Create: Central Kitchen in FTB Skies 2

Create: Central Kitchen is a Create add-on for automating food. It gives Create machines ways to work with the cooking blocks and recipes from other food mods, so you can build kitchens that run themselves. The pack includes version 2.6.0.^[1][2]

It is for you if you like Create factories and want to feed them with cooking, brewing and baking. The project page describes it as a 2.0 redesign focused on cooking automation. Farming automation now lives in a separate mod, Create: Integrated Farming.^[1]

What it does

• Packagers can unpack ingredients into Cooking Pots from Farmer's Delight and its addons, Kegs from Brewin' and Chewin', Chillers and Ovens from Extra Delight, and Casks from Hearth & Harvest.^[1]
• Mechanical Arms work with supported Cooking Pots, Skillets, Stoves, Cutting Boards, Chillers, Ovens, Braziers and Casks.^[1]
• You can automate servings from Farmer's Delight Feasts and Pies, plus a few dish blocks from Cultural Delights, Rustic Delight and Festive Delight.^[1]
• Supported Boiler Heaters work as cooking heat sources. They also act as active heaters that speed up Cooking Pots and Skillets.^[1]
• Farmer's Delight Cutting Board recipes are converted into Create Sawing and Deploying recipes.^[1]
• Brewin' and Chewin' Keg Pouring recipes become Create Filling and Emptying recipes, and native Create recipes get priority.^[1]
• Extra Delight Mortar and Juicer recipes become Pressing, Melting Pot recipes become Mixing, and Gingerbread Decorating becomes Deploying.^[1]
• Sawing recipes are generated for stripping logs, which produces bark, or straw from bamboo-like blocks.^[1]

The project page also lists a Legacy 1.+ feature set, such as the Blaze Stove and the Pie Overhaul. These are described for the old version. Don't assume they exist in the pack's 2.6.0.^[1][2]

Unverified Where this mod fits into the pack's progression is not confirmed by the sources. It does not appear on the ATM Star path, and no quests involve it. The pack's own changes to its recipes or configs are also unconfirmed here.

Central Kitchen is an add-on that gives you more tools and methods to automate the food processing of other mods using Create. It doesn't cook anything on its own. It connects Create machines to the kitchenware you already know.^[1]

It needs Create to work, so get comfortable with Mechanical Arms, Deployers, Pipes and Packagers first.^[1]

A good order to explore

The mod ships Ponder scenes for each setup below. This is the order I'd learn them in, going from simple to more complex.^[3]

1. Start with heat. Boiler heaters, such as the Blaze Burner, count as valid heat sources for cooking utensils. They also speed up some utensils according to their heat level.^[1][3]
2. Move on to Mechanical Arms. They can put raw ingredients onto a Stove or Skillet and take the cooked food back out.^[3]
3. Automate cutting next. A Mechanical Arm can place a raw ingredient on a Cutting Board. A Deployer holding a knife in Use Mode can then cut it, and a Mechanical Saw can cut it too.^[3]
4. Use Packagers to feed ingredients into Cooking Pots, Kegs, Chillers, Ovens and Casks. Factory gauges are very useful in the packaging process.^[1][3]
5. Handle liquids and drinks. Pipes can insert fluids into a Keg and extract them again. A Spout can fill a Tankard with a drink, and an Item Drain can pour it back out.^[3]
6. Finish with servings. Mechanical Arms can take servings from feasts and slices from pies. The last serving stays in place until a fresh whole food replaces it.^[3]

Unverified I could not confirm any quests or in-pack recipes for this mod's items, so I can't tell you which item to craft first. Check in game for how to obtain its items.

