READ THIS: Quick Game Tips

[Gamious]

Welcome new players! Below is a short list of quick game tips. We will be adding to them over time. If you have any tips you think should be on this list, post them here.

SPOILERS WARNING! These are not really spoilers, but if you want to discover everything about the game yourself, don't read this! You have been warned.

Pipes in general
1. Laying a single piece of pipe has a small start up cost. So one long section covering the same distance as multiple shorter sections will be less expensive. BUT you will be less flexible in upgrading and/or branching out afterwards. Lay down pipes with this in mind.
2. You can branch off from any joint in the pipe works.
3. Upgrading a pipe section will increase the oil flow. Make sure you can handle the extra oil!
4. Upgrading a single piece in a long chain will not do much for you. Look closely at how the sections of pipe are filled with oil. Is your flow optimal? Are there bottlenecks?
VIDEO: https://youtu.be/USUCUKhI4qM

Pipes and pockets
If a pipe hits a pocket of oil it will, over time, completely drain the pocket of oil. You do not need to lay down pipe to the bottom. Natural game physics laws FTW!

Connecting Rigs
If you connect 2 Rigs (or a Rig and a Factory) Both Rigs will have the best upgrades that you bought. So if Rig 1 has Rock Drill, when you connect Rig 2 will have it as well.

Controls
You can assign all Wagons quickly when you Press and HOLD an arrow above the factories. This will save you lots of clicking.
You can use keyboard controls! Check the mouse-over texts.

Wagons
Neutral (grey) Wagons will go from Rigs to Silo's ONLY.
Wagons selling oil to Right or Left Inc. (blue or red) will pick up from Silo's and Rigs. They should always prioritze Rigs when Spillage is imminent. But this is a work in progress.

The Mole
The mole is an erratic little bugger! But you can control it to an extent: When placing the mole, do so on a specific tile underground. This will be the first tile that the Mole opens up for you. Afterward, just cross your fingers ;)
There are of course upgrades to improve the mole, but still...

Scanner
Scanners are very handy but also very costly. If you want to cancel a scan, click somewhere above the ground or click the right mouse button.

Bidding for plots
The person with the lowest amount of money gets to bid first on a plot of land. Then the next lowest and so on...

Finish a level early
If you think you have depleted all the oil in a level, or if you don't want to spend more money to find oil, and there are still a few months left. You can withdraw your land lease: ending the level at the end of the current month and earning back some of the money that you spent on the lease.

Bonus Island
Ever wondered what is possible on the Bonus Island? Well here you go. We have played the Bonus Island and added some annotations as tips:

https://youtu.be/R-Jv5c19hbg

[Symatrix Hill]

Originally posted by Gamious:

An important one that we mentioned above is "Depleted all the oil".
If you are done with the level (by choice or because the oil is gone) and it's not December yet, you can stop level the sooner. You don't have to sit around and wait!

Hi.
I missing some info about the gas , the name on the part/item to shut down the oil rigg and the name of the item we use on the left and right side storage to raise the the monny for the oil.

So far i have unlock :Whit 3 - Size 3-Branch 3- Timer 2/ in Gears and bolt.

So my question are what are the name on this 2 different item and what do i need to buy to unlock the item for left and rigth side the place we sold the oil ?
And the item to shut down the pipe ?

( sorry my english)

[Delle(DK)]

My gameplay tip.:

Spilling oil is VERY expensive.
I always have 1 or 2 wagons pr. oil tower, that only drive inbetween oil towers and the storage tanks. This way I am sure my towers will never spill oil and always be empty.
Yes think of your oil tanks as temp buffer tanks.
The rest of my wagons I use to sell oil.

Also.
When I leave the city and start drilling on a new "map", then I always start with the same setup.
1). place 2 men that look for oil in the middle of the map.
2): place 1 tank in the center of the map
3). place 1 drilling tower very close to the oil tank and find oil.
4). buy 2-3 wagons and make one of them fill the tank, and the others sell the oil
( if prices are okay ( above 90 ) )
5). If I have the tech i unlock larger wagons in the start.
In some cases I run out of money since i do not hit oil ( it is to deep and i lack funds ) then you can borrow money in the top left corner of the screen.. Example borrow 500.

Depending upon the region and if prices often er good or bad I deside if i build more tanks or just have allot of horses.
I highly recommend the tech that give you larger wagons, and faster horses.
You should also consider getting techs such as being able to connect more pipes from one point. And larger tanks.. By the way if you place two tanks very close and upgrade them max, then you can merger the tanks into one huge tank that can hold allot of oil ;-)
But all in all get the tech you like, but try to keep your costs down, some maps really do not have much oil.

Speaking about oil.. If you look on the map you see numbers such as 30-50-80.. This indicate how rich a region was in oil when someone drilled there. So try to see if you can see som kind of patern about where you might find a good area to drill in next time.


The search for oil..
I typical use the men to search for oil, but they have their limits.
So I use the mole allot to uncover the bottom of the map.. Example i send 5 moles down to the bottom with some distance inbetween each other, and then they very often spot the edge of oil or other interesting things... I love my moles ;-)

hint..: you do not have to upgrade all of your oil towers to be able to drill rock.. often it is cheaper to just connect one pipe to another oil towers pipe network and then it automatic get the same "drill skill" as the upgraded tower.
The end game..:
in the end of the game it is all about who have 50% of the towns stocks.
it work in such a way that the person with little stock are removed from the game and all of the stock is then put on auction.. My advice is to save allot of money for the end game, but in general I advice buying the stocks every time you can before you reach the end of the game. It is cheaper to buy the stock and you also avoid your competitors getting 50% of the stock before you if you buy some of them and making it impossible for them to get 50%.

