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Flux and anomaly

Every chunk carries two meters. Flux is how active it is; anomaly is how aggressive. Flux unlocks recipes, and anomaly is what they cost you, unless you contain it.

Bands

Both meters are read as bands, spaced tenfold apart. The bands are labels on a smooth value: nothing jumps when a field crosses from one to the next.

Band From Anomaly surcharge on crafts Buffer leak
Low 0 none none
Medium 100 +10% 16 FE/t
High 1,000 +25% 40 FE/t
Critical 10,000 +50% 80 FE/t
Singularity 100,000 +100% 160 FE/t

tested Machines and meters read the field where they stand, blended between the chunks round them, so it changes smoothly as you walk and never jumps at a chunk line. Anything that switches on a band (a Foundry recipe, a Flux Detector) switches into it at the band's start but only drops out below 85% of it, so a field hovering at an edge switches it once. The Flux Meter shows the field where you stand on the action bar, and how full the containment over it is.

Running hot pays

Flux is capability. The hotter the field where a machine stands, the more it can do:

Machine Low Medium High Critical Singularity
Quantum Simulator: largest batch 2× 4× 8× 16× 32×
Quantum Crafter: catalysts workstations + electric machines + heavy machines + multiblock controllers + Fusion Reactor
Quantum Crafter: instant-craft tax 2.0× 2.0× 1.6× 1.3× 1.1×
Zeno Field Controller: fastest rate 2× 4× 8× 16× 16×, 25% cheaper
Observation Chamber: ores common + uncommon + rare + very rare very rare more often
Quantum Foundry each recipe names its band

A machine reads the band where it stands, as meters do, with the same hysteresis. Below a band, it says what it needs and where the field is heading: Needs High flux: here Medium · heading for High. Running hot costs nothing by itself: flux beyond the containment over it turns into anomaly, and that's the gamble. Pack makers can flatten any row (see For pack makers).

Where flux comes from

tested Quantimium work emits flux: 3 flux per 1,000 FE spent. It lands on the 3×3 of chunks round the machine, a fifth on the machine's own and a tenth on each of the other eight. Non-electric crafts emit a small flat amount; idle machines and power arriving in buffers emit nothing. Work adds no anomaly of its own: flux drives it. The Quantum Exciter raises flux on purpose.

  • tested Emission eases in. It goes into a pool on each chunk first, and each pool lets about a tenth of what it holds into the field every second (10 s time constant). A burst of crafting reads as a hump, not a spike.
  • tested A source makes a plateau, a band for each tenfold. The 3×3 round a source settles close to level, and each ×10 in FE lifts it a whole band: 1,000 FE/t of work holds it at Medium, 10,000 at High, 100,000 at Critical, and 1,000,000 puts the centre and sides at Singularity.

How the field moves

The field updates once a second, for every chunk holding one.

  • tested tested It decays on a smooth curve that rises with the value: 0.95% a second at 100, 2.1% at 1,000, 3.5% at 10,000, 5% at 100,000, never less than 0.05. Every steady source has exactly one level to settle at.
  • tested It spreads. Each second a chunk shares a fraction (0.01) of the difference with each loaded neighbour, so a plateau falls away at its edges: at 100,000 FE/t it's still High two chunks out and Medium at three and four. A chunk below 1 flux spreads no further, so a field ends a few chunks out. Nothing flows to or from an unloaded chunk: an unloaded chunk keeps its field, catching up only its decay when it loads, so the field doesn't depend on anyone's view distance.
  • tested A steady source settles without flicker. It eases up to its level over a minute or two, on an S-curve, and never overshoots: it crosses a band once and stays.
  • tested It falls the same way. When the source stops, the field only ever falls; it doesn't rebound.

Anomaly

tested Anomaly climbs towards a target each second, closing 4% of the gap. With nothing containing it, the target is all the flux. Under containment, the target is the flux its capacity can't hold, plus a small leak (3%) of what it does hold. Anomaly decays on the same curve as flux at half the rate, so it settles nearer the flux and lingers after work stops.