Create: Central Kitchen is a bridge mod. It lets Create's automation tools work with food machines from other mods, such as Farmer's Delight and its addons, Brewin' and Chewin', Extra Delight and Hearth & Harvest. Everything below is about how those machines behave once Create is wired up to them.^[1]

Getting ingredients in

Packagers are the main way to feed ingredients in. They can unpack into Cooking Pots (Farmer's Delight and its addons), Kegs (Brewin' and Chewin'), Chillers and Ovens (Extra Delight), and Casks (Hearth & Harvest). Factory gauges are very useful in the packaging process, since they request and package the exact ingredients a recipe needs.^[1][3]

• Pipes insert liquid ingredients into supported machines, and they can insert fluids directly into a Keg.^[3]
• A Mechanical Arm can insert the food container (a bowl, for example) into a cooking machine.^[3]
• A Mechanical Arm can insert ice or snow into a Chiller.^[3]
• A Mechanical Arm can put raw ingredients onto a Stove and Skillet.^[3]

Getting food out

Mechanical Arms can take cooked food out of the supported machines: Cooking Pots, Skillets, Stoves, Cutting Boards, Chillers, Ovens, Braziers and Casks. A Funnel can also take cooked food out of a Cooking Pot.^[1][3]

Kegs and drinks

Pipes can both insert fluids into a Keg and extract them again. A Funnel can pull the Keg's special item product. For serving drinks, use a Spout to fill a Tankard, and an Item Drain to pour the drink back out of it.^[3]

The mod also supports freezer sources with Brewin' and Chewin' Kegs.^[1]

Heat sources

Boiler heaters, such as the Blaze Burner, count as valid heat sources for cooking utensils. They also act as active heaters: some utensils cook faster depending on the heater's heat level. The mod advertises this for Cooking Pots and Skillets.^[1][3]

Cutting automation

A Mechanical Arm can place a raw ingredient on a Cutting Board. After that you have two ways to cut it: a Deployer holding a knife in Use Mode, or a Mechanical Saw.^[3]

The Deployer's held item is drawn with a custom transform in Use mode. The pack has renderDeployerUsingItemWithCustomTransform set to true. This is a visual setting only.^[3][4]

Automating servings

Mechanical Arms can take servings from Farmer's Delight feasts and slices from pies. The last serving stays in place. A fresh whole food can then replace it and return that last serving.^[1][3]

• Dragon Legs are served by Mechanical Arms with Bowls, and the last serving is kept in place.^[3]
• Cultural Delights' Eggplant Parmesan: Arms can take plated servings without supplying bowls. The last serving stays until a fresh whole feast replaces it.^[3]
• Festive Delight's Festive Chicken: Arms take four plated servings and leave the final leftovers.^[3]
• Rustic Delight's Pancake Stacks: Arms can take pancakes from every flavored stack. Only matching pancakes are added, up to a stack of twelve.^[3]

Hearth & Harvest Casks

Casks have stricter rules than other machines. They accept a package only if it contains exactly one complete Cask recipe. For example, a recipe panel might request one Salt and three separate Raw Meat ingredients.^[3]

Unpacking is atomic, and each repeated ingredient takes its own input slot. After that the Cask uses its normal 1,200-tick aging time and processing rules. Mechanical Arms ignore the aging inputs and extract only the finished output.^[3]

Recipe conversions in this pack

The mod can convert recipes from other food mods into Create recipe types, so Create machines can do the same jobs. In this pack every one of these conversion options is set to true.^[1][5]

• recipes.convertCuttingBoardRecipesToSawingRecipes: Farmer's Delight Cutting Board recipes that use a knife can become Sawing recipes.^[5]
• recipes.convertCuttingBoardRecipesToDeployingRecipes: Cutting Board recipes can also become Deploying recipes.^[5]
• recipes.addTreeBarkToSawingRecipes: Tree Bark, or Straw for bamboo-like blocks, is added to the autogenerated Sawing recipes for stripping wood and logs.^[5]
• recipes.convertKegPouringRecipesToFillingRecipes and recipes.convertKegPouringRecipesToEmptyingRecipes: Brewin' and Chewin' Keg Pouring recipes can become Filling and Emptying recipes. The mod prioritizes native Create recipes when both exist.^[1][5]
• recipes.convertMortarGrindingRecipesToCompactingRecipes and recipes.convertJuicerRecipesToCompactingRecipes: Extra Delight Mortar Grinding and Juicer recipes can become Compacting recipes.^[5]
• recipes.convertMeltingPotRecipesToMixingRecipes: Extra Delight Melting Pot recipes can become Mixing recipes.^[5]
• recipes.convertToolOnBlockRecipesToDeployingRecipes: Extra Delight Tools on Block recipes can become Deploying recipes.^[5]

