Plan your Farthest Frontier town before you build
Farthest Frontier’s desirability system is the gate on every housing upgrade, and the in-game overlay gives you no numbers and no radius rings. This town layout planner fixes that: drop buildings on a tile grid with their true footprints and watch a live desirability heatmap show exactly which shelters sit in a green, upgrade-ready zone — and which are being dragged into the red by a Tannery or Compost Yard.
How the desirability heatmap works
Every building with a desirability effect projects a signed influence over a radius — strongest at its centre, fading to the edge. Markets, parks, statues, the theater, the healer, school and pub all add desirability; dirty industry subtracts it. The planner sums the effects across your whole layout, tile by tile, and paints a red → neutral → green map. The single most useful habit it teaches: push dirty production to the edge of town and cluster decorations near your housing core.
The non-stacking rule (why variety wins)
Farthest Frontier only counts the strongest single building of each type toward a given shelter. Ten Shrines around one house give the bonus of one Shrine — not ten. Different types stack freely, so a Shrine plus a Small Park plus a Large Statue all add up. The heatmap applies this exact rule per tile, so you can stop wasting space on duplicates and plan for variety instead.
Housing tiers and upgrade thresholds
Shelters upgrade to Homestead, then Large House, then Mansion as their desirability and their goods/services are met. The housing-tier panel counts how many of your placed shelters clear each desirability threshold (community estimates put Homestead around 30 and Large House around 65). You still need well water, a market, a healer and — for higher tiers — a school and theater in range, which the service-radius overlays help you check.
Service-radius overlays
Turn on the service-radius rings to see the coverage of your Well (water), Market, Healer, School, Pub and Theater, each in its own colour. Toggle individual services on and off so you can confirm every housing cluster has the coverage it needs without the canvas turning into a tangle of circles.
How to use the planner
- Pick buildings from the palette on the left — they drop onto the tile grid.
- Drag to position them; placement snaps to the tile grid (toggle Snap to move freely).
- Keep the Heatmap on to see desirability update as you go; press R or Tab to rotate.
- Turn on Service radius and toggle the individual services you want to check.
- Switch to Road mode and click to draw roads; double-click or Enter to finish.
- Hit Share to copy a link of your whole layout, or Export PNG for a screenshot.
Frequently asked questions
Is there a Farthest Frontier town layout planner?
Yes — this is a free, browser-based Farthest Frontier town layout planner. You drag houses, services, decorations and industry onto a tile grid and instantly see a live desirability heatmap, plus service-radius rings for wells, markets, healers, schools, pubs and the theater. Nothing to download and no account required.
How does the desirability heatmap work?
Every building with a desirability effect projects a signed influence over a radius, strongest at its centre and fading out to the edge. Green tiles raise nearby shelters' desirability; red tiles (Tannery, Compost Yard, Saw Pit…) lower it. The planner sums the effects across your whole layout and colours each tile, so you can see at a glance which homes sit in a desirable spot and which are dragged down by industry.
Why don't my decorations stack? Why does only one count?
Farthest Frontier uses a non-stacking rule: buildings of the same type compete, so only the strongest single building of each type counts toward a given shelter. Ten Shrines around one house give the bonus of one Shrine — not ten. Different types stack freely, so the winning strategy is variety: a Shrine plus a Park plus a Statue all add up. The heatmap applies this rule per tile.
What desirability do I need to upgrade houses?
Shelters upgrade to Homestead once their desirability is high enough (community estimates put the Homestead threshold around 30 and the Large House threshold around 65), and the home must also have its goods and services met — well water, a market, a healer and, for higher tiers, a school and theater. The housing-tier panel counts how many of your placed shelters clear each desirability threshold; you still need to satisfy the goods and service requirements in-game.
Which buildings hurt desirability the most?
The Compost Yard has the biggest negative footprint and must be placed far outside town, followed by the Tannery, Saw Pit, Soap Shop, Windmill and Smokehouse. Keep these dirty production buildings well away from housing — turn on the heatmap and watch the red bloom shrink as you push them to the edge of the map.
Can I share my Farthest Frontier layout?
Yes. The Share button copies a link that encodes your entire layout — every building and road — so anyone who opens it sees your exact plan, no server needed. You can also export a PNG screenshot to post on Reddit or Discord.
Is the building data accurate and up to date?
Footprints and desirability radii are community-measured from the Crate Entertainment forum 'building grids and radiuses' dump and the gamerdigest grid-size reference (current data v1.1). The desirability magnitudes themselves are community estimates and are used as relative values to colour the heatmap, not exact game numbers — they are labelled as estimated in the tool. This is a fan-made planner, not affiliated with Crate Entertainment.