What anomaly does in a chunk that isn't contained, by band:

  • tested Surcharge. Crafter and Simulator work costs extra FE (the table above).
  • tested Leak. Quantimium machine buffers bleed a flat amount of FE every tick; the Exciter and the field-control blocks, which manage the field, don't.
  • Crystals. From Medium, Anomalite Crystals seed on powered machines and eat their buffers: slowly and only two to a chunk at Medium, faster and up to 8 at High, 16 at Critical, without limit at Singularity. tested Break or move the machine and its crystals go with it.
  • Tears and mites. From Medium, the field tears into the mirror on its own, and mirror mites hunt.
  • Rifts. At High, a tear can fail to close and leave a flux rift.

Containment

Containment doesn't lower the meters. It gives a chunk capacity: how much flux it can hold without that flux turning into anomaly. The flux stays capability, so a contained base can run hot.

Load is how full that capacity is: the flux in the chunk over the capacity covering it. At 80% all of it is held. Past 100%, the flux beyond capacity (the overflow) couples into anomaly in full, so a little over is a trickle and far over is a flood. Nothing flips. The Flux Meter, the Mirror Lens readout and the containment's own screen all show the load.

tested A chunk is contained when it's covered and its load is at most 100%. Containment is the Containment Hall's: it holds all of its rated band, High to Singularity, and leaks 3%. Capacity from several halls adds up, and a chunk under several leaks their mix. Before a hall, you keep anomaly down by pulling it: a Basic Anomaly Siphon early, an Anomaly Siphon later.

tested Containment has an edge. Its strength goes by straight-line distance from the machine: nearly full across its core (98% at the sides of a 3×3, 91% at the corners), half two chunks out, and next to nothing a chunk further. The field doesn't stop there, so past the edge a hot base's flux is uncontained, and the land round it turns dangerous, with the tears and mites that come with it. Plan where the edge goes, or build wider.

tested Contained anomaly is atmosphere only. The leak keeps a contained hot district alive, with plumes, flora and glimpses, but in a contained chunk anomaly costs nothing: no surcharge, no buffer leak, no new crystals, no tears, no hunting mites, and rifts stop growing. Only an overloaded chunk gets hurt.

Tool What it does
Basic Anomaly Siphon Holds anomaly at the top of Low across the 3×3 of a small workshop, and turns what it pulls into Anomaly Fragments.
Flux Suppressor Holds flux (only flux) under a ceiling across the 3×3: firebreaks, starving rifts, quiet zones.
Containment Hall Holds up to all of Singularity with enough arms, over the 3×3 or 5×5, and pulls anomaly (only anomaly) down.
Flux Maintainer, Anomaly Siphon, Field Regulator Hold the field at a floor, or anomaly under a settable ceiling.
Flux Detector Turns a band into redstone, for automation.
Field Monitor Watches the 9×9 chunks round it: a map, and an alarm (redstone and comparator) for overloaded containment or uncontained anomaly.

Seeing the field

tested Where it's heading. A field takes a minute or two to settle, so every reading says where it's going as well as where it is: Medium · heading for High, High · steady, Critical · falling to High. Each chunk keeps track of what feeds it, and the band it gives is the level where decay would take exactly that. Forty seconds into a climb it already names the band the climb will end in.

The Flux Meter and Jade both show it. Wear a Mirror Lens (or be in the mirror) and the corner readout shows flux with its trend, anomaly and, under containment, its load. Press N for the field map: the chunks round you, north up, flux in azure with anomaly washed violet over it, your chunk outlined, and chunks under containment marked in the corner, pale when held and amber when overloaded. With JourneyMap, the same colours are on your world map. /quantimium field clear empties the field within 8 chunks.

tested A known source. The Debug Field Emitter (creative tab, no recipe) emits as if a machine on it were spending a fixed FE/t, with no power needed. Use steps it up through 100, 1,000, 10,000, 100,000, 1,000,000 and 100,000,000 FE/t; sneak-use steps it down, and round to off. Its light rises with its setting.