Unverified The sources don't say whether these conversion options differ from the mod's defaults, or which converted recipes actually show up in this pack, so check the Create recipe viewer in-game. This site does hold FTB Skies 2's own recipes, read from the pack itself: look the item up in the item browser.

In this pack's quest book, Central Kitchen shows up through one quest: "Mechanical Meals" quest. It's a checkmark quest, so there's nothing to hand in. It sits in the "Cooking and Brewing" chapter (group "Exploration", chapter 15 of 41 in the book) and comes after the "Welcome to Create!" quest. No quest in this chapter lists it as a prerequisite.^[6]

The quest explains what the mod is for. Farmer's Delight already has some automation, like dispenser cutting, and Central Kitchen lets Create machines automate the other cooking steps. Packagers unpack ingredients into a Cooking Pot, Blaze Burners heat a Skillet placed on them and speed up the process, and Saws produce Tree Bark when stripping logs. The quest's suggestion is to set up a little food factory.^[6]

The kitchen quests in the same chapter

The rest of the chapter is built around Farmer's Delight, Cooking for Blockheads and brewing. Here is how those quest lines are laid out, in case you want to work through them while you plan your food factory.^[6]

• Kitchen Multiblock: "Building Your Kitchen" quest starts with the Cooking Table, which the quest calls the first big craft. "Fruit Basket" quest, "Industrial Cooking" quest, "Tool Rack" quest, "Spice Rack" quest, "Free Milk!" quest, "Infinite Water Source?" quest, "The Pantry" quest and "Fridges" quest all come after it.^[6]
• Upgrades: "Heating Unit" quest follows Industrial Cooking, and "Preservation Unit" quest and "Ice Unit" quest follow Fridges.^[6]
• Cooking Pot meals: "Cooking Pot" quest gives you the Cooking Pot. "Stuffed Pumpkin" quest, "Pasta with Meatballs" quest and "Apple Cider" quest come after it.^[6]
• Chopping board dishes: "To The Chopping Board" quest leads to "Cooked Chicken Cuts" quest and "Beef Patty" quest. "Chicken Sandwich" quest follows the chicken cuts, and "Hamburger" quest follows the beef patty.^[6]
• Pies: "Baking a Pie" quest leads to "Apple Pie" quest, "Chocolate Pie" quest and "Sweet Berry Cheesecake" quest.^[6]
• Brewing: "Time To Brew" quest, "Blaze Powder" quest and "Nether Wart" quest lead to "Awkward Potion" quest. After that come "Regeneration" quest, "Instant Health" quest, "Glowstone Dust" quest, "Gunpowder" quest and "Redstone Dust" quest.^[6]

In this pack the mod is covered by one quest chapter: "Cooking and Brewing". It is in the Exploration group, is chapter 15 of 41 in the book, and has 45 quests. The quest that talks about the mod directly is "Mechanical Meals" quest.^[6]

The quest about the mod

"Mechanical Meals" quest is a checkmark quest that comes after "Welcome to Create!". It explains that Farmer's Delight already has some automation, such as dispenser cutting, and that Create: Central Kitchen lets Create machines automate the other cooking steps too.^[6]

The examples it gives: Packagers unpack ingredients into a Cooking Pot, Blaze Burners heat a Skillet placed on them and speed up the process, and Saws produce Tree Bark when stripping logs. The quest suggests setting up a little food factory.^[6]

