Industrial Automation 2.0: Performance Meta
As we enter 2026, **Industrial Automation** in Rust has evolved from simple auto-sorters to massive "factory-scale" operations. However, large-scale automation is the #1 cause of entity lag and server FPS drops. This guide provides the meta-settings for balancing automation complexity with server stability.
⚙️ The "Entity Bottleneck"
- Pipe Buffering: Every pipe connection calculates flow every tick. 1000+ pipes can cripple a server's main thread.
- Conveyor Jitter: Too many conveyors checking containers simultaneously leads to "Micro-Stutters."
- 2026 Baseline: Modern servers (v1.8x+) have improved threading, but "Entity Spam" remains a threat.
Strategies for Efficient Factories
1. The "Daisy-Chain" Anti-Pattern
In 2026, the most significant performance gain comes from avoiding long daisy-chains of conveyors.
Correct Meta: Use a **Central Hub** (Industrial Splitters) rather than connecting A to B to C to D. Each "hop" in a chain adds a calculation layer. A Hub-and-Spoke model reduces the pathfinding load by up to 40%.
📉 Interval Tuning
Instead of running conveyors every tick, use your server-side industrial.conveyorprocessinginterval setting. Setting this to 2.0 (seconds) instead of 0.1 drastically reduces CPU load without affecting sorting speed for most bases.
📦 Container Pooling
Pooling 10 small boxes into 1 Large Storage Box or Cargo Container reduces the number of "Search Calls" the automation logic has to make.
Advanced: Electrical Burden
Every industrial component requires power. In 2026, the complexity of your **Electrical Circuit** is just as important as the pipes.
Optimization: Use **Power Switches** to disable entire factory wings when not in use. A dormant industrial system draws 0.00ms of server CPU time.
Server-Side Settings (Admin Guide)
If your server FPS is dropping below 30, use these ConVars to reign in industrial abuse:
| ConVar | Default | Optimized (High-Pop) |
|---|---|---|
industrial.max_connections | 16 | 12 (Prevents infinite loops) |
industrial.conveyor_tickrate | 1.0 | 2.0 (Slows update speed for FPS) |
industrial.pipe_length_max | 30 | 20 (Reduces pathing checks) |
Managing Large Bases
Why does my base feel "laggy" even at 100 FPS?
This is likely **Network Buffer Overflow**. The server is sending too much data about your 500+ industrial entities to your client at once. Admins can fix this by increasing server.net_buffer_size, but the real solution is to simplify the pipe layout.
Do Industrial Combiners cause lag?
Yes. Combiners are more expensive than Splitters because they have to "wait" for signals from multiple sources. Try to use Splitters and logical priority sorting instead.
Is there a limit on pipes?
Most 2026 servers implement a "Per-TC Pipe Limit" using plugins. 200 pipes is the generally accepted "safe limit" for a high-performance competitive server.
Next Steps
Factory-Grade Hosting: Supercraft servers are optimized with a custom **Industrial-Threading** patch that offloads pipe calculations to secondary CPU cores, allowing you to build the massive operations your community deserves.