Small Mechanical Power Question About Upping Speed

[GrayTheDuck]

I recently picked up the game, and I've been having a blast, I recently finished my first winter, got my first batch of steel and have a nice little workshop set up, 4 windmills feeding into a big gear, down an axle, and out of another big gear 3 different ways to a helve hammer, quern, and pulverizer.

My question is this: I understand that putting power through big gear basically "trades" (super technical I know) speed for torque or vice versa. Going through two large gears the way I'm doing it basically evens out the system minus the resistance inherent in the parts. If I want to up the speed of the system (feed the power through a large gear again before the final big gear - > small gear ->clutch/transmission -> machine), is there be a certain amount of windmills I need so that my lack of torque doesn't stop me? Or at least enough that it doesn't always stop me if there's middling wind?

[MKMoose]

Welcome to the forums! Four windmills are generally quite suitable for the quern and the pulverizer running at higher speed assuming you're only running one of them at a time, though you might bump it up slightly (not higher than eight) if you're worried about performance in low winds. For the helve, you're gonna be better off making a second helve if you want to process metals faster instead of making one helve run faster.

The longer answer is that there is no specific required number of windmills, because there's a bunch of different factors that influence it. What I can give you is a few general notes:

• wind speed increases at higher altitudes, so placing your windmills higher will let them produce more torque (this is primarily why I can't recommend a single number),
• there's always a chance that you'll be interrupted when there's no wind at all, at which point no practical number of windmills is sufficient,
• personally I've never needed more than 4 windmills, though you may still find it to be insufficient for the quern or the pulverizer in low winds, especially if you place them at low altitude,
• you're generally not gonna need any more than 8 rotors for all typical applications, at least in singleplayer.

The helve hammer is currently an exception relative to other machines in that its resistance increases with speed, at very high values approaching exponential growth - it's better to use multiple helves at regular speed instead of one faster helve. For two helves running at regular speed, 4 windmills should be fine, and I remember seeing a recommendation for three hammers with 8 full windmills. You can even have multiple hammers work on a single anvil - it looks kinda stupid, but doesn't require a new anvil for each new helve.

I tend to set up the power train in such a way that helves are powered at default speed, while the quern and pulverizer are connected to the second large gear and run faster. You can also jump into a new world in creative mode to test out a few setups, if you're unsure. The command  /weather setw <still/lightbreeze/mediumbreeze/strongbreeze/storm>  (choose one, e.g.  /weather setw lightbreeze ) can be used to adjust the wind speed to make testing easier.

Edited December 23, 2025 by MKMoose