Production

To speed up production, you can call out "All Hands on Deck" in a building. It will then produce more output at a cost of higher workforce requirement. For processing buildings, this also increases the amount of needed input resources. It is an easy way of temporarily cranking up your production, but having more buildings is more efficient in the long run.

When "All Hands on Deck" is called on Warehouses and resource distributing buildings like the Galley, their Fetchers will run more often and thus may fill their storage faster. Be aware that this may lead to very high Drain on the provider. Also, take care not to starve other buildings that may require resources from the same provider.

There are two ways to gather resources from the island: Deposits and Fertile Areas.

Deposits are fixed slots of a specific resource. Only the corresponding gatherer building can be placed there. Deposits have a limited capacity. When this capacity has been depleted, they still produce resources, but at a diminished rate.

Fertile Areas are not specific to one resource but can be used by several buildings to grow a variety of resources. Make sure to use the available areas in an efficient way.

The bottom of the production building UI shows the Drain. It represents the amount of resources taken out by other buildings. If your Drain number is higher than the Production number shown above it, then the building is not producing enough resources to satisfy the incoming Fetchers. In this case, a Drain warning is shown.

All production buildings need Hands to do the gathering and processing. You can only operate a building if you have enough Drifters available. If a building cannot get all the Hands it needs, it goes into Shutdown.

If the building is processing resources, it also needs Fetchers that bring the required inputs. At least one Fetcher per input resource is required. You can add more Fetchers, but you cannot have more than one Fetcher bringing resources from the same provider.

The colour of an Eco-Line will show you whether the Fetcher can bring the input in time. If it is yellow or red, you need to improve it or at least add a second Fetcher to another provider for compensation.

The economy of your island is based on resources. Resources are used to construct buildings and ships. They are also needed to satisfy the Upkeep of your pirates.

There is a Resource Tab in the Overview Menu that shows you all resources available. Some resources cannot be produced on the island; they need to be acquired from the Seven Seas.

Hands can gather resources from Deposits and Fertile Areas directly — for example, in a mine or on a farm.

Many resources cannot be directly gathered, but need to be processed. Processing buildings require input resources that they fetch from provider buildings. More complex production chains can include multiple steps of processing.

If a building is currently not required, it can be shut down to reduce Upkeep and free up Hands. It can be reactivated at any time as long as enough Drifters are available.

Warehouses can stockpile resources. They are a useful tool to streamline your logistics. They can also serve as an intermediate stop when you need to cover longer distances.

When operating normally, a Warehouse will only fetch the overproduction of a provider. This ensures that other buildings fetching from the same provider get as much as they need. When you call "All Hands on Deck", the Warehouse will fetch as much as it can. Be aware that this may starve other buildings fetching from the same provider.