ButcherCraft: Farm to Table

🥩 ButcherCraft

Build the Plant. Master the Craft. Lead the Workforce. Grow the Business.

**ButcherCraft is a meat-processing and business-simulation mod for Minecraft built around one idea: you shouldn't start with automation—you should build a business that earns it.**

Start on the processing floor doing the work yourself.

Learn the equipment. Process the product. Build your facility. Hire employees. Organize departments. Move material through the plant.

As your operation grows, your role grows with it:

**Butcher → Crew Leader → Plant Manager → Business Owner**

The long-term goal isn't simply to build faster machines.

It's to build a processing plant that eventually becomes a living, working business.

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🚀 Current Release

v0.10.4-alpha.1 — Material Handling Update

**Employees can now physically move product through your processing plant.**

This release introduces ButcherCraft's first real fabrication-to-processing workflow.

Take a **Beef Short Loin** to the Cutting Table and process it into:

**1 T-Bone Steak + 1 Beef Trim**

The T-Bone remains at the Cutting Table while the Beef Trim can continue through production.

Assign an employee to the job and they'll:

**Walk to the Cutting Table**
↓
**Collect the Beef Trim**
↓
**Visibly carry it across the plant**
↓
**Walk to the Grinder**
↓
**Load the Grinder**
↓
**Wait at the workstation**

Then tell the employee to operate the Grinder and continue production into Ground Beef.

For the first time, you can watch material physically move through a ButcherCraft processing plant.

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🏭 A Different Kind of Factory Mod

ButcherCraft isn't designed around magical automation.

Employees don't teleport products between machines.

Workstations don't secretly share inventories.

Products don't disappear from one side of the building and magically appear on the other.

**Work happens physically.**

Employees walk through your facility.

Products have custody.

Workstations have inventories.

Machines perform real processing steps.

And as ButcherCraft develops, the player will gradually move from doing everything personally to managing the people and systems that do it.

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🥩 Meat Processing

Current processing equipment includes:

Grinder

Process Beef Trim into Ground Beef.

The Grinder uses ButcherCraft's deterministic workstation, Execution, and Scheduler systems.

Employees can now reserve and operate the Grinder.

Cutting Table

The Cutting Table introduces ButcherCraft's first fabrication workflow.

Current recipe:

**1 Beef Short Loin → 1 T-Bone Steak + 1 Beef Trim**

The Cutting Table contains separate:

• Input
• Primary Output
• Beef Trim Output

Beef Trim can then be physically transported to the Grinder.

Patty Former

The Patty Former provides the next stage of the Beef Patty production chain.

Employee transport and operation support for the Patty Former is still under development.

Additional Equipment Foundations

ButcherCraft also contains foundations for additional processing equipment, including the Bandsaw and Packaging Table, with their full gameplay continuing to expand through future releases.

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👷 Workforce

Employees are persistent members of your processing business.

Current Workforce systems include:

• Persistent employee identities
• Employment records
• Employee lifecycle states
• Presence and absence
• Shift assignments
• Departments
• Processing department
• Employee navigation
• Department anchors
• Workstation reservations
• Employee workstation operation
• Material Handling assignments
• Transfer cancellation and recovery
• Visible product carrying
• Employee diagnostics

Employees aren't decorative NPCs.

They're being built to eventually perform the same physical work the player performs.

---

📦 Material Handling

v0.10.4 introduces the foundation for physical product movement.

The first supported employee transfer is:

**Cutting Table Beef Trim Output → Grinder Input**

During that transfer:

1. The employee reserves the Cutting Table.
2. The employee physically walks to it.
3. Beef Trim is authoritatively withdrawn.
4. The employee visibly holds the Beef Trim.
5. The Cutting Table reservation is released.
6. The Grinder is reserved.
7. The employee physically walks to the Grinder.
8. The Beef Trim is deposited.
9. The employee remains at the Grinder ready for work.

The employee never becomes a hidden chest.

There is no employee inventory.

The product itself remains governed by ButcherCraft's Material Handling system while the employee carries it.

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👀 Visible Work

One of ButcherCraft's core design goals is:

**You should be able to understand your plant by watching it.**

If an employee is moving Beef Trim, you'll see Beef Trim in their hand.

If they're traveling to a workstation, you'll see them walking through the facility.

If they're waiting at a Grinder, you'll see them standing at the operating position.

As the Workforce system expands, the goal is for a busy processing floor to become visually understandable without constantly opening menus.

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🏢 Business Simulation

ButcherCraft is more than processing equipment.

