Tips: Crystals, Pins, Machines & Signals Guide

Shapes, machines and signals interact in many subtle ways — these tips collect practical knowledge and tactics to avoid common pitfalls and build reliable factories in Shapez 2.

General strategy

• Learn the core abstractions first: shapes are layered grids of parts (usually 4 parts per layer), colors are separate from part types, and many machines operate on east/west halves or top/bottom layers. Use the Shape Inspector liberally to inspect layers, parts, colors, crystals and pins in 3D.
• Plan for gravity and crystal fragility. After any operation that modifies structure (Cutters, Stackers, Swappers, Half Destroyer, Pin Pusher, Crystal Generator), Shape Gravity Rules run and may cause parts to fall — which destroys crystals if they fall or if connected crystals are separated.
• Use Simulated machines in the Codex (Simulated Stacker/Unstacker/Swapper/Pin Pusher/Crystal Generator, etc.) to preview the exact signal results before building a physical machine.

Crystals and pins — special part behaviors

• Crystals are fragile: if any crystal falls or becomes separated from adjacent connected crystal pieces, all crystals in that connected group shatter. Connected means direct orthogonal adjacency (no diagonals) or direct vertical adjacency across layers. When designing operations that split or drop pieces, assume crystals will shatter unless you explicitly preserve their horizontal/vertical connectivity.
• Pins act like supports in place of empty parts: they support parts above them but do not connect horizontally to adjacent parts. Pins are generated by the Pin Pusher and by some shape generation; they do not have a color and painters ignore them. Crystal Generator replaces pins/empty parts with crystals when producing crystal shapes.
• Standalone-pin belts are a common intermediate product; several methods exist to produce full belts of pins — plan ratios carefully if you want continuous pin production.

Machines and useful behaviors

• Cutters / Half Destroyer: always split east/west halves regardless of rotation. Cutting can sever crystal connections and cause shattering. After cutting the gravity rules apply; plan for where pieces will land or be caught.
• Stackers / Unstackers: Stackers place the top shape above the bottom shape with an empty layer between, then gravity rules apply. Use Unstackers to split layers: the Simulated Unstacker shows which layers will appear on each output. Stacker checks include crystals and floating-shape rules.
• Swapper: swaps west halves of two inputs. Because the halves are recombined without dropping, Swapper can produce crystal-containing shapes that would otherwise shatter if produced by sequential Cutter+Stacker operations — use it for crystal-safe half-swaps.
• Pin Pusher and Pin behavior: Pin Pusher inserts pins under shapes. The Simulated Pin Pusher is invaluable for checking resulting signals. Pins will support parts above but not adjacent horizontally.
• Crystal Generator: replaces pins/empty quadrants with crystals in the given color. Use the Simulated Crystal Generator to preview results; remember crystals generated this way are fragile and subject to gravity rules. The generation algorithm processes layers bottom-to-top and groups horizontally connected parts, destroying crystals inside falling groups.
• Painter: paints only the topmost layer when given a color input. Exotics/refined part types do not change color via Painter; they only gain colors via Trade Stations.
• Rotators: rotating shapes matters for many machines (Half Destroyer, Cutter, Swapper, Stacker and most wire machines); however the Vortex ignores rotation for delivery acceptance. Use Rotator/Reverse Rotator to orient parts correctly for downstream machines.
• Flow control (Belt Filter / Pipe Gate / Transistor): these machines use wire signals to control routing/throughput. The Transistor Gate passes any type of signal from rear only if the side input is truthy; when side input is falsy it outputs null (not 0), making it useful for gating shape or color signals rather than just integers.
• Comparison and logic gates: use Comparison Gate for numeric comparisons (Equal, Greater, Less, etc.) and standard gates (AND/OR/XOR/NOT) for boolean control. Transistor and Pipe/Belt Gates are the key tools to enable/disable flows by color, shape or integer signals.

