Scrap Mechanic Advanced Building Guide: All 6 Logic Gates

This Scrap Mechanic advanced building guide starts where the beginner one stops: past "a seat, wheels, and a battery," into how pistons, bearings, sensors, and logic gates actually combine to build something that runs itself. Not decoration, a real signal-processing system bolted onto a physics sandbox. What follows covers how these five interactive parts connect, what their actual stats are, and where new builders waste hours guessing instead of reading the numbers.

TL;DR: Scrap Mechanic's Logic Gate block has six selectable modes (AND, OR, XOR, NAND, NOR, XNOR), no dedicated NOT gate, and a fixed 1-tick output delay. Sensors detect from 1 to 20 blocks depending on upgrade level. Pistons extend 1 to 15 blocks and can self-configure their own speed, or hand that job to a Controller, which can sequence up to 10 pistons or bearings through a 10-frame program. Bearings need an Engine, a Driver's Seat, or a Controller to actually rotate. None of this changed in the 1.0 update; what changed is that Logic Gates and Timers are now something you buy from the hideout trader early on, not something gated behind late-game progress.

Scrap Mechanic advanced building guide: how the parts work together (quick answer)

They form a signal chain. Buttons, switches, sensors, and timers, grouped together as Triggers in the game's own documentation, produce an ON/OFF signal. Logic Gates process that signal (combine, invert, delay it). The processed signal then drives an output: a Piston extends, a Bearing rotates, a Thruster fires, or a light turns on. A Controller sits between the signal and multiple pistons or bearings when you need them moving in a specific order rather than all at once.

Scrap Mechanic advanced building guide: key takeaways

• The Logic Gate block has 6 modes (AND, OR, XOR, NAND, NOR, XNOR), no separate NOT gate, and a 1-tick (0.025s) output delay.
• Sensors detect 1 to 20 blocks depending on upgrade level (4 blocks at level 1, 20 at level 5, which also unlocks color-mode).
• Pistons extend 1 to 15 blocks and can be configured directly, or handed to a Controller for sequencing, not both at once.
• A Controller manages up to 10 pistons or bearings on a 10-frame program with 9 speed settings.
• Thrusters need Gasoline in Survival and scale in fixed 1.5x steps of thrust and fuel use per power level.
• None of the core logic system changed in 1.0; what's new is buying Logic Gates and Timers from the hideout trader early, per post-1.0 Reddit reports.

Overview: what this guide covers (and what the beginner guide already covered)

Our Scrap Mechanic beginner guide covers the 1.0 update's story structure, the Claygun, the doubled bot roster, and the basics of reaching a Craftbot. It deliberately stops at "a seat, wheels, and a battery is enough to start." This guide starts exactly where that one stops: the five interactive parts (Logic Gate, Sensor, Timer, Piston, Bearing) plus the Controller and Thruster that turn a vehicle into a machine.

Every stat in this Scrap Mechanic advanced building guide comes from the game's own wiki part pages and Axolot Games' official Steam patch notes, cross-checked against what players on r/ScrapMechanic report building right now, in the weeks after 1.0. None of it is guessed from how similar games usually work; the beginner guide already flagged that assumption as the single most common way build advice goes stale in this game.

Two things you need before any of this is useful: a Craftbot (covered in the beginner guide) and the actual parts unlocked. Post-1.0, several players on Reddit confirm buying Logic Gates and Timers directly from the hideout trader as soon as it opens up, rather than earning them through a specific story milestone. One player who'd cleared Grow Lab 5 and still didn't have them found the answer in the comments within minutes: check the hideout, not the quest log.

GODEEPER: If pure signal-and-automation building is what actually draws you in, a completely different genre solves the same "make the machine do the work" problem through belt routing instead of wired logic. Shapez 2 Automation Guide: Belt Routing and Advanced Splitters →

Step-by-Step: logic gates and sensors

Logic Gates: the six modes and how signals actually move

The Logic Gate block is a single part with six selectable modes: AND, OR, and XOR, plus their inverses NAND, NOR, and XNOR. There's no separate NOT gate on the part, but the wiki's own advanced-use note explains the workaround: wire only one input into a NAND or NOR and it inverts that single signal, functioning exactly like a NOT gate would.

