Starting scenarios

Every run opens with a lease, a shelf of merchandise with flexible origins and a rent clock. The scenario decides which counter you stand behind in week one, which machines are already bolted to the floor, and which kind of trouble follows you home. Read these in the order you intend to play them: the water and chemist starts explain supply chains, the gunsmith and fence starts explain the station’s paperwork, and Rock Bottom explains the economy by removing every subsidy from it.

Choose by what you want the first week to be about, not by which scenario sounds strongest. Water and chemicals both start with machines, so their first days are production days; the gunsmith and fence starts begin with the station’s paperwork and a shelf of merchandise that can be sold badly or well. Aquaculture is the slowest opening on the station and the only one where your stock grows while the shutters are down.

Every scenario can be combined with a difficulty tier and with the challenge modifiers, and the combinations are where most of the replay lives. If a run is going badly, the useful diagnosis is almost always the same three questions: did the machines run, did the licence cover the stock, and did the district actually want the thing you stocked.