Stacklands

Stacklands

Not enough ratings
2000 Automation + tips
By WWIE92
I had to play through the industrial revolution twice, as my silly mind thought the slums had something to do with the amount of happiness of the city (and lost it)... Where Desa_Lee_fire in my other guide correctly pointed to the solution.
In this guide some of the 2000's game aspects and useful layouts.
2
   
Award
Favorite
Favorited
Unfavorite
Spoilers ahead
This guide will cover several aspects that you will discover by getting the ideas from the boosterpacks, building the cards and processing the resources.
If you wish to discover them by playing, please do so; And don't read this guide, as it will contain spoilers!
First things first: Food
Make sure your workers have a place to spend the night: in some cozy Shacks.
Then they will need to eat.
In contrast to the mainland, food requirements only scale by the amount of buildings for workers (and military) you create, not by the amount of actual workers in your city.
Every accommodation requires 4 food value (FV).

The Precious Resources pack might contain Grain with a FV of 2.
You could also dig through trash to discover a box of Muesli (FV 4).
But spending money on all those packs isn't ideal as the chance of finding food is low and it is a lot easier to create a Farmland.

In the beginning of the run:
Make sure your first worker continuously occupies the Farmland. It takes 60 sec to harvest 1 Grain, so for your first shack this will be enough as you can harvest 2 Grains (total FV 4) per moon.
Next, if you saved up a little, you can create a Factory. Place a worker inside and power it up!
Outputting the Farmland straight into the Factory will produce Muesli, which will take 60 sec.
In this case your total FV per moon is doubled (2 Grains/moon --processed--> 2 Muesli/moon = 8 FV/moon).

Hurray! you can afford another Shack, and you can recruit 3 more workers.

I would advise to invest a little more in this, to never have to think of it again.

Create another Farmland, a Food Warehouse and a Water Pump (Water Deposit + Factory Parts)
The next 2 workers (so 4 in total) also should work in food production: 1 in another Farmland and 1 at the Water Pump.
Arrange it in a way that both Farmlands output towards the Factory as well as the Water Pump.
This will give you 2 Grains/60 sec and 2 Water/60 sec.
Grain + Water --Factory--> Bread 2000

The Bread 2000 only takes 30 sec to produce, has a FV of 4 and a value of 50 coins per card.
Your FV per moon is doubled again!
With a total production per moon: 4 Grain + 4 Water --processed--> 4 Bread 2000 = 16 FV
And as a bonus, any excess Bread 2000's you can sell

My setup:

I know you can harvest more quickly with the Hydroponic Farm, or get a Ready Meal with a FV of 8. But with the additional steps required, I found this setup a lot easier to use.
Money and Mood
Don't worry too much about money.
The total card value of most boosterpacks is usually similar to or higher than its cost.
Just make sure to empty the deposits before selling them.
Partly emptying a deposit and creating an unlimited extraction point also works.

Don't worry too much about wellbeing either.
The higher the wellbeing the more likely you will get attacked.
Get some military (and a radar) first, before gaining happiness.
Storage and redirecting
Gathering or creating Storage Containers is always helpfull.
Similar to the Mainland, you can automatically redirect cards into the Storage Container and take cards automatically out of it at a rate of 1 card/10 sec.

Unlike the Mainland, cards held by the Storage Container do not count towards your total amount of cards.
In case you are running out of space (card limit or playfield), place some money on the City Hall to extend both.

The pictures in this guide all contain Storage Containers as main output, but you can also leave them aside in the early game; as well as the Junctions and Filtered Junctions shown.
Keep the litter! (but not the trash)
With digging through trash and unpacking boosterpacks, you will encounter Plastic.
Store as much as you can, as some weatherpacks might contain Sunshine.
Sunshine + Plastic + Worker = Solar Panel, which outputs continuously 2 Low Voltage Connectors (LVC)
Any unsold or "unprocessed" Sunshine will result in +1 hapiness, but loss of an easy way to get energy.
Energy
There are several ways to get Low Voltage Connections (LVC) and High Voltage Connections (HVC).
They differ in the amount of allowed connections, the amount of workers necessary to get it up and running, the duration of the production and produced pollution.

