Mechanical Pump

Mechanical Pump is a simple, power-free liquid pump used to extract and output liquids into pipes and conduits. It belongs to the Pump / Liquid Transport class of buildings and is the cheapest option for moving fluids from terrain into a factory network. Mechanical Pump does not consume power and is built extremely quickly, making it ideal for early-game liquid handling and for placing many inexpensive extraction points.

The pump outputs 7 liquid per second from a standard tile. When placed on tiles categorized as Deep Water or Deep Tainted Water, its output is multiplied by 1.5, yielding 10.5 liquid per second. When placed on Cryofluid tiles the output is multiplied by 0.5, yielding 3.5 liquid per second. The pump extracts standard liquids (Water, Tainted Water, Dark Sand Tainted Water, Dark Sand Water, Slag, Tar, Arkycite) at the base rate on their respective terrain tiles and benefits from the terrain multipliers above where applicable.

Mechanical Pump has placement restrictions when used on deeper or hazardous liquid tiles. If the pump is placed on Deep Water, Deep Tainted Water, Slag, Tar, Arkycite or Cryofluid, at least one of the four orthogonally adjacent tiles (not counting diagonals) must be either a shallow-water-type tile (for example Sand Water variants) or a non-liquid terrain tile. This requirement prevents placing pumps entirely surrounded by the deep/liquid tiles where they would otherwise be invalid.

Practical notes and strategies:

• Because it does not require power, Mechanical Pump is useful for remote or early setups where power is scarce. It can feed pipes, blenders, or liquid containers with no electrical infrastructure.
• The pump’s increase to 7/sec output means a single pump now fully services an Airblast Drill’s liquid requirement; pair a pump directly with a drill to collect water efficiently without extra pumps.
• Place pumps on Deep Water or Deep Tainted Water when possible to increase throughput by 50%; avoid placing them on Cryofluid unless necessary, as that halves extraction speed.
• Keep the placement adjacency rule in mind when designing marsh or deep-liquid farms: leave at least one orthogonal adjacent non-deep tile or shallow-water tile to validly place pumps on deep/hazardous liquid tiles.
• Use many cheap Mechanical Pumps distributed across a shoreline or liquid deposit for scalable extraction instead of relying on a few expensive powered pumps when power or time constraints exist.
• Mechanical Pump is best for continuous, low-cost extraction; for advanced control, higher throughput, or pump-specific features (filters, higher flow), consider powered pump variants available later in the tech tree.