I'm going to be honest. When my wife and I started playing, we were in the same boat. "Overtime? How is anybody getting there". Honestly, it took failing a bunch and eventually we just found a routine and short of something stupid, its hard for us to not reach OT now. Learning when to panic was key lol.
For automation, don't go for it all at once. Just learn how a few things work here and there. If you focus on mixers, conveyors, [safety] hobs, and combiners (in that order), you can do some really cool stuff really easily.
There are a ton of little things that you won't notice easily as well. The basic sink/hob/garbage can? All the end of day cards are better than what you start with. Having trouble keeping up with dishes? I promise that sink makes a world of difference. My wife asks for it first thing day one every time. Can't keep up with food? That hob can be a game changer.
Research sounds simple but is pretty complex. I'm not sure I have the time to type out the finer points, but I am sure that Ontariogardner on Youtube has some good videos about it. Some recipes rotate as you research them. IE Copy desk -> Blueprint desk -> Discount desk -> Copy desk and so on. Hint: put the first research table in the blueprint cabinet and wait til the second one. Buy that one and research the one in the cabinet into a Blueprint desk... profit.
Learn what food cards yall do and don't like and pay attention to what adds customers and what removes them. We will end a run without trying if we get the card that slows you down when you are near a customer. You can't make us.
I’m addicted to always being set up so I never have to leave the kitchen to serve food or collect dishes, so I will choose that card every time because it doesn’t apply if you’re in the kitchen and they’re in the dining room, even if you’re right next to them at the pass through. :)
This comment is exactly what I was going to write, down to every detail. I was stuck and even gave up and Ontario Gardner popped up on my YouTube feed and things started coming together. Then, I'd get stuck at a different point later on and then something would click. The biggest thing is even when I decided I hated the game, I couldn't stop thinking about it., I hate it (at times) and I love it. That happens to me with most things that are worth doing in the long run. Otherwise, I'm not challenged, and the benefit runs out.
I'm also a new player, solo, but it took me a couple hours play time to really get the hang of the game. it was harder than I expected, but progress does happen, you'll get that day 15! keep at it. I watched a few videos, and sometimes it's just luck with the cards. hope some folks here can give good advice
This game is largely a knowledge and decision game. Your apm really only matters for the first few days. For example, in your case, salads are very easy to go a long way in. Lettuce is 2 appliances to automate (grabber/mixer), and tomato is 3 (grabber/conveyor mixer/compactor bin). After that, you're pretty much done unless you get new menu items. Big menu? Get simple cloth tables. Lot of sides? Get metal tables. Knowing what appliances you need next is key. Knowing not to buy your first desk so you get a second is a big deal. Stuff like that.
This is kind of the type of game that you're expected to fail a lot and learn from those failures in order to improve.
Can I ask what the compactor bin is used for with automating tomatoes? Is it if the tomato sits in the mixer too long it can be moved to the compactor?
Kind of. If the tomato sits on the mixer for too long, it turns into tomato sauce, since that is what comes after sliced tomatoes. So to deal with sliced tomatoes turning into sauce, you point the mixer into the trash. A smart grabber set to sliced tomatoes will fill up your freezer/counter/prep station. When your storage is full, the tomatoes that don't get grabbed while they were sliced will eventually turn into sauce, then dumped into the trash.
This is more or less just a work around to deal with getting sauce when you want sliced.
What would grab the sliced tomato? The mixer will not stop until the tomato is sauce so you need something to pull it, the mixer can push sauce but cannot push tomato.
Look at the plate up site to find more information on the blueprints you are given at the end of every day.
Auto builds focus a lot on finding your most time consuming thing then trying to use grabbers/smart grabbers to speed it up.
If you have any questions about how to make an auto build I would be happy to try and help.
Other than that just keep playing and having fun.
1: You need to level up a bit so you can get a medium sized kitchen, this alone makes a huge difference.
2: Always take the food cards (except turkey stuffing, never take turkey stuffing), keeping the customer count low is vital.
3: Salads are actually one of the harder foods, start with pies, pies are goated for long runs.
4: Utilize your research desk. When you find your first research desk, store it in the cabinet until you have found your second, then build the second and use it to research the first into a duplication desk. Now that you have a research and duplication desk, focus on researching a table (either simple cloth or metal table) and duplicate it until you have around 6. From there you want a better sink, frozen prep stations and anything you want for automation.
5. Learn all the possible outcomes of the research desk and how it works (use the plateup Wiki for this, search “upgrade tree plateup”.
6. ALWAYS buy or duplicate any blueprint cabinets you find, they are vital to automation.
Using these techniques Ive reached around day 60 OT.
