The Crust Guide Guide — Wiki & Guide
Guide Guide explained: All The Crust guides: layouts, research, tips, mods, recipes and more. Facts sourced from official pages, wiki and community discussions.
The Crust layers four systems — factory automation, research, trade and colonists — on top of a single loop: mine the Moon, refine it, sell it to Earth. This hub points each system at its deep-dive page and gives you the one-line summary of how it works.
The systems, in the order you'll meet them
| System | One-line summary | Deep dive |
|---|---|---|
| Automation | Surface gases and power, underground mines, everything connected by five tiers of conveyors (60–600 items/min) and three drone types | Automation guide |
| Research | Blue/orange/green science points generated daily by rovers, expeditions, contracts and labs — no stockpiling, spend continuously | Research tree guide |
| Layouts | Refinery rows and underground buses; plan for rebuilds every few tech unlocks | Base layouts |
| Trade & factions | 18 Earth factions issue contracts; reputation unlocks scientists; one alignment eventually locks the rivals | Factions & trade |
| Colonists | Optional until mid-game; hired experts boost factory efficiency (one documented jump: 20% → 161%) and staff science labs | Colonists guide |
| Recipes & food | Ice → oxygen/water, farms → kitchen; gas-based alternative recipes in Assembly/Constructor | Recipes guide |
| Campaign | The completed 1.0 story with faction-driven choices and multiple endings | Campaign & endings |
| Mods & cheats | No console — Nexus Mods plus a WeMod trainer | Mods & console |
If you only read three things
- Power is a production chain input. The Moon runs on roughly two-week days and two-week nights; solar arrays charge batteries, and "no power, no processing" — balance both sides or nothing else matters.
- Match resources at every machine. The #1 cause of stalled chains is an extractor set to iron feeding a refinery set to silicon. The T key flips a building's inputs/outputs.
- Contracts pay multiples of market price. 120 steel is ~$2,000–3,000 on the market and $19,000 on the right contract — but only sign what your storage can already cover.
New player? Start with the getting-started walkthrough, keep the beginner FAQ open in another tab, and graduate to the mid-game tips once your first refinery row is running.