Tips for playing

I think this is the first guide for News Tower, so here are some tips I've collected for this game.

Introduction

News Tower is a game about running a newspaper, and these tips aim to help you create the greatest newspaper possible.

Setting up shop

At the start of the game you will be given an empty building to start your grand paper (unless you started with the tutorial which gives you a pre-furnished building to use). The layout of your tower is key to success in this game.

Starting off you will want 3-4 floors, with typesetting on the bottom floor, assembly on the next floor up, then printing/maintenance, and at the top floor anything else, such as reporter desks and telegraphing desks. The reason for this is to minimise employee travel times inside your tower, since reporters only have to go up one flight of stairs to get the report to the typesetters who only have to do the same to get to assembly.

For the floor(s) that have printing equipment on, try to position them as far from other workplaces as possible and use walls, doors and wallpapers to minimise the noise.

Update!

After multiple updates (most recently and notably Going International) there are new items which can add new problems quirks when building your tower, so here are some things to bear in mind when building.

Vertical Transport

Towers are tall by nature, so your employees need a way of moving between floors. Stairs are good at first for moving between floors, but they can be slow for workers to climb (even with the stair climber trait) and difficult to place because of the clearance needed for the stairs. They are however the cheapest option and can be useful for bridging to floors not covered by an elevator (or lift if you're from the UK, like me).

Lifts are unlocked from the Throg's Neck factory, which is a bit out of the way on the map, so unlocking them will come a bit later, but they can be very useful. Lifts are much faster than stairs, whisking employees up many floors so fast it might be breaking the speed limit. They are more expensive than stairs though and can be difficult to place due to only being able to be connected directly up or down, an issue that is worsened by being about double the width of a door for stairs. Lifts can also become overcrowded if used by a lot of people, so it's best to use them for higher priority journeys and use stairs for journeys that are not so important.

People are not the only things that need to be transported, however. Freight is just as important. As of Going International, there are new ways of transporting stuff up and down. With the pneumatic tube, you can send small items like reports, ads and photos at blistering speed from one room to another, with the flexibility of being able to be placed almost anywhere.

Additionally, the dumbwaiter is used for bulkier items such as crates of coal, boxes of paper or the latest lawsuit from the incompetent mayor. These function like small lifts, in that they can only be connected directly up or down, but move very quickly.

Getting the news

Now that you have a well laid out tower and the repair workers have stopped complaining about the printer noise, you can start to report on the news.

The first step is to find news using a telegraphing station. I recommend 2-3 when starting, but it's a good idea to increase that number later, as they can be a bottleneck later on. When you have quests from districts or factions for certain stories, try and prioritise those types of news, like sports or politics. On the other hand, don't be afraid to close communications that either aren't needed or won't provide much of a story, as this clears the station for more useful stories.

After that it's time for the reporters to get out and report on the news. As this is one of the most important jobs in your tower, it's best to keep the reporters as happy as possible, to prevent the news being sloppily reported. Items are also very useful as they can drastically improve your reporters' skills and reduce the time needed to report.

As of the Employee of the Month update, new desks have been added that function differently to the other desks. These automatic desks don't come with tommy guns, but instead provide you with a story without the need to send out a reporter, with a set story being generated each week for a guaranteed set of tags, such as society and tragic for the obituary. They also have unique looks compared to other stories, allowing you to break up the walls of text on the pages if you want.

The employees working on them can also be used for regular stories, at the cost of the story being paused until the reporter gets back.

Employees

Employee Level

When you first hire your employees they will just be regular juniors and their skills will be low. This means that they have lower wages (if you haven't adjusted their wages in the staff menu) but are not as adept at their job.

As you progress through the game your employees will get better at their jobs, e.g. reporters take less time to report on stories, assemblers and typesetters can process items faster, guards have a faster cooldown. Skills can also be improved through placing items such as megaphone racks for guards, slug trolleys for assemblers and maps for telegraphers.

I would recommend trying to get skilled employees, especially later on when the higher wages aren't as much of an issue

A new update appears!

With the new 'Employee of the Month' update, employees have been very much reworked, now with traits, training and more things to spend your precious money on.

Traits

When you hire a new worker, be they a reporter, assembler, mechanic or the poor sap who has to clean the loos, they can have traits.

There are two kinds of traits, the first kind is one that the employee will have when they are hired, which can range from not needing the toilet as often to being ridiculously cheap in return for being ridiculously slow. The other kind is one that they can be assigned from training. These can be just like the first kind, such as coordinator and natural coordinator, or completely different to those of the first kind.

