Inventory Connections and Grid Troubleshooting

When a component appears to touch the grid but does nothing, test the chain in a fixed order. Moving several parts at once makes it impossible to tell whether the problem was a port, energy, storage, destination, or timing.

The five-check diagnostic

1. Physical contact: confirm the component’s connector actually meets the receiving connector. Adjacent artwork is not enough.
2. Direction and destination: identify what the item is meant to receive and where its output is meant to go. Rotate or reposition it only after you can name both.
3. Current energy: watch the per-second rate while the component attempts work. Harvesters, Salvagers, and Refiners have been described as drawing no energy while idle and drawing energy while working, so an idle reading does not prove the active chain can be powered.
4. Capacity: make sure the input exists and the output has somewhere to go. A full tank, full inventory, empty fuel source, or unavailable POI can make a correct connection look broken.
5. Timing: allow a full production or pulse cycle. For repeaters or pulsed chains, isolate one sender and one receiver before adding branches.

A useful isolation test

Move the suspected item to a clear edge of the body grid. Connect it to the smallest known-good source and a destination with free capacity. Observe one cycle.

• If it works, the item is probably fine; restore the original chain one link at a time.
• If it draws energy but produces nothing, re-check its required input and destination.
• If it remains idle, re-check the connector contact, work condition, and whether its target POI or resource is available.
• If adding it collapses energy, solve generation or efficiency before expanding the chain.

Common chain-specific mistakes

Biomass: Harvesters send Biomass to Biotanks in inventory; they do not fill Biomass Cells. A filled Cell directly fuels a Bio Generator. See the Biomass guide.

Map work: a Harvester also needs a POI that contains harvestable Biomass. A perfect body connection cannot create a missing world resource.

Energy milestones: reaching an achievement threshold does not guarantee a working production layout. Use the energy reference to separate exact targets from live grid diagnosis.

Component-specific behavior: cooldowns, Smart Grabber routing, Sensor stacking, and Spinner phase questions need different tests. Use the component behavior reference before treating one disputed result as a universal rule.

When the chain works but the body is too crowded, copy the inventory into the community Body Grid Planner before rearranging the live grid.