The most important thing to know in Project Tomorrow is that the clock is not your enemy: your own actions are. Mining, building and crafting bring the next enemy wave closer, and they also drive food and water production. Terraform comes from building, upgrading and protecting terraforming structures, and a region is finished when you rebuild enough settlements to hit its population goal.
Project Tomorrow is a base-building survival game from solo developer Ryan at Advance Nine, mixing terraforming, tower defense, exploration and automation. It entered Early Access on Steam on November 9, 2026, with three regions. These tips come from the developer’s own devlogs, patch notes and answers on the Steam forums, as of the November 11 patch.
Your Actions Bring the Next Wave
Enemy buildup, food production and water production do not run on a timer. In the developer’s words, “your actions are what drive these systems.” Every time you mine, build or craft, the radial bar around your minimap fills, and when it completes, the next wave is on its way. Grow pods and water filters only progress when you act, too.
The developer designed it that way so slower players are not punished. Two things do still run on time: air and water depletion, so keep an eye on your oxygen and thirst while you stand around planning.
That changes how you should play:
- Plan before you act. Standing still costs you nothing on the wave bar, so think through your layout first.
- Do not overmine. Resources you do not need still push the wave closer. Collecting from Resource Hubs counts as an action too.
- Build defenses before the bar fills, not after you see enemies.
How to Earn Terraform
Terraforming does not tick up over time. Early in the demo it did, and the developer reworked it because one of the strongest strategies had become, in the developer’s words, “sit around and do nothing.” You now earn Terraform three ways:
- Building terraforming structures.
- Upgrading them.
- Keeping them alive through enemy waves.
Terraforming buildings also get an adjacency bonus, and since the November 10 patch you can see that bonus before you place one, so try a few spots before you commit. The November 11 patch added a quest that teaches terraform building adjacency.
Rebuild Settlements to Finish a Region
Settlements are ruined structures scattered around each region. Find them and rebuild them, and settlers wake from stasis and move in, raising your population. Defend enough settlements and grow your population to the goal, and the region is complete. Since the November 11 patch, settlements have markers so they are easier to find.
You do not have to leave when you hit the goal. Every region has a Teleport Relay near your home habitat that powers on once you reach the population goal, and you can use it whenever you are ready. Keep building if you are enjoying your base. Settlers can also be assigned to Barracks, which turns them into soldiers who fight the hordes alongside you.
Build for Flying Enemies and Deeper Attacks
Two things catch new players out:
- Flying enemies soar over your walls, and their top priority is your turrets. The Interceptor turret does little against ground enemies but devastates anything in the air, so place a few around the base. The Nova Mortar is the first area damage turret: slow to fire, but heavy damage against big hordes.
- Enemies push deeper. Since the November 10 patch, enemies no longer clump around half-destroyed walls. The developer warns that they now push deeper into your base to attack interior targets, so protect the buildings inside your walls too.
Open the full map during a big attack to see every building, drone and enemy at once and find the side that needs help.
Storage, Automation and Power
A few systems save a lot of running around:
- Resource Uplink. It lets you build and craft using resources from both your backpack and your storage crates, so you can stockpile around the base. You can craft it in the first region.
- Store All and Take All move many items between your backpack and storage with one press.
- Resource Hubs add storage and house collection drones that gather resources for you. Each hub needs one Automation Core, collected by finding and activating the Drone Relays scattered around each region, so explore to build more hubs.
- Power. Check the power row in the Build Menu for any building that uses or makes power. The first number is your total; the second is the highlighted building’s. Positive means a surplus; negative means you need more power buildings or upgrades.
The second region, Tidehaven, introduces food and water production, and supply crates become much less common, so start growing food and purifying water as soon as you can there.
Modifiers and Settings Worth Changing
Modifiers unlock after the tutorial region. The Modifier System lets you equip Challenges to make the game harder or Buffs to give yourself an advantage, and you can mix and match them. If you chase high scores, the more Challenges you equip, the higher your potential region score.
A few settings to know:
- Toggle Sprint (Gameplay settings, added November 10) so you do not have to hold the sprint button. It is off by default.
- Key rebinding is fully supported, and the store page lists full controller support.
- Reset Progress sits under Settings, then Gameplay, if you played the demo and want a clean start.
For more terraforming, our news on The Planet Crafter’s Magnetaris DLC covers what is next for that game, our guide to the best base location in Lightyear Frontier covers another planet to settle, and our best Satisfactory mods list has more automation.
Frequently Asked Questions
What triggers enemy waves in Project Tomorrow? Your actions. Mining, building and crafting fill the radial bar around the minimap, and a wave comes when it completes. Time on its own does not.
How do you complete a region in Project Tomorrow? Find and rebuild settlements until your population reaches the region’s goal. The Teleport Relay near your home habitat then powers on, and you can leave whenever you like.
How do you get more Resource Hubs? Each hub needs an Automation Core. Find and activate Drone Relays around the region to collect them.
How do you see your power in Project Tomorrow? Open the Build Menu and look at the power row. The first number is your total power, and a positive number means a surplus.
How do you start a new game in Project Tomorrow? Use Settings, then Gameplay, then Reset Progress.