Building your kitchen

"Building Your Kitchen" quest asks for the Cooking Table, the centerpiece of the Kitchen Multiblock. Several quests come after it:^[6]

• "The Pantry" quest: kitchen storage, so you can reach recipes for your stored items from the Cooking Table.^[6]
• "Fruit Basket" quest, "Tool Rack" quest, "Spice Rack" quest and "Free Milk!" quest: the Fruit Basket, Tool Rack, Spice Rack and Cow in a Jar.^[6]
• "Infinite Water Source?" quest: the Sink, an infinite water source for recipes that need water.^[6]
• "Industrial Cooking" quest: the Oven, which cooks up to 9 items at the same time. "Heating Unit" quest follows it with the Heating Unit.^[6]
• "Fridges" quest: the Fridge. "Ice Unit" quest and "Preservation Unit" quest follow with the ice and preservation upgrades.^[6]

Farmer's Delight food chains

• "To The Chopping Board" quest (the Cutting Board) leads to "Cooked Chicken Cuts" quest, then "Chicken Sandwich" quest. It also leads to "Beef Patty" quest, then "Hamburger" quest.^[6]
• "Cooking Pot" quest leads to "Stuffed Pumpkin" quest, "Pasta with Meatballs" quest and "Apple Cider" quest.^[6]
• "Baking a Pie" quest leads to "Apple Pie" quest, "Chocolate Pie" quest and "Sweet Berry Cheesecake" quest.^[6]

Brewing and the rest of the chapter

"Awkward Potion" quest comes after "Time To Brew" quest, "Blaze Powder" quest and "Nether Wart" quest. After that come "Regeneration" quest, "Instant Health" quest, "Glowstone Dust" quest, "Gunpowder" quest and "Redstone Dust" quest.^[6]

The chapter also has farming quests ("Carrot Farm" quest, "Potato Farm" quest, "Cabbage Farm" quest, "Onion Farm" quest, "Tomato Farm" quest, "Sweet Berry Farm" quest), plus "The Market" quest, "Loot Llamas" quest, "Food Diversity" quest and "Time For A Feast" quest.^[6]

Good news: Central Kitchen has just two config files, and this pack leaves every option you're likely to care about switched on. Almost everything here controls whether recipes from other food mods get converted into Create machine recipes.^[4][5]

Common config: recipe conversions

These options live in the common config file. In this pack every one of them is set to true, so each conversion is active.^[5]

• recipes.convertCuttingBoardRecipesToSawingRecipes lets Farmer's Delight Cutting Board recipes that use a knife be converted to Sawing recipes.^[5]
• recipes.convertCuttingBoardRecipesToDeployingRecipes lets Farmer's Delight Cutting Board recipes be converted to Deploying recipes.^[5]
• recipes.addTreeBarkToSawingRecipes adds Farmer's Delight's Tree Bark (or Straw for Bamboo-like blocks) to the autogenerated Sawing recipes for stripping wood and logs.^[5]
• recipes.convertKegPouringRecipesToFillingRecipes lets Brewin' and Chewin' Keg Pouring recipes be converted to Filling recipes.^[5]
• recipes.convertKegPouringRecipesToEmptyingRecipes lets Brewin' and Chewin' Keg Pouring recipes be converted to Emptying recipes.^[5]
• recipes.convertMortarGrindingRecipesToCompactingRecipes lets Extra Delight Mortar Grinding recipes be converted to Compacting recipes.^[5]
• recipes.convertJuicerRecipesToCompactingRecipes lets Extra Delight Juicer recipes be converted to Compacting recipes.^[5]
• recipes.convertMeltingPotRecipesToMixingRecipes lets Extra Delight Melting Pot recipes be converted to Mixing recipes.^[5]
• recipes.convertToolOnBlockRecipesToDeployingRecipes lets Extra Delight Tools on Block recipes be converted to Deploying recipes.^[5]

Client config: Deployer visuals

There is one client-side option, and it only changes how things look. renderDeployerUsingItemWithCustomTransform is set to true, which means items held in a Deployer that are in the create:handheld_in_deployer_use tag get a custom transform in Use mode.^[4]

Did the pack change any defaults?

