The Hard Work Pays Off event
Hard Work Pays Off is a limited-time event in which George, an old workman, fires up his retired packing machine one more time and needs a hand with it. The event runs in two forms - as a solo challenge and as a cooperative competition with a funnel and a league leaderboard. The principle is the same in both cases. You supply raw materials or finished goods, the machine packs them into crates, and the points you score from packing earn rewards based both on your activity and on where you finish in the rankings.
For me this event has worked best in a strong cooperative, where the bonuses and the shared funnel let you rack up points far quicker and even a smaller cooperative can climb a league higher for a decent reward. The solo version is worth playing mainly because it has its own reward for activity and for placement, but it clearly hinges on whether you have already met the requirement of owning a ship in the fishing area.
You get into the event once you own a ship in the fishing area
The event is introduced to me by George, an old workman who admits himself that both the packing machine and he are past their best years. Before you even get to the machine, though, the game checks one requirement - you have to own at least one ship in the fishing area.
If you do not have a ship yet, Oleg Fisher from the fishing area will help you get one, so finishing his task is basically the unofficial ticket into the Hard Work Pays Off event. Without meeting that requirement you will not reach George and his machine at all, so if you have been neglecting the fishing area, this event is a good reason to get started there.
The packing machine works faster the more you supply it
The basic mechanic is simple. You load the machine's feeder with the products you have made - the more of them you bring, the faster it packs them into crates, and the more products fit into a single package, the more points it is worth.
The points also raise the machine's productivity meter, which has several levels. Each further level needs a certain amount of material delivered, and the game always shows you how much is still missing to the next one. As soon as the machine finishes one crate, another is waiting, so it pays to supply products continuously rather than all at once in a single wave.
If deliveries stop for a while, the machine notices by itself - the feeder empties and the system automatically pushes in a new crate once the time limit runs out. The game also warns you in advance that the feeder is about to empty.
The cooperative version runs on a funnel and a league leaderboard
In the cooperative version, products are not loaded into the machine one player at a time, but together as a Cooperative into a funnel. Once the cooperative fills it completely, the funnel empties and a new box appears to be filled. The gauge on the funnel shows the current productivity in points per second and a timer keeps track of how long is left until it empties.
A nice detail is the whistle on the machine - the more steam escapes from it, the more bonus points the cooperative is collecting at that moment, so it is a handy visual indicator of how well you are doing.
Cooperatives are sorted into leagues by strength and in each of them it is all about your place in the cooperative rankings:
- Beginner league - the best cooperatives move up to the bronze league.
- Bronze league - the best move up to silver, the worst drop back to the beginner league.
- Silver league - the best move up to gold, the worst drop down to bronze.
- Gold league - the top league for the best cooperatives, the worst of them drop down to silver.
Besides the cooperative rankings, your personal placement inside the cooperative is tracked as well - the member overview shows who in the team has collected the most points, and that carries over into the rewards.
Jokers and bonuses can speed up your scoring enormously
In the solo version of the event you buy jokers in the shop that help you squeeze more points out of the machine - just pick the variant that suits you at the time. The cooperative version has a similar bonus shop, but with one difference. Every player can buy a bonus for themselves, or they can ask the cooperative leader for it and he buys it from the cooperative's account for all members at once.
Bonuses can only be bought while the event is running; once it ends, the option disappears. The effects of several bonuses add up, but their durations do not stack - and only players who are members of the cooperative at the moment the bonus is activated can benefit from it.
Two rewards wait at the end plus one extra for the cooperative
When the event ends, two things are evaluated separately. The reward for hard work depends on how many points you collected during the event - the more you have, the more valuable the reward, and the game also shows how many points are missing to the next reward level. The reward for placement then depends on how you did in the rankings. If your activity during the event is too low, you will not get the activity reward at all.
The rewards include a high-performance production building and a decoration, which you will find in the interim storage right after the event ends.
In the cooperative version, the cooperative as a whole also receives a prize based on its league placement and the best player in the cooperative has a shot at an extra member prize. The condition is that the cooperative has at least five members - in bigger cooperatives several players can be rewarded at once.
