Automate

Automate is a Stardew Valley mod which lets you place a chest next to machines (like a furnace, cheese press, bee house, etc), and the machines will automatically pull raw items from the chest and push processed items into it.

Contents

• Install
• Use
  • Basic automation
  • Factories
  • Connectors
  • Machine priority
• Configure
  • config.json
  • In-game settings
• Compatibility
• FAQs
• See also

Install

1. Install the latest version of SMAPI.
2. Install this mod from Nexus mods.
3. Run the game using SMAPI.

Use

Basic automation

Place a chest next to a crafting machine (in any direction including diagonal) to connect it. Machines connected to a chest will push their output into it, and pull ingredients to process out of it.

This can be used to automate...

• auto-grabbers;
• bee houses;
• bushes (including blackberry, salmonberry, and tea bushes);
• casks (including outside the cellar);
• charcoal kilns;
• cheese presses;
• crab pots;
• crystalariums;
• fish ponds;
• fruit trees;
• furnaces;
• garbage cans;
• hay hoppers;
• Junimo huts;
• incubators (for eggs);
• kegs;
• lightning rods;
• looms;
• mayonnaise machines;
• mills;
• mushroom boxes;
• oil makers;
• preserves jars;
• recycling machines;
• seed makers;
• shipping bins (can be disabled in config.json);
• silos;
• slime egg-presses;
• slime incubators;
• soda machines;
• statues of endless fortune;
• statues of perfection;
• tappers;
• wood chippers;
• and worm bins.

Automated machines will give you the same XP, achievements, and items you'd get for using them directly. If multiple chests are part of a group, they'll all be used in the automation. Input will be taken from all the chests, and output will be saved to chests in this order:

1. chests marked as output chests (see _Configure);
2. chests which already contain an item of the same type;
3. any chest.

You can combine any number of chests and machines by placing them adjacent to each other, and you can press U (configurable) to highlight connected machines.

Factories

A 'factory' is just a machine group which produces a certain output. Here are some example factories. You can increase production by just adding more machines.

• Automatic crab pots
  A worm bin produces bait, which is fed into the crab pots, which harvest fish and recycle trash. The final products are stored in the chest.

  

• Automatic refined quartz factory
  A crystalarium produces quartz, which is smelted into refined quartz, which is stored in the chest.

  

• Automatic iridium mead factory
  A bee house produces honey, which is turned into mead, which is aged to iridium quality, which is stored in the chest.

  

• Automatic iridium bar factory
  A statue of perfection produces iridium ore, which is smelted into bars, which are stored in the chest.

  

• Semi-automatic iridium cheese factory
  Put your milk in the chest and it'll be turned into cheese, then aged to iridium quality, then put back in the chest.

  

Connectors

You can optionally configure objects or paths as connectors, which link machines together. For example, here are wooden paths used as connectors:

Workbenches are the only connectors by default. You can edit the config.json to add connectors (see configure below).

Machine priority

overview

The default order that machines are processed is unpredictable and subject to change, except that shipping bins are processed last by default.

You can change that by setting machine priority in the config.json. All machines have a default priority of 0, and higher values are processed first (for both input and output).

example

For example, let's say you have this machine setup and you place two tomatoes in the chest:

┌──────────┐┌──────────┐┌──────────┐┌──────────┐
│  chest   ││   keg    ││   keg    ││ preserves│
│          ││          ││          ││   jar    │
└──────────┘└──────────┘└──────────┘└──────────┘
┌──────────┐
│ shipping │
│   bin    │
└──────────┘

By default, all of the tomatoes will go into the kegs or preserves jar (since the shipping bin has a lower priority), but you won't know which ones.

If you wanted kegs to process input before preserves jars, you'd set this in the config.json:

"MachinePriority": {
   "Keg": 1,
   "ShippingBin": -1
}

Now the two tomatoes would always go into the kegs. If you put five tomatoes at once into the chest, the kegs and preserves jar would each get one, and the remaining tomatoes would go into the shipping bin.