Current business foundations include:

• Business Calendar
• Configurable Minecraft day length
• Business Runtime
• Plant operating hours
• Shifts
• Production Orders
• Production deadlines
• Workforce departments
• Employee presence
• Persistent business state

These systems are being built toward a larger management simulation where production, employees, customers, deadlines, inventory, and business growth all interact.

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⏰ Business Time

ButcherCraft separates visible business time from Minecraft's normal simulation timing.

That means you can have longer Minecraft days without slowing:

• machine processing
• redstone
• mobs
• furnaces
• crops
• server ticks
• workstation operations

For example, a 60-minute Minecraft day gives you substantially more daylight for business gameplay while a three-second workstation operation still takes roughly three real seconds.

---

🎮 Current Gameplay Loop

In the current release, you can:

1. Build a processing area.
2. Place a Cutting Table.
3. Place a Grinder.
4. Fabricate a Beef Short Loin.
5. Produce a T-Bone Steak and Beef Trim.
6. Hire/create an employee.
7. Assign the employee to Processing.
8. Give the employee a Material Handling assignment.
9. Watch them collect and visibly carry Beef Trim.
10. Watch them load the Grinder.
11. Tell them to operate the Grinder.
12. Produce Ground Beef.

That is only the beginning.

Future updates will continue extending this same physical chain through additional equipment and products.

---

🧪 Alpha Testing & Command Guide

ButcherCraft is currently in active alpha development.

Many Workforce and business-management functions are intentionally exposed through operator commands while their final player-facing interfaces are being developed.

Employee references generally support:

• #1
• Unique employee names
• Quoted names containing spaces
• Canonical Employee IDs

Commands requiring operator permissions should be used with cheats enabled or appropriate server permissions.

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👷 Employee Commands

Create an Employee

Create an automatically named employee:

/butchercraft employee create

Create a named employee:

/butchercraft employee create <name>

Example:

/butchercraft employee create Tom

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Employee Status

/butchercraft employee status <employee>

Example:

/butchercraft employee status #1

Displays current employee information and runtime state.

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Assign a Department

/butchercraft employee assign-department <employee> <department>

Example:

/butchercraft employee assign-department #1 processing

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Assign a Workstation

/butchercraft employee assign-workstation <employee> <x> <y> <z>

Example:

/butchercraft employee assign-workstation #1 100 64 200

The coordinates identify the workstation being assigned.

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Operate a Reserved Workstation

/butchercraft employee operate <employee>

Example:

/butchercraft employee operate #1

Currently supports the employee Grinder operation.

**One command requests one operation.**

The employee does not automatically run the Grinder forever.

After an operation finishes, another explicit command may request another operation.

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📦 Employee Material Handling Commands

Start a Material Transfer

/butchercraft employee transfer <employee> <source-x> <source-y> <source-z> <destination-x> <destination-y> <destination-z>

For the current supported workflow:

**First XYZ = Cutting Table**

**Second XYZ = Grinder**

Example:

/butchercraft employee transfer #1 100 64 200 115 64 205

The employee will attempt to travel to the Cutting Table, collect one Beef Trim from its Trim Output, carry it to the Grinder, and deposit it.

Automatic workstation selection is not implemented yet.

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Check Transfer Status

/butchercraft employee transfer-status <employee>

Example:

/butchercraft employee transfer-status #1

Useful for viewing:

• Current assignment
• Source
• Destination
• Transfer state
• Reservation state
• Material custody
• Navigation
• Recovery/failure information

---

Cancel a Transfer

/butchercraft employee transfer-cancel <employee>

Example:

/butchercraft employee transfer-cancel #1

If the employee hasn't collected the product yet, the assignment can be cancelled safely.

If Material Handling already holds the Beef Trim, ButcherCraft uses the authoritative return process rather than simply deleting or dropping the product.

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🏭 Department Commands

Department Status

/butchercraft department status <department>

Example:

/butchercraft department status processing

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Set Department Anchor

Use your current position:

/butchercraft department set-anchor <department>

Or specify coordinates:

/butchercraft department set-anchor <department> <x> <y> <z>

Example:

/butchercraft department set-anchor processing 100 64 190

The department anchor gives employees a physical location associated with their department.

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🏢 Business Commands

Business Runtime Status

/butchercraft business status

Displays information such as plant operating state and current Business Runtime observations.

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🕐 Time Commands

ButcherCraft Time Status

/butchercraft time status

Displays ButcherCraft's current World Time and Business Calendar information.

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🔧 Development / Operator Commands

Some releases contain additional development commands used to test systems before their final gameplay interfaces exist.

