Black Site Layout Tips: Flow and Clusters

Layout is the cheapest optimization in the Black Site. It costs nothing, it survives every season, and it compounds with every station you add. The goal is simple: shorten the path between the stations you touch most, and let any adjacency effects the game offers work for you.

Principle 1 — Design the collection walk first

Before placing anything, decide the route you will walk when you collect. The entry point to your base is the start; the stations you touch most often belong closest to it. High-cycle-frequency stations and the stations that feed your daily upgrades sit at the front of the route; slow, set-and-forget stations sit at the back.

Test the route: if collecting everything takes more than a lap of the grid, something is in the wrong place. The daily income page defines the collection habit this layout serves.

Principle 2 — Group by output type when the game rewards it

Some base systems pay bonuses for clustering matching stations — same output type, adjacent slots. Whether an adjacency bonus is active in the current version decides the layout, so test it by moving one station and comparing the next claim before rebuilding the whole base around it.

If a cluster effect exists, the layout logic is:

Cluster	Stations	Benefit
Currency group	All currency stations	Whatever bonus the panel shows
Materials group	All materials stations	Same
Support pairings	Intel or item stations	Same

If no adjacency bonus is active, the constraint disappears and pure walking distance decides everything — group by cycle frequency instead.

Principle 3 — Put producers next to consumers

When one station’s output is another station’s input, place them adjacent. Every collection pass then tops up the consumer without a second walk. This matters most in the late game, where upgrade costs pull from multiple buckets and you are shuttling materials between stations every session.

Principle 4 — Leave expansion room

The grid fills. Keep one or two open slots near the front of the route for future unlocks, so adding a station does not force a teardown. The unlock order page tells you which bucket your next station comes from — leave room in that zone.

A layout checklist

• The two stations you collect most often sit nearest the entry.
• Matching output types are adjacent if a cluster bonus is active.
• Every producer sits next to the station that consumes its output.
• At least one front-row slot stays open for the next unlock.
• A full collection lap takes one walk with no backtracking.

Layouts do not expire the way numbers do — these five checks hold across seasons even when every station gets retuned. For the full station roster and what each bucket feeds, start with the workstation overview, then decide levels with the upgrade priority page.