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Fuel & Fuel Sources

The engine system has two completely separate fuel systems — the fluid combustion chamber uses pure datapack fuel, the steam power chamber uses pure vanilla fuel. They never mix.

Fluid engine (combustion chamber) Steam engine (power chamber)
Fuel source Datapack engine_fuel/*.json Pure vanilla — bucket items' furnace burn time + solid items' burnTime
How to add fuel Write a datapack JSON, /reload Use vanilla furnace fuel rules (lava buckets, coal, etc.)
Source storage Any fluid tank with the fluid (e.g. Quick-Fill Fluid Tank) Water tank + fluid fuel tank and/or Quick-Fill Fuel Vault (solid)

Fluid combustion chamber fuel (datapack)

Fluid chamber fuels live in data/<namespace>/engine_fuel/*.json and are hot-reloaded with /reload:

{ "fluid": "minecraft:water", "consumption": 1.0, "heat": 1.0, "stress": 1.0 }
Field Meaning
fluid Fluid id to burn
consumption mb/s per chamber (default 1.0)
heat Heat multiplier for the temperature model
stress Stress multiplier on the 8192 SU base
  • No priority field — when several fuels are usable, the controller picks the first one in source scan order (the order the engine scans neighbouring tanks). Old datapacks with a priority field are ignored.
  • No temperature fields — overheat (220°C), overcooling (100°C) and the economy target (155°C) are fixed engine constants.
  • One fuel at a time per engine (single-fuel rule, chosen by source scan order, never mixed).

Steam engine fuel (pure vanilla)

No datapack needed — vanilla furnace rules apply:

  • Fluid fuel: any bucket item with a vanilla furnace burn time > 0 (e.g. lava bucket = 20000 ticks). Add fuel the vanilla way (set the bucket item's furnace burn time — the engine shares the same fuel registry as the furnace).
  • Solid fuel: any item with vanilla burnTime > 0 (coal = 1600 ticks, etc.), stored in a Quick-Fill Fuel Vault near the engine, auto-drawn by the controller.
  • Fluid fuel is preferred; solid fuel is only drawn when no fluid fuel is available.

Quick-Fill Fluid Tank

quick_fill_fluid_tank

The Quick-Fill Fluid Tank (ccpe:quick_fill_fluid_tank) is a 6-sided attachable block with 4000 mb single-slot fluid storage:

  • Right-click with a fluid container to pour the fluid into the tank.
  • Right-click with an empty bucket to fill one bucket from the tank.
  • Goggle tooltip like Create's fluid tank.
  • Exposes a fluid capability, so the engine drains water / fluid fuel directly from it.

Quick-Fill Fuel Vault

quick_fill_fuel_vault

The Quick-Fill Fuel Vault (ccpe:quick_fill_fuel_vault) is a 6-sided attachable step block with a single-item-type inventory (capacity 1024 = 16 stacks × 64), no GUI:

  • Right-click with an item to store the whole stack (the vault accepts only one item type total).
  • Sneak + right-click empty-handed to take out one stack (the item's max stack size, or all if fewer remain).
  • A successful deposit/withdraw plays an open-lid animation (auto-closes after a short time).
  • Breaking the block drops its contents.
  • Exposes an item capability, so the steam engine draws solid fuel from it automatically (parallel burning, N×K per batch, switching vaults when one runs low).

Batch refills (how the engine draws)

The engine has zero internal fluid cache — it draws into a small reserve from source storages via capability on each batch refill:

  • Batch size = chamber count × K, where K is the configurable batch multiplier (engineSourceBatchMultiplier, default 1.0, range 0.25–64; cached once when entering a world).
  • The engine draws from the head of its source list; if the head tank/vault is empty, removed or holds the wrong content, it immediately advances to the next source (same tick, zero downtime).
  • The reserve is refilled the same tick it runs out, so the stress network never flickers.