Keeping a workshop working while away

Crafting and capacity

The intended magical anchor is difficult to make from a runic fitting, all four essence families and a rare exploration stabilizer. Exact ingredient quantities are not yet specified. It has no fuel, recharge or periodic upkeep. Ordinary player-proximity loading remains available; this is not a fee for using a workshop.

The initial design allows one active anchor per owner, covering its own chunk. The test ceiling is 32 server-wide. Capacity still needs testing before release, so 32 launch slots are not guaranteed and ticking is not unlimited.

When anchor capacity is full

Activation is first-come, with no queue and no silent eviction. The intended interface shows used/free capacity and a denial reason. A crafted inactive anchor is not consumed when full. Deactivation or authorized packing returns allocation. Transferring ownership deactivates it and requires the recipient’s capacity check. After a restart, anchor capacity should be checked again without creating duplicate reservations.

Loaded does not always mean growing

Chunk residency, actual ticking and crop random ticks are different. Machine and plant progress uses simulated ticks; lag slows it. Unloaded machines pause without offline catch-up. An anchor that truly keeps simulation running can allow normal-rate processing during an owner’s absence, but that must be demonstrated for supported plants and machines.

Ordinary vanilla unattended loading mechanisms are intended to be disabled; the magical route is the deliberate alternative. That rule does not disable ordinary nearby-player loading or reduce online AFK point earnings to zero. Merely anchor-loaded or generated terrain never becomes atlas exploration.