Medium Resource Canister

The Medium Resource Canister is a reusable storage item that holds a single resource type at a time. It is crafted in the Small Printer and is designed for higher-capacity resource handling and automation, especially when moving bulk materials between extraction, storage, and production setups.

It can hold up to 32 nuggets of one resource type, making it far more efficient than smaller containers for repeated hauling and machine supply. It does not work with Atmospheric Resources, Soil, or Hydrazine. Scrap counts as a resource and can be stored inside it as well. Because of its capacity and flexibility, it is commonly used to feed automated systems and to move large amounts of materials without constant player interaction.

The canister has two modes that control how it interacts with nearby storage:

• In Dispensing Mode, it deposits the resource it is holding into any available storage.
• In Holding Mode, it draws from any available storage the same resource type it is already holding. If it is empty, it takes the first matching resource it finds and begins storing it.

The player can cycle between these modes with the assigned mode-switch input. In either mode, the Medium Resource Canister will not take from or deposit to Printers, so it functions as a storage and logistics tool rather than a crafting interface.

It is especially useful in automation chains. The canister can be paired with other automation items to create large-scale material flows without direct handling, and it is convenient for filling or emptying connected storage systems. A useful interaction pattern is to keep a canister on a storage network and switch it into the mode needed for either collection or distribution, depending on whether the setup is gathering resources from miners or feeding them into machines.

A few practical details are worth noting:

• It can store up to 32 nuggets of a single resource type.
• It cannot store Atmospheric Resources, Soil, or Hydrazine.
• Scrap can be stored in it.
• A full canister can still end up with 34 nuggets total if one nugget is placed in the input slot on top and another is manually placed in the output slot.
• A Packager cannot package a canister unless it is empty.

The Medium Resource Canister was first shown on the SES Dev Twitch stream on May 29, 2020.