Connection direction matters and it's a common first mistake. Inputs connect into a gate; outputs connect from it. If you're chaining two gates, connect gate two to gate one, and the signal travels from two into one, not the other way around. Every gate carries a fixed 1-tick output delay (0.025 seconds), which sounds negligible until you're chaining a dozen gates and a build starts responding a fraction of a second later than expected.

The real payoff is memory. Loop gates back into themselves and they form a latch or flip-flop, storing a 1-or-0 state instead of just passing a signal through. Players are actively pushing this further than you'd expect: one build documented on r/ScrapMechanic implements pure logic-gate, non-volatile storage, up to 256 addressable bytes using nothing but gates, dialed in and read back after a save reload. Another thread walks through calculating a sine function using nothing but switches and logic gates, with a shared blueprint for anyone who wants to load it (fair warning from the builder: expect serious lag).

Sensors: detection range, button mode, and color mode

A Sensor activates when a Mechanic, Robot, Animal, or any object passes in front of it. It has two behavior modes: button mode stays active only while something's detected, switch mode toggles once and holds until triggered again. Detection range runs from 4 blocks at the base level up to 20 blocks at level 5, with three intermediate steps at 8, 12, and 16.

Color mode is the part most beginner guides skip. Once enabled, a 40-color palette appears, and the Sensor only fires when it sees an object painted in that exact color. It ignores terrain and players entirely, so it's built for sorting systems, not perimeter defense. In Survival specifically, color mode is locked to level 5 Sensors, so a farm-sorting build that worked fine in Creative testing may need three extra Component Kit upgrades before it functions the same way in a real save.

Step-by-Step: timers, pistons, and bearings

Timers: delays, repeaters, and the game's most compact memory

A Timer delays whatever signal passes through it, from a Button, Switch, Sensor, Logic Gate, or another Timer. Two sliders set the delay: one in 40-tick (1 second) steps, one in single-tick (0.025 second) steps, maxing out at 2,400 ticks, a full 60 seconds. Like Logic Gates, Timers add their own 1-tick delay on top of whatever's configured.

Two Timer behaviors matter for advanced builds specifically. First, it can function as a repeater for logic gates, useful when a signal needs to travel further than a direct wire connection allows cleanly. Second: a single Timer block can carry up to 1,200 bits of data, making it the most space-efficient storage method in the game by a wide margin. The tradeoff is speed, reading or writing that much data through a Timer's interface can take close to a full minute, so it's built for archival storage, not anything read every tick.

One save-behavior quirk is worth flagging here rather than discovering it mid-build: Timer state is preserved across a save/reload. Logic Gates and Switches are not, their state resets to whatever it was the last time the creation was taken off a Lift, painted, had a connection changed, or (in Survival) left the loaded area. A memory circuit built purely from looping gates can come back in a different state than you left it in; a circuit anchored with a Timer won't.

Pistons: self-configuring or Controller-driven, not both

A Piston extends when it receives a signal from a Trigger. It has a range of 1 to 15 blocks and, unlike a Bearing, it doesn't strictly need a Controller: you can set extend length and speed directly on the Piston itself through its own interface.

The catch: if a Controller is connected to a Piston, the player can no longer open that Piston's own settings GUI. The game treats these as mutually exclusive control paths, not stacking ones, so plan which pistons need independent settings and which ones are going into a coordinated sequence before you start welding. One more detail that trips up crane and elevator builds specifically: the extended arm of a Piston isn't solid, so anything you're trying to rest a platform on needs to attach to the Piston's head, not to the arm shaft itself.

Bearings: what actually makes them turn

A Bearing enables rotation between two parts: the block it's placed on stays fixed as the base, and whatever's mounted on top becomes the rotating piece. This is the part behind every wheel and every turret in the game. On its own, a Bearing does nothing; it needs one of four control sources to actually move.

A Gas Engine or Electric Engine spins it continuously while powered, and if that engine is itself wired to a Switch or Driver's Seat, the Bearing only turns when that control is active. Wired directly to a Driver's Seat, A and D control the turn, and by default each press rotates the Bearing 27 degrees (a Driver's Seat 5 makes both the angle and turn speed configurable). For precise, repeatable rotation instead of held-key steering, that's what the Controller is for.

One easy-to-miss mechanic: while a creation sits on a Lift, every Bearing on it locks in place. Take it off the Lift and bearings resume responding to physics and their connected controls. If you're testing a walker or a rotating turret in Creative and it isn't moving, check whether it's still parked on a Lift before assuming the build itself is broken.

