Industries of Titan Early Access Gameplay Tips

Contents

  1. Power and Xethane
  2. Employees
  3. Citizens
  4. Resources: Salvaging and Processing
  5. Devices and Buildings
  6. Ships
  7. Win Condition
  8. Photo Mode
  9. Additional Tips

POWER AND XETHANE

WHY DO I KEEP RUNNING OUT OF XETHANE? I HAVE PLENTY OF FABRICATORS AND EVEN A TURBINE, SO IT SEEMS LIKE I SHOULD HAVE ENOUGH!

Xethane is an infinite resource on Titan, it’s true, but it does take time to replenish. You may have noticed in the overlay bar at the bottom left corner of the HUD that there is a Xethane overlay. This is useful for finding pockets of Xethane and for identifying areas of your city where there is a lack of Xethane.

In general, it’s a good strategy to build your Fuel Fabricators and Turbines near Crevices, Cracks, or Sinkholes, since that’s where Xethane is generated. You can even use Industrial Fans to push Xethane towards your Fabricators and Turbines.

Your fuel-producing devices and buildings will display a flag indicating low Xethane levels if their output is low – those are a good sign that it’s time to dismantle your current layout and try to find a better location with more Xethane.

Also note: Air Purifiers will remove Pollution from the air, but they will also remove Xethane! Try to keep your Air Purifiers away from your Fuel Fabricators and Turbines.

WHY IS MY POWER CYCLING ON AND OFF?

This means you are overdrawing your Power or Fuel. Once you enter an overdrawn state and have used up your Power or Fuel reserves, your Buildings and Devices will shut down. When your Buildings and Devices have shut down, your Reserves (stored in Batteries & Fuel Tanks) will begin to recharge. Once they have enough Power or Fuel, the reserves are then tapped to power your Buildings and Devices once more, until the reserves are drained and empty. This loops forever. You must build more Power Generators and/or Fuel Fabricators to end this cycle!

As a stopgap measure, you can Disable some non-critical Devices or Buildings to reduce the amount of Power and Fuel that you are consuming. This will afford you the time to build out more Power of Fuel generation capacity.

EMPLOYEES

WHY ARE MY EMPLOYEES NOT DOING WHAT I TOLD THEM TO DO?

At times, it may appear as though your Employees are not working on the tasks you’ve defined. This can be for a number of reasons:

1. The task that you want your Employees to work on may not be at the top of your priority list. Most tasks have a “Prioritize” button on them that you can use to immediately make that single task the #1 priority for your Employees. Alternatively, you can change your Employees’ priorities in general. See “How do I get my Employees to do something specific” further below.

2. You may have assigned ALL of your employees to Full Time Jobs or to Dedicated jobs. Please ensure that you always have some workers in the “Temp job” category, and that you haven’t Dedicated all of the Temp Job Employees to specific roles. (See “How do Dedicated Employees work?”, below.)

3. It is possible that they are working on the job, but slowly. If you attempt to construct a building using only Tier 1 Resources and the building is far from your Storage Containers, your workers will have to walk a long way to carry each resource to the construction site. Consider using Trucks (via a Transport Hub), using higher tier resources (to reduce the number of individual resources that must be transported), or constructing buildings closer to your Storage Containers.

HOW DO DEDICATED EMPLOYEES WORK?

You can dedicate Employees to certain Job Categories in the Employee Management tab (button located in the top left corner of the HUD). Dedicated Employees will only complete tasks in whichever category they are dedicated; for example, perhaps you don’t want to make Waste Cleanup your highest priority, but you do want someone to stay on top of it. If you Dedicate an Employee to the Cleanup Waste category, you’ll always have someone cleaning up waste for you.

Just be aware – if a Dedicated Employee has no tasks in their category, they will go idle. If your city slows to a crawl you may want to double check that your Employees aren’t dedicated to categories with no tasks.

HOW DO I GET MY EMPLOYEES TO DO SOMETHING SPECIFIC LIKE CLEAN UP WASTE OR DISMANTLE A DEVICE FASTER? THEY KEEP DOING OTHER TASKS.

You may have opened your Employee Management tab already, but did you know you can drag and drop Job Categories to change their priority? Give it a try! Employees will always complete jobs from the top of the list downwards, and they’ll reorganize themselves automatically if you make a change. You can even make your own custom folders and name them different things if you prefer!

I’VE USED THE JOB CATEGORY LIST TO MAKE WASTE CLEANUP THE HIGHEST PRIORITY, BUT MY EMPLOYEES ARE STILL IGNORING MY WASTE-FILLED RESIDENTIAL BUILDING OR CONVERSION CENTER!

Waste clean up tasks and resource storage tasks currently work on a first in, first out basis – this means that if your Residential Building just filled up with waste, Employees will have to deal with older waste clean up tasks before they get to the newer tasks at your Residential Building.

