Everything in Builderment has a speed or rate of production, and understanding these rates is key to building a smooth factory. Extractors pull ore at a certain pace, belts move items at their own speed, and buildings like furnaces, workshops, and factories have rates for taking in resources (input) and spitting out products (output). When these rates don’t match up, you’ll run into problems—jammed belts and idle machines. This guide breaks down these speed-related challenges and how to manage them.
Let’s use trees and Wood Logs as an example. Extractors produce ore—like Wood Logs—at a given speed and drop it onto a belt. If you’ve got too many extractors feeding into a belt that leads to too few workshops, the belt fills up fast. Once it’s full, it’s jammed—no more logs can move, and your extractors stop working because there’s nowhere to put the stuff they’re pulling. New players often overload belts early on, so start small and balance your setup: match the number of extractors to what your workshops and belts can handle.
Belts are the highways of your factory, and their speed limits how fast resources travel. Tier 1 belts move items at a rate of 150 per minute—that’s 150 Wood Logs, Iron Gears, or whatever else you’re transporting. If you try to push more than that (say, from too many extractors), the belt jams. Upgrading belt speeds (like with Speed Upgrades later in the guide) boosts this rate, but for now, keep your production under 150 per minute per belt to avoid clogs. Spread resources across multiple belts if you need more throughput!
Every building has an input rate (how fast it grabs resources) and an output rate (how fast it makes products). Take Tier 1 Workshops as an example: they can take in 15 Wood Logs per minute and spit out 15 Wood Planks per minute. If you send them 30 Wood Logs a minute from a fast belt, half just sit there, jamming the input. If you only send 5, the workshop sits idle half the time, wasting potential. The trick is balancing your chain—pair enough extractors and belts to feed workshops at their max rate (15 per minute here) without overloading them.
Buildings cost gold to create, but here’s a neat trick: if you delete a building, you get 100% of the gold back! This is huge for new players. Made too many extractors? Sell a few to fund a smelter. Messed up your layout? Scrap it and try again without losing gold. Use this to experiment early on without stressing about mistakes.
A common newbie mistake is mixing different resources on one belt—don’t do it! Let’s say you’re making Electromagnets, which need Copper Wire and Iron Ingots. You might think, “Hey, I’ll put both on the same belt to save space!” Nope—that’s too easy, and Builderment won’t let it slide. Mixed belts confuse factories. If a factory gets something it’s not expecting—like Copper Wire when it needs Iron Ingots—it stops that resource from entering, leading to a belt jam. Keep each resource on its own belt to avoid this headache.
Research Labs and Gold Vaults are the rebels—they take anything! Feel free to mix resources on belts heading to these buildings. Dump Copper Wire, Iron Gears, whatever—it all works. Just don’t expect this trick to save you anywhere else!