Changelog

Version: 2.1.6
Date: 2026-09-23
  Features:
    - A quality piece of the equipment now makes a quality arm, which swings faster for it: a legendary one extends and turns two and a half times as fast as a common one, and draws two and a half times the power doing it, so what it costs to build a thing is the same and what it costs to wait is not
    - The arms now reach for where a ghost will be by the time the claw gets there rather than for where it stands, so things go up while you are walking or driving past that could not be built at all before: the smallest arm meets things more than three times its own reach ahead of itself, and the largest more than twice
    - A claw that carries several things now sets off with as much as the whole round will come within reach of, rather than only what is within reach at the moment it leaves, so a row alongside your path goes up in one trip instead of the near end of it going up and the rest being walked past
  Changes:
    - The equipment no longer slows you down. The first two tiers used to cost you walking speed while they worked, which was the price of building for free; the arms now reach ahead of you, more of them fit in an armour, and they work fast enough that the price was buying nothing. A vehicle carrying them is no longer slowed either
    - The arms now follow the vehicles into whatever equipment categories another mod has put them in, so an overhaul that re-grids the car, the tank, the trains and the spidertron no longer takes the arms off all of them at once: under Krastorio 2 an arm would go into no vehicle at all before this and goes into every one of them now
    - The arms cost a fraction of what they did to work out what to reach for next, six to nine times less while you are moving, which is when they cost the most
    - An arm turns its claw more slowly, so a hand swings round at a speed that suits the size of the thing rather than snapping between bearings
    - An upgrade order and a marked cliff are led the same way a ghost is, so both are carried out on the way past rather than only from a standstill
    - A claw now sits on the shoulder when it has nothing to do, and a new one appears there rather than part way out, so switching the arms on or an arm turning to face new work no longer shows the claw jump out and pull itself back in before it goes anywhere
    - A reach now starts from the shoulder rather than seven tenths of a tile along the way the claw faces, so a swing takes that much longer: a first tier arm wants about twenty ticks more to build something at the edge of its reach, a second tier arm fourteen, and the two largest seven
  Bugfixes:
    - Fixed a claw being flung about a tile sideways the instant it delivered, on every delivery, before it came in: it turned to face a point so near its own shoulder that the game could not say which way home lay, and swung off to whatever direction that came out as. Worst on arms that let go a long way out, which is the far tiers and anything bolted to the flanks of a vehicle
    - Fixed a belt an arm could not hand back being fed straight onto the belts it had just built rather than left on the ground: on a train the arms stand on the rail and their rows are a tile and a half off it, so what should have been your own belt lying where you could see it became cargo riding up the line and looked exactly like a belt destroyed
    - An arm no longer reaches over the thing it is standing on to take an identical one a tile away: work under your feet is the nearest work there is and is now taken first, rather than being held back behind everything else in reach
    - An arm now charges itself for the turn a claw near the shoulder still has to make, which it used to have for nothing, so it no longer sets off for work it cannot swing round to in time
    - Fixed an item being destroyed when a claw gave up its reach on the way home, which happened when another arm built the ghost it was carrying for: the load went into the box the claw rests on and that box was taken away with it still inside, at about one belt in two hundred where eight arms worked a line from a moving train