There are two new schools that can sell you training courses to use in exchange for money. The traits are sorted by rank into bronze, silver and gold, with bronze being the most average and gold the most unusual and powerful if used well. The rarity of these courses also depend on tier, with some weeks yielding no gold courses at either school sometimes.

Most courses take a few days to be completed, and act like a news story, so it's best to have a backup worker in place to fill in for someone away learning how to lift with their legs.

Photography, Cartography and Illustrations

With the latest community test build adding many new features I felt it would be useful to add a section on those.

Photography

This is a very useful feature if you can use it correctly, as adding a photo to your newspaper not only improves the look of the paper, but also adds a gold tag to the story, which can give a large boost to sales. The main drawback with photography is the extra space needed, as well as the cost of adding the equipment and staff (I'd set aside ~$10k for photography excluding a new floor if needed). Another problem is the fact that many of the processes use chemicals, so it gets very smelly in the photography chain. This means that good smell counters are essential. I recommend using the big fan from the Mariner's Firehouse, since it's more powerful than the small fan while using the same amount of power and being ceiling mounted, so it can cover a larger room.

Cartography

Cartography is a toned down version of photography, instead adding a silver 'map' tag rather than a gold 'photo' tag, while not needing as much equipment as the photography chain, so it's lower risk, but lower reward.

Illustrations

Illustrations are somewhat similar to cartography, in that they can add a bonus to ads if you get a tier 8 ad (so you might not see one until later in a game unless you fill a paper with only one kind of story). Illustrations do add a gold tag to an ad and a silver tag to a story, however, so it will likely be worth chasing down a tier 8 ad.

For these kinds of workers I usually start with just 1 and later hire 2-3 workers, since those kinds of tags become more common later in the game and can feature in some quests from the mafia, high society or the mayor

Reader Perception

This latest build also includes a rework of the subscriber system that takes place after completing 12 districts. Readers will subscribe if your paper stays within a certain threshold for a few weeks. This threshold ranges from 'Informational' to 'Sensational', with the region between marked as 'Moderate'.

I recommend staying in the middle with moderate, unless you specifically want to cater to a more information or sensation based audience, but be aware that being in one region gives downsides for stories that fall into the other region, such as sensationalist readers likely finding informational stories too wordy (or likely something similar)

Old news, the Employee of the Month update has changed this drastically too.

The new perception systems functions similarly to the old system, but has new mechanics now. Articles still sway opinion to the left or right (not politically though, yet), but can be used to obtain rewards on the calendar, which unlocks around 1932/33 if I remember correctly. Your paper is represented with a bar, and the closer your subscribers are to the middle of the bar, the more you can make loyal to your one, true paper later. The paper-bar can also be used to pick up rewards if at least one square overlaps with it. These rewards range from money to influence points to items and even trait courses, so it can be worth going out of your way to the other end of the scale.

Look ahead though, as you can only move 2 squares left or right per week. If you're not careful you can also fall foul of some other squares which can trigger protests, police fines, ad boycotts, lawsuits and visits from mobsters to redecorate your interior with broken wood.

Advertising (Sponsored by Capitalism)

Running a newspaper is expensive, you have to pay for inventory, workplaces, bus tickets to Phoenix and wages (even that cleaner who does nothing), so you need a way to keep the bottom line up.

And advertisements are a great way of going about that for relatively little work. Once you access the Ad Agency (the building with AD on it in large letters) you can buy sales desks. Once you have those placed and staffed, you have access to the ad page accessed through the L key (for Loads a' money)

In there you can choose from a variety of ads from different companies who all want you ad space in exchange for money. These ads function just like stories, in that they have a subject tag and fit in spaces like stories, also benefiting from the X2 and X3 slots to make some serious dosh. They can take longer to make than stories though, so it's good to get them started at the start of the week, and go for the highest paying ones. In previous versions some ads gave influence points, though I haven't seen any like that recently, so it may have been removed.

One benefit of ads is that they can be used as filler in the event of a slow news week, just put an ad for air travel amongst the latest obituary and story of sports failing yet again.

Once you have an illustrator and/or photographer, you can start making even more profitable ads, with gold tags for photographs and silvers for illustrations.

The Bigger Picture

So, you've set up your tower, you've stuffed it with people, goods and reports and you're printing papers, what now?

