Gathering Robot
Complete guide to the Gathering Robot in Starsand Island, covering how to unlock this Expert Crafter automation device, crafting recipe, placement, Robot Terminal integration, forageable material types by area, durability and maintenance, and strategies for efficient endgame material gathering.
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Overview
The Gathering Robot is an advanced automation device in Starsand Island that automates the collection of forageable materials from its assigned area. Mushrooms, flowers, herbs, shells, and other ground-level materials are all within its scope. As an Expert Crafter unlock, the Gathering Robot is available late in the game and is designed to relieve the tedium of running foraging routes by hand. All collected items are deposited into a linked Robot Terminal for convenient pickup.
How to Unlock
The Gathering Robot blueprint is available after reaching Expert Crafter rank in the Professions system. Like the Mining Robot and Logging Robot, it requires completing the entire Crafter questline from Junior through Senior tiers. Purchase the blueprint from Zerine's terminal at the General Store once you have achieved Expert Crafter status.
Crafting Recipe
The Gathering Robot is crafted at Worktable III using advanced materials:
Material | Quantity | How to Obtain |
|---|---|---|
Steel Plate | 3 | Process Steel Ingots at the Cutter |
Ancient Gear Parts | 4 | Analyze Common Ore Chunks at the Ore Analyzer |
Spirit Cube Fragments | 2 | Analyze Uncommon or Rare Ore Chunks at the Ore Analyzer |
Circuit Board | 1 | Crafted from Copper Wire and Silicon at Worktable III |
4 | Crafted from Rubber Tree Sap at the Furnace |
The Rubber component reflects the Gathering Robot's need for flexible joints and gripping mechanisms to pick up small ground-level items. Rubber Tree Sap is collected from Rubber Trees found in the Moonlit Forest mid-depth zones.
Placement and Setup
Place the Gathering Robot from your inventory onto any valid surface. It can go on your Hopeland property or within Moonlit Forest campsites. As with all automation robots, it must be placed within range of a Robot Terminal.
Placement location directly determines what the robot collects. The island surface and Hopeland have different forageable items than the Moonlit Forest, and different zones within the forest yield different material types. Choose your placement based on which materials you need most.
Setup steps:
Place a Robot Terminal in your desired area (if one is not already there).
Place the Gathering Robot within the Terminal's connection range.
Interact with the robot to link it to the Terminal and confirm its gathering area.
Collect gathered materials from the Terminal periodically.
How it Works
The Gathering Robot operates on the same daily cycle as other automation robots:
Each in-game day, it surveys its assigned area for forageable items.
It picks up all available materials from the ground (mushrooms, flowers, herbs, shells, and similar items).
It deposits everything into the linked Robot Terminal.
Forageable nodes respawn on their normal timer, and the robot gathers them again when they reappear.
The robot collects everything a player could pick up manually in its zone. This includes both common materials (like standard mushrooms and wildflowers) and rarer items (like Moonlit Orchids and Luminous Fungi) depending on placement depth.
Materials by Area
The forageable items the Gathering Robot collects depend entirely on its placement location:
Placement Area | Materials Collected | Notes |
|---|---|---|
Hopeland / Surface island | Wildflowers, Seashells, Coconuts, Common Herbs | Basic materials for early cooking and crafting recipes. |
Beach areas | Seashells, Coral Fragments, Sea Glass, Driftwood | Useful for decoration crafting and certain furniture recipes. |
Evernight Forest (early Moonlit zone) | Mushrooms, Dark Flowers, Cave Moss, Glow Lichen | Mid-tier materials for potions and dye crafting. |
Fragrant Herbs, Rare Flowers, Dreambloom Petals | Valuable crafting ingredients for perfumes and high-tier recipes. | |
Deep Moonlit Forest zones | Moonlit Orchids, Luminous Fungi, Spirit Herbs, Crystal Moss | Endgame materials for the most advanced crafting recipes. |
Durability and Maintenance
The Gathering Robot consumes durability with each daily gathering cycle. When durability runs out, the robot stops until it is repaired or replaced.
Repair with a Repair Kit (crafted at Worktable III from Steel Plates and Copper Wire). Each kit fully restores durability. The Gathering Robot tends to lose durability at a similar rate to the Mining and Logging Robots, so plan for roughly the same maintenance schedule across all your robots.
Comparison with Manual Foraging
Manual foraging has one advantage: you can be selective about which items you pick up, leaving unneeded materials on the ground. The Gathering Robot collects everything indiscriminately. If your Robot Terminal fills up with unwanted common materials, you may need to clear them out periodically to make room for the rarer items you actually want.
Despite this, the Gathering Robot saves enormous amounts of time. Foraging routes through the Moonlit Forest can take 15 to 20 real-time minutes per run, and the robot handles all of this automatically while you focus on other activities. The tradeoff of occasionally clearing unwanted items from the Terminal is well worth the time savings.
Automation System Integration
The Gathering Robot is the third of four Expert Crafter automation devices. Together with the Mining Robot, Logging Robot, and Bug Trap, it forms the complete robot automation suite. All four devices deposit into Robot Terminals and follow the same durability and maintenance rules.
A common endgame strategy is to set up all four robots around a single Robot Terminal in a deep Moonlit Forest campsite. This creates a one-stop gathering hub where you collect ore, wood, foraged materials, and insects all from one Terminal. Pair this with manual processing at your Hopeland stations (Ore Analyzer, Furnace, Worktable) for a streamlined production chain.
Strategies and Tips
Place the Gathering Robot in the area whose materials you consume most. If you cook frequently, a surface or beach placement for herbs and shells is valuable. If you craft advanced items, a deep Moonlit Forest placement for rare materials is better.
Consider running two Gathering Robots in different zones to cover both common and rare material needs simultaneously.
Clear the Robot Terminal of unwanted common materials regularly. The robot collects everything, and a full Terminal pauses all connected robots.
Combine with the Logging Robot in the same zone. Many foraging areas also have trees, and running both robots together maximizes the output from a single campsite.
Use gathered herbs and flowers for bulk cooking recipes. The Gathering Robot can supply ingredients for dishes that restore health and stamina, keeping you well-fed without manual farming.
Remember that forageable item respawn timers vary by item type. Mushrooms and common herbs respawn faster than rare flowers and crystal formations, so the daily output is weighted toward common items.
Repair proactively. Check robot durability every few in-game days to avoid unexpected downtime.
Patch 0.5.3241 Update
Patch 0.5.3241, released May 29, 2026, optimized the Gathering Robot with more detailed task-assignment options, giving finer control over which gathering jobs the robot handles.
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