machine codes

The MachinePriority option needs the unique machine code. Here are the codes for the default machines:

expand

machine type	code
auto-grabbers	AutoGrabber
bee houses	BeeHouse
bushes	Bush
casks	Cask
charcoal kilns	CharcoalKiln
cheese presses	CheesePress
crab pots	CrabPot
crystalariums	Crystalarium
fish ponds	FishPond
fruit trees	FruitTree
furnaces	Furnace
garbage cans	TrashCan
hay hoppers	FeedHopper
Junimo huts	JunimoHut
incubators (for eggs)	CoopIncubator
kegs	Keg
lightning rods	LightningRod
looms	Loom
mayonnaise machines	MayonnaiseMachine
mills	Mill
mushroom boxes	MushroomBox
oil makers	OilMaker
preserves jars	PreservesJar
recycling machines	RecyclingMachine
seed makers	SeedMaker
shipping bins	ShippingBin
silos	FeedHopper (same as hay hoppers)
slime egg-presses	SlimeEggPress
slime incubators	SlimeIncubator
soda machines	SodaMachine
statues of endless fortune	StatueOfEndlessFortune
statues of perfection	StatueOfPerfection
tappers	Tapper
wood chippers	WoodChipper
worm bins	WormBin

For custom machines added by other mods, see their documentation or ask their mod authors.

Configure

config.json

The mod creates a config.json file in its mod folder the first time you run it. You can open that file in a text editor to configure the mod.

These are the available settings:

setting	what it affects
Controls	The configured controller, keyboard, and mouse buttons (see key bindings). The default value is U to toggle the automation overlay. You can separate bindings with commas (like U, LeftShoulder for either one), and set multi-key bindings with plus signs (like LeftShift + U).
AutomateShippingBin	Whether the shipping bin should automatically pull items out of connected chests. Default true.
PullGemstonesFromJunimoHuts	Whether to pull gemstones out of Junimo huts. If true, you won't be able to change Junimo colors by placing gemstones in their hut. Default false.
AutomationInterval	The number of update ticks between each automation cycle (one second is ≈60 ticks). Default 60.
ConnectorNames	A list of placed item names to treat as connectors which connect adjacent machines together. You must specify the exact English names for any in-game items to use. For example: "ConnectorNames": [ "Wood Path", "Crystal Path" ] Contains Workbench by default.
MachinePriority	The relative priority with which to process machine inputs and outputs; see machine priority for more info. Defaults to ShippingBin at -1 priority.
ModCompatibility	Enables compatibility with other mods. All values are enabled by default. field result AutoGrabberMod If Auto-Grabber Mod is installed, auto-grabbers won't output fertilizer and seeds. BetterJunimos If Better Junimos is installed, Junimo huts won't output fertilizer and seeds.

In-game settings

Installing Chests Anywhere lets you set per-chest options directly in-game:

This adds four options for automate:

• Store items in this chest: Automate will push machine output into this chest.
• Store items in this chest first: Automate will push machine output into this chest first, and only try other chests if it's full.
• Take items from this chest: Automate will take machine input from this chest.
• Take items from this chest first: Automate will take machine input from this chest first, and only try other chests if it doesn't have any input for a machine.

(To do this without Chests Anywhere, see the technical documentation.)

Compatibility

Automate is compatible with Stardew Valley 1.4+ on Linux/Mac/Windows, both single-player and multiplayer. In multiplayer mode, only the main player can automate machines; other players can keep it installed and use the overlay, their mod just won't automate anything.

Automate is compatible with...

• Auto-Grabber Mod (seeds/fertilizer in auto-grabbers will be ignored).
• Better Junimos (seeds/fertilizer in Junimo huts will be ignored).
• Custom Farming Redux (see its optional 'CFAutomate' download to enable automation).
• Producer Framework Mod (with the PFMAutomate addon).

FAQs

Why did my chests/machines disappear?

Some common reasons:

• NPCs destroy items placed in their path, so you shouldn't place anything where they can walk. (You can use path connectors to connect crab pots and trash cans to out-of-the-way chests or machines.)
• Festivals and the Night Market use temporary maps, so items placed there may disappear when the map is switched back to normal.

Automate doesn't remove placed objects, so it's never at fault for disappearing chests or machines.

Is there a limit to how many machines can be connected?

Automate optimises machine connections internally, so there's no upper limit. The most I've tried is 630 machines in one group; that didn't cause any issues, so you can just keep adding more if you want.

What's the order for chest/machine handling?

When storing items, Automate prefers chests which either have the "Put items in this chest first" option (see in-game settings in the README) or already have an item of the same type. The order when taking items is a bit more complicated. For more info, see the technical documentation.

For machines, see machine priority.

What if I don't want a specific chest to be connected?

See In-game settings.

Can other mods extend Automate?

Yep. Automate provides APIs that let other mods add custom machines/containers/connectors or make other changes. For more info, see the technical documentation.

See also

• Technical documentation
• Release notes
• Nexus mod