Extend
🎬 [Placeholder: GIF of Extend duplicating a manifold]
Extend is Smart!'s most powerful feature — duplicate an entire connected factory layout with a single click. Point at an existing building, and Smart! clones everything: the manifold, belts, pipes, and recipes.
Extend lets you:
- Point at an existing production building while holding a matching hologram
- Automatically clone the entire connected manifold (distributors, belts, pipes)
- Preserve all belt/pipe routing and recipes
- Get immediate item/fluid flow — no manual connections needed
This is the feature that made original Smart! legendary. And in v24, it's even more powerful.
The original Smart! would only copy splitters and mergers connected by a single belt.
The new Extend captures EVERYTHING:
- Every belt, no matter how many segments
- Every conveyor lift
- Every pipe
- Complex routing with multiple bends
As long as the chain ends in a splitter, merger, or pipe junction, Extend will clone it.
📸 [Placeholder: Side-by-side comparison of old vs new Extend]
Set up a production building with its manifold:
- Place a Constructor (or any production building)
- Connect a Splitter/Merger with belts
- Configure the recipe
📸 [Placeholder: Source production line with manifold]
Open your build menu and select the same type of building you want to extend from.
Point your hologram at the existing production building. You'll see:
- The hologram snaps to a valid position
- Preview of the cloned manifold appears
- Belt/pipe holograms show the connections
📸 [Placeholder: Extend preview with manifold holograms]
Click to build. Smart! will:
- Place the new production building
- Clone all connected distributors
- Build all belts and pipes
- Copy the recipe
- Connect the manifold lanes between source and clone
Items start flowing immediately!
| Component | Cloned? | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Production building | ✅ | Same type required |
| Recipe | ✅ | Automatically copied |
| Splitters/Mergers | ✅ | Entire chain |
| Belts | ✅ | All segments, any routing |
| Conveyor lifts | ✅ | Up and down |
| Pipes | ✅ | All segments |
| Pipeline junctions | ✅ | Entire chain |
| Manifold lanes | ✅ | Auto-connected |
Extend automatically creates "manifold lanes" — the belts/pipes that connect your source distributors to the cloned distributors.
Intelligent skipping: If a source distributor's connectors are already occupied, Extend skips that connection instead of failing. This lets you extend from partially-connected manifolds.
📸 [Placeholder: Diagram of manifold lane connections]
- Build one Smelter with a Splitter feeding it
- Select another Smelter hologram
- Aim at the existing Smelter
- Click to duplicate — belt and splitter included!
- Set up a Constructor with recipe, connected to a Merger
- Extend to create identical Constructors
- All feed into the same Merger chain
Extend handles complex setups:
- Multiple belt segments with bends
- Lifts going up or down
- Pipes with multiple junctions
- Mixed belt tiers
🎬 [Placeholder: GIF of extending a complex manifold]
- Build your template carefully — Extend clones exactly what you built
- Use consistent routing — Clean belt paths clone better
- Check connector availability — Extend skips occupied connectors
- Combine with Scaling — Scale first, then Extend for massive arrays
- Same building type required — Can't extend a Constructor from an Assembler
- Manifold must end in distributors — Belts must connect to splitters/mergers/junctions
- Power not yet included — Power connections coming in a future update
- Auto-Connect — Automatic connections for new builds
- Scaling — Create grids before extending
- Recipe Selection — Pre-select recipes
Extend not showing preview?
- Ensure you're holding the same building type
- Check that the source has connected distributors
Some connections missing?
- Source connectors may already be occupied
- Extend intelligently skips unavailable connections
Belts not flowing?
- Verify the source manifold is working
- Check belt tier compatibility
See Troubleshooting for more help.
