Settlements — Running One and Getting Out of Debt
Settlements were completely redesigned in the Beacon update. A lot of the guidance still circulating predates it, which is why “settlements are a chore you get dragged back to” no longer describes them accurately.
What Beacon changed
| Before | Now | |
|---|---|---|
| How many | One | Up to four |
| Overview | None | Settlements Register — all four on one screen from the quick menu |
| Resigning | Not possible | Possible |
| Production | Assigned automatically | You choose. Higher-class buildings unlock more lucrative options |
| Selling | Carry it out yourself | Export directly from the management screen |
| Class rating | Old algorithm | Completely rewritten. S-class is easier and more predictable |
| Buildings | Just built | Individual contributions to happiness, productivity, and capacity, plus per-building upgrades (B/A/S) |
| Sentinel raids | Frequent | Reduced, and alert level rises far more slowly while you’re offline |
| Owning several | N/A | Alert is distributed between settlements |
| Decisions | Two options | Up to four, with far more variety |
| Overpaying debt | Wasted | Converted to Reserves and returned as production |
The distributed alert is the key point. Adding settlements doesn’t add raids to deal with, so there’s no reason not to fill all four slots.
Getting a settlement
Three routes:
- Settlement Chart — traded from a station Cartographer for Navigation Data. The reliable one
- Autophage Settlement Chart — only from an Autophage synthesis terminal
- Stumbling across one — you get a notification flying overhead
If the overseer position is vacant you can apply, and it costs units. The amount varies by settlement and is unverified.
Once installed, build the Overseer’s Office first. The management terminal lives there, and without it you can’t do anything.
One settlement per planet. You can’t take over a second one on the same world.
Don’t rush to fill all four slots. You can resign, but your tenure record and investment go with it.
Everything runs on five metrics
That’s the whole model:
Population · Happiness · Productivity · Maintenance Cost · Sentinel Alert Level
Every decision and every building moves one or more of them. The choices show their effect before you commit — +N% citizen happiness and so on — so you can read before you pick.
Debt and Reserves sit alongside these.
Debt — the most important section here
Production halts while you’re in debt. You can’t select better output options until you’re back in the black.
Debt accrues daily whenever productivity is below maintenance cost. And this is where most people go wrong:
Paying it off with units isn’t a fix. Leave the upkeep structure alone and you’re back in deficit tomorrow.
The game’s own advice is the real answer — construct buildings and invest in settlement features to raise productivity and cut upkeep. Once productivity clears upkeep, the debt repays itself over time, with a countdown shown on screen.
Each building’s terminal shows its individual contribution to happiness, productivity, housing, and upkeep, so you can pick out the loss-makers by eye. That’s the most practical thing Beacon added.
Overpaying with units isn’t wasted, incidentally — the surplus converts into Reserves and comes back as production.
Buildings
You can only construct or upgrade one at a time, so plan the order.
| Building | What it gives |
|---|---|
| Overseer’s Office | First priority. The management terminal — decisions and register |
| Small / Medium / Large Dwelling | Capacity. Population caps productivity |
| Farm Module | Agricultural output plus planters |
| Factory Module | Industrial output plus a daily-refreshing multi-tool case |
| Marketplace | Commercial output plus a resident Guild Envoy |
| Landing Pad | Starport fuel, distress signal detection (crashed ships), and ship scrapping |
| Tower | Planetary and space scanning plus a small amount of Navigation Data daily |
| Saloon | Luxury goods |
| Fishing Pond | Seafood. Produces junk until it’s upgraded |
| Warehouse / Utility Module | Storage and infrastructure |
A sensible build order:
- Overseer’s Office
- Dwellings — population has to rise before productivity can
- In debt? Favour low-upkeep buildings
- Pick a production line (agriculture, industry, commerce, luxury, seafood) and upgrade those buildings
- For convenience, the Tower and Landing Pad
Completion isn’t the end — buildings need an opening ceremony to finish.
Overseer decisions
Policy, construction, upgrades, citizen disputes, citizen requests, visitors, expedition debriefs. They’re irreversible but not disastrous, and later decisions recover the ground.
One thing to watch: some options hide their outcome. They display as ?? unknown produce ?? — that’s a gamble, not a guaranteed gain.
Failed expeditions can kill citizens.
Class rating
Building and upgrading to raise the five-metric total is how you climb. That’s what “more predictable” means in practice.
The actual formula has never been published, though. And since the game files contain no dedicated string for a settlement’s own class, how it’s displayed is unverified — the C/B/A/S labels all refer to buildings.
Sentinel raids
Sentinel Alert Level is the metric, moved by decisions, buildings, and features.
- Beacon lowered the frequency, and alert rises much more slowly while you’re offline
- Owning several settlements distributes the alert
- Enemy variety increased — repair, summoner, heavy-armour, and corrupted drones. Insect brood raids happen too
- Squadron pilots scramble to help
The game’s own suggested preparation is to build a Boltcaster on your multi-tool.
Production and export
Output lines cover basic, agricultural, industrial, commercial, luxury, seafood, residential, and starport fuel. Each option lists a required building class, so unlocking the lucrative ones means upgrading.
Export through Export Surplus on the management screen — no need to visit; the register handles it.
How much it earns is unverified. It varies with the settlement, building classes, and features.
It’s a hub, not an income source
Honestly: as a way of making units it’s mediocre. Export income is steady but small. If money is the point, other methods are better.
The value is convenience. One well-built settlement cuts your station round trips dramatically.
| Facility | What you get |
|---|---|
| Tower | Navigation Data accumulating daily — the currency for Cartographer charts |
| Landing Pad | Crashed-ship location and ship scrapping in one place |
| Factory | A daily multi-tool case — an S-class reroll spot |
| Marketplace | A resident Guild Envoy |
Thriving settlements also raise their system’s wealth tier, though the magnitude and conditions are unverified. Not a reason to run one by itself.
Common mistakes
- Paying debt with units only — it comes back
- Hunting for good production while in debt — clear the deficit first
- Not knowing about the one-per-planet rule
- Filling all four slots in a hurry — resigning wipes your tenure
- Forgetting the one-at-a-time construction limit — builds and upgrades block each other
- Fishing at a freshly built pond — junk until upgraded
- Completing a building without opening it
Reading older guides
- Pre-Beacon figures are void. Later hotfixes corrected how happiness, production, and upkeep were actually awarded
- For a period raids didn’t spawn at all due to a bug — that’s where “raids never come” reports originate
- “18 features” is a misreading. Eighteen is the number of slots you can hold at once; the features themselves are generated combinatorially
Related
- Earning Units — where settlement income actually sits
- Alien Standing and Language — making use of the Marketplace envoy
- Base Building Basics — your own base, which is a separate thing