Building
Building Tiers
Every building piece starts as twig and can be upgraded through four tiers. Each tier has more health, costs more to raid, and requires more upkeep.
Every building piece starts as twig and can be upgraded through four tiers. Each tier has more health, costs more to raid, and requires more upkeep.
Every building piece starts as twig and can be upgraded with a hammer to wood, stone, sheet metal, or armoured. Each tier requires more resources to upgrade but provides significantly more health against raids. You never need to progress through every tier in order. You can skip wood entirely and upgrade directly from twig to stone if you have the stone available.
| Tier | Health | Satchels | C4 | Rockets | Weak to |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Twig | 10 | 1 hit | - | - | Any tool |
| Wood | 250 | 3 | 1 | 2 | Fire, hatchet |
| Stone | 500 | 10 | 2 | 4 | Pickaxe (soft side) |
| Sheet Metal | 1,000 | 23 | 4 | 8 | Explosives only |
| Armoured | 2,000 | 46 | 8 | 15 | Explosives only |
Twig is the default tier when any piece is placed. It has only 10 health, no meaningful defense. Anyone with any tool can destroy twig in seconds. It decays in one hour regardless of TC stock, so it is only for temporary structures during building phase.
Never leave twig inside a finished base. If you accidentally leave twig walls or floors mixed with your upgraded structure, raiders can punch through them instantly without explosives. Check your base after upgrading and make sure everything is at least wood or higher.
Wood is cheap and fast to place. It costs 150 wood to upgrade one wall to wood. It has 250 health and requires 3 satchels to destroy on the hard side, or a hatchet and some time on the soft side. Wood is vulnerable to fire, so a single fire arrow can damage it.
Early wipe, wood is acceptable for outer walls before you have stone available. It slows early-game raiders without explosives. But as soon as you have 500 stone, upgrade your outer walls. Wood is not enough defense once players start raiding seriously.
Stone is the baseline for any defended base. It costs 500 stone per wall and has 500 health. It requires 10 satchels to destroy on the hard side. The soft side can be pickaxed, meaning if your wall orientation is wrong, a raider can damage it twice as fast.
Stone is immune to fire. It is the most cost-effective tier for outer walls and honeycomb. Keeping your outer shell and honeycomb at stone means upgrading only the TC room and loot room walls to metal or armoured. A full stone base costs roughly 2,500 to 3,000 stone in daily upkeep for a medium-sized base.
Sheet metal doubles the health of stone at 1,000 HP per piece. It requires 23 satchels to destroy, compared to stone's 10. The critical difference is that sheet metal has no soft side weakness. Both sides cost the same to raid.
Sheet metal is expensive in upkeep because metal fragments cost more to farm than stone. It is best used on TC rooms, high-value loot rooms, and the doors in your airlock. Wrapping your entire base in sheet metal is wasteful. Get your stone shell up first, then upgrade specific critical areas to metal.
Armoured is the toughest tier at 2,000 health per piece. It requires 46 satchels to destroy on the hard side. It is very expensive to build, requires high quality metal, and costs enormous amounts in daily upkeep.
Armoured is rarely worth it on outer walls. It is most useful on your TC room door and wall, and on the innermost vault room where you keep your most valuable items. A fully armoured base will drain your resources faster than you can farm. Reserve armoured for critical defensive areas only.
Wood and stone have a hard side (facing outward) with higher health and a soft side (facing inward) with lower health. A stone wall has 500 health on the hard side but only 250 effective health on the soft side when damaged with a pickaxe.
This means raiders who break through your perimeter and attack your interior walls from the inside can destroy them twice as fast. This is why wall orientation matters. Check the principles of building guide for detailed orientation guidance.
Sheet metal and armoured tiers have no soft side weakness. Both sides have the same health. This makes them valuable for TC rooms and inner loot rooms where access is possible from both directions.
A sheet metal door costs 4 satchels to destroy. A stone wall costs 10. A sheet metal wall costs 23. Raiders always try doors first because they are the cheapest entry point. Never make your entrance a solid wall. Always use doors and prioritize upgrading them.
Upgrade what a raider hits first. Your outer walls before inner walls. The wall facing the most likely approach before walls facing protected sides.
The standard upgrade order is: Airlock doors first (wood to sheet metal immediately), then outer shell to stone, then TC room walls and door to sheet metal or armoured, then internal walls, then floors.
Never upgrade your entire base to sheet metal. Pick critical areas: TC room, first loot room, and airlock doors. Keep the rest at stone to save resources. A half-upgraded base (stone outside, metal inside) is more sustainable than trying to maintain a fully metal base.
See the tool cupboard guide for TC room placement and the doors and locks guide for door placement strategy.
Each tier requires specific materials. Upgrading a full 2x2 base to stone costs roughly 10,000 stone. The same base in sheet metal walls with stone foundation costs 15,000+ metal fragments. An armoured TC room (8 walls, 1 door, 1 roof) costs 400 HQM plus metal frames.
Plan your upgrades around available resources. Farm stone for the shell, then farm metal fragments for critical areas. Do not commit to armoured until you have a furnace running and steady ore income. See the upkeep guide for daily resource calculations.