    - An arm on something that is barely moving, or on a character just getting under way, no longer overlooks work that is really within its reach
    - Fixed a ghost that was in reach when an arm set off never being built once its owner started walking: the claw went on aiming at where the ghost stood rather than cutting to where it was going, so a belt two tiles ahead was swept past the arm and the whole reach was written off with nothing built
    - Fixed arms driven past a line of ghosts at speed setting off for one, changing their mind on the next tick, and delivering to neither: a claw now reckons on the swing round it will really have to make before it sets off, and gives a course up only once it has really gone rather than the first time it wavers
    - A claw that has just built one thing now turns only to a neighbour it can actually fly to, rather than taking one, losing it a tick later, taking the next, and delivering to neither: driven past a double line of ghosts, a ghost that had an arm set off for it ten times and was never built now gets one, and a fifth more of the line goes up at half a tile a tick
    - Fixed an arm judging a swing by where its claw is drawn rather than by where its arm has really got to, which are half a tile and eleven degrees apart while a hand is swinging right round: it set off for work it could not reach in the time it had reckoned on, and gave it up part way there
    - Fixed a claw clearing a heap dropping one of what it had picked up back on the floor, unmarked, as it turned to the next piece: nothing ever came back for it, so a downgraded chest left litter beside you that no arm and no robot would touch
    - An arm reckons a turn a tick less harshly, matching what the engine really does with the last step of one, so a claw takes on work it used to turn down by a hair
    - Fixed two players' arms setting off for the same ghost, which had one of them build it while the other carried its load all the way home for nothing
    - An arm now hands its load only into its own box, so a belt it has just built cannot take the item instead of the ghost getting it
    - Fixed a box being taken away with something still inside, which destroyed whatever was in it: about one item in two hundred went that way where several arms worked one line from a moving vehicle
    - An idle claw no longer takes anything out of whatever it is resting over, so a chest you are standing on and the hold of the vehicle you are driving are left alone
    - Fixed an item being destroyed when an arm took a job with something already in its claw
    - An arm picks up what you are standing on in its turn rather than waiting for a moment when there is nothing else in reach at all, which is a moment somebody standing among their own work never gives it
    - An arm carries out an upgrade on the thing you are standing on, which it used to leave alone
    - An arm builds a ghost you are standing on where the thing would not be in your way, so a belt goes up under your feet the way a construction robot would put it up; a chest or a machine still waits until you move, and the same goes for the vehicle you are driving
    - Fixed the arms refusing to clear away things marked for deconstruction from around where you are standing: a claw would report itself working and never reach for the next one, leaving most of a ring of marked things untouched
    - Fixed an arm running out of power partway home and hanging in the air with your item in its claw for five seconds before a backstop handed it back
    - Fixed a player being moved somewhere else mid reach, by a teleport, a respawn or a script, being read as a course and sending the arms looking for work across a circle thousands of tiles wide
    - Fixed the game ending when a player wearing arms boarded a rocket while an arm was out
    - Fixed an arm being rebuilt to face a new target while its claw was still out, which snapped the claw across to the other side of its base instead of turning it