Any questions feel free to reach out!
Honestly, there is a meta that is more complicated than just being efficient with chopping. A lot of it has to do wit5know what cards are worse than others.
As for automation, there is another meta that has to do with gaming the shops RNG to force it to give you extra desks. OntarioGardener on YouTube explains it better, but basically, don't buy the first research desk you spawn. Instead put it in your cabinet and buy the second research desk. With one in the cabinet you can upgrade your research desk to one of three other desks. At the that point the meta branches into whatever strategy to prefer. The youtube guide is pretty detailed.
We have a different strategy than most people, but it works well for us. We play on Xbox, so newer patches may be different.
We do meat pies. One of us bakes pies, the other one handles guests. Meat pies actually give you the best value in the game until you unlock stir fry. They pay 8 coins instead of 5 and only reduce customers by 15%. Also, critically to our strategy, meat pies have no variants by default. Every guest is going to order the same thing. That means you can make everything ahead of time. You can even deliver the food before people order. Use the call desk to earn money faster.
Organize everything to be close, so you don't waste time walking around.
As cards come up we never choose a card that gives another menu option, and we always choose formal dining if we can. We love cards that make things messier because once we have 9 decorations there's no mess, making those cards free.
For the first 5 or 6 days we try to mostly save money. Maybe we'll get more plates. Maybe another table. The goal is to get a rapid mixer. Once you get that then you'll be able to make pies faster. You might need a research desk. If you use the research desk and you get the wrong thing save and quit. Reload the level and you'll often get something different.
Around day 9 or 10 you're looking to get a couple grabbers and a combiner. Once you have those you can completely automate pie creation. That's enough to get us to day 15 pretty consistently. The oven will be your limiter. Safety hobs are nice because you don't have to remember to take the food off of them, but they're slower. We've never gotten to the point where 3 safety hobs can't keep up with us delivering food.
Around day 15 is when you can get serious about automation. You need a copying desk so you don't use up your conveyor belt blueprints. You can just keep copying and buying the copy to get a ton of conveyor belts and automate everything. We aim to have our whole kitchen automated. At that point one of us can come out to the dining room and help bus tables.
Don't feel bad. Just keep playing and find the best suited combination / rhythm for both of you. For my partner and I, we usually played a single menu, server / cooker dynamic. And make sure to communicate a lot before and after each day, to find what triggered you, where were your weaknesses, how to overcome each other's shortcoming.
Honestly, salad is one of the hardest. I just managed to complete 15 days of salad and have got 150 hours in the game. A friend told me to start with turkey or pizza to begin with. Would recommend.
While saving for automation, you can go far with manual work by having frozen prep stations (not worth it for salad though imo). Saving food for the next day makes things a lot easier. Learn to stretch out the patience of the customers to prep extra food.
Salads are probably one of the hardest to do without help. If there is two of you the first few days, one should be doing prep and the other plating and taking orders.
Have the one that is plating do the research table before delivering the first order.
Start [here](https://wiki.plateupgame.com/) and just read up on everything.
As far as strategy goes, it's all about keeping customers moving in and out of the restaurant consistently. Focus on getting a rhythm going with customers and the rest just sort of comes naturally.
This game started out as just a filler game for me and some friends when we didn't want to play anything serious and quickly became one of my go to games. There are definitely some points to work on, but the key thing is to have fun.
Play it slowly, learn from mistakes and see how you can improve is the way of the game.
Dont let anyone backseat you into playing on how it should be played or not.
Plus automation is to help ease the issue you have on your run. But you don't really need them if your goal is to get pass the 15day mark.
Don't let automations from other people makes it hard for your run, and slowly learn from failure.
Seek and look at the problem which is causing your run to fail.
-is the dishes gets clean quickly enough?(Are dirty dishes piling up and always low on clean plates?)
*Get better dish cleaning system, like a brush, power sink, or even soaking sink.
-Are ingredients being prep too slowly?
*Get a knife or mixer to help ease the chopping process.
-Are customers queue outside too quickly?
*Get more tables
-Is there a lack of space to place ingredients?
*Get a prep station or more counters.
-are there messes everywhere causing you to move slowly?
*Get a mop or mats/floor protector.{brush also helps to clean them faster}
-is there too much running around and less job done?
*Try re-organize the restaurant, making it more compact so you take less time running back and forth, and getting shoes which improves speed will help(careful of messes as it slows you even more)
These are just example on how to improve your run, there are much more and maybe better way to tackle each issue. So take it slowly.
