Assembler
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The Assembler is one of the most important blocks in Space Engineers. Alongside the Refinery and the Medical Room (and, arguably, a Reactor to power them), it is one of the essential parts of a successful Survival Mode game.
Contents
Function
The Assembler's function is to create components, using refined ingots. It can also be switched to a disassemble mode, where it will destroy components to reclaim the ingots used.
Usage
Before telling the assembler to make anything, you first need to ensure that the required materials are available. The items required can be supplied to the assembler in two main ways; you can either place them into it manually, or you can connect it to another block which contains the required materials (a refinery, for example) using the Conveyor system and it will automatically pull through the materials as required. Giving instructions to the assembler is done via the "Production" tab of the Control Panel. When in the Production view, there are 6 main areas to look at: the assembler select, component selection, cost display, mode buttons, build queue and component inventory.
Assembler Select
This is the drop-down box in the very top-left of the Production panel. This box lists all of the assemblers attached to the ship/station you are interacting with; if the ship/station has multiple assemblers, this is where you would switch between them to give each of them different orders.
Component Select
This is the area below the assembler select, where you will see icons for various components that can be built. There are also 4 buttons at the top of this area, which switch between showing large ship blocks, small ship blocks, tools and components, respectively. If you click one of the components or tools, they will be added to the build queue. If you click one of the ship blocks, the components required to build that block will be added to the build queue.
Cost Display
This is the large area in the centre of the panel. This will show the amount of ingots required for the current build queue, or for 1 of anything you mouse over. If there are not enough ingots in the assembler, the number will appear in red. Note that it only counts items that are currently in the assembler; if you have the assembler connected to another block with conveyors, it will not count any materials in this block.
Mode Buttons
These are the two large buttons at the top of the right-hand side of the panel, labelled "Assembling" and "Disassembling". They switch between assemble and disassemble modes. Note that when in disassemble mode, the component select will be disabled.
Build Queue
This is the area just below the mode buttons. In this area, the items that the assembler has been ordered to (dis)assemble will be shown. They are processed from left-to-right, top-to-bottom. There is also another button on the top-right of this area; this button toggles repeat mode. When in repeat mode, 2 looping arrows appear in this button to show that it is turned on, and the assembler will do one of two things. If in assemble mode, it will repeat the current build queue, looping back to the start upon completing it. If in disassemble mode, it will automatically disassemble any and all components placed in its inventory.
Component Inventory
This will display any components that are in the assembler's inventory. If it is in disassemble mode, you can click on the items here to add them to the build queue to be disassembled.
