Building and power

Buildings grow on construction sites, piece by piece, with the material your crew brings.

Starting a construction site

1. Buy a construction kit (value 15) and carry it.
2. E E opens the build menu with every building you know.
3. Pick a building. It first shows up as a preview in front of the digger (see below). Throw builds: a construction site appears there as a translucent, growing silhouette.
4. The site shows what is missing, e.g. “Elevator still needs 1× wood 1× metal”.
5. Diggers bring the material and build with S S. More diggers build faster.

A windmill in the making: the site grows with every hammer blow.

Build preview

Every building and castle part shows where it will go before you build:

• Green tint: it fits. Red tint: it does not, for example because earth is in the way or the ground is too uneven. The command bar then says “Does not fit”.
• Foundation: lightly hatched pixels below the building turn into rock when you build and fill dips up to 14 pixels deep.
• Keyboard: arrows move, Q (throw) builds, E (dig) cancels. Cancelling keeps the kit in your hand.
• Mouse: the preview follows the mouse, click builds, right click or Esc cancels.
• Touch: drag to move the preview, tap next to it to put it there, tap the preview to build.
• While the preview is open, the command bar only shows Move, Build here and Cancel.

A wooden hut takes about 19 seconds with one digger. Buildings need level ground; if there is none, a stone foundation appears automatically.

Note

The “building material required” rule is on in the scenarios. In the sandbox you build freely with plenty of material.

Power

Sawmill, workshop, chemical lab, pump and oil derrick need power. It comes from the windmill (depending on the wind) and the power plant (burns coal, oil or wood).

Laying a line

1. Buy a line kit (value 10).
2. Carry it to the producer, E E.
3. Carry it to the consumer, E E. The line is a thin wire between them.

When power is missing, a red lightning icon blinks above the building.

Building	Power
Windmill	produces power every 15 ticks, more with stronger wind
Power plant	produces while burning (2000 ticks per load)
Sawmill, workshop, chemical lab	use 500 per tick
Pump, oil derrick	use 350 per tick
Elevator	consumer

Pump pipes

1. Carry a line kit to the pump, E E.
2. Carry it to the pond, E E: the first pipe is the source pipe.
3. Lay the drain pipe the same way with a second kit; the liquid comes out there.

The pump moves 3 pixels every 5 ticks. Without a source pipe it sucks straight down; without a drain pipe it first fills its built-in barrel (200 pixels) and then overflows at the pump. A building’s context menu can switch it off or cut its lines (you get the line kit back).

The elevator

The elevator digs its own shaft straight down. The car comes to waiting diggers and takes lorries along. That is how gold gets up from the deep.

All buildings with size, value and material are listed in all buildings.