Production Planner: Graph, Table, Build Cost and bottlenecks

The Production Planner is FluxWerks' built-in factory calculator, and it has four tabs — Graph, Table, Build Cost and Farming — plus a target panel, a node graph and a summary rail. Its most useful feature is the bottleneck it names for you; its most important limitation is the disclaimer it prints about itself.

The in-game Production Planner: target panel on the left, a node graph of machines in the centre, and a summary rail on the right

How the planner is laid out

Reading the official screenshot of the tool, the layout is fixed:

Region	What is in it	What you use it for
Top control panel	`Production Planner` title, close button, Targets list with `+ Add target`	Declaring what you want to make and how much
Options row	Checkboxes: use best researched tier, show unresearched, show fuel production, use deep veins; a `Fuel` dropdown (default `Coal`)	Filtering the plan to what you have actually unlocked
Centre graph	Machine nodes joined by thin cyan lines	Seeing the chain: resources → intermediates → products
Right rail (Summary)	Total buildings, Grid power, Coal burned, Pollution, Bottleneck, raw/intermediate rates, spare capacity	The numbers you act on
Bottom tabs	`Graph` · `Table` · `Build Cost` · `Farming`	Switching how the same plan is displayed

What a node tells you

Each machine box in the graph carries five pieces of information, all visible in the official screenshot:

Machine name and tier — Mining Drill MK 2, Foundry MK 2, Assembler MK 2.
Count and load — x1 (0.88). The number in brackets is how loaded that machine is, not how many you own.
Input / output rates — for example 39.47/min, with resource icons: a cube for coal, a rock for iron ore, a drop for water, a bar for ingots and plates.
Power draw — a lightning bolt with 75.00 kW or 600.00 kW.
Fuel burn — a flame with 8.53/min, shown where the step consumes fuel.

The lines between nodes are the plan's flow, drawn left to right: raw resources feed machines that feed the next tier, until the target is satisfied.

The summary rail: where the decisions are

Summary field	Example value	What it means
Total buildings	`19`	How many machines this plan requires
Grid power	`2.18 MW`	Total draw — your generation target
Coal burned	`12.8/min`	Fuel the plan consumes
Pollution	`285/s`	Printed in amber, the planner's caution colour
Bottleneck	`Foundry MK 2, x7.11`	The one machine limiting everything else
Spare capacity	listed per resource	What you are producing more of than the plan needs

The bottleneck line is the one to read first. A multiplier like x7.11 on a single machine means the rest of the chain is waiting on it — expand that, not the machine you happened to notice was idle.

v0.5.16 regrouped Production Statistics: fluids sit above items with a line between them, and each group's bars compare only within the group. A fat fluid bar next to a thin item bar is no longer a ranking — they are on different scales.

The four tabs, and when each one helps

Graph — the default visual chain. Use it to understand structure and to find the bottleneck.
Table — the same plan as rows. Use it to compare rates without following lines.
Build Cost — what you have to craft or carry before the plan can exist. Use it before you commit to a build.
Farming — the agricultural side of supply, which matters from v0.5.0 onward (that patch is titled "End game goal, events, farming..."). Since v0.5.20 (October 17) the Farming tab also lists the Harvesters each crop needs and has a Floors slider for crops that grow under cover.

A blue-lit voxel tower complex linked across the water — the kind of multi-machine layout the Production Planner is meant to size

The planner exists for layouts like this one. Once a base spans more than a couple of machines, counting by eye stops working — which is what the Table and Build Cost tabs are for.

Using it in the first hour

Set two targets early — the official screenshot illustrates Steel Plate 40/min and Steel Gear 100/min; choose targets that match your current factory. Then check three things in order: bottleneck, grid power, fuel burn. Ignore the node that looks impressive and fix the one the summary names.

Recheck farms and extraction after v0.5.20

The Farming tab now lists the Harvesters each crop needs and offers a Floors slider for covered crops. Set the floor count to match the intended farm, then use the listed Harvester demand instead of assuming one machine covers every scale. v0.5.20 fixes missing Biomass farms and plans showing one Planter or far too many Harvesters for a large farm.

For an existing farm, select its Planter: the panel shows what the field ripens and how many Harvesters that takes. Planters now sow dirt floors in their square at any height, nearest first, replacing the old 20-block vertical reach. Planter and Harvester cards show speed and area; both machines now correctly account for wear.

Recalculate deep-extraction plans using 22.5 items/min or 100 water units/min, 1.2 MW and 1.5 MB/s per extractor. These are separate from a planner screenshot's example targets. A screenshot showing Steel Plate 40/min or Steel Gear 100/min illustrates one plan; it is not a mandatory opening quota.

For Foundry recipes, Electric Foundry is an alternative after Electric Smelting, researched after Logistics II. It runs on grid power without fuel, works twice as fast as Foundry MK 2 and has a Flux Core slot. Compare the extra grid demand before replacing a fuel-fed chain.

After building, compare actual throughput with the plan. The planner assumes 100% machine rate and excludes weather, heat and wear; those exclusions call for checking the running factory rather than treating the estimate as guaranteed production. Official v0.5.20 notes.

Next: Beginner: First Hour · Logistics & Drones · FAQ & Known Issues