Other than Profit!, there is the rest of New York, when you get to the map at the end of the week recap or by pressing M. This shows you all the districts and buildings in the game, with districts being where you sell papers to get subscribers, and buildings having things for sale, be it items, traits or mechanics like the auto order button for resources (especially useful for paper later on).

Additionally, with a population of about 7 million, New York is going to have at least a few interested in what you paper can offer them beyond just stories and ads. This introduces you to the hidden agendas, groups who want to use your paper for their own goals. Most of the time this starts with the mafia, but there is also the mayor of NY and NYC's high society. There's no specific mission goals for any group, usually having the goal of "Print these specific tags by the end of the week".

These can either be tags like inspiring, triumphant or lies, but the missions usually generate the required tags, you just need to prioritise your telegraphers correctly to get them early, as sometimes there can be additional penalties along with the frustration of losing out on the normal influence and money rewards. These can range from fines from the police to a visit from gentlemen in hats with bats. For telegraphers, a general rule for finding specific stories needed for quests, the mafia usually has crime stories, the mayor politics and high society entertainment as you would expect for all three.

Conclusion

That should help you get started, but this guide is still a WIP, so I will be continually adding to it and improving it. Please comment to mention anything I might have missed.

[Fishman]

For question 1. I think you get two pages from the start, so it should be in the same place as the first page. As for 2. If it's not in the utility menu it might be worth going back to an earlier save and trying to get the booth again. If the problem persists you should probably report it to the NT discord server

[Sgt Shernov 2]

can anybody help me out with those questions here bellow??

[Sgt Shernov 2]

i have a couple of questions??

1 how do i get 2 page or more printing modules.
2 it seeems i lost the security cabin , now i can't obtain or buy another nor hire a securityguy.!!! GRRR

[Fishman]

I find that a good ratio is roughly 1:1 at the start when your reporters are less skilled and take longer to report, but later on 2:3 or even 1:2 reporters to typesetters should suffice.

For the printer I don't think reporters need to be near the printer so I just keep them at the top floor to keep them out of the way, with typesetters on the bottom and the printer above them and assembly.

[Sharply Dressed Rabbit]

Any tips on the ratio of reporters to type setters/assemblers? For those that have made it very far in the game, how many reporters did you end up having and how were you able to make it so them and the typesetters were still close to the printer without being too many floors away?

[SugaKonQ]

- If you have a surplus of articles and in a time-crunch, remove any low-value items that don't contribute to the overall score of the paper BEFORE Saturday to ensure your most important articles can be completed on time.

- Security should be on the bottom-most floor on the far-sides of the building, this so they can immediately kick-out mafia and quickly remove protesters when necessary

- Manually place lawsuits on your lawyer(s)' desk so they don't have to fetch it themselves. Wasting time they should be spend on fighting the lawsuits


This is all I can think of right now, have fun!!!!

[SugaKonQ]

- Order paper before you launch current week's paper, this'll make the delivery arrive at the start of your week. Now you don't have to worry about running out of paper throughout and can just focus on reporting and compiling your next publication.

- You can keep the printer room in the dark, add a top row of vents and a bunch of plants on top of the printer to help cool the room, this'll save you on power. Only maintenance goes in it when it's broken. (Add acoustic panels in between the modules and you can add acoustic wallpaper once you unlock it).

- Add a water fountain and gumball machine to every floor to minimise the steps employees have to take. This is especially useful for telegraphers, typesetters, assemblers, and reporters. Whom all tend to drink/eat right after their tasks. (2/?)

[SugaKonQ]

I just played and absolutely love this game and despite it desperately needing some QoL changes. I hope it continues to become even better.

Here are some more tips:

- ALWAYS pause time when your day starts -> Choose what your telegraphers focus on based on the requirements of your quests and/or districts -> Remove any old news and/or news found in the world -> Choose ads based on what tags you will run that week -> and lastly, when you prepped everything, fast forward whilst the telegraph map is open. Once a lead pops-up you can let go and the game will pause itself. Fast-forward again when you did everything you can do. Do this till you got all the articles you need at the end of the week and repeat!

- Don't remove stairs when you want to add an elevator. Your employees will be queuing for DAYSSSS. I kept the elevator on the far-left of my building and only added it to floors that absolutely needed it. (1/?)

[albe_darned]

Great tips!

-The game pauses when you HAVE TO print. I've seen people lose out on some articles that would have benefited the print because they don't use all the time available.

[Butters83]

i found placing the bathroom close to the typesetters/assemblers helped since they become very busy and the telegraph/reporters have more downtime to make the walk. Great tips from you all, much appreciated.