I got a little too into sorting my rocks in this game about a drone factory on the moon

GamesStrategyI got a little too into sorting my rocks in this game about a drone factory on the moonWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.

When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.

(Image credit: Veom Studio)

The Crust, an automation game set on the moon

Okay so recently released early access base-building factory building gameThe Crustis set on the moon, where your job is to take little autonomous drones and have them rebuild spacefaring society in the wake of a tremendous natural disaster that wrecks almost all the other infrastructure on the moon. A big part of that, naturally, is moon rocks. You grind those up and turn them into the kinds of stuff you’d need from rocks you mined on the moon: Steel, silicon, titanium, aluminum. You automate up a manufacturing base with fabricators and assemblers and all the other obvious and expected trappings of the factory building genre.

That’s all pretty standard, we’ll get back to it later. The good part is the moon rocks.

Ore handling is a really cool, really tricky industrial problem that I’ve only seen done well in one other game—the excellentCaptain of Industry—and it’s handled here in a slightly different way that makes for differently compelling gameplay. In The Crust, making a system of processors capable of moving the separated ore is easy. The hard part is figuring out how to ensure that it doesn’t consistently run dry of one type of ore when you switch from processing 40% titanium to processing 3% titanium ore.

How do you ensure it doesn’t back up hopelessly when you do the opposite? How do you ensure that your masses of slag are efficiently moved away and made into concrete? These are the good questions, and they’re why we play factory and automation games.

(Image credit: Veom Studio)

The Crust, an automation game set on the moon

It’s probably worth saying at this point that the reason I fixated on the ore processing is because much of the rest of The Crust’s early access launch is mediocre. The factories themselves are pretty bog-standard sets of expandable matching parts that are easily solved: X silicon smelters and Y rare metals smelters per Z factories and such. The design does at least have this background element of disaster, meaning that you want to make as much as possible as fast as possible and then get it out of the factory and into your customers' hands immediately. That means you’re focusing on throughput and delivery, which could actually be very interesting—most factory games won’t ever penalize you for having products back up on the line, but The Crust’s emphasis on delivered product will definitely make you feel the sting of not having turned that giant pile of iron into machine partsyesterday.

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(Image credit: Veom Studio)

The Crust, an automation game set on the moon

And then the gruesomely bad machine-voiced characters will be rude at you for failing the impossible, or tell you that a family of nice moon miners just died because you didn’t get their stuck door fixed in time, or whatever.

Lady, just let me sort my ore in peace, okay?

The Crust Release Trailer - YouTubeWatch On

The Crust Release Trailer - YouTube

Anyway, what I can definitively say is that it has some enjoyable rock sorting. I keep going back to the problem I left the game on: I need to ramp up production, and that means more space will have to be dedicated to machines utilizing all that sorted ore. The question is whether to expand above-ground production directly off of the sorted ore lines or shunt sections of the specific ores into the belowground area. See, because a belowground setup can benefit from colonists living in underground habitats to boost productivity. On the other hand, an aboveground setup has simpler conveyor belt lines that can lead directly into the shipping terminals.

I’m gonna stop writing, grab a snack, and see which of those treats my moon rocks better in practice.

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