Guide
Power, water, sewage and internet
Utilities in Blockline are real networks, not a radius around a building. Once you see how they connect, most shortages explain themselves.
Streets are the mains
Every utility in Blockline is made of separate networks, and the streets do most of the carrying. A connected street carries every network's mains beneath it, so any building beside it is connected. Service also passes from building to building: a lot touching a connected building is connected too, so a terrace of homes needs only one end on a served street.
The conduits, power line, water pipe, sewer and fibre cable, exist to join things the streets don't reach: a plant set back from the road, a site in a field, or two halves of town split by a river. You don't need to run pipes down every street, and doing so only adds upkeep.
Each network stands alone
A source supplies only the network it touches. Two generators on one grid add their output together, but a water tower on a cut-off estate does nothing for the rest of town. Every building adds its own load to its network, and when a network's load is higher than its supply, every building on that network is short, not just the newest one.
This is why a city can show plenty of total capacity and still have a power problem: the capacity is on the wrong network. The underground view (press U) draws each network in its own colour with the sources that feed it, which makes split networks easy to spot.
| Network | Sources | Linked by | Before you build anything |
|---|---|---|---|
| Power | Gas plant, solar array, wind turbine, coal plant, nuclear plant and hydro dam | Power line | None: every home needs a generator on its grid |
| Water | Water tower | Water pipe | Wells give 100 |
| Sewage | Treatment plant | Sewer | Septic tanks treat 450 |
| Internet | Internet exchange, cell tower and data centre | Fibre cable | Old copper lines carry 500 |
The baseline column is capacity every city starts with: a little well water, septic tanks and legacy copper phone lines. It tops up shortfalls anywhere in the city, which is why a small village can grow for a while without a treatment plant or an internet exchange. There is no baseline for power.
Power
Your first generator is usually the gas plant, which goes up the moment you place it. As the city grows, the choice is between cheap and dirty, expensive and clean, or variable:
| Generator | Output | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Gas plant | 1,250 | Reliable, with some smoke (5 air pollution). Upgrades in place. |
| Coal plant | 3,000 | Cheap bulk power, the dirtiest per unit (13 air pollution). Burns local coke for up to 500 more. |
| Nuclear plant | 6,000 | No smoke. Runs at 50% unless a fire station stands within 10 tiles. |
| Hydro dam | 900 | Steady and clean, but only across a narrow river channel. |
| Solar array | 320 | Clean; output follows the hour and the season. |
| Wind turbine | 480 | Clean; output follows the wind. |
The gas plant upgrades in place: build a coal plant over it, or later a nuclear plant over either, and you pay only the difference in price (the larger plants need three clear tiles beside the old one). Solar and wind need no fuel and make no smoke, but their output swings, so lean on them for a share of supply rather than the whole of it.
Power also matters for air quality. Smoke from plants weighs on land value nearby and adds to the city's air pollution; an air filtration plant can take 5 points off citywide but itself draws 45 units of power.
Water and sewage
A water tower supplies 1,100 to the network it touches. Set it beside a street, or pipe it to one. Large water users such as the swimming pool and the data centre add noticeably to the load.
Sewage works the same way in reverse. Each building produces wastewater, and a treatment plant treats 1,500 on its network. Sewers, like water pipes and fibre, can run beneath streets and buildings from the underground view, so you can join a plant to the network without bulldozing anything.
Internet
The internet exchange is where the internet enters the city: 2,400 of bandwidth on the digital network it touches. Put it beside a street, or run fibre from it, and homes and businesses along connected streets get online. A cell tower covers a 10-tile radius without any wires and adds 620 capacity, at a higher running cost. A data centre adds bandwidth of its own and skilled jobs.
Internet matters more as the city matures. High-tech industry needs it, research slows down without it, and one of the later charters sets a digital coverage target. See industry and upgrades and charters and research.
Coverage and what it blocks
The city judges each utility by coverage: the share of buildings that are fully served. At 90% or above, a utility is healthy. Below that it shows as a warning, and below 70% it is critical.
Growth has its own line. Zoned lots stop growing while power or water coverage is below 80%. Internet coverage counts towards the same check, but only for part of it, so poor internet alone holds back growth only when it is very poor. Sewage and internet shortfalls also show up as the “utilities short” reason on a stuck lot.
Tip. When a network runs short, check which network it is before building another plant. Often a single power line or pipe joining two networks fixes the shortage for free.
Utilities age
Power lines, mains, sewers and fibre wear out over time. Worn networks cost more to run, lose capacity and, if left long enough, suffer incidents such as burst mains. How fast they wear depends on utilities funding; construction and maintenance explains how to renew them.