Glossary

B

• Backed-up : If contents on a belt/pipe stall and accumulate faster than they flow.
• Balanced : A building module where the splitters are set up so that each building receives the same throughput of shapes directly when placed. As opposed to Manifold, is harder and bigger to set up but will be faster to get up to full efficiency.
• Balancer : A device that takes a cetrain amount of input belts and equally ditributes the shapes to a certain amount of output belts.
• Bottleneck : The cause for a backed up belt/pipe during processing, often insufficient buildings that lead to contents being constrained.
• Braiding : See Weaving.
• Buffer : A place/building where content can be stored to be processed later, e.g. a Fluid Tank.
• Bypass : Usually found in MAMs, the action of diverting shapes away from the input of a module or a part of a factory to then merge them back at the output of said module/factory part so they aren't affected by it.

C

• Collision : Launched shapes/fluid collide with buildings if crossed with their trajectory. (not implemented but planned)
• Conflict : Occurs if a Wire is assigned more than one value. It appears red and acts as a 'null' signal.
• CROS / Crystal Random Operator Shape : See ROS.

D

• Daisy Chain : See Manifold.

F

• Falsy : For Wires, when boolean or non-boolean values are coerced into 0 (false).
• Floating Layer/Quadrant/Piece : Shape parts that aren't supported in a shape. In Shapez 1, they would be possible to create in some conditions, but they aren't possible in Shapez 2. See also: Shape Gravity Rules.

G

• Gap : Shape empty part.

H

• Heterogeneous : A notch transferring different shapes/fluids.
• Homogeneous : A notch transferring only identical shapes/fluids.

M

• MAM / Make Anything Machine : A machine/factory that can create any shape. Usually done by receiving a shape signal on a Wire, then decomposing it using Wire Buildings, and reconstructing it with regular buildings. Other MAM based acronyms exist:
  • CMAM / Crystal MAM : A MAM that can handle Crystals.
  • TMAM / True MAM : A MAM that can make any shape possible, contrary to other types of MAM which are limited to a subset of possible shapes.
  • MMAM / Manual MAM : A MAM that has some or all of the Routing done manually as opposed to using Wires.
  • Hex-MAM : A MAM for the Hexagonal Scenario.
  • ROS-MAM / CROSMAM : A MAM that can make any shape that can appear in one of the ROSs.

Note : The defintion of what types of shapes each type of MAM can make can vary from person to person, it can thus be preferred to define a MAM as what Shape Patterns it is able to make instead.

• Manifold : A building module where the splitters are set up so that the first building receives half of the input, the second a quarter, the third an eighth, etc. If the correct number of buildings is used, it will balance itself out and produce at full capacity. As opposed to Balanced, will take longer to get up to full efficiency but is easier and smaller to set up.
• Modular : Easily repeatable and expandable, using multiple modules to accommodate more throughput.
• Module : A unit consisting of input, output and one or more buildings chained together. Often used in combination with a manifold.

N

• Notch : A set of 4 building tiles sticking out of a Foundation's buildable area used to transport shapes with Belt Launchers and Catchers, fluids with Fluid Launcher and Catchers, or wire signals with Wire Transmitters and Receivers.

O

• Omni-shape : In non-hexagonal Scenarios, an omni-shape is defined as a one layered shape containing each of the four available shape types. Useful when supplying MAMs.
  • Omni-Maker : Produces Omni-shapes using pure shapes as input.
  • Omni-Miner : Produces pure shapes of available shape types from mined shape asteroids.
• Overflow : A state in which a belt/pipe/building is fed more content than it can process, resulting in a bottleneck.
• Overflow Splitter : A device that takes a belt of shapes as input, and outputs them onto an output, unless it can't accept more shapes, in which case the overflow will be outputted onto a second output. This can be done using Belt Readers and Belt Filters.
  • Pseudo Overflow Splitters can be made without Wires using a series of Belt splitters and mergers, but they occasionally let through shapes on the overflow output while the main output isn't stalled.
• Overhang : A shape part or group of shape parts that are above empty parts but still supported. See also: Shape Gravity Rules.

P

• Parallel : See Balanced
• Priority Splitter : See Overflow Splitter.
• Pure Shape : A full, one layered shape only containing identical shape types. Also see Shapes.

R

• Ratio : The ideal ratio describes the amount of buildings required to process a full belt/pipe. In Shapez 2, it's always a whole number if the upgrades are at equal levels, e.g. 2 Rotators per belt guarantee a constant throughput.
• ROS / Random Operator Shape : The Operator Level goal lines that have randomly generated shapes. They can be named ROS #0 and ROS #1 as used in the Global Wire Receiver, or ROS #1 and ROS #2, or ROS and CROS.
• Routing : The action of taking shapes in input and directing them to one of multiple outputs. Can be done with Wires or manually.

S

• S1 / S2 : Abbreviations of Shapez 1 / Shapez 2. SPZ2 can also be seen in some places in the game, like on most holograms, or in the file extension of savegame files and Blueprint Files.
• Saturated Building : A building working at its maximum capacity.
• Seed : A number determining the position and size of shape and fluid asteroids on the map. See also: Game Modes, Map.
• Serial : See Manifold.
• Spaghetti : Jokingly referencing a chaotic and tangled building style that doesn't follow clean or efficient patterns.
• Stackable : A Blueprint or module is stackable if it can be built on all floors without changing their ground coordinates.
• Sushi Belt : A belt containing multiple types of shapes, as opposed to only a single type.

T

• Throughput : Refers to the amount of shapes/fluid travelling through a belt/pipe/building in a certain amount of time. Usually quantified in shapes/litres per minute.
• Truthy : For Wires, when boolean or non-boolean values are coerced into 1 (true).

W

• Weaving : The space-saving technique of interlaying 2 or more Belt Launchers and Catchers and/or Wire Transmitters and Receivers in a straight line on the same floor. Up to 3 belts of contents can be transferred within a 1 wide space.