Source
Requirements
Total workers
LVC
HVC
Duration
Pollution per cycle
Other
Wind Turbine
-
-
1
-
Continuously
-
Create: Wind + Factory Parts, or get from Black Gold Boosterpack
Solar Panel
-
-
2
-
Continuously
-
Create: Sunshine + Plastic
Hamster Wheel
-
1
1
-
When occupied
-
Water Wheel
Water
1
3
-
30 sec
-
Water Pump or Water Treatment Plant can be used as Water source
Burner Generator
Lumber (Tree Plantation)
1
5
-
60 sec
2
Oil Power Plant
Oil (Oil Rig)
2
-
3
30 sec
2
1 LVC required to power the Oil Rig.
Nuclear Power Plant
Uranium (Uranium Mine)
5
-
5
30 sec
4
1 LVC required to power the mine. Uranium Mine also produces Gravel

Below are all energy sources except nuclear.

.
Nuclear
Nuclear Power is a little more complex to deal with.
Basically, get it up and running as soon as possible, as it will provide a lot more flexibility with the connections.

In my first run I made the mistake of going all nuclear, where you'll have to deal with a lot gravel and a lot of pollution. More on that later.

In the second run I only used 1 set of 3 Nuclear Power Plants in this configuration.

Set it up as follows:
1 Uranium Mine --Gravel Junction--> Gravel output (top) goes to a Storage Container elsewhere.
Uranium output (bottom) --Junction--> Nuclear Power Plant.
The Water Wheel, powering up the Mines, is receives its Water from a Water Treatment Plant.

It is easily scalable.
Need for more power? Hook on another Uranium Mine to the Gravel Junction, and another Nuclear Power Plant to the regular Junction. The game will sort itself out. Just don't change it <30 sec before moon-end on Robot Stations as loss of power = no shelter = not good for the wellbeing.

But before expanding Nuclear Power, make sure to also have a sufficient amount of buildings to deal with the pollution.



Where did all my workers go?
I dunno.
Better get some more.

As meantioned earlier, get the shacks, get some more shack, and (if your food allowes it) even more.
    Shack
  • Benefits: Easy to build.
  • Drawback: Can hold only 3 Workers and uses 4 FV per moon.
Stacking 3 of those will create the Slums (which I couldn't find in my first run).
    Slums
  • Benefits: only costing 4 FV/moon for a max of 9 Workers, no need for power or sewage.
  • Drawback: losing 1 wellbeing at the end of every moon when it still in your city.
Counter the loss with +1 wellbeing every moon, or upgrade your Workers to an Apartment.
    Apartment
  • Benefits: Can hold up to 5 Workers, and requires 4 FV.
  • Drawback: needs 1 LVC + 1 Sewage connection.
Or upgrade to a better accomodation
    Luxury Apartment
  • Benefits: Can hold up to 8 Workers, requires the same food, sewage and power as an apartment.
  • Drawback: ..? Still worse than the Robot Station maybe?
As mentioned, it doesn't require more input/output than an apartment. So it's kind of a no-brainer when gathering 2 Copper Bars.
Maybe the one drawback is that it still requires food and sewage, and gives up to 8 Workers their shelter for the night. The Robot Station can hold up to 10 Robot Workers per Station, does not require food nor sewage.
    Robot Station
  • Benefits: Up to 10 Robot Workers per station, no food nor sewage required.
  • Drawback: Needs 1 HVC per station.
You'd still have to build the robots though
Expecting you to have the Iron Bars and Metal Scraps in Storage Containers, the setup below is an easy way to automatically build the Robot Workers for you.
Make sure to keep an eye on the free spaces in the Robot Station(s) (marked above each station when not fully occupied).

