Workers and Resources: Soviet Republic is one of the most in-depth city builders with a complete economy and industrial setup. Your job is to create the perfect city with loyal citizens, independent production, and capabilities.
The backbone of every city is industry. If your city lacks industry, then you would not be able to produce income and will be running at an overall financial shortfall. To help you create a strong industrial revolution, here's a complete guide to building and managing factories in Workers and Resources.
How Factories Work
There are various industries and factories that you can build. But in order to create a fully functioning and independent city, you need to build every industrial setup. Starting from basic wood and board production to even end-game resources like aluminum and nuclear energy.
The fundamental factory setups that are essential for every city include:
- Oil Production
- Iron Production
- Food Production
- Gravel Production
- Wood Production
You can create more complex factories and production lines like fabrics, clothes, and metallurgy from the above fundamental setups by adding auxiliary buildings .
Oil Factory Setup
Oil production is one of the essential fundamental setups for Workers and Resources. Generating oil allows you to exportit to other cities via train or use it to fuel your city's buildings and cars.
Before setting up an oil factory, you need to locate oil on the map. If research is enabled in the game settings, you must first research the Faculty of Geology and the Geological Map from the Technical University. Upon completing this research, oil resources will be displayed on the minimap.
- Open the minimap and select the "View resources: oil" icon.
- Oil sources will appear as red areas.
- Click on a red area on the minimap to move the screen to that point.
The quality of the oil source is displayed as a percentage when hovering over the location with the pumpjack cursor. The higher the percentage, the more efficient the oil extraction.
Once you decide on the oil source, you can place the Pumpjack. Open the building menu and select Industry → Fossil Fuels → Pumpjack.
The area around the Pumpjack will display colored dots (red, orange, green) indicating the oil presence. Green indicates a plentiful supply, orange a medium supply, and red indicates no oil. Overlapping pumpjacks reduces efficiency, so space them appropriately.
You can convert crude oil into useful products like fuel and bitumen. You can create an auxiliary 'Refinery' building for your set-up and load the oil to that refinery. The products from the refinery can be used for trade or create more products for your city.
Iron Factory Setup
Iron is another fundamental resource. It is essential for the industrial and economic development of your republic. Similar to oil production, you need to find a suitable iron deposit before setting up an iron factory.
Once you find the ideal spot, open the building menu and select Industry → Mining → Iron Mine.
When you start the construction, dots will appear around the iron mine. These dots indicate the presence of iron deposits. Red dots mean no deposit, while yellow means moderate and green means large deposit. Try to build it on a green dot.
The mine generates iron ore that can be processed into useful iron by building an auxiliary 'Iron Ore Processing Plant' near the iron mine. You can connect them by using conveyor belts to create an automated setup.
The processed iron can be used within your republic for construction and manufacturing or exported to generate income.
Food Factory Setup
Food is by far the most vital resource for your city, essential for maintaining the happiness and health of your citizens. To start producing food, you need to build a food factory and create a steady supply of crops from fields.
You don't need an ideal spot to start producing food. Just open the building menu and select Industry → Food → Food Factory.
You should either build food factories to crop fields and storage facilities to minimize transportation time, or first build the factory and then set up fields and silos nearby.
Unlike other factories, once you produce food, it cannot be processed into any other resource but can be sold as an export. On the other hand, you can use crops prior to being turned into food as raw material for clothes and fabric production.
Gravel Factory Setup
Gravel is a basic construction resource and is a must-have for building infrastructure and supporting other industries. Even though you can cheaply import goods, the cost keeps increasing the bigger your city gets.
To start producing gravel, you first need a 'Stone Quarry' and then a 'Gravel Processing Plant' connected to the quarry. You can select Industry → Mining → Gravel Processing Plant to get started.
Processed gravel needs to be stored before it can be used or transported. You can store it in both small and large aggregate storage buildings.
While exporting gravel is not very profitable due to its low trading value, it is essential for creating your independent city's infrastructure.
Wood Factory Setup
Wood is one of the first and most versatile resources you'll produce for your city. It is essential for creating boards, which are a must for almost every building construction. The first step in starting an automated wood factory setup is gathering wood from trees using a 'Woodcutting Post.'
When placing a woodcutting post, trees that can be harvested will be highlighted in green. Try to place the Woodcutting Post in a forested area to maximize wood production.
Wood can be processed into boards at sawmills or used as a component in chemical production at chemical plants. You can connect your Woodcutting Post to a Warehouse to store the wood, and then the Warehouse to any of the auxiliary buildings to start a production chain.
How Factory Connections Work
Factory connections are essential for industries and allow resources to flow between storage or warehouse buildings and factories. However, not all buildings can connect this way. There are two kinds of buildings: Passive Buildings and Active Buildings.
- Passive Buildings: These buildings, such as warehouses, cannot push or pull resources on their own. They require conveyors, forklifts, or factory connections to move resources.
- Active Buildings: These buildings, like factories and cargo stations, can actively push or pull resources when connected to passive buildings.
Factory connections are bi-directional, meaning resources can flow in both directions between connected buildings. This flow direction can be adjusted to one-way if needed.
There are various kinds of factory setups which you should be aware of, to ensure you don't make mistakes when making an automated factory production system.
Non-Working Setup
Factory A →Storage A → Storage B → Factory B
In this setup, Factory A can push resources to Storage A, but Storage A cannot push resources to Storage B. Therefore, Factory B cannot pull resources from an empty Storage B. Try to avoid this or connect storage with forklifts.
Working Setup
Factory A → Storage A → Factory B
Factory A pushes resources to Storage A, and Factory B can pull resources from Storage A. This is how most production setups should be.
Cargo Station Setup
Factory A → Cargo Station → Factory B → Factory C
Vehicles at the cargo station can load and unload resources from and to Factory A and Factory B, but not Factory C. You need to intervene between Factory B and C with forklift or factory connection to resume production.
