Dimensional Stabilizer and Chunk Loading

The Dimensional Stabilizer is Mekanism’s chunk loader, a machine that keeps the area around it running while you’re somewhere else. It’s able to load up to a 5 by 5 square of chunks with itself in the middle, and it costs 2,000 FE/t (5,000 J/t) for every chunk that’s switched on.

The other way to load chunks in Mekanism is the Anchor Upgrade, which is free to run but only fits three machines and only loads the chunk that machine is in. So you’d use the upgrade for a single machine out on its own, and the stabilizer for a whole base.

How to Make It

The Dimensional Stabilizer is crafted from 4 Refined Obsidian Ingots in the corners, 2 Ultimate Control Circuits above and below, 2 Atomic Alloys on the sides and a Block of Diamond in the middle. It’s the same shape as the Quantum Entangloporter recipe, with the Block of Diamond in place of the Teleportation Core.

Dimensional Stabilizer

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Anchor Upgrade

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The Anchor Upgrade is far cheaper, taking 2 Infused Alloys, 2 Glass and one Diamond Dust, which you’ll get by putting a Diamond through the Crusher. The other upgrades, and how they’re installed in a machine, are on the Machine Upgrades page.

How It Works

Open the Dimensional Stabilizer and you’ll see a 5 by 5 grid, where each square is one chunk and the middle square is the chunk it’s standing in. That middle chunk is always loaded and can’t be turned off, and the other 24 are clicked on or off one at a time, or a whole ring at once.

Energy cost

It only works while it has power, and it needs the full cost for every tick. If it can’t pay for all of its chunks, it won’t load a smaller number of them, it’ll stop loading altogether until the energy is back, so it’s worth giving it a supply that won’t run dry.

There’s a button in its screen that shows the loaded area in the world, which helps when you’re lining the grid up with a build. A Redstone Comparator next to the stabilizer will also give a full signal while it’s active, so you’re able to wire up a lamp or an Industrial Alarm to warn you when it has stopped.

Loading More Than 8 Chunks

The stabilizer’s own buffer holds 16,000 FE, and it has to hold a whole tick’s cost before that tick is paid. That’s exactly the cost of 8 chunks, so in our reading of the code a stabilizer without upgrades shouldn’t be able to keep more than 8 chunks going, however much power is fed into it.

Energy Upgrades are what get around that, and they’re the only upgrade it takes. They don’t lower the cost per chunk on this machine, but each one makes the buffer bigger, which raises the number of chunks it’s able to afford in one tick.

So 4 Energy Upgrades are enough for the full 5 by 5, and adding more only gives it a longer reserve. If yours shows as inactive with plenty of power on the cable, count the chunks you’ve switched on against this table before looking for another cause.

Upgrades and Automation

The Anchor Upgrade

A single Anchor Upgrade fits in the Digital Miner, the Teleporter and the Quantum Entangloporter, and nothing else will accept one. It keeps that machine’s own chunk loaded for no energy at all, and the Digital Miner will also load the chunk it’s currently mining.

That covers most remote setups without a stabilizer, like a miner with an Entangloporter beside it in the same chunk. A machine that can’t take the upgrade, like a reactor or a row of factories, needs to sit inside a stabilizer’s grid instead.

The config switch

Both kinds of chunk loading can be switched off by a server or a modpack, with one setting in the Mekanism config. If neither is working, that’s the first thing to check, and the Config and Mod Compatibility page shows where it’s found. Once chunk loading is sorted, the Digital Miner is the machine that makes the most of it, and that’s the next page along.

FAQ