Setting up a property in Schedule 1 costs money - equipment, pots, stations, storage. Placing something in the wrong spot and moving it later costs the time you spend doing it, and the layout you end up with is rarely the one you would have drawn on paper first.
The Blueprint Editor is that paper. Pick a property, drop equipment on its grid, and read the cost as it climbs. Nothing here touches your game - if the layout does not work, you change it and try again.
Why layout matters
Every property is a different shape
The Motel Room is one small square. The Barn is large but broken up by pillars. The Sewer Office is an awkward corridor. What fits in one fits nowhere else, which is why a layout copied from a different property rarely transfers - and why the editor loads the real floor plan rather than an empty rectangle.
Distance is time
A chain runs from pot to drying rack to mixing station to packaging. Every gap between two of those is a walk someone has to make, on every batch, forever. Grouping a chain in one corner instead of spreading it across the floor is the cheapest speed-up available - it costs nothing but the thought you put in before placing anything.
Employees need room
Each property caps how many employees it supports, and each employee needs a locker placed on the floor. Handlers also need to actually reach your storage: a shelf boxed in on all four sides is a shelf nobody stocks. These are the constraints that turn a layout that looks fine into a production line that stalls.
Money spent is money gone
Equipment is bought, not rented. Working the layout out first is the difference between buying what your plan needs and buying what you hope will fit.
What the editor checks
As you build, the editor reads the layout back to you and flags what is wrong with it:
- Employee capacity - whether you have hired more staff than the property supports.
- Lockers - one per employee, or the missing count.
- Storage on the floor - a floor without storage gives handlers nowhere to stock.
- Storage access - each storage unit needs a free cell beside it, or nobody can reach it.
These are checks on the plan, not a simulation of the game. They catch the mistakes that are visible in the layout - the ones that cost you a rebuild once you have already bought everything.