Unverified The pack's config files show the values above, but the sources I have don't list the mod's own default values. I can't confirm whether any of these options differ from the mod defaults.

FTB Skies 2 1.22.0 ships Create: Central Kitchen 2.6.0, and the mod has been in the pack since 1.0.1 or earlier. I have no pack changelog entries for this mod, so everything below comes from the mod's own changelogs.^[2]

2.6.0 (the version in this pack)

This release requires Create 6.0.10, Create: Dragons Plus 1.11.4, and Farmer's Delight 1.3.2 or newer. The big theme is more optional integrations for Mechanical Arms and Packagers.^[7]

• Cultural Delights: Mechanical Arms can serve Eggplant Parmesan Feasts and refresh the final serving with a matching whole feast.^[7]
• Rustic Delight: Mechanical Arms support every pancake flavor, including matching-flavor refills.^[7]
• Festive Delight: Mechanical Arms serve Festive Chicken through all four registered stages and leave the final leftover block in place.^[7]
• Hearth and Harvest: Mechanical Arms and Packagers can load Casks recipe by recipe, wait for normal fermentation, and extract only finished outputs.^[7]
• New Ponder scenes, Arm Targets and High Logistics entries.^[7]
• Fixed: native Create Filling and Emptying recipes now take priority over Brewin' and Chewin' Keg conversion fallbacks, including in JEI and after recipe reloads.^[7]
• Fixed: sawing recipes on Farmer's Delight Cutting Boards now use the intended processing duration, and Cutting Board recipes no longer consume reusable tools that cannot take durability damage.^[7]
• Fixed: Create boilers now respect removals from the farmersdelight:heat_sources tag.^[7]
• Fixed: Create Packagers can now unpack ingredients into Extra Delight Ovens.^[7]
• Also fixed: Extra Delight recipe conversions no longer modify shared cached results, and Blaze Burner chef rendering falls back safely when optional baked model assets are missing.^[7]
• Added Ukrainian localization.^[7]

Earlier releases

• 2.5.0: Farmer's Delight integration now requires Farmer's Delight 1.3.2 or newer. Mechanical Arms can add matching items to Cutting Boards in stacks, take servings from feasts and slices from pies, and replace the last portion with a fresh one.^[8]
• 2.5.0: Mechanical Arms gained support for the Ends Delight Dragon Leg (with Bowls), My Nether's Delight Blazier and Extra Delight Evaporator, and support for Farmer's Delight stove-like blocks was widened. A Ponder for serving feasts and pie slices was added, and the Monster Pot Arm interaction was fixed.^[8]
• 2.5.0: Bulgarian and Italian localization added. The Kaleidoscope Cookery compat was removed, since two other mods, Kaleidoscope Compat and Kaleidoscope Cookery: Automation, provide a more complete integration.^[8]
• 2.4.0: updated for Farmer's Delight 1.21.1-1.3.0+ and the Create Simulated series, fixing various compatibility issues with Farmer's Delight 1.3.0+ and a failed mixin injection.^[9]
• 2.3.0: updated for Create 6.0.9, requiring Create: Dragon+ 1.8.7, and fixed a mixin issue that crashed the game when Farmer's Delight was not installed.^[10]
• 2.2.6: updated for Create 6.0.8, requiring Create: Dragon+ 1.8.4, with fixes for mixin issues that might cause crashes in certain situations.^[11]
• 2.2.4: required Create: Dragon Plus 1.8.1 and added Dungeons Delight support. It fixed the farmersdelight:heat_sources tag misbehaving when the blaze burner was not in it, and boiler heat now correctly speeds up cooking of the Copper Pot.^[12]
• 2.2.3b: fixed a memory leak in the Extra Delight compat.^[13]
• 2.1.3: updated for Create 6.0.6.^[14]