Developer Blog Post - Settlement Branches and Building Placement

- "I wouldn't have imagined seeing a settlement like this just a few miles from here. And you're supplying yourself with just wells in that swamp? It's amazing to see how we all develop our very own strategies to survive out here." -

Research

Endzone 2 allows you to claim, create, and manage multiple settlements. Settlements or Zones can only be built on plateaus. Each settlement has a certain progression for each specialization or "Settlement Branch" that essentially provides feedback about which buildings of which category are most prominent there. While this can naturally vary, the more you progress in the game, the more specialized certain zones may become. Some advanced buildings are only available after at least one zone reaches a certain progression level for the relevant branch. Each building is always categorized in one of the available Settlement Branches and provides progression points, once built.
To make things clearer, here is a breakdown. Here are the 3 different settlement branches:

Disclaimer: The graphics showing the UI are in German, as this is our mother language. We naturally prioritize creating localization for German first, as we can add new text on the fly and ensure that everything new is localized correctly. This is needed for testing purposes.

When you reach a value of 10, you unlock your first available research. In this example, that would be Advanced Housing. These buildings allow for a higher settler capacity and also provide a buff to nearby buildings of the economy type. At a value of 15, the Upgraded Material Storage can be researched and so forth. You can observe how advancing in multiple branches at a time is possible.

Every building is assigned into one of these three categories. However, it's crucial to note that each progression only allows for researching the new buildings but doesn't unlock them automatically.

In addition to resource costs, some technologies require Knowledge points, which can be obtained through expeditions. These points cannot be generated by a building but need to be manually collected. To do so, you will need to send your explorers to an expedition and progress until you reach a certain threshold.

It's important to plan ahead for your settlements, both in terms of space to build on the zone and the availability of certain resources and ground types to determine, which buildings need to be prioritized in research. Some zones are better suited to ecological use, while others profit from economic specialization.

Building Placement

The simplest way to boost production of a branch is to place the correct housing type near a production building of said type. In addition, it is helpful to place the right type of housing near certain production buildings to avoid any negative effects. In this example, you can see how the housing below the selected coal maker is marked in red. Since the housing is of the ecological type and the coal maker creates a lot of filth in its production, the inhabitants are unhappy.

Production chains are not only important on paper. This means that in order to maximize your production efficiency you need to plan where to construct your buildings. This is important in relation to the resources it needs, as well as which resources it is providing. Further below, you can see how the Tool Maker has the Scrapyard, which produces scrap, and the Woodcutter, which produces wood, both in the direct vicinity of itself. This is beneficial because it requires both resources to craft tools. It is also connected to a storage, in this case, the Town Center, and a Road that connects both with each other. This, along with housing of the economy type in proximity, provides the maximum production value this building can possibly have.

Here are 2 more examples of complex production chains in Endzone 2. It's important to note, that buildings can only provide a boost to a higher graded building in the chain. This means, that a Wood Cutter does boost a Coal Maker, if they are in proximity, but not the other way round.

Production Chain of Coal Mask and Production Chain of Lead

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