Strategy to reach Overtime day 15

[The Punk]

Hello community can you share your cases of reaching overtime day 15, im playing coop with my girlfriend, ours record is overtime 12.
We learned how to use romantic tables, research and copying desk (to copy cofee table and floor protectors mostly), frozen prep stations, grabbers and mixers to automate dough for pies (our favorite dish), robot mops and robot buffers.
And still our record to reach overtime day 12, we can't go further mostly because of very punishing cards like rushes, picky eaters, etc.
I also don`t understand why should i ever start a franshise beause im starting from day 1 with 3 cards already which may be good if im lucky, but still not better than just start a simple campaign.

So can somebody share a positive expirience of reaching day 15 and which lifehacks you used for this? Thanks!

[Chris!!]

I see you and your partner are connoisseurs of good foods and already have a good understanding of the game, so I will try fill in where I can.

For me, the most consistent way of reaching OT15 is to do it on an autumn map with expensive foods like dumplings, stir fry or pies. Romantic tables will of course not work out here, but in it's place is another item that is insanely good for autumn maps, which is the the Hosting Stand. It'll function as a two-tile coffee table regardless of the group size, at the small cost that you have to pick up and place the menu on a table (you can just leave it at a filled table and customers will move in as soon as the table is available).

You'd still want to dedicate a room for coffee tables, as their patience gets refreshed when they switch from coffee tables to hosting stand, so you'll have a lot more time and leeway before customers start piling outside, which isn't good for autumn at all.

Autumn maps also will not give cards like picky eaters or rushes, as you will only get a choice between two recipe cards, such as starters, sides, desserts, and in worst cases, new main menu recipes that give higher customer counts like Salad or Burgers. These are still preferable compared to a lot of the nasty customer cards, and as long as you are used to dealing with many different recipes at once it should still be managable I'm sure.

Finally, on autumn maps ALWAYS go for Formal if you can, and reach at least Level 2 in time for OT1, along with Calming Painting on decoration days and a supply of Breadsticks that together give your customers a quadruple amount of patience when you're serving them, which on top of that gets massively refilled (5 times as much) each time you give the group any dish or side they've ordered, thanks to the Level 2 effect of Formal decorations.

I hope these tips works out for you and your partner, good luck!

[Eltia]

You want a strong start. By the end of Day 1, you should be receiving a research desk blueprint. Put it into your cabinet first. Then by the end of Day 2, you should be getting another research desk blueprint (if not just abandon and restart)). Buy this research desk blueprint and use it to upgrade the research desk blueprint you already have in your cabinet in Day 3. Aim for a copy desk blueprint. If you don't get it, save and restart.

By the end of Day 3, buy the copy desk blueprint and toss away your research desk. If you don't have enough money, keep the copy desk blueprint in your cabinet. By the end of Day 4, you should receive another research desk blueprint. Put this new research desk blueprint into your cabinet and make a copy in Day 5. By the end of Day 5, you should have one copy desk, one research desk (buy the copy you made) and a cabinet with a research desk blueprint in it.

In Day 6, upgrade your research desk blueprint into a discount desk blueprint. Save and restart until you get it. By end of Day 6, you should have a copy desk, a research desk, a discount desk and a cabinet with a discount desk blueprint in it. In Days 7 and 8, upgrade your discount desk blueprint into a blueprint desk. Once you get it, keep discounting and copying it. Buy a blueprint desk every day (I usually settle with 7 blueprint desk). Use blueprint desks to fish for cabinet, belts and whatever equipment you will need to automate your main dish. For example, for Taco, you want smart belts, safety / danger hob and combiners.

If you can do all that by Day 15, your restaurant will be in pretty good shape. Access to blueprints won't be an issue. And if you have been diligently using discount desk, you will have money saved up. Now it's just a matter of prioritising what to automate next. As long as you don't pick all the bad cards (herd mentality), you shouldn't have problem reaching OT 15. Don't worry too much about serving starters, sides or desserts. Sides can be skipped by using metal tables. Starters and desserts can be automated and they won't pose much problem as long as your main dish is simple. Just pick the simpler recipes and use them to decrease number of customers.

[tonygov75]

you should try doing franchise runs, yes you start with three cards, but you start at the normal number of customers for day, unless you picked a card that increases customer count when you saved your franchise run. If you choose your cards carefully, you can have a normal 15 day run. Each time you make it to day 15 and save the franchise, the next time you start a run with it, it goes up another tier. example, when you run your first franchise it will be Tier 1, then when you finish day 15 and save that run, the next time it will be tier 2. i got coffee shop up to Tier 6 before i messed up and lost that run. If you want to see how high of a tier level you can get, i recommend just doing the 15 days to be able to save as a franshise, and then end, but if you want a better choice of cards when you do save it, then run it as long as you can. more cards, better choices to pick for your next run. on my tier 6 run, i started with something like 30 cards, its a different type of challenge

[Astral]

My friends and I made it to something like overtime day 22.

We went with what ended up being a fully automated coffee shop. We never took any option that changed it from basic coffee. We went with one of the larger shop sizes, and by the end had one large kitchen fully automated with 4 lines making coffee, one large room they were sharing delivering to multiple tables, and I was solo delivering to a separate room.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3329620138

You can see our end cards there. What worked for us really was just sticking to one single item, and never taking any options that would break our automation. Even before we hit overtime we didn't have to actually step in the kitchen anymore, except to research since that's where our cabinets were.

Due to the group sizes we didn't actually use romantic tables in this run for most of it, but I remember that table type actually tanking us in some previous attempts because customers take so long to think about ordering that it slows down getting the next group in. We also didn't have to deal with plates since it was a coffee run - mostly they just took a while to drink, and made a huge mess, but mops solved the latter issue. Leftover bags were also great, get customers to freaking leave right away so another group can come.

TL;DR: Coffee for no plates, avoid extra coffee options, automate ASAP, avoid romantic tables, get a mop, get leftover bags to get them out ASAP. Worked well enough for us.