For example, the Cutting Table development output preload may be available to operators for diagnostics/testing, but **normal v0.10.4 gameplay no longer requires manually preloading Beef Trim** because the Cutting Table now has a legitimate fabrication recipe.

Development commands are not guaranteed to remain permanent public interfaces.

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🧭 Recommended v0.10.4 Test Setup

Want to see the newest systems working together?

Try this:

1. Build the Work Area

Place:

• Cutting Table
• Grinder

Leave enough room for an employee to walk between them.

2. Fabricate Beef

Put **1 Beef Short Loin** into the Cutting Table.

Process it into:

**1 T-Bone Steak + 1 Beef Trim**

Leave both outputs in place.

3. Prepare an Employee

Create an employee and assign them to Processing.

4. Start the Transfer

Use:

/butchercraft employee transfer #1 <Cutting Table XYZ> <Grinder XYZ>

5. Watch

The employee should:

• walk to the Cutting Table;
• take only Beef Trim;
• leave the T-Bone Steak behind;
• visibly carry Beef Trim;
• walk to the Grinder;
• load the Grinder;
• remain stationed there.

6. Grind It

Use:

/butchercraft employee operate #1

The employee should operate the Grinder and produce Ground Beef.

You've now completed ButcherCraft's first fabrication-to-employee-processing workflow.

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🛡 Built for Long-Term Worlds

ButcherCraft's underlying systems are intentionally designed around persistence, identity, recovery, and deterministic behavior.

v0.10.4 includes major work on:

• Exact ItemStack custody
• Workstation instance identity
• Durable workstation endpoint journals
• Transfer recovery
• Duplicate-effect protection
• Save/reload reconciliation
• Execution Handler Contract Identity
• Additive Execution registry compatibility

Why does this matter?

Because adding a new machine shouldn't unnecessarily destroy your existing world.

During development of the Cutting Table, ButcherCraft's Execution system was expanded so known compatible older worlds can tolerate newly added handlers while genuinely incompatible state remains blocked.

The compatibility system was validated against a real pre-Cutting-Table development world containing thousands of retained Execution operations.

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🚧 Current Alpha Limitations

ButcherCraft is actively under development.

In v0.10.4:

• The Cutting Table currently has one fabrication recipe.
• Employee Material Handling moves one Beef Trim at a time.
• Transfer source and destination coordinates are entered manually.
• Employees don't automatically choose workstations.
• Employees don't yet transport Ground Beef.
• Employees don't yet load the Patty Former.
• Employees don't yet operate the Patty Former.
• Production Orders don't automatically assign employee work.
• General Logistics isn't implemented.
• Employees do not have inventories.
• Several systems still use development/operator commands instead of final interfaces.
• Some visual assets and interfaces remain developmental.

These limitations are intentional boundaries, not the final vision.

---

🔜 Where ButcherCraft Is Going

The current production chain is:

**Beef Short Loin**
↓
**Cutting Table**
↓
**T-Bone Steak + Beef Trim**
↓
**Employee carries Beef Trim**
↓
**Grinder**
↓
**Ground Beef**

The next stages will extend that chain:

**Ground Beef**
↓
**Employee Material Handling**
↓
**Patty Former**
↓
**Beef Patties**

And eventually:

**Production Order**
↓
**Work Assignment**
↓
**Employees**
↓
**Physical Material Movement**
↓
**Workstations**
↓
**Finished Product**

At that point, your role begins changing from the person doing every job to the person **running the plant**.

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🗺 Long-Term Vision

ButcherCraft is being built toward a much larger meat-processing and business simulation including systems such as:

• Expanded beef fabrication
• Additional species and products
• Sausage production
• Packaging
• Refrigeration
• Coolers and freezers
• Material storage
• Shipping
• Customer orders
• Retail
• Employee development
• Production management
• Equipment maintenance
• Sanitation
• Compliance and inspection
• Seasonal demand
• Business economics
• Expanded workforce management

The goal is not to add all of these as disconnected features.

The goal is for them to become parts of **one functioning business.**

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❤️ Why ButcherCraft?

Because the most interesting part of a factory isn't the machine.

It's the operation.

Where did the product come from?

Where is it going?

Who is doing the work?

Is the equipment available?

Can the employee reach it?

What happens when production stops?

What needs to happen next?

ButcherCraft is being designed around those questions.

The result is a different kind of Minecraft progression:

**Learn the craft.**

**Build the plant.**

**Lead the workforce.**

**Grow the business.**

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🥩 ButcherCraft

**Master the craft. Build the plant. Lead the workforce. Grow the business.**

*Every great processing plant starts with one butcher.*