Thoughts on housing
In my opinion, it's necessary to have at least one Luxury Apartment. Your military staff (more on that later) also needs shelter.
Only the Robots and Robot Soldiers use the Robot Stations, all the rest - including pets and aliens - occupy a place in the shack/apartment.
The Workers can be sent to the academy to convert them into Educated Workers.
Those are required for some tasks, but they in general work 33% faster than regular Workers. So it is handy to get all of the regular Workers educated.
Robots cannot be converted into "Educated Robots", however, you can create a Robot Genius.
A Genius (Worker and Robot) works twice as fast as a regular Worker, or 50 % faster than Educated Workers; however, you can create only 1 of each.

Pollution and Sewage
The Industrial Smelters, Uranium Mines, Burner Generators and the Oil and Nuclear Power Plants produce pollution.
In the early game you could get away with a little bit of pollution in your city. But when it adds up to 10 or more, it will have a negative effect on the wellbeing.

A Landfill will get the job done, taking care of a maximum of 5 pollution every 60 sec.
A Recycling Center is 4 times faster, taking care of a maximum of 10 pollution every 30 sec.
The Recycling Center has an added bonus of producing Metal Scraps when successfully clearing pollution.
However, you will need 1 HVC and 2 workers to operate the center.
Buildings can continue to store pollution in any Landfill or Recycling Center, even when the progress bar is running.
The game usually choses to put the pollution in the one which holds the least.
Any Landfill or Recycling Center that holds more than 10 pollution at the end of the moon, will result in loss of wellbeing.

Both the Landfill and the Recycling Center, as well as other buildings, need sewage. Any loose connections result in creating Poop in the city, which will cost you 1 wellbeing per card.

Output all of those in either:
A Septic Tank, which can hold up to 3 sewage connections
Or a Water Treatment Plant, which can hold up to 5 sewage connections.
The Water Treatment Plant has an added bonus of producing Water every 30 sec when all connections are occupied, but 1 worker needs to operate the plant.

During the mid game, it might be beneficial to get such an arrangement:
A Nuclear Power Plant, or Oil Power Plant is advised for the required power. This will produce +/- 5 Metal Scraps every 30 sec. Those are in the picture redirected towards the other side of town.

In the first run, I went all in on Recycling Centers, resulting in an overload of Metal Scraps and a huge requirement for both power and workers. The second run, I only had the above picture up for a few moons, when switching towards an all Landfill + Water Treatment Plant setup as shown left.

Maybe overkill, but gets the job done. And, all the Water Treatment Plants have the sewage connections occupied, resulting in the production of Water that powers all the Water Wheels elsewhere.

Bonus tip regarding the spread of pollution
As mentioned before, some energy sources produce pollution every cycle of 30 to 60 sec. When the progress bar is about to reset, the game will check which Landfill or Recycling Center has the least amount of pollution in it, and will automatically direct its pollution to that card.
However, if multiple polluters finish the cycle on the exact same moment, it can (and will) result in dumping the pollution all in 1 building, not spreading it over multiple.
E.g. A situation where this may occur is setting up a new power- or production-line on "pause-mode".

My advice would be to offset any group of main polluters by at least 2 sec, to give the game some time to reconsider the dumping location.
Heavy Metal
The basics:
  • Every mine requires 1 Worker and 1 LVC to operate.
    It takes an Iron or Copper Mine 60 sec to mine 1 ore.
  • An Industrial Smelter needs 2 Workers and 2 LVC's.
    It takes the Industrial Smelter 30 sec to smelt 1 ore, and produces 2 pollution when succesfully smelting 1 ore.

Iron
This is probably the first metal you want to automate.
Below is my mid game setup.

This setup generates 4 Iron Ore every cycle of 60 sec --Smelting--> into 2 Iron Bars every cycle of 30 sec.
I redirected the output of the Smelters into a junction, mainly pointing towards the Iron Bar Container. But you could output it as well to the factory, creating 3 Metal Scraps from every Iron Bar in 10 sec.
In the picture above, the smelters output to the junction, which redirects the Iron Bar's into the Storage Containers. The Metal Scraps I receive from another source (see production).

