Nyheder
Creating the ultimate city in Steamworld Build
B
Brittany Alva
Luckily, this guide covers everything you need to know about the game. You can use it to check out what you’re getting into before diving in. Or, you can save it and use it as a reference tool when you need it.
Different modes of play
When you first start a game in Steamworld Build, you’ll be asked to pick an area to play in. There are five options: Giddyup Gorge, Highroller Dunes, Grand Gully, Tumbleton, and Fossil Park. In your first playthrough, the differences between these environments are entirely aesthetic in nature, so you can go with whichever one you like the most.
After that, you can pick a difficulty: casual, balanced, or difficult. The differences here lie in the strength of enemies and how readily available resources are. Balanced is considered a beginner-friendly level, so this is a good starting point for most players.
When you’re choosing a difficulty, you can also select sandbox mode. This is meant for people who really just want to have fun with building a cool city—your resources are unlimited, and the game is much simpler. However, you can’t unlock achievements or end-game bonuses if you complete an area in sandbox mode, so keep that in mind.
There are also a few options you can choose from: tutorial, replay story, and random minemap. These are yes or no options, and most people will need the tutorials the first time through, so definitely check that box if you're a newbie.
Building a city
The main part of any city is going to be the people, of course! There are four different types of citizens in Steamworld Build: workers, engineers, aristobots, and scientists. Each group has its own needs and unlocks different building options. Here’s what you’ll need for each group of people:
- Workers: General Store, Lumbermill, Service Shop, Cactus Farm, Charcoal Kiln
- Engineers: Moonshiner, Saloon, Toolmaker, Surveyor Office, Pickaxe Maker, Sheet Metal Factory, Spare Parts Maker, Water Purifier, Wash Service, Burger Meister
- Aristobots: Polymerisation Plant, Waxing Shop, Sheriff’s Office, Diesel Plant, Hatmaker, Steam Furnace, Carburizing Plant, Fine Dining Restaurant, Casino, Gunsmith
- Scientists: Retrofit Shop, University, Lab Equipment Manufacturer, Sparkling Diesel Manufacturer, Large Stuff Collider, Art Studio, Observatory, Rocket Fuel Processing Plant
All citizens also need to be connected to what they need by roads, which also need to connect to the train station. There are three different kinds of roads—dirt, paved, and maglev—and each road you unlock makes things travel faster and farther.
Traveling farther is important because each building has its own range. This affects how far your citizens can go from the buildings they need, and it plays a vital role in how you lay out your city. You can click a building to see how far its range is, which can be helpful when you’re trying to figure out where citizens should live.
Every building should also be connected to a warehouse. These warehouses will store your items and transport them around your city as needed.
Mining for treasure
The mine plays a crucial role in Steamworld Build. There are three different floors to explore, with each growing more difficult and providing more resources to plunder:
- Dusty Caverns: Ironium, Scrap, Dirty Water
- Marshy Ruins: Gas, Oil, Plastishrooms
- Crackling Depths: Vectron Scrap, Jetshrooms
Each of these groups require quarters to help out in the mine, which are blocks of space that are dedicated to them. The larger the space, the more of each type you need to help. These quarters only apply to the floor they’re on, so you’ll need to rebuild them once you progress to another floor.
Miners do exactly what you'd expect: they dig through the mine. These people are mainly explorers, and they dig where you direct them to. They’ll also clean up debris on the ground so that you can place objects or build quarters there. Prospectors harvest veins of resources and farm shrooms. Mechanics build things like extractors (which manually harvest veins) and weapons. They also help any downed workers in the mine after fights. Guards fight enemies that appear and protect every other worker.
Beyond these people, you’ll need to build a workshop and armory (available after the first floor). Workshops let you create extractors with the help of mechanics, and you can craft weapons with the armory. You can also build a surveillance facility to make radar machines, which help you locate important things in the mine. This is great for speeding up exploration.
The last thing you have to do is make sure the mine doesn’t collapse. To do this, you’ll need to build pillars as you dig. Luckily, the game will highlight areas when you’re trying to decide where to place a pillar, which helps you figure out ideal locations to make sure things don’t come crashing down. There are a few other infrastructure things you can build, like a teleporter and a conveyor belt to speed things up. Bridges are also necessary to get around the mine.
You’ll come across other resources around these floors, like rubies and gold nuggets, and you may even find chests. Interacting with the chests will often give you items which can be attached to specific quarters or buildings in your city for bonuses. There are a ton of different items you can get, so make sure you’re using your hotbar to check what items you can attach where. They’re not strictly necessary, but they can help speed things up and help your city and mine run more efficiently.
Trading at the train station
In the city, the train station is the hub of all trading. Here, you can trade excess resources for resources you may struggle to procure or to produce. This can make or break the happiness of your citizens, and you can use the administration window to see what you need.
You can have five trades going at a time, and you can also get special items with rubies and money in the item shop. These aren’t trades, but bonuses you can obtain to help your mine and city run better. Examples include tax bonuses or boosts for how many people you have quartered in your mine. Keep an eye out on the shop and purchase what helps you the most.
Completing the rocket
The main goal of Steamworld Build is to actually evacuate the city you create. To do so, you’ll need to find six rocket parts (two are located on each floor of the mine) and craft enough rocket fuel to get everyone to safety.
Once you’ve gotten what you need, you’ll need to locate the rocket on your map of the city and connect it to a warehouse and the rest of your city by roads. Once you’ve done this, you’ll get an option to end the game and take off. Once you’ve done this, you’ve officially completed that area (as long as you’re not in sandbox mode) and you’ll be free to start a new save or continue in the city as it was before you took off.
End-game bonuses
After you’ve completed each area, you’ll unlock bonuses called landmarks that you can use in any town you create afterward. Here’s the landmarks for each area:
- Giddyup Gorge: Train Depot, which makes the train come by more often and gives you better sales in the item shop
- Highroller Dunes: Desert Star, which makes all roads and conveyor belts free
- Grand Gully: Rail Rush, which gives the item shop additional offering slots and a chance for free items
- Tumbleton: Cinematon, which creates tumbleweeds you can click on for rewards
- Fossil Park: Natural History Museum, which makes your miners faster and lets you make quarters with less tiles