Suncraft Sickle & Fish Trap

Two of the most satisfying full-release buildings are the sickle and the fish trap. The sickle harvests crops automatically and stores them; the fish trap collects fish and other ingredients over time. Combined with chests, Ghosts and Helpers, and the Banquet Table, they turn fields and water into a quiet ingredient pipeline.

This guide covers unlock timing, placement, routing, and how these machines fit beside Ember without overlapping jobs.

Unlock timing

Both buildings arrive after the demo slice — typically through blueprints, villager progress, or market purchases once Coins and Blueprints go live. Do not rush them before:

1. A working furnace alley (Crafting and Furnace)
2. Storage chests (Storage and Layout)
3. At least a plan for Ember or ghosts so ingredients do not pile on the ground

If a vendor sells the blueprint, compare coin cost against active bottlenecks — a sickle is wasted if you still hand-carry every pumpkin to a random pile.

Sickle: auto crop harvest

What it does: Harvests mature crops in range and stores the yield — the end of sprinting across fields for every carrot and pumpkin.

Placement tips:

• Center the sickle so its radius covers your highest-value crop rows first.
• Put a harvest chest adjacent for ghosts to empty into kitchen or Banquet buffers.
• Keep walking lanes so you can still plant or expand beds without pathing traps.

Synergies:

• Ghosts move sickle output into typed food chests.
• Banquet Table recipes consume those ingredients for tip coins.
• Skill tree crafting and gather nodes still matter — machines amplify supply, they do not invent seeds.

Fish trap: passive ingredients

What it does: Collects fish and other ingredients while you smelt, quest, or delve the Mines and Caves.

Placement tips:

• Anchor near water tiles the game marks as valid fishing spots.
• Pair with an ingredient chest; do not rely on ground drops.
• Check the trap between quest turn-ins — passive income of materials beats staring at it.

Fish feed Banquet dishes and certain villager requests in Quest Walkthrough. Stockpile early; late request boards spike ingredient demand.

Routing with ghosts and Ember

Building	Ideal partner
Sickle	Ghost → crop chest → Banquet prep
Fish trap	Ghost → ingredient chest → Banquet / requests
Furnaces	Ember fuel + ore ghosts

Keep food logistics on a different chest color/zone than ore logistics so helpers never jam a furnace input with fish. See Ghosts and Helpers for sorting rules.

Banquet Table pipeline

Once the celebratory feast unlocks the Banquet Table, sickle and fish trap stop being novelty toys:

1. Sickle fills crop chest.
2. Fish trap fills ingredient chest.
3. You (or prep habits) plate dishes on the Banquet Table.
4. Villagers leave tips — passive coins for more blueprints.

This loop is why First Week Tips delays Banquet Table until fields and storage exist. Machines first, serving second.

Priority versus other automation

Spend order when resources compete:

1. Chests and Ember fuel path
2. First ghost
3. Sickle if crop quests or Banquet prep are your bottleneck
4. Fish trap if ingredient variety blocks dishes or requests
5. Extra ghost capacity / gear from mines

If you are still stuck on tram steel, finish Resource Chain Planner goals before decorating the shoreline with five fish traps.

Common mistakes

• Blueprint impulse buys with no chest plan
• Overlapping radii that leave edge crops unharvested
• Mixing fish into ore chests — ghosts will obey bad typing
• Ignoring Banquet timing — ingredients rot in chests with no serving loop (figuratively: unused stockpiles)

Related systems

• Coins and Blueprints — paying for plans
• Banquet Table — spending the ingredients
• Automation and Ember — fuel side of the village
• Achievements — restoration milestones often pop once fields run themselves

Build the sickle and fish trap when your village already breathes on its own — then watch ingredients arrive while you chase monuments, mines, and Sunspire story beats.