Logistics is of paramount importance in Farthest Frontier. It directly impacts labor efficiency—the very engine that drives material wealth for your settlement.
Imagine this scenario: a blacksmith is at work. He walks for kilometers, spending an entire month traveling to a far corner of the map just to fetch a few lumps of coal. Upon returning to his blacksmith workshop, he finds himself starving, prompting another long-distance journey in search of food. To make matters worse, while back on the job, his toddler reports that their home is out of water. He rushes to the well, and afterwards, heads to the pub for a quick pint of beer. Finally, in a comical twist of irony, winter arrives and he dashes home to warm up—despite being a blacksmith who works in a scorching hot environment all day!
The question is: with such minimal actual working time, how much productivity is left, and how do we solve this issue?
To answer this, we need to know: what does each villager need, what raw materials does each production facility require, and what can storage buildings actually hold?
1. What Villagers Need
- Food: Whenever they are hungry, they will head to the nearest food storage source (Root Cellar, Market, Temporary Shelter, or even a farm field if the food has been harvested but not yet transported). They can stock up on a maximum of 10 units of food at a time—equivalent to a 5-month food supply.
- Firewood / Coal: They only need this when winter strikes. When it happens, they will head back to their homes or a Temporary Shelter. However, note that if their home is not fully supplied with firewood/coal by Market workers, they will abandon their tasks to transport it themselves, even if it is just a single piece of wood.
- Shoes, Hide Coats, Linen Clothes: These are consumable items with useful lifespans of 163 months, 231 months, and 217 months respectively.
- Tools, Baskets (Exclusive to Farmers and Foragers): Similar to the above, with lifespans of 223 months and 180 months.
- Luxury & Essential Goods (Depending on housing tiers): Herbs, Furniture, Glassware, Spices, Candles, Soap, Pottery, and Books.
- Leisure Time: They also need time to drink beer, pray, and seek entertainment.
Solutions for Villager Needs:
- Build Temporary Shelters near production areas—ideally within a maximum radius of 15 grids—to provide food and warmth during winter.
- Build a Storehouse / Storage Depot near production zones and set minimum quotas for Shoes, Hide Coats, Linen Clothes, Tools, and Baskets so villagers can be supplied promptly when needed.
- Entertainment buildings, Shrines/Temples, and Pubs can be placed a bit further away since villagers visit them less frequently, but they shouldn’t be too distant.
- Construct Storehouses and Stockyards with strict minimum/maximum resource limits, alongside a Firewood Splitter (placed away from residential areas) near the Market. This allows Market workers to restock everything in the shortest time possible.
2. Production Materials and Storage
Every manufactured good requires different raw materials.
Example: To produce tools, you need Iron (stored in the Storehouse) and Coal (stored in the Stockyard). While Coal can be obtained from coal mines or converted from firewood via a Charcoal Kiln, Iron must be processed from Iron Ore and Coal at a Foundry.
It is crucial to note that in Farthest Frontier, some resources are renewable (Logs, Food, Wax, etc.), while others are finite and will eventually deplete, such as Iron Ore, Clay, and Sand. While you can extract these finite resources from Deep Mines, these structures carry high construction costs, yield low extraction efficiency, and require significant transport time and effort.
Therefore, the best way to develop a sustainable, long-term settlement is: instead of trying to exploit distant nodes or Deep Mines, import all raw resources brought by traders at any price (avoid using the “Request” feature as it adds a premium), then process them and sell the finished goods at high valuations (Tools, Platemail Armor, etc.).
Solutions for Supply Chains: Your goal is to centralize entire interconnected production chains into a single hub.
Specifically for the metallurgy industry, you should build the Trading Post at the center of your settlement. Right next to it, set up a continuous cluster containing the Blacksmith Forge, Foundry, Coal Mine, Firewood Splitter, along with a Storehouse and a Stockyard.
Don’t forget to configure the minimum/maximum limits for each material type so that laborers and Wagon Shops can proactively transport them.
The ultimate goal is for the workers of these facilities to only have to walk a few steps to grab all the resources necessary for production.
NOTE: I highly recommend focusing heavily on this industry because it generates high-value commodities. Furthermore, you can boost production speed via the Targo’s Hammer relic in the Temple, combined with the Armaments or Metallurgy bonuses in the Guild Hall.
For the log supply feeding your Firewood Splitters, plant Oak Trees (costing 5 gold but yielding up to 9 logs) nearby. During the winter, unassign all workers from seasonal industries (Farmers, Arborists, etc.) and task them with harvesting logs. Since this involves a massive influx of labor, it also requires building multiple Temporary Shelters nearby.
Following this logic, other production groups should also be placed close together:
- Footwear & Hide Coat Group: Cows/Goat Barns, Cobbler Shop, and Tannery.
- Flax Group: Crop Fields, Weaver Building, Paper Mill, Bookbinder, and Guild Hall.
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