How does workshop works ?

[Honk]

Hello can anyone explain me how does workshop works like. It says it produces a drones to fill other rooms that stick to workshop but it doesnt work for me

[Galactic Origins]

you put an engineer in it and get two gremlin engineers
the grmelins can only be placed in facilities that are up-left-right-and down from the worksehop, so no corners
maximum of 2 engineers will give 4 gremlins

[Albireo]

put an engineer into the workshop. and you get 2 drones to use in touching rooms, the drones function like engineers and need to be assigned manually.

[Galactic Origins]

you place the gremlins like engineers

[nilus]

Which means it's best to build a worshop in the center around four rooms that can always use engineers. In still in my first play through and I built a workshop last and its in a corner.

[Scorrp10]

Doesn't really matter, you can build workshop in a corner if you want - as long as two adjacent rooms are the ones where you want permanent engineer coverage - resistance comms being top candidates (or power relays). Sure, best built in the middle.

That said, however, I am not really sure workshop is worth it. When not upgraded, it essentially gives you one extra engineer. It costs 125 to build, 35 monthly upkeep, it needs power, it takes up a space, and before it is functional, you need to spend time clearing the space for it and then building it. And it needs one engineer present in it to provide those Gremlins. After only two months of having it, workshop has cost you 195. Now, if my current game is any indication, you are typically short on supplies at game start to afford hiring engineers at HQ. But guess what? Hiring at HQ costs around 175-200, so if instead of building workshop, you drop the money on the HQ hire that you would otherwise have passed up, you get the engineer coverage right away, you can use the cleared space for some other facility, you use less power.

If you built the shop during month 1, by end of month 5 it has cost you 265, and the costs keep ticking.
Upgrading the shop costs 100, and adds 40 upkeep. And takes 2 extra power. That's 180 after two months.

Say, if you build in month 1, and upgrade in month 2, by end of month 5, the shop would have cost you a whopping 560, and keep costing extra 75/month. You could instead buy those extra engineers from HQ at end of month 1 and 2 for a total of about 400, and never pay anything more.

I suppose if RNG really shafts you and engineers are rarer than hen's teeth, and you get no Engineer reward missions/scans, and have to buy from HQ anyway, then Workshop might indeed be a way to get an extra engineer or two earlier.

Just my 2 cents

[Honk]

Thank you for your answers guys :)