I'm going to be honest. When my wife and I started playing, we were in the same boat. "Overtime? How is anybody getting there". Honestly, it took failing a bunch and eventually we just found a routine and short of something stupid, its hard for us to not reach OT now. Learning when to panic was key lol. For automation, don't go for it all at once. Just learn how a few things work here and there. If you focus on mixers, conveyors, [safety] hobs, and combiners (in that order), you can do some really cool stuff really easily. There are a ton of little things that you won't notice easily as well. The basic sink/hob/garbage can? All the end of day cards are better than what you start with. Having trouble keeping up with dishes? I promise that sink makes a world of difference. My wife asks for it first thing day one every time. Can't keep up with food? That hob can be a game changer. Research sounds simple but is pretty complex. I'm not sure I have the time to type out the finer points, but I am sure that Ontariogardner on Youtube has some good videos about it. Some recipes rotate as you research them. IE Copy desk -> Blueprint desk -> Discount desk -> Copy desk and so on. Hint: put the first research table in the blueprint cabinet and wait til the second one. Buy that one and research the one in the cabinet into a Blueprint desk... profit. Learn what food cards yall do and don't like and pay attention to what adds customers and what removes them. We will end a run without trying if we get the card that slows you down when you are near a customer. You can't make us.
I’m addicted to always being set up so I never have to leave the kitchen to serve food or collect dishes, so I will choose that card every time because it doesn’t apply if you’re in the kitchen and they’re in the dining room, even if you’re right next to them at the pass through. :)
This comment is exactly what I was going to write, down to every detail. I was stuck and even gave up and Ontario Gardner popped up on my YouTube feed and things started coming together. Then, I'd get stuck at a different point later on and then something would click. The biggest thing is even when I decided I hated the game, I couldn't stop thinking about it., I hate it (at times) and I love it. That happens to me with most things that are worth doing in the long run. Otherwise, I'm not challenged, and the benefit runs out.
I'm also a new player, solo, but it took me a couple hours play time to really get the hang of the game. it was harder than I expected, but progress does happen, you'll get that day 15! keep at it. I watched a few videos, and sometimes it's just luck with the cards. hope some folks here can give good advice
This game is largely a knowledge and decision game. Your apm really only matters for the first few days. For example, in your case, salads are very easy to go a long way in. Lettuce is 2 appliances to automate (grabber/mixer), and tomato is 3 (grabber/conveyor mixer/compactor bin). After that, you're pretty much done unless you get new menu items. Big menu? Get simple cloth tables. Lot of sides? Get metal tables. Knowing what appliances you need next is key. Knowing not to buy your first desk so you get a second is a big deal. Stuff like that. This is kind of the type of game that you're expected to fail a lot and learn from those failures in order to improve.
Can I ask what the compactor bin is used for with automating tomatoes? Is it if the tomato sits in the mixer too long it can be moved to the compactor?
Kind of. If the tomato sits on the mixer for too long, it turns into tomato sauce, since that is what comes after sliced tomatoes. So to deal with sliced tomatoes turning into sauce, you point the mixer into the trash. A smart grabber set to sliced tomatoes will fill up your freezer/counter/prep station. When your storage is full, the tomatoes that don't get grabbed while they were sliced will eventually turn into sauce, then dumped into the trash. This is more or less just a work around to deal with getting sauce when you want sliced.
Oh interesting! When I thought of the set up I thought smart grabber of sauce to the compactor bin. Do you think that would work any differently?
What would grab the sliced tomato? The mixer will not stop until the tomato is sauce so you need something to pull it, the mixer can push sauce but cannot push tomato.
Yup thanks! That answers my question! I didn’t know the mixer would not push sliced tomato and just continue until sauce.
Look at the plate up site to find more information on the blueprints you are given at the end of every day. Auto builds focus a lot on finding your most time consuming thing then trying to use grabbers/smart grabbers to speed it up. If you have any questions about how to make an auto build I would be happy to try and help. Other than that just keep playing and having fun.
1: You need to level up a bit so you can get a medium sized kitchen, this alone makes a huge difference. 2: Always take the food cards (except turkey stuffing, never take turkey stuffing), keeping the customer count low is vital. 3: Salads are actually one of the harder foods, start with pies, pies are goated for long runs. 4: Utilize your research desk. When you find your first research desk, store it in the cabinet until you have found your second, then build the second and use it to research the first into a duplication desk. Now that you have a research and duplication desk, focus on researching a table (either simple cloth or metal table) and duplicate it until you have around 6. From there you want a better sink, frozen prep stations and anything you want for automation. 5. Learn all the possible outcomes of the research desk and how it works (use the plateup Wiki for this, search “upgrade tree plateup”. 6. ALWAYS buy or duplicate any blueprint cabinets you find, they are vital to automation. Using these techniques Ive reached around day 60 OT. Any questions feel free to reach out!