Version: 2.1.5
Date: 2026-09-19
  Features:
    - The arms now carry out upgrade planner orders, swapping the thing standing there for what it is marked to become and carrying the old one back to you in the claw
    - An arm making a swap carries one thing at a time, so its claw is free to bring the old one home even when your pockets are full
    - Anything the replacement cannot hold is left on the ground and marked for deconstruction, the same as a construction robot leaves it, rather than appearing in your inventory or being lost when it is full
    - The arms now pay for quality work with items of that quality, whether they are raising a ghost or carrying out an upgrade
    - Mirroring carries across an upgrade
    - Both ends of an underground belt go up together, from whichever end an arm can reach, for the price of two, and both old ends come home in the one trip however small the claw is, rather than one being left on the floor to fetch again
    - Whatever was travelling in an upgraded tunnel stays in the tunnel rather than being turned out onto the ground
    - An arm now carries a cliff explosive out to a cliff you have marked for deconstruction, at the cost of one, the same as a construction robot spends
    - The arms now clear away what you mark with a deconstruction planner, entities and tiles alike, carrying it home in the claw
    - A thing with something in it is emptied a clawful at a time and taken up last, once it is empty, the way construction robots do it
  Changes:
    - An arm is fed whether or not it has anything to do, so one that has been standing about is ready the moment work arrives rather than spending its first ticks filling up
    - A character with something to build in reach and not the charge to build it wears the game's own low power mark, so an armour that has run flat says so rather than looking like nothing happening
    - Arms on a locomotive build out of the cargo wagons in its train, since a locomotive has no hold of its own
    - The equipment is one tile wide and a tile taller with every tier: one by two, three, four and five as they go up, so a modular armour holds one of any of them
    - Arms on a spidertron are bolted where its legs meet its body, one to a leg, and stay where they are when its torso turns; a ninth and beyond ride round the body as before
    - An arm goes for whatever it can reach soonest rather than whatever is nearest, counting the turn as well as the reach, which clears a scattered yard about half again as quickly
    - The toolbar button greys out when you are wearing no arm, the way the exoskeleton's does
    - An arm is built facing what it is about to reach for, to the nearest sixteenth of a turn, so a reach costs the same whichever way the thing lies: reaching one tile took between 5 and 17 ticks depending on the bearing and now takes between 6 and 10, and reaching five tiles behind its owner took three times what it took in front
  Bugfixes:
    - Fixed the game ending when a player wearing arms climbed into a locomotive, which cannot take the slowdown sticker the arms put on their wearer
    - A claw with room left in its hand works a round of pickups, carrying its load from one thing to the next without coming home between them, and visits every one of them: nothing is taken up that the claw did not travel to
    - A claw being put away now fades where the arm is worn and moves with its owner, rather than off to one side and where they used to be standing
    - Your arms are offered work shortest first, so a long arm no longer takes the ghost under a short one's nose while work only it can reach waits
    - Fixed an arm coming out of your back and never setting off for something marked for deconstruction
    - Fixed losing what the claw had just been handed when the arms were switched off or taken away
    - Fixed losing what an arm was carrying when it was put away and your pockets had no room for it, which now goes on the floor beside you
    - Fixed losing an item when a claw was handed more than its hand could hold
    - An arm switched off part way through a reach now swings home first, hands back what it was carrying and then folds away, rather than being taken away where it stood
    - Fixed the game failing to load alongside Enhanced Shadows
    - An arm now casts the base game's own hand shadow, rather than a silhouette of the claw itself
    - An arm whose armour runs flat part way through a reach is now put away, handing back what it was carrying, rather than hanging at full stretch until the swing gives up on it
    - Fixed an arm coming out and standing there doing nothing when what it was sent to take up had something standing beside it, which is what a line of belts marked with the planner is
    - Fixed a claw sent to pick something up off the floor beside a full chest taking the chest's contents instead, handful after handful, while what it was sent for lay there
    - Fixed a claw settling on something marked and never taking it while its owner was moving, which stopped an arm picking anything up as you walked past it and stopped a vehicle's arms taking what lay under the hull
    - An arm no longer sets off for something it has nowhere to put: with full pockets it stays in rather than fetching one thing and standing there holding it, and it starts again the moment there is room
    - Fixed a claw working a round of several getting stuck on one of them for good, turning to a fresh target every tick without ever delivering or coming home
    - A claw switched off mid reach now comes all the way in before the arm folds away, rather than being taken away two thirds of a tile out with the item winking out in mid air
    - Switching the arms off and straight back on no longer puts a second arm out beside the one still swinging home, with a second item out of your pockets to go with it
    - A vehicle's arms are bolted inboard of its running gear and drawn up on the body, rather than out on the tracks or hanging off the bottom of the hull
    - A bulk claw carrying a round of ghosts now crosses straight from one to the next, rather than swinging all the way home and out again between each, which cost it a whole journey a ghost and left it looking as though it had given up on the one it had just turned to
    - Fixed an underground pair upgrade putting a copy of what was travelling in the tunnel on the ground beside it, one item per lane, while the tunnel kept its load as well
    - A tank's arms are bolted to its turret, ringing the middle of it and drawn at its bottom edge, rather than standing out on its flanks over the tracks
    - An arm no longer sets off for something you are walking away from that it could not reach before you left it behind, so a ghost passing a tile or two to your side costs no swing, no charge and no slowdown rather than a claw that trails it and comes home empty

