
- Follow upgrade path into mate production.
- Point surplus engineering at terraforming.
Measuring whether a loop earned its S rank
A loop deserves to stay automated if:
- You stop thinking about it for fifteen minutes and it still has output
- Input chests trend stable rather than sawtoothing to zero
- New mates can copy the graph with minor waypoint edits
- It unlocks a higher-tier craft you actually use
Delete or simplify loops that need constant babysitting. Bad automation is worse than honest manual crafting because it hides the shortage until everything freezes.
Related reading
Keep job count small, buffers obvious, and Fire sacred. That is the automation meta on ice.
Frequently Asked Questions
Quick answers to the most common questions.
What should I automate first?
Fire sustain, then robot feeding. Everything else is secondary until those two loops are boringly reliable.
Can I automate CraftoMate crafting early?
Only after Charged Steelplate, Battery, Radiolamp, and Steel parts are in steady supply. Otherwise automate Fire and feeds first.
Do I need the Furnace automated immediately?
No. Furnace is an A-tier mid goal. Manual Bonfire/Rotor prep is fine until Fire, feeds, and plates are stable.
How does visual programming relate to this list?
This page ranks jobs; the visual programming guide teaches block patterns. Use both: priority decides what to build, programming decides how.
When do Steam Battery loops matter?
When you push terraforming and volcano wake-up. They are high impact later, not hour-one automation.