[Void_Creep]

This has been helpful ty

[Gamious]

Originally posted by edrog-ha:

Hi.
I missing some info about the gas , the name on the part/item to shut down the oil rigg and the name of the item we use on the left and right side storage to raise the the monny for the oil.

So far i have unlock :Whit 3 - Size 3-Branch 3- Timer 2/ in Gears and bolt.

So my question are what are the name on this 2 different item and what do i need to buy to unlock the item for left and rigth side the place we sold the oil ?
And the item to shut down the pipe ?

( sorry my english)

Do you mean 'Valve'. It's the same as the company :)

[Tune]

I like this game a lot. It's really addictive.
The only thing that sometimes bothers me is the oil spilling. I've had situations happen where there's 4 or 5 empty carts near an overflowing rig, but none of them seem to react to it. Often you have to wait for one cart to come from farther away, which takes too long and causes spilling.
Also, even the slightest spilling already cost multiple thousands of dollar, which seems a bit excessive.

[Gamious]

Originally posted by Tune:

I like this game a lot. It's really addictive.
The only thing that sometimes bothers me is the oil spilling. I've had situations happen where there's 4 or 5 empty carts near an overflowing rig, but none of them seem to react to it. Often you have to wait for one cart to come from farther away, which takes too long and causes spilling.
Also, even the slightest spilling already cost multiple thousands of dollar, which seems a bit excessive.

Cart shouldn't do nothing while spillage is occuring. This is an issue that we had during Early Access, but since then had been improved upon. We don't see it happen any more, but maybe, under certain cirumstances, it still does. If you can send us video when this happens, we would love to take a look at it.
Sometimes it helps to re-assign wagons from Right Inc. to neutral, back to Right Inc. They will make another 'decision' and get moving. Do make sure you have enough wagons.
The spillage fines are hefty! And they get bigger over time. That is as designed ;)

[Royal]

Originally posted by Gamious:

An important one that we mentioned above is "Depleted all the oil".
If you are done with the level (by choice or because the oil is gone) and it's not December yet, you can stop level the sooner. You don't have to sit around and wait!

[Doctor Who]

In the early levels I can't work out how to sell the oil in the storage silo's. If you can't sell it , storing it there is a complete waste of revenue and time, so it's beter to sell at any price than store it. Any suggestions please

[Gamious]

@kingoswy66, in the early early levels (that only take a few months) it can indeed be more logical to not spend money on silo's and just sell everything as soon as possible.

[Aaron]

love this game although expert is bloody hard I think I will win though

[Aaron]

shame diamond only givs you one month

[SUNSANG]

Do you have a $3 loophole?

[Géza lejön a padlásról]

Dear Gamious,
I have some questions about gas pockets, because it is not clear from the tutorials:
- Is there a difference using different size of pipes to expand gas(both with dlc and without it)?
- Is there a difference using different numbers of pipes, directly connected to the gas pocketts to expand gas?
- Is it advantageous, to use more pipe-connections originating from lava-sections, because more lava joints lead more heat, or is it detrimental, because longer, unneccesary pipes just suck up more heat?
- Is it (dis)advantageous to connect gas to the companies by bigger or more pipes, because that way gas can arrive there faster, and it can lead higher, but shorter price-hikes? Or in the case of gas pipe size/number is irrelevant?

Otherwise, the game is excellent, and the dlc worth its price too!

[Gibibit]

Originally posted by sztoikus:

Dear Gamious,
*snip*

Good questions! Lets get to the details:

Is there a difference using different size of pipes to expand gas(both with dlc and without it)?
Is there a difference using different numbers of pipes, directly connected to the gas pocketts to expand gas?
Lets start with differentiating the two types of gas growth. We call the gas growth from the snow area Thermal Expansion (where you have to surround a gas pocket) and when using magma it is called Heat Growth.

When using Thermal Expansion (which is not available in the Heat Is On levels before you feel like trying that) the factors that matter are the size of the encirclement, upgrade level and current gas pocket size, as explained in the ingame tutorials. Pipe level does not matter. The gas pocket keeps growing until it hits one of the encircling pipes.

Magma works a bit differently. Both Heat Growth and Oil Conversion consume heat at the growth/conversion joint. When a well is further away from lava it might be more difficult to growth it at max speed because the heat is reduced over distance and at every connection. Additionally, only one heated joint can be converting or growing an oil or gas well at a time.

Is it advantageous, to use more pipe-connections originating from lava-sections, because more lava joints lead more heat, or is it detrimental, because longer, unneccesary pipes just suck up more heat?
A joint connected to magma will max out its heat level every tick. Heat does indeed dissipate over longer pipes (and at every joint), but since one end of the pipe is at max heat this will only give you more heat. This is because heat will only transfer to joints that have a lower heat level.

Is it (dis)advantageous to connect gas to the companies by bigger or more pipes, because that way gas can arrive there faster, and it can lead higher, but shorter price-hikes? Or in the case of gas pipe size/number is irrelevant?
A company can only process 12m3 gas per second. Any more than this and it will be stored in the company joint. A level one pipe transfers 11.7m3 gas per second, so upgrading a pipe to level two will increase the boost speed by a very small amount.

Hope that clears it up!

[Inigoth]

Hi Gamious:

That vid about bonus island IT IS NOT bonus island, I never have seen such amount of gas on bonus island. Also video anotations states: "make sure to get a good deal with kyle or onno first" but that is not possible, there is no option ever to get a deal before playing bonus island.

I counted 14 gas pockets on your vid, I have played more than 20 times bonus island and max i got was 6, but 3 of them showed up very later and there was no time for them to grow.

I need to profit 250k on bonus island to get the all shares + 1M achievement but seems impossible.

This is a real bonus island, a 170-200k profit but not 400k:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1555459946


Edited: wow next day first play i got 7 gas pockets and a 260k profit game, finally i got the achievements!!