Bridge Conveyor

Bridge Conveyor is a transport block used to move items across gaps or obstacles without laying a continuous conveyor line. It behaves like a short-range item bridge: one end can send items to another Bridge Conveyor up to 3 tiles away in any cardinal direction, making it useful for compact bases, terrain breaks, and tight chokepoints where a normal belt would be awkward or impossible to place.

A Bridge Conveyor accepts inputs from all sides except the side connected to another Bridge Conveyor. It can route items to only one other Bridge Conveyor at a time, but it may receive items from any number of other Bridge Conveyors. If it is the destination of another bridge and has no destination of its own, it distributes items evenly across its unconnected sides. Clicking a Bridge Conveyor and then clicking a valid target sets its destination; clicking the current destination again, or clicking the same bridge, clears that link. Clicking a Bridge Conveyor that already uses the first one as its destination flips the transport direction.

When drag-placing Bridge Conveyors, the game tries to space them 3 tiles apart to reduce cost and preserve efficiency. If a planned conveyor line crosses a non-conveyor block or terrain feature narrower than 3 tiles, the game can automatically insert Bridge Conveyors into the plan, as long as the block is researched and not banned on the current map. Because of this, they are often added implicitly when building over small gaps or obstacles.

Bridge Conveyors cannot be linked to Phase Conveyors, and Phase Conveyors cannot be linked back to them. They also do not interact with some conveyor systems mentioned in planning behavior, so they should be treated as a separate transport tier rather than a universal connector.

A few practical uses stand out:

• They provide higher transfer speed than standard conveyors before advanced transport is unlocked.
• Stacking four Bridge Conveyors in a straight line can reach a throughput of 44 items, provided the line is unobstructed.
• They are especially useful in cramped sectors such as The Craters or Impact 0078, where space is limited and a bridge can bypass a choke point cleanly.

The block was added early in development and its build cost and build time were adjusted several times. Early changes reduced and then restored its copper and lead cost, while the final listed build time returned to a very short construction time.