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Machine Head

The replaceable striking head of a Mechanical Hammer or Mechanical Press. It does two jobs: it sets how hard a blow can land, and it is the part that wears. The machines themselves are neither.

Making one

Made at the Tool Table like any modular item:

  1. Hammer stock into a Head Blank (a Hand Hammer in the table). Ingots, blocks, gems or cobblestone all work; the shape picks the size:
  2. Standard: 4 cells of stock.
  3. Broad-Faced: 6 cells. Heavier, so a higher ceiling.
  4. Narrow-Faced: 2 cells. Concentrates the blow: about three quarters of a standard head's ceiling for half the stock.
  5. Put the finished blank in the table to make the head.

Any material works, and the material matters. The ceiling comes from the head's mass, its hardness and its strength; a hard but brittle material (diamond, quartz) loses a lot of it, and a soft one (lead) has little. An iron head of four ingots has a ceiling of 24 St.

Using it

  • Right-click a hammer or press with a head to seat it. The one it replaces comes back to your hand.
  • Sneak and right-click with an empty hand to pull it.
  • A machine with no head does nothing, wears nothing, and says No head seated.

Wear

The head takes the force a machine cannot put into the work (cold or too-hard metal, scrap, gearing past the ceiling). It never breaks and never stops: at worst it bottoms out at half condition and hits softer. A new head resets the machine. The condition stays on the head, so a worn head moved to another machine is still worn. Calipers read the seated head's condition while the machine is stopped.