Copper
This isn't as useful in the beginning, but it couldn't hurt to already setup and run a Copper Mine and a Smelter.
Stacking up some Copper Bar's will kickstart the growth of your city later on, as the Factory needs 2 Copper Bars to produce every 1 Electric Motor's every cycle of 20 sec.
Don't takeout Copper Bar's manually from the Storage Container, drag the output from storage to the input of the Factory, so you can focus on other tasks.

I only hooked up 3 Copper Mines in this example, as Boosterpacks grant you with some ores from time to time. You can place them on the bottom smelter, without the risk of buildup.
Also, 3 Mines produce 3 Copper Ore every 60 sec --Smelting--> giving in total 3 Copper Ore every 60 sec.
The junction outputs 2 into the Factory (creating 1 Electric Motor) and 1 into the Copper Storage.
This means that this setup will evenly generate 1 Copper bar and 1 Electric Motor every 60 sec.
Is the balance off? You can easily restore it by rebalancing the in/outputs.
Cement & Factory Parts
With metals out of the way, you might want to automate some more!
Let's create Cement and Factory Parts:
    Requirements:
  • Metal Scraps - from the Iron Mine/Smelter/Factory-setup, Boosterpacks and/or Recylcing Centers.
  • Gravel - from the Gravel Pit, Boosterpacks and/or Uranium Mines.
  • Water - from the Water Pump, Rain and/or Water Treatment Plant.
Gravel is used for both products, so this will be our leading resource.
You could start saving up gravel from a Gravel Pit and Boosterpacks. An array of 6 Gravel Pits will produce 6 Gravel per 60 sec, so 1 per 10 sec.
Any Uranium Mine quickly render the Gravel pits useless, as it produces 2x as much Gravel (1 per 30 sec compared to 1 per 60 sec).

The Gravel needs to be evenly distributed to both the production of Cement and Factory Parts. You could arrange it in any way that suits you.
My optimal setup was:
  • Output all Gravel production to a Storage Container
  • Output the Gravel Storage (1 per 10 sec) to a junction
  • Output 1 Junction connection to a Factory for Cement
  • Output 2 Junction connections to 2 Factories for Factory Parts
Anytime an ingredient or product was abundant, you could redirect some outputs elsewhere.
Below are some examples.

Iron production
  • Red RC: Junction input, coming from the Recycling Center output (collecting Metal Scraps)
  • Red dashed line: When there are too much Metal Scraps in the Storage Container, hook it up to redistribute the ingredient.
  • Blue dashed line: Smelter output (Iron Bars) to the Factory to create Metal Scraps.
  • Green star: this connection is altered in future images.
Iron production (better readability)
  • Red RC: Junction input, coming from the Recycling Center output (collecting Metal Scraps) not connected here.
  • Red dashed line: When there are too much Metal Scraps in the Storage Container, hook it up to redistribute the ingredient. Result: 2 out of 3 to other output (2x/30 sec), 1 out of 3 back in the Storage Container (1x/30 sec).
  • Blue dashed line: Smelter output (Iron Bars) to the Factory to create Metal Scraps.
  • Green star: outputs to a Junction now, before directing into the Storage Container.
Cement + Factory Parts
  • Red RC: Same as above.
  • Red dashed line: Same as before, redirect excess Metal Scraps.
  • Green star: Same as above.
  • Green UM: Gravel Junction from the Uranium Mines (see Energy), Gravel outputs from Gravel Pits will have the same effect. The Gravel Container outputs 1 Gravel every 10 sec into the Junction. This will redistribute the Gravel evenly over its connections.
  • Purple dashed lines: Redirects the Gravel back to the Storage Container. Connected as shown will result in 1 Gravel/30 sec to produce Cement, and 2/30 sec back to the Container.
  • Yellow dashed lines: Redirects the Gravel to the Factories to produces Factory Parts.
  • Any combination of Yellow/Purple dashed lines will do, or even disconnect the Cement production-connection to a Yellow of Purple dashed line. As long as you have the 3 outputs from the Junction occupied, the Storage Container output-ratio is dealt with.
  • A third output of the Metal Scraps Junction is pointing to a Factory lacking power and Workers. This is to balance the other 2 Factories that produce Factory Parts (you could redirect to the Container of course). I use it to gather some Metal Scraps, which you can use to produce back into Iron Bars when placing a worker on top of 3 Metal Scraps, rebalancing it that way.


