What is a Fabricator?

The Fabricator is an appliance that can be used to craft a number of things from raw, basic, or advanced materials. This includes food, water, equipment, tools, and machines. You will find a Fabricator at your starting location in Lifepod 5, additional Fabricaters can be constructed later in the game with the Habitat Builder and placed inside a Cyclops submarine or a base.

Once a Fabricator has been activated it will display an interface which will allow you to select an item to craft. If you have all the required components the item will be highlighted in blue, otherwise it will be greyed out and highlighted in grey. Once the Fabricator has completed crafting the item it will be placed in your inventory, if however you move away from the Fabricator during this process you will need to return to it and manually pick up the item you had crafted.

Unless you are using the the Fabricator in Creative mode you need Energy to operate it. The Fabrictor consumes 5 Energy per item crafted from whatever it is built inside. If there is not enough Energy, the Fabricator cannot be used.