Vintage Story: Mechanical Power Guide
Checked on 13 October 2026 against Vintage Story 1.22.7: the game files and its in-game handbook.
Mechanical power enables automation and advanced crafting in Vintage Story. In the base game it runs the quern for milling, the helve hammer for metal plates and iron blooms, the pulverizer for crushing minerals, the Archimedes screw for moving items and the grinding wheel for sharpening. This guide covers the power sources, the parts that carry power, and the exact setup each machine needs.
Power Generation
Windmill Construction
Primary source of mechanical power:
- Find height: a windmill needs at least 5 blocks of vertical space, and it usually gets more wind the higher it is, so put the rotor on a tower or the side of a tall building.
- Place the rotor: its back connects to an axle; that is where the power comes out.
- Add sails: right click the rotor with 4 sails at a time. A wooden rotor takes up to 5 sets, a metal rotor up to 10. Each set needs room to turn: if anything blocks the circle, the game refuses with Cannot add more sails. Make sure there's space for the sails to rotate freely, and a block that later gets in the way shatters every sail on the rotor and drops them.
- Route the power: axles and angled gears carry it to the machines.
Windmill Efficiency
Each set of 4 sails adds 20% of a wooden rotor's power. Look at a rotor and it shows Wind speed and Sails power output in kN:
| Rotor | Sails | Power Output | Wind Requirement |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wooden | Up to 5 sets of 4 regular sails | 20 kN per set, 100 kN at 5 sets | More sets start turning in lighter wind |
| Metal (iron age) | Up to 10 sets of 4 large sails, up to twice the diameter | 25 kN per set, 250 kN at 10 sets | Same rule; its beams need certain stronger wood types |
Two things halve or stop a windmill. Another windmill closer than about one and a half times its diameter exposes it to turbulence, and the rotor then reports Exposed to turbulence from nearby windmill, power output reduced by 50%. A rotor where sunlight barely reaches, below light level 5, gets no wind at all unless the world allows underground windmills.
Other Power Sources
- Water wheel (1.22): a 3 block wheel built in stages around an axle fitted with two small 4-way hubs of iron or better, using support beams, boards, nails and strips and resin, all of the same strong wood. Its paddles must sit in rapid-flowing water, which only generates (rarely) in streams at higher altitudes in terrain made by 1.22 or later and cannot be created by players. Anything in the wheel's path stops it.
- Several windmills: the large wooden gear can bring together torque from several rotors or other sources.
Why your windmill stops when nobody is online
This one catches almost every new server owner. You build a windmill, log off, come back the next day and nothing has moved: no flour milled, no crops grown, no food spoiled. The windmill is fine. The world clock stopped.
A Vintage Story server pauses its calendar the moment the last player disconnects. That is
the default, and it freezes everything time drives at once, including mechanical power. It is
controlled by a single key in serverconfig.json:
| Setting | Default | What it does |
|---|---|---|
PassTimeWhenEmpty |
false |
Leave it false and the calendar stops with nobody online. Set it to true
and the calendar never stops, so mills keep turning, crops keep growing and food keeps
spoiling while the server is empty. |
Which one you want is a design decision, not a bug. Leaving it false protects
small groups from logging in to a cellar of rotten food after a week away. Setting it
true suits a server where people play at different hours and expect the world to
keep running. Decide before your players build around it, because switching later changes how
every farm and mill on the map behaves. Full key list in the
server configuration guide.
Power Transmission
Mechanical Components
⚙️ Axle
Transmits rotational power in straight lines. An axle can be covered so it runs inside a wall.
🔄 Angled gears
Change power direction (90-degree turns). There is no gearbox block; angled gears do this job, and spur gears transfer and split power between shafts.
⬆️ Clutch
Works only together with a transmission placed next to it: the pair lets you interrupt a power train temporarily.
🔧 Brake
Stops a power train completely.
The large wooden gear works with standard gears to speed rotation up (with weaker torque) or slow it down (with much stronger torque). It can only be placed horizontally.
Power Network Design
Windmill rotor → Axle → Angled gears → Axle → Machine
↓
Spur gears to split power to more machinesPowered Machines
Helve Hammer
Automated metalworking:
- Function: smiths metal plates, refines iron blooms and hammers blister steel into ingots. It cannot smith tools or weapons.
- Parts: a helve hammer head (smithed or cast), the helve hammer itself, a helve hammer base and a wooden toggle.
- Setup: bring power to the left or right side of the toggle, place the base directly next to the toggle, place an anvil of bronze tier or higher three blocks from the base (two from the toggle), then attach the helve hammer to the base.
- Brake: optional; it goes on the free side of the base, opposite the incoming axle.
Pulverizer
Mineral crushing:
- Function: pounds materials such as quartz and bauxite into crushed quartz and crushed bauxite. Minerals such as olivine and ilmenite need stronger pounder caps.
- Assembly: place the pulverizer frame (it needs plenty of vertical space), then add a toggle, two pounders and pounder caps.
- Not an ore multiplier: it also crushes metal ore chunks, but crushed metal ore cannot be smelted; it goes into recipes such as refractory bricks instead.
Quern (Manual)
Can be powered or manual:
- Manual: Right-click to grind
- Powered: craft it from any igneous rock and connect power to its top or bottom
- Uses: grain and cassava into flour, bones and antlers into bone meal, charcoal into charcoal powder, and borax, sulfur and sylvite ore into powder; it does not grind metal ores
- Output: when its output slot is full it drops items on its 4 sides. A block beside it stops drops on that side but slows grinding, so put hoppers and chests below the sides, and a hopper on top to feed several stacks
Advanced Automation
Multi-Machine Setup
There is no fixed number of machines per windmill. More sail sets give more torque and start turning in lighter wind; every machine adds load. When the load is more than the power available in the current wind, the train does not turn. Add sail sets, move to a metal rotor, or combine several rotors through a large gear. The grinding wheel is a pass-through machine, so it can sit in the middle of a shaft that powers something else.
Clutch Control System
Selective machine activation:
- Pair them: a clutch only works next to a transmission.
- One pair per branch: put a transmission and clutch on each machine branch you want to switch.
- Interrupt as needed: use the pair to stop that branch while the rest of the train keeps turning.
- Stop everything: a brake stops the whole power train.
Pro Tip: build windmills high up on hills or towers; the game gives more wind with height. Keep them apart, at least one and a half times their diameter, so turbulence does not halve them.
Helve Hammer Recipes
Automated Smithing
| Job | Works with the helve hammer? |
|---|---|
| Metal plates | Yes, any metal |
| Refining iron blooms | Yes |
| Blister steel into ingots | Yes |
| Tool heads, weapon blades and other smithing | No, these are hammered by hand on the anvil |
Troubleshooting
Common Power Issues
| Problem | Cause | Solution |
|---|---|---|
| Windmill Not Spinning | Too little wind for the load, or the rotor sits where sunlight is below level 5 | Add sail sets, build higher, or reduce the load |
| Sails Disappeared | A block got into the sail circle and shattered them; they dropped as items | Clear the circle and put the sails back |
| Half Power | Another windmill too close (turbulence) | Move them at least one and a half diameters apart |
| Machine Not Working | Disconnected, a clutch without its transmission, or a brake engaged | Check axle connections and the clutch and transmission pair |
| Helve Hammer Idle | Anvil in the wrong spot or below bronze tier, or the work item is a tool or weapon | Anvil three blocks from the base, bronze or better, and only plates, blooms or blister steel |
| Nothing Moved While Offline | The server calendar pauses when empty | See PassTimeWhenEmpty above |
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