Stack 'm
It is not Stacklands if you don't stack the cards.
A lot of cards aren't meant to be stacked, but some you can.
The Mines for example.
Make sure workers occupy the mine, disconnect the power, stack the cards and reconnect.
They output the usual amount of expected resources.
The output is manageable by connecting/disconnecting the power.

























It works the same way for other Mines, Oil Rigs and Labs
Oil Rigs and Labs
After dealing with the metals, these 2 should be really straight forward.
Oil
Similar to the Copper production.
Connect 3 Oil Rigs to the same Junction.
Output 2 into a Factory and 1 into the Oil Storage Container, for a balanced buildup of Oil and Plastic.
Excess of Oil? Connect the output of the Oil Container to the Junction (if possible) or the Factory.
Science
The Labs can be setup and run as soon as possible. One will do if you have several moons of time to wait: 1 Lab will create 1 Science in 60 sec, and requires 1 HVC.
Create more if you have the power and workers to set it up.
City defenses
When gaining wellbeing, you will increase the chance your city can be attacked by Goblins.
A rader will predict these attacks 3 moons ahead.

Below an overview of all the military (sorted on combat level).

Military
Combat Level
Worth
Health
Attack Speed
Hit Chance
Damage
Defence
Requirements
Sniper
15
10
12
2.3 sec
77%
3
2
30 sec: Barracks + Iron Bar + Soldier
Soldier
16
20
15
2.3 sec
68%
2
3
20 sec: Barracks + Worker
Robot Soldier
16
10
15
2.3 sec
68%
2
3
20 sec: Barracks + Robot Worker
Spy
20
10
20
2.3 sec
68%
3
3
From Boosterpack Impressive Industry
Tank
27
10
30
2.3 sec
59%
3
4
150 sec: Barracks + 3 Iron Bar
War Ship
35
10
40
2.9 sec
77%
5
4
100 sec: Baracks + 2 Iron Bar + 2 Electric Motor
Fighter Jet
46
10
60
1.7 sec
68%
4
4
240 sec: Barracks + 2 Electric Motor + 2 Plastic
Attack Helicopter
52
10
70
1.7 sec
77%
4
4
240 sec: Barracks + 3 Electric Motor + 3 Plastic

When having enough resources, stack up some Attack Helicopters as they will deal the most damage as quickly as possible. One Luxury Apartment full with Attack Helicopters (8 in total) will be enough for all the waves of Goblins, and will take on the Dinosaur with ease.
Euphoric!
When preparing for the endgame, you can create a nice town square for yourself.
With production all around it (in the outskirts) and sewage to be dealt with, the aparments can sit in a cozy center with all the necessary facilities right around the corner.
The Nuclear Power Plant is walled out with some green solutions, the only thing left to move closer, is the radar for detecting nearby harm, and the military department to defend the ciry.

And in the end, your Workers will be truely Euphoric


Thank you for reading.
Please leave your comments, questions and suggestions!
3 Comments
Sand Of Terror 25 Apr @ 6:20am 
thanks but i still need to get blue prints
Varkath 28 Feb @ 9:53pm 
Unless Dev rebalances, no reason to spec up base level farms at all. Didn't number crunch for Hydroponic Farms.
Farm = 1 Worker for 2 FV/60 sec
Farm/Factory Combo = 2 Workers for 4 FV/60 Sec + Factory Power Cost.
Farm/Factory/Water Combo = 5 Workers for 8 FV/60 Sec + Factory Power Cost.
4 Farms = 4 Workers for 8 FV/60 Sec

Logistics wise Base Farms are also simpler as Food Storage Has 3 inputs and 3 base Farms Feed 3 Housing that also conveniently stack on themselves up to 3. (on 120 Sec Moons)
Salmanrush 1 Dec, 2024 @ 5:23pm 
How do you build labs?