Industrial Overhaul: Factory Wear, Repairs & Scrap Salvage!

Dear players,

Over the past few days, I have been reviewing the factory maintenance system. In the old system, maintenance bills were calculated as a percentage of the land price rather than the actual equipment. This created strange balance situations: land-heavy industries had disproportionately high repair costs, while high-tech plants with expensive machinery paid almost nothing.

To make the industrial economy fairer, more realistic, and more engaging, I am rolling out a complete overhaul to machinery wear, factory maintenance, and equipment salvage.

Here is what is changing and how it works:

🛡️ Free Overhaul for Everyone

First things first: you don't need to panic about your existing factories! To give everyone a clean start with this update, every active factory across the game has received a complimentary 100% overhaul. None of your production lines are currently degraded or at risk of shutting down.

⚙️ Repairs Based on Machinery, Not Land

Maintenance costs are now tied directly to the replacement cost of your machinery:
* 20% Base Overhaul Rate: A complete restoration from 0% wear back to 100% condition costs exactly 20% of your machinery purchase value.
* Smooth Linear Scaling: Repairs scale directly with the wear. If your equipment drops to 75% condition, repairing it back to 100% will only cost 5% of its machinery value.
* No Raw Material Waste: When a factory slows down due to worn equipment, its raw material consumption throttles down at the exact same rate. You will never burn expensive resources for reduced output.

🏭 The Three Condition Zones

For companies in Tier 3 (Multinational, €100M+ assets) and above, equipment degrades gradually at around 3.6% per real-world day. This gives you a massive 3-week runway before neglected machines reach a critical state:
* 100% to 75% (Optimal): Your machines are running in top condition with full 100% production output.
* 75% to 25% (Worn): Output smoothly scales down from 100% to 50% capacity as parts wear out.
* Below 25% (Breakdown): Severely neglected equipment breaks down and halts production until restored to at least 25% condition.

Whenever a factory unit reaches the breakdown threshold, you will receive an immediate alert in your daily turn report so you can get it back up and running quickly.

🌱 Smaller Companies are Fully Protected

If you are still in Tier 0, Tier 1, or Tier 2 (under €100M total company assets), your equipment does not suffer any machinery wear. Beginners and growing businesses can focus 100% of their cash and attention on expanding without maintenance worries.

💰 40% Scrap Salvage: A Stronger Lifeline

Selling and downsizing production units is now much more forgiving if you ever need to raise fast cash or pivot into another market:
* 40% Equipment Refund: Liquidating factory units now returns 40% of the machinery purchase value in cash (up from 25%), in addition to the standard 75% building refund.
* Salvage Boost Perk: If your company has the Salvage Boost perk active, you recover 60% of equipment purchase value.

This higher floor provides a solid rescue ramp so you can safely downsize spare capacity during tough times without facing severe bankruptcy spirals.

🛠️ One-Click Maintenance

You can inspect live condition bars and repair individual facilities directly on your Industry pages.

If you want to maintain your entire empire at once, head over to your Production Overview page and click the new Repair All Machinery button to restore all worn facilities to 100% with a single click.

More details and complete breakdown formulas are available on the in-game Wiki under Machinery Maintenance & Lifecycle.

Let me know what you think of the new system in the comments below!

Happy manufacturing,
KingIsulgard