Version: 2.1.4
Date: 2026-09-14
  Features:
    - Equipment in a vehicle's equipment grid now works, building from the vehicle as you drive and spending the vehicle's own inventory
    - A vehicle's arms are mounted along the sides of its hull, shared between the two sides and spread evenly from corner to corner: one on the right, two one a side, four at the corners, and so on
    - Added a toolbar button that switches your own constructor equipment off and on, with a keybinding you can set
  Changes:
    - Equipment in your armour does nothing while you are in a vehicle, whether you are driving it or riding in it
    - A vehicle whose arms are working loses the same share of its top speed that you lose of your walking speed on foot
    - A vehicle's arm reaches its tier's range from where it is mounted, so it covers the ground out past its own side of the hull rather than across the vehicle
    - An arm builds at the same rate whichever way it is pointed, where it used to be quicker in front of its owner than behind them

Version: 2.1.3
Date: 2026-09-10
  Info:
    - Added a thumbnail, shown beside the mod in the mod manager and on the portal
  Features:
    - The arm sits on whichever side of you is your back, and shrinks away a second after it runs out of work
    - An inserter arm now reaches out of your back to each ghost, carries the item there in its claw and puts it down, then comes back for the next one
    - Wearing more than one of the equipment gives you an arm for each of them, all building at once
    - Added three further tiers of the equipment, reaching three, four and five tiles, with red, blue and green arms
    - Better arms slow you less: half as much at the second tier, and not at all at the third and fourth
    - Added a setting for what an arm does when it brings something back and your inventory is full: drop it on the ground, or hold it in the claw and wait until there is room
    - Tiers can be mixed, and each arm keeps its own reach and its own pace
    - Researching inserter capacity lets an arm carry more than one thing at a time, and it then turns from ghost to ghost rather than going home between each
    - An arm carries exactly what the inserter it is made from carries, so the fourth tier's bulk claw goes much further on that research than the others do
    - The arm gives up if you walk out of reach partway through, and carries the item back rather than losing it
    - And turns straight to another ghost that takes the same item instead of making a trip home for an identical one
    - The character now leans into the work, slowing over a second rather than dropping to their slowest at once
    - And comes back up to speed gradually once there is nothing left to build, rather than all at once
  Changes:
    - The arm reaches two tiles rather than four
    - How often an arm builds is now however fast its claw swings, rather than a fixed two a second: a better arm is a quicker one, and things close by go up faster than things at arm's length
    - The arm draws power from your armour as it swings and while it idles, at the rate the inserter it is made from draws, rather than a fixed amount per delivery
    - An arm waits for a full charge before setting off, and turns for home rather than starting a delivery it cannot pay for
    - Each piece of equipment holds the charge for its own arm, the way an armour holds charge for night vision, rather than the arm drawing straight from your batteries
    - You walk half as slowly while the first tier is working, and reach that speed twice as quickly
    - The equipment tooltip no longer claims a movement bonus of nothing and a consumption of one watt; what each tier really draws is in its description
    - The equipment is cheaper to make: an inserter and a circuit, rather than steel, gears and four long handed inserters
    - Researching it needs only automation science
    - Each higher tier is built out of the tier below it, a circuit and a steel plate
    - The arm is yellow, and each higher tier takes the colour of the inserter its arm comes from
    - Researching each tier now also needs whatever unlocks the inserter it is built out of, found in the technology tree rather than assumed, so it still holds if a mod moves them
    - The slowdown no longer fights other mods that change how fast you walk, and both effects now apply together
    - An arm takes what it needs out of your inventory when it sets off rather than when it arrives, and gives it back if it comes home without having built anything
    - An arm sent for something that takes more than its claw can hold, such as a curved rail, takes all of it with it
    - The third and fourth tier arms turn more slowly, so a claw no longer snaps round in an instant while its reach crawls
    - An arm waits for more charge before setting off, so an armour that cannot spare it keeps its arm at home rather than stranding it partway
  Bugfixes:
    - Fixed the arm twitching in place instead of building, when a ghost sat just outside its reach or under your feet
    - Fixed being left slowed for good if anything interrupted a build, and gave the speed back to anyone a previous version had left that way
    - Fixed an item being left on the ground beside a ghost instead of built into it, most often a wall or a solar panel
    - Fixed your speed surging back towards normal for a moment between one delivery and the next

Version: 2.1.2
Date: 2026-09-09
  Bugfixes:
    - Fixed building the wrong ghost when several were in range, which took the item for one and built another
    - Fixed building things that take several items, such as curved rails, from a single item

Version: 2.1.1
Date: 2026-09-09
  Features:
    - Added a test suite

Version: 2.1.0
Date: 2026-09-09
  Features:
    - Updated for Factorio 2.1
  Changes:
    - Researching the technology no longer extends how long ghosts survive, which a mod can no longer do
  Bugfixes:
    - Fixed the arm reaching over and over for something it could never build, such as a power pole you are standing next to
    - Fixed a power warning being drawn over your character the whole time the arm was out
    - Fixed the arm flinging itself out sideways at full stretch before coming home
    - Fixed the arm reaching for a ghost you had walked onto, which it can never build
    - Fixed the equipment not going into an armour at all
    - Fixed a crash whenever a player had no character, which included the whole of the opening cutscene and any time spent in the map editor