Bearings are the part behind every wheel in the game, from a full-size buggy down to a small drone rolling on its own tire set.

Step-by-Step: the Controller and thrusters

The Controller: programming a real sequence

The Controller is what turns a pile of pistons and bearings into an actual mechanism instead of a set of independently-twitching parts. It connects to up to 10 Pistons or Bearings, plus one Trigger or Driver's Seat, using the Connect Tool. Its interface is a frame-based sequencer: Frame 0 sets the starting position (bearing angle or piston length before any signal arrives), and Frames 1 through 10 set where each connected part should be at each step. Send a signal and the Controller steps through the program left to right.

Two settings decide how that playback feels. Loop mode makes the Controller repeat the sequence once it reaches the last programmed frame; without it, the sequence plays once and stops at the final frame, then runs in reverse back to the start the moment the signal is removed. Speed has 9 settings, and it's a flat frame time, not affected by how far a bearing rotates or how far a piston extends in that frame, running from 5 seconds per frame at setting 1 down to 1 second per frame at setting 9.

A base-level Controller only supports a single connection, which surprises a lot of players who assume the full 10-part capacity is available from the start. Budget Component Kits accordingly before designing a 6-legged walker around one Controller. Bearing rotation within a frame adjusts in 15-degree steps by default, or 1-degree steps holding Shift, and each connected Bearing's rotation direction can be flipped individually at its connection point without touching the sequence itself.

GODEEPER: Everything above assumes you already know how to reach a Craftbot and survive long enough to unlock these parts in the first place. Scrap Mechanic Beginner Guide: What 1.0 Actually Changed →

Thrusters: power levels, fuel, and the offset-thrust problem

A Thruster needs to be wired to a Trigger or a Driver's Seat to fire; connected to a Driver's Seat, holding W activates it. In Survival mode it burns Gasoline, and the fuel draw is steep enough that a dedicated Gas Container beats sharing a tank with anything else on the build.

Power scales in fixed steps: each of the five selectable power levels produces 1.5 times the thrust of the one below it, and burns fuel 1.5 times as fast to match, so raw thrust-per-fuel stays identical no matter which power level you fly at. What actually changes with upgrades is the Thruster itself: a level 5 Thruster is the lightest version (3 weight versus 7 at level 1), the most durable (9 versus 5), and produces the most thrust for the fewest Component Kits spent of any tier. There's no efficiency tradeoff to upgrading a Thruster, only a Component Kit cost, which makes it one of the few unambiguous "always upgrade if you can afford it" parts in the game. One physical quirk worth knowing before your first flying build tips over mid-flight: a Thruster's point of thrust sits slightly offset from its center, so balancing thrust against weight takes more trial and error than the stat sheet alone suggests.

A compact player-built mining rig at work. Precise, hands-off tasks like this are exactly what pairing a Controller with the right actuator parts makes possible.

Tips

Use the Logic Gate Simulator before committing scrap to a complex build. The wiki links a community-built logic gate simulator for planning circuits offline, which is faster than trial-and-error welding when you're chaining more than a handful of gates.

The classic pulse generator is 3 gates, not a mystery part. Two AND gates and one NAND gate wired in a loop produce a repeating pulse on their own; add a Timer to the loop and that pulse becomes configurable, which is the building block behind most automated farms and turrets you'll see shared by the community.

Check your physics quality setting before blaming a build for lagging. Axolot's pre-1.0 Physics and Wedge Update (December 2024) introduced a "Smart" physics quality option under Options > Gameplay, on by default for new worlds but not automatically applied to older saves. It's also host-only in multiplayer. A large multi-Controller creation built before that update may still be running on the old physics mode without you realizing it.

Wedges exist for every block material, use them for machine housings. The same update added wedge variants across the board, which matters more for advanced builds than it sounds: enclosing a Piston-and-Bearing mechanism in flat panels alone leaves ugly gaps a wedge would close cleanly.

Community automation builds are a legitimate reference, not just inspiration. Recent posts on r/ScrapMechanic since 1.0 shipped include a fully logic-gate-driven automated 300-soil farm with buttons for watering, planting, collecting, and a hard reset, and a WASD-to-tank-steering converter shared with a working blueprint. Reading how someone else solved the same signal-routing problem you're stuck on beats reinventing it from the wiki pages alone.

