Burner mining drill

The Burner mining drill is an early-game, fuel-powered mining machine that extracts ore from resource deposits without requiring an electrical network. It is the predecessor to electric mining drills and provides a self-contained solution for mining when no power is available. The drill requires burnable fuel (coal, wood, solid fuel, etc.) placed in its fuel slot; fuel is consumed over time and one unit of fuel is depleted according to the drill's burn rate while it progresses through a mining cycle and produces ores in its output slot.

The drill has a small internal inventory for mined products and a separate fuel slot that must be kept supplied for continuous operation. Its user interface shows the amount of fuel remaining, the depletion progress of the current fuel unit, the current mining progress, and the product(s) queued in the output. When fuel runs out the drill stops until more fuel is inserted. Mined items can be removed manually, pulled by inserters, or routed away with belts placed to receive the output.

Because burner mining drills do not use electricity, they are useful for remote or starter mining setups and for scenarios with no or disrupted power. They can be arranged into self-sustaining coal mines that recycle mined coal as fuel:

• Two drills placed facing each other on the same coal deposit can refuel one another: each drill inserts coal into the other’s fuel slot. Over time both drills accumulate coal in their stacks, providing an effective shared fuel store (two stacks of up to 50 each, totaling 100 coal). It takes slightly less than three minutes for the pair to completely fill each other’s fuel inventories; once full they will sit idle until coal is removed. Directing mined coal out of the drills into a buffer chest instead of directly into the opposite drill’s fuel slot extends operation before idling.
• A scalable method for any number of burner mining drills uses belts and burner inserters to return coal to the drills. Place a drill and route at least three transport belts from its output in a mirrored “L” shape so the third belt leaves a single-tile gap adjacent to the miner; put a burner inserter in that gap configured to insert coal back into the miner. Mirror the same arrangement on the opposite side of the deposit and ensure inserters do not attempt to draw the same belt item. This layout allows a line of drills to feed themselves from their own outputs, forming a continuous coal-fed mining line without electricity.

Practical notes:

• Use burner mining drills only where electricity is unavailable or to bootstrap mining infrastructure; electric mining drills are faster and more efficient once power is established.
• Monitor fuel and output congestion: if output slots or downstream chests/belts fill up, drills will stop producing even if they have fuel.
• Self-refueling setups are most effective on coal deposits because mined coal doubles as fuel; they are less practical for other ores.
• When building self-sustaining arrays, provide slight buffer storage or periodic removal of accumulated coal to avoid the drills idling once fuel inventories are full.