The Lerf Posted May 12 Report Posted May 12 I haven't seen much discussion on the new Spur Gears introduced in 1.22, so I'll begin. The rather unique thing that we've gained via use of the Spur Gears is the ability to split power trains without the need of a Large Wooden Gear, and it keeps the torque/speed ratio 1:1. (Spur Gear split and reversal) Unfortunately, the design of the gear prevents us from continuing the power train in the same direction. Using a spur gear forces the power train to double back on itself. This can be reversed again by using another Spur Gear, at the cost of additional 2x3x1 space and materials. Obviously this seems a little strange, when the axle could just come off the end of first paired gear, but the current implementation prevents that due to the gear basically serving as an 'end cap' for any axle. (No fun allowed) Perhaps this is planned, perhaps not, but allowing the Spur Gear to function in the middle of an axle would allow much more flexibility in mechanical design, even if just allowing things to be more compact/cheaper. Now, some interesting things I've found... (4-way Spur Split) The Spur Gear can split off of every side of itself. By shifting the mechanisms below the floor, you can get a rather compact way of powering multiple things in parallel. In fact, this can be continued over, and over again... (Potential chaos) ...To create a very confusing but functional mechanical mess. This all works in-game, even if it looks like it shouldn't. 5 1
Demoncyborg Posted May 12 Report Posted May 12 1 hour ago, The Lerf said: The Spur Gear can split off of every side of itself UM WOAH!! great find!! of course why wouldn't they?! thank you for sharing! I agree that it should have more functionality than just being an end cap for an axle, it's got a lot of potential already
Zane Mordien Posted May 13 Report Posted May 13 4 hours ago, The Lerf said: This all works in-game, even if it looks like it shouldn't. Maybe this arrangement in the future will catch on fire.
Maelstrom Posted May 13 Report Posted May 13 (edited) Interesting that Tyron introduced a new gear to do this when the angled gear appears to be fully capable of the exact same behavior. Edited May 13 by Maelstrom
Demoncyborg Posted May 13 Report Posted May 13 2 hours ago, Maelstrom said: Interesting that Tyron introduced a new gear to do this when the angled gear appears to be fully capable of the exact same behavior. i sort of felt the same way when i started playing with them, but it is cheaper (2 spur gears instead of 3 angled) to double back like that now, and now possible to split from one axle without a large gear. it's filling a nice gap, and helping the machines look cooler.
The Lerf Posted May 13 Author Report Posted May 13 45 minutes ago, Demoncyborg said: i sort of felt the same way when i started playing with them, but it is cheaper (2 spur gears instead of 3 angled) to double back like that now, and now possible to split from one axle without a large gear. it's filling a nice gap, and helping the machines look cooler. It's actually not 3 angled, it's still 2, just visually there's a third connecting them. 3 hours ago, Maelstrom said: Interesting that Tyron introduced a new gear to do this when the angled gear appears to be fully capable of the exact same behavior. Yeah, and other than splitting axles, its kind of the only thing it can do. It's an additional option which I like, but it's use case is pretty niche. I can't think of many times when I would prefer a 1:1 split, rather than just connecting things in series.
Darian Kimberly Posted May 20 Report Posted May 20 why do they HAVE to double back? my intuition would say a gear works both directions, i wanted to do a train with 2 split and a gap in the center with the central gear at the top, but i cannot because of this. anyone have an alternative suggestion for what I am trying to do? i wanna split my central axle to power a pulverizer and quern, but still leave room to walk in between them.
The Lerf Posted May 20 Author Report Posted May 20 12 hours ago, Darian Kimberly said: why do they HAVE to double back? my intuition would say a gear works both directions, i wanted to do a train with 2 split and a gap in the center with the central gear at the top, but i cannot because of this. anyone have an alternative suggestion for what I am trying to do? i wanna split my central axle to power a pulverizer and quern, but still leave room to walk in between them. Hopefully I'm interpreting this correctly, but do you mean something like this? I believe this is the most space efficient way to make a split while keeping the powertrain going the same direction. Current limitations are the spur gears being endcaps, and the mandatory 'axle attached to a block' condition for placing gears.
redram Posted May 20 Report Posted May 20 The spur gear was supposed to be able to be on the ends or the middle of a shaft, but that didn't get implemented in 1.22 unfortunately. 1 4
The Lerf Posted May 20 Author Report Posted May 20 46 minutes ago, redram said: The spur gear was supposed to be able to be on the ends or the middle of a shaft, but that didn't get implemented in 1.22 unfortunately. Appreciate a dev confirming this, I'm looking forward to the future of the mechanical side of the game.
TheCraeb Posted Monday at 12:05 AM Report Posted Monday at 12:05 AM Jesus these are painful to use. Just let the angled gear form a T joint and 99% of all the engineering headaches I've ever had in this game would be gone. I hate to be so negative about it but the piece already exists in the game, you can see how it fits into this mechanism, you just aren't able to do it. It's painful, too, because when trying to stack multiple windmills you end up with all this extra high resistance junk to do something that should be trivial. I find myself designing what I want, building most of it and then just using creative mode to make all the extra stuff that shouldn't be needed because I don't want to spend forever gathering fat and sap for stuff that shouldn't even need to be there. 1
blindstitch Posted Monday at 10:25 PM Report Posted Monday at 10:25 PM It seems that these don't let you combine power from rotors into a single axle, it jams up. I think that means it doesn't work as a replacement for the necessary step-down, step-up setup to have more than 1 windmill on the same axle. 1
MKMoose Posted Tuesday at 05:57 PM Report Posted Tuesday at 05:57 PM (edited) 19 hours ago, blindstitch said: It seems that these don't let you combine power from rotors into a single axle, it jams up. I think that means it doesn't work as a replacement for the necessary step-down, step-up setup to have more than 1 windmill on the same axle. You can do it perfectly fine. You just need to make sure that they work in tandem rather than counteract each other. Edited Tuesday at 05:57 PM by MKMoose 2
blindstitch Posted 13 hours ago Report Posted 13 hours ago On 6/9/2026 at 1:57 PM, MKMoose said: You can do it perfectly fine. You just need to make sure that they work in tandem rather than counteract each other. Yes, and I tried it the deliberately wrong way as a sanity check and got the same result. I may have gotten unlucky with wind at that instant, but it definitely only started to move again the instant I broke one of the spur gears. Using the typical 2x big gear setup worked fine however.
Vratislav Posted 3 hours ago Report Posted 3 hours ago On 6/9/2026 at 7:57 PM, MKMoose said: You just need to make sure that they work in tandem rather than counteract each other. Not entirely sure about it. I did some experiments in creative and in some cases it was jammed despite rotating directions were compatibile. But I was trying to combine waterwheel and windmill...
MKMoose Posted 2 hours ago Report Posted 2 hours ago 10 hours ago, blindstitch said: Yes, and I tried it the deliberately wrong way as a sanity check and got the same result. I may have gotten unlucky with wind at that instant, but it definitely only started to move again the instant I broke one of the spur gears. Using the typical 2x big gear setup worked fine however. 37 minutes ago, Vratislav said: Not entirely sure about it. I did some experiments in creative and in some cases it was jammed despite rotating directions were compatibile. But I was trying to combine waterwheel and windmill... Seems like a bug more than an intentional limitation of spur gears, especially since it worked as expected for me. Most likely related to #9391, possibly also to #8349 or #9596.
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