Improving this is one of the most highly-requested Quality of Life features and it’s high on our list of features to add to the game.

HELP! MY EMPLOYEES WON’T BUILD A BUILDING/DEVICE THAT I REALLY NEED. I HAVE ENOUGH RESOURCES, BUT THEY JUST WON’T BRING THEM. WHAT’S GOING ON?

You may want to check the storage that those resources are located in. There’s a chance that you’ve turned off the filter in storage for that resource, but your Employees have not yet moved them to a different storage.

In this situation, your construction is actually blocked – the resources you need to finish your construction are waiting to be moved to a different container, and they need to be moved before they can then be moved to the construction. The fastest way out of this situation is to change your filters again so that Isotopes are again allowed in the storage they’re currently located in. This will cancel the ‘move’ job that they’re reserved for and open them up for the ‘construction’ job instead.

CITIZENS

I HAVE AN OFFICE BUILDING BUT MY CITIZENS WON’T WORK THERE. WHY?

Offices and Monetization Stations have a Job Desirability stat that is impacted by a variety of factors such as nearby pollution, proximity to living space, and more. Additionally, there is a maximum distance that a Citizen will travel for a job. If you place your workplaces too far from living spaces, those workplaces may not be used.

It is also possible to get into a situation where Citizens living in Residential Building A may take all of the jobs at Office Building X, leaving the Citizens in Residential Building B with no workplaces within range. This can occur even if the Citizens of Residential Building A have a different Office Building Y within their range, but because X is more desirable than Y, they choose to fill up X before Y. This can result in residents of B being deprived of jobs at X, despite vacant workspace existing at Y (which is out of range of B). We are aware that this can be hard to understand, and we hope to address this issue in the future.

RESOURCES: SALVAGING AND PROCESSING

I’VE SALVAGED A RUIN BUT I STILL CAN’T BUILD ANYTHING! WHY NOT?

All resources that are salvaged from Ruins need to be stored in a Storage Container or Storage Facility before they can be used. If you find that your Employees are idle, try creating more storage so that you can access the resources you just salvaged. You may also wish to increase the priority of the “Move Resources” category in your Employee Management tab to ensure that your Employees will pick up those resources and store them instead of doing other tasks.

HOW DOES PROCESSING WORK? WHY SHOULD I USE IT?

Processors – and their connected modules – take in raw Minerals and Isotopes, and refine them into exponentially more valuable resources for construction.

For example, this Residential Building costs 200 Construction Units. That’s 200 unrefined, raw Minerals. If we refine these Minerals to Tier 2, you would only require 40 of those tier 2 Minerals.

That’s 5 times the construction value! Repeat this process again for Tier 3 Minerals which are worth 25 times the construction units. It’s like turning coal into diamonds!

Here’s a quick instructional video!

DEVICES AND BUILDINGS

WHAT’S THE POINT OF DEVICES VS. BUILDINGS THAT SERVE THE SAME PURPOSE? SOMETIMES ONE FEELS MORE VALUABLE THAN THE OTHER.

For buildings and devices that serve a similar purpose, such as Residential Buildings and Habitat Pods, the difference will become clearer as we add more gameplay systems with future updates. Buildings will have “attributes” which relate to different gameplay systems. For example, Residential Buildings currently provide “Pollution Resistance”, which is useful because we have already enabled the Pollution system in the gameplay. But there are major gameplay systems missing (see our Roadmap), so not all the Building benefits are clear yet!

WHAT’S THE PURPOSE OF FACTORIES IF I CAN BUILD BETTER VERSIONS OF THE DEVICES AS BUILDINGS?

There are pros and cons. Devices are often cheaper than their Building-sized counterparts, though some Buildings have unique benefits such as the “Pollution Resistance” of Residential Buildings that protects Citizens from the negative effects of Pollution. Additionally, some Devices, such as Processors, do not have a Building-sized counterpart at all! We have more interesting tradeoffs such as these planned for the future as we add more gameplay systems to Industries of Titan. Stay tuned!

WHY WOULD I BUILD A LARGE STORAGE CONTAINER WHEN NINE SMALL ONES CAN HOLD MORE?

Yes, nine small Storage Containers can contain more resources in total than one large Storage Container, however, a large Storage Container has a lower Mineral cost than nine small Storage Containers! The choice is yours. Do you currently place a higher value on floor space or on Minerals?

HOW DO I USE MINES?

Mines can connect remotely to Mineral and Isotope Patches as well as to larger “Nodes”. Nodes are round holes which expose vast pockets of Mineral or Isotope resources underground. They are not the same as Mineral and Isotope Patches, which contain visible crystals and can either be harvested by hand by Employees, or via Mines. Note that Mines have a distance at which they can mine nearby patches/nodes, and this distance can be increased by upgrading the Mine. You can switch the Mine’s target at any time.

