Turtles are essentially robots with the ability to place, break and detect blocks, move around and drop items in their inventory. The programs they run are stored on their internal memory or on floppy disks.
Turtles are capable of using pickaxes, hoes, axes, shovels and swords. "Crafty Turtles" have the ability to craft using their inventory. "Wireless Turtles" are capable of communicating with other Wireless Turtles (and Computers with Modems) over distance.
Turtles are submersible and lavaproof. As such, they are extremely useful for mining near bedrock, where heavy lava flows can prevent access to diamonds and other rare finds.
Turtles cannot enter unloaded chunks though, and any attempt to do so will cause the turtle to stop and reboot. In case you use the turtle for long distance deliveries it may happen that the turtle stops halfway, this its advised to stay relatively close to your turtles at all times to avoid reboots.
If you would like to know more about how to program them, have a look at the Turtle API.
Floppy Disks[]
Turtles do not have a built-in Disk Drive. As such, they need a Disk Drive placed beside them to access Floppy Disks. However, if the Turtle is of the Wireless family, the Disk Drive (and other peripherals) must be placed on a side other than the side the wireless modem is on.
Power source[]
Turtles require fuel to operate - this means Turtles must be powered from any item that works in a regular furnace, like coal and lava. The turtle gains 0.6 "movement" per half second the fuel would have burnt in a furnace. The Turtle can move 1 block for each fuel count it has, for example, coal yields 96 block movements. For more information, go to the Turtle.refuel page.
Since they also accept MJ and EU power as fuel, they also accept power source items in IndustrialCraft2 and Buildcraft 3 mods to refuel such as batteries or Energy Crystals. They can also be charged by docking them in front of a Charge Station from the Misc Peripherals mod.
Optional Non-fuel mode[]
In this mode, Turtles use their internal Redstone Engine, and as such, they do not need to be re-charged, or receive any other form of external power. This is because Redstone continuously emits low levels of energy, and the Turtle's engine is very efficient. This mode can be turned on by editing the turtle config file (config/mod_CCTurtle.cfg) and setting turtleNeedsFuel to 0.
Farming[]
Turtles equipped with a diamond hoe can till dirt so it can later be used for Farming. An example of a use for this would be using it to till, plant, and harvest your wheat farm and dropping any product in a chest for you.
Mining[]
Turtles crafted with a diamond pickaxe, diamond axe, or diamond shovel, can break blocks, chop wood, mine stone and ores, and even break dirt and gravel (depending on the tool you used on it). The tools equipped on the Turtle have no durability, and so can be used indefinitely without the need for any additional materials. When a Turtle breaks the block, the Turtle receives the item directly into its inventory. Different tools yield different drops - for example, an axe can break anything, but it won't drop ores.
Crafting[]
Turtles with a Crafting Table can craft items if they have the correct materials to do so.
Melee[]
Turtles equipped with a diamond sword can attack players and mobs.
Make:edit startup
while true do
turtle.attack()
end
then save and finish