The best tool every city builder should have is a way to move buildings and fortunately, SteamWorld Build has one. There’s nothing more frustrating than accidentally placing a building that’s off by just one little tile.
This can completely throw off your planning and it’s even worse when a game doesn’t refund your resources. At least the SteamWorld Build developers were generous enough to make it so your resources refund 100% for most difficulties. Excluding the hardest one where you don’t get any back.
However, even on the hardest difficulty, you can still move buildings around for free. So this can easily prevent the need to ever refund a building. Here’s a quick explanation below of how to move buildings.
How to Move Buildings in SteamWorld Build
You can find the move tool along the bottom bar of your screen where all the other buttons are for building. This one looks like four green arrows pointing in each direction. And it doesn’t matter if you’re above ground or below, it’ll still be there.
All you need to do to move buildings is click it, click the building you want to move, and then click again somewhere to place it. Since this doesn’t cost any resources, I’ll sometimes move a building far away if I’m still figuring out a new area.
When moving or placing certain buildings it’s useful to see how far it reaches via the blue roads.
Once I’ve got my roads set up, I’ll then bring the building back afterward. This is especially useful when you’re in the mid to late game and need to place new service buildings. As our 10 best tips and tricks guide mentions, it can get crowded fast as you get through the milestone levels.
Or even if you need to move a Sand Sifting Factory because the area isn’t fertile anymore. I’ve made the mistake of placing roads or buildings in their zone without realizing it. And that just leads to annoying production problems later.
Make sure when moving your Sand Sifting Factory to a new spot you get the fertility as high as you can.
That’s all there is to this short SteamWorld Build guide on how to move buildings. Fortunately, it’s a simple feature that can be a game-changer.
Jeff is a journalist with over 10 years of experience writing, streaming, and making content about video games. With an associate degree in journalism, he’s a sucker for RPGs, survival games, roguelikes, and more.