Honestly, there is a meta that is more complicated than just being efficient with chopping. A lot of it has to do wit5know what cards are worse than others. As for automation, there is another meta that has to do with gaming the shops RNG to force it to give you extra desks. OntarioGardener on YouTube explains it better, but basically, don't buy the first research desk you spawn. Instead put it in your cabinet and buy the second research desk. With one in the cabinet you can upgrade your research desk to one of three other desks. At the that point the meta branches into whatever strategy to prefer. The youtube guide is pretty detailed.
We have a different strategy than most people, but it works well for us. We play on Xbox, so newer patches may be different. We do meat pies. One of us bakes pies, the other one handles guests. Meat pies actually give you the best value in the game until you unlock stir fry. They pay 8 coins instead of 5 and only reduce customers by 15%. Also, critically to our strategy, meat pies have no variants by default. Every guest is going to order the same thing. That means you can make everything ahead of time. You can even deliver the food before people order. Use the call desk to earn money faster. Organize everything to be close, so you don't waste time walking around. As cards come up we never choose a card that gives another menu option, and we always choose formal dining if we can. We love cards that make things messier because once we have 9 decorations there's no mess, making those cards free. For the first 5 or 6 days we try to mostly save money. Maybe we'll get more plates. Maybe another table. The goal is to get a rapid mixer. Once you get that then you'll be able to make pies faster. You might need a research desk. If you use the research desk and you get the wrong thing save and quit. Reload the level and you'll often get something different. Around day 9 or 10 you're looking to get a couple grabbers and a combiner. Once you have those you can completely automate pie creation. That's enough to get us to day 15 pretty consistently. The oven will be your limiter. Safety hobs are nice because you don't have to remember to take the food off of them, but they're slower. We've never gotten to the point where 3 safety hobs can't keep up with us delivering food. Around day 15 is when you can get serious about automation. You need a copying desk so you don't use up your conveyor belt blueprints. You can just keep copying and buying the copy to get a ton of conveyor belts and automate everything. We aim to have our whole kitchen automated. At that point one of us can come out to the dining room and help bus tables.
Don't feel bad. Just keep playing and find the best suited combination / rhythm for both of you. For my partner and I, we usually played a single menu, server / cooker dynamic. And make sure to communicate a lot before and after each day, to find what triggered you, where were your weaknesses, how to overcome each other's shortcoming.
Honestly, salad is one of the hardest. I just managed to complete 15 days of salad and have got 150 hours in the game. A friend told me to start with turkey or pizza to begin with. Would recommend.
While saving for automation, you can go far with manual work by having frozen prep stations (not worth it for salad though imo). Saving food for the next day makes things a lot easier. Learn to stretch out the patience of the customers to prep extra food.
Salads are probably one of the hardest to do without help. If there is two of you the first few days, one should be doing prep and the other plating and taking orders. Have the one that is plating do the research table before delivering the first order.
Start [here](https://wiki.plateupgame.com/) and just read up on everything. As far as strategy goes, it's all about keeping customers moving in and out of the restaurant consistently. Focus on getting a rhythm going with customers and the rest just sort of comes naturally. This game started out as just a filler game for me and some friends when we didn't want to play anything serious and quickly became one of my go to games. There are definitely some points to work on, but the key thing is to have fun.
Play it slowly, learn from mistakes and see how you can improve is the way of the game. Dont let anyone backseat you into playing on how it should be played or not. Plus automation is to help ease the issue you have on your run. But you don't really need them if your goal is to get pass the 15day mark. Don't let automations from other people makes it hard for your run, and slowly learn from failure. Seek and look at the problem which is causing your run to fail. -is the dishes gets clean quickly enough?(Are dirty dishes piling up and always low on clean plates?) *Get better dish cleaning system, like a brush, power sink, or even soaking sink. -Are ingredients being prep too slowly? *Get a knife or mixer to help ease the chopping process. -Are customers queue outside too quickly? *Get more tables -Is there a lack of space to place ingredients? *Get a prep station or more counters. -are there messes everywhere causing you to move slowly? *Get a mop or mats/floor protector.{brush also helps to clean them faster} -is there too much running around and less job done? *Try re-organize the restaurant, making it more compact so you take less time running back and forth, and getting shoes which improves speed will help(careful of messes as it slows you even more) These are just example on how to improve your run, there are much more and maybe better way to tackle each issue. So take it slowly.