Work with blocks

A block is one production unit. You choose its goals, recipes, machines, and constraints; PyOps calculates the rates, building counts, power, pollution, and flows across its boundary.

Blocks do not need to match one physical building. A block can represent one recipe, a complete production chain, or a section of the factory you want to build and operate as a unit.

Organize blocks

Use the folder button in the Blocks sidebar to group related production units. Drag an existing block onto a folder to move it. To start in the right place, right-click a folder and select New block here. The main New block button continues to create blocks under Ungrouped.

Set goals and rates

Select New block, then use + goal to choose an item or fluid.

• The first goal starts at 1/s, names the block, and becomes its scaling anchor.
• Select a displayed rate to edit it. Select its unit to work in /s, /min, or /h.
• Enter a negative rate when the block should consume that item or fluid rather than produce it. For example, -10/min makes the block consume at least 10 per minute.
• Add more goals when the same production unit must guarantee several outputs.
• Drag a goal by its grip to reorder the goal tiles.
• Right-click a non-primary goal and select Move to front (names the block) to make it the primary goal.

Use Copy goals in the Goal heading, open another block, and select Paste goals to reuse a set of targets. Pasted goals keep their rates, stock amounts, refill windows, and source order. They are appended after the destination's existing goals, so its primary goal does not change; goods already present are skipped. Recipes, machines, modules, and other block settings are not copied.

Right-click a goal and select Keep in stock instead (buffer, not throughput) when the intent is to refill a quantity over time rather than sustain a continuous rate. Stock-only production appears separately in Factory. The solver rate is always the stock amount divided by its refill window; an older saved rate cannot turn a buffer goal back into continuous production.

A negative goal is already the block's visible import contract, so Block balance does not repeat that good under Imports. Other ingredients the block needs still appear there. Electricity is listed first, followed by the remaining imports from highest to lowest rate. An alert beside an import means no other enabled block currently exports it. This is a planning cue rather than an error: raw resources and intentionally external supplies can remain unsourced. Right-click an import to jump to the blocks that do produce it.

Add recipes

Select a positive goal icon to open Recipes that make goal. A negative consume goal instead opens Recipes that consume goal. Ctrl+Click (or Command+Click) a goal icon to immediately add its highest-ranked currently unlocked recipe. This shortcut uses the same logistic-cost ordering as the picker and ignores barrel fill/empty recipes. Within a recipe row:

• Select an ingredient chip to find recipes that make that ingredient.
• Select a product chip to find recipes that consume that product.
• Alt+Click any item or fluid icon to open the Recipe explorer without leaving the current page. Switch between Recipes and Uses to inspect every producer or consumer, including availability, machines, and filters; select an ingredient or product inside the dialog to keep walking the graph.
• Hover recipe, technology, and item details when you need the precise inputs, outputs, or unlock status.

The picker puts choices already unlocked in the synced save first, then recipes available later in the current planning horizon, and finally locked choices. It sorts each group by ascending estimated cost, so the first row is normally the cheapest recipe you can build right now. A recipe is available only when both its own research and at least one compatible building are available. Locked rows are disabled and name the missing recipe research or building research; recipes replaced by a TURD upgrade remain visible with their explanation. PyOps never adds a full chain without your choice.

Organize recipes into sub-blocks

Right-click a recipe name and select New sub-block from this row to start a named, collapsible group. Drag another recipe onto the sub-block header or one of its indented rows to add it. Drag the sub-block header to move the whole group together.

Grouping is visual by default and does not change the solve. Use the module control on the sub-block header when the grouped recipes should instead solve as a separate module with its own internal goals and a boundary contract for the parent block.

Choose machines, fuels, and modules

Each recipe row shows its selected machine and required building count.

• Select the machine to choose another compatible option.
• For a fuel-burning machine, select its fuel indicator to choose an allowed fuel.
• Use the module control to fill module slots or override the block's preferred defaults.

Global preferred machines, fuels, and module-fill behavior live under Settings → Planning. A choice made directly on a recipe row overrides the relevant default for that row.

Fractional building counts are exact capacity requirements. 0.5 means half of one machine's capacity; 5.2 means five machines are insufficient and six provide spare capacity. PyOps leaves the construction decision visible instead of rounding the solve.

When Logistics → Inserters / loaders is enabled, an amber hammer and a second count can appear beneath the solved building count. It is the suggested physical build count: the selected movers, item inputs and outputs, fuel, burnt results, and active fluid connections need more adjacent access positions than the capacity-rounded buildings provide. The estimate uses the selected machine's footprint and increases the whole-building count until those connections fit around its perimeter.

This is a conservative loading estimate, not a generated layout. It does not prove that belts and pipes can reach every access position, account for beacon spacing, or model direct insertion and circuit-controlled sharing. Hover the badge to see the footprint, position budget, and selected mover used by the estimate. Machine footprints populate during Settings → Data sync; an existing project may need one sync before the badge appears.

Read the result

The Block balance card summarizes:

• whether the selected goals and constraints solve;
• energy and pollution totals;
• goods entering as imports;
• goods leaving as goals, surplus, or byproducts.

Select an exported good to add a recipe that consumes its surplus inside the block. The selected consumer runs as part of the chain, including when one of its products feeds back into another recipe in the block.

The recipe table explains how that result was produced. Table is the editing view; Flow is a read-only diagram of the same solved recipes and goods.

Variable generators show their average planned output and their minimum–maximum range on the electricity product chip. Building counts and block balances use the displayed average; the range shows how far live generation can move as the underlying surface condition changes.

A solved block is not necessarily self-contained

A block can solve while importing ingredients. This is intentional: the block boundary defines what another block or the existing factory must supply. Continue with Block boundaries to control that behavior.

Disable a block without deleting it

Use the power control in the block toolbar to disable a block. Its recipes and settings remain saved, but Factory and other whole-plan views exclude it. Re-enable it when the production unit should participate in the plan again.

When the solve is infeasible

Read the diagnosis in Block balance before adding more recipes. Typical conflicts are:

• a goal with no recipe that makes it;
• a good marked for in-block production without an enabled producer;
• an exact building-count pin that conflicts with a goal;
• multiple constraints demanding incompatible rates in a cyclic chain.

Use the suggested fixes in the diagnosis. Removing constraints one at a time is usually more informative than adding every candidate recipe.