How to Use the Claygun

What the Claygun is

The Claygun is a terraforming tool added in the Drilling Thunder update. Unlike the sledgehammer, which destroys blocks one at a time, the Claygun places and removes terrain in smooth, sculpted volumes. It fires a stream of clay material that builds up ground, walls, and ramps, or reverses to carve channels, flatten hills, and cut road grades. Every Survival Mode player who builds a permanent base or designs custom vehicles eventually needs one.

This guide covers practical terraforming for bases and vehicles, desert biome techniques, known limitations, and creative applications beyond simple flattening. The embedded video above breaks down several Claygun moments from the Drilling Thunder trailer.

Getting the Claygun

The Claygun is craftable at the Craftbot once you have refined metal and components. It does not require a Schematic scan — it is available from the standard recipe list. You also need clay material to fire it. Clay drops from:

• Breaking dirt and grass blocks with the sledgehammer.
• Harvesting desert biome ground tiles.
• Processing soil at the Refinery Bot into clay packets.

Keep at least 200 clay packets in your inventory before starting a large terraforming project. Running out mid-ramp leaves an unusable half-finished slope.

Basic controls

• Primary fire (left click): Deposits clay, building terrain outward from the targeted surface.
• Secondary fire (right click): Removes clay, carving into the targeted surface.
• Scroll wheel: Adjusts brush size from 1 to 5 blocks.
• Shift + scroll: Adjusts brush hardness — soft brushes blend edges, hard brushes create sharp cliffs.

Practice on flat ground near your crash site before terraforming your main base. The brush hardness setting is the most misunderstood control and causes most beginner mistakes.

Shaping terrain for bases

Flattening a build pad

The most common use. Stand on the high side of your chosen plot and use secondary fire with a size-4 brush on soft hardness. Sweep horizontally across the hill in overlapping passes until the ground is level. Check levelness by placing a Wood Block at each corner — if all four sit flush, the pad is ready.

Recommended pad size: 32x32 blocks for a starter base, 64x64 for a factory with crafting benches and vehicle parking.

Building perimeter walls

Switch to primary fire with a size-3 brush on hard hardness. Draw a continuous wall line at the pad edge, then stack vertical passes until the wall reaches 3 blocks tall. Metal blocks placed on top of clay walls inherit the clay’s collision shape — you do not need to rebuild the wall in metal unless Haybots are raiding.

For raid defense, build clay walls first as a cheap template, then replace the outer layer with metal blocks from the defensive base guide.

Digging moats and trenches

Use secondary fire with a size-5 brush on hard hardness at the pad perimeter. Dig a trench 2 blocks deep and 3 blocks wide. Haybots and Totebots cannot path through trenches wider than 2 blocks. Fill the trench with water from Water Buckets for extra pathing disruption.

Shaping terrain for vehicles

Ramp building

Vehicle ramps are the trickiest Claygun application. Build a ramp with primary fire using a size-2 brush on soft hardness. Start at ground level and sweep upward at a shallow angle — roughly 1 block rise per 4 blocks run. Test the ramp by driving a basic tractor up it after every pass. If the vehicle stalls, soften the angle with another primary-fire sweep.

Maximum reliable ramp grade: 1:3 (one block up per three blocks forward) for tractors with Big Wheels. Small Wheel vehicles need 1:4 or gentler.

Road grading

Cut roads between your base and the nearest warehouse by standing in the middle of the path and using secondary fire with a size-4 soft brush. Carve a channel 5 blocks wide and 1 block below the surrounding terrain. The flat channel becomes a natural road bed — bots path along it, and your vehicles drive faster on level ground.

Mark warehouse direction with Headlights placed at intervals along the road. This doubles as night navigation and bot deterrent.

Test track berms

For vehicle testing, build berms — raised clay banks — alongside your test track. Primary fire, size-3, hard hardness. Berms catch rolling vehicles and prevent them from flying off cliffs during speed tests. Every community vehicle builder uses berms on their test tracks.

Desert biome use

The desert biome is the Claygun’s best environment. Desert ground tiles are already clay-rich, so secondary fire returns more material than it consumes. This makes desert terraforming nearly material-neutral — you can sculpt large bases without hauling clay from the forest.

Desert base technique

1. Find a flat mesa or plateau in the desert.
2. Carve a recessed floor with secondary fire (size-5, soft brush) — 2 blocks below the mesa surface.
3. Build clay walls around the recess with primary fire (size-3, hard brush).
4. Place metal roof blocks across the top of the walls. You now have a sunken base that is invisible from a distance and resistant to Haybot hay bale drops.

Desert sunken bases are the community meta for late-game survival on Hard difficulty.

Desert vehicle garage

Carve a garage bay into a desert cliff face with secondary fire. Primary fire builds a ramp from the garage floor to mesa level. The natural cliff walls provide three sides of cover — add a metal gate on the open side and you have a zero-material-cost vehicle shelter.

Limitations

The Claygun is powerful but not unlimited. Know these boundaries before starting large projects:

• Cannot place functional blocks. The Claygun only manipulates clay terrain. Craftbots, seats, and sensors must be placed separately.
• Clay is not as strong as metal. Clay walls break in 3 Haybot hits. Always skin critical walls with metal blocks.
• Maximum brush size is 5 blocks. You cannot terraform entire mountains in one click. Large projects require patience.
• Does not work on ore veins. Secondary fire skips ore blocks. Mine the ore first, then terraform.
• Underground clay is limited. The underground layer has minimal clay deposits. Bring clay packets from the surface for underground base shaping.
• Multiplayer sync lag. Large terraforming sessions in multiplayer can desync clay blocks briefly. Save before and after major sculpting.

Creative applications

Beyond bases and roads, the community uses the Claygun for:

• Sculpture and decoration. Soft brush, size-1, primary fire builds organic shapes — trees, arches, statues. Pair with Paint Blocks for color.
• Race tracks. Hard brush berms and soft brush jumps. The Drilling Thunder trailer shows several jump ramps built this way.
• Canals and irrigation. Carve water channels from a pond to your farm. Wire Water Cannons at the pond end for pressurized delivery.
• Underground entrance camouflage. Build a clay mound over your underground elevator entrance. Secondary fire creates a hidden door shape that bots do not path toward.
• Floating platform foundations. Primary fire upward from a pillar base creates clay columns. Place metal blocks on top for aerial bases. Not raid-safe, but impressive in Creative Mode showcases.

Claygun workflow checklist

1. Gather 200+ clay packets.
2. Mark your build area with Wood Block corners.
3. Flatten with secondary fire (size-4, soft).
4. Build walls and ramps with primary fire (size-3, hard).
5. Test vehicle ramps with your heaviest vehicle.
6. Skin critical surfaces with metal blocks.
7. Save.

Follow this checklist and you will avoid the two most common failures: running out of clay mid-project and building ramps too steep for your current vehicle tier.