Creation-to-creation collision is newer than you might assume. It shipped with the same December 2024 update as wedges and Smart physics, not with 1.0. If you're testing a docking mechanism or a multi-vehicle build and it behaves oddly, confirm you're actually running the newer physics mode rather than assuming the mechanic doesn't exist.

An automated crop setup like this is the kind of build the community's logic-gate-driven farms are built around, watering and planting triggered by signals instead of manual upkeep.

Common Mistakes

Assuming there's a dedicated NOT gate. There isn't one on the part selector. Wire a single input into a NAND or NOR instead; both invert a lone signal identically to a NOT gate.

Connecting a Controller to a Piston and then hunting for its settings menu. Once a Controller is wired to a Piston, that Piston's own GUI is locked out entirely. If you need per-piston tuning, disconnect the Controller first.

Building a memory circuit from Logic Gates alone and being confused when it resets oddly. Gate and Switch state resets on specific triggers, being taken off a Lift, being painted, having a connection changed, or (in Survival) leaving the loaded area, while Timer state survives all of those. Anchor persistent memory with a Timer, not a bare gate loop, if it needs to survive a session.

Assuming a base Controller can run a full 10-part sequence. It can't; level 1 supports exactly one connection. A walker or turret designed around 6 or 8 simultaneous parts needs real Component Kit investment before the Controller can even connect them all, let alone sequence them.

Testing a rotating build on a Lift and assuming it's broken. Bearings lock in place while a creation sits on a Lift. Take it off before troubleshooting why a walker leg or turret won't move.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do logic gates work in Scrap Mechanic? The Logic Gate block offers six modes: AND, OR, XOR, and their inverses NAND, NOR, XNOR. There's no dedicated NOT gate, but a NAND or NOR wired to a single input behaves like one. Every gate has a 1-tick (0.025 second) output delay.

When do you unlock logic gates in Scrap Mechanic 1.0? Players report buying Logic Gates and Timers from the hideout trader as soon as it's unlocked, not from a specific Grow Lab milestone. Several Reddit threads from post-1.0 players confirm this, though Axolot hasn't published an official unlock list.

What's the difference between a Piston's own controls and a Controller in Scrap Mechanic? A Piston can set its own extend length and speed without any other part. A Controller is only needed when you want to sequence multiple pistons and bearings together, and connecting one to a Piston locks that Piston's own settings menu.

How far can a Scrap Mechanic sensor detect? 1 to 20 blocks depending on upgrade level. A base Sensor starts at 4 blocks; each upgrade adds range, and the level 5 upgrade (20 blocks) also unlocks color-mode detection in Survival.

Do Scrap Mechanic thrusters need fuel? In Survival mode, yes: Thrusters burn Gasoline, and Axolot's own wiki recommends feeding them from a Gas Container because usage is high. Creative mode has no fuel requirement.

How many bearings and pistons can one Controller manage? Up to 10 bearings or pistons plus one trigger or Driver's Seat per Controller, though a base-level Controller only supports 1 connection until it's upgraded with Component Kits.

Can logic gates store memory in Scrap Mechanic? Yes. Looping gates into latches or flip-flops stores a 1-or-0 state. For larger data, a single Timer block can hold up to 1,200 bits, the most compact storage method in the game, though reading or writing it can take up to a minute.

Related Reading

• Scrap Mechanic Beginner Guide: start here if you haven't reached a Craftbot yet or need the 1.0 story and Claygun changes explained first.
• Scrap Mechanic Review: our verdict on whether the 1.0 launch build, story and all, is worth the ten-year wait.
• Shapez 2 Automation Guide: Belt Routing and Advanced Splitters: a different genre's answer to the same "let the machine do the work" itch.
• Best Base-Building and Colony Sim Games in 2026: 8 Picks: where Scrap Mechanic's physics-first, logic-driven building sits against seven other approaches.

References

• Logic Gate, Sensor, Timer, Piston, Bearing, Controller, and Thruster part pages, Scrap Mechanic Wiki: stats, upgrade tables, and mechanics for every part covered in this guide.
• Scrap Mechanic on Steam: current price, reviews, and store listing.
• Scrap Mechanic - Physics & Wedge Update (official Axolot Games patch notes): the December 2024 update that added Smart physics quality, creation-to-creation collision, and wedges.
• r/ScrapMechanic: the official subreddit, referenced here for post-1.0 logic-gate builds and community-reported unlock timing.