House Inlet

alaindustrial:house_inlet

UtilityLVImplementedtier-lvutilitysettlementenergy

Summary

The House Inlet is the block in the wall of a shift worker's house that a cable enters the building through. Just as the Reactor Inlet is the one place where water crosses the reactor's shell, the inlet is the one place where energy enters the house. The inlet takes EU/FE only on the face that looks outward and holds a reserve for the house's Charging Bed: a shift worker lies down on it and charges its battery. No energy goes back out. The inlet is also the house's anchor: the settlement recognises the building by it, brings a Town Road to it, and the restorer lays a new house from it.

Quick example: stand on a free spot of your settlement's territory and place an inlet in front of you. The "Laying a New House" window opens: pick a plan and a turn, look at the ghost of the house and press "Lay the House" — the drones clear the site, lay a road to the inlet and build the house.

How it works

1. Orientation. The inlet is placed with its socket towards the player: a player standing outside the house places it the right way round.
2. One face. A cable or a road connects only to the outer face, and EU/FE comes in only through it. The other five faces are wall: no cable reaches them and no energy passes.
3. Inward only. The inlet gives nothing back to the grid. Its reserve is taken by this house's charging bed.
4. After the machines. The inlet is a store for the shift workers, not a machine: the line feeds the working machines first and fills the inlet from what is left. It takes no part in levelling between stores — a battery bank will not drain into a house where nobody sleeps. From a town road the inlet receives up to 8 EU/FE per tick.

The house's anchor

• A house of the settlement. In an intact capsule house the inlet already stands in the wall; when a drone restores a ruin, it puts the inlet in its place. A house counts only while its inlet stands and is on one energy network with the settlement's core; the inlet is one of the key points of a house fit to live in. Break the inlet, and the house is taken off the count and its resident becomes homeless; the town hall's log gets one line about it, with the resident's number.
• The building's card. A right click on the inlet of a house of your own settlement opens the building's card: its state, what is missing, the repair order, the schematic.
• The town hall's inlet. The town hall has an inlet too, at its front. It is not a store but the core's outlet: the settlement's road network starts from it, and the core's energy goes out into the roads through it.

Laying a new house

1. Where. The restorer places the inlet on the territory of their settlement, outside other buildings. Outside the territory the inlet says "A new house is laid only on a town's territory"; to anyone but the restorer — "Only the town's restorer lays new houses". An inlet placed in a ruin of the settlement is part of that building, and no window opens.
2. The window. "Laying a New House": a plan out of those the settlement has learned (see House Plan), and a turn to one of the four sides. The inlet stays put and the house turns round it. On the spot you see ghosts of the house and of the branch road to the settlement's network, with its length.
3. Site check. The core names every problem in one sentence: the town hall is not restored yet, the core's tier allows no more houses, a cell is outside the settlement's border, a chunk is not loaded, the house overlaps a building or comes closer to one than a 2-block passage, a player's block, machine or chest stands on the spot, the house lies over a future street of the settlement. Grass, earth, stone, flowers and leaves on the spot the drones will take away by themselves — they are no problem. No way to the road network is a warning, not a ban. With no problems — "The site is free: the house can be laid" and the "Lay the House" button.
4. The order. A laid house joins the queue of the Town Dispatcher as an order of three steps: clearing (nature goes into the dispatcher's buffer, pits under the floor are filled), road, building. A new house costs the full price — every block from scratch.
5. Calling it off. The "Cancel Laying" button (or a broken inlet) calls the laying off while the building has not started. After that the house is a house: "The building has started: the house can no longer be called off". A right click on the inlet of a laid house opens its window again.

Energy

Block Properties

Recipes

House Inlet (crafting table): six Tempered Iron Plates, two Copper Plates and an Insulated Copper Cable.

Progression

• Placed in the wall of a settlement house; inside the house — a Charging Bed.
• The Town Road links the inlet with the town hall and the Settlement Core.
• A new house is laid from an inlet once the settlement knows at least one House Plan.

Related

• Charging Bed — takes energy from the inlet of its house.
• Town Road — comes to the inlet's outer face.
• Settlement Core — the heart of the settlement; a house counts if its inlet is on one network with it.
• Reactor Inlet — the same idea: the one way through the shell.

Crafting

Shaped Crafting

▶

House Inlet