Summary
- Upgrading structures in SteamWorld Build is crucial for increasing productivity and fulfilling the game's main mission.
- Warehouses serve as the central hub for storing resources and need upgrades to prevent excess resources from piling up.
- Players should prioritize upgrading residential buildings, such as the Scientist and Aristobot residences, to unlock important industries and increase tax revenue.
Upgrading structures in SteamWorld Build falls under two categories: equipping structures with items to increase their productivity and function, or fulfilling the meter of certain buildings to maximum levels, while also having the necessary resources to upgrade them to the next stage.
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As the run progresses, players will need to mind their city’s income generation and when to upgrade their buildings. Always keeping the cash flowing smoothly relies on completing specific missions, as well as keeping their workforce happy to maintain their efficiency. That said, here are some of the best buildings and houses players need to upgrade to ensure their city is bustling, and they can fulfill the game’s main mission.
1 Warehouses
Storage Of Raw Materials And Goods
One key element in city planning in SteamWorld Build is to ensure every structure is connected to the train station, including the different industry buildings. Adding to this, production structures require storage space for their wares, and warehouses fulfill this need.
Warehouses serve as the central hub for all the city’s resources and processed goods. This is why it is important for players to lay out their city’s industrial area and have a warehouse in its vicinity. Regarding upgrades, warehouses tend to get full as the game progresses, and players harvest different types of resources. Having a full warehouse might cause a pile-up of excess resources.
To prevent this from happening, players need to purchase either Storage limit or multiple delivery item upgrades: the former allows warehouses to stock more items, while the latter enables more resources and items to be delivered to the different industry plants for processing.
2 Foresters
Essential Industry Building For Harvesting Logs
During the early stages of city-building, the key resource players will rely on for construction are boards processed by lumber mills. Even when they have access to the mine, boards are needed for miners’ and prospectors’ quarters. To get boards, lumber mills require logs, which are harvested by foresters.
Foresters, like Sand Shifting Factories, need to be placed in fertile areas, and they should be as isolated as possible to increase the production of logs. Once players have access to the train station, they should also look to upgrade their foresters with faster production items.
Equipping foresters and lumber mills with increased production items boosts the production of logs which lumber mills can then proceed to turn into boards faster. This way, players will not worry too much about running out of boards once they have set up their foresters and lumber mills with upgrades.
3 Sheet Metal Factory
For Engineer Industry Buildings And Beyond
The Sheet Metal Factory is an Engineer industry building that becomes available once players have upgraded enough Engineer residentials. When this structure is built, it signifies the transition from the early game to the mid-game of a player’s run. This is because most of the succeeding facilities, factories, and plants will require sheet metal to have them constructed.
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Ensuring the city has enough Sheet Metal becomes a priority during the mid-game portion, so it is paramount to equip this building with production boosters. On the mining side of things, players should secure a couple of Ironium Veins and install Extractors on them so that there will be a steady supply of Ironium.
4 Pickaxe Maker
First Essential Mining Tool Upgrade
The Pickaxe Maker is an Engineer building that produces pickaxes for the player’s miners. Once miners have pickaxes, they can plow through sandstones which often hide pockets of resources that include gold and ruby blocks, dirty water and oil geysers, and even rocket parts in the first mining level.
Logs and scrap are needed to get the Pickaxe Maker to start producing pickaxes, so it is best to prioritize looking for scrap veins in the mine and have Prospectors harvest chunks of them as soon as possible. This way, once a steady supply of pickaxes is in the warehouse, they can be used as tradable assets for more precious and important resources.
5 Carburizing Plant
Final Mining Tool Upgrade
As players go deeper in the mines, the second and third levels have granite blocks that cannot be broken down by pickaxes. Luckily, the Carburizing Plant becomes available by the time they have access to the second mine level, as part of the Aristobot industrial buildings.
Once players have access to the second mine level, they should prioritize getting a Carburizing Plant operational, since this building produces Carbide Drills that allow miners to get through granite blocks. Carburizing Plants are a bit of an investment, resource-wise, but players can recoup their investment quickly since they can access rarer resources within the mine.
6 Scientist Residential
Last Housing Building Upgrade
While industrial structures provide the means for improving the state of the city, the residential buildings are the lifeblood of city-building in SteamWorld Build. Industrial structures would not have any workers to operate without residential buildings. Each residential building also pays taxes, which players need to have the capital to construct additional structures within the city, or inside the mines.
Among the four types of residential buildings, the Scientist residential is the highest tax-paying building in the game. The industries Scientists open up are also instrumental in completing a run, which further increases the importance for players to upgrade their Aristobots residencies to Scientist ones.
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However, what keeps them from being the best residential building is the number of industries they need to keep the Scientists happy. Granted, by the time players can upgrade Aristobots’ housing, their city resources should be able to shoulder the costs.
7 Worker Residential
Initial Housing Building
Workers serve as the game’s first option for the starting industry buildings. During the early game, they make up the majority of the city’s population and are needed to operate the early industrial structures like foresters, lumber mills, and charcoal kilns.
Keeping Workers happy is also easy since they usually need a General Store and a Service Shop near their housing and they’ll be fine. Workers are upgraded to Engineers, and while they pay the least taxes compared to the other Worker bots, they still have a vital role in operating key starting facilities so that players do not run out of logs, boards, and coal.
8 Engineer Residential
First Housing Building Upgrade
Engineers are the second-level workers who specialize in metal crafting and are attained by upgrading the Worker residential houses. Once players have enough Engineers in their city, they gain access to tool-making, pickaxe-making, and metal sheet factories that require scrap and Ironium to produce their products.
During the transition between early to mid-game, Engineers become the main source of income for cities, which is why upgrading them is always going to be a priority. Engineers also teach players proper city planning, since their happiness requirements involve placing various buildings that have different coverage areas.
9 Aristobot Residential
Second Housing Building Upgrade
Aristobots are the third worker upgrade players can get when they level up their Engineer houses. These workers provide an assortment of industries that include the highly important Carburizing Plant and Steam Furnace. Players will typically be right smack in the middle of their runs once they have the option to upgrade Engineers to Aristobots.
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Aristobots tend to have high demands to keep them happy. Their essential structures cover a wide range of resources needed to have them operational, such as the Casino, Diesel Plant, Fine Dining, and Gunsmith. Working on getting the necessary resources for these buildings might be challenging, but the return on investment is worth the struggle.
SteamWorld Build
- Released
- December 1, 2023