WHAT’S THE POINT OF CREDITS AFTER I’VE UNLOCKED EVERYTHING?

Credits are also needed to pay your Employees. Your Employees will continue to work for you even if you fail to pay them, but you will not be able to Convert more Employees until you’ve successfully paid all of them. We also have other future plans for making Credits more relevant!

SHIPS

I DON’T UNDERSTAND HOW SHIPBUILDING WORKS!

Once you build a shipyard, you’ll need to select a ship hull. There are 3 levels of ships, and each hull will cost more depending on various factors such as floor space and Hull Strength. After selecting and building the ship hull, the next step is to construct the necessary Devices inside.

Ships operate on their own individual grids. This means that you will need enough Fuel Fabricators and Energy Generators to maintain the other Devices you place on your ship, as well as Relays to reach those Devices. To launch your ship, you will need the following Devices:

  • At least one Engine, though your ship will move faster with more engines.
  • Crew Pods to assign Employees to your ship.
  • Life Support to keep your crew alive.

Your ship could just launch like this, but then there’s not much point to having a ship aside from exploring. You’ll want to build some other Devices to beef it up.

  • Lasers (S, M, L). The size of your ship determines how many lasers you fit. You’ll need one employee to operate each laser.
  • Medical Pods. If your employees are injured in battle, they can heal themselves in a Medical Pod.
  • Light Shields. These protect nearby devices from damage.

The number of Employees/Crew Pods necessary depends on how many devices need someone to operate them. Keep in mind that certain devices need a clear pathway for employees to access and operate them. If you want employees to repair damaged Devices, they will also need a pathway to that Device.

MY SHIP HAS AN ICON ON IT THAT SAYS THERE ARE SOME DEVICES THAT AREN’T BEING USED! WHAT AM I DOING WRONG?

When building a ship, it’s important to leave pathways for your Crew to access entrances to things like their Crew Pods, Shields, Med Bays and Laser Guns. If the Crew can’t walk to the Device in question, they won’t be able to operate or use it!

The same goes for repairing – if it’s not able to be reached by a Crew member, they can’t repair it either. You can repair your Ship Hull and any inaccessible Devices inside the Shipyard.

HOW DO I TARGET REBEL SHIPS AND TURRETS?

To target a Rebel Ship or Turret with your own Ship, you need to first select your ship and then right click on the target you’re trying to attack.

WIN CONDITION

HOW DO I WIN?

We have more victory conditions planned for future updates, but for now you can claim victory by defeating all of the rebel HQs spread around the map. This can be done either by destroying the rebel HQs with your ships, or by Claiming the HQ tiles and dismantling them.

PHOTO MODE

WHERE CAN I FIND THE SCREENSHOTS I TAKE WITH PHOTO MODE?

You can find them by typing this into your Windows search bar: %localappdata%\Titan\Saved\Screenshots

ADDITIONAL TIPS

HELP! I WALKED AWAY FROM MY COMPUTER TO GET A DRINK AND I CAME BACK TO A BLACK SCREEN. WHAT SHOULD I DO?

Have no fear! Your cursor was likely bumped and touched the edge of the screen, causing your camera to pan away from your HQ. There are a couple ways to fix this:

  • Try clicking on your minimap to re-center your camera
  • Press the Home key on your keyboard to re-center the camera

MISCELLANEOUS TIPS!

When you find a patch of Minerals or Isotopes on the surface of Titan, you can claim it and assign an Employee to it to mine it by hand. You do not need a Mine building for this! Though if you have a Mine building, resource extraction will indeed be more efficient than having your Employees mine by hand.

All of your Devices need only one unobstructed access point, except for Habitat Pods. Since Habitat Pods have two distinct halves, each half needs an unobstructed access point.

Inside your HQ building and your Factories you’ll see a ring of darker blue floor tiles around the edge that your Employees can walk on. You cannot build on these tiles, but they can be used as access points for your Devices.

You can build and dismantle a Device even if your Employees cannot find a path that allows them to stand next to the Device in question. They will simply build it or dismantle it from a distance. Similarly, your Employees can store and access resources stored in a Storage Container even if they cannot find a path that allows them to stand next to the Storage Container in question. (However, we may change this in the future and require that all Devices be pathable!)

You can build exclusively using a single tier of Resources by turning off Auto-Currency mode at the bottom of the HUD (just under your Build Menu in City View). Once turned off, any constructions you place will always used the selected tier, which can be changed by clicking on your minerals or isotopes in the HUD (top right). You can also cycle through tiers by using Tab (to cycle through minerals) or Shift +Tab (to cycle through isotopes) without having to click anything!