Understanding Lock Icons and Stage Requirements
What the Lock Icons Mean
When you open EMI and browse recipes, you'll see a small lock icon appear over items and recipe outputs that you cannot access yet. This lock indicates the item is gated behind a GameStage—a progression system that controls when you can craft or use certain items.
How to Read Stage Information
Hover your mouse over any locked item to see a tooltip displaying the exact stage name you need to unlock it. The stage name appears in text form, making it clear what progression goal you're working toward.
When viewing a recipe, look above the recipe output for a stage label. This tells you which stage is required to craft that specific recipe. Some recipes may have multiple stage requirements.
Colored Backgrounds
Locked recipe output slots have a distinct background color that differs from normal slots. This visual cue helps you quickly spot which recipes in a list are unavailable to you right now. As you progress and unlock stages, these colors will change and locks will disappear, showing your advancement through the mod's progression system.