Signals and wiring tips

• Wire signals are typed: Null, Conflict, Integer, Shape, Color. Wires propagate signals in all directions and any input can act as an output — when two different non-null signals meet the wire goes into Conflict (red) and all consumers see Conflict unless one is null (null is overwritten).
• Global Signal Transmitter/Receiver: the Transmitter needs a non-null Channel Input (#) and a Signal Input (⚡). If the Signal Input is non-null it sends that signal to all Global Signal Receivers whose Channel Input matches the Transmitter's channel. Receivers show red/yellow/green depending on channel/signal validity; use them to bridge otherwise hard-to-wire networks.
• Wireless Sender/Receiver and Launchers/Catchers: these provide short-range links between platforms (1–4 tiles). A launcher/sender always connects to the furthest receiver/catcher in range; if multiple devices target the same receiver, the furthest sender is chosen. When placing pairs by dragging, watch the hologram to verify connections.

Belts, pipes and space transport

• Belts and Pipes are placed with dragging; anchors (hotkey C) let you lock segments while routing. Pipes contain no fluid themselves and have unlimited transfer rate; Pipe Gates control throughput by wire.
• Conveyor Lifts move shapes between machine levels; while placing belts press Level Up (E) or Level Down (Q) to change levels. Lifts are single-input single-output and cannot split/merge on the same tile.
• Launchers and Catchers (Belt/Fluid/Train/Conveyor/Fluid/Train Launchers) must be placed by dragging from launcher to catcher and are limited to 1–4 empty tiles of distance. For multiple paired placements confirm holograms so you don’t accidentally connect the wrong pair.
• Overflow Splitters prioritize straight-through output, only using the side when straight is blocked — useful to avoid belt backpressure between machines like Cutter→Stacker.
• Space Unloaders/Loaders: unloaders output to all connected ports (up to 4 per level) and can hold multiple packages queued. Wagon/unloader port mapping is independent from loader input ports; connect outputs where convenient.

Map, scenarios and progression

• Seed and Map Generation: the Seed (integer) determines asteroid patch locations and contents; share seeds to replicate maps. Map Generation options let you tweak shape type probabilities and color mixes.
• Scenarios and Challenges: scenarios (Certification, Classic/Hard/Insane, Hexagonal, Manufacture) change available shapes, layer counts and research structure. Challenges let you limit or disable specific machines or features (e.g., No Cutter, No Splitters, Only 1x1 platforms).
• Operator Level and Goal Lines: goal lines have independent levels and exponentially increasing delivery requirements. Two Random Operator Shapes (ROS) exist and are seed-dependent; one allows crystals and one may not depending on level rules. Use Delivery Indicators at belt ends to see whether a shape is relevant to Milestones, Jobs, future milestones (orange lock) or Operator shapes (purple star).
• Blueprints and Blueprint Points: save and paste blueprints to reproduce complex builds. Pasting may cost Blueprint Points depending on Difficulty; the base cost scales with machine count and Difficulty’s Copy/Paste multiplier. In Relaxed/Normal modes copy/paste is free; Challenge mode enables cost.

Practical design tips

• Simulate first: use the Codex simulated machines and Shape Inspector to verify outcomes for stacks, swaps, pin pushes and crystal generation before investing platform capacity.
• Avoid accidental crystal destruction: if you need crystals preserved across splits/rotations, prefer Swapper (which recombines halves without dropping) or design flows that keep crystals connected horizontally/vertically during every operation.
• Use gates and filters to keep belts/pipes clean: Belt Filter (shape input) and Pipe Gate (color input) prevent wrong items from progressing and let you build deterministic routing for mixed-color or mixed-shape streams.
• Manage train capacity and timing: wagon capacity and train round-trip time must match production rates. If unloaders/loaders become bottlenecks, add wagons, trains, or increase train capacity via research.
• Plan platform capacity and blueprint costs: difficulties reduce platform capacity (Challenge mode has 80%) and affect blueprint paste costs. Place expensive, large blueprints carefully to avoid running out of platform units or blueprint points.

These core tips cover the recurring pitfalls you’ll encounter while building advanced factories: always preview operations that affect structure (stacking/cutting/swapping/crystals), treat crystals as fragile, gate flows with wires and gates, and use simulated tools in the Codex and the Shape Inspector to verify results before committing to expensive platform layouts.