How automation works in Core Keeper
Run machines on power
Connect machines to an Electricity Generator with Electrical Wire. Conveyor belts are the only machine that needs no power.
Collect → move → store
The basic setup: collect with drills or similar, move items with a Conveyor Belt, and put them into chests with a Robot Arm.
Start small and test
The trick is to get one unit working before you add more. A full chest stops the whole line.
Everything you can automate in Core Keeper
| What you can automate | Main machines | Guide |
|---|---|---|
| Mining ore and smelting ingots | Drills, robot arms, furnaces | Below on this page |
| Collecting wood and making planks | Root Seeds, drills, Table Saw | Automatic wood farm |
| Watering, harvesting and planting crops | Sprinklers, robot farm arms, seed extractors | Farm automation |
| Catching fish | Fishing Net, Critter Catcher | Automatic fishing |
| Killing enemies for materials | Spawn tiles, traps | Mob farms |
| Feeding cattle | Mossy Soil, Hardened Sap | Automatic cattle feeding |
| Opening and closing doors | Electrical doors, pressure plates | Below on this page |
Automation machines (made at the Electronics Table and Automation Table)
Electrical parts are made at the Electronics Table, and automation machines at the Automation Table.
| Machine | What it does | Power |
|---|---|---|
 Electricity Generator | Produces power | — |
 Electrical Wire | Carries power to machines (gets weaker over long runs) | — |
 Drill | Mines ore boulders and walls (also attacks creatures in front of it) | Needed |
 Conveyor Belt | Moves items on it in the direction it faces | Not needed |
 Robot Arm | Takes items from one side and places them on the other side or into a chest | Needed |
 Item Collector | Picks up items dropped in a 5×5 area on one side and outputs them on the other | Needed |
 Robot Farm Arm | Harvests crops and outputs them on the other side; can also pick up seeds and plant them | Needed |
 Sprinkler | Waters tilled ground in a 5×5 area around it | Not needed |
 Seed Extractor | Turns one crop into 2 seeds | Needed |
 Shredder | Salvages gear and similar items automatically | Needed |
 Incinerator | Destroys unwanted items (no materials back) | Needed |
Ore automation (mining ore boulders with drills)
Basic layout: ore boulder → drill → conveyor belt → robot arm → chest
- Point a drill at an ore boulder and power it: start with the Crude Drill and later use the Drill (60 mining damage per hit; the crude drill does 30).
- Check where the ore goes: items that drop into the drill come out of its back side.
- Carry it with a conveyor belt and put it in a chest with a robot arm. Make sure one piece reaches the chest before you add more drills.
- Smelt it into ingots (advanced): use an arm to feed ore into a furnace and another arm to move the ingots into a chest. The Furnace only smelts copper, tin and iron ore; other ores need their own smelters.
The more drills you add, the less each one adds. Doubling the drills does not double the ore.
Automatic doors (electrical door and pressure plates)
Put a Pressure Plate on each side of an Electrical Door and connect them with wire. The door then opens when you approach from either side. When the power stops, the door closes.
What to check when your automation doesn't work
| Problem | What to check |
|---|---|
| A machine doesn't run | Is it connected to power, is the wire too long, is it facing the right way? Conveyor belts need no power. |
| Ore stays on the floor | The conveyor belt's direction, the robot arm's input side and filter, and free space at the destination. |
| The furnace won't take the ore | Can it smelt that ore? Are its input and output blocked? |
| More drills don't give more ore | Can moving, smelting and storing keep up? |
Mechanics from the Core Keeper Wiki (Fandom) page "Guides/Electronics and Automation" (CC BY-SA 3.0), and each machine's page, which cite the Explorer's Guide 1.3 pp. 20-21.
More automation guides
Unless a note on the page says otherwise, numbers are read from the game files of Core Keeper 1.3.0.6 (prefabs, configuration files, drop tables and the game's program) and calculated by this site, including upgraded (per-level) values, sell prices and mana costs. Names and descriptions are the game's official English text. Only reinforcing materials, minion and pet attacks and some food values are based on the Core Keeper Wiki (Fandom) data (CC BY-SA 3.0). Core Keeper and its images are © Pugstorm. This is an unofficial fan site.