Everything you buy in Hammer Valley is a tier of a building. Every map has the same skeleton of six core buildings plus a set of bonus buildings, each climbing from tier 1 to tier 7. A new tier is never just a bigger number: it changes how that part of the chain is worked, and tiers 4 and 7 bring a whole new look. This page covers what tiers do, what they cost and why you cannot simply buy everything at once.
The six core buildings
The names change from map to map, but the jobs do not.
| Job | Valley name | What a tier does |
|---|---|---|
| Raw input | The Ore Pit | More raw per dig: 2, plus 1 for every two tiers. Higher tiers mechanise the haul. |
| Furnace | The Furnace | Faster casts and bigger batches. |
| Fuel | Charcoal Store | More fuel per load: 2, plus 1 per tier. |
| Forge | The Smithy | Changes how the smith works the piece and what it sells for. |
| Crew housing | The Hands' Home | Each tier makes room for one more hire. Hands walk 8% faster per tier. |
| Store | The Barn | How much the map banks while you are away: 12 hours, plus 4 per tier. On Port Sable and Silicon Reach it also sets how many pieces wait for the ship or the freight drone. |
The furnace numbers are worth knowing. A cast takes 7 seconds at tier 1 and each tier cuts that by 15%, so tier 7 casts in about 2.6 seconds. The batch is 1 bar up to tier 2, 2 bars from tier 3, and 3 bars from tier 6. A furnace that is starving for raw or fuel shows its label in red.
The bonus buildings
From Ironbridge on, every map adds four more lines, each with a different name in each place. On Steelhaven two more are added.
| Line | Example | Per tier |
|---|---|---|
| Extraction | Canal Dredge, Oil Derrick, Ice Hopper | +1 raw per load every 2 tiers |
| Power | Steam Dynamo, Reactor Pool, Solar Field | Smelting about 10% faster |
| Logistics | Rail Spur, Ship Loader, Landing Pad | Hands and machines 6% faster; +1 carry every 3 tiers |
| Price | Guild Ledger, Diesel Refinery, Algae Vats | Everything sells for 10% more |
| Gasoline Yard (Steelhaven) | Petrol for the lorries | +1 coke per load |
| Steel Foundry (Steelhaven) | Converter shop to integrated works | +15% price, and it gates the top tiers |
Once built, each bonus building wears a small tag showing what it currently multiplies, for example PRICE x1.30, so you can see what you bought.
What a tier costs
Every map climbs the same price curve, scaled by that map's multiplier. On the curve, each tier costs roughly two to three times the one before. These are the Hammer Valley prices, rounded to the dollar:
| Building | T1 | T2 | T3 | T4 | T5 | T6 | T7 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ore Pit | free | $59 | $106 | $201 | $488 | $1,006 | $2,213 |
| Furnace | $14 | $29 | $64 | $141 | $355 | $877 | $2,393 |
| Charcoal Store | $8 | $16 | $43 | $100 | $248 | $743 | $2,010 |
| Smithy | given | $40 | $89 | $198 | $497 | $1,228 | $3,350 |
| Hands' Home | $24 | $49 | $84 | $257 | $506 | $1,419 | $3,570 |
| Barn | $50 | $4,023 | $7,313 | $13,881 | $28,163 | $58,824 | $130,500 |
The bonus lines start at $5 (logistics), $13 (extraction), $27 (power) and $202 (price, and Steelhaven's steel and gasoline) at base scale, and climb the same way. Multiply everything by the map:
| Map | Price multiplier | Step from the map before |
|---|---|---|
| Hammer Valley | x1 | |
| Ironbridge | x10 | x10 |
| Steelhaven | x80 | x8 |
| Port Sable | x600 | x7.5 |
| Silicon Reach | x5,000 | x8.3 |
| Selene Station | x40,000 | x8 |
| Ares Colony | x300,000 | x7.5 |
The same multiplier applies to what a piece sells for, to hiring costs and to order rewards, so a map never feels richer or poorer than the last one. It just has bigger numbers. On maps 2 to 7 the first tier of the furnace and the fuel building are free: they come with your licence. The first raw building is free on every map.
Why you cannot buy tier 7 straight away
Two things hold tiers back.
- The order book caps every building. Each delivered order raises that map's hall (Brann's Hall, the Exchange, City Hall, Mission Control and so on) by one tier. Before the first delivery nothing goes past tier 2. After one delivery the cap is tier 4, after two it is tier 6, and after three it is tier 7. Tap a locked building and it tells you which order to deliver.
- Steelhaven's steel wall. The Blast Furnace, Ore Mine and Freight Terminal need the Steel Foundry at tier 2 before they can reach tier 4, and at tier 4 before they can reach tier 7.
Most other buildings also wait until the furnace is lit. That is why the first job on every map is the furnace.
Buying a tier
Every building that can still grow wears a pill-shaped button. Green and bouncing means you can afford it: tap it to buy. Slate with a filling bar means you are saving towards it. A padlock means something else must happen first. You can also stand next to a building and hold the action button for a moment to pay. The Hands' Home is the exception: when a hire is possible it wears a gold badge instead, and when its next tier is what makes room for the next hand its pill turns gold and names who it is for.
A purchase takes effect at once. On most maps a build crew then works on the new look for a little while, from 6 seconds for a first tier in the valley up to 2 minutes for tier 7 on the Moon and Mars.
Tips that follow from the rules
- Read the furnace label first. If it says NEEDS ORE or NEEDS CHARCOAL, the next tier belongs on the Pit or the fuel building, not the furnace.
- The Smithy is the valley's money building. Tier 3 adds 10% to every sale and tier 7 adds 15% more. Tier 5 cuts a piece from five strikes to three, which is the biggest jump in speed your own hammer gets.
- The barn is a luxury early. At $4,023 for tier 2 in the valley it only buys more hours away. Pike's boat fittings order raises the barn to tier 5 for free, so wait for that.
- Price lines pay on everything. A 10% price tier works on every piece, so buy it once the core chain is moving, not before.
- Order gifts skip tiers. Many orders raise a building for free when delivered (see Orders and stages). Do not pay for a tier you are about to be given.
- The night hand spends for you. Each map's night hire (the Foreman in the valley, Gideon the Night Watch in Ironbridge, and so on) buys up to